It’s a great time to be in healthcare.
With functional medicine becoming more widespread, people are getting information about how physical health IS mental health. (Because it turns out, our brains are in our bodies. Go figure.)
When people have symptoms that don’t change with their stress levels, I do my best to get them to have a functional medicine consult. I can’t cover all the things they learn, but I wanted to share with you the ones I see being prescribed for my clients. (Remember, I do not have a medical degree and can't advise you, I'm just relating what I've learned from my clients.)
MAGNESIUM
It’s the “calm down mineral.” Seriously. It’s in Epsom salts folks use in a warm bath, and also in milk of magnesia, used for constipation. There are different opinions if we can absorb enough from applying it to our skin, but lots of folks use a spray. I’ve taken it orally (Natural Calm or Ionic Fizz) for muscle relaxing when I had chronic neck issues, and it’s a great one for sleep. I have had more than one client where I noticed a difference in their mood they could not explain. When we dug deeper, they realized the change happened when they started taking magnesium. We need regular intake, most people don’t get enough, and when we are stressed, our bodies use it even faster.
INOSITOL
My first encounter with a client taking inositol was dramatic. I was working with someone with obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and within a week of taking this (combined with L-Theanine) the symptoms were about noticeably reduced! It’s used for a lot of medical conditions, but my experience is that people who obsess about things find that fades dramatically with supplementation.
L-THEANINE
This is a tea extract, but it is hard to drink enough to get the more therapeutic benefits, so it’s widely prescribed in supplement form. Have you seen this popping up in various “health” drinks lately? It’s best known to help with sleep, focus, and relaxation. Again, for my clients who struggle with OCD, it can provide noticeable relief.
On the homefront, we use Kidscents Unwind to promote calm and get ready for sleep. It has both magnesium and l-theanine, as well as some essential oils known for being relaxing. It’s not just for children, I know adults who make it into a tea or just take it straight.
Do you use any supplements that have helped your mental health? I want to know!
Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. I came across a meme of the beginning of this linked blog post, and just made time to track it down because I wanted to credit the author. It’s everything, so start by reading it real fast, but then come back here, okay?
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I am at the end of an at-home week with no scheduled client appointments.
I am not really calling it a vacation, because I actually did a lot of work. And it felt SO SATISFYING.
Have you ever heard, “you need to make time to work ON your business, as well as work IN your business”?
I’ve not been great with that. Various reasons – financial, “not enough time to do everything,” all the reasons we tell ourselves. And if I’m honest, procrastination too, because if I don’t have time to do it “perfectly,” I tell myself I have to wait until I have time.
My theme right now is updating my systems. I need ways to automate some of the most important things that haven’t been getting done.
I have some systems that work really well, like keeping up with my checkbook, bills, making my bed and doing morning meditation, and brushing my teeth at night. They happen by muscle memory; I don’t have to think to make it happen.
I have a few systems that really needed work though. Staying on top of some work paperwork, and the piles of household papers that, despite my best efforts, grow out of control. Getting my sneakers on my feet, and my body out the door for a walk. Business bookkeeping, and also making time to write this blog and put in my member area all the super information I want my customers to have.
I spend a lot of time reading, thinking, watching things to absorb information, and I’m feeling very called to share with you all the most interesting bits. It’s fun for me, and energizing. I hope once I hit “publish” it’s of value to someone out there, too.
But it takes time, and I need to be intentional, or it doesn’t happen.
So, this week was more of a retreat, which I’ve wanted for a long time. Yes, some R & R happened (it was also school vacation for my 7th grader), but my biggest takeaway is making time for the birds-eye view. Kind of like planning a garden, which is also a skill I’m developing. You can just throw seeds in the ground, but it seems like most good gardeners keep journals and think out the rows ahead of time.
And like gardening, systems work best when you work with the weather and climate. You can start seeds inside on heat mats, but not too early. Watering is best morning and evening, not so great in the heat of the day.
I have been tracking when I’m the most productive and when it’s an internal wrestling match to get things accomplished. When I work with my natural energy variations, the work itself flows. Who’d have thought??
What are your systems? Are they working for you or are you in dire need of creating or revamping?
Last thing - early in my career, I had a wonderful supervisor give this advice: when you are finishing one vacation you should be planning the next one. This makes sense in so many ways, and I am putting my next "work ON my business" day on the calendar now. (My intention is that it won't need to be a week again if I take a day a month to check in.)
You probably know someone who seemed to make a change…just like that. They may experience it as “one day I just decided I was done” with a habit or “ready” for a new way to behave. They probably had small stumbles after that but, overall, they made the change and didn’t look back.
In the psychotherapy world, we talk a lot about Stages of Change. It’s a process we all go through when we realize something isn’t working anymore and decide to do something new.
The stages are:
- precontemplation (What problem? I don’t see a problem! Also known as denial.)
- contemplation (Perhaps there is a problem, but I’m not actually sure it’s that bad.)
- preparation (Something has to give, but I really don’t know what or how to change.)
- action (I’m ready, I’m trying things out, and it’s a priority.)
- maintenance (I’ve got some good new strategies in place, now I have to keep the momentum going.)
Super important: AMBIVALENCE about making a change is normal. It takes a lot of effort, and we are more likely to change when here is so uncomfortable, it’s worth the work to get there.
Super duper important: if you try to skip straight to action, you are missing some really crucial steps. When we contemplate and prepare, we discover the small and large pieces of the problem that have to be part of the solution. For example, if I’m making a change in my diet for medical reasons, but don’t understand how I use food for emotional nourishment and entertainment, I don’t find other ways to nourish or entertain myself when I need to. If those needs aren’t met I’m much more likely to relapse.
So, while that someone in the first paragraph may seem like they flipped a “change switch,” it’s more likely that they’d been working through these stages behind the scenes. Of course, with some issues, we move through the stages faster. Big and current consequences can trigger faster change; the possibility of some unclear future consequence isn’t as motivating.
Something that’s super hard about all of this is it means we see the possible solution long before we make it. If knowing was enough, there would not be so many programs aimed at helping us all exercise more, something it’s clear the majority of us don’t do enough.
So, if you are at the beginning of these stages of change, or have tried for change for a long time, what might help you get to preparation or action?
Counter-intuitively, it’s NOT listing all the reasons to change. Start with all the reasons to stay the same. Why do I stay on the couch instead of lacing up my sneakers for a neighborhood stroll? It feels good to sit and zone out on my phone! I like the quiet! I like being still rather than getting sweaty and winded! I forget! There are so many other things that feel more important!
Then, you can list the things that don’t work about staying the same. I dread going to the doctor because of what my annual blood tests are going to show. I don’t like getting winded walking up stairs. I worry all the time about how long my health will last.
Not done yet – third, list all the good things about changing. Yes, there will be overlaps with that second list, but do it anyway. I will feel more confident going to the doctor. I can imagine myself 20 years from now having energy to have a full retirement life.
The last list – all the reasons that change will be hard. (Again, yes, overlap, but asking questions in a different way matters.) Let’s face it, it’s work to get off the couch and out the door. I have to make time for it and motivate myself. I get shin splints sometimes. I don’t like cold, and warm seasons are short here. I'm not really sure it will be enough.
Will this magically create motivation? No, but it does work better than pretending that it’s an easy decision and then feeling bad when it’s not an easy change. You'll have some things to keep in mind when you are making your change plan, and some reasons to give yourself grace if it takes more than one attempt to get to maintenance.
No matter what, change can be really hard, so knowing a few tricks like this can move you further along that path.
Have you had an uptick in worry, even with the good news of fewer cases and effective vaccines? If yes, you are in good company.
A year ago, I was talking nonstop about ways to care for our nervous systems. The sudden arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the never experienced (for most of us) stay-at-home orders, were triggering all the threat system alarm bells.
Problems sleeping. Nervous tension. A visceral response to wearing a mask for the first time in the grocery store. I had them all, and so did my patients.
With the anniversary now past, we are getting daily good news: the vaccines are safe and effective, hospitalizations are going down, and we may be able to have some normalcy by summer.
So why might we feel uneasy about having friends and family inside our homes again, with or without masks? Dining in a restaurant is one of my favorite things ever, but I know that after a year of strictly takeout, being seated inside is going to feel so strange!
Apparently, we are more likely to feel re-entry anxiety if we find staying home to be comforting, because it gives us control. We can reduce our risk when in our home environment, and when we go out, we are increasing our risk. People who are less concerned for their survival experience a bigger feeling of loss from being told to stay home.
Experts say that there are some things we can do to manage anxiety as we emerge back into public spaces. Focus on what you can control. Get good information to assess your risk. Ease into things, no need to make the re-entry as abrupt as the lockdown. Practice mindfulness so that you can recognize and “surf” the anxiety when it happens.
I find it helpful to remind myself it is normal to be on guard, so when my heart speeds up or I get that visceral gut feeling, my mind doesn’t have to scramble to guess about what danger may be nearby. Because our minds want to make sense of things, and when the threat system gets activated our minds will take all kinds of guesses. We can over-react endlessly and stay alive, but we can only under-react once. Our brains aren’t concerned as much about our happiness as our survival. Telling myself my body is just nervous because it has been so long with these precautions will go a long way toward making this transition as easy as possible.
I’ve said for years that if people attended more live performances, or even better participated in them, I would have less work.
Have you heard about all the benefits that you can get from singing? From lowering stress hormones, stimulating the immune system, improving mental health, helping with speaking ability, there are just so many things that research has found, it’s a shame we don’t do more.
There is no coincidence that religious and spiritual practices have always included singing, chanting, dancing. Music has also been a very important part of healing ailments through the years. Greek philosophers and shamanic healers chanted with or for their patients. And in the 1960’s, when a group of monks became ill because the church switched away from Latin chanting, an ear specialist suggested they start chanting again. Within a few months, they were able to do their rigorous routines again. Their cells didn’t know what to do without the daily vibrations!
My favorite benefit of singing, by far, is sense of community. I’ve been with a chorus for over 20 years and there is no doubt we are family. We don’t just rehearse and perform a couple of concerts each year. We sing at each other’s weddings and funerals. We celebrate births and empty nests, promotions and retirements, and all the milestones. When someone is grieving or hurt, we send each other cards and comfort shawls that our members knit.
It didn’t surprise me to read about this study that singing together creates an “unusually strong bond.” If you’ve never stood with a group, taken a deep breath and filled a room with sound, you are missing out.
Right now, we can’t sing together safely because of the pandemic. Singing is one of the best ways to spread the virus because it’s airborne. We are meeting virtually and created a piece for the world from our homes. We are taking this time to get to know people that sing in other sections. We mute ourselves and sing along to recordings. But it’s just not the same and I can’t wait to be standing in a room full of women rocking so loud I get a little seasick from the floor bouncing under us. (Yes, that really happens!)
I know we are all working to get through the (hopefully!) last months of our strict physical distancing. And everyone has something they can’t wait to do “when it’s over.” I hope for you all, it included listening to and even making music with other humans.
Here’s our video collaboration, I hope you like it:
