Healthy Lifestyle Checklist of Simple Tools for Mental Health

 INTRODUCTION

In this Post I have described my initial focus in psychotherapy. I believe most folks who come to see me are troubled by obsessive thinking that is Brain Mind connected. If there is no change to this stuck Brain structure, other changes are very difficult. They will take extra time and energy.

These simple tools provide the avenue to a grown-up-person-brain when used regularly. It is my conviction that most people have all the brain resources they need to be successful. 

My hope is for all to use these simple, effective tools for joy, satisfaction, and relief while respecting self, others, and situations.

The Checklist             

I have listed some suggestions that are helpful with supporting healthy mood and thinking. Please remember these suggestions are not prescriptions. Check these with your physician or pharmacist to make sure there are no interactions with your current regimen. These researched suggestions are as up to date as I am aware. When you start feeling better --- keep doing these things!

Step One: Behavioral

_____ Sing, whistle, hum, chant or wear earphones while listening to music – the rhythmic vibration of your brain soothes your cingulate gyrus by helping you make endorphins and anandamides. This is to stop rumination - obsessive/crowded/racing thoughts. Rumination is the core problem of most mood and anxiety disorders. People ruminate, obsess, overthink, etc. ( They get stuck) processing things they can do nothing about or that they have already done all they can do. When you do that, you get tired, run out of brain chemicals that ordinarily make you feel better, and crank adrenaline into your system which becomes cortisol that stresses the system and can cause weight gain. It also leads to hormonal and metabolic difficulties. You are irritable, hyper-vigilant, pooped, cranky and desperate. If you keep it up, you're also anxious and panicky. The final outcome is the inability to access your strengths -- creativity, intelligence, experience, problem-solving skills, caring, nurturing, etc.

_____ Regular physical activity that is consistent with your physical state

_____ Relaxation training (preferably a deep muscle, progressive method - See the post)

_____ Breathing exercise: Inhale for a count of….4; Hold for a count of…...4; Exhale for a count of..... 8; repeat the sequence 10 times.

If you feel dizzy or light-headed, make sure you exhale completely. If the dizziness continues, consult your doctor. Make sure you are seated or lying down the first few time times you do this exercise and do it as your only activity.

_____I am feeling/thinking____________ and that’s OK with me and I’m OK with me.

Feelings and thoughts are pretty much out of our conscious control. You may be able to push them around for a while but all you get is worn out, lots of rumination or internal arguing and they come back anyway. The area where you are in charge is about behavior and choices,

Step Two: Nutrition

_____ You don’t have to eat a lot; it’s important to eat regularly. Mediterranean plan seems to do the best. It's a great reference for the types of foods and frequency of eating.

_____ Drink water to stay hydrated
 

Step Three: Supplements

_____ Take 1000mg or 1200mg of Omega3(fish) oil after eating. After a couple of days at one gelcap of fish oil, increase the fish oil to get at least 1000mg of EPA per day (look on the back of the bottle for the amount of EPA per dose; increase as appropriate) If you decide to take the capsule forms, they usually come in 1000mg or 1200mg and that’s OK. If you have difficulty with gelcaps, get flavored fish oil and take that. Try to find a double or triple strength fish oil -- that way, you only have to take 2 or 3 per day.

_____ Take a multi-vitamin/mineral daily

Additional Suggestions:
 

_____ Take 200-400mg of B6 and 200-400mcg of B12 daily – Get a B-100. (check with Doctor if taking statin meds)

_____ Take a minimum of 1000mg of Flaxseed oil (or Flaxseed granules)

copyright, 1998

 

CONCLUSION

If you have read this far, you have the tools to greatly improve your life. One of the difficulties to implementing these simple tools is their simplicity. 

Another is the inflexibility of the MIND. This inflexibility is the result of childhood programming of a little, not fully developed brain along with a mind overwhelmed. What 5 year old can screen write a responsive movie without regular updates?

Use the tools to bypass judgmental censorship or rigidity of the belief system. Try these tools! Read future posts for further tools and enrich your world view. Enjoy.

Read More

The Brain is a Maze and Amazing!

Your Mind is a vast collection of information and experience. In fact, the mind is the database for your Brain. The mind is what makes each of us  unique. 

No one else has the all the experiences, learning, programming, interpretations, decisions, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. What is even more amazing is we can seamlessly connect with another person or persons.

Research tells us seven out of 10 transactions between people are misheard, misunderstood, misinterpreted, not heard, misremembered, or redefined by the other person. This transactional dilemma occurs even in good relationships. What happens to make good relationships is some repairs are attempted with some success. This is worth more attention in a future post.

The Brain is the Mind's Creator. The brain is really busy with survival and energy management.

Back to your mind. Neurologically, the mind is yet to be clearly located. Is it in the brain? Is it in the heart? Is it spiritual? Is it all of those? Is it more? What is it, where is it, and what does it do with all the information?

As a clinical psychotherapist, I focus on ways of bypassing the mind. To change the mind is a difficult task. Many people believe the mind can't be changed. Psychotherapy within that frameworks appears an impossible task. 

My unique approach to clinical psychotherapy is to teach people to bypass the Mind for easier access to Brain resources -- intuition, creativity, curiosity.

Read More

The Survivors' Checklist -- Tune up for Access to your Personal Strengths

A good physician friend was a family practice doc; He wanted people to be healthy rather than waiting to be sick in order to see him. He used medications and/or treatments in a way for them to be temporary measures until people were better at caring for themselves. What he meant was that they had to get better at satisfying and planning for basic survival needs and self-care.

Survival needs include the following 6 categories: 

    Air 

    Nutrition

    Rest & Physical Activity

    Temperature Control

    Elimination of Wastes

    Warm Fuzzies = Strokes or Units of Recognition. They are needs          because you can't continue to live or function in a meaningful                 way if you don't get your quota.

Be aware of whether:

You do or do not recognize them as survival needs;

You do or do not act on your need for them;

You do or do not act on them effectively.

The next and best level of survival is when you plan for or anticipate the need. As you do so the quality of your life is enriched. Getting by is not enough. For example, you may well know that you need proper nutrition in order to survive. You may even eat and drink regularly which satisfies the first two requirements.

However, you may notice that you are hungry but decide that you can't or won't eat. Or you might decide to postpone eating because you're busy. Or you could eat food that isn't good for you and drink sodas or lots of coffee or alcohol. There are lots of ways to fulfill the recognition of the need and to act on the need while, at the same time, being ineffective or inefficient.

Read More

Finding Your Center
Section I

Finding your Center is a procedure to help people take charge of their own self-definition as a healthy, joyful person. I will start by assuming that at some times in your life you have had exciting, fun, satisfying experiences. If not, see the next section of this post.

If you have had exciting, fun, satisfying experiences, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Make a list of the experiences -- I suggest you list them as separate categories;

            Joyful -- times when you were excited, happy, had fun, 

            Satisfaction -- times when you felt you had achieved a goal, gotten compliments, done a 

                                 good job

            Relief -- times when you felt full after eating, felt good because you got a hug, felt good
                       after a deep breath, felt good after going to the bathroom, felt good because you
                       were dressed warmly or cooled off after being hot.

Step 2: Pick an "anchor" or "trigger" for each category.  An anchor (or trigger) can be an image, a word, or a physical action (such as -- squeeze your left thumb and first two fingers together for 3 seconds;  touch an ear lobe for 3 seconds; or whatever simple movement that is noticeable and simple for you.)

An "anchor set" involves doing all three sensory systems at the same time -- an image (visual), a word (sound), and a physical action.

By sorting the categories into Joy, Satisfaction and Relief, you can  'stack' similar experiences on the same anchor or pick a separate anchor set for each category. I encourage the use of a 'set' meaning each category gets its own image, word and physical action. For example, you could anchor Joy by squeezing your thumb and fingers, saying the word 'Joy' or 'Happy' and seeing a bunch of balloons.

Each of these anchoring elements can be whatever you choose. You can then use a different set for Satisfaction and another for Relief. Keep the anchor sets to 3 at most unless you have a special category or experience of your own.

Step 3: Use your breathing exercise, relaxation method or whatever procedure you prefer for meditation to get into a relaxed feeling that helps make your imagery more vivid.

Step 4: Image, using the visual first, whatever experience led to a feeling of Joy. When that image is vivid enough for you, say your word and do the physical anchor. Repeat for as many images as you wish to stack in the categories. You can take as many sessions as you feel are necessary and useful to anchor the three categories. Stack as many experiences as you wish on each anchor set.

Step 5: When you finish a set of anchored experiences, see, hear and feel yourself using that anchor set in your day-to-day life in a variety of settings. Repeat for each of the experience categories. See, hear and feel yourself experiencing Joy, Satisfaction, and Relief using your anchor sets.

Step 6: Use your anchors in the course of following days in a variety of settings with a variety of different people at a variety of times during the day. Repeat Step 4 if necessary to make the anchors more vivid. Generally you will find that once is adequate for setting the anchors. What tends to make the anchors more useful is repetition in your daily experiences -- the more you use them the better they, and you, work.

Read More

 The Zones of Awareness Exercise

Zones-of-Awareness is a concept borrowed from Gestalt therapy. According to the gestalt folks, there are 3 zones of awareness:

1.     In your head - thinking, ruminating, crowded, racing thoughts, planning, etc.

2.     In your body - noticing needs, levels of arousal, discomfort, pain

3.     Outside - checking people, places, etc.

The Zones of Awareness Exercise can give you a sense of where you may be "sticking" yourself and reducing your ability to use all your resources and strengths. Ideally, we should have a balance of these three zones that enhance healthy functioning.

The typical exercise for experiencing the zones of awareness is to close your eyes, take a deep breath and just drift with whatever awareness you experience. Allow that to happen for 30 seconds to a minute. Open your eyes and come back to your outside environment. Where were you the most aware–head, body, outside?

Close your eyes once again. This time rather than allowing the awareness to simply drift, direct your awareness to a different zone. Experience that other zone for 30 seconds to a minute and then come back. Where was your awareness focused? Did it take some energy to maintain focus on that other zone? Were you easily drawn back to another?

This simple exercise gives you an opportunity to experience your preferred zone or zones of awareness.  You may not need to bother with this exercise. As you review your usual behaviors and thinking/feeling patterns you will likely be aware of your preference for one or 2 zones while excluding another.

For example, people who are obsessing, worrying or have crowded, racing thoughts tend to spend an inordinate amount of time in their head. Obviously this will exclude the other zones.   

Others spend a lot of time worrying about physical ailments or the possibility of physical ailments. 

Some people will focus almost exclusively on their effects on other people and in that sense they become performers rather than being centered in knowing what they want for themselves.   

This information plus other combinations – head/body, head/outside, body/outside -- can lead to variations that can provide you information for attention to desired changes. See Find Your Center - Access to Joy, Satisfaction and Relief  -  in future blogs.

 copyright, 2014, Bill Falzett, PhD

Read More

Change by Kathy Dusay, 1970

I can reveal the way that I feel

By the things I say and do.

By changing the things I say and do

I can change my feelings too.

Read More

Breathing Exercise

 Breathing Exercise

First, sit comfortably with one hand on your abdomen and the other on your chest and breathe regularly. After about 30 seconds to a minute, note which hand moves. It should be the one on your abdomen.

Good breathing or the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide is diaphragmatic breathing -- in other words, as you inhale, the diaphragm moves downward and your abdomen will expand or "pooch out". As you exhale, the diaphragm moves up and the abdomen moves inward. If you have trouble with this, lay down on your bed ot the couch or the floor. Put a book on your abdomen. When you inhale, the book should move upward. When you exhale, the book moves down.

Once you've got the abdominal breathing part, sit somewhere comfortably the first few times you do this exercise. The reason is that you are likely to get dizzy or light-headed the first few times you do this. If you do then make sure you are exhaling completely.

If you are not a smoker, as you are seated inhale for a count of 4. Hold that breath for a count of four. Exhale for a count of 8. Do this sequence 10 times. If you get dizzy or light-headed, make sure you exhale completely. This clears the carbon dioxide and helps clear your mind.  If dizziness persists, check with your physician. After 2 or 3 weeks, go to 5 inhale, 5 hold and 10 exhale because your breathing capacity should improve.

If you are a smoker, as you are seated inhale for a count of 3. Hold that breath for a count of 3. Exhale for a count of 6. Do this sequence 10 times. If you get dizzy or light-headed, make sure you exhale completely. If dizziness persists, check with your physician.

After a few weeks increase to inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 8 and do that 10 times. Your breathing will have improved and your capacity increased.

This breathing exercise helps with anxiety and/or panic. Attacks will be less intense and won't last as long.

copyright, 2009

Read More