If you don’t get the right nutrients, your body won’t function to the best of its ability. Some general health conditions can be linked to nutritional deficiency, but it’s up for debate whether the same applies to specific mental health conditions. Some nutrition experts do claim that unique cases of social anxiety can actually be caused by a nutritional deficiency. In the condition several experts refer to as pyroluria, once the nutritional deficiency is taken care of, the social anxiety is relieved. Other experts are quick to dismiss the validity of this diagnosis.

Trudy Scott, a food-and-mood expert who said in an email that she has suffered from pyroluria, is a certified nutritionist, immediate past president of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, and author of The Antianxiety Food Solution: How the Foods You Eat Can Help You Calm Your Anxious Mind, Improve Your Mood and End Cravings.

“The person experiences shyness, inner tension, and social anxiety,” Scott said in regard to symptoms of pyroluria. “Symptoms usually start in childhood and are made worse under stressful situations. The wonderful thing is that the symptoms can be completely alleviated with taking these supplements: zinc, vitamin B6, and evening primrose oil. People typically start to feel less anxious, less shy, and more social within a week. The important thing is that if you do have pyroluria, you do need to take the supplements always.”

Generally only zinc and Vitamin B6 are recommended for pyroluria, but “gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), found in evening primrose oil and borage oil, is also beneficial for those with pyroluria because its levels are often low, and supplementing with GLA improves zinc absorption,” she added. In her book about anxiety, mood, and food, she wrote a whole chapter about pyroluria.

“I am … very passionate about the subject because I have pyroluria myself and used to suffer terribly from social phobia and shyness, anxiety, unexplained fears, waking with a sense of doom and even panic attacks,” Scott said. “I have used the amazing healing powers of foods and nutrients to completely heal. I now help women find natural solutions for anxiety and other mood disorders.”

She has posted a questionnaire on her website for pyroluria. It includes a long list of symptoms, and if 15 or more items are checked on the list, it is likely a person has pyroluria: http://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/pyroluria-questionnaire-from-the-antianxiety-food-solution/

She said that in research studies, pyroluria is also called “the mauve factor.” “Much of what we know about pyroluria is based on the work of Humphrey Osmond, Abram Hoffer, and Carl Pfeiffer,” Scott said. “Much of the original work was done with schizophrenic patients in psychiatric hospital settings. Although pyroluria was first identified in the 1960s, the medical and mental health communities have been slow to recognize it, and many mental health practitioners and physicians remain unfamiliar with this condition.”

She said she learned about the condition mainly from reading the following books:
The Mood Cure by Julia Ross
Depression-Free Naturally by Joan Mathews-Larson
Nutrition and Mental Illness (1988) by Carl Pfeiffer

Her own book goes into the specific details and biological/chemical/genetic aspects of pyroluria. In her book, she cites research prevalence rates from Joan Mathews-Larson, the author of Depression-Free Naturally. Pyroluria is thought to exist in “11 percent of the healthy population” and “40 percent of adults with psychiatric disorders,” according to Scott’s book. For people with alcohol addiction, pyroluria is thought to have a 40% prevalence rate. However, the prevalence rates do depend on the source. In her own experience as a nutritionist, Scott said about 80% of her clients who have moderate to severe anxiety have symptoms associated with pyroluria.

She added that stress can be a major factor for what age pyroluria develops and that it is a genetic condition that seems to affect more women than men. In addition, people who have pyroluria tend to also have gluten sensitivity, especially if they also are dealing with other issues like depression, anxiety, autism, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, according to the book. People with pyroluria may also have digestive problems, and they need to make sure to balance out an increased Vitamin B intake with a higher intake of magnesium.

In the book The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, the author includes a discussion of the prevalence, testing, and treatment of pyroluria, as well as a checklist similar to that offered by Trudy Scott. Ross states that the questionnaire was developed by Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, a clinician and researcher. He wrote the book Nutrition and Mental Illness: An Orthomolecular Approach to Balancing Body Chemistry in 1988.

Ross states in her book that pyroluria is fairly uncommon in the general public, but in certain groups of people (like those who have experienced alcohol addiction), it is more common. “I am just getting familiar with this condition, but I can see that it is an important one for certain people, affecting stress levels and mood generally and preventing full response to nutrient therapy until it is addressed,” Ross wrote in her book.

There are a plethora of articles dedicated to nutrition, diet, and mental health in general, as well as multiple research studies suggesting that certain mental health issues can be improved through natural supplements and a healthy overall diet. “Notably, essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids are often deficient in the general population in America and other developed countries and are exceptionally deficient in patients suffering from mental disorders,” according to an abstract from a research study in Nutrition Journal. “Studies have shown that daily supplements of vital nutrients often effectively reduce patients’ symptoms.”

Another abstract from a research article in the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine concludes the following: “Many patients will benefit from the use of specific dietary supplements, such as a multivitamin-mineral high in B vitamins and omega-3 fatty acid,” according to the abstract. “And no matter what the underlying cause of the mood disorder, patients should be counseled about the relationship between food and mood, for the evidence now substantiates what laypeople and medical professionals have long known intuitively: the way we eat affects the way we feel.”

The research, authored by Tieraona Low Dog, director of the fellowship at Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at University of Arizona, added in the research abstract that the healthiest diet for improving mental health is a “low-glycemic, modified Mediterranean diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and seafood (if not vegetarian) and low in processed, refined foods.”

Other experts remain unaware of the condition and are skeptical of its legitimacy. Scott Carroll, a psychiatrist with dual board certifications in adult and child and adolescent psychiatry, said in an email that he is not accustomed to pyroluria and had to look it up on Google to find out what it was.

“Once I saw that it is connected to orthomolecular psychiatry, which I have heard of, I knew it was in the pseudoscience realm,” said Carroll, who is also an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. “Not surprisingly, it claims to be the cause of a number of unrelated psychiatric disorders, which is typical of pseudoscience disorders. Like so many ‘cure-alls,’ it sounds plausible, but there is no scientific basis to it, and it allows dubious practitioners to prey on desperate, suffering people.”

He said there are certain cases where nutrition can play a part in mood and mental disorders. “Inadequate amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids, especially from fish or krill oil, have been shown to affect mood and anxiety in a broad way of which social anxiety can be a part,” Carroll said. “Also, low folate, low Vitamin D, and low B12 have all been associated with negative effects on mood and anxiety.”

“However, in people with low folate, it is more often a case of a genetic inability to transport the folate molecule into the brain rather than a low blood level,” he added. “In those cases, which often present with chronic depression and anxiety that has never responded to antidepressants, there are folate precursors that are more lipophilic and can diffuse into the brain without use of a transport mechanism.”

Nerina Garcia-Arcement, a licensed clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine, said in an email that she didn’t study pyroluria in school and hasn’t read about it in any research studies after graduating from her doctorate program.

“Based on current knowledge it does not appear to be a legitimate health condition,” Garcia-Arcement said. “Further research is required to further explore and understand whether social anxiety or any other mental health condition could be related to improper synthesis in the blood.  Although this theory seems appealing, being able to ‘cure’ a mental disorder with vitamins or supplements … is unlikely.”

“Causes of social anxiety that have been substantiated by research include chemical imbalances in the brain (i.e., serotonin, a neurotransmitter), inherited traits (genetic and through observing anxious family members), negative life events or experiences, and an overactive amygdala (a part of the brain that controls emotions, including fear response),” she added.

She said that good nutrition is important for overall health, but it’s not necessarily linked to mental disorders. “In my experience, the social anxiety could be traced to other causes, not nutritional deficiencies,” Garcia-Arcement said. “Having a healthy and balanced diet is overall beneficial, but it won’t cure social anxiety or a mood disorder. I am more likely to recommend my clients get enough sun exposure to improve their moods (seasonal affective disorder) than recommend diet changes.”

Related articles:
Social Anxiety Can Be a Hidden Problem in College
Breathing Lessons
The Birth of Anxiety

“Why are you out of bed?”
“I’m scared.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“There’s a monster under my bed!”
“There are no monsters. Go back to bed.”
“Nooooooo, I’m scared.”
Sound familiar? Almost every parent has done this. Holding a little hand, down on your hands and knees with a flashlight to prove there is nothing under the bed—unless you count the stray sock, a missing toy, and a few dust bunnies.

Your little one thinks you are a superhero. You faced the monster and saved the day, or in this case, the night. With imagination tamed, feeling safe and secure, your child falls asleep.

Imagination is an amazing thing. Children hone it to a fine art. With a towel on their shoulders and a leap from the couch, they fly!! They feed you imaginary sandwiches and wipe imaginary crumbs from your chin. They introduce you to friends only they can see. They scare themselves at bedtime. Years pass, towels are used for bathing, imaginary sandwiches and friends are forgotten. Monsters no longer hide under the bed. Reality replaces imagination.

Or does it? Many adults continue to exercise their imagination. They don’t have towels on their shoulders or imaginary friends, but they do believe in monsters created entirely with their imagination. Your child, no longer afraid of monsters, is a teenager now. You worry she doesn’t take school seriously, or her current boyfriend is a bad influence, or her college fund isn’t going to be enough. Get the picture?

Adults may not imagine monsters under the bed, but they do imagine a multitude of scenarios that would scare Freddy Krueger, and it’s socially acceptable. A vivid imagination is never questioned if the name is changed from imagination to worry. It is commonly accepted that everyone worries; it’s part of being a responsible adult. How else can you be prepared when the unthinkable happens? If you have played out the worst-case scenarios in your mind, you are ready to deal with them.

Worry is as useful for you as monsters under the bed were for your child. You make things up in your head, believe them, and scare yourself. Who will take you by the hand, shine the flashlight on your imaginary fears, and make them disappear?

Worry is using your thinking to predict the future or to continue to relive the past. Predictions rarely come true, and if they do, worry did not change the outcome. It only made you miserable before the outcome happened. How much have you changed the past by worrying about it? Unless you conquered time travel, it doesn’t work. The past is past. It doesn’t change and it doesn’t cause you pain unless you bring it into your present by thinking about it. So the monsters (worries) of the future and the past are simply you using your imagination to scare yourself. Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it?

Worry (scaring yourself with your imagination) raises your level of tension and lowers your mood. From that low state of mind you expect to find solutions to your problems. It won’t happen. High tension and low mood doesn’t make for good problem solving—ever. Recognizing that you are scaring yourself helps the worries go away. You shine the flashlight on your fears and recognize they are imaginary. From a calmer state of mind, you deal with problems as they occur rather than in the future or the past.

Related articles:
Don’t Worry – Be Happy!
Self-Soothe in Your Own Compassionate Hammock
Mindfulness Practice: Learning to Live in the Moment

Play is an important part of a child’s development. It enables them to engage creativity and learn necessary social skills. Children are often introduced to concepts like sharing, taking turns, and working together when they participate in group play. This critical time of development allows children to learn how to practice patience, empathy, and other necessary social skills. Although the research on play has demonstrated the many benefits, such as creativity and emotional maturity, few studies have looked at how creativity exhibited through play affects storytelling and divergent thinking, two aspects that further emotional regulation and enhance psychological development.

To address this, Jessica Hoffman and Sandra Russ of the Department of Psychology at Case Western Reserve University conducted a study involving 61 young girls in kindergarten through fourth grade. The team used the Affect in Play Scale to assess the girls’ mood processes and cognitive behaviors as they construed narratives. The researchers also relied on parent reports to measure emotional regulation and evaluated the girls for divergent thinking abilities throughout the task. They found the pretend play allowed the girls to express creativity that directly increased their divergent thinking abilities. The creative play enhanced storytelling skills of the participants and allowed them to express high levels of emotional regulation. The team also explored how executive functioning was affected by creative play but found no relationship.

Hoffman noted that the participants in this study were typically performing young girls and believes that additional research on clinical and nonclinical participants would further add to the limited literature on the many positive influences of pretend play. She said, “Overall, results of this study are promising with regards to the associations between pretend play and other important life skills for children.” With play therapy and other creative approaches receiving more attention in recent years, understanding the forces behind these often successful treatment methods is vital for clinicians interested in using these techniques.

Reference:
Hoffan, J., Russ, S. (2012). Pretend play, creativity, and emotion regulation in children. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts 6.2, 175-184.

Dosage guidelines for new pharmaceutical products are typically based on strictly controlled clinical trials that may not represent every possible patient or situation. In practice, physicians often find that dosages must be raised or lowered to achieve ideal efficacy. Geodon (ziprasidone), an atypical antipsychotic, is one such example of a psychotropic medication for which recommended dosing and real-world practice do not always agree. The use of Geodon with schizophrenia patients is well documented, and dose levels are equally well understood. With bipolar disorder, however, the picture is not as clear. Best practices for prescribing Geodon to individuals with bipolar are still being determined.

Several studies have proven that Geodon brings about significant and remarkable rapid improvement in manic or psychotic symptoms of bipolar. The current clinical guidelines suggest beginning with a daily dose of 80 mg, then stepping up to a dose ranging from 120 to 160 mg. There is compelling evidence, however, that initializing treatment with a high dose of Geodon, rather than the “step up” approach, leads to better outcomes and a greater likelihood that the individual will stay the course. As with many psychiatric disorders, patients with bipolar often neglect to stick with their medications. When symptoms can be improved more rapidly, patients have immediate motivation to follow their prescriptions more strictly.

A study in Korea assessed the response of individuals with bipolar to varying dosages of Geodon over a 6-week period. Some individuals were started at a low dose and then stepped up, while others began treatment at the higher dosage. The results demonstrated that patients who began with the higher dosage had better remission of bipolar manic symptoms and scored better at the end of treatment on a variety of psychological wellness tests. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the groups in terms of side effects or withdrawal from the study. These results strongly suggest that there is no benefit to beginning treatment at a lower dose, despite recommendations from the drug maker.

Geodon belongs to the class of atypical antipsychotics, but its activity on the neurochemical level is unique among its peers. Because of its unique properties, Geodon is effective in the treatment of a variety of mental illnesses, and it is considered relatively safe and well tolerated. The drug’s usefulness in treating bipolar is still somewhat unknown. Research in Korea and elsewhere, however, has shown that starting individuals with bipolar who are experiencing manic symptoms on a relatively high dose of Geodon is a feasible first-line treatment.

References

1. Woo, Y. S., Bahk, W., Jo, S. H., Yoon, B., Lee, J. G., Kim, W., et al. (2011). Effect of initial ziprasidone dose on treatment outcome of Korean patients with acute manic or mixed episodes. Psychiatry Investigation, 8, 207-213.
2. PubMed Health. [Internet]. (n.d.). Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine. Ziprasidone. Retrieved March 10, 2012. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001070/

All too often, compromised energy levels are a lingering impact of traumatic experiences, particularly ongoing or frequent traumatic events in childhood.

Compromised energy means that you simply do not have enough energy to tackle certain tasks. In addition, traumatic experiences often prevent people from learning how to manage their energy levels. This encompasses everything from recognizing when you are running low on energy to knowing how to build an energy reservoir and stamina.

Understanding Energy

Take a quick moment and think about all the energy it took to get through today. Think about the physical energy, as well as emotional and mental energy. Of these three types of energy, physical energy is possibly the most obvious. We have all experienced times when we were simply too tired to engage in a task because our physical energy was just not up to it. Many factors, including sleep, nutrition, exercise, medications, and substance use, can impact your physical energy level.

These factors also impact your emotional and mental energy levels. Emotional energy is used when you interact with emotions, whether in a productive or unhealthy manner. You use emotional energy when you identify an emotion, express it, act on it, calm it, understand it, and so on. Mental energy is the energy you use when thinking, planning, making logical decisions, and following through with your decisions and plans.

When traumatic life events have “stunted” your development of energy management tools, it is important to include learning these skills in your healing work. Broadly speaking, there are three categories of skills you will want to learn for each of the types of energy: the skills necessary for monitoring your energy level, those needed in order to manage your energy, and those that will increase the staying power of your energy.

Monitoring Your Energy Levels

How aware are you of your physical, emotional, and mental energies? Is there one type of energy that you are more aware of? Do you recognize when these energy levels are full and geared up for action, when they are at their midpoint, or when you are close to being empty? Or do you only become aware of your energy level when you are past empty and burnt out? Becoming aware of energy levels before you hit burnout will allow you to refuel before you run out of energy.

Physical energy can be a great one to start practicing these skills with. Take some time throughout the day—maybe every hour or two—and check in with yourself. How awake or tired are you? How full or hungry?

Imagine your energy levels as a gas gauge with marks at full, ¾ full, ½ full, ¼ full, and empty. When you check in with each of these physical experiences, determine where you fit on that scale.  Are you past the point of energy, but not quite tired? Are you not full but not hungry? By figuring out where you’re at, you can determine what you need to do to manage your energy and satiation levels: take a nap, go on a walk, eat a snack, say no to the offer of a snack, or whatever works for you.

Managing Your Energy

Once you can identify your energy levels, you can determine what you need to do to keep your energy at workable and beneficial levels. Let’s look at emotional energy. Say your emotional energy is still at the ¾ full mark, despite it being late in the day. Maybe now would be a good time to call a friend and extend support. Maybe you can take time to reflect on, process, or journal about a recent upsetting experience.

If you notice that your emotional energy is close to empty, but you still have a few emotionally taxing tasks to do,  it would be wise to carve out a bit of time to refuel yourself. Reach out to an emotionally supportive friend, take a break and head to an emotionally restorative place in nature (even if it is just smelling the neighbor’s roses), or take a few moments to breathe deeply, read an encouraging piece of prose or poetry, and so on. If you become aware that you have experienced several days on empty, you may want to consider dedicating your weekend to replenishing, rather than extending, your emotional energy.

Building Energy Reserves and Stamina

If learning how to replenish your energy reserves is one side of a coin, then building stamina is the other. This skill requires a great deal of gentleness and care: many survivors of trauma push themselves to have too much stamina, not allowing themselves to honor their limits.

With this in mind, building your stamina is nonetheless an important pursuit. Just like building physical stamina, developing a deeper mental energy reservoir requires practice in small increments. When you notice that you are approaching empty, but not quite there yet—somewhere just less than ¼ full—gather your mental energy and sustain your focus and effort for another 10 to 15 minutes. Rather than exiting the activity to replenish your energy level, stay engaged and practice hanging in there. If you simply do not have enough mental energy to stay with your current task, try switching to a less demanding activity that still engages your mental energy.

Use Energy to Bring Healing to Your Life

Feel free to play with these ideas and apply the ones that resonate with you. Practice each type of skill (monitoring, replenishing, and building stamina) with each type of energy (physical, emotional, and mental). Be as creative as you can be and brainstorm additional ways to grow these skills. In so doing, you reclaim crucial abilities and further your healing.

Practice these skills in a safe environment and in a manner that can only benefit you. Never do anything in the name of healing that could actually bring damage to you. As always, keep in mind that you do not need to heal on your own. Reach out to support groups, loving friends, supportive family, and trained professionals. We are all here to help you grow.

Despite decades of research and several new classes of antidepressant medications, successful treatment of depression is still an elusive goal. In particular, people with major depressive disorder (MDD) often fail to respond to the first line of treatment or relapse after a short period of recovery. The search for new therapies and combinations of therapies is ongoing. Recently, the antipsychotic medication Abilify (aripiprazole) has been prescribed as a secondary treatment for MDD patients, often with positive outcomes.

Originally designed as a treatment for symptoms of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, Abilify’s usage has expanded widely in just a few years. Now, doctors are prescribing this medication for conditions ranging from bipolar disorder to certain forms of autism. Like all psychotropic medications, Abilify works by altering the balance of chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters. Several of these neurotransmitters, including serotonin and dopamine, are largely responsible for a person’s emotional state. Abilify has demonstrated great potential to stabilize emotional states for a wide variety of patients. This includes the capacity to reduce anger and aggressive outbursts, which is why its original usage was for psychotic patients.

In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration approved Abilify as a supplementary treatment option for patients with MDD who were already following a course of traditional antidepressants. Several clinical trials and controlled experiments have demonstrated that Abilify may offer a “boost” to the mood stabilizing attributes of antidepressants. At the same time, Abilify may work to offset some of the more unpleasant side effects of these drugs, such as sexual dysfunction.

In addition to its effectiveness as a supplementary therapy, clinical trials and tests indicated that Abilify is a relatively safe and well-tolerated medication in depressed patients. The most commonly reported side effect associated with the medication was restlessness. Rarely was this side effect bothersome enough to cause the patient to discontinue taking Abilify.

Millions of people experience the debilitating symptoms of depression every day. Nevertheless, a reliable cure or even a more effective treatment for depression is likely still many years away. Because the brain is the body’s most sophisticated organ, understanding how best to restore the proper neurochemical balance is difficult. Discovering the most successful early treatment options is therefore important in reducing relapse and improving long-term outcomes.

References

1. PubMed Health [Internet]. (n.d.). Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine. Major depression. Retrieved February 20, 2012. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001941/
2. Pae, C., Forbes, A., & Patkar, A. A. (2011). Aripiprazole as adjunctive therapy for patients with major depressive disorder. CNS Drugs, 25(2), 109-127.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
-Woody Allen

No matter who you are, things will happen that throw you off-kilter. Life intrudes on inner peace with an uncanny regularity. It may be your boss, spouse or partner, children, house, parents, finances, health, or even a freaky weather event, but life has its own trajectory, and no one can know what new challenge awaits.

Luckily, there are many ways to regain equilibrium. Trial and error, plumbing your depths to see what really works for you, and discerning the differences between various situations that trigger your sympathetic nervous system—your fight or flight reaction—are all very helpful in developing an emotional first aid kit.

When you find you have strayed from your center, allow the imbalance. Just notice what is going on emotionally, physically, and mentally. What are you telling yourself about this experience? Are you ready to regroup, or do you need a bit more time to explore what is happening? Sometimes, the hardest thing is allowing yourself to totter emotionally, to grieve or feel angry, overwhelmed, or exhausted. Whatever is happening, it won’t last.

Ten Tips For Emergency Emotional First Aid

Since it is easy to get thrown off-kilter when you are shocked or surprised by unwelcome news, you may want to try these techniques as first responses:

1. Take slow, deep breaths, and allow a little extra time to exhale.
2. Remind yourself that this, too, shall pass.
3. Allow space for all of your feelings.
4. Have faith in yourself. The truth is that you can handle more than you might believe at this particular moment. You can use prayer or meditation for added support and to access your belief in a greater power.
5. Don’t take anything personally.
6. Try to stick with your routine, even if you are feeling dazed or numb. Having a routine will anchor you.
7. Eat, sleep, and get some fresh air.
8. Picture your 6-year-old self, and lovingly embrace that child. Gently reassure the frightened little being inside.
9. Connect with someone, such as a friend or family member, a therapist or neighbor, even a stranger on a local hot line.
10. Understand that you are here for everything, good and bad. Visualize yourself as a river of experiences, and let life flow without judgment.

Reading this list takes only a few minutes, but actually working through each item builds resiliency and will help you keep going, one second at a time. Sometimes, just existing during a traumatic experience is the best you can do and remembering that as time passes, your perspective will change. For now, it is best to accept the present, do what you can, and choose to believe everything is happening for your highest good.

If or when you are ready to re-center, reach out to a trusted friend, relative, clergy person, or therapist. Speak honestly and openly. Being heard and understood is one of the most bonding, loving, and freeing experiences you can have, but you have to ask for help. If this has been hard for you in the past, break out of your old rut of being super-independent and pick up the phone. Find a therapist in my area.

If company doesn’t fit the bill, try some solitude. Silence can be soothing and afford you the opportunity to integrate what you have experienced. If that feels overwhelming, try a guided meditation. There are numerous free podcasts on iTunes, like Meditation Oasis, A Quiet Mind, or The Meditation Podcast. If you have the time, try a soothing Yoga Nidra practice—this is a guided practice of yogic sleep, where you are in the liminal space between waking and sleeping, and involves no knowledge of yoga postures. (My favorite is available free from iTunes through Elsie’s Yoga Podcast, episode #62.)

Take a bath with Epsom salts and lavender oil. The magnesium sulfate in the salts will quiet any muscle tension, and the essential oil—about six to eight drops—will calm your mind and act as a pain reliever.

Read something inspirational. Try some poetry, or escape with a novel. Reading is both relaxing and engaging. If audio books work better for you, check some out from the library and download them to your iTunes so you’ll have a ready supply.

Music really can soothe the savage breast, as the playwright William Congreve suggested in the late 17th century. Find something that works for you: it may be hard rock, or hemi-synch. Sanskrit chants can be remarkably helpful, as they bathe you in mantras designed to calm your nervous system. Chanting them yourself will bring even greater benefits, as making the sounds activates different parts of the mouth that correspond to different areas in your brain. The simplest one is om, a sound that is said to embody all sounds.

Moving your body takes the kinks out emotionally, too. Even if the last thing you feel like doing is dancing, yoga, or taking a walk, just do something for five minutes as an experiment. If you feel better, do another five minutes.

Allow nature to work its magic. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the father of homeopathic medicine, wrote that eating well, sleeping enough, and getting fresh air are essential to good health, mentally and physically. Don’t underestimate their value.

Rebalance with a favorite ritual, like making yourself a cup of tea and sipping it slowly.

People who have suffered childhood trauma are at increased risk for psychological problems resulting from extreme stress. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one such condition that has been linked to severe childhood trauma. When the trauma is inflicted by a caregiver, the child’s ability to cope is significantly impaired. The effects of unhealthy coping, attachment dysfunction, and emotional regulation can affect many areas of the child’s life as they continue into adulthood. Affect dysregulation is the inability to control one’s moods and emotions and has been linked to BPD and other mental illnesses. Underregulation of emotions is expressed by lack of control, extreme emotional overwhelm; while overregulation is the result of numbing and is exhibited by an inability to express emotions. To determine which of these factors is more indicative of BPD in adults who suffered trauma during childhood by their primary caregiver (TPC), Annemiek van Dijke of the Delta Psychiatric Hospital in the Netherlands conducted a study of 472 clients with a diagnosis of BPD.

The participants’ levels of affect regulation were documented and they were evaluated for various forms of TPC, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional trauma. Van Dijke found that 63% of the participants had experienced some form of TPC and that those with underregulation had more symptoms of BPD than the participants with overregulated affect. Although the study did not consider other factors that could influence BPD, such as family history, other traumas, and the mental health of the caregivers, the results clearly emphasize the importance of examining emotional regulation, and specifically underregulation, in clients with a history of TPC.

The findings also showed that the participants with TPC were at increased risk for posttraumatic stress (PTSD). But Van Dijke noted that no research has been conducted to determine exactly how specific forms of TPC affect the severity of PTSD symptoms or how they are indirectly affected through affect regulation as a result of TPC. In sum, Van Dijke believes that these results can benefit clients who have suffered TPC by educating clinicians on the importance of helping clients build more secure relationships and develop healthier emotional expressions.

Reference:
Van Dijke, A., Ford, J. D., van Son, M., Frank, L., & van der Hart, O. (2012). Association of childhood-trauma-by-primary caregiver and affect dysregulation with borderline personality disorder symptoms in adulthood. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027256

Grief arises as a product of a loss that we have experienced. It is associated with losses that may include a person’s health, job, relationship, pet, or loved one. We may not be able to describe the roller coaster of emotions, yet we do know that we are not ourselves. When we feel out of sorts, sensations surface such as low self-esteem, illness, depression, and confusion, which can manifest into thoughts that our feelings are out of our control. As a result, this full-body experience may be difficult to process or verbalize. To mend this sorrow, the expressive arts can create a doorway to the unspeakable by opening all channels to the grieving body.

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Opening Up to Grief

Expressive arts therapy encourages movement of the imagination that we may struggle with during our grieving process. Our art influences how we look at, unblock, wrestle with, and shed light on the need to distance and detach from our pain. When we dodge grief to avoid, deny, or block the inevitable pain, the arts invite the imagination of these stuck places to come to the surface in images, movement, color, and sound. Our art process releases the tension of grief, allowing it to expand and contract, while providing a safe container in which this process can take place. When we create, we give ourselves permission to examine all that is happening within our grieving bodies.

“Art shows how the difficulty can contain its cure if channeled into life-affirming expression.”
-Shaun NcNiff

Understanding the Experience of Grief

There are five to seven stages often associated with the grieving process. They may be experienced as denial, pain, anger, bargaining, depression, upward turn, reconstruction, and acceptance. The experience can feel like a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, mood swings, and erratic behavior. When we drop in to our art-making, the grief is given containment—a place to be held. This containment permits the pain to speak and encourages our healing. Making sense of what is happening comes to light. We may notice this in a color that strikes a mood, or a picture that recalls a memory, or an emotion to be felt. It is an opportunity for the most vulnerable parts of a grieving body to speak, feel safe, be heard, and be externalized. Once the art is created, we can then dialogue with it further and support our need to metabolize all that is going on within us.

“The reward for attention is always healing.”
-Julia Cameron

Facing Grief and Piecing Life Together

Fragments of memories, like bits of broken glass, can be difficult to hold emotionally around anniversary dates, picture books, and mementos. They can feel like a jab to the heart, invite an unwanted memory, or open a floodgate of emotion. These fragments seek meaning and solace, yet can wander in and out, tugging and vying for attention at awkward moments. As we seek to piece our lives together after a loss, the expressive arts can heal us by giving these bits and pieces the attention they deserve and need. For a moment, we can sink into ourselves and allow our memories, thoughts, and feelings—those we desperately struggle with—an opportunity to speak, to be heard, and to be felt. Each time that we engage the process using the arts, we give ourselves a break, a breath, and a reprieve from the pain that seeks expression beyond talk therapy.

References:

1. Cameron, J. (1992). The Artist’s Way. New York: Tarcher/Putnam Publishing.
2. McNiff, S. (2004). Art Heals. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications.

According to a new study, people who spend more time in natural lighting than in artificial lighting have increased productivity and alertness. Light directly influences the amount of melatonin a person produces, which indirectly affects alertness. “Most people spend their days within buildings under different lighting environments, which range from daylight to artificial light only,” said Mirjam Münch of the Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. “At most workplaces, there is a mixed situation between the two principal light sources.” Münch added, “For the impact of light perception on nonvisual functions such as alertness, mood, and performance, those lighting conditions are likely to significantly contribute to modulation of alertness and productivity via the retinohypothalamic tract and melanopsin-dependent pathways.” Because few studies have examined the effects of lighting on cognitive performance, Münch and her colleagues conducted a study to determine how natural and artificial light affected cognitive functioning in the evening.

Participants between the ages of 19 and 25 years old were exposed to daylight (DL) or artificial light (AL) for six hours a day for two days. Each evening, after the exposure, the researchers evaluated melatonin and cortisol levels, and rated sleepiness and cognitive functioning and found significant differences in the participants. “Subjects felt significantly more alert at the beginning of the evening after the DL condition, and they became sleepier at the end of the evening after the AL condition,” said Münch. “On their first evening, subjects performed with similar accuracy after both light conditions, but on their second evening, subjects performed significantly more accurately after the DL in both n-back versions and committed fewer false alarms in the 2-back task compared to the AL group.” Münch added, “In summary, even short-term lighting conditions during the afternoon had an impact on cognitive task performance in the evening.” She added, “Such a relationship could be crucial for workers requiring high attention levels and executive functioning, such as bus drivers, industrial workers in sensitive areas, or air-traffic control.”

Reference:
Münch, M., Linhart, F., Borisuit, A., Jaeggi, S. M., & Scartezzini, J.-L. (2011, December 26). Effects of Prior Light Exposure on Early Evening Performance, Subjective Sleepiness, and Hormonal Secretion. Behavioral Neuroscience. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026702