toxic stress Archives - Amazing Health Advances

How to Become a Responder Not a Reactor + How Arguments Affect Your DNA & How to Use Mind Management to Resolve an Argument

AHA Publisher — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 07:00:10 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – Think of the last time you had an argument and how it made you feel, both physically and mentally. Pretty bad, right? Well, it is not all just in your head! Unresolved arguments can be harmful to your health, and can potentially decrease your longevity! In this podcast (episode #408), I talk about the importance of resolving arguments, and the incredibly beneficial impact this can have on your wellbeing and quality of life. A recent study from Oregon State University found that when people have resolved an argument, “the emotional response associated with the disagreement is significantly reduced”, while, “in some situations, it can be entirely erased”. Why is this important? Essentially, when you work to resolve an argument, you not only improve your relationships, but also your emotional health, which, in turn, can improve your overall wellbeing. There is much research, including mine (for more on this see my latest book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess), showing how unmanaged minds can result in toxic stress levels that affect our mental and physical health. This makes sense with major stressors like poverty or violence, but research has shown that daily chronic stressors like minor inconveniences and unresolved arguments can also have a lasting impact on our health and mortality. When it comes to arguments, avoidance and lack of closure can increase anxiety levels, which can impact our overall health (due to the mind-body-brain connection I discuss in detail in Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess). The Oregon studymentioned above notes that this includes “avoiding an argument to ‘keep the peace’” and/or “having an argument but not resolving it”. In this study, this avoidance resulted in increased reactivity, which lead to an increase in the subjects’ negative emotions, as well as an amplified emotional “residue”, that is a prolonged negative emotional toll the day after the negative experience occurred, all of which impacted the subjects’ health and mental wellbeing. However, in that same study, if an argument was resolved, “people reported half the reactivity on the day and no residue the day after”, which resulted in better health outcomes. What does all this mean? While people cannot always control what stressors come into their lives, and while the lack of control is itself a stressor in many cases, they can work on their own emotional response to those stressors. As I always say, we cannot always control our circumstances, but we can control our reactions to our circumstances. This is mind-management in action, and leads to a host of positive health outcomes, including better ageing and better stress resilience. In fact, through mind management and self-regulation, you can learn to manage your stressors in a way that they do not have a gnawing impact on you over the course of the day, which will help minimize the potential long-term impact of negative emotions on your health. I recommend doing a Neurocycle, which is a way to harness your thinking power through mind-management that I have developed and researched over the past three decades (I discuss this in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess), to identify where you are at in your relationships and help resolve an argument. This process has 5 steps: First, take a break, go into another room or space and calm the brain down by breathing deeply. I recommend breathing in for 5 counts and out for 11 counts, and repeating this technique 3 times (for around 45 seconds). Next, GATHER awareness of your emotional and physical warning signals, such as tension in your shoulders, indigestion or feelings of anxiety. How has this argument made you feel emotionally and physically? Then, REFLECT on why you are having these feelings. Ask, answer and discuss with yourself what was said or done that resulted in the argument, and how it has made you feel. What do you think these feelings are telling you about the argument and about your response to the argument? What happened? What was said? Why? What assumptions may you be making? Why do you think the other person reacted the way they did? After this step, WRITE down what you reflected on. This will help you organize your thinking. Then, RECHECK. Look for triggers, thought patterns and “antidotes” (that is how you would like to respond in the future and how you would like the situation to end). Lastly, practice your ACTIVE REACH. Practice using the “antidote” you came up with in the recheck step to deal with your trigger. For example, this could be as simple as practicing not raising your voice or being more aware of your body language. To read the original article click here.

The post How to Become a Responder Not a Reactor + How Arguments Affect Your DNA & How to Use Mind Management to Resolve an Argument appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

6 Strategies to Deescalate Intense Emotions In the Moment

AHA Publisher — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 07:00:57 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – Stress is a normal part of life. We cannot escape it, but we can learn to manage and live with it. In this podcast (episode #407) and blog, I give you 6 tips to help deescalate turbulent emotional situations, reduce stress in the moment and build up your cognitive resilience: 1. Touch: The burgeoning field of research on healthy and appropriate touch highlights its scientific importance. Many studies have shown how touch promotes bonding, attachment, mental wellbeing and even physical health! How? Through research by neuroscientists like Edmund Rolls, we know that touch activates the orbitofrontal cortex, which is linked to feelings of reward and compassion. Dr. David Linden, professor of neuroscience at John Hopkins, says touch communicates “I am on your side”, while Dr. Dacher Keltner from Berkeley notes how appropriate touch is our primary language of compassion and primary means of spreading compassion. He argues that we are actually better at reading touch than we are at reading facial expressions! In another study by Jim Coan and Richard Davidson, participants laying in an fMRI brain scanner anticipating a painful blast of white noise showed heightened brain activity in regions associated with threat and stress. But participants whose romantic partner stroked their arm while they waited didn’t show this reaction at all. In this study, touch had essentially turned off the threat switch! The moral of the story? Lend a helping hand (or hug!), literally. 2. Express affection: Telling someone that you love them and letting them know how much they mean to you is powerful. It activates mirror neurons from nonverbal communication cues, while the words stimulate auditory cues of safety and reward, highlighting the recipient’s sense that “I am needed” and “I am important”. All this calms down the neurochemical chaos from toxic stress—love really is a kind of drug! In fact, when you express affection, it triggers dopamine in the other person as they hear your voice or see you, which also helps balance energy in the brain and helps that person feel calmer, enhancing their reward/incentive/bonus circuitry. Affection also releases oxytocin, which promotes bonding (those “warm, fuzzy feelings” we get when we are around someone we love), while activating the vagus nerve (which fires up the brain and body in a positive direction), and lowering cortisol (the stress hormone). So, never hesitate to tell someone you love and care for them, especially when they are stressed out! 3. Pet an animal: Animals are just the best! A number of studies have shown that a pet’s presence can lower blood pressure, relieve depression and anxiety, and moderate stress in the elderly largely by providing needed companionship. But the benefits of having a pet are not limited to a particular age group. Petting or stroking an animal activates the anterior cingulate cortex, the area responsible for emotional processing. This means that when we hug a dog, for example, the sensations stimulate positive feelings across the cingulate cortex and amygdala, which helps reduce toxic stress, lower our heart rate, reduce blood pressure, balance energy in the brain, and release surges of dopamine and serotonin, all of which help us feel better mentally and physically and manage stress in the moment. Even if you don’t have a pet, if you are in challenging place, try visiting a friend or family member that does have a pet, or even a petting zoo or farm! 4. Warm up: When you are very stressed, soak in a hot tub/Jacuzzi, take a long, hot shower, use a sauna or steam room, or drink a cup of hot tea, cocoa or coffee. Doing this can help: Relax your muscles Improve your circulation Stimulate the release of endorphins Lower cortisol Improve immune function Improve lung capacity Reduce anxiety and depression by increasing blood flow and oxygen to the brain Increase BDNF, a hormone necessary for memory formation and cognitive health Reduce inflammation and calm the nervous system Balance hormones like ACTH and cortisol Increase “feel good” neurotransmitters like serotonin 5. Prepare and share a meal with others: Sharing a meal with your loved ones helps maintain connection and bonding through a shared, fun and meaningful experience. No wonder Dr. Jeffrey Cummings from Cleveland has made it one of his three pillars of brain health! The familiar activity of eating together can calm down the stress response, boost mood, nourish the body and promote social connectedness, all of which are essential to a healthy brain and body. Shared meals also activate executive functions in the brain, exercising the mind and brain and making us better thinkers! Since it is a goal-directed activity that is fun, it can help develop organizational skills, problem-solving, and memory retrieval, all of which activate different regions in the brain and help increase overall cognitive health and resilience. 6. Help someone: We have all heard the phrase, “helping others helps yourself”. But this is more than just a popular saying. Research has shown how helping others, whether with our time, a physical gift or a monetary donation, improves overall mental and physical health and resilience. In one study, helping others was related to a 30% reduction of mortality in participants. This data, along with data from previous studies, actually suggests that “help given to others is a better predictor of health and well-being than indicators of social engagement or received social support”. When you reach out to the people in your community and lend a helping hand in any way you can, you not only make the external world a better place for everyone, but you also make your internal world a better place for you. Helping others can improve your overall health and longevity, your mood, your sense of purpose, your social connectedness and your sense of self, all of which contribute to a life worth living. To read the original article click here.

The post 6 Strategies to Deescalate Intense Emotions In the Moment appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess Chapter One: What Happens When We Don’t Use Our Minds Correctly

AHA Publisher — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 08:00:41 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – Sometimes it feels like we live in a world characterized by fear. People are fearful about their health, the economy, their jobs, the future, corruption, crime, and their feelings of powerlessness. The cost of this fear is toxic thoughts, toxic stress, anxiety, and depression, which in turn increase our vulnerability to disease. The end result of this fear, anxiety, and illness cycle, if we don’t manage it with our minds, is a society dependent on external factors such as painkillers, medications, wellness fads, and skyrocketing health costs to fix us. But what if there was another way? What if the answer lay inside of you? What if you held the key? Most people understand the need to live a healthy lifestyle, even if they don’t fully understand the impact of their lifestyle choices on disease processes. What many people don’t recognize is the need for proper mind-management and how it both supports and sustains a healthy lifestyle. When our thinking is toxic, it can mess up the stress response, which then starts working against us instead of for us. This, in turn, can make us more vulnerable to disease, which is why many researchers now believe that toxic stress is responsible for up to approximately 90 percent of illness, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Only 5–10 percent of disease is said to come from genetic factors alone. Why? When an individual is in a toxic thinking state, the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and homocysteine can significantly affect the immune system, cardiovascular system, and neurological system.  In fact, excessive stress hormones are so  effective at compromising the immune system that physicians therapeutically provide  recipients of organ transplants with stress  hormones to prevent their immune system from rejecting the foreign implant. Despite a more widespread understanding of the importance of healthy  lifestyle choices, and many incredible resources out there on making good lifestyle choices, many people lack the necessary  mind-management skills they need to apply this knowledge to everyday life. This  isn’t a one-off thing. Mind-management is a skill that needs to be learned; used all day long, every day; and constantly upgraded as we grow from childhood into adulthood. For every new experience, we need a new set of mind-management tools! Now, before you start panicking and thinking that it’s impossible, stop, breathe, and read on. I don’t want you to get stuck thinking it’s hopeless, that you have caused all your own problems, and that you cannot change. This will only make you feel worse about yourself, and it really isn’t the case. You can’t blame yourself for something you didn’t know—but you can empower yourself and shift into change mode when you learn how to manage your thinking. This is a skill that needs to be learned and constantly upgraded—I do this daily, and will continue to do so until I pass on from this world. Most of what I share in this book hasn’t been taught to you before because it’s an area that isn’t well understood. We’re only beginning to understand mind and consciousness, which is exciting. If we’ve come this far without good mind-management skills, imagine where we can go when we’ve learned how to control our thinking! To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

The post Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess Chapter One: What Happens When We Don’t Use Our Minds Correctly appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

My Clinical Trial Results: Anxiety and Depression Reduced By Up To 81%!

AHA Publisher — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 08:00:24 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – We can no longer ignore the rise of anxiety, depression, anger, frustration, toxic stress and burnout in people of all ages in our society. We need to address this head on. Stressors and changes in life situations trigger responses and changes in our biochemistry, brain function and genetics, which not only affects our health, but can also be passed on through generations, which is known as epigenetics. This is both a question of how we want to live today and how we want our children to live in the future. Many current mental health strategies, including pharmaceuticals and interventions with medical devices, have not helped us fully manage or eradicate the devastating mental health conditions that plague our society. Nearly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world each year, which is roughly one death every 40 seconds. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in the world for those aged 15-24 years. Unmanaged depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide! The availability of simple mind-management tools for personal use, to address and ameliorate such warning signals as anxiety, depression, toxic thinking, inability to concentrate, irritability, exhaustion, burnout, before they take over someone’s mind and life could potentially help innumerable persons of all ages to experience improved mental and physical health and well-being. Why is mind-management so important? Stressors and changes in life situations trigger responses and changes in our biochemistry, brain function and genetics, which not only affects our health, but can also be passed on through generations, which is known as epigenetics. There is a significant amount of research indicating that the suppression of thoughts, which causes mental distress, is related to telomere shortening and biological aging-our life experiences are reflected in our biology. In our recent research, we proposed a randomized clinical trial with the primary aim of investigating the psychological and neurophysiological effects of a non-pharmacological intervention in subjects with mental health and neurological symptoms. The results showed that the subjects in the experimental group improved their mental health, brain health, blood physiology and cellular health by using the 5 steps of mind-management in the SWITCH app, and so can you! We found that when we learn to manage our thinking, the entire state of the brain and our cellular structure shifts and establishes a new and healthy level of balance in the mind, brain and body! Indeed, preliminary results from our trial demonstrated a significant reduction in depression and anxiety, through mind-management, by up to 81%, in the experimental group compared with the control group. The experimental subjects were learning how to embrace and make the anxiety and depression work for them and not against them, which is a much more sustainable approach than simply trying to numb or remove emotions and feelings completely. These exciting results indicate that, as we gain increased autonomy by taking control of our mental health, we become more aware of both our issues and our capacity to deal with the toxic thoughts and control toxic stress. When we change our perspective, we see opportunities instead of barriers. This process leads us to become more empowered so we can control our lives by controlling our minds! This clinical trial, along with an increasing number of studies in the neuroimaging and mind-brain literature, indicate that with appropriate mind-management training and self-regulation, which is what “cleaning up the mental mess” is all about, people can systematically use their mind to take advantage of the neuroplasticity of their brain to rework and rewire the their thoughts. By doing this, they can transform their neural circuitry, which will enable them to manage and improve a variety of mental and physical states. This means that we can literally take dysfunctional brain networks and physiology and alter them with our minds! We can manage our thinking and clean up the mental mess with habit forming cycles of 63 days, which gives a new thought pattern enough energy to become a habit that influences our behavior and communication. And if this is done continually as a lifestyle, overall wellbeing, peace and wisdom are the reward! The path to empowerment is not only attainable, it is within you! You can guide and direct changes in your brain. Your mind is something you can learn to optimize, with my scientific, 5-step mind-management process. These 5 steps will not only empower you to push through the pain that may come from the healing work, but also give you a structured scientifically researched plan that works and a defined time period for the process, which will further reduce your pain, uncertainty, and make the process more effective and sustainable! To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

The post My Clinical Trial Results: Anxiety and Depression Reduced By Up To 81%! appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.