Trauma Archives - Amazing Health Advances

How to Find Yourself Again After Trauma

The AHA! Team — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 08:24:02 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #471) and blog, I talk to holistic psychologist and best-selling author Nicole LePera about finding your authentic self after trauma, identifying and unlearning harmful habits, and so much more! In her first book, How to Do the Work, Dr. Nicole offered readers a revolutionary, holistic framework for self-healing. Now, in How to Meet Your Self, she shares an interactive workbook designed to help every reader uncover their Authentic Self. By objectively and compassionately observing the physical, mental, and emotional patterns that fill our days and create our current selves, we can more clearly see what we do not wish to carry into the future. Why is this important? As Nicole points out, we all fall into conditioned habits and patterns—products of our past—that lead to cycles of pain, “stuckness,” and self-destruction. But we also have the innate ability to awaken to and change the behaviors and habits that no longer serve us, allowing us to step into the highest versions of ourselves, which is why Nicole wrote How to Meet Your Self: to help the reader radically transform their inner and outer world. We all struggle and we all have unique healing journeys. This is a universal aspect of the human experience. No matter who we are or where we come from, we cannot escape the fact that our past experiences color our present realities. For many of us, these patterns go unnoticed; we live our lives unaware of how these habits shape our thinking and actions. How to Meet Your Self, Nicole helps us become more aware and conscious of how the past is affecting our present and gives us practical tips and tools to change and heal the mind, brain and body. Awareness is the first step. When we see these aspects of our lives as habits and not intrinsic parts of ourselves, we can work on changing these patterns in our lives and reconnecting with our authentic self—that deep inner knowing of ourselves. We can’t heal what we are not aware of. But this change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and effort to do the work. As mentioned above, awareness is just the first step, which then allows us to start our healing journey and discover our true, authentic selves. This change is often hard and difficult, and other things will come to the surface, which is why it takes consistent daily effort to shift our thinking and habits, especially if we have been living a certain way for decades. Learning habits and patterns often begins in childhood. Indeed, childhood is a very vulnerable period in our lives; we are growing, developing and learning how to see ourselves and the world around us. Unfortunately, the adults in the room are often dealing with their own trauma and issues, which can affect how they relate to us as children. This, in turn, can affect how we function as adults through the habits and patterns we learn—soon, a negative, generational cycle can be set up. Thankfully, it is never too late to heal. The brain is neuroplastic, which means that it can change. This is why it is so important that we learn how to connect with and trust ourselves—to reach that authentic self. We need to put on our own oxygen mask first by working through our past and what we need to heal before it starts impacting our wellbeing and our relationships. We need to learn how to embrace, process and reconceptualize what we go through, not push it down, or we may start to resent putting other people’s needs before our own. We need to learn how to process our experiences and feelings, not feel ashamed that we have emotions like frustration, anger and so on. When we do this, we are better able to connect with ourselves and the people in our lives on a deeper level, instead of using boundaries to put up walls around ourselves and keep people out. It is not selfish to work on ourselves and take the time to heal and connect with our authentic self. Rather, doing so promotes interdependence: the ability to truly thrive and connect with others in meaningful ways. This kind of autonomy is not the freedom to do whatever we want without consequences; it is the recognition that we are part of a larger whole, and that we as individuals do not have to do it all by ourselves. Our relationship with ourselves is the foundation of any relationship we will have. For more on finding your authentic self, listen to my podcast with Nicole (episode #471) and check out her amazing work. Podcast Highlights 1:54 Nicole’s amazing work 4:19 Social media & therapy 6:28 Nicole’s new book How to Meet Your Self 8:00 How the past affects our present 10:14 Why it takes time to change past patterns & habits 14:00 The power of the conscious mind 19:33 Getting out of “auto-pilot mode” 26:10 Learning habits starts in childhood 35:17 Healing religious trauma 36:28 How healing ourselves helps us connect with others 41:50 Why we need to allow ourselves to acknowledge our emotions 45:00 What our need for boundaries tells us about ourselves 50:00 Autonomy versus selfishness This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

The post How to Find Yourself Again After Trauma appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Are You Addicted to Drama?

The AHA! Team — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 08:52:39 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #479) and blog, I talk to holistic psychologist, educator and best-selling author Scott Lyons about what it means to be addicted to drama, how a drama addiction affects our mental health and relationships, how to manage a drama addiction, and so much more! As a body-based trauma expert, Doctor of Osteopathy and Mind-Body Medicine specialist, Scott helps people break free from cycles of pain, limited beliefs, and trauma. Scott is an innovator in transformative wellness and trauma therapy, teaching over half a million people internationally to relieve stress and restore vitality. Scott has worked with many of the country’s top leaders and CEOs as an executive coach and wellness consultant. Scott is the creator of The Embody Lab—the largest online learning platform for body-based trauma therapies—and developer of Somatic Stress Release™, a holistic process of restoring biological resilience, taught in over 20 countries. Scott is also the founder and designer of Omala, a wellness brand dedicated to creating sustainably sourced tools for transformation. In his incredible new book, Addicted to Drama, Scott turns the notion of the “drama queen” on its head, showing that drama is an addiction and those who are suffering with it are experiencing a much deeper psychological, biological, and social pain. For a person addicted to drama, the intensity becomes their way of coping. Their life is a constant cycle of crisis, chaos, and chronically high levels of stress. They may never be able to relax without an internal alarm going off, sending them spiraling back toward chaos. Drama is the stirring, the excitement, the exaggeration, the eruption, the unrest, and the medicine to feel alive in relation to the numbing of the internal and external world around them. For someone addicted to drama, the drama is often how they survive—or think they do. However, rather than dismissing addiction to drama as just attention seeking, Addicted to Drama offers clear-eyed empathy, humor, and practical strategies to help us all understand and break free of the drama cycle. First, it is important to understand what being addicted to drama looks like externally and on the inside. Externally, this often feels like a “how did we get here?” or “what just happened?” moment, like something that wasn’t such a big deal erupts and becomes a major issue. The experience is intense because the response doesn’t seem to match the circumstances that caused it. It often feels like someone has sucked the air out of the room—there is no space for anyone else but the person having the reaction, which can be incredibly stressful for everyone involved. Internally, this often feels like the world is against you. Everything feels like it is colliding, and it is hard to get yourself out of the eye of the storm. You feel a deep sense of urgency—you feel like you can never outrun the stress you are experiencing. You are constantly searching for what is going wrong—a sense of unease that does not dissipate. And, if you can’t find what is wrong, you create it, because you have a deep sense of being out of sync with the world, which is often the result of some kind of past trauma and isolation that distorts your sense of yourself and your environment. You are responding true to how you experience the world; you are not just “addicted to drama”. Some signs of a drama addiction are: -Feeling anxious or bored when things are calm -Making mountains out of molehills -Pulling other people into the drama -Craving extreme situations and sensations -Making bad situations universal -Crisis hopping -Enjoying controversy -Causing chaos in relationships -Feeling isolated -Feeling like a victim all the time Thankfully, if someone you know is addicted to drama, there are ways to protect yourself, including: -Recognize when you lose your anchor in the presence of someone else. This is the first step to protecting your mental and physical wellbeing. Awareness is key! -Come back into the present of your own body—grounding yourself in the present through techniques like breathing and so on. -Identify how close you want to be to the drama, and assert boundaries when necessary. If you feel like you have a drama addiction, there are ways you can manage and heal this, including: -Becoming aware of your stress response and how it is affecting your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. -Working on ways to “slow down” when you feel like you are ramping up in the moment to give yourself time to process what you are experiencing. Reframing the addiction to drama in positive ways is key. People who are addicted to drama act from a place of pain and defense—they expect the world to come at them. Understanding this is key; just saying something like “get over yourself” or “you are such a drama queen” is not helpful in the moment and can exacerbate the situation. For more on drama as a coping mechanism, listen to my podcast with Scott (episode #479) and check out his amazing work. Podcast Highlights 2:00 Scott’s amazing story & work 6:40 Scott’s new book Addicted to Drama 7:20, 11:45 What being addicted to drama looks like 13:32 Drama addiction & trauma 17:42 Isolation & drama addiction 21:55 How to tell if someone is addicted to drama 31:20 How to protect yourself from someone who is addicted to drama 37:00, 44:50 How to identify & manage your addiction to drama This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

The post Are You Addicted to Drama? appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

Essential Techniques for Self-Healing with Alex Elle

AHA Publisher — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 08:00:23 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #433) and blog, I talk to wellness educator, certified breathwork coach and Restorative Writing teacher Alex Elle about the importance of journaling, her new book How We Heal, why we need to model our experiences as adults so that we can teach our children to handle life’s challenges, focusing on our own journey instead of trying to change other people, and so much more! Writing came into Alex’s life by way of therapy and the exploration of healing through journaling and mindfulness. The intention behind Alex’s work is to build community and self-care practices through literature and language. She teaches workshops, courses and retreats to assist others in finding their voices and creating clarity in their lives & relationships. She is also currently a teacher in residence at CIVANA Resort in Carefree, Arizona. As a restorative writing teacher, Alex is passionate about helping people find true healing and get closer to themselves through the pages of their journal, which she discusses in depth in her amazing new book How We Heal. This book is full of techniques for self-healing, including journaling rituals to cultivate innate strength, accessible tools for processing difficult emotions, and restorative meditations to ease the mind. Complementing these practices are powerful insights from Alex Elle’s own journey of self-discovery using writing to heal, plus remarkable stories of healing from a range of luminary voices, including Nedra Tawwab, Morgan Harper Nichols, Dr. Thema Bryant, Barb Schmidt, and many more. Alex is passionate about reminding people that we are our own greatest teacher. When it comes to healing and transformation, there has to be a sense of self-trust. The healing journey begins when we learn how to trust ourselves—that we are on the right path even when we feel we may not be. Alex’s work centers around guiding people on this journey and teaching them to become their own truth-tellers. She teaches them how to name what they need, give themselves permission to put down things they no longer need, and to honor their own desires. A key part of this process is what Alex calls “restorative writing”, which includes journaling. This kind of journaling and writing doesn’t have to be a “dear diary” experience. You can simply start with a prompt like “I am choosing joy because…” and make a list of what choosing joy looks like for you. Journaling is not just about uncovering trauma and moving forward, which is of course important. It is also about tapping into our joy and inner peace, which is extremely powerful. Trauma is not our resting place—we don’t just have to sit in our trauma. Part of the healing journey also means seeking out joy and self-celebration. This is not just something we do as individuals. It is a communal act. Self-care and self-healing is an act of community care. When we heal ourselves, we heal each other—we heal our lineages and we dismantle cycles of trauma. Yet choosing joy is not just about positive affirmations. As Alex notes, affirmations without actions are just words. Taking action is an important part of any healing journey—we cannot just write “I am worthy” and “I am enough” and think everything will change. We need to take steps to lean into our worthiness and implement actual changes in our lives. This kind of work will have lasting impact in our lives. It is also important to understand that it is okay to not have all the answers. When we tap into our inner joy and peace, we can also find a sense of stability even when things are uncertain—even when we are in the midst of a storm. This kind of journey is not a one-off event. Healing isn’t band-aid work—it is forever work. Healing is a partner in this life, because as long as we are alive, we will face challenges that can affect us emotionally and physically. Healing is not about escaping something. It is about leaning into life and befriending the things that make us afraid so we can tap into our self-compassion and truly move forward. If we stay in the pain and “What ifs”, we will not find acceptance for what we cannot change, which will keep us stuck in the past. But, if we befriend our pain and fears and face them without contention or judgment and with compassion, grace and understanding, we will find true healing. This doesn’t happen overnight. Healing is something that we need to practice. It isn’t easy, but it is worth it, and it gets easier the more we walk the journey. The more we practice tapping into our own experiences, the more we access our own answers: our own how, why, when and where…our own journey forward. We learn to trust ourselves and heal. And, when we model this for our children and share our journey, we teach them from youth to manage their mental health. We teach our children that this is a lifelong journey, and that when we heal ourselves, we heal others. We show our children how true healing is about community. We are all students of life and of each other. When we give ourselves permission to heal, we give other people the permission to do the same. At the same time, it is important to recognize that you can only change yourself, not other people. Our job is not to change people—it is to accept people, even if that means accepting them from afar. This can be hard, especially if it is someone we love. The greatest permission we can give someone to change is to lead by example. Likewise, it is more important to like ourselves than have other people like us. If you don’t like yourself, you will find it hard to truly be yourself around other people, or like other people on a genuine level, which will affect your relationships and your mental health. For more on trusting yourself, the healing journey and improving your mental health, listen to my podcast episode with Alex (episode #433), and check out her amazing work and book. To read the original article click here.

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How Over-Explaining is Linked to Trauma + Strategies to Find the Root & Heal

AHA Publisher — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 07:00:23 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #314) and blog, Dr. Leaf talks about how over-explaining and over-sharing can be trauma responses, and how they impact the way we function. I decided to speak about this topic because of the many responses I got to a social media post I recently put up: “Over-explaining is a common trauma response for those who were often made to feel at fault as a child. At one point, the desire to people-please provided safety. But, please know, what happened is not your fault, and it’s not your job to regulate other people’s emotional states.” Over-explaining means describing something to an excessive degree, whereas oversharing is the disclosure of an inappropriate amount of information and detail about your personal life. These fall under the fawn trauma response (see podcast #302 for more information on the different trauma responses). We often do this non-consciously to try to control the anxiety we experience in the moment, which is a signal that has a root. This thought “root” is what we need to find, or the uncomfortable feelings we experience won’t stop. If we don’t get to the root of the thought, we will use us a lot of mental energy trying to manage these feelings and other peoples’ impressions of us, which can be a pretty thankless and exhausting task! Why do we do this? 1. Over explaining (O/E thinking): You might be doing this to keep yourself safe, which could be a sign that you have a toxic thought tree that is dominating your thinking, and the root system is some sort of abusive relationship that happened in your past. The only way you managed to cope during that time was a fawning trauma response, which is now no longer sustainable in your life, as it has affected your ability to trust yourself and your self-confidence. You may also slip into an over-explaining response if you have been gaslit. This can make you feel like you must say a lot, and/or say things in different ways, so that the person gaslighting you can’t distort your words and make you look bad by using what you say against you. It could also be that you are trying to make people understand where you are coming from, and you feel the need to use a prefacing comment or story as a protective barrier to make people see your reasoning. You may feel the need to justify yourself or your decisions to make someone accept who you are and how you think, which is also a trauma root that you will need to work on. You could also be trying to keep the peace, and over-explain as a result. Perhaps you tend to over-explain because someone in your past made you feel everything is your fault, no matter what, and you feel the need to defend yourself, or it may bother you if you disappoint someone in your life and you use over-explaining to compensate. You could be thinking out loud, or have had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and need more words to explain yourself. (I had many patients who did this.) You may see over-explaining as a way to be honest or to boost another person’s emotional state. It could also be that you are a chattier person, especially when you feel you can contribute to the situation, and, once stimulated, you talk too much. The important thing here is mind-management; learn to self-regulate your responses and how you process how other people react to you, and adjust accordingly. Oversharing (O/S thinking): Many of the roots are similar to why we tend to over-explain, which I described briefly above. Sometimes oversharing is also the result of a misguided attempt to gain sympathy. If you share your mistakes to help others, you are being authentic; if you share too much to gain sympathy, then you are oversharing. If you feel like you tend to over-explain or over-share, there is hope! You can work on this by doing a 5-step Neurocycle over 63 days to uncover the root of the thought and work on rewiring your brain. This is the mind-management system I have developed over the past 38 years and is based on my research and practice. (I discuss this in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, my app Neurocycle and in my recent clinical trials.) The 5 steps are: 1. Gather: O/E = Start with something recent that happened to you and observe your thinking. Did you apologize a lot? Battle to say no? Feel the need to give lots of detail so that the other person understood you? Did you over-anticipate how this person will respond when you set a boundary? Or perhaps focus on the worst-case scenario? O/S = Think of ways you tend to overshare. Do you perhaps post intimate details about your relationships, friendships, family matters and personal drama online? Use social media to vent your frustrations? How do you overshare? How does this make you feel emotionally and physically? Remind yourself that oversharing doesn’t create intimacy; it can be a sign of self-absorption that is masked as “vulnerability”. 2. Reflect: Ask, answer and discuss what you gathered in step 1 to get to the core of what you are doing, why, and the impact this is having on your life and relationships. 3. Write: Write down your reflections to help organize your thinking and gain more clarity into what is going on in your life. 4. Recheck : How you can see this in a different way; what is your thought “antidote”? 5. Practice your new way of thinking every day using the active reach: Some examples of good active reaches are: Practicing being patient with yourself. Celebrating in the moment when you do set a boundary WITHOUT chronicling your reasoning for it in painstaking detail. Learning to sit with the discomfort of disappointing others. You can’t please everyone—the one person you should always prioritize is yourself! Giving yourself permission to feel whatever feelings surface when you say “no”. Reminding yourself of times you did assert a boundary, and how things didn’t end up as badly as you expected them to be. Practicing mind-management, where you self-regulate your reaction to other people, and adjust accordingly. Using use the Neurocycle to do brain-building daily to help improve your mental resilience. For more on this check out my podcast on brain-building. To read the original article click here.

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Healing Trauma: Research Links PTSD, Emotion Regulation and Quality of Life

AHA Publisher — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 07:00:28 +0000

Binghamton University via EurekAlert – We often talk about the coronavirus pandemic in terms of health or economic impacts: the numbers of cases and deaths, the persistence of long-haul COVID, lost jobs and toilet paper shortages. But there is another crisis, too… [t]he pandemic is a type of mass trauma, explained Binghamton University doctoral candidate in psychology Craig Polizzi. And trauma can and does give rise to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and potentially problematic behaviors and a lower quality of life. Recent research from Polizzi, fellow graduate student Damla Aksen and Distinguished Professor of Psychology Steven Jay Lynn provides insight into the impact PTSD has on emotional regulation and quality of life, and points to ways to improve both. Their article, “Quality of Life, Emotion Regulation Dissociation: Evaluating Unique Relations in an Undergraduate Sample and Probable PTSD Subsample,” was published in a recent issue of the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy. Their research fills some of the gaps left by previous studies into PTSD, emotion regulation and quality of life. Previous studies mainly focused on older adults and individuals with medical problems, and tested emotion regulation strategies or difficulties separately; they also didn’t account for important variables that may explain the relation between emotion regulation and quality of life. Polizzi, Aksen and Lynn instead take a more comprehensive approach and include such critical variables as dissociation, neuroticism and PTSD symptoms in addition to dimensions of emotion regulation. Using questionnaires and personal narratives, the researchers identified participating college students who potentially met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. The traumatic events these students experienced ranged from physical or sexual assault to car accidents, abuse, severe illness and witnessing suffering. The researchers then used a series of self-report surveys to measure difficulties in emotional regulation, positive and negative coping strategies and dissociative experiences with the participants. It’s eye-opening to see how much trauma college students — and the U.S. population in general — are exposed to, Polizzi acknowledged. “The positive side to these statistics, though, is how remarkably resilient people can be following traumatic events, especially during this pandemic,” he said. What Is Quality of Life? “Quality of life” isn’t an amorphous concept, although researchers can have different definitions, including improved function related to physical health and psychological well-being. It can actually be measured in many ways, such as through self-report surveys, physician ratings or direct observation, Polizzi explained. In the study, the researchers relied on a broad definition informed by the World Health Organization (WHO), which defines quality of life as healthy functioning across mental processing, life activities, physical mobility, participating in society, self-care and social skills. In particular, they administered a questionnaire, the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule, based on the organization’s definition of this concept. Closely associated with quality of life is emotion regulation, or the ability to alter your emotional state to better cope with the situation at hand. People with enhanced emotion regulation tend to have greater psychological health, whereas problems in this area are associated with psychological difficulties, Polizzi explained. During and following traumatic events, many people dissociate — or distance themselves from their emotions, body, mind and even personal identity — to escape overwhelming feelings such as shame, fear and anger. People who experience dissociation may lose focus, forget people and events, have out-of-body experiences or extreme daydreaming, and feel a sense of unreality and detachment from their immediate surroundings. While some researchers have argued that dissociation is an emotion regulation strategy, it typically has negative effects, including interfering with emotional awareness, sense of self, social bonds and engagement in daily activities. In fact, it was surprising how strongly dissociation was related to quality of life, Polizzi acknowledged. Rather than just a part of other unhealthy emotion regulation strategies, it appears to play a disruptive role in daily activities and everyday behaviors. Overall, their research suggests that decreased emotion regulation is related to a lower quality of life, although not necessarily a sole cause. People may experience a lowered quality of life for many reasons, one of which could be the inability to effectively regulate their emotions; conversely, the lack of psychological resources — for example, from stress, pain or physical health issues — could also limit a person’s ability to emotionally regulate. “These variables could exist in a vicious cycle, in which lack of emotion regulation contributes to lowering quality of life, which in turn reduces emotion regulation skills,” said Polizzi, adding that further research is needed to confirm this idea. On the plus side, emotion regulation is something that people can learn. “Many techniques used in psychological treatments are designed to help individuals enhance their emotion regulation. For example, learning to accept and re-interpret emotions in realistic ways rather than avoiding emotions and blaming them on others can improve people’s psychological functioning and their quality of life,” Polizzi said. Three Main Symptoms In their research, Polizzi, Aksen and Lynn provide information that could refine the current evidence-based practices for treating PTSD by focusing on a trio of symptoms that have a strong impact on an individual’s quality of life: namely, dissociation, impulsivity and blaming others. Used as a coping strategy for negative emotions, impulsive behaviors can lead to physical injury, substance abuse and other health concerns, while dissociation may make it even more difficult for people with PTSD to be emotionally engaged, cope with stress, set goals and have a healthy sense of self. Individuals with PTSD also tend to mistrust others, which could lead to blame in interpersonal interactions and the further erosion of social bonds. That doesn’t mean, however, that trauma is a one-way street to a diminished life. Many individuals can learn how to successfully cope with such experiences, and treatment can lead to a greatly improved quality of life. For those diagnosed with PTSD, focusing on these three factors would be especially helpful during the later phases of treatment, when the individual has improved their coping skills and stability, Polizzi said. If the pandemic’s aftermath has you feeling not quite yourself, it might be helpful to take an honest look at how you’re really feeling and the strategies — good and bad — that you’re using to cope. “People experiencing increased psychological stress during this pandemic may look to improve their quality of life by focusing on ways to enhance their emotion regulation skills via reducing dissociation, impulsivity and blaming others, such as increasing emotional engagement, planning goal-directed behaviors and fostering compassion toward others, respectively,” Polizzi said. To read the original article click here.

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Why We Shouldn’t (and Can’t ) Just “Forgive & Forget”

AHA Publisher — Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:00:45 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #272) and blog, I talk about why forgetting doesn’t fix or heal something. As much we would love to permanently forget the bad things that happen to us, we can’t just erase traumatic events from our memory, as they impact our brain and body. As I have said many times before, thoughts are real physical structures we build into our brain with our mind in response to what we experience. Here’s how this works: how we react or respond to various life situations and the world around us is called the mind-in-action. The mind-in-action is how you uniquely think, feel, and choose. This mind-in-action changes the way your brain is shaped (through neuroplasticity) and how it functions, as well as your biochemistry, and the genes associated with mental and physical health, which is why mind-management is essential! Let’s look at a traumatic experience we are all too familiar with. Our personal experience of COVID-19 is quite literally a physical tree-like structure in our brains with all the associated memories of our unique experiences, which can affect us mentally, emotionally and physically. No matter how much we pretend that this pandemic doesn’t exist, or want to shut our eyes and hope it goes away, we cannot, as it does exist, and our unique experience of it affects us all in different ways, and we all need to find different ways to manage these effects. That is not to say all types of forgetting are bad. We may distract ourselves temporarily to cope in the moment or compartmentalize our experiences to deal with another pressing matter, which is fine and a very human thing to do! However, we cannot escape the long-term mental and physical repercussions of a traumatic experience because it is as real as a virus like COVID-19, eliciting the same immune responses in the brain and body. We cannot just “forget”; we have to learn how to reconceptualize our pain and fears through mind-management, as I discuss in my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. In fact, there are some great ways to distract your mind in a healthy way, like the box and windows technique, where you make a mental note to start dealing with the root of the trauma or pain when you are ready. But, at the end of the day, you need to learn to become a healthy responder instead of just reacting to what happens to you, or trying to forget or avoid it. You, with your mind that is always in action, are powerful; you are the ultimate change agent in your life. What does this look like? When you learn how to manage your mind and self-regulate your thinking, this builds healthy neural networks in your brain, which lay the foundation for more cognitive resilience and healthier responses to stressful events. The more you practice this way of thinking, the more you can learn to be a “first responder” in every and all situations. Essentially, you are learning how to catch and edit your thoughts and reactions before they trigger toxic chain reactions and become ingrained neural networks, a.k.a. bad habits. Mind management also teaches us how to embrace, process, and reconceptualize thoughts that have already become enmeshed in the networks of our minds as trauma reactions and negative thinking patterns. This is a lifelong journey, a lifestyle, but one that’s well worth the effort! Indeed, if we don’t transform our pain through reconceptualization, we can transmit it, and it can take over our thinking and relationships. We can get ourselves into serious cycles of toxic rumination and worry if we refuse to face our issues head-on. As I always say, it is in the breakdown that we break down toxic thoughts, habits, and trauma. We all need to learn how to reflect on our experiences in a way that helps us accept that even though we may not be able to make sense of them, we can still deal with them and move forward! To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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Using the Neurocycle to Break Cycles, Heal Generational Trauma & End Toxic Family Patterns

AHA Publisher — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:00:35 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #261) and blog, I talk about how to use the Neurocycle to break the toxic cycles we have in our lives, whether these come from our own past or are a pattern that is inherited as generational trauma. When it comes to the mind-brain connection, we don’t have to be beholden to the past. We can change how these cycles play out in our future. Our thinking, feeling and choosing changes our genetic expression. We switch genes on and off with every thought we have, and every thought we have is a response to how we perceive our life and the world around us. In fact, as I discuss in detail in my latest book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, research has shown that around 5% of genetic mutations cause disease; an estimated 95% of genes are influenced by our environment and lifestyle factors. What does all this mean? The way that you think also contributes to this environment. Your genetic activity is significantly determined by your thoughts, attitudes, and perception, which collectively create the environment of your mind, brain and body. Even though this may sound overwhelming and a little scary, it is actually very hopeful! The science of epigenetics shows that our thoughts can control our biology, and we can control our thoughts, positively directing genetic expression in our body and passing these genetic markers through the generations. Essentially, this means that what you are thinking at any one moment is vitally important because your thoughts affect the signals your genes receive. By managing your mind, you are in effect managing these signals and how they impact your genetic expression and biology. So, how does this all work? Epigenetics shows us that our thoughts are a predominant factor controlling genetic expression; our mind controls what we think, eat, exercise, respond to and so on—it controls how we live our lives. Epigenetics shows us that how we think, feel and choose (our mind-in-action) will influence the behavior of our genes and our subsequent mental and physical wellbeing. These epigenetic changes represent a biological response to an environmental signal. The response can be inherited through the generations via epigenetic markers. However, if you remove the signal, the epigenetic mark can fade. If you choose to add a signal, on the other hand, the epigenetic mark can be activated. In sum, we are not merely our genes or biology. Our past doesn’t have to be our destiny. How we think and choose to live our lives impacts a big part of the picture! What you are thinking at any one moment is vitally important because this is the signal your genes receive. This means that when you learn how to manage your thoughts through managing your mind, you can change your thoughts. And, by changing your thoughts, you can change your genetic expression; you rewire your brain (through neuroplasticity), which then impacts your biology. Research studies, including mine (which I discuss in detail in my latest book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess) show that managing your mind can even influence how you age and your vulnerability to disease, while there is strong scientific evidence that controlling one’s inner thought life and detoxing the mind is preventative against cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s! So, how do we start breaking these cycles? As I talk about in Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, this process begins with deliberate and intentional mindfulness that activates our self-regulation, which then helps us go beyond mindfulness and into mind-management. To do this, I recommend using the mind management technique I have researched, developed and applied clinically over the past three decades, which is called the Neurocycle. The kind of self-regulation that is achieved using the Neurocycle is a great way to deal with the root of the toxic generational cycles in your life, reconceptualizing them and how they impact your genetic expression. It is done in 5 steps: Gather awareness of what you are feeling emotionally and physically as you work on a toxic cycle in your life. Reflect on why you feel the way you do—be as specific as possible. Write this down—this is way to help organize your thinking and gain clarity. Recheck what you have written. Look for patterns in your work life, your relationships, your responses, your attitudes and so on. Take action. I call this step an “active reach”. It is essentially an action you take to reinforce the new, reconceptualized pattern of thinking you want in your life (which is replacing the old, toxic cycle). To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

The post Using the Neurocycle to Break Cycles, Heal Generational Trauma & End Toxic Family Patterns appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.

How I Got Through a Major Mental Health Crisis

AHA Publisher — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 08:00:33 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – I recently watched the Disney movie Soul with my family. If you haven’t yet watched it, I would definitely recommend that you do. There was a lot that touched me about that movie, so much so that I intend watching it again, and you will hear me referring to it often! The closing line of the movie was for me one of the most striking parts and spoke directly to me. The main character says, after being given a second chance at life, that “I don’t know how [I am going to do life], but I know I am going to live every minute of it”. First thing that struck me was that it’s kind of hard to do this, especially when we have had such an awful year…I mean where and how do we even begin? For myself, besides the mess that is COVID-19, with its health and financial challenges and disastrously disturbing politics, we, as a family, have faced several scary physical and mental health challenges. What I have really come to realize now is that, at the end of the day, life is uncontrollable and uncertain. And, after such a year, many of us, if asked, may also say something like “I don’t know how I will do life”. What I want to tell in you in this podcast, based on both my professional and personal experience, is that what we can do, and help others do, is learn to control our own reactions to do life—to “live every minute of it”. As I mentioned above, as a family we have suffered some extreme and traumatic events this past several years, including some very recent events just this past year. Why couldn’t I, with all my knowledge, and experience be able to fix this? What am I doing wrong? What have I missed? It was at this lowest point that the very idea of making any new year’s resolutions seemed like ridiculous motivational nonsense. My mind drifted back to the Soul movie and the closing statement and I thought: “I don’t know how I am going to do what life has just thrown at me, but I am going to try to live through this the best way I can…but, how on earth am I going to do this? How will I live in this minute?”. I am a researcher and a mental health professional, which means I am trained to think objectively in extreme situations. But sometimes this is easier said than done! When I was at my lowest point, I started a thought experiment, on me. I started doing a NeuroCycle, a scientific tool I have researched and developed and applied clinically over 38 years. It’s a 5-step process that takes you deeper into your mind in a way that influences brain and mind health and changes brain structure. It is designed to increase resilience, and help develop clear and flexible thinking in tough situations. I use the NeuroCycle as a lifestyle, so it comes naturally to me now—although it is something I still have to intentionally practice at times, especially in an acute situation like the one I found myself in in this past year. I was losing control and starting to succumb to despair—I was losing mental oxygen fast. So, I forced myself to start using the NeuroCycle process, even though I wanted to just sob and scream in a panic. Here is what I did: I gathered awareness of the dread in the pit of my stomach: the feeling that I was already dead from the shock of what had just transpired and the layer upon layer of bad news that just kept coming. I felt sick; my chest was sore and I was overwhelmed. I kept thinking, “This cannot be happening…just 24 hours ago this person was smiling.” I reflected on this awareness, realizing that this situation was out of my control and I couldn’t fix it. I felt totally hopeless and useless, like I had failed my loved one. I felt despair because of their pain. I wanted to absorb it all, so they wouldn’t have any of it. I was desperate. As I probed my thoughts and feelings, I had to admit to myself that I didn’t know how to protect my loved one. I took out my phone and started putting “my brain on paper” by writing these thoughts and feelings into the Notes app on my phone. I felt slightly calmer at this point–I could slowly feel the chaos in my mind, brain and body begin to recede as I organized my thinking. As I rechecked what I had written, I saw the words: “I can’t cope; this is too much; I don’t know what to do anymore; I am going to fall apart and have a breakdown. What happens if…I failed because I didn’t prevent this…”. Seeing these statements written down made me realize that I was spiraling into this a toxic thinking cycle that would get me nowhere and would not help me, my loved one or family. So, what would help us? I had to review this situation to influence/change the outcome. I asked myself this question: “What do I need right now to reconceptualize/reimagine this situation?”. I discussed this with myself and realized I needed information and advice from peers who knew more than I did about managing this particular situation—people who could help me put together an action plan and support me and my family through this. I couldn’t really think clearly in my shocked state, but with their advice, I knew I would know how to best manage this situation. This calmed me down and I suddenly had remarkable clarity and a sense of peace. This exercise even enabled me to do a few breathing exercises to help my brain. I immediately launched into a series of actions I call “active reaches”, which included texting and phoning my peers (who are also my friends) for the advice I needed at that moment in time, which I could then discuss with my family, so that we could think clearly and make good decisions. This set up a series of events that gave me a feeling of autonomy and control, which prompted me to do another active reach, which was to remember the previous traumas we had gone through as a family and how we had somehow got through—we were stronger than we thought! Then I did a third active reach, where I looked at my loved one and visualized them smiling, and I hung onto this each time my mind started pulling me back to the point of the trauma. And, finally, I made peace with the uncertainty of the situation; this is life, and we will find a way through. We will find a way to live this minute, and the next minute, and the next minute. At this point in time, I calm enough to do and say the right thing—I realized my experiment had worked, because I was no longer stuck in a “frozen panic” mode. I was back in action! Even though I was still tearful, fearful and didn’t know the end result just yet, I knew that I was going to get through this, taking it one moment at a time. I was then able to give the necessary emotional “oxygen” to my loved ones, and we all felt a bit more hope. I don’t want to make light of this crisis, or any crisis, by saying the 5 steps of the NeuroCycle will solve it all. I am painfully aware we cannot control events and circumstances of life, and that we cannot wrap the people we love in bubble wrap and protect them from the evil out there. Yet the one thing we can do is control how we react to all the uncertainties and tragedies of life, the good and the bad and the in-between, and find a way to “live each minute”, like the main character is Soul said. Having a mind management technique in place like the NeuroCycle allowed me to control my reactions in a crisis, so I wasn’t a useless mess and no good to myself or the people that needed me. When I started managing my mind and my reactions, I could be their advocate and the support they (and I!) needed. I had become strong in my pain. I found a way to live through that moment, and you can too. After this experience, I decided that the best New Year’s resolution I can make is to further develop this skill of self-regulated mind management and help as many people as I can use it as well, because we all have stuff we must deal with and we all need help at times. I have always felt this, but this year has highlighted the need for mind-management strategies to help people cope. You may have thought you were hardwired to be like this or that, to fail or to be bad at life, but the reality is that your mind is much more trainable and malleable than you think it is…that you are more resilient than you think you are. You can learn to be in the driver’s seat of your own mind through practice and mind-management skills like the NeuroCycle. This won’t make the pain of life magically go away, but it will help you make it through the pain to experience all life has to offer—to live each minute and live them well. You are lot stronger than you realize (speaking from experience!) and, when you harness this strength by training your thinking, you can deal with whatever life throws at you! To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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How Trauma Causes Inflammation & How to Begin Healing

AHA Publisher — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 08:00:00 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In Western thought, we see mental and physical health as two separate things, but this is not the case. Our thoughts and emotions, choice, life events, trauma and so on affect both our mental AND physical wellbeing. In this podcast (episode #225) and blog, I speak with leading functional medicine practitioner Dr. Will Cole about this mind-body connection, ways to reduce stress-induced inflammation, what adaptogens we should be taking to strengthen the mind and body, the best supplements for brain health, how to recognize and heal orthorexia, and more! When it comes to the mind-body connection, how we handle stress is incredibly important. Stressful life events and situations amplify our fight or flight state, which impacts the body’s adaptation to stress (through the HPA axis) and can negatively affect our health if not dealt with. In fact, although the stress hormone cortisol is designed to help regulate inflammation, if we are constantly stressed out, the flight or fight state upsets our natural cortisol cycles. This, in turn, can have many health repercussions because it throws the body into a state of disordered inflammation. Our body essentially starts working against us instead of for us! One example of this is adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue does not just have to do with our adrenal glands; it is a brain-based issue, and it is related to our stress response and the HPA axis. It is related to how stressed we are, and for how long. If we want to start combating the negative effects of toxic stress on the body, we need to look at our lifestyle choices, including what we eat. As Dr. Cole notes in his book, The Inflammation Spectrum, every food we eat either fuels inflammation or fights it. This means that our ability to handle stress and deal with trauma will be affected by our diet. Food is medicine, yes, but this also means you should find out what your body loves—what is medicine for you? There is no cookie-cutter approach for everyone. Processed and refined sugar, for example, is an inflammatory food for everyone, but we will react to sugar in different ways and at different levels. There is an inflammation spectrum—everyone’s body is different. Just because it is your experience, doesn’t mean it is someone else’s experience. One thing that everyone can benefit from is adding adaptogens to their diet. As Dr. Cole describes in both Ketotarian and The Inflammation Spectrum, adaptogens are plant and earth medicines that are found all over the world. They have been used in traditional medicine to help bring balance to the body and promote healing and longevity. Science is only now starting to study adaptogens and showing how many of these plants (like holy basil and rhodiola) can bring back homeostasis in the brain and body by balancing the HPA axis and reducing toxic stress-induced inflammation. They are accessible, easy to use and are a great complement to any wellbeing regimen, as Dr. Cole noted in a recent guest blog on our site. They also help with memory formation and can improve our ability to handle anxiety. Adaptogens like chaga and lion’s mane mushrooms, for example, can boost brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps grow new neurons and improve neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to change, adapt and grow). They essentially make us more resilient physically, which helps us deal with our issues mentally! Certain supplements can also help boost our diet and ability to handle stress: 1. Methylated B vitamins, which are needed for a healthy brain, hormone levels, immune system and so on. How much you need will depend on your unique health needs and biology, so see your health professional before taking any B vitamin supplements. In fact, methylation helps support good genetic function in the brain and body. How? As we now know, our genetics are not our destiny. They are light switches that are being constantly regulated by the choices we make every day and the environment we live in. Methylation is one way to make sure these light switches function as they should by switching on more good genes and switching off more bad genes. 2. Vitamin D3 and K2 is very important for the brain and immune system. D3 acts like a hormone and helps regulate many biological functions. K2 is also important and helps regulate inflammation and keep the body running well. Many people can’t get K1 from the plant foods they eat because their gut microbiome is comprised, so adding K2 to the diet through foods like organ meats, ghee, certain fermented foods and supplements can be helpful. 3. Curcumin, which helps balance inflammation levels. This gives turmeric its rich, yellow color. 4. Omega fish oil. You can get shorter train omegas from nuts and seeds, but the conversion is not always great. Fish or Krill oil supplements and wild-caught fish contain longer chain omegas, which are more bioavailable. 5. Probiotics, which help balance the microbiome and make sure the gut-brain connection functions as it should. Prebiotics, which are fibers in plant food that help feed the healthy bacteria in your gut, are also important. All these supplements are available on Dr. Cole’s website. Remember, when it comes to supplements and health products, you often get what you pay for. Mass-produced, cheaper health products generally do not always work or give you all the health benefits you expect. Some may even cause more harm than good, so always try find reputable companies that sell tested and good-quality products. And make sure to consult your health professional before taking any supplements, as everyone’s physical needs are different. We also need to remember that we cannot supplement our way out of a poor diet or toxic mindset. What we eat affects how we think, and what we think affects how we eat and our overall health, as I discuss in my book Think and Eat Yourself Smart. Mind management and self-regulating our thinking is essential when it comes to our health! We can go several weeks without eating, but we cannot go a few seconds without thinking. How we think about food is also important when dealing with disordered eating patterns like orthorexia. As Dr. Cole describes in his guest blog for our site, orthorexia is related to healthy eating—someone with orthorexia is hyper-focused and obsessed with healthy eating. Some of the warning signs (in context) are: A fear of food and how the body reacts to food Constantly judging others for eating a certain way Feeling isolated and avoiding going out to eat with friends If you or someone you know is battling with orthorexia, remember that you cannot stress and obsess your way into wellness. Just start where you are and at your specific capacity. Start low and slow, and don’t feel like you must solve all your problems over night. Try make incremental changes over time. The more you feel healthy, the more you will be healthy and make good lifestyle changes to sustain your sense of wellbeing. It is also important to remover that any wellness practice can be abused if your mind is not in a good place. So, always examine your intentions. Why are you doing this? What is your goal? How is it affecting you? Is this practice benefiting, or harming, your mental health?

The post How Trauma Causes Inflammation & How to Begin Healing appeared first on Amazing Health Advances.