Tag Archives: health

Grounding

19 Thursday Dec 2019

Posted by in grounding, Handout, Health, mental health, Psychoeducation, Therapy

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Grounding Techniques are activities you use when you feel overwhelmed by feelings, thoughts, sensations. These techniques help a person move their focus away from what is overwhelming them to something else. That something else is preferable healthy and supportive to their wellbeing. Below is a list that clients and patients have mentioned over the years of things they do that help them ground.

  • Get ice or ice water
  • Breathe – slow and deep, like blowing up a balloon.
  • Take your shoes off and rub your feet on the ground.
  • Open your eyes and look around. See yourself in a different place than.
  • Move around. Feel your body. Stretch out your arms, hands, fingers.
  • Peel an orange or a lemon. Notice the smell. Take a bite. Focus on the taste.
  • Pet your cat, dog or rabbit.
  • Spray yourself with favorite perfume.
  • Eat ice cream! Or any favorite food. Pay attention to the taste.
  • Call a friend.
  • Take a shower.
  • Take a bath.
  • Go for a walk. Feel the sunshine (or rain, or snow!)
  • Count nice things.
  • Dig in the dirt in your garden.
  • Turn lights on.
  • Play your favorite music.
  • Hug a tree!
  • Touch things around you.
  • Frozen Orange – put your nails into it – the cold and the smell can bring you back
  • Pull up the daily newspaper on your browser. Notice the date and read a current article.
  • Stomp your feet to remind yourself where you are. Press your feet firmly into the ground.
  • Try to notice where you are, your surroundings including people, sounds like the t.v. or radio.
  • Concentrate on your breathing. Take a deep cleansing breath from your diaphragm. Count the breaths as you exhale. Make sure you breath slowly so you don’t hyperventilate.
  • Cross your legs and arms. Feel the sensations of you controlling your body.
  • Call a friend and ask them to talk with you about something you have recently done together.
  • Take a warm relaxing bubble bath or a warm shower. Feel the water touching your body.
  • Mentally remind yourself that the memory was then, and it is over. Give yourself permission to not think about it right now.
  • Realize that no matter how small you feel, you are an adult.
  • Go outside and sit against a tree. Feel the bark pressing against your body. Smell the outside aromas like the grass and the leaves. Run your fingers through the grass.
  • If you are sitting, stand. If you are standing sit. Pay attention to the movement change. Reminding yourself — you are in control.
  • Rub your palms, clap your hands. Listen to the sounds. Feel the sensation.
  • Speak out loud. Say your name or significant others name.
  • Hold something that you find comforting, for some it may be a stuffed animal or a blanket. Notice how it feels in your hands. Is it hard or soft?
  • Eat something. How does it taste, sweet or sour? Is it warm or cold?
  • If you have a pet use that moment to touch them. Feel their fur and speak the animals name out loud.
  • Visualize a bright red STOP sign to help you stop the flashback and/or memory
  • Step outside. If it’s warm, feel the sun shining down on your face. If it’s cold, feel the breeze. How does it make your body feel?
  • Take a walk outside and notice your neighborhood. Pay attention to houses and count them.
  • Listen to familiar music and sing along to it. Dance to it.
  • Write in your journal. Pay attention to yourself holding the pencil. Write about what you are remembering and visualize the memory traveling out of you into the pencil and onto the paper. Tear the paper up or seal it in an envelope. Give it to your therapist for safekeeping.
  • Go online and talk with an online friend. Write an email.
  • Imagine yourself in a safe place. Feel the safety and know it.
  • Watch a favorite t.v. program or video. Play a video game.
  • If you have a garden, work in it. Feel your hands running through the dirt.
  • Wash dishes or clean your house.
  • Meditate if you are comfortable with it.
  • Exercise. Ride a bike, stationary or otherwise. Lift weights. Do jumping jacks.

Weight stigma associated with harmful #health consequences

01 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in behavior, diet, eat, emotions, Health and wellness, men, research

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Men’s health may be compromised by weight stigma, finds the latest research from the University of Connecticut.

As many as 40% of men report experiencing weight stigma, but little is known about how this stigma affects their health. This study found that men experiencing weight stigma have more depressive symptoms, are more likely to binge eat, and have lower self-rated health.  Read More at Science Daily

mid section view of a man sitting on a bench in a park

 

Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving

11 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in emotions, grounding, Health, lifestyle, positive, self talk, Wellness

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It’s no secret that stress increases your susceptibility to health problems, and it also impacts your ability to solve problems and be creative. But methods to prevent associated risks and effects have been less clear – until now.feelings-34
Published in PLOS ONE, new research from Carnegie Mellon University provides the first evidence that self-affirmation can protect against the damaging effects of stress on problem-solving performance. Understanding that self-affirmation – the process of identifying and focusing on one’s most important values – boosts stressed individuals’ problem-solving abilities will help guide future research and the development of educational interventions.
“An emerging set of published studies suggest that a brief self-affirmation activity at the beginning of a school term can boost academic grade-point averages in underperforming kids at the end of the semester. This new work suggests a mechanism for these studies, showing self-affirmation effects on actual problem-solving performance under pressure,” said J. David Creswell, assistant professor of psychology in CMU’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Because previous research indicated that self-affirmation may be an effective stress management approach, Creswell and his research team had college students rank-order a set of values (e.g., art, business, family and friends) in terms of their personal importance, and indicate their levels of chronic stress. Participants randomly assigned to a self-affirmation condition were asked to write a couple of sentences about why their number one ranked value was important (a standard self-affirmation exercise). All participants then had to complete a challenging problem-solving task under time pressure, which required creativity in order to generate correct solutions.tumblr_m7dhgp7vPe1qa9c27o1_1280
The results showed that participants who were under high levels of chronic stress during the past month had impaired problem-solving performance. In fact, they solved about 50 percent fewer problems in the task. But notably, this effect was qualified by whether participants had an opportunity to first complete the self-affirmation activity. Specifically, a brief self-affirmation was effective in eliminating the deleterious effects of chronic stress on problem-solving performance, such that chronically stressed self-affirmed participants performed under pressure at the same level as participants with low chronic stress levels.
“People under high stress can foster better problem-solving simply by taking a moment beforehand to think about something that is important to them,” Creswell said. “It’s an easy-to-use and portable strategy you can roll out before you enter that high pressure performance situation.

Yoga may boost your brain power

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in brain, breath, Creativity, emotions, Health, pain management, Relaxation, Therapy

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Yogis may be enjoying a surprising benefit when they unroll their mats and strike a pose. A new study finds that just 20 minutes of hatha yoga stimulates brain function.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign enlisted 30 subjects to take tests of working memory and inhibitory control, two measures of brain function associated with the ability to focus, retain, and use new information, the researchers said.

Subjects who took a single, 20-minute yoga session were significantly faster and more accurate on their tests than subjects who walked or jogged on a treadmill for 20 minutes.
Participants on the treadmill exercised with the goal of maintaining 60 to 70 percent of their maximum heart rate throughout the exercise session. “This range was chosen to replicate previous findings that have shown improved cognitive performance in response to this intensity,” the researchers said.1472891_10151996608469691_438298404_n

“Yoga is an ancient Indian science and way of life that includes not only physical movements and postures but also regulated breathing and meditation,” said study lead Neha Gothe. “The practice involves an active attentional or mindfulness component but its potential benefits have not been thoroughly explored.”

Subjects who practiced yoga performed a 20-minute sequence of seated, standing, and supine yoga postures, with the class ending in a meditative posture and deep breathing.

“It appears that following yoga practice, the participants were better able to focus their mental resources, process information quickly, more accurately and also learn, hold and update pieces of information more effectively than after performing an aerobic exercise bout,” Gothe said.

“The breathing and meditative exercises aim at calming the mind and body and keeping distracting thoughts away while you focus on your body, posture or breath,” she said. “Maybe these processes translate beyond yoga practice when you try to perform mental tasks or day-to-day activities.”

Findings, announced June 5, appear in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health.
A separate study published last month finds that twice-weekly yoga sessions can reduce high blood pressure. In the study, researchers led by Dr. Debbie Cohen of the University of Pennsylvania tracked 58 women and men, aged 38 to 62, for 24 weeks.

Another study published earlier this year in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry found that the practice may soothe depression and help sleep problems.

Read more:A 20-minute yoga session may boost your brain power – The Denver Post

Labeling normal kids "mentally ill"

07 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in discovery, YouTube

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ADHD Drug Side Effects http://goo.gl/rjAKh ADHD is a mental “disorder” based only on a checklist of behaviors. It is not a disease.There is no medical ADHD test to prove any kid has ADHD, yet more than 4.5 million kids have been diagnosed and put on drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta, which the U.S. DEA places in the same highly addictive category of drugs as cocaine, morphine and opium. According to the Center for Disease Control, boys are much more likely to be diagnosed “ADHD” than girls. The “checklist” for ADHD could fit all normal kid as there is no ADHD test – it is diagnosed solely by behaviors and literally includes such ridiculous criteria as the following: ” runs about or climbs excessively in situations when it is not appropriate” ” is often ‘on the go “acts as if driven by a motor” “blurts out answers” “is easily distracted” ” loses pencils or toys” “often doesn’t seem to listen”
To be perfectly clear — this is all that it takes to diagnoses a child with a ‘mental disorder’ of ADHD; a checklist of behaviors (the above is taken directly from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatry’s billing bible. There are no blood tests, brain scans, chemical imbalance tests, X-rays or “genetic” factors to prove any child has a mental “illness” called ADHD. This is simply a list of child-like behaviors that psychiatrists clustered together, repackaged as a mental disorder and the result is a multi- billion dollar empire — the child labeling and drugging industry.

http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/

Healing with art

22 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by in art, Creativity, Health, Wellness

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Gripping a cane to stabilize his stride, Bradley Books walked past the Firehouse Arts Center in Longmont, promising himself that one day his paintings and drawings would hang on the white walls.

Now four years later, the 37-year-old is inside on a weekly basis, without his cane, and facilitating a monthly program, Art of Possibility, which helps developmentally-disabled participants heal through artistic expression.

“My favorite is they always ask, ‘When are we coming back?’ And to know that’s how they feel, that then encourages me to keep working with it,” he said.

The program is two-fold because working with others also helps Books restore mentally and physically from pain that sometimes still paralyzes his mind and body. MORE HERE

Evidence based Yoga 2

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Health, Wellness, Yoga

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Yoga is a mind and body practice in complementary medicine with origins in ancient Indian philosophy. Part two of evidence based Yoga:

Carpal tunnel syndrome A randomized, single-blind controlled trial of 42 patients with carpal tunnel syndrome assigned subjects to either a yoga treatment group or a wrist splint group, each 8 weeks in duration. Twice a week, the yoga group practiced postures specifically designed to strengthen and stretch each joint in the upper body. Yoga participants showed improvement in grip strength, pain levels, and Phalen’s sign when compared to the wrist splint group. Nerve conduction studies were not performed.15 A Cochrane review of 21 trials that evaluated the clinical outcome of nonsurgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome reported that 8 weeks of yoga practice significantly reduced pain as compared to wrist splinting. The yoga was described as having a “significant short-term benefit,” though the duration of this benefit is unknown.16

Depression A 2004 review of five RCTs that evaluated yoga-based interventions for depression and depressive disorders showed some positive outcomes and no adverse effects on patients’ mild to severe depressive disorders. However, poor study design and incomplete methodologic reporting makes this interpretation preliminary.17 An RCT studying 7 weeks of yoga training in a group of breast cancer survivors showed positive changes in emotional function, depression, and mood disturbance.18 “Yoga and stress management” (in the online version of this article) provides more information on this study and others involving the effects of yoga on stress.

Irritable bowel syndrome In an RCT, treatment with loperamide (Imodium) was compared to treatment with a series of 12 yoga postures practiced twice a day for 2 months in a small sample of patients with clinically diagnosed irritable bowel syndrome. Patients underwent measurement of surface electrogastrography, and trait and state anxiety tests were administered before, during, and up to 2 months after treatment. Both intervention groups demonstrated a decrease in bowel symptoms and state anxiety.19

Menopausal symptoms In a recent pilot study, 14 postmenopausal women reported via interview and questionnaire a decrease in the severity and frequency of hot flushes after 8 weeks of 90-minute “restorative yoga” classes. Although this initial finding sounds encouraging, this trial had no control group or objective parameter measurements.20 An RCT studying postmenopausal sleep quality divided 164 women into groups who participated in either 4 months of low-intensity yoga, a moderate-intensity walking program, or a wait-list control group. This study reported no statistically significant interventional effects of any treatment on total sleep quality or on any individual sleep quality domain.21

Multiple sclerosis An RCT of 57 subjects with clinically defined multiple sclerosis were assigned to weekly Iyengar yoga class plus home practice, a cycling program, or a wait-list control group for 6 months. Results showed that both active interventions produced significant improvement in perceived levels of energy and reduced fatigue; however, the specific effects of the yoga practice were not isolated.22 Osteoarthritis In a pilot study, 11 deconditioned, yoga naive subjects with a clinical diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis showed improvements in pain and knee stiffness after 8 weeks of yoga training. The group performed modified Iyengar yoga sessions once a week.23

 

Seizure disorders In 2000, a systematic review of the published literature revealed that only one study was able to meet the selection criteria for reliable research design. The reviewers concluded that no available evidence pointed to yoga therapy as an efficacious treatment for epilepsy.24

Strength and flexibility In a recent study on the fitness related effects of hatha yoga, 10 yoga-naïve and previously untrained subjects aged 18 to 27 years participated in 85 minutes of pranayama and hatha yoga practice twice a week for 8 weeks. These subjects showed significant improvement in upper and lower body muscular strength, endurance, and flexibility. No statistically significant change in body composition or pulmonary function was observed.13
In a partial RCT with a longer time frame, 54 subjects aged 20 to 25 years participated in either 5 months of yoga instruction or no activity. After that time period, both groups practiced yoga for an additional 5 months. The group practicing 10 months of yoga showed significant improvements in shoulder, trunk, hip, and neck flexibility, as well as a reported improved performance during submaximal exercise testing.25
A well-executed study compared subjects who underwent 24 hours of hatha yoga classes over 8 weeks with a control group. The yoga training group showed a 13% to 35% improvement in flexibility, balance, and muscular endurance. The authors concluded that hatha yoga practice has significant effects on balance and flexibility.26

 

REFERENCES

1. Tindle HA, Davis RB, Phillips RS, Eisenberg DM. Trends in use of complementary and alternative medicine by US adults: 1997-2002. Altern Ther Health Med. 2005;11(1):42-49.
2. Carrico M. Yoga Journal’s Yoga Basics: The Essential Beginner’s Guide to Yoga for a Lifetime of Health and Fitness. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company; 1997.
3. Nayak NN, Shankar K. Yoga: a therapeutic approach. Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am. 2004;15(4): 783-798, vi.
4. Innes KE, Bourguignon C, Taylor AG. Risk indices associated with the insulin resistance syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and possible protection with yoga: a systematic review. J Am Board Fam Pract. 2005;18(6):491-519.
5. Raub JA. Psychophysiologic effects of Hatha yoga on musculoskeletal and cardiopulmonary function: a literature review. J Altern Complement Med. 2002;8(6):797-812.
6. Luskin FM, Newell KA, Griffith M, et al. A review of mind-body therapies in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders with implications for the elderly. Altern Ther Health Med. 2000;6(2): 46-56.
7. Jensen PS, Kenny DT. The effects of yoga on the attention and behavior of boys with attentiondeficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). J Atten Disord. 2004;7(4):205-216.
8. Kirkwood G, Rampes H, Tuffrey V, et al. Yoga for anxiety: a systematic review of the research evidence. Br J Sports Med. 2005;39(12):884-891.
9. Krisanaprakornkit T, Krisanaprakornkit W, Piyavhatkul N, Laopaiboon M. Meditation therapy for anxiety disorders. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;(1):CD004998.
10. Sabina AB, Williams AL, Wall HK, et al. Yoga intervention for adults with mild-to-moderate asthma: a pilot study. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2005;94(5):543-548.
11. Vendanthan PK, Kesavalu LN, Murthy KC, et al. Clinical study of yoga techniques in university students with asthma: a controlled study. Allergy Asthma Proc. 1998;19(1):3-9.
12. Sherman KJ, Cherkin DC, Erro J, et al. Comparing yoga, exercise, and a self-care book for chronic low back pain: a randomized, controlled trial. Ann Intern Med. 2005;143(12):849-856.
13. Tran MD, Holly RG, Lashbrook J, Amsterdam EA. Effects of Hatha yoga practice on the healthrelated aspects of physical fitness. Prev Cardiol. 2001;4(4):165-170.
14. Clay CC, Lloyd LK, Walker JL, et al. The metabolic cost of Hatha yoga. J Strength Cond Res. 2005;19(3):604-610.
15. Garfinkel MS, Singhal A, Katz WA, et al. Yoga-based intervention for carpal tunnel syndrome: a randomized trial. JAMA. 1998;280(18):1601-1603.
16. O’Connor D, Marshall S, Massy-Westropp N. Nonsurgical treatment (other than steroid injection) for carpal tunnel syndrome. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2003(1):CD003219.
17. Pilkington K, Kirkwood G, Rampes H, Richardson J. Yoga for depression: the research evidence. J Affect Disord. 2005;89(1-3):13-24.
18. Culos-Reed SN, Carlson LE, Daroux LM, Hately-Aldous S. A pilot study of yoga for breast cancer survivors: physical and psychological benefits. Psycho Oncol. 2006;15(10):891-897.
19. Taneja I, Deepak KK, Poojary G, et al. Yogic versus conventional treatment in diarrheapredominant irritable bowel syndrome: a randomized control study. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2004;29(1):19-33.
20. Cohen BE, Kanaya AM, Macer JL, et al. Feasibility and acceptability of restorative yoga for treatment of hot flushes: a pilot trial. Maturitas. 2007;56(2):198-204.
21. Elavsky S, McAuley E. Lack of perceived sleep improvement after 4-month structured exercise programs. Menopause. 2007;14(3, pt 1):535-540.
22. Oken BS, Kishiyama S, Zajdel D, et al. Randomized controlled trial of yoga and exercise in multiple sclerosis. Neurology. 2004;62(11):2058-2064.
23. Kolasinski SL, Garfinkel M, Tsai AG, et al. Iyengar yoga for treating symptoms of osteoarthritis of the knees: a pilot study. J Altern Complement Med. 2005;11(4):689-693.
24. Ramaratnam S, Sridharan K. Yoga for epilepsy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000(3):CD001524.
25. Ray US, Mukhopadhyaya S, Purkayastha SS, et al. Effect of yogic exercises on physical and mental health of young fellowship course trainees. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 2001;45(1):37-53.
26. Boehde D, Porcari JP, Greany J, et al. The physiological effects of 8 weeks of yoga training. J Cardiopulm Rehabil. 2005;25(5):290.