covid19 – Inspiration and motivation

sad ethnic female leaning forward on railing of terrace and looking down

I have found it to be such a strange experience to engage in what I now deem 3-D interactions with my friends and family after a year of 2-D, electronic communication. It feels like my eyes are playing tricks on me and I have urges to reach out and touch the faces of my loved ones to see if they are really in front of me (which I do not recommend without their consent). The experience reminds me of one of those old school magic eye posters where you try to cross your eyes to reveal the hidden image.

You may also find additional thought streams pulling your attention during social interactions about:

how you look
your body language and mannerisms
urges to multitask as you may have done (sneakily) on video calls
wondering if they are judging you

This additional mental chatter takes energy and may leave you feeling more exhausted after social interactions post-lockdown. You may find that additional stress to be a negative experience and therefore you will have urges to shut down and/or cancel plans. I strongly advice against avoidance because that will only fuel the anxiety and cause your social avoidance urges to get stronger.

Fatigue: Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment & More

There is hope and there are answers for how to cope and what to do with the emotional drain and social anxiety that you experience after lengthy COVID19 lockdowns! Below you will find my three suggestions to forge a way through the mes

Call it out.

You are not alone in your experience (hence the blog) and the faster we name it as a whole, the faster we can tame it! Text your friends before or after the experience or call it out during the event and label what you noticed. “it is so weird seeing you in person, do you feel like it is a mind-trippy 3-D game to have a real human in front of you!?

2. Own it.

Even if they say “no”, that they did not have that experience, it will be helpful to you and to them, for you to take ownership of your experience and use self-validation. “I did and I guess it makes sense since we’ve been so isolate!

3. Create a coping plan.

Anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling which is why we want to avoid it. Prior to the experience I encourage you to use self-encouragement statements (“this will be worth it”, “even if I feel anxious, I can handle it”) and engage in relaxing actions so that you enter the experience with the calmest body posture and brain chemistry possible. During the experience, I encourage you to engage in self-validation (“this makes sense”), slow-deep breathing, and sensory soothing actions (apply hand lotion, use essential oils, drink cold water, use a fidget) to help you in the moment. After the experience, I encourage you to decompress with calming choices (a warm bath, a funny movie, sketching or journaling).

You are not crazy, and you are not alone in your experience of social fatigue and social anxiety. You also were not crazy in 2020 when you struggled with complete isolation. We finally seemed to adjust to the isolation and now we need to readjust. Be patient with yourself!

Inspiration, mental health

Too Much or Too Little?

March 30, 2020 Your Mental Restoration

I’m getting SO MUCH DONE! or We’ve done NOTHING…just laying round binge-watching Netflix all day. I am hearing two extremes from people since the COVID19 shelter-in-place order was enacted, and I assume it will continue over the next few weeks. Which side are you on?

Do you try to “keep up with the Jones’s, Pinterest Moms, Type-A friends in your social media feed? Are you stressing out about accomplishing everything that’s been on your to-do list? Are you trying to take advantage of all the Facebook Live free classes that people keep discussing? Be careful…you WILL hit a wall (and it’s a brick wall).

Do you find that being quarantined is an excuse to stay in your pajamas, eat all the snacks and watch endless hours of streamed TV? Have you been skipping showers and avoiding anything that resembles a routine? Be careful….you will fall into the pit (and it’s a muddy, mucky pit).

One day, if I am famous for saying anything…it will be for saying “there is no right answer; there is a more effective answer for you to reach your goals”. This is a situation in which I’d give the same advice…there isn’t a RIGHT way to quarantine…I’ve had doses of both scenarios described…I think the trick is to ask yourself every few hours (or perhaps each morning or evening), what it is that you’d like to accomplish? What would you like to be able to say you did for the previous 8 hours or the next 8 hours. If you have been working hard, it’s PERFECTLY acceptable to say “I took the day off and did nothing”! If you’ve just come to the surface after binge-watching 3 seasons of something, it’s PERFECTLY acceptable to say that you organized your sock drawer and alphabetized your DVD collection! A problem seems to occur after several days in one mode or the other without any sign of coming back to baseline.

It’s crucial that you’re kind to yourself and develop the ability to self-validate and self-encourage. Some examples of that include saying to yourself:

I am tired from _________ and that makes sense, today I’ll take it easy
I have enjoyed a few days of relaxation and now I am ready to tackle one thing off of my list
I am worthy of a break
My ideas are worth working toward

Take some time right now, close your eyes, and evaluate which side of the spectrum you’ve been on the last few days…and what is a step you can take toward the other side? I propose an ultimate goal of learning to live in the balance (not balanced…as that doesn’t exist…but living in the middle range of the teeter totter, more so than at the extremes.)

DBT, Inspiration, mental health

The Other Antidote for Depression

March 24, 2020March 24, 2020 Your Mental Restoration

If you’ve experienced depression I am sure you’ve heard (once or twice) that you should exercise to improve your mood. That advice isn’t wrong; and yet, it isn’t easy. I am here to let you know that there is another very powerful antidote for depression and it takes the form of the DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) skill of BUILDing MASTERY.

Build Mastery is a very small skill in the DBT manual (which makes me sad) but it packs a powerful punch. To build mastery is to spend time developing a skill/talent/hobby/activity. It is important that you understand the following table:

Too Easy	No effect, could backfire and make you feel infantilized
Challenging	Builds self-worth/self-esteem
Too Hard	Likely leads to you feeling incompetent

The task that you choose to work on (let’s take running a 5k as an example) needs to fall in the middle row: challenging. If you decide, with no prior training to run a full marathon (too hard), you will injure yourself, fail and probably feel worse about yourself. If you choose to walk to 10 paces forward (too easy), you won’t feel any sense of accomplishment because that’s too easy! You won’t continue to work toward your goal of running and therefore will feel like the exercise was pointless. The sweet spot involves breaking your goal of running a 5k into reasonable and tangible steps (such as researching and purchasing running shoes, finding local trails/parks, downloading Couch 2 5k or joining a running club, sharing your plan with others, beginning to work up to short jogs and slowly lengthening the distance.

Lets say, you hate running and now you’re angry that I suggested that. Fair enough…you can build mastery in almost any area!

Gardening
Cleaning
Sewing
Painting
Learning a language
Computer coding
Playing chess
Cooking
Any sport
Reading (longer books, more complex books)
Home repairs
Budgeting
Crafting

I think build mastery is an attainable skill over this quarantine! I have been brushing up on my watercolor skills as a way to reduce stress and practice a challenging activity. Take some time to think about what you could work on!

DBT, Inspiration, mental health

Where Do I Begin?

March 23, 2020 Your Mental Restoration

As boredom sets in during this COVID-19 crisis, I have noticed the increased need for structure and a schedule. So, the age-old question becomes even more pertinent: where do I begin?

I really can’t begin to label or quantify the value of good self-care. Humans are equipped with amazing capabilities to self-regulate…if only we had the energy and desire to use them! In DBT, there is a skill (acronym) called the PLEASE skill, and I believe it is the answer to the question posed above.

I am going to focus on three components of PLEASE: Sleeping, Eating, and Exercising.

Sleep. Just do it, stop fighting it…put your Smartphone away and close your eyes. Did you know that your brain cannot convert anything into memory until you are asleep? The Disney Pixar movie Inside Out had a lot of great content that helps drive this point home (it was quite factually accurate!). In the movie, the main character Riley didn’t have her memory balls moved from short-term memory into her long-term memory until she slept! Our bodies are not machines; on a cellular level your body needs sleep to repair itself. Sleep allows time for the immune system to do its job and ward off viruses and bacterial infections. During this time of illness-anxiety, sleep is a kind gesture you can do for yourself to maximize the immunity in your own body! Sleep will also help you reduce your overall stress level. So next time you want to watch the next episode on Netflix, play the next level on a game, or return one more e-mail, ask yourself what you need more: your health and sanity or screen time…

Eat. A balanced diet helps alleviate mood swings. We (generalizing for Americans) live on a cycle of sugar highs and sugar lows. We have a habit of eating low quality breakfast (…if we eat any breakfast at all…) which floods the brain with chemicals and overwhelms our neuro-functioning; this results in you feeling hyper, a spike of motivation, and a burst of energy (yay!). As a result of this flooding however; our bodies secrete insulin to suck up all the sugar like a vacuum leaving us feeling lethargic and moody (not so yay…). This cycle repeats itself after lunch and dinner as well. Think about it…when do you reach for the candy bar? 10am, 2pm, 9pm…a few hours after each meal! Eating a balanced diet of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats ensures that our food (including a healthy amount of sugar) gets broken down over time and reduces that roller coaster of moodiness. While in quarantine, I want you to focus on mindful eating and try to keep it balanced and healthy!

Exercise. I feel like this is a mute point in some ways. My goal is not to be preachy; it is to motivate you into action. The science behind working out is limitless and boils down to this: if you move your body your mind will feel better. Physical exercise can helps your brain secret endorphins, adrenaline, and dopamine…all of which alleviate depressive symptoms. Consider for a moment the cost of getting those chemicals elsewhere: prescription drugs, theme parks, extramarital affairs… Are those effective or realistic on a regular basis? Exercise also builds mastery. If you become fluent and experienced in a form of movement (yoga, running, lifting weights) it will build your confidence and overall satisfaction in life. What can you do from home? I have seen a wide variety of online videos being posted on Facebook from different organizations, there are a seemingly limitless supply on YouTube, or you could go for a walk around your neighborhood.

For the full PLEASE skill, please refer to this graphic:

please skill