Mind Body Connection

The mind body connection is part of the unique human experience. The mind body connection is a term that reflects the idea that our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and experiences impact our bodies and physical experiences. When mental health symptoms are worsened, it can heighten a person’s sensation of pain and reduce the efficacy of their immune system against illness. Also, those with numerous experiences of trauma are more likely to have mental and physical health issues. Conversely, how we treat our bodies can influence our mental health, positively or negatively. Sleep, nutrition, and exercise all play a vital role in mental well-being. Many of us are familiar with the experience of being hangry – or hungry and angry – a term which in and of itself illustrates this idea that our body’s internal experience can impact our mind, namely mood. Let’s review some ways to nurture your mind body connection, using the DBT skill of ABC PLEASE as a framework. ABC PLEASE stands for:

A – Accumulate Positive Experiences

B – Build Mastery

C – Cope Ahead

PL – Treat Physical illness

E – Eat a Balanced Diet

A – Avoid Mood-Altering Substances

S – Maintain Good Sleep

E – Exercise regularly

Your Mind

Do enjoyable activities. It is important that you make time for leisurely, pleasurable activities in your life. One sign of depression is anhedonia, or the inability to experience joy when doing things that you may typically enjoy when you are feeling well. The more time you spend doing activities you enjoy, the more time your brain spends experiencing positive emotions and pumping out those neurotransmitters that promote positive thinking!

Do things that make you feel capable! When we complete tasks that we feel good at, it can help us feel more confident. Find a new hobby – like building model cars or hiking. Each time you master something more difficult, start a new project that is slightly harder. Spending time doing activities that make us feel competent builds our self-esteem and therefore positive thinking.

Think about and plan how you will cope with hard experiences. Practicing your coping skills when you are feeling well is really important to helping your coping skills be effective when you need them most. If you know about a stressful situation coming down the pipeline, plan what coping skills you will use or who you will seek support from to manage the stress.

Your Body

If you are sick, seek medical attention! It is important that if you are not feeling well, to treat your body with extra care and kindness. Lingering illness can negatively impact our moods simply because we don’t feel well, we are isolated from our loved ones, and we may miss work or social experiences, leading to more stress.  See a doctor for medical treatment or medications that may help you feel better!

Eat a balanced diet. It is important to balance health with joy – this means making sure you eat nutrient rich foods like fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean meats to meet your body’s needs, while also allowing yourself to enjoy a little treat here and there. Keeping yourself from foods you enjoy completely is not sustainable and can decrease mood! Besides, think about it – if you keep yourself from eating a handful of chips but are craving them, how often have you found yourself then going and eating the whole bag? It is better to indulge a little and watch the portion sizes than restrict and binge later.

Refrain from drug and alcohol use. Often people go to happy hour or go out with friends to try and lift their mood. Frankly, alcohol is a depressant. If your mood is already low, using alcohol is not going to do you any favors. Drugs, including marijuana, are also mood-altering and can interfere with your body’s ability to manage your emotions, worsen mood swings, and exacerbate anxiety. Some may use drugs and alcohol to numb themselves, which leads to avoidance from whatever is causing their anxiety. This may help in the short term, but it will actually exacerbates anxiety long term due to continued avoidance. Facing your stressors rather than avoiding them with mood altering substances will help reduce anxiety. Consider abstaining from alcohol if you are not feeling well mentally and physically.

Keep a regular sleep schedule. NIH recommends adults get seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day can help regulate your sleep and, subsequently, your mood. If you have difficulty falling asleep, try putting your phone away about one hour before you go to bed. Tossing and turning? Don’t just sit in bed, it will only make you more frustrated. Get out of bed and do a non-electronic activity, meaning don’t use anything with a screen. The blue light emitted from a screen can further interfere with your circadian rhythm, or your body’s natural internal clock that tells the difference between night and day.

Get your body moving. Regular exercise helps regulate your mood as well and is like a natural anti-depressant. Exercise helps your body manage extreme emotions and remain resilient in the face of obstacles. This doesn’t necessarily mean doing high intensity exercise seven days a week, but can look like taking a short walk at lunch or with your dog after work. Maybe you take your kiddo to the playground and chase them for 30 minutes. It doesn’t have to be classic “exercise” – be creative!

In conclusion, nurturing the mind-body connection is essential to achieving overall well-being. The reciprocal relationship between mental and physical health means that how we care for our minds directly affects our bodies and vice versa. By incorporating practices like ABC PLEASE, we can foster this connection through simple, everyday habits. Prioritizing positive experiences, mastering new skills, and planning for challenging moments strengthens our minds, while maintaining physical health through proper nutrition, sleep, and exercise builds resilience. By consciously attending to both aspects of our being, we can create a more balanced, fulfilling life.

Reducing Stress in the Age of Social Media

Reducing stress can often be stressful itself. Between our jobs, families, friends, and household tasks, finding time for ourselves to relax can be difficult. Many people, whether intentional or not, have settled with spending their free time on their phones, doom-scrolling on the never-ending feeds of Facebook, Instagram, X, and the like. While at face value this may seem “relaxing,” it can often contribute to our stress. We are inundated with information online, both positive and negative. The likes and shares we receive online give us instant hits of dopamine, the neurotransmitter in our brains responsible for pleasure. This reinforces us coming back for more. Conversely, we also receive constant news updates about politics, wars, natural disasters, and public emergencies. We also may compare ourselves to those within our social network – the marriages, births, graduations, promotions, health journeys, you name it. The negativity inevitably triggers our natural stress response.

At the core of our nervous system lies the reptilian brain, a very primitive part of the brain that is comprised of structures that control vital processes in the body. This includes functions like breathing, heart rate, and temperature control. It also controls our fight, flight, or freeze response – an automatic, protective, and instinctual response to perceived threats. The fight, flight, or freeze response is very fast and effective. Imagine a cheetah chasing an antelope –the antelope is running as fast as it can to protect itself. Its reptilian brain is hard at work! Its breathing faster, its heart rate is up, and its sweating to keep cool so it can continue to run away. This is what the reptilian brain was intended for, to respond to physical threats of danger.

In modern America though, we more often find our fight, flight, or freeze response engaged at quite different threats. Social media, as previously mentioned, floods us with what feels like constant streams of negativity. It’s almost as if we are in a low-level fight, flight, or freeze response at all times, prepared for the next tragic piece of news. Remember the antelope? Breathing faster, heart beating faster, sweating – these are all also symptoms of anxiety. Our bodies are responding to modern stressors in the ways it knows how to protect us best, the way it has always protected us.

The reality is that our bodies did not evolve in a way that can physiologically manage a global amount of tragic news. Living with such high stress levels can lead to developing mental health disorders and serious physical illnesses, including cardiovascular conditions like high blood pressure and heart disease. Additionally, stress can also interfere with getting restful sleep. Not only that, but the blue light emitted from the screens of our phones, TVs, and computers disrupts our circadian rhythms, or our body’s sleep-wake cycle. And you guessed it – not getting sleep can make us vulnerable to being stressed!

Regularly bearing witness to violence through the media is not the only digital stimulus that has this effect. Video games can trigger a stress response, as well. Video games and social media provide constant visual stimulation that results in a flood of dopamine in the brain that cannot be matched in the “real world.” Our brains are neuroplastic, which means they are physically changing as we learn. Therefore, as we use media, our brains adapt to function as effectively as possible. Repeated use of video games and social media change our focus. The instant gratification we get online decreases our attention spans, which does not serve us well offline. As we try to do our jobs and take care of our families, not being able to focus can intensify our frustration and stress.

Social connections help us lead meaningful and fulfilling lives. This may be why social media and multiplayer video games have such an appeal – they are tools that market social connection, but ultimately create disconnection.  All to often, we find ourselves in a room of people, all staring at our phones, not talking to each other. Or we forego social plans all together to sit at home and scroll. Why put in the energy to get ready to go out when you can just entertain yourself at home? We end up isolated with limited social support. Without using our social skills regularly, they may end up deteriorating. Many people may share the collective memory of that first time you went out after COVID – it felt awkward! Isolation decreases our access to social supports and outlets. It leaves us vulnerable to comparing ourselves to others online, loneliness, and a tendency to let stress build up.

So, what can you do about this?

Use screens in moderation – it can help in more ways than one. Limiting screen time can lessen your body’s constant stress response and improve focus and sleep. Next time you find yourself picking up your phone, see it as an opportunity to create plans with friends. Prioritizing spending time with others in person can meet our social needs without the need for social media. Sometimes, it can feel difficult to have the self-restraint to just stop or limit using screens. There are numerous apps that can help by blocking user-chosen apps or locking your phone during certain hours of the day, while leaving necessary functions of your phone accessible, to keep you off your phone. If you are only interested in limiting your access to social media, maybe have a trusted friend change your passwords to take a vacation from the doom-scrolling. Consider setting a goal for how much time you want to spend on a screen and use that as a guide.

I would encourage you to get curious about your own relationship to screen time. How much time are you spending on a screen? How is it impacting you, personally?  It may be time for a change.

In the News - Baltimore Sun

Check out my latest article in the Baltimore Sun about caring for your teen this summer!

https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/07/09/look-out-for-your-teens-mental-health-this-summer-guest-commentary/