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Supporting Your Brain & Body Beyond Therapy
My main goal this mental health awareness month has been to provide you with free resources for supporting your brain and body beyond therapy. I’ve given you a mental health support guide and reviewed making your own safety plan.
To close out the month I’d like to give you some quick direction to support your brain and body as you go through daily life.
Despite what social media and different self-help books may tell you – there is not a formula to help you feel better quickly. No quick tricks, vagus nerve exercises, or positive affirmations are going to cure the stress of the systems we live in.
Individual therapy is something that can be helpful – but it has also been harmful for a lot of people. There are also so many barriers to actually finding and being able to afford a therapist.
Now that I have stolen your hope – I wanted to give you four categories you can experiment with as you start to focus on supporting your brain and body. If you are able to implement any changes in these categories – over time your body will be able to withstand more stress.
Sleep is the foundation of our overall well-being and the most effective thing we can do to improve our mental, physical, cognitive, and emotional well-being.
Every night when you sleep, toxins are cleared from your brain and your memories are consolidated.
A Few Hours of Sleep Deprivation Impacts:
Chronic Sleep Deprivation is Linked to:
If you do nothing else to help your brain & body: get good sleep. When I got serious about my sleep and rest, figuring out what balance worked for my brain & body – everything changed for my well-being.
Suggestions to get you started with improving your sleep:
Try to get in bed and wake up around the same time everyday (yes even on the weekends).
It does not have to be an intense workout! Just some body movement each day
- Avoid caffeine after 3pm
- Avoid alcohol before bed
- Avoid eating before bed
Go outside and see the sun when it is low in the sky. This helps set your circadian rhythm and balance hormones that help you sleep.
I found this podcast helpful when I was getting started improving my sleep:
In every moment, our brain and body is taking in information outside (environment), between (relationships), and inside (body).
When we are struggling we often disconnect with what is going on inside of us to help us cope. This is what creates trauma – disconnection.
Healing starts with reconnecting to our body and learning to read the cues again. Interoception means the interpretation of our internal world – how we sense, interpret, and regulate the signals within our body. One of the first things I do with my clients is help them reconnect to their internal worlds and improve their interoception. You don’t have to be in therapy to do this!
Try connecting with your body!
Notice these 4 categories and make changes as soon as you notice your body needs you to:
Hydration – right when you notice you are thirsty – get some water.
Temperature – too hot? cold? Adjust the temp or your clothing.
Nutrition – Hungry? Eat – that simple. Have snacks on you if it’s not a meal time.
Pain – Too often we push through pain and illness. Make an adjustment/go to the doctor if you need.
Simple stretching helps us notice the tension in our bodies, the difference between sides, etc.
For 5-7 min. per day do slow gentle stretching:
- Hold for 1 Minute
- Notice Difference Between Your Sides
- Wait until the muscle releases before moving to the next stretch.
- DON’T PUSH IT! – the point is to notice your body – not to become super flexible.
Set a timer and check in with your body 2 times a day. The goal is noticing – not changing. Can be 10 seconds or 10 minutes – whatever makes sense for you:
- How Fast is your heart beating?
- What’s your breathe like? – short, long, shallow, deep?
- Any pain in your body?
- Where does your body feel good?
- Hungry? Thirsty? Need to go to the bathroom?
We often only consider slowing our HR down if we are stressed. Do the opposite here! When you are calm – increase you HR on purpose – then try skills to practice slowing down.
- Start when Calm
- Do something to increase HR: jumping jacks, quick breathing, quick spring, dance to a song, etc.
- Stop and try a skill to slow it back down: deep breathing, stretching, walking, etc.
Western therapy is focused on the individual. Seeing you as just a group of symptoms or diagnoses that need certain interventions to be “fixed.” But… What if it’s not just you? What if there are more people with similar feelings? What if your struggles are actually “normal” in the world and systems we live in?
Humans are mammals and mammals evolved to survive in groups. This means when we are born our nervous system has two primary drives in functioning: safety & connection.
Individualism is just not in our biology. When we are isolated – our mental health is worse.
How to start building community
Mutual aide allow us to care for each other, especially when systems are failing us. Find a group that aligns with your values – this helps your community and finds other people that have similar values.
If you’re in the Waco area, check out my Resources Page to find places to volunteer.
Building community includes sharing hard things with others. Often we avoid group therapy or support groups – but I challenge you to consider connecting with others who understand your struggles.
No options in your area? Check out The Wildflower Alliance for online options.
You have to be out in the community to build community. Start going to events you find interesting – you’ll start seeing the same people and make some friends!
Here are some ideas:
Cultural Events
New Business Openings
Pride Celebrations
Festivals
Markets
Research shows we only need 2-5 close friends to feel connected. That does not happen by chance… you have to be intentional to build close connections.
Already have friends? try having more meaningful conversations.
Need friends? – find one person you might vibe with and ask them to coffee!
This might be the hardest one…
Usually when someone asks us to help with something or come to an event there is a pretty quick response within our body. We know the answer our brain and body actually want us to make. But we often say “yes” when we know we do not actually want to do that. Or, we say “no” to something that we know we want.
Learning to make our yes’s a yes and our no’s a no is essential to recovering from burnout, trauma, mental health struggles, chronic illness, etc. We need to be able to tell the difference between our yes’s and no’s and start small when pushing past the uncomfortable part disappointing people. Here is some direction to get you started!
Learning the Difference Between Your Yes’s & No’s
Here are some reflection questions to start noticing the difference between your yes’s and no’s. You can journal, use your phone, chat with a friend, take them to your therapist – whatever makes sense for you!
Changing your answers to match your body
This is the part that I mentioned might be the hardest of all my suggestions. It’s easy to give people the advice of “make your yes’s yes and your no’s no” – but there are usually so many interconnected reasons we deny our body’s needs and wants. Trauma, oppression, safety, family dysfunction, finances, etc. are just a few reasons why we may have gotten into this pattern.
So once you can recognize your body’s desire of yes and no, let’s approach answering more authentically in a compassionate and realistic way. Here are some suggestions to get started:
When you notice yourself not being authentic you may be disappointed you haven’t changed.
As much as you can, come into noticing your patterns without judging or assigning value to them.
As you start testing this out – start with SAFE PEOPLE.
Changing this defense pattern will take time and be scary. So please don’t start with your mean boss. Try it out on some kind, safe people first.
Consider the difficulty level. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most difficult, how intense is this yes or no for you?
Make sure that you are starting at low levels with low risks as your body learns you can do this.
Remember! Non-Judgement! This should be a hard thing to change – so when you accomplish taking care of your body in this – give yourself a little reward!
These are just a few ways you can start caring for you brain and body that are free and don’t require therapy! The goal here is not to push yourself to do all of these things and set up the perfect routine and schedule for the perfect mind-body balance. That’s not how change works in our brain.
The goal is to notice your body and experiment with what works for your nervous system. Choose one category to try out and when you feel like you find the right balance – choose another category to try!
If you’d like more support in working on these things you can take a peak at my neurocounseling services or somatic therapies! Reach out if you’d like to set up a consult! You can also sign up for my newsletter to get more tips or check out some of my other blogs! Good luck!
