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Are you finding yourself feeling down, depressed and having no motivation?

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 22:58:59 GMT

Have you noticed your mood is a little off or that your energy level is low and that you are you feeling down, depressed, hopeless or sad? You may be experiencing symptoms of depression. Included below is a great description from the American Psychiatry Association:

Depression (major depressive disorder) is a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Fortunately, it is also treatable. Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.

Depression symptoms can vary from mild to severe and can include:

Feeling sad or having a depressed mood

Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed

Changes in appetite — weight loss or gain unrelated to dieting

Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

Loss of energy or increased fatigue

Increase in purposeless physical activity (e.g., hand-wringing or pacing) or slowed movements and speech (actions observable by others)

Feeling worthless or guilty

Difficulty thinking, concentrating or making decisions

Thoughts of death or suicide

If you have been experiencing any of these issues, it might be time for us to talk . I have the skills and resources to help you improve your life.

How Do You Take A Forest Bath?

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 21:00:00 GMT

By Leila Levinson, JD, LMSW

This blog is so helpful and reminds us of the healing power of nature. I could not have articulated this any better.

When was the last time you sat in the woods with no purpose other than to be surrounded by trees? This immersion in nature is what the Japanese call “forest bathing” or shinrin-yoku. Shinrin in Japanese means “forest,” and yoku means “bath.” And just as when you immerse yourself in a tub of warm water and do nothing other than close your eyes and feel your body relax, when you forest bathe, you do nothing other than open your senses fully to the sensations of the trees: the fragrances of the leaves, the music of the birds and sounds of the leaves in the wind, the feelings of the soil and twigs. You allow your mind to quiet down, to let go, to meld with the woods.

Over the last couple of decades, a new disorder has appeared among Americans: nature deficit disorder. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American spends only 7% of their entire life outdoors . A great deal of that time is on the computer, working, consuming, or on social media. Even children, who once spent most of their childhoods playing outside, now typically spend a great deal of time with electronics indoors. The pandemic has accentuated these trends, especially for people in urban areas.

Forest bathing began in Japan in the late 1980’s when Japanese began experiencing unprecedented stress levels due to economic pressures. Its government turned to its Forest Agency to offer a remedy. It developed the concept of forest bathing, based on Japanese culture’s reverence for nature, a reverence that has enabled not only the preservation of their forests but their vitality. Forests cover nearly 70% of Japanese total land area , which is remarkable given that the country’s human population is a little less than half of the United States’ but in a land mass that is 2,502% is smaller than that of the U.S.!

What the Japanese Forest Agency discovered was that spending time surrounded by trees dramatically reduced a person’s stress, anxiety, and depression. Even more striking were the unanticipated consequences: forest bathing strengthens the immune system, improves cardiovascular and metabolic health, and boosts overall well-being. Dr. Qing Li, a Japanese medical doctor who is the world’s leading expert in the relatively new field of forest medicine, has delineated the sources of forests’ healing power: the higher concentration of oxygen that exists in a forest, as compared to an urban setting, and the presence of plant chemicals called phytoncides—natural oils that are part of a plant’s defense system against bacteria, insects, and fungi. As Dr. Li lays out in his book Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness , phytoncides lower blood pressure and heart rates. Pine forests have the most potent therapeutic effect, as evergreen trees produce the greatest concentrations of phytoncides.

It is important to understand that hiking in the woods, mountain biking, rock climbing are not forest bathing. Essential to forest bathing is that you have no agenda, no intention, no purpose other than to be still, to be present, to be in the moment. In this way, forest bathing shares much with mindfulness meditation, as both encourage being fully present with your senses, to let your thoughts go as easily as they come, and to quiet your ego. But while mindfulness seeks to create a state of focused relaxation, forest bathing seeks to create a state of communion with the natural world. To become, again, a creature of nature rather than apart from it.

I combine my hikes with forest bathing, dedicating 20-30 minutes of my time to sitting under a tree, letting myself feel the ground solid underneath me, closing my eyes and feeling the trees, the dirt, the plants and fauna. I breathe it all in, slowly, then exhale out my tension and stress. Sometimes I lie down and look up at the canopy, the branches framing the sky. I feel how them enwrap me, cradle me. I let the forest take care of me. When I leave, I feel cleansed, renewed, and take that sustenance home with me.

Through such reconnection, forest bathing fosters the continued life of the forests themselves. Our American forests are stressed, showing increased signs of disease and weakness, vulnerable to fire and pests—all because of human activity and neglect, indifference. Forest bathing allows us to know that we belong to the web of life, that our lives are interdependent with all other forms of life. If humans are to thrive, the natural world must thrive. We can begin to heal ourselves and our world today merely by taking a long, deliberative, and slow walk in the woods. Stop and inhale the musky odors of leaves turning red and gold. Hear the music of the wind swaying the branches. Feel the spongy moss, the contours of the bark, the grains of the dirt. Stand with your back supported by a tree and let its life force fill you and renew you. And give thanks for its canopy.

(Note: To ensure social distancing even in the woods, many cities such as Austin have instituted a reservation system for accessing greenbelts and nature trails. Be sure to check your city’s parks website before you head out!)

Photo by Rural Explorer on Unsplash

The post How Do You Take A Forest Bath? appeared first on Just Mind .

Social Media Might Be Giving You Imposter Syndrome. Here’s How to Stop It.

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 01:53:00 GMT

By William Schroeder, LPC

Before there was Instagram, there was the gym.

Growing up in the ’90s, I didn’t spend hours scrolling through the feeds of friends and celebrities, comparing my life to theirs. But 4-5 times a week, after school, I would head over to Cureton’s Gym on Metairie Road and spend hours lifting dumbbells as I silently compared myself to the other gym goers, who I watched out of the corner of my eye as I lifted weights to Jock Jams on my Sony Walkman.

Let me first say that I was a scrawny kid growing up and always challenged with being underweight. This became a huge challenge for me in high school. In college, every day at the gym was a war for me and my friends Ross and James. The only thing we were focused on was lifting more than we had the previous week. James would even wear the same Jesuit Blue Jays shirt over and over because of superstitions about it helping him to bench more. The group of us were there to support each other and to laugh a bit too.

There’s no better way to make yourself feel small than by comparing yourself to others. It’s a habit that makes you doubt your own talents and abilities. Often, even when you receive recognition for those things, you still doubt them, and you may even worry about being exposed as a fraud.

There’s a term for this behavior, which is increasingly better understood: Imposter Syndrome.

We’ve always had ways of engaging in the comparison trap, but with the rise of social media, it’s almost impossible to escape.

At its best, social media can be inspiring. But it can also lead to deeply unhelpful comparisons. You no longer have just the people in your line of sight to contend with—the equivalent of your fellow gym goers—you risk comparing yourself to the entire world.

There are three main types of comparison promoted by social media, and each comes with its own challenges:

Whether your point of comparison is fitness or coding, the ability to compare yourself to others has never been so vast, and it has very real emotional implications.

Here are some of the negative impacts social media can have on your life, as well as advice for how to take back control.

1. Social media can lead to feelings of anxiety or depression

It doesn’t require a far mental leap to see how constantly comparing yourself to others might lead to anxiety and depression, as you feel like you’ll never measure up. Comparing your body type to someone else’s—especially a professional athlete or someone whose life is focused around fitness—can only lead to making you feel bad about yourself.

In pre-COVID days (ah, simpler times), it was easy to compare your life to those of people who traveled all the time or appeared to enjoy a lavish lifestyle.

If we’re consistently focused on things we don’t have, can’t afford, can’t easily attain, or simply don’t align with our body type, we can experience deep frustration that can quickly evolve into anxiety and depression.

2. Social media can lead to lost sleep

We all know that an anxious mind can mess with your ability to fall asleep. Have you also noticed how people you see on social media frequently end up in your dreams?

Social media, and our phones in general, are designed to capitalize on behavioral psychology. Their sole purpose is to increase engagement rates. This stimulation can not only keep you awake, but it can add to your anxiety, as social media and phone usage stimulates endorphins and adrenal glands.

3. Social media can lead to low self-esteem

A constant focus on comparison can result in a painful cycle, in which those suffering from low self-esteem or mild depression are more likely to make frequent social comparisons, and these comparisons in turn make them feel even worse. This creates a incredibly negative (and sometimes dangerous) loop.

4. Social media can lead to excessive stress

In fitness, there’s a saying: “You are what you eat.” The same goes for social media. If you’re constantly consuming things that make you feel like you should be something other than what you are, you’re bound to be stressed. If I compare my own fitness journey to that of a guru like Tony Horton, Joel Freeman, or Amoila Cesar, I’m only going to get frustrated.

5. Social media can lead to loneliness

Social media can be very emotionally charged. Take, for instance, the election cycle we’ve just come out of, in which constant attack ads from both parties pushed people to not only vote but donate money.

Social media has made this process so toxic that we are in a state of negative sentiment override. In marriage, this looks like when you get so resentful toward your partner that you begin to hate even the little things, like the way your partner holds their fork, in addition to the bigger issues. The ratio of positive to negative interactions is so off balance that you develop contempt, and this is the same thing that has happened in politics.

To a certain extent, the role models we see on social media can have a positive effect on us, as they can inspire certain positive forms of self-improvement. But this effect can also go too far.

As a therapist, I see clients all the time who are pushing themselves to be like their role models … to drive a certain car, have a podcast, create a life that looks a certain way online, have elite life experiences, focus on self-improvement to the point where they don’t recognize the person in the mirror. At a certain point, you can’t be real, and it’s isolating.

6. Social media cuts down our quality time

We’ve lost a lot of quality time in our lives as a result of our scrolling and our quest for likes: Time to connect with our partner, kids, family; for reading and imagination; for intimacy and connection.

So how can you tell if you need a break from social media, or if you should cut back on your consumption?

It’s really as simple as answering this question: Do you wonder if your time online is making you unhappy?

If it’s a question you ask yourself, then it’s probably your answer. I’d also suggest watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix as it pertains to this exact issue. As a therapist, I see rising levels of loneliness, isolation, depression, and anxiety, and it’s all linked to social media.

Here’s how to cut back:

If you’re interested in putting a little more space between yourself and social media, I think a first good step is to look at how much you use your phone, tablet, or computer. Try keeping a rough log, or reference the screen usage details that are included on most phones these days (such as the Screen Time app on iOS).

Once you see the amount of time you spend on your devices, look at what apps and activities are eating up that time and think about what apps and notifications you can remove to lower temptation and distraction.

Personally, I only use Facebook on my laptop, and I don’t let it send me notifications. I also shut off notifications for many other apps, as well as the ability for social apps to be used over cellular networks. I simply removed the apps that were eating up my time, such as Reddit and Apple News.

Lately, I’ve also been using the iOS Bedtime app to encourage me to turn off my device at a better time.

Another option? Just take a full gadget break. I have a buddy who only turns on his phone a few times a day to check messages. The rest of the time, he focuses on reading, writing, yoga, and self-care.

What are your favorite tips for disengaging with social media? Tweet us and let us know.

Photo by Josh Rose on Unsplash

The post Social Media Might Be Giving You Imposter Syndrome. Here’s How to Stop It. appeared first on Just Mind .