How I Hacked My Thinking to Improve My Mental Health

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Changing your habits can affect other parts of your life

I’m practicing to become a habit-changing maven. In the last eight years, I’ve revamped my fitness and nutrition habits several times to manage various medical conditions. I’ve decided to start using the same strategies I used to teach myself to lift weights at 5:00 every morning, love running, and enjoy eating kale to tackle some other areas.

Here’s a list of the habits I’m working to cultivate right now:

• Make my bed every morning.

• Meditate to start my day.

• Journal each morning.

Three is enough for any given time. If you focus on too many areas at once, you can get overwhelmed. I have several strategies in place to cultivate these personal habits. I write them in my planner, journal about how I’m doing with each one and set reminders on my phone.

Those are all excellent strategies for changing habits, but none of them are going to get you over the fear of making a change. Do do that, you have to talk to yourself differently.

Humans are unwilling to change because of our biology

We are social, and changing our habits can disrupt our social lives. If you’ve always been a person who says they hate to exercise, a lot of your friends probably feel the same way. We identify with people who are like us. Your subconscious is afraid that if you suddenly start training for a 5K, your social ties will weaken.

People like the status quo because it’s comfortable. Changing involves risk and activates our flight or fight response. Spending your evenings numbing out on television is more comfortable than hitting the gym. Hitting the gym will hurt. Couch surfing doesn’t hurt.

Just because you’re human and risk-averse, doesn’t mean you have to allow that to run your life. You also can use reason rather than emotions to make decisions.

Change your internal monologue

Let’s start with making my bed. I’ve always said things like ”making my bed is pointless” or ”I wish I were the type of person who made my bed every morning” or my personal favorite ”I don’t have time to make my bed in the morning.”

Here’s the actual truth.

• Making my bed isn’t pointless because I love slipping into a well-made bed at night. If we look at the data, the national sleep foundation reports that people who make their beds are 19% more likely to get a good night’s sleep. (Humans love data, so don’t be afraid to use some of it to prove your point to yourself.)

• I am the type of person who does anything I decide to do. If I choose to cook crispy duck with orange glaze and caramelized onions, I’ll do it. If I decide to run a marathon, I’ll do it. If I decide not to make my bed, I’ll do that too. I can help myself accomplish anything, or hold myself back.

• I wasn’t prioritizing making my bed in the morning.

The first step to making a habit change is changing your internal monologue. I made a conscious decision to stop myself when I said “I wish I were the type of person who…” and say out loud, into a mirror, ”I make my bed every morning because I enjoy having it ready for me at bedtime.”

Then I make my damn bed. I even timed myself once to quiet that voice that tried to say I didn’t have time. It turns out it takes less than a full minute to make my bed (more data, people like that).

Obviously, I’m picking a somewhat silly example to prove the point. But, you can attack any habit change by first addressing the conversations you have with yourself. You wouldn’t tell your children or your spouse that they weren’t smart enough or strong enough to accomplish something, so why are you saying it to yourself?

What lies are you telling yourself? Make a list, and then turn them into truths

Once you’re talking with yourself in a way that will spur you to take ownership of your current condition and inspire a change, you’re ready for an action plan. Change the way you talk to yourself first: the action plan can come later.

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Maria Chapman is a freelance writer who has contributed to Elephant Journal, bizcatalyst360, and Valnet.

She first published this story on the Beautiful Voyager Medium publication.

If you enjoyed this, subscribe to her newsletter for periodic updates on her work and the work of authors she admires.

I Get More Migraines in Spring, and I Bet I'm Not Alone

Whether or not March comes in like a lion, March comes in like a lion…Photo credit

"Migraine March" is here again, and I'm not loving it.

“I have a terrible headache, I think the demons are trying to get out again.” — Unknown

For you lucky and blessed people who don’t get migraines, the month of March is wonderful, I’m sure. The hint of spring, the melting snow, the beautiful sunshine: Ahhh, spring is here at long last.

“A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache.” — Catherine the Great

Not so fantastic for us migraine sufferers. After enough years of having migraines throughout most of March I’ve coined it “Migraine March”. Oh the cruelty of the roller coaster barometric pressure changes in March! Even if March doesn’t come in like a lion, the ups and downs are brutal.

“Migraines -the only time taking a hammer to your skull seems like an appropriate solution.” Unknown

This is my chronic migraine month. At other times of the year they taper off but I still have to be vigilant though about what triggers migraines for me.

My Migraine Triggers

• Salty and aged foods including cheeses and processed meats like salami.

• M.S.G. or Monosodium glutamate. A popular preservative in foods you would not even think needed preservatives.

• Foods that contain the additive tyramine.

• Skipping meals

• Drinking alcohol and caffeine. Also eating chocolate — which has caffeine. (sorry ladies — chocolate is your enemy if you get migraines-so is red wine!)

• Artificial sweeteners like aspartame.

• Stimulating lights, loud noises, strong smells- too much sensory stimulation can trigger a migraine. (The bright sunlight of March is a killer for me- it can trigger a migraine or it can exacerbate a migraine.)

• Certain perfumes or fabric softeners. (I have walked past someone with a perfume or cologne that has instantly caused me a headache. It’s not necessarily the smell itself, but a chemical ingredient in the product that you are sensitive to. I’ve had to explain to people that it wasn’t that I didn’t like the smell—it was an ingredient in the product that gave me an instant headache and a sick stomach.

• Second hand smoke.

• Hormonal changes- prior to menstruation, during pregnancy and during menopause. (Yeah- it’s so fun to be a woman!) Changes in estrogen levels can be thanked for these migraines.

• Medications with hormones such as birth control and hormone replacement therapies. (Sometimes these meds can improve migraines however)

• Uncontrolled stress.

• Physical stress including extreme exercise, and physical exertion including sex.

• Poor posture, neck and shoulder tension.

• Jet lag.

• Low blood sugar.

• Dehydration.

• Irregular, too little or too much sleep.

• Changes in barometric pressure and weather changes.

If you live in Edmonton, Alberta and you are prone to migraines you probably have one right now. How can I say that with certainty?

Because I have one and have had an almost freaking constant migraine since March 1!

“And then a throb hits you on the left side of the head so hard that your head bobs to the right…There’s no way that came from inside your head, you think. That’s no metaphysical crisis. God just punched you in the face.” Andrew Levy

All migraines are not the same.

In the United States over 30 million people suffer from migraines.

Did you know that your migraine headache will never be the same as anybody else’s migraine? Mine aren’t even like a headache — on a really bad day they are like someone is tapping into the side of my head, just above my ear, with a pickaxe. It’s grueling and painful.

There are two major categories of migraines. (Yes of course there can’t just be one kind- we migraine sufferers are blessed with two major kinds, plus all of the sub-types of migraines.)

Migraines fall into one of two categories: Aura, or no aura?

The first is “Migraines with Aura, or Complicated Migraines.”

“It was like there were clear cut and sharp crystal prisms of light on the outside edges of my vision.” Photo credit

A kaleidoscope of visual symptoms, such as lines, shapes or flashes, seeing black dots, or tingling numbness on one side of the body happens before any head pain begins . This usually starts about 10–30 minutes before the migraine and usually lasts about an hour. About one in four people get this type of migraine.

When I had my first aura I didn’t know what was happening as I had not heard of a migraine ‘aura’ before. Scared the shit out of me. It was like there were clear cut and sharp crystal prisms of light on the outside edges of my vision.

You can temporarily lose part of your vision, or your total vision with an ‘aura’, and can also have pins and needles in your arms or legs as well as a stiff neck, shoulders or limbs.

If you experience abnormal migraine symptoms such as loss of sensation or difficulties with speech along with visual disturbances or an extremely severe headache do not ignore these symptoms. See a doctor immediately.

The second is migraines without auras, or common migraines.

These types of migraines account for about 70–90% of migraines. Nausea and vomiting accompany these migraines as well as the ‘aura’ migraines. Symptoms can include throbbing pain or pulsing on one side of the head.

There are also sub-types of migraines.

• Chronic migraine: If you have a migraine for more than 15 days in a month.

• Menstrual migraine: A pattern connected to the menstrual cycle.

• Silent migraine: Migraine without head pain. This is classified as a typical aura without headache migraine, and also includes dizziness, nausea and other visual disturbances besides aura.

• Hemiplegic migraine: Causes temporary weakness on one side of the body. A person having this type of migraine may has visual auras and pins and needles. This migraine can almost feel like a stroke.

• Abdominal migraine: A newly recognized one that affects children under the age of 14. The migraine attacks are connected to irregular function in the abdomen and gut. Other symptoms tied to this migraine can include attention deficit problems, clumsiness and delayed development.

• Brainstem aura migraines: Sounds brutal. Visual, sensory or speech and language symptoms plus two of the following: vertigo, slurred speech, tinnitus, unsteadiness, double vision or severe sensitivity to sound.

• Vestibular: A migraine that includes having vertigo. The spinning sensation of the vertigo can last from a few minutes to hours.

• Retinal migraine: When a headache causes temporary vision loss in one eye. This migraine happens to women of childbearing years, causing blindness that can last from a minute to months. Usually this blindness is reversible. For any woman who experiences this type of migraine it is strongly suggested that a specialist is seen to rule out more serious issues.

• Ice Pick Migraines/Headaches: These are the ones that I get. While the stab of pain is fleeting, the duration of these repetitive stabs of pain is killer.

• Cluster Headaches: According to the American Migraine foundation, this type of migraine is sometimes referred to as “suicide headaches”, because the pain is severe and the symptoms are extremely irritating. The symptoms include burning pain that starts above or around your eyes that can move to your temples and to the back of your head. Along with this is a runny nose and red, swollen eyes.

• Cervicogenic headaches: With these headaches the pain is caused from the neck or even possibly a lesion on the your spine. Physical therapy is usually needed along with medication to treat this type of migraine.

• Opthalmoplegic Migraine: This is most likely to occur in children and young adults. This causes intense pain behind the eye along with double vision. Paralysis of the eye muscles can cause a droopy eyelid. Vomiting and seizures can also accompany this migraine, and a doctor will most likely check for an aneurysm because of the severe symptoms.

• Status migrainosus: A very rare and serious type of migraine. These can last for over 72 hours and most often the affected person will need to be hospitalized. Hospitalization is necessary because the prolonged vomiting and nausea will cause dehydration, so intravenous treatments are required.

(I didn’t realize that there were so many different types of migraines when I started doing my research but I had to continue to list them all or I would have an incomplete story! I’ll try to keep the list of treatments shorter.)

Popular Migraine Treatments Including Pain Prevention and Pain Relief

I did not get my first migraine until I was 30. After a weekend of camping, eating chocolate, drinking some red wine and then going out for Chinese food I had my first doozie of a migraine. (And I don’t even like red wine -not sure why I was drinking it!!) I have repeatedly told people that I can’t drink red wine, and I can’t eat too much chocolate, but sure enough I get the usual boxes of chocolates at Christmas, or I am handed a bottle of red wine as a hostess gift. Free regifting items is what they become.

Migraine Pain Prevention:

• Learn to recognize your migraine triggers. Unfortunately the one thing you can’t control is the weather, but you can begin to take medication if you feel a migraine coming on or you can take daily medication if you have chronic migraines.

• Avoid sensory overstimulation -remove yourself from an overstimulating environment.

• Turn off the lights, turn off the tv, turn off the music if you feel a migraine starting.

• Try using ice packs for a numbing effect, and hot packs to relax tense muscles. Use a warm or cold shower the same way. (I once had a migraine where the side of my head got hot. Using ice packs was a must to relieve the pain.)

• In the early stages drinking a small amount of caffeine may help ward off a migraine.

• Unwind at the end of the day -have a relaxing bath, listen to soothing music.

• Eat and exercise regularly.

• Simplify your life to manage stress - adopt some stress management techniques like deep breathing or meditation.

Prescription Drugs for Migraine Prevention:

• Cardiovascular drugs (beta blockers)

• Certain antidepressants

• Anti-seizure drugs

• Injection therapy

• NSAID’S -nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, naproxen (eg. Aleve)

• Botox injections are also used for chronic migraines.

“I’ve taken Midol before. My daughters find that hilarious. I had a headache and cramps, and there were no other pain relievers with caffeine in the house.” Bob Saget

Pain Relievers:

• Over the counter pain relievers such as aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen.

• Prescribed triptans or dihydroergotamine (injection)

• Prescriptions for nausea

• Opiods or glucocorticoids (prednisone)

I take a triptan when the over the counter pain relievers are not working. However there is a very limited dosage allowed to be taken each day, so you need to be cautious if taking a triptan. They also knock me out, so I have to plan to be able to sleep for a bit if I need to take this medication. Plus they don’t always work.

Unfortunately sometimes you just have to suffer the pain of migraines.

“You look fine!” “Yes because migraines are invisible.” Unknown

Migraines suck. It has taken me three days to write this article, and only with taking lots of meds! I am thankful that I don’t often get the extreme nausea or sensitivity to light that can happen with migraines. They are a bitch to cope with.

Learning what your migraine triggers are, trying to stop a potential migraine in it’s tracks, and finding a treatment that works for you will help you get your life back from this debilitating invisible illness.

To all you migraine sufferers, I wish you relief from the pain and I am sending you hugs!

Are you a migraine sufferer? Do you get more migraines in the spring? Share in the comments below.

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Corrine Roberts is a wife, mother, avid reader, artist, and aspiring writer. She originally published an earlier version of this piece on Invisible Illness. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

Sources: Mayo Clinic, American Migraine Foundation, WebMd, Healthline, Practical Pain Management, HealthLinkBC

How I Manage My Compulsive Overthinking

Photo by Talles Alves on Unsplash

At some point or another, we all encounter things that throw us a little off course. It could be something as small as what to say when it is our turn to speak, or as big as a major impending life decision or hardship in our personal lives. Some people handle these with ease (or so they make it seem!), while others can’t help but heavily fixate on these issues.

Biological, social, and circumstantial experiences affect our mental health and well-being through their impact on how we interpret the world. Overthinking boils down to our perception of what we experience.

Think of our perception and interpretation like a tolerance level.

We all have varying levels of what we “can or can’t” handle, how we interpret and respond to stimuli, and how intensely we are affected by our experiences. Your mileage may vary.

I believe that overthinking happens to those of us who think very carefully about how we navigate and interact with the world. We are hyper-aware, which is good and bad for different reasons. Some of us pay so much attention to the finest of specifics that our brain never seems to rest. You could be walking in a large crowded space and feel as though you must plan out which way you will cross paths to get past someone — to the left or right of them? You might plan out how you’re going to ask someone where the restroom is, so you don’t end up fumbling over your words and saying something embarrassing. You might not get up to go to the bathroom during a meeting because you don’t want eyes to be drawn to you as you get up to leave the room. Overthinking can become so manifested in our everyday background thoughts that we might not even realize how much it’s consuming us.

Sometimes I won’t even know how to relay the process of my thoughts to someone else because I realize how anxious I sound. I don’t want them to catch on to my overthinking habits. I don’t want to present myself as anything but normal to people I don’t know.

Managing Compulsive Overthinking

There are two distinct components to overthinking: ruminating and worrying.

Ruminating is fixating on what we have done in the past, often wishing we had said or done something differently. You’ve probably been in a situation where you were caught off guard by a rude comment, thinking “if only I had said x to them instead of y!”

Worrying involves future tense, where we are often negatively predicting or considering what will happen in the future. “What if I go blank during my speech? What will I do if that happens? How will I recover from that?”

If you’re a compulsive over-thinker like me, you are probably very familiar with both of these predicaments. And surely, you would like to know how you can manage these tendencies.

Awareness, Problem Solving, and Keeping Busy

These components, in order, are key to working to negate the sometimes all-consuming complications of overthinking.

Awareness: Trying to avoid, ignore, or bottle up feelings can backfire if this is your go-to coping tendency. Acknowledge what is bothering you and pay attention to your thoughts in response to this. This is especially necessary if you feel like several major things are coming down on you at once. If you recognize each event or issue that is bothering you, you can better organize your thoughts and prepare for the steps you might want to take to either tackling or moving past the problem(s).

Problem Solving: For larger predicaments, evaluate whether or not there is a solution to the problem. If there is, great! Go investigate which solution will have the best outcome that reaps the highest benefit with the lowest cost. When it comes to smaller, everyday predicaments like when to do laundry (or even whether or not you should go to the bathroom in a meeting like I mentioned earlier!), give yourself 30 seconds to make a decision. Recognize that these decisions do not require especially careful thought, so aim to come to a conclusion on them right away.

Keeping Busy: If there is not a clear solution or the problem is not something you can do anything about, I like to remember the metaphor “change the channel in your head.” While I am NOT implying that it is as simple as “just stop thinking about it,” (in fact I can’t help but internally roll my eyes when told this) it makes a difference when you associate a visual example with your goal, like changing the channel. Along with this, keeping yourself busy with meaningful activities you care about assists in less fixation on a problem you have no control over. Having positive activities and memories on your mind will help even out the good/bad thought ratio.

Implications of Overthinking

It is important to note that overthinking in and of itself has varying levels of intensity and does not always indicate a mental disorder at play. Though, those with anxiety disorders may be especially susceptible to these thought patterns. It’s normal for many people to think about what they’ll say before a meeting with their boss, for example. But what isn’t so conducive is analyzing and overthinking every little movement we make. Each step onto the next stepping stone should not be so perfectly rehearsed that it is all we think about.

Are you an overthinker? Do you tend to ruminate or worry more? Share in the comments below.

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Alexa Davis is a psychology student specializing in neuroscience. Her goal is to share her knowledge about the ever-fascinating nature of human behavior.

10 Ways to Distract Yourself From Coronavirus

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We’re in the middle of lots of news/fear/anxiety about COVID-19 aka “the coronavirus". The news of the spread of the illness is everywhere, and new headlines are pouring in about transmission and death rates. Just today, Twitter announced that they are sending all employees home, and they’ll be working remotely until further notice. When an event happens that changes how people behave in their daily lives, it’s destabilizing. As I often do, I’m writing to help distract myself. If any of these ideas are helpful for you to distract yourself from coronavirus, please use them!

Photo credit

1. Look at lots and lots of photos of dogs

I swear, I can feel the oxytocin hitting my blood stream when I just glance at a photo of a dog. Like many of you, I do most of my dog stalking through Instagram. Some of my favorite accounts include: LiamthePittie, CoppersDreamRescue, HopperthePitHeeler, RocketDogRescue, IloveFamilyDog, and GreyhoundAdoptionCenter.

2. Go to the nearest park and find a dog to love on

If you don’t have one already, I mean. Fine, if you’re a cat person, you can do that too. I can’t promise it will work as well as a dog. Bonus is that through meeting a new dog, you often meet a new human too, and that can help you get distracted.

3. Turn on music right now

If you don’t know what to listen to, start with the Beautiful Voyager official playlist. In particular, listen to Alice Coltaine’s Journey in Satchidananda. It’s immediately transporting. Or to change it up, try listening to bird music!

4. Take off a layer of clothing and cool down

RBG in cross-stitch by yours truly.

Note sure why it works, exactly, but it does. Esp if you are cooling down. I literally just took off my sweater as I wrote this. Full disclosure: This isn’t a new idea of mine. I’ve written about it before, and it comes up in my book, but it really is worth doing.

5. Open some messages in a bottle

I created this Lighthouse Map of Overthinkers for situations just like this! Click around to see all of the other people all over the world who are facing this global outbreak, and remember you are not alone. Look at the words they shared by clicking on a message in a bottle. I am going to do it now myself. It really does help to feel less alone.

6. Pick up a random-ass craft project

Why is random important? Cause you don’t have to be good at it. In fact, it’s better if you AREN’T good at it. Here are a couple of ideas from one Beautiful Voyager. I actually have started cross stitching lately and though I suck at it, let me tell you, it’s a real distraction.

This is an actual place I get to walk, as long as I haul my butt off the couch.

7. Trick yourself with a smile

I recently learned that you can trick your brain into thinking you’re relaxed and happy by smiling just a little. My colleagues and I call this the half-smile, and we’re always doing it to each other, weird as it may sound.

Try it by turning the corners of your mouth up just a little.

8. Take a 1-mile walk

I know that taking a walk is on every list like this, but it’s because it actually works! Over the weekend, I forced myself to take two long walks with my dog and it was incredible how I felt it in my body (like tingly relaxation).

Since I have an anxiety disorder it is even more important for me to try to take actions like this to relax my body, which in turn relaxes my mind. Yours too!

9. Wash your hands

It is literally the only thing you can do to stop the spread of coronavirus. It’s not as much about washing your hands as it if accepting that you can’t control this entire situation. You can only control your little corner of the world. Wash your hands and know that you are taking the action you can take.

10. Share your own distraction tip in the comments below to help others

Helping others is one of the greatest, most fulfilling distractions possible. If you’ve found something that helps others with anxiety in this situation, for the love of god share it below.

xoxoxo, Meredith

What My Quarter Life Crisis Looked Like

A shot of author Elitsa Dermendzhiyska embarking on the Camino de Santiago trail.

Late one night on a hot summer five years ago I found myself in a room packed floor to ceiling with bunk beds and sweating human bodies. This was no prison or hippie commune, mind you. I had just embarked on the Camino de Santiago — a grueling journey of 800 kilometers that starts from a small village in the south of France, crosses northern Spain and ends a mere 90 km from the Atlantic ocean, in the town of Santiago de Compostela. In medieval times the road to Santiago (as the name translates to) was a major pilgrimage route culminating at the town’s eponymous cathedral, which, legend has it, holds the remains of Saint James, one of Christ’s apostles.

I am not religious but neither were most of the thousands of people who would walk the camino that summer. Unlike the ragged, world-weary, indulgence-seeking travelers of old, modern pilgrims come here clad in high-tech mountain gear and for reasons ranging from the lofty to the very prosaic. Among the people I met at various points were: Catholics looking for divine communion, garden-variety spiritualists on the hunt for energy fields and epiphanies, hedge fund managers in the throes of mid-life reckoning, recent graduates desperate to ward off adulthood for as long as they could, and a slew of curious, more practically motivated characters hoping for a soulmate, weight loss or cheap thrills.

As for me, what brought me to the camino that day in early June of 2012 was a sin I needed to atone for. At 21, I had a laughable history of actual delinquency (if you don’t count a recent jaywalking fine I’d conveniently “forgot” to pay or a number of ill-conceived attempts I’d made as a kid to get my younger sister disavowed from the family), yet I was convinced that what I’d done was odious nonetheless, perhaps even irredeemable. True, no one was coming after me, few even knew about it and even those who did, the ones who had suffered its consequences, saw it as an offshoot of my unnatural ambition. But I knew: somewhere I had gone horribly wrong. And I doubted anything could fix it.

The Camino hike is 800 kilometers, or 497 miles.

It was shortly after my college graduation. I’d come out of academia inculcated with ideas that might have made for an easy summa cum laude but that, it was beginning to dawn on me, would not survive contact with the real world, which I was now hopelessly stuck in. I had spent the previous four years under the spell of science — acing abstract math, devouring economics — with an outcome that resembled a Greek tragedy: every painstaking effort to avoid the undesirable leading inexorably straight to it.

Art along the path. Photo by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska.

Confronting the Hard Questions of Being Alive

Not that I was running from fate as a Greek hero would, but my lot was just as inevitable. Science, with its beguiling premise that things make sense, seemed to me both an answer and an escape from answering. I relished the notion of a world governed by natural laws, not one buffeted around by sheer randomness. I took solace in the idea that the giant, utter mess of existence had an inherent logic to it, could, in fact, be broken down, studied, distilled and contained in a clump of elegant equations. The promise that there was something to be had — an answer, a capital-T Truth, a meaning — meant that all the helplessness of being a child and the strangeness of being a teen and the expectations of becoming a woman would eventually amount to something. When an English professor asked the class once to think about our deepest fears, I had no trouble coming up with a ranking:

1. Meaninglessness

2. Myself

3. Public speaking

Science quelled my existential angst with a mantra I clutched onto rabidly. It went more or less like this: anything that can be measured, can be controlled; anything that can’t be measured, doesn’t exist. It was a tantalizing concept, that the world ticked with the soothing precision of a clockwork mechanism and if I could figure out the underlying calculus, I could figure out anything — from parametrizing hyperboloids to life itself.

The author with fellow hikers on the journey.

It’s here that things took a wrong turn. My newfound love of logic running into my old (and very desperate) need for certainty, I decided to take science out of the classroom and bring it to bear on my day-to-day life. In this I drew inspiration from a number of fields but mostly from economics. Its formulas and curves and diagrams put me in a state of awe for their sheer power of marrying mathematical precision and practical reality. Contrary to its reputation, economics — at least its academic rendition — wasn’t (just) about prices and interest rates. It was instead an enlightened endeavor in allocating limited resources most efficiently, a way of making decisions — from buying groceries to running a country — based on reason rather than sentiment and speculation.

"Emotion, after all, hadn’t served me well.

This, to me, was precisely what I needed. Emotion, after all, hadn’t served me well. (Back then, I could say this with a straight face, the flimsy empirical evidence of my 21 years on earth notwithstanding.) I always felt too strongly, loved too easily, dreamed too impossibly and thought too deeply — inclinations that had only got me down rabbit holes and cul-de-sacs and rock bottoms. Economics, on the other hand, stripped things down to a very simple, very sensible question: that of maximizing a limited resource — my time. How to spend my time in the most optimal way — now that was a problem I could solve without plumbing the depths of my psyche and dealing with the ensuing emotional hemorrhage.

And so from the second semester of my freshman year, I turned into a model Homo Economicus — a creature of cold rationality that draws decision trees and weighs the costs and benefits of every action and calculates the marginal utility of every hour spent doing one thing rather than another. This meant that nearly everything that gave me pure pleasure was now deemed an “inefficient” use of my “time resource”. Holing up with a book at the end of a day was out of the question. For a long time, I drifted off to sleep to the mammoth tomes of Macroeconomics I or II balanced on my sternum, their hard edges boring marks of crimson pink into my bony flesh.

Trips to the movies, once giddy adventures, turned into such guilt-ridden affairs that at one point I stopped going altogether. The opportunity cost was too high: in the two hours it would take for the plot to unravel, I could have got through Orwell’s 1984 or a whole chapter on line integrals. But the final blow was to the tea party — part monthly ritual, part improvised therapy session my friends and I concocted in our freshman year. We kept the name even though what eventually transpired had none of the implied civility of a tea party and the occasion often featured vodka instead of tea. I remember many blissful Friday evenings, us flumped on some fading blue couch in a distant corner of the dorm, counting woes, comparing miseries. It always lifted my spirits, knowing that the others had it just as bad as I did, sometimes worse even. Suffering was glue, a badge of belonging. But then I stopped going to the tea parties. Long chats into the night simply didn’t factor into my new mental calculus. For optimization purposes, I told myself, I had to stick to eight hours of sleep, undertaken ideally before midnight, when the marginal utility of each subsequent hour supposedly begins its steep decline.

"It can be too too pure."

No, I wasn’t happy. Try to live like that — no hour wasted, no Joule of energy unchanneled into some or other productive pursuit — and you end up losing your capacity to behold beauty. Not just to behold but also to bear it. I am reminded of an American tourist I once heard of who drove high up the mountains and the clean air so overpowered his lungs, clotted by big-city soot, it threw him into a violent coughing fit. He choked and rasped with pain, one arm clutched at his throat, the other grasping, blindly, for the car’s exhaust pipe. I don’t know if he really did that but the image is seared into my memory: the man sucking on the pipe, inhaling fumes to keep himself alive, to keep clean air from killing him. When I heard this story as a kid, I rolled my eyes at these Americans and their spoiled American ways. But I see now how one’s whole being can begin to reject that which must be essential to life — air or, in my case, emotion. It can be too too pure, too prickly for the person who has forged an existence on baby-proof corners and soft edges.

For me back then, happiness was not the point. Control was. And certainty. My chief motivation was to avoid the pain and the disappointment of unmet expectations, my ambition fueled not by desire to achieve but a fervent desperation not to fail. Fail what? I could never really put my finger on it. Failure, in my mind, was anything that would blow my cover, crack me open and put in front of me the questions that I knew were always there, that I yearned to forget. Who am I. What am I doing. Where am I going. What is this about.

View along the Camino de Santiago. Photo by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska.

I did forget those questions, for a while at least, thanks to the insulation from reality that my academic life so readily afforded. Science helped contrive a structure, construct a meaning, signpost experience and edit out the unexplainable bits. But once outside the halls of academia, that structure inevitably collapsed. The entire theoretic scaffolding that had held up my delusions of control crumbled, fast. No sooner had I shed my graduation gown than a million mundanities I was ill-equipped to handle had to be handled.

Such as looking for a job. I harbored some vague notion of what that job would be — something significant, something that matters — but there were no such jobs around that I could find. In my reality-distorting way, I saw myself as a kind of catcher-in-the-rye character, only instead of children I’d be catching countries in distress. From my perch at the World Bank. I’d travel to places on the brink of poverty (or, more likely, in the thick of it) and pull them out of imminent collapse, a stack of economic papers in hand. It took the straight talk of several good and patient people to disabuse me of my Holden-esque vision, to let it sink that things don’t work that way in the real world, that, to begin with, there’s always politics to muddy the spotless sensibility of economics.

Beauty along the way. Photo by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska

There was also a father who had sacrificed his own ambitions for a family and a good name, and who expected the same of his daughter, me. Our conversations, until then few and far in between, grew tense and urgent. When he talked about “job” and “family” and “house” and “prestige” — to him, the stuff of a life not wasted — the words got trapped in the air between us. They hung on heavy in the wake of another argument and lingered long afterwards. Against their unimpeachable rectitude, my own aspirations looked perversely small and selfish.

Photo by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska

I had no theory on hand to help me there. No equation I could solve for X, for “optimal route in life” or “doing well while feeling fulfilled while making Father proud”. More troubling, though, was the nagging sense that down the bone I must be a bad person. I watched as my few good friends left off, to families and new things, and watched, too, as the hallways in the dorms emptied out, people I’d seen but not really known walking past, lugging suitcases, saying goodbyes, their faces flashing in and out and away into the ether of the real world, and as I watched all this, I felt a sense of deserved abandonment. Did I, the economist, really think that invulnerability would come free of charge? That by embracing the natural laws I could somehow transcend the human laws or skip altogether the lawlessness of being a person in the world?

In hindsight, I didn’t go on the camino to find myself but to punish myself. That’s partly the reason why I went into it utterly unprepared (and also because I had no money). I took no guidebook (the route markers better be good), no hiking boots (my sneakers better hold up), no raingear (it better not rain or I’d be stranded in some godforsaken field miles from civilization or a tree). I would have even left my phone behind if it weren’t for the parents, who were told I was going on a one-month graduate school camp in Barcelona. (Every few days they’d call and I’d be sweating up a hill and they’d ask about things and I’d give them my ready-made spiel: everything’s good, Mom, we are studying Walmart’s expansion strategy into Southeast Asia and I’m just about to duck into class and really must go now, loveyoubye.)

Most of the time I just walked and walked and walked in silence. This wasn’t always easy with so many other people around, people you pass by and people who pass you by, and road etiquette demanding that you look up and greet them with a “buen camino” (literally “good path” or “have a safe trip”). I tried to wake up early and walk fast to avoid the conversations that here tend to skip over the small talk and go too deep too soon. I’d plod on in shorts and a T-shirt in the morning frost and the blistering afternoon sun, in the frequent drizzle and the occasional storm, for 30–40 kilometers of often barren land, my feet soggy from Vaseline and cramped inside two layers of woolen socks.

I remember this one village where we were summoned to evening mass. There was a beautiful old monastery built in the center of the village. There were bells ringing and a choir singing. As the other pilgrims flocked inside for mass, I dithered on the stone steps outside. I couldn’t bring myself to go inside; I didn’t feel I belonged there. In my diary that night, I wrote sarcastically about all the churchiness and holiness one encounters on the road and how I just wanted to be left alone, to ”dance with my demons”.

Photo by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska.

One sweltering afternoon about halfway on the camino I arrived in a nondescript village called Molinaseca. At its far end were two small albergues (the pilgrim equivalent of hostels) and as I approached with the dozen or so other pilgrims, it was clear where everybody would be setting up camp for the night. New and shiny, made from light polished wood, the first albergue stood in stark contrast to the second one — a dingy building whose owner might as well have jumped straight out of a horror movie.

Disheveled hair, wild eyes, one missing leg, the unmistakable smell of spirits on him, the ominous screeching noises of his cast — everything spelled trouble. And yet, as my fellow travelers filed inside the new albergue, I felt strangely drawn to that other place. Every one of my instincts shouted danger, every shred of common sense rammed into my mind told me to stay away, but a strange compulsion overrode my better judgement. I stayed . The hospitalero/bogey man made me wait outside until his official opening time at one o’clock. I sat down on my backpack and fixed my eyes on the anorexic dog by my feet while the man played checkers with his pal, mumbling indistinctly under his breath. At one he let me in. Apparently I was the only guest, although there were backpacks dropped on the dirty floor. I wondered what had happened to their owners. The whole place was dark, with the musty tang of a ghost house. The light in the bathroom didn’t work. The stairs creaked and I swallowed heavily as the man, leaning in the doorframe, pointed upstairs.

Later outside he sat me down at the flimsy table and he told me his life story — a story of love and a happy marriage, an accident that left him a cripple in his mid-twenties, the ensuing treachery of his wife, the heartbreak, the denial, the anger at God, the pilgrimage to Santiago, once, twice, thirteen times, until the demons had settled and he stayed in Molinaseca to shepherd other lunatics tangled in their own dramas. The man’s name was Elisande — which, he reckoned, made us namesakes (people call me Ellie) and kindred spirits of sorts.

I barely uttered a word the whole time he spoke and then his story ended and he stood up to bring some olive oil he’d made himself, and as he made for the outhouse in the back, he looked at me and he said “You are a good person, Ellie”.

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Elitsa Dermendzhiyska is a social entrepreneur in London & the editor of upcoming book on mental health by 15 British authors, thinkers and comedians. This essay was originally published at Mindrise.co.uk. Gratefully republished with photos by permission of the author on Jan 19, 2020.

How I Learned to Coach Myself and Calm My Mind

Retraining My Brain After a Career in Professional Baseball

By Andrew Bennett

For most of my adult life, I’ve been looking for a magic potion. Well, maybe not magic, but something close to it. After many years of what has felt like unrelenting, insurmountable anxiety, worry, and fear that all seemed to pervade virtually every aspect of my life from baseball to work to relationships, I’ve finally begun wrapping my brain around a few simple ideas that are helping me – a lot. I’ve never written about this, and I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve talked to – like, really talked to – about this. I generally don’t write about myself because I think most people don’t care, but my improvement the last six months has felt so profound that I thought it was worth sharing, in hopes of someone else finding even a small measure of inspiration or even consolation in some aspect of my journey.

I got very lucky last October. I stumbled upon an outstanding therapist – my first of any kind, other than a sports psychologist I worked with at the tail end of what I like to refer to as my “brief and unspectacular” professional baseball career. (That sports psychologist, by the way, was actually very, very good, and I’d highly recommend him to any ballplayer; unfortunately, I found him long after the last point at which my career and love for playing the game were salvageable. Look up “Steve Blass Disease” for further details.)

From my coaching days.

Through a combination of loving-but-firm encouragement from my amazing girlfriend and, well, a single Google search, I found someone who has managed to patiently, brilliantly help me begin to unravel the tangled mess of negativity that used to feel like it was consuming my brain from the inside out.

How I described my problem in the past.

I should back up a bit and describe how I used to think about my “problem.” I approached it as I imagine many former athletes might, through the lens of incremental, measurable progress: If my anxiety right now is a ten, and I want it to be zero in five years, then I need to find a process – an exercise, a drill, instruction from the proper coach – to remove one unit of anxiety every six months for the next five years, and then I’ll be happy. I don’t beat myself up (anymore) about how misguided that strategy was, because quite frankly, it worked really well for me – and led me to success – in many other, more achievement-focused facets of my life.

But here’s why that approach was, for me, doomed from the start: I clung to a belief, instilled in me by pretty much everything I read and everyone I talked to, that by thinking negative thoughts, you make them come to life. Now, to be fair, this actually did happen to me in baseball. I’d step up to the plate petrified of striking out, or look to first base fearful of making a bad throw, and those very same (or worse) negative results I visualized would time and again manifest themselves right before my eyes and before the eyes of thousands of unsympathetic fans.

I clung to avoiding negative thoughts. I believed acknowledging them made them come true. To be fair, this actually did happen in baseball.

So when – over the course of many years – those negative thoughts, left largely unacknowledged and unattended to, terrifyingly morphed into Don’t suddenly swerve into oncoming traffic, Don’t pour your hot coffee on that little kid’s head, Don’t shove that random person down the stairs, or Don’t spastically put your fist through that pane of glass, the growth in the amount of control my incessant and irrational worrying exerted over my day-to-day thinking went from linear (annoying and concerning) to exponential (downright frightening). My fear of my own thoughts was surpassed only by my frustration and helplessness at not being able to stop thinking them. As I’m sure other anxiety sufferers know, life is typically not much fun when you wake up every day scared of your own mind.

Then, two breakthroughs.

It started when my therapist, after a few months of getting to know me and beginning to understand what goes on in my head, asked me to pick a friend (I chose a very close one, someone I’ve known since childhood and love very much) and to pretend that that friend was facing my issues himself. My therapist asked me to talk – at length, it turned out – about how, very specifically, I’d show the immense compassion I’d surely feel for my friend, and about what that would feel like. I was admittedly skeptical, because it felt a little contrived, like many of the fruitless thought exercises I’d tried over the years. But when I got to a place where I could really feel – not just articulate – that hypothetical compassion, something clicked. I got it. That level of compassion, directed at myself, was my new goal. And because I would get to count up, from zero to whatever, rather than down, from ten to zero, there would no longer be the proverbial clock (an anxiety inducer itself) ticking.

Why was this so powerful for me? Because suddenly, amazingly, the intense pressure of my ten-to-zero anxiety-reduction countdown was lifted. That monster could stay at ten or double to twenty or diminish entirely without me really caring, because I had a new strategy (focused on a new, completely orthogonal variable): to take a small step each day toward showing myself the same compassion I’d show that dear friend, to grow that steadily from zero to whatever. I’m just getting started on it, but I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally reframe something that seemed destined to remain so intractable.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally reframe something that seemed destined to remain so intractable.

The second breakthrough was subtler and much more recent, and it has to do with gratitude. I’ve never really had trouble finding a place of gratitude for the challenges life has thrown at me, but it’s always been the thankful-for-hard-times-helping-me-grow-as-a-person kind of gratitude – which I don’t mean to diminish in any way. (That’s not an easy attitude to maintain, and I still struggle with it from time to time.) Rather, what my therapist is beginning to get me to see – and to be grateful for – is that a little bit of anxiety, in healthy doses and at appropriate times, can be a good thing, and can simply make you better at doing things, better at life, better at decision-making. My frustration and agony had become so intense, so blinding, that I couldn’t fathom any measure of real victory other than complete and total extinguishment of all traces of fear and worry. Not only was that absurdly unattainable, it was foolhardy and impractical. A little bit of that stuff is a good thing, and I’m becoming increasingly grateful that I’ll never have a shortage of fuel to keep me focused on doing the right thing for myself and for the people I care about.

It's worth a shot.

I didn't think anything could change. But it can. That's why I wanted to write this and share these thoughts with you.

These are just two simple, non-earth-shattering ideas; I know I’ll have other breakthroughs in the years to come that may be more powerful, or that may contradict or even entirely rewrite pieces of this. But here’s what I’ve learned: When you’ve spent years watching your brain try to claw itself out of thickening quicksand, a few simple concepts articulated by someone other than yourself can be truly transformative. I didn’t believe that, but I’m lucky enough to have someone in my life who wouldn’t give up until she convinced me to give it a shot. My hope is that these words find at least one other person who thinks talking to someone is a waste of time. I won’t pretend to be an expert or promise you results I shouldn’t, but I can promise you that it’s worth a shot.

Originally published Feb 06 2017. Updated Sept 24, 2019.

How I Adjusted My Job In Mental Health to Better Help People

Seeking out the best way to help others navigate a broken world.

By Jamie Cannon, Author/Blogger at Anxiety by Still

I am probably what you would consider an atypical therapist. I don’t focus on the theory that would work best with the problem at hand. I don’t play calming music and decorate my office with Zen gardens. Most of the time, I consider “good” therapy to be a process of problem-solving, with a strong focus on how we are all pretty much messed up.

This is not what they teach you in school.

In reality, great therapy is empathy in motion, with no hidden agenda. For decades, I have helped hundreds of children, families, and parents become the best version of themselves. I have witnessed their arguments, their broken pieces, and listened to family secrets. I have seen people with unthinkable trauma and abuse turn their lives around and find meaning again. I have watched people lose hope and give up. I have been entrusted with scars, rage, and shame.

Real life is dirty.

One of the best professors I had in college explained to me that a career in clinical therapy is akin to having other peoples’ dirty water splash you all day long. You don’t realize until you get home that you’re covered in the filth of broken hearts, fear, and humiliating secrets. By the time you cut through the layers of others’ grease, it becomes too exhausting to start scrubbing your own. This is why so many therapists give up, quit, and go into therapy themselves.

Have you ever wondered why most therapists don’t have anyone to refer their family and friends to when problems arise? I will let you in on a trade secret – it’s because we know that even your therapists are damaged.

When you spend your life helping other people mend their broken pieces, you can become extremely fragile. Their fears can become your fears. Their wounds bleed onto you. Many clinicians leave the field after realizing they are becoming slowly incapacitated by pouring their energy into others. The mental health field, as a whole, has tried to stress the importance of self-care for therapists. Unfortunately, it has done so in a very evidenced-based, research-oriented manner. While I depend heavily on research and best practice, sometimes it takes away the human side of what we do.

Therapists and other helping professionals are highly trained to march out the latest designer intervention, dress it up in fancy Sunday clothes, and earn a certificate of achievement in it immediately. We do a great job of continuing to educate ourselves while sacrificing the base of our profession. In the name of science, many therapists tend to lose the personal connection that first drew them to the field. This is often the first step to disillusionment, and disillusionment is the first step to a therapist’s demise. As helping professionals, it is vital to our well being that we recognize our human frailty.

Helping professionals are people, too.

Therapists, just like doctors or any other service individuals, are first and foremost humans. They make mistakes. They have problems of their own. Life goes on. Any individual who goes into a field that serves others is placing their own well being at enormous risk.

This is especially significant in the mental health field. Doctors can easily share stories all day long about their own surgeries or heart problems. Therapists, on the other hand, rarely spill their shameful secrets of depression, anger, and bad decisions. Therapists are actually taught to avoid self-disclosure in session – which is a positive way to maintain boundaries with clients. It becomes a problem when this practice spills into the rest of their life. A therapist who becomes unaware (or in denial) of their own struggles has taken the first step toward a cliff. As a society, we often support the false belief that therapists should be perfect. As humans, we have to recognize that we are all hurting in some way.

This is a broken world.

Throughout the threads of life that I have been exposed to as a therapist, one thing has been glaringly clear: we live in a broken world. Life can be very hard, and we can be very fragile. As a therapist, I listen without judgment. As a person, I beat myself up daily and second guess every decision I have ever made. As a therapist, I know what research shows the best way is to handle every “disorder.” As a person, I know that in the moment, I do the absolute best I can with what is available to me. As a therapist, I am staunchly neutral and unconditionally positive to help clients reach their goals, not mine. As a person, my heart hurts to know so many of us are fragmented and cracked. As a therapist, I am called to support forward movement. As a person, I am called to forgive.

What my awakening looks like.

I have somehow emerged from my therapist cocoon of self-driven productivity into an awakening. I have been given the opportunity to bridge the clinical therapy world with tangible methods of helping others through my writing. My experience as a therapist has taught me to see the fragility around me and most importantly, to laugh at myself continuously. My heart drives me to give others hope, through sharing knowledge and experience in a way that makes our very serious flaws seem manageable.

The authentic way to help others is to be yourself. Share your labors, celebrate your delights. Learn to plant the shame, hurt, and horrible mistakes so they can blossom into victory and resilience. By focusing on our communal shattered pieces, instead of pointing fingers, we begin to find healing and peace. The reality is that everyone struggles and everyone triumphs. My mission is to use my experience, professional and personal, to be a lighthouse of hope to those who are blinded by their own darkness.

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Jamie Cannon lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She is a licensed therapist and owner/writer at Anxiety Be Still.

What Mania Is Really Like

Author Hayley Watkins

Well, I’ll tell you one thing… it’s not always a euphoric feeling of happiness with enough energy to feel like you could conquer the world. I hear people say they wish they were manic. They wish they could feel that happiness. They wish they could feel that high. But, in reality, mania means way more than the feeling of an abundance of “happiness”.

Ever since I was diagnosed as bipolar, I’ve struggled to come to terms with what mania really means for me, and determining the times when I am depressed, when I am manic, and when I am in a healthy state of “in-between”. Well, what am I like when I’m really manic? Let’s see…

• I have more energy than usual.

• I don’t require as much sleep.

• I am more loving and friendly towards others.

• I am creative.

• I come up with a million new ideas, that I can write about all night long.

• My sex drive sky rockets.

While these can seem like harmless, maybe even good qualities to have, let me also tell you about the dark side that comes along with being manic.

• I talk too fast, to the point where people think I’m on something.

• I make rash decisions, that seem logical to me at the time, but, in reality, are far from logical.

• My thinking is distorted, and my thoughts are irrational.

• I have zero impulse control. I think of something and immediately act upon it without thinking of the consequences.

• I feel like I have so much love to give but am incapable of giving anything “real” at all.

• I want to stir up chaos for my own amusement. I am excruciatingly bored.

You see… mania is when you spend all the money in your bank account because you got the sudden urge to go get tattooed, only to come up short for rent, fighting with your significant other about how it’s going to get paid now.

Mania is when you have more energy than you know what to do with, so you try to fill that energy with getting drunk or high, only to not wake up in the morning, causing you to miss work and jeopardize your job.

Mania is not being able to control your sex drive or your impulses, so you cheat on the one person who loves and cares for you all because you’re just craving something to make you feel alive for 5 seconds, only to leave you crying on your bathroom floor after realizing what you’ve done.

Mania is having affairs with married men, because the “thrill” of it all ignites a fire inside of you, not caring or even comprehending that you are wreaking havoc in an entire family.
Mania is when you try drugs, because “one time won’t hurt”, causing you to lose custody of your kids, turning their lives completely upside down.

I could go on and on about the things I’ve done while manic, but the truth is, no matter how much of a “high” I was on, no matter how “fun” or “exciting” those things seemed to be in that moment, each one of them left me in a pit of heart-wrenching despair. Each one of those things has had serious consequences that left me feeling hopeless, hateful (of myself) and confused.

Mania is not fun. It is not something to take lightly. Mania is something that can ruin your life, and the lives of the people around you. It is not a game to be played with. It is not some fun euphoric happiness that ends in a slight downfall. It is real, it is raw, it doesn’t discriminate, and it leaves you with a lot of messes to clean up.
Mania is this monster inside of me fighting for first place, but the winner never comes out with anything but heartache. It is this inner feeling of absolute chaos that makes you want to build and destroy something all at the same time. It is not poetic. It is not artistic. It is not something that should be romanticized.

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Haley Watkins, from Houston TX, is a single mother of 2 who hopes to share real, raw content about the struggles of mental illness in hopes to letting people know they're not alone, as well as try to end the stigma against mental illness. She originally published this piece on Invisible Illness, a Medium publication.

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Have you ever experienced mania? Was it similar to what Hayley describes here? Share you experience in the comments.