How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Depression

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Did you know that there is new type of computer science being incorporated in mental health treatments? Artificial intelligence (also known as machine intelligence) is best known for the development of “smart machines” that can think and act like humans. Studies reveal that it can understand mood disorders and predict if an antidepressant can help to treat depression based on a patient’s brain condition.  

Even newer  studies reveal that artificial intelligence can help doctors to diagnose depression symptoms accurately and suggest treatments accordingly. In the last 25 years, the intake of antidepressants has increased by 65%. This makes it all the more important to understand the various aspects of depression and suggest adequate treatment.

 If you’ve ever hopefully taken an antidepressant, then learned it wasn’t effective, you know how shattering for the experience can be. The hope is beginning to be realized: artificial intelligence can help patients to avoid experimenting with various medications and their side-effects. By using a huge amount of data to understand the brain activity of people and predict which patients will improve with medications, artificial intelligence programs can improve accuracy with less need for trial and error. Moreover, artificial programs can also help to identify the patients who are likely to improve with psychotherapy and brain stimulation instead of medication.

3 Ways Machine Learning Makes Depression Treatment Easier 

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1. Individuals can seek help 24-7 using machine learning apps.

   The best part of artificial intelligence is that it is available 24-7 at a negligible cost. Download apps like Wysa, WoeBot, Tess, Youper to see if they help you. The programs are developed in a way that anyone can use them anytime, anywhere.  The artificial intelligence programs ask questions in order to help understand how to help patients, establishing a therapeutic rapport with them. It takes time for the app to complete the entire process but the result is good as there is better detection. The app can suggest a treatment that may help to fulfill the emotional needs and requirements of an individual. 

   If you want to go for traditional counseling, you have to schedule an appointment with the therapist for 50 minutes or more in a week. This means the therapist needs to find a slot in his/her schedule for you. And, you have to check if you can fit in your busy schedule.  You have to take leave from work or school to attend the session with the psychiatrist or therapist. You have to make all the necessary arrangements with school, college, and office for attending the session. And, this is not all. You have to waste a huge amount of time commuting to the mental health clinic.  The best part of artificial intelligence programs is that you can access mental health resources at your convenience. You can explore them at midnight, during your holidays, or at lunch break in the office. The choice is yours. And, the icing on the cake is that these programs are quite cost-effective. You won’t have to worry about spending too much on them. 

2. Machine learning apps ensure your privacy.

   Technology provides privacy and anonymity, which is a boon for people suffering from major depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, or any other mental health issue. The stigma attached to mental disorders often stops individuals from seeking help. Plus, many individuals feel embarrassed to speak about their problems up front. The apps developed by artificial intelligence programs help individuals to get mental health treatment anonymously. 

   Individuals can get mental health services at their home only. There is no fear of bumping into someone while going to the therapist’s clinic. No one can know that they are receiving mental health care. For some people, sharing emotional vulnerabilities, feelings, hurt, pangs, traumatic experiences, etc. face-to-face is extremely difficult. They feel much more comfortable in sharing their feelings through a screen. 

3. Machine learning apps connect therapists with individuals.

   An integral part of the healing process is striking the right connection with the counselor. Unless there is a great bond between the therapist and the individual, it’s difficult to get effective results. Apps developed by artificial programs are based on a gigantic amount of data and research. These programs help individuals to feel connected. As such, they feel free to express their dilemmas and feelings. The trust factor is there. Without trust, it’s tough to provide emotional support to individuals. There is yet another added advantage of apps run by artificial intelligence programs. People can get connected with mental health resources in the most challenging situations. For instance, in remote locations, it’s tough to get access to mental health care. Even if there are resources, they may not be enough to cater to the demands of the entire population. Technology-based apps can help to bridge that gap even if the individuals are at the farthest corner of the world.

Some Final Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence programs and apps help to break all the barriers to mental health care. Individuals shed their inhibition and seek help from the therapists and psychiatrists. This is a great benefit of artificial intelligence programs. But there are a few limitations: For instance, clinicians are still getting up to speed on how to use these kinds of apps! As are users. We’re just starting this journey, but it will be fascinating to keep an eye Otherwise, they won’t be able to get the benefits and get healed completely.

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Ralph Macey works with the mental health clinic SavantCare. HIs work involves removing the social stigma associated with chronic mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dementia, ADHD, depression, loneliness, and PTSD.

You can connect with him here.

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.

Your Comprehensive Guide to Kids and Anxiety

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Early support and treatment really does make a difference.

Anxiety in children has been diagnosed an at increasingly higher rate in the past few years. Here’s some information from the CDC:

• 7.1 percent of children aged 3-17 years (approximately 4.4 million) have diagnosed anxiety

• For children aged 3-17 years with anxiety, more than 1 in 3 also have behavior problems (37.9%) and about 1 in 3 also have depression (32.3%)

• Among children living below 100% of the federal poverty level, more than 1 in 5 (22%) had a mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder.

• Age and poverty level affected the likelihood of children receiving treatment for anxiety, depression, or behavior problems.

Children who receive support and treatment early—as soon as possible after symptoms start—will have a better chance of successfully managing their anxiety. That’s why it is so important that parents (as well as teachers and other adults who interact with children) know the signs, and what to do to help a child who may have anxiety. 

More pressure means more anxiety

Dr Patti Ashley

The increase in anxiety among children likely can be attributed at least in part to the high-pressure environment kids live in today, along with the desire to make their parents proud—which may be a challenge for kids who set unrealistically high expectations for themselves. “Kids want to please their parents and don’t feel like they’re enough,” says Dr. Patti Ashley, psychotherapist, author, and creator of a psychotherapy approach called Authenticity Architecture. “This causes lots of anxiety.” 

Not surprisingly, social media and the tendency to be plugged in 24/7 also plays a role. Everyone else’s life looks so perfect and exciting, and there’s the persistent pressure to compete. Kids are constantly comparing themselves to everyone else.  “There’s so much more to live up to, with the pressure of social media. Higher expectations,” Ashley says. “Then there’s also chronic fear because of mass shootings, especially in schools. The nervous system thinks it is in chronic trauma.” 

How anxiety is different in children than in adults 

There are some basic characteristics in anxiety that are generally consistent across the board. But there are some elements that make anxiety especially challenging for the children who have it—and the people who care about them and are trying to understand how to help them. 

“Anxiety is a sign of personal distress and suffering, whether it be an adult or a child. The difference is usually an adult has more awareness and an ability to articulate what they are experiencing due to a more expansive ‘feeling vocabulary,’” says Linda Snell MSW, LCSW at New Method Wellness. 

“Children experience anxiety in three ways,” Snell says. “It is experienced in the thoughts a child has, such as a fear of objects and/or worrying about events or people. Secondly, it is experienced in the body, such as stomachaches, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, and tiredness. Lastly, it manifests in a child’s behavior. A child may freeze, cling, shake, fidget, and cry. In both children and adult’s anxiety will result in avoidance. Anxiety can cause a marked interference in one’s life affecting the adult’s work performance and the child’s school performance, disrupts both the adult and child’s relationships, and decreases self-esteem to name a few effects. In a child it can exacerbate a child’s feeling of dependency where for an adult it can increase isolation.

Dr. Dana Dorfman, PhD, psychotherapist and co-host of the podcast “2 Moms on the Couch,” echoes the connection between inability to express their situation and an array of physical symptoms. “Because children do not have the vocabulary, life experience, and developmental capacities to identify and verbalize their feelings, they may be less likely to do so,” Dorfman says. “Thus, anxiety may manifest in behaviors that may be easily misinterpreted. Some examples include tantrums, difficulty sleeping, difficulty separating from parents, nightmares, regression from previously acquired skills like toilet training and sleeping through the night, rigidity (being inflexible or highly demanding), irritable mood, changes in eating behavior, and excessive clinginess. Children may also exhibit tension or anxiety by nail biting, lip biting, tics. Anxiety in children can also manifest physically:  such as stomachaches, headaches, and sensory sensitivity (hypersensitivity to noise, light, and touch).” 

This tendency to produce confusing symptoms can make it difficult for adults to accurately detect anxiety in children, at least at first. “Children are rarely able to identify and verbalize feelings, particularly anxiety,” says Dorfman. “As a result, they exhibit it in behaviors which may be "misleading,” misunderstood, or misinterpreted by adults around them. For example, frequent stomach aches could be attributable to factors like diet or illness, rather than anxiety.”   

Types of anxiety 

As with adults, anxiety in children can have several different forms. Dorfman says, “There are several categories of anxiety disorders- the emergence of which frequently corresponds with developmental stages and can last far longer than developmentally appropriate.” Dorfman listed some examples of common types of anxiety:   

• In younger children: Separation anxiety

• In early adolescence: Social anxiety

• During school years and beyond: Obsessive - Compulsive Disorder 

• Adolescence and beyond: Panic Disorder

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (any age) 

• Posttraumatic stress disorder 

“All of the above-mentioned disorders may be catalyzed by an event or experience,” Dorfman says. “They are likely to persist, often require treatment and may or may not recur throughout lifespan. If one experiences one or more of the disorders, there is a greater likelihood of recurrence or additional anxiety disorder to emerge at a later stage.” 

What causes anxiety in kids? 

There is no single definitive cause that has been identified as the root of anxiety conditions. However, Snell says an individual is more than likely to develop an anxiety disorder if:

• he/she has experienced trauma

• he/she has a physical condition that is linked to anxiety

• he/she has biological relatives diagnosed with anxiety disorders or other mental illnesses.

“There is agreement that anxiety disorders can be both genetic and caused by environmental factors,” Snell says. “Studies do indicate that an anxious parent does pass on a predisposition for an anxious child to be more emotionally sensitive than the average child. On a positive note. an anxious child is more likely to be kind and compassionate.” 

Does it run in families? 

It often seems like some families have clusters of people (of all ages) who have anxiety, and experts say that’s no coincidence. “Yes, there are significant genetic factors which contribute to anxiety,” Dorfman says. “If a family member—particularly a parent—has anxiety, a child may be more likely to inherit this trait. Additionally, parents who demonstrate significant anxious behavior are likely to engender anxiety in children. Children who experience trauma such as loss of a parent, natural disasters, or are exposed to chronically stressful circumstances are more prone to anxiety.”   

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Signs that a child may have anxiety 

Dr Takesha Cooper

It’s important for adults to be alert for possible signs of anxiety, so they can help children get treatment and support as soon as possible. Specific symptoms or anxiety-related behaviors can vary by the individual, but there are some things that can often be red flags.  “Symptoms of anxiety include avoiding the situation that triggers anxiety,” says Dr. Takesha Cooper, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Riverside County Department of Mental Health's Lake Elsinore Family Mental Health Services. “For example, if a child is anxious about being away from a caregiver as in Separation Anxiety Disorder, that child will avoid scenarios in which they have to be apart from their caregiver. They might follow the caregiver through the house, express extreme anxiety or have a tantrum if the caregiver needs to leave.”

Dorfman advises parents to watch out for any significant changes in daily functioning, particularly related to eating, sleeping and general mood. “Parents should be aware of regressions. For example, a child who has been fully toilet trained for over a year suddenly begins having frequent accidents or a child who did not have difficulty with parents' departure at school drop off, may suddenly resist separations.” 

It’s common for anxiety in children to manifest itself in ways that mimic behavior issues or anger management problems. “Children with anxiety often worry about ‘what might happen’ so they might verbalize these worries out loud,” says Cooper. “Some children when anxious can even become agitated and aggressive. This is their fight-or-flight that kicks in and can easily be mistaken for a disruptive behavior disorder, such as oppositional defiant disorder, or a mood disorder, such as bipolar disorder. This is why it’s important to have the child undergo a thorough assessment to understand their triggers and to talk to the child to better understand what is going through their mind before and during these episodes, because it gives us a clue into why they behave the way they do.” 

What should you do if your child has anxiety? 

“First, take a deep breath and know that anxiety in children is fairly common,” says Snell. “One in ten children are diagnosed with anxiety disorders. Getting your child help will require time, patience, commitment, and collaboration. I strongly suggest you and your child see a qualified mental health professional who is trained to assess your child and partner with you in addressing your child’s anxiety. A professional can help you and your child learn effective tools to decrease your child’s distress, apply the tools, and troubleshoot any issues as well as keep both you and your child motivated while monitoring progress.”

Don’t make them stifle their feelings. “I tell them all feelings are okay but all behavior isn’t,” says Dr. Ashley. “It’s okay to feel whatever they feel. Our culture has created this ideal that in order to be successful we must overcome these feelings.” 

Parents need support, too

While the primary concern is the child with anxiety, family members—especially parents—can also benefit from helpful resources. “Parents greatly benefit from education about anxiety and treatment approaches,” says Dorfman. “Parents may contact pediatrician who is likely to be well versed in emotional issues of childhood and can refer the family to a mental health professional. Ideally, the professional will work with parents in addition to the child to educate, provide strategies and resources so that parents may support child with compassion and understanding. Parents may also confer with teachers and may reach out to school social worker or psychologist for resources, support and referrals.”  

Treatment options

The traditional approach to treating anxiety was a two-pronged strategy: a combination of medication and therapy.  “The two most common forms of treatment are Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy,” says Dorfman. “Medications which are commonly prescribed are SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and/or anti-anxiety and sedative medications.” 

That’s still the basic foundation recommended by many mental health professionals. However, these days, more medical and mental health practitioners are also incorporating other strategies into their recommended treatment plan, as we’ll describe later.

Therapy 

Dorfman says, “The most commonly used treatment approaches for children with anxiety are play therapy, for children under 12 or so; talk therapy; psycho-education (learning about anxiety); cognitive behavioral therapy; and parent guidance. Psychopharmacology—meaning medications like SSRI and anti-anxiety medications—are also effective, particularly when paired with therapy.” 

Medication 

“Medications can be effective and beneficial,” says Dorfman. “The introduction of medication is largely contingent upon the degree of impairment and the degree to which the anxiety interferes with daily functioning. Often, patients are assessed and engage therapy before medication is introduced, though patients and situations vary significantly. “

“Medication can be an important treatment for anxiety disorders, even in children,” says Cooper. “We consider medication when the anxiety interferes significantly in a child’s ability to function. For example, if a child has severe generalized anxiety disorder and has been unable to attend school for weeks due to the anxiety, it would be helpful to consider adding medication to the treatment plan which should already include psychotherapy. Or a child with Panic Disorder who has intense fear of future panic attacks such that she is unable to leave her home would benefit from a trial of medication to see if it helps her. “ 

“While these scenarios are severe, children with moderate anxiety can still be good candidates for medication, particularly if they are already receiving therapy but still are symptomatic,” says Cooper. “Oftentimes we see the medication can help children better utilize therapy because they are less anxious and more willing to discuss their anxiety or try anxiety reduction techniques the provider suggests such as exposures which are proven to help reduce anxiety. For mild childhood anxiety, medications should generally not be chosen, given that good cognitive-based therapy by a trained clinician alone is often effective in reducing symptoms.” 

Alternative or complementary treatment options

Alternative or complementary treatment options are no longer viewed with the type of skepticism as they were in the past. Even better, these days there is such a wide range of creative (and fun!) alternative treatments that there’s something to fit everyone. 

“In the past decade or so, patients have increasingly used various forms of meditation and mindfulness practice,” says Dorfman. “Patients are encouraged to exercise regularly, journal and breathing techniques.” 

“I like to find what kids are interested in,” says Ashley. “Getting out in nature, doing art. Take a hike. You have to be in the experience of feeling joy and laughter. That gives the body a message that I am safe and okay. Talk therapy is important and helpful, so I like to combine several forms of therapy. I like to find something they enjoy doing that’s more right-brained, because that’s where the imprint happens. Try to make it as personal and customized as I can.”

Examples of alternative/complementary treatments 

Many people are surprised to discover the impressive—and interesting—range of treatment options available to help those with anxiety. Here are just a few examples of therapy types that can be used to treat anxiety. 

Surf therapy: the ocean waves have a soothing effect, and the water provides a serene environment that promotes bonding with family members. 

Equine therapy: horses can have a calming effect, and caring and guiding the horses gives anxious kids an outlet to focus their energy, providing a positive distraction. 

Dolphin therapy: while used primarily for children with autism, some experts say this can also be a good form of therapy for those with anxiety or depression. 

Wilderness therapy: spending time outdoors in an “adventure program” can help kids gain confidence and develop problem-solving skills. 

Yoga therapy: yoga is all about focusing your body and mind in a positive way, and the emphasis on finding your center and controlling your breathing can help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety. 

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What about you? Have you found an anxiety treatment that works well for your family? Share in the comments below!

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

Photo credit

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.