I Hate Mental Illness - The Term Not The People

Time for me to have a short rant, I apologise early for it.

The world in which we live is full of labels, some of them have an unnecessary stigma attached to them. Here is one that, if we changed the term, it may sound less serious and possibly lose the stigma that comes with it.

Mental Illness - When someone says that they have a mental illness, it is often the case that we are reluctant to get to know that person. Not all of us do this, and maybe we will eventually get to know them, but our first reaction is to hold back.

Why does this happen? For me, it was when I did not know enough about the brain and the many ways on which it operates (and often fails), that this particular label conjures up feelings of fear of the unknown which can lead to alienation for the person affected and effected. 

Then I had a mental illness, I had a mild case of depression. (I convince myself it was mild, as it only lasted for a year and I didn’t need prescription medication to recover). The technical term for my mental illness - Accumulated Stress Disorder - the simple term is burnout. Note that I didn't say that I 'suffered' from it, I was 'had' it. Suffering is another negative word that we attach to the term mental illness. 

Sometimes my illness returns in small doses and manifests itself through negative thoughts. I don't see this as a mental illness, I prefer to call it 'brain sickness'. Because that is all it was, my brain got sick and now it's better. (Some may say that I am still mad, but in a nice way.)

For years little was known about the brain, now we know a lot more. The more that I learn about it the more that I am fascinated by how simple it works yet how complex it is. 

So why is there a long-lasting stigma attached to brain sickness? I think because we still don't know enough about it and we don’t talk enough about it. Possibly also because we previously locked people away when their brain got sick. A little might be that we can't see it and we fear what we can’t see.

Having a brain sickness can be no different to any other illness. Sometimes we can fix it, other times we need medication short term or longer term. And sometimes we may never be completely healed.

But isn’t it the same thing as getting malaria, having migraines, diabetes, and high cholesterol to name but a few. Sometimes we get over it, sometimes we need medication for a few weeks/months or maybe for the rest of our life.

A broken bone will heal itself but there will always be a weakness and residual pain from the break. When we break our brain, the same thing happens. If the arm is broken badly enough, we will never be able to use it properly again. The same goes for the brain. Which one would you be more empathetic towards – the person with the broken arm or the broken brain?

Stop Waking At 3am!

I was curious to know why it is that a lot of us wake up between 3 and 4 in the morning. We were told it was because of stress. So I did some digging around on your behalf to see if we were all stressed.

It turns out that we aren't stressed at all. If you have been following my posts you will know that our physiology and psychology are inextricably linked - what goes on the brain is reflected in our body and vice versa.

Recent research tells us that not only is 'gut instinct' a genuine thing, our stomach and heart have similar neurotransmitters to what is found in the brain. Crazy. (Your body, not you). 

So why do we wake at 3 am? It has to do with our digestive system. The same chemical reaction that occurs in digestion also occurs in the fight or flight response. Chemicals are released into our stomach when we are afraid, angry, worrying, etc., to burn up undigested food so that we have immediate energy to fight or to run. (I always choose the latter these days, I fought enough fights in my last career.) 

If you are in the wrong part of REM sleep i.e. the lighter part, the chemical reaction in your stomach tells your brain that it is ready to run. Your brain wakes up and says 'If I have to run I must be afraid, angry or worried.' 

So how do you stop this from occurring? Eat a piece of protein immediately before you climb into bed. The piece of protein stops this chemical reaction as well as delaying the release of enzymes from your liver, also part of the digestive process.

Research suggests this works for 90% of people. It worked for me. I choose to eat a piece of cheese immediately before bedtime. I know what you are thinking, “doesn't cheese give you weird dreams”. Yep, sometimes. That's why I eat cheese, let's see what kind of weird dreams I can come up with. It can be fun!

Of course the other thing that occurs now that you know why you wake at 3 am, you are more relaxed when you do wake up. You now know that millions of other people are waking at the same time so you are not alone, and that there is nothing for you to worry about it’s just your body working as it should be. 

If you wake between 3 and 4 am, roll over and get back to sleep silly. It's just your brain messing with your mind!

I Just Want A Hug

What is it about hugging that makes us feel so good? We all know that we feel better, happier, more relaxed, and sometimes a little amorous after a hug, but why is that?

The physiological reason is that when we hug, it stimulates oxytocin. Oxytocin is one of the many neurotransmitters in your brain and acts on your limbic system where our emotions are housed. 

In simple terms, when we hug we form an immediate social bond which connects us to other people. In countries where people hug a lot, there is recorded lower heart rates and cortisol levels. As you will know, cortisol is released into our blood when we are stressed.

Additionally, hugging causes other 'feel good' chemicals to be produced such as serotonin and dopamine. The nervous system is also ‘balanced out’ when we hug, whatever that means.

Women know the benefits of hugging. Look around you, you will often see women hugging each other when they first meet, when they share a story, when they enjoy what was just said, when they laugh, and when they say goodbye. It is not uncommon for women to hug each other at least three times when they meet and chat.

Men, we shake hands from a distance. Can’t get too close, don’t what people to think that we are soft now do we? We might come in close for a shoulder touch but will always slap the other person's back just so that it looks like we aren't hugging or exchanging emotions. Can't have that, we make it look like a shoulder charge on the footy field to cover up our natural urge and response.

Men could do with hugging men more often. In countries where men hug men such as India, there are lower rates of stress, depression and emotional problems. And it's not just because they have other things to worry about, because they actually don't. Most are content with their lives whatever that is. You will see men walking hand-in-hand as we used to do many years ago.

A cautionary note – men hugging men is a good thing, men hugging women can be okay, men hugging women after a couple of drinks is probably in dangerous territory and should be used with the upmost discretion. A couple of glasses of alcohol, a hug, and the next thing is the man thinks that she loves him. She doesn't you fool, hug goodbye and leave immediately!

If you can't control yourself, stick to hugging animals.

Link Your Emotions To Your Goals

I recently read a book authoerd by Dr Kerry Spackman titled The Winner's Bible. It discusses ways in which to rewire your brain. What resonated with me and with my work is that if you link emotions to goals, there is a greater chance of success.

Yesterday I posted on visualisation and how, if done alone, it doesn't work. You actually need to do something physical to accompany the visualisation. Similarly, taking physical action alone may not be all that is required to achieve your goal. (Although you might get there eventually).

The third part of the equation is what I term drive. So how do you gain drive, you use visualisation and link emotion to it. When visualising, you need to engage your emotional brain. As Kerry points out "Deep emotions make you do things". 

Visualise time and again with engaged emotions (in your mind) see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, etc. By continually doing this you will end up with unshakable beliefs and a higher likelihood of success. And I don’t mean spend half your life doing this, just whenever you feel that your brain has an ‘opening’ from the constant barrage of noise, send it a message.

Here's an analogy I use to describe in practical terms how emotions impact on your mind. Try and recall a training session that you attended outside of your workplace. If it was over 3 months ago I bet you can't even remember the title of the session let alone what was discussed or what you learnt.

However, I guarantee that you will remember where it was held and the lunch. Why? Because you had difficulty locating the venue so your emotions were engaged to ensure that you weren't late. You remember the lunch because your senses were involved while you were eating, smell, taste, etc.

That's how it works, engage as much of your brain (mind) as you can when visualising success and you will achieve your goal much faster. 

If you had asked me about this 15 years ago I would have said that you just need to get on with it, you don't need to visualise anything. I would probably have also said that you need to go and see a psychologist because you were mad. I was wrong on both counts.... 

This stuff really does work.

Does Visualisation Work?

The answer is simple, no and yes. No - visualisation by itself does not work. If it did all of us would have the job, house, and life that we dreamed of. (Sorry to those of you who read the book The Secret and believed it was true.)

Yes, research tells us that if you use as many of your senses as possible when seeking a goal, you have a higher chance of success. The entire answer centres on the mind and body working together, your psychology and physiology.

And, this is also the quickest way for your wellness to deteriorate or to repair yourself when you are in the mire.  Here's how it works.

When we worry about something, guilt and regret being the most intense things to worry about, our brain starts to focus on nothing else. We tend to lose sight of reality, everything becomes exaggerated, and we just want to cuddle up on the couch while we try and figure things out. The last thing that we want to do is exercise, the one thing that can actually help us in this time of worrying.

As our brain focuses more and more on what we are worrying about, we curl into a ball, we go into the foetal position. This is caused by your bodies fight or flight response. Don't worry, (as if you need more things to worry about) you aren't becoming a baby, you are simply protecting your vital organs - the heart and lungs.

Exercise alone won't help you if you are too deep in the mire, but it can help if you exercise early enough. Research tells us that exercise has extraordinary benefits for the mind and body. (Maybe I will post on this topic tomorrow).

The other thing that you need to do along with exercise is to visualise. Use your brain to focus on the future without worry, to see yourself being as happy as you once were, to distract yourself from worrying. Importantly, to take the focus away from guilt and regret.

Eastern culture has known this since forever (slight exaggeration), they know that the mind and body are inextricably linked. They know that visualisation by itself doesn't work, you actually need to do something.

Bottom line, when you are in the depths of guilt and regret; forget what you have done, get off the couch, do something physical like go for a walk, think (visualise) yourself in a better place, and move forward.

It works, trust me on this. If it can work for me it can work for anyone because I was the biggest sceptic on this ‘stuff’.