--Nagui Mahfouz
The problem's not that the truth is harsh but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth until you're breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, and hard one interspersed with drunken moments.
--Nagui Mahfouz
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There’s no doubt that good sleep is one of the most important parts of our overall health. Adequate sleep supports our immune system and prevents cancer, reduces damages to our cardiovascular system, supports strong cognition, happy mood and good focus, allows weight loss and increases growth hormone which is how our bodies heal and build muscle. The vast majority of Americans are sleep deprived, and many use medications to get sleep.
In naturopathic medicine we talk about optimizing “sleep hygiene”. This includes everything that we do in our lives that influences our sleep. We like to start with these basics rather than throwing pills at the problem. It is normal to be able to sleep and to get enough. 1. Exercise a. Get plenty. Not being able to sleep correlates with not being physically tired. An hour a day of movement could be all you need. b. If you do yoga, try forward bends or shoulder stands just before bed. 2. Schedule a. Go to bed early. You want to make sure you can get plenty of sleep before the alarm goes off. It’s ideal to be deeply asleep before 11pm so that your adrenal glands can recharge properly. Consider setting an alarm to remind you to go to bed, instead of to get up. b. Keep a regular schedule. Get up at the same time each day. Sleep at night, and be active in the daytime. Regularity lets your circadian rhythm provide growth hormones to repair your tissues at night, and cortisol to get you going in the morning. c. When the days are short, allow yourself to sleep more. 3. Keep a sleep journal. a. For a couple of weeks, write down when you go to bed, how long it takes you to go to sleep, when you wake up in the night, and when you get up in the morning. This will help you know what to try next. 4. Bed room a. Keep your sleep area dark. Cover windows and remove bright clocks. b. Avoid stressful activities in the sleeping area. c. Keep the bedroom cool, 70 degrees F or lower. Don't use covers that are too warm. d. Make sure your feet are toasty warm. Wear socks to bed or use a heating pad or hot water bottle. 5. Turn down the lights for an hour before sleep. a. Darkness allows your body to manufacture melatonin so you fall asleep quicker and more deeply. b. Avoid television and computer screens for an hour before bedtime. 6. Drinks a. Avoid overuse of stimulants. Too much coffee will keep you up at night, even if you only drink it in the morning. b. Avoid liquids for 2 hours before bedtime. This will minimize getting up to urinate. Especially avoid alcoholic nightcaps. 7. Diet a. Avoid eating in the evening. Bedtime snacks are a terrible idea. Your body sleeps best when it is just about done digesting whatever you ate last. b. Eat protein at your last meal of the day. Several amino acids are involved with your body’s natural manufacture of melatonin, the sleep hormone. The amino acid tryptophan makes us especially sleepy. Some good dietary sources of tryptophan include oats, bananas, dates, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, grass fed meat, poultry, fish, eggs, sesame and spirulina. c. Avoid stimulating supplements (such as B vitamins, tyrosine and ginseng) in the evening. 8. If you do all this and still have trouble sleeping a. Find out if you have sleep apnea, and get it treated. b. Be cautious with over the counter sleep preparations as they may be addictive or have other unwanted effects. c. Consult your physician who may be able to assist with further advice, supplements and medications. Last night we saw the second movie in the series. The gist of it was that some of the "tributes" (ie young people forced to fight to the death for the amusement of upper classes) were forced to return and fight again because of some law about the 25th year anniversary of the government's takeover--even though they had been assured that by law they would fight once and if they survived they'd be allowed to live in peace.
Our heroine played by Jennifer Lawrence was forced back into the brutal scene, where she persists in being quite human with emotions and an aversion to killing. She is an excellent actress. I won't tell the ending in case you want to see it, but I will warn you that it is exceedingly violent. The killing and brutality in these movies turns my stomach. I cannot sit through it, have to close my eyes, or get up and go to the back of the theater to do yoga. When it turns particularly awful I take a bathroom break. Even with these approaches to keep from being disturbed by the violence, it disturbs me. My heart rate goes up, I sweat, and I don't calm down completely for 4-6 hours after such a movie. This movie series is not the only one that is so violent. The vast majority of movies for young people are very violent, if I am to believe what I see in the previews. It appears to me that many young people sit through these movies and do not get disturbed by the violence. They don't seem fazed at all. The only way that I can imagine not finding this stuff disturbing is to be emotionally shut down. Watching people be beaten and die horribly for unjust reasons is enough to induce PTSD in a normal human. Even in the movies. So if these kids are really undisturbed by violent movies, I wonder if they are sociopaths. If they actually enjoy seeing such violence, they might be psychopaths. Are we creating a generation of pathologic youth by exposing them to this kind of material? It is a question worth asking. As I was watching the movie I was thinking about the research study I'd like to see done. I'd like to see whole audiences wired to monitor heart rate, sexual arousal, and palm sweat. I'd like to have them tested for adrenaline, testosterone, and cortisol, before, during and after the movie. I'd like to know if they youth really aren't fazed by this stuff, or if they are just pretending to be tough and cool. It matters. Sometimes I think it does. And sometimes it feels like I am really making my life better, because I am making plans with people I love to go to wonderful places and do fabulous things. Then someone comes along and tells me that the time I spend on a computer is actually detracting from my life----and I start thinking about the hours that I put into this, and wondering.
Implicating social media as an isolating force in society: https://vimeo.com/70534716 This stuns me. For a long time statins and thyroid medications have topped the charts. Now an ANTI-PSYCHOTIC drug is the cash cow of American prescription drug sales. Statins are still the most frequently prescribed and refilled. Both antipsychotics and statin drugs have side effects lists a mile long. The intention is to keep people on them longterm to "manage" their health conditions.
If this doesn't say something about our mental health overall, I don't know what does. I'm not sure how so many people can be convinced that these drugs are the best way to treat mental illness, and high cholesterol. Perhaps people have simply given up, and are willing to take whatever insurance will buy for them. Letting insurance determine what is best for your health is probably not a great plan. The overuse of pharmaceutical medications is dangerous. These meds overwhelm our natural internal balance, and reduce our ability to make intentional changes that will help us. And taking six or more Rx medications is guaranteed to impair your cognitive function. We can't ALL be psychotic. There are better ways to regain our balance than to take little pills every day. I do not mean that you should suddenly go cold turkey on your meds. But I DO mean that you ought to take some responsibility for understanding and remembering who you are, how you feel, and what makes you feel better or worse. Eating well and getting some exercise may do for you what no drug can. From Medscape today: The cholesterol-lowering drug rosuvastatin (Crestor, AstraZeneca) was the nation's most prescribed drug over the course of last 12 months, through September, whereas the antipsychotic aripiprazole (Abilify, Otsuka Pharmaceutical) racked up the highest sales — almost $6.4 billion, according to a new report from research firm IMS Health on the top 100 selling drugs in the United States. New prescriptions and refills of rosuvastatin totalled 23.7 million, edging out the hypothyroid medication levothyroxine (Synthroid, AbbVie) at 23.4 million scripts. Similar to several other drugs in the top 100 list for prescription volume, rosuvastatin also did well in sales, ranking fifth, with $5.3 billion in sales for the 12-month period. In contrast, levothyroxine ranked 52nd in sales despite being heavily prescribed. SOURCE http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/813571?src=wnl_edit_newsal&uac=89474MT (you have to log in to see the article) We've been trained to think that cholesterol is the devil. Hundreds of thousands of people are on statin drugs which block the body's ability to make cholesterol. Unfortunately, those statin drugs are linked to a whole lot of other medical problems, including dementia. If your cholesterol gets too low, you are at risk of increased aggression and depression(1). Bipolar disorder has also been linked to messed up blood lipid levels. Treatments that use EPA and DHA (fats!) can help. Conventional medical treatments are not always based on reality. And what the doctor told your parents may not be the answer for you.
(1) Journal of Behavioral Medicine, Dec. 1, 2000;23:519-529) (2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3258247/?tool=pubmed A friend asked me this question yesterday. Madness is many things to many people. In my mind, all of these definitions are true. Notice that the majority of them are temporary states. If you have ever fallen "madly in love", then you can vouch for that one being an irrational state. Dementia in old age is exempted from the legal definition: you can loose your mind permanently and not legally be considered insane, though you would be legally considered incompetent. So the reason for the madness matters. And the duration, as well. A normal person can have an insane outburst and not be considered insane. We are all subject to folly from time to time. Hence my assertion that everyone is a little bit crazy, at least sometimes. It's our nature to be irrational, emotional, excitable or impulsive sometimes. It may even serve a purpose.
MADNESS DEFINED 1) The state or condition of being insane; lunacy as evidenced by abnormal (or taboo) mental or behavioral patterns 2) Great folly ("it was sheer madness") 3) Fury, frenzy or rage 4) Enthusiasm or excitement 5) Extremity, excessive risk taking 6) Passion, being in love ("mad for you") 7) Slang for having Rabies (which is a virus that invades the brain; only one person has ever survived it ) 8) Legal definition of insanity: mental illness so severe that a person cannot tell fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. Insanity is distinguished from low intelligence or mental deficiency due to age or injury 9) Medical definition: psychopathology especially psychosis, or other specific medical diagnoses 10) Etymology: a definition derived from the root word meaning: poor health of the mind, defective mental processes ie reasoning As a doctor, I have the honor of hearing people's most personal stories. I haven't met a person yet who is entirely rational and totally together. We fake it a lot. We are all working toward being happy and productive in this life, and sometimes our moods or other mental problems get in the way. Join the club. You are not alone, and you are not abnormal.
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AuthorTeresa Gryder ND is a naturopathic physician with a unique perspective on mental health, and a wide range of evidence-based alternative treatments to consider. Originally from Tennessee, she currently practices in Portland, Oregon. Archives
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