Healthy Living

If we don’t have the proper support and tools to safely manage our emotions, they can affect our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors – including what we eat. If you experience this, think about times you feel very depressed, anxious, angry, etc. What do your eating patterns look like during these times? If you’re gravely depressed, do you feel like eating a lot or nothing at all? If you’re angry at someone, do you feel like eating, or is your adrenaline pumping so hard that you would not be able to get a single bite in? Our emotions can certainly affect the way we eat, and this can cause further psychological or physical health concerns if our eating patterns are not healthy for us. A 2017 study published in the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science sought to explore how emotions such as anger and disgust influenced food intake amongst people. Eighty participants participated in the dissection of several types of fish, and were then provided diverse types of foods to eat afterwards while also assessed with measures of disgust and anxiety. Results from the study showed that individuals who felt higher levels of disgust and anxiety were significantly more likely to avoid eating food compared to their counterparts who didn’t experience such elevated levels of anxiety or disgust. While this type of exploration is quite aberrant compared to daily behavior, it does show that when we’re approached with feelings of disgust, anger, and other negative emotions, we’re not always able to carry on with daily acts as simple as eating. When it comes to mental illness and/or addiction recovery, there’s no doubt that our emotions may act like a rollercoaster. Previous studies have shown that recovery can cause many people to feel a variety of emotions – from pain to joy, sadness to happiness, calm to anxious. These changes can certainly have an affect on your eating habits while in recovery, which is why it’s so important to have a nutrition counselor who can help you ensure that you’re receiving the proper vitamins and nutrients needed to get your mind, body, and spirit back on track. If you haven’t already, speak with a professional from a reputable treatment center to learn more about programs that could assist you on your journey to recovery. It’s never too late to seek the help you need.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is “a disorder that develops in some people who have experiencing a shocking, scary, or dangerous event.” It’s very natural to feel afraid during a traumatic event, but some people carry those feelings over time, manifesting in the form of nightmares or unwanted memories, avoidance of situations that bring back memories of the trauma, anxiety, paranoia, agitation, depression, and more. Nearly 5.2 million people are estimated to experience PTSD in a given year. While symptoms of PTSD can affect work, school, and home life, they can worsen if adequate sleep is lost.

Depression can be debilitating at times; feelings of hopelessness, extreme fatigue, and lack of motivation can negatively affect everyday life. If you’ve been struggling with depression, you may find it difficult to even get out of bed every morning. In turn, you may believe that staying inside, missing out on events you used to enjoy, and withdrawing to yourself is what’s best for you. Despite your beliefs, the opposite is true – when it comes to depression, you really need to surround yourself with people who love and support you as well as engage in activities to get you involved in life. One of the best ways to do this is through exercise. A 2014 piece published in the interdisciplinary journal “Disability and Rehabilitation” emphasized that exercise can provide several benefits, including:

Bipolar disorder (BD) is often recognized by intense mood swings of either mania or depression; approximately 5.7 million Americans experience BD each year. Although mania and depression can be a part of BD, the disorder is much more complex than that, and can involve a variety of other symptoms that may not easily be recognized. If symptoms of the disorder go missed, treatment may not be sought – which can cause further distress in a person’s life. BD can affect nearly every aspect of daily living, including work, school, family, and social functions. By noticing some subtle signs of BD, you or a loved one can get diagnosed early, making symptoms much more manageable. See if you can recognize the following signs:

For some, alcohol doesn’t cause much more than a hangover. For others, however, alcohol can become very dangerous – both in terms of addiction and in health. If you have a health condition such as diabetes, alcohol can affect your blood sugar, placing you at a health risk. Educating yourself on how alcohol affects the body is a wonderful way to take preventative measures towards your safety. Alcohol is considered a depressant – a sedative-hypnotic drug – that depresses the central nervous system. Alcohol can interfere with hormones in the body needed to maintain blood sugar levels. A person with diabetes experiences either low blood sugar levels already or reduced capacity to produce insulin, and excessive drinking of alcohol can either lead to dangerously low blood sugar or reduce the overall effectiveness of insulin that is produced. Alcohol can affect a person’s diabetes because the liver must work to remove alcohol from the blood rather than towards managing blood sugar levels – if you have diabetes, always speak with a doctor before consuming alcohol. Why would someone with diabetes or a related condition be of concern? One challenge that many with health conditions such as diabetes face is self-control. A study conducted by a researcher from Florida State University found that when glucose is low (ex. insulin is low or insensitive), a person may fail to exert more self-control over their emotions, stress responses, impulsive decisions, criminal and aggressive behavior, attention, and cessation of smoking. Conversely, alcohol reduces glucose throughout the body, impairing many similar forms of self-control. As you can see, alcohol does not mix well with health conditions such as diabetes.

When most people describe the stereotype of what someone with alcoholism would “look like”, they may include a person going out for drinks a lot with friends, partying often, drinking too much, and getting into legal trouble due to their drinking. While these descriptions could be accurate for some, there is another side of alcoholism that doesn’t get discussed as often: drinking alone. Nearly 13.8 million Americans have a drinking problem; how many people do you imagine drink at home by themselves? The truth is, drinking home alone could be a warning sign of dependence/addiction, or it may not be; it all depends on the drinking pattern. Imagine this: You’ve had a party at home with several friends over. You’ve been sipping slowly on an alcoholic beverage all night, and by the time your friends go home, you decide to finish your drink. Is this problematic? Not necessary, but do you do this often? How many drinks have you had? What is your reason for continuing to drink after they’ve all left? The following are some concerning reasons for drinking alone:

Addiction disrupts the body’s functions, including the body’s ability to produce chemicals such as dopamine, the “feel good” chemical. When this happens, many people who stop using experience withdrawal symptoms both physical and psychological; physical symptoms may include weakness, clammy skin, sweating, coldness, shaking, nausea and more, while psychological symptoms may include depression, hallucination, paranoia, severe anxiety, and more. Amino acids have been shown to give a person more stability while they are detoxing from substances, primarily by assisting the body in reproducing the neurotransmitters needed to feel relaxed and happy again. This, in turn, helps a person to curb the cravings associated with drug use.

Nearly 350 million people worldwide experience depression. If you have been struggling with this, it may feel as though your world is caving in – being in a relationship can make this even more challenging, as your significant other may not be aware of what to say or do to help you feel better. A study conducted by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne interviewed 135 couples of which either one or both partners had a history of depression. The ages of couples ranged from 20 to 83 years old, with couples’ history in length from 6 months to 49 years total. The couples shared the hardships their relationship has endured with depression involved. Here are some themes from what they said:

When selecting a treatment center, there are many factors you want to consider. Long-term success in recovery has been shown to meet individual’s needs not just with a mental illness or with addiction, but also with other areas of their life that have been difficult for them. Recovery is a time to develop new coping skills, understand ourselves better, and identify goals that we can work towards achieving for the future. There are three main necessities associated with a successful recovery: comfort, nutrition, and psychotherapy.

Many of us have experienced that extra scoop of ice cream or eating some more chips at the end of a long day. We may not do this every day, but occasional cravings for it happen. This happens to a lot of people – but does this classify as binge eating disorder? Not quite. There are some key differences between overeating at times and having binge eating disorder (BED). A lot of those differences lie in the amount of food consumed, how often these episodes occur, and the feelings experienced afterwards. By understanding the difference between overeating and BED, we can more correctly identify when our eating patterns are normal and when they may indicate a more serious health condition. Unlike overeating, BED produces feelings of shame, guilt, sadness, and regret. Many people with BED feel as though they have no control over their eating – they may eat when they aren’t hungry and may also eat alone because they are embarrassed of how much they eat. BED also causes many people to eat quicker than what is considered normal, often without taking any compensatory measures to make up for the large amounts of food consumed, such as purging, excessive exercise, etc. Americans tend to overeat, with emphasis placed on large sizes of fast-food and quick access to these selections. While our society perpetuates overeating, there is a clean difference between the overeating nature of many Americans and the eating associated with BED. If you have been diagnosed with BED, note that recovery is possible and there are some very effective methods of treatment for this disorder. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to help many people with BED; it focuses on helping people change old, negative habits of thinking towards more positive, productive thoughts. If you haven’t yet, make the decision to reach out to a reputable treatment center today. There are many resources that you can use to be on your way towards a happier, healthier life. It’s never too late.

According to a 2014 study titled “Acupuncture: Past, Present, and Future”, acupuncture has been around for more than 40 years and has taken upon more than 10 million treatments each year in the United States alone. Medical News Today states that with acupuncture, an acupuncturist will place small needles among meridians - or energy highways - to help open up energy flow and balance a person. Holistic practices such as acupuncture, also known as alternative therapeutic methods, have become increasingly popular as Americans attempt to find non-invasive remedies to everyday issues they’re experiencing. The following are some amazing benefits that acupuncture has been said to provide:

A new study published in the Yoga Journal found that nearly 20.4 million people practice yoga in the United States; yoga has become an increasingly popular tool to help people find balance amidst the chaos of life. Aside from the more traditional styles of yoga, such as hatha or iyengar, people from around the country have begun to create their own forms of yoga, including the unexpected: goats, dogs, horses and other animals, marijuana, nudity, “rave” scenes, aerial fitness, and more. While many may find these types of yoga to be beneficial, there are some key issues here. According to CBS News, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a mission to revitalize yoga through a campaign that will bring yoga back to its roots - India. During the clip, it showed how yoga is practiced in India - a much different way of life than how it is practiced in America. For example, yoga in India consists of cleansing the nostrils and snorting, meditation, and very strict, precise movements. The Prime Minister stated that yoga is not meant to be seen as a form of exercise, but rather a tool to become more connected with oneself and the world. Does this mean that Western civilization’s form of yoga constitutes as cultural appropriation? Yes, it does - but this can be mitigated by incorporating more of the nature that yoga was meant for - not just the physical component. Julia Gibran, a Toronto yoga teacher, stated for Vice Magazine, “In the West in general, we focus on one limb of yoga, and that is asana. It’s become a very physical practice. But there are ways to acknowledge the roots [of the practice]. People can put a little focus on meditation, or bring in breath work.” Gibran also noted that when she first practiced yoga it was taught by her grandfather, and she read a book called Bhagavad Gita with him - then moving on to learn more about Hindu tradition, cultural history, deities and symbolism, and more. She went on to explain, “....the study of asana does help the Western population in terms of anxiety and stress, so it’s been such a gift. But something I struggle with is I feel very lucky to be of West Indian descent teaching yoga...I do consider myself, oddly enough, to be a minority.” Does this mean that Americans should stop practicing yoga? Absolutely not - it just means that we need to work on incorporating more than just the physical component of yoga. We need to practice meditation and breathing, because these are key grounding tools that were developed to help us garner more love and peace for ourselves and the world.