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Sex is a physical act as much as it is an act of emotion, psyche, and spiritual connection. Engaging in physical, sexual intimacy is a physical closeness that makes many people uncomfortable. Low self-esteem, insecurity, vulnerability, and even trauma regarding sexual intimacy is not reserved for those who might struggle with a mental illness. However, it can be a particularly complicated area for those living with and recovering from eating disorders. Eating disorders are usually talked about with a focus on food, control, perfectionism, weight, and body image. These factors can contribute to difficulty in sexual intimacy. Because sex is so physically close, if someone is at odds with their physical appearance, sex can be triggering. Furthermore, if that physical appearance is still toxically connected to how one perceives themselves (i.e. “today I feel fat, so today I have low self-esteem”), it can cause a deep level of discomfort. The effects of eating disorder on one’s sex life can range from preventing intimacy due to insecurity. Eating disorder behaviors like restriction, starvation, and purging, can deplete the body’s natural energy as well as throw off normal hormonal balance. Finding a desire for sexual interaction can be challenging when there is hardly a desire to eat. The Double Edge Sword Of Eating Disorder Recovery And Sex Recovery from eating disorders is usually successful as a patient starts to normalize their weight, working through underlying issues contributing to the eating disorder, and learn to be more body positive. Working on raising levels of confidence and body acceptance leads to tremendous shifts in perception and sexual desire. Unfortunately, there is still the old programming regarding weight, body image, and being wanted. As sexual desire increases with weight gain, there could be a newfound insecurity in the body. Though the individual has learned to accept and embrace themselves, they are still aware of the shame, stigma, and stereotype which gets applied to the physical form and what is defined as sexually desirable. True Self-Intimacy Before getting intimate with others, recovery demands that we become most intimate with ourselves, in mind, body, and spirit. Eating disorders separate us from ourselves. Through recovery, we learn how to be close with ourselves, our bodies, and our minds, creating a holistic whole self once more. Avalon By The Sea provides primary mental health care for men and women needing to recover from eating disorders. Call us today for a confidential assessment and more information on our residential treatment programs at 1 888-958-7511.

ADHD is commonly mistaken for depression and vice versa. One of the unknown sides of depression is the ability to create cognitive difficulties. Popularly known symptoms of depression include symptoms of being sad, tired, lazy, and without hope.However, all that emotional strain and imbalance in the brain can cause a difficulty in concentrating, focus, making decisions, and just thinking clearly. According to Science Daily, the American Chemical Society is studying rats to find out just how intensely the brain is cognitively affected by depression. Even with treatment for depression, as common symptoms pass and become more manageable, the cognitive symptoms can remain for quite sometime. Having to deal with lack of focus, forgetfulness, and an inability to make decisions is challenging. The pressing extreme emotions of depression can be challenging enough to live with and manage as feelings of sadness can take over. However, not being able to think clearly, remember, or make decisions is even more impairing. Relationships, jobs, schooling, and care taking can be compromised by this. The research suggests that certain proteins are more available in rats without depression than those who do have depression. In simple cognitive tests, rats without depression performed better than the rats who had the depression. Implications from this study could contribute toward advancing treatments for depression to include targeted treatments for cognitive functioning. Supporting Your Mental Health While Living With A Mental Health Disorder There are some practices which can be helpful in sharpening your focus, clearing your mind, and giving your brain more power when you're living with depression. Mindfulness meditation is scientifically proven to change the brain in positive ways and enlarge the prefrontal cortex which is where cognitive functions live. Exercise produces endorphins and is helpful to gaining mental clarity and energy. Depression is also helped by a healthy balanced diet which includes amino acids and omega-3 fatty acids from foods like eggs and avocado. Some studies suggest that the right diet could eliminate negative symptoms of depression entirely. Avalon By The Sea is one of California’s only mental health facilities providing primary care for depression. Our program is centered on mind, body, and spirit, to help facilitate healing holistically and clinically. For a confidential assessment, call 1 888-958-7511.

Watching a loved one struggling with the deep pain of depression can be heartbreaking. You cannot fix your loved one’s depression, but you can help ease their symptoms and encourage them to keep moving forward in recovery. Be Extra Loving You aren’t going to love your partner or loved one out of depression. However, some studies have found that extra displays of love can help someone who is depressed feel the love they need to feel from others, helping them to feel it toward themselves. How you react to their episodes of depression in terms of the love you give them directly affects the way they perceive themselves and their ability or worthiness to be loved. By being extra loving, you’re letting them know they are worth not just your love and care, but their own as well. Spend Quality Time With Them Episodes of depression can conjure up a lot of feelings of guilt and shame, resulting in behaviors which try to push people away when they are needed the most. Your loved one will be most benefitted by spending a lot of quality time with you, even if they won’t admit it. You don’t have to plan activities to try to get them out of depression, but you don’t have to enable their depression either. Exercise is a proven method for reducing the symptoms of depression. Find a creative way to get them moving for just a little bit or engaged in an activity which takes their focus off their depression. Support Yourself As Well Being the loved one, partner, or caretaker of someone living with clinical, chronic depression can be exhausting. You are in need of all the same love and support as your loved one. The best way to support someone is to make sure you are supported. Airlines use this example in their safety measures. You are instructed to put on your oxygen mask before placing one on a neighbor. The saying “you can’t transmit what you haven’t got” also applies. Have regular appointments with your own therapist, your own self-care regime, and spending time with friends or family who lift you up. Avalon By The Sea provides primary residential care to men and women needing treatment for depression. Our programs are focused on bringing healing and balance to mind, body, and spirit. For a confidential assessment and more information on our programs, call 1 (888) 958-7511 today.

Mental health care is not something we think of doing for ourselves everyday. However, simple strategies can be used to contribute to good mental health the same way that brushing your teeth every day can contribute to good dental health! Here are a few of our favorites:

Mindfulness and mindfulness based stress reduction are helpful therapy and treatment methods for mental health disorders and substance use disorders. Creating a sense of calm and a tranquil foundation aids in emotional regulating reducing cravings, and managing stress. Benefits Of Mindfulness Through The Brain Reducing symptoms of stress is the primary benefit of mindfulness based practices. Depression, anxiety, cravings for drugs and alcohol- symptoms from all of these mental health issues can be found rooted in stress. According to The Big Thing, in one study conducted on the brains of long time meditators during meditation and when they’re not meditating, there is a key difference in areas of the brain associated with stress. Stress comes from the human “fight or flight” response to threats, which produces the hormones of adrenaline and cortisol. The amygdala is where stress primarily lives in the brain. After an 8 week mindfulness course, the amygdala shrinks, as it is shown through MRI imaging. Another benefit of mindfulness based practices is clarity, the ability to focus, make better decisions, and have more awareness in daily life. The practice of noticing and paying attention are an integral part of mindfulness. The MRI imaging found that the prefrontal cortex region of the brain becomes thicker, compared to the shrinking amygdala, after mindfulness practice. Awareness, such as the awareness built during mindfulness practice, as well as decision making and other “higher” brain functions, live in the prefrontal cortex. Blazing New Neural Trails One of the interesting things found in the study, The Big Think writes, is that there are some developments of dualism which indicate the brain changing its relationships. For example, there was more activity in pain-sensing areas of the brain. However,people who meditate reported feeling less pain. “This demonstrates the capacity of meditation to create new neural connections and change how different regions relate to one another,” the article writes. What’s more fascinating is that over time, the brain stops shifting. The benefits achieved through meditation become the “norm” for the brain. Avalon By The Sea knows that the power of the mind can be harvested and used for good in recovery. Our dual diagnosis treatment program is certified to treat both mental health disorders or substance use disorders as primary conditions. For a confidential assessment, call us today at 1 888-958-7511.

Relationship obsessive compulsive disorder is a small and unknown form of OCD. Obsessive compulsive disorder has two main components, as designated by its name: obsession and compulsion. FIrst, the mind finds a fixation and becomes obsessive about it. The fixation can be a trauma from the past, anxieties over the future, or the hyperfocus on the compulsive behavior. When there is no tolerance left for thinking and obsessing, the compulsive behavior is a form of relief and control, bring order to the chaos that is OCD. Applying these characteristics to a relationship causes relationship based obsessive compulsive disorder. According to Health Line, relationship obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, leaves one partner in an ongoing cycle of obsessive thoughts regarding their partner. Specifically, they are in anxiety over the relentless doubt they feel regarding the authenticity of their relationship. Concerns about the love being real, the attraction being real, and whether or not their happiness within the relationship is real, distract from the ability to be present in the relationship, as well as other areas in life. The confusion which comes from these obsessive thoughts goes through a pattern. First, there is the doubt and insecurity. Next, comes doubt and insecurity about that doubt and insecurity. For example, if someone were truly happy with their partner than they wouldn’t have to constantly be thinking about whether or not they were happy with their partner. Lastly, there are feelings of guilt and shame for thinking these thoughts and having these concerns in the first place. Feeling remorse, out of control, and continually insecure, the process continues. Treating ROCD There is no tangible meter to gauge how authentically in love or not in love one might be with their partner. Therapy is a process of working through the intangible- feelings. Confronting and overcoming fears which encourage the insecurities of OCD can help release some of the tension. Learning new coping mechanisms for dealing with doubts can help maintain long term recovery. Relationships can be triggering, frightening, and challenging when you’re living with a mental illness. In our residential treatment programs for primary mental health care, we provide relationship counseling for all levels of partnership to help each partner grow and heal. For information on our recovery programs for relationships and obsessive compulsive disorder, call Avalon By The Sea today at 1 888-958-7511.

For the StarNews Online, Keith Louthan writes about spirituality and the importance of taking time to engage in contemplation. More than contemplating, he suggests we need to more often take time to consider our actions. If everyone took time to consider everything they were going to do before they were going to do it, the world would move a lot more slowly. For that reason, and likely many more, we are unlikely to even have the awareness we need to take the time to just sit and think about some of our behaviors before we act upon them. Louthan expresses that “We could all stand to consider some things, even deeply, but we will never “find” the time.” Our lives are all given the same amount of time in a day, Louthan explains. Nobody has more than 24 hours in any given day, unless they possess some kind of time travel powers. Time has to be used wisely because it can never be created or discovered like a level up in a video game. Louthan writes that if we don’t take the time “to consider, to contemplate the beautiful,” in the heat of the moment we will find ourselves “driven by surging desire, or anger, or sadness, or bitterness, or pride, or any other momentary pleasure…” After all, the only beautiful part of a heated moment is the instant gratification received from getting what we want, when we want it, the way we want it to be gotten. Those who struggle with compulsive behaviors like addiction, alcoholism, and self-harm understand the heat of the moment, especially the drive to receive that instant gratification. These behaviors become more than compulsory, they become habitual. Changing our habits is one of the most difficult challenges we face in recovery. Taking a spiritual approach by creating time for contemplation helps us eliminate the disruptive guilt and shame which can come from taking an honest look at ourselves. We are all humans making decisions about how to use our time. If you are taking the time in your life to work on yourself through recovery, your time is already well spent. Are you ready for change? Avalon of Malibu is here to answer the call. Proudly, Avalon serves as one of California’s only treatment centers providing primary care for mental health disorders in addition to substance use disorders. For a confidential assessment and more information on our residential treatment programs, call us today at 1 888-958-7511.

Recovery from mental illnesses like depression is different than recovery from addiction because of relapse. Though you learn to live with and manage depression, it can still happen. There is little defense against the first mood swing in the same way there is against taking a drink. Depression will happen, but you can be prepared to handle it when it does. You Can Feel It Coming After years of living with depression, you become keenly aware of the signs that a depressive episode is coming. You migh experience anxiety or even panic at the hint. Dealing with depression when it comes on full swing is challenging, no matter how adept your coping skills have become through treatment and therapy. Like a panic attack, you aren’t looking forward to the uncontrollable symptoms and having to wait for them to pass. Instead of giving into the panic, just take care of yourself and prepare for what might be coming. Your fears are understandable, depression might have lead you to institutions, hospitals, or substance abuse. With treatment, you’ve become a stronger person more capable of managing yoru depression. You Are Sensitive To Others’ Depression Solidarity among those who struggle with mental illnesses like depression and substance abuse can be life changing. Finding comfort in knowing that other people struggle the same way you do helps lessen the isolating feelings depression can cause. However, those relationships have to be equally managed as your depression. During a depressive episode, listening to others’ depression can be even more depressing. It’s important to curate your conversations. You need inspiration, positivity, and safety during this time. You Can Take Depression Too Seriously Depressive episodes come and go, just like the happier times in between. The two are neither alike nor are they permanent. With therapy and treatment, along with medications, distance between depressive episodes can get longer and longer. During the depressive times, however, it can be easy to forget that this too shall pass. Depression can create a lot of lies and stories which simply aren’t true. Remember that you’re in a passing phase and nothing your depression tells you is permanent or real. Avalon By The Sea provides primary residential treatment to those with a foremost diagnosis of depression. We are one of California’s only primary mental health care treatment facilities. If you are ready to recover and learn how to live with your depression, call us today at 1 888-958-7511.

Addiction is a disease which affects mind, body, and spirit. As you transition out of the structure of treatment, you will have to put into practice what you learned about taking care of yourself in each of these areas. You can do it! Yoga Treatment can provide a wonderful luxury when you meet with a yoga teacher a couple of times a week. Outside of treatment, all the yoga tools, especially yoga classes, can become expensive. If you are able to afford equipment and a yoga studio membership, you are in good stead! Commit yourself to going a few days a week to try out different style classes. You can find a “class pass” program in your area which allows you to try out different yoga studios for a monthly fee. If you have to make yoga work for you, here are a few simple tips:

Fine seems to be the most universal human emotion or emotional experience. When we are asked how we are doing, we answer with “fine”. What is “fine” really? Most often than not, it is not how you are doing. In fact, it is usually far from it. Fine is not a word complex enough to encompass what is the wealth of human experiences and emotions you are having at any given moment when someone asks, ‘Hey, how are you?’ Yet somehow the spectrum of humanity got stuffed into the tiny trope of a four letter word: fine. By definition, the word fine means “of high quality”, “thin”. As an adverb, fine means “make or become thinner”. It also means “in a satisfactory or pleasing manner.” In these definitions we can see the actual wisdom behind the answer of fine.

Millions of people around the world struggle with mental health disorders. Most of them will live undiagnosed and untreated for their problems while some will live with manageability of their symptoms most will not. Mental illness is a top contributor to suicide every single day. Substance use disorders like alcoholism and drug addiction are highly co occurring with mental health disorders. People live their entire lives struggling to find peace, balance and happiness within themselves.

Toxic relationships can be as damaging and addictive as drugs and alcohol. Getting out of a toxic relationship isn’t as easy as it might seem. The first step is recognizing that a relationship is toxic. Here are 8 signs to help you determine if you need to evaluate a relationship and take some moves.