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Clinical style check-in’s at the beginning and end of a yoga session helps the teacher understand where each client is in their day as well as their recovery. Eating disorders are sensitive, dealing with the tedious challenge of embracing imperfections. Often, normal yoga teachers encourage their students to correct their posture, focus on particular areas of the body, and always remind them to keep their core tight. Such language can seem aggressive and triggering to someone who is recovering from an eating disorder. By checking in, a teacher can understand if a client will be sensitive or not to certain language, modifying the yoga sequence accordingly. The check in following the session always reveals a happier note. Most often, clients are relieved, feel more grounded, have a greater sense of connection to themselves and their bodies.

Borderline personality disorder is a complicated mental illness which thrives in chaotic relationships and emotional pain. Here are some of the symptoms:

“Be kind whenever possible,” the Dalai Lama famously said, “It is always possible.” Kindness in recovery is an essential practice. Few things are more cruel than addiction and alcoholism or the symptoms of unmanaged mental health disorders. Recovery takes tolerance, patience, and kindness to be effective.

According to the New York University, drama therapy is defined as "The intentional use of theater techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote health, thus treating individuals with a range of mental health, cognitive and developmental disorders." Those who become drama therapists are not specialized in either drama or clinical therapy, but both. Utilizing a full skill set from both disciplines, a drama therapist is able to provide the use of many tools to their clients. Drama therapy is interdisciplinary, drawing from multiple sources including:

“You have to own it” is a popular phrase in the world of therapeutic treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. One might thinking that “owning” drug addiction or alcoholism is something one wouldn’t want to do at all. Rather, one would want to have nothing to do with owning any more drugs, alcohol, or their affiliated disorders. Motivational speaker and leader of the self-help movement Brene Brown once said, “Owning your story is the bravest thing you will ever do.” There is something both valuable and satisfactory about ownership.

Many people consider entry into recovery and make the decision to get sober or seek treatment for a mental health condition as miraculous. How is that someone who compulsively uses drugs and alcohol every day and who has become chemically dependent upon them can suddenly stop? For those addicts and alcoholics who go unconvinced for so many years, it is often a mystery as to how it is their minds, riddled with addiction and the influences of substances, can be changed. Addiction and alcoholism are, if nothing else, remarkably stubborn diseases. Some recovery fellowships have regarded alcoholism with the words, “cunning, baffling, and powerful” to describe the way the brain insidiously convinces someone to do anything but get sober. Yet, every day, people pick up the phone and call a treatment center, family, friend, or loved one. Asking for help, they change their minds to be open to the idea of sobriety. It’s more significant than just deciding they can get sober. They are going against their brain chemistry and pondering the possibility of living without ever using drugs and alcohol again. Understandably, such a feat would be considered miraculous.

In the final days of 2016, the world lost yet another beloved celebrity: Carrie Fischer. Fischer, famous for her reprising role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, was open about her addictions, alcoholism, and struggles with mental health. The star, who had been sober for many years, passed of a heart attack. Immediately, questions arose about whether or not Fischer’s weakened heart had anything to do with her years of substance abuse, despite her years of sobriety and good health. A combination of factors are likely to have led to Fischer’s considerably early passing, but substance abuse cannot be ruled out. Recently, the Centers For Disease Control released information which revealed that for the first time since 1993, during the AIDS epidemic, the life expectancy for those in the United States has dropped. Thankfully, the damage is not severe- the life expectancy was reduced only by about a month. However, the change is significant and worrisome considering the steady rise the life expectancy rate has seen in recent years. According to VOA News, “deaths from prescription opioids quadrupled in less than 20 years. More than 183,000 people have died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids since 1999.” Heroin and fentanyl have become leading killers in the opioid epidemic as those who become addicted to prescription painkillers find themselves purchasing these cheaper narcotic drugs. 2016 saw the rise of fentanyl and daily opioid overdose deaths. The synthetic opioid can be up to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Generalizing mental health disorders by their symptoms does the specificity of each disorder a grave injustice. Eloquently described by Scientific American contributor Edmund S. Higgins, “the problem is that the brain is exceedingly complex. Behavior, emotions, and cognition are manifestations of networks of cells that are turned on or off at the right time.” Higgins touches on an important fact of treating mental illness- it’s about treating the brain. For mental health disorders like addiction and alcoholism, formally referred to as substance use disorders, there is ongoing research and experimentation being conducted to locate the exact cells in the brain which contribute to cravings and impulsivity. As though there may be a cure hidden within these tiny spots, scientists understand that the overall symptoms of addiction are not greater than some of its parts. Higgins continues to say, “The capacity to affect specific cells in the brain without altering other cells remains a massive challenge.” Continuing to treat mental illness as a whole without looking at specific parts is effective in curing the symptoms, but has thus far contributed little to solving the entire problem.

Living with anxiety that goes unregulated can be unmanageable. Just a few simple habits throughout the day can help reduce the impact of anxiety symptoms and make life easier by improving mental and physical health.

Troubling pictures and videos have gone viral in recent months with the stories of opioid-addicted parents dying and leaving behind their children. One set of photos showed a young boy strapped into his car seat, his parents overdosed and unconscious in the front seats. Stories of mothers dying during childbirth leaving addicted babies alone to face their withdrawals without them. A video of a young boy being confronted by tearful family members showed the confusion and pain of finding out his mother overdosed and died because of drugs. Recently, one tragic story surfaced of new parents overdosing and leaving their sweet baby uncared for, who then died shortly thereafter of starvation.

Mental illness is not a weakness. It comes with many strengths marked by the label “disability.” On tough days when you’re feeling like you’ve been dealt the losing hand, remember these three things.

Each day is full of opportunities big and small to either harm or support our mental health. Here are a few ways you can give yourself an extra bit of self care.