#strongwomen
Anxiety Isn’t One Size Fits All
The Comfort Zone
How To Give Advice: Less Fixing, More Listening
I've been the relationship advice columnist at The Boston Globe for more than a decade. That means I've answered thousands of letters from the lovelorn.
But when friends and family ask for advice, it's more complicated. It can be fraught — sometimes I know too much and it can be difficult to remain objective.
Also, if I don't get it right, I could hurt someone I love.
I think it works that way for a lot of us. Helping a stranger can be easier than advising someone we've known forever.
That's why I teamed up with Life Kit to figure out some best practices. Turns out, good advice is often about loosening the body, opening the mind and, more often than not, keeping your mouth shut.
Listen to Life Kit
This story is adapted from an episode of Life Kit, NPR's podcast with tools to help you get it together. Listen to the episode at the top of the page, or find it here.
1. Body language matters.
Jaime Roberts has been one of my go-to experts for advice for decades. She listened to me when we were kids in Maryland. Now in her 40s, she's a high school guidance counselor — so she's still advising young people.
I asked Roberts why she's so good at it, and she was quick to mention her body language. She says you should stay open if you can. She likes to face someone without barriers. She keeps her hands free (she's not multitasking with a phone). She keeps her face neutral and tries to avoid looks of shock or judgement.
"If you look like you're tense or you're distracted, the person might not open up to you as much as you would want them to," she says.
2. You don't have to fix the problem.
Giving advice isn't the same as giving someone an order. That's something Khalid Latif learned on the job. He's the executive director and chaplain for the Islamic Center at New York University, which means counseling and advising are big parts of his job.
People who ask "What should I do?" often want to process a problem themselves. You're giving good advice if you can help them get there on their own.
"A lot of it is to unload things that they have going on inside," Latif says. "And you creating a space where they can self express freely."
Part of the trick with this is remembering that it's not about you. A friend's priorities might not match your own, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Don't assume their choices are any kind of statement about your own values and decisions.
"Empathy ... I would say necessitates a complete suspension of the ego, where anything that's feeding your feeling, it gets put to the side," Latif says.
Easy, right? Just remember that listening goes a long way.
LIFE KIT
How To Start Therapy
3. Know when the questions are more than you can handle.
Latif also says he knows when to refer out. He has mental health professionals on staff who can help people with problems outside of his expertise.
Often, I tell letter writers — and friends and family — that counseling can be wonderful, and that there's no shame in asking for it when bad feelings persist.
I tend to recommend seeking help from a professional when someone seeking advice can't get to a solution on their own.
4. Pay attention to patterns.
The thing with giving advice is that when we're doing it for people we love, we might hear the same problem over and over again. When you've known someone for years, you're a witness to their patterns and repeated mistakes.
Author and therapist Sherry Amatenstein says there's a way to be thoughtful about this cycle. Instead of saying, "Ugh, you've said this 15,000 times," you might ask a friend how their new experiences relate to their old ones.
"I'm gonna say something like, 'You know, this kind of reminds me a bit of that time when ... ' " she said.
You can also ask questions. "What do you think that means?" or "What has worked for you before?" can be a good ones when you're trying to get someone to consider their own cycle.
When Friendships Change, How To Cope
5. Sometimes you can't give advice right now.
John Paul Brammer writes ¡Hola Papi!, an advice column that often focuses on the LGBTQ community. As Papi, Brammer is funny and empathetic. He says it helps that he writes advice when he's in the right space to do it.
It should work that way in real life, too, he said. Texts and FaceTime might be immediate, but your advice doesn't have to be. You can politely explain to someone that you want to give them your full attention when you're ready.
"Sometimes when you try to force yourself to be there for someone that you just can't be there for in the moment, you can do more harm than good," Brammer says.
6. You can be a great sounding board without having lived it.
Brammer also says we're bound to hear about problems we haven't experienced firsthand. But that doesn't mean we can't be helpful. That's why advice is all about listening, really.
If we go into it knowing we don't have answers, if we behave like sounding boards, we can be thoughtful for just about anyone. That's why Brammer says giving advice should feel like a conversation. That's when it works best — when you find yourself saying, "Tell me more."
"There are no points to be won," he said. "You're both just human beings sort of collaborating on the project of being a person and seeing it that way for all its messiness."
Life Kit recommends:
The Love Letters column in The Boston Globe takes on all kinds of relationship problems.
The Love Letters podcast features people telling their real-life relationship stories. (Season 3 attempts to answer the question: How do you know?)
John Paul Brammer's column ¡Hola Papi! can be found here.
Meredith Goldstein is the Love Letters advice columnist for The Boston Globe and hosts the Love Letters podcast. She is also the author of Can't Help Myself: Lessons and Confessions From a Modern Advice Columnist and the young adult novel Chemistry Lessons.
Stressed Teens Group Starting April 1, 2020
Let’s face it: High school sucks. Is your high schooler struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, or balancing their many priorities? Change Counseling will be offering an upbeat, supportive group for teens navigating pre-college/workforce challenges beginning April 1, 2020 in our Mansfield location. Group will run bi-weekly in the evening. Contact us here now to learn more and get signed up!
Mental Health is Invisible
Feeling Anxious? Here's a Quick Tool To Center Your Soul
Have you ever noticed how tough it is to be present? We spend so much time planning and worrying about the future or dwelling on the past.
"We're in a trance of thinking. We're time traveling," says Tara Brach, a world-renowned psychologist and mindfulness teacher. "We're in the future, we're in the past."
And all this ruminating gets in the way of enjoying life — we can miss out on the good stuff.
If you reflect on your life, Brach asks, how often can you sense that the fear of failing or not being good enough "was in some way dampening or contracting or pulling you away from real intimacy or spontaneity or enjoying a sunset?"
Life Kit host Allison Aubrey spoke with Brach about her latest book, Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN. The book outlines the mindfulness tool, RAIN, an acronym for a four-step process: recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.
What is mindfulness at its core. Can you describe mindfulness in a sentence or two?
Mindfulness is paying attention to what's happening in the present moment without judgment.
What is the purpose? What is the benefit of paying attention to the present moment?
We step out of our thoughts about the past and the future, and we actually start occupying a space of presence that is bigger than the particular emotions or thoughts that are going on.
Mindfulness gives us more choice as to how we want to experience things, what we want to say, what we want to do. So instead of reacting, we can actually respond from more intelligence, more kindness. It actually lets us inhabit our best selves.
The "R" and the "A" in RAIN stand for Recognize and Allow — can you explain that?
So "recognize" comes when we realize on some level we're stuck. We're having a hard time. All we're doing with "recognize" is sensing whatever feeling is predominant in that moment. And it might be we simply say 'upset' or 'confused' or 'angry' or 'hurt'.
With "allow" you actually are pausing, saying 'it's OK.' Let's just let this be for a few moments. And that's the pause. That's the space we're creating that gives you the power and the freedom.
So the next step is "I" for investigate. What are some questions that you can ask to help yourself investigate?
Ask yourself 'what really wants my attention?' Ask what wants your attention right now and look into the body. Feel the throat, the chest, the belly. Another really good question is 'what am I believing right now?' Because I find for myself when I'm in a bad mood, usually I'm believing that in some way I fell short. I'm failing in some way.
And if I can identify it consciously, it doesn't affect me as much. The single most valuable finale with investigating is to ask the part of you that feels most vulnerable: 'so what do you need?' Is it love? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Feeling accompanied? Feeling embraced? Feeling safe?
The last letter in RAIN is "N," which stands for nurture. Explain this one.
This step is all about learning to be kind to yourself and offering yourself what is needed. Often, to fight through the feelings of shame or anxiety, we have to work at this. The way I often do it is I put my hand on my heart and I'll say, "it's okay sweetheart." Or you might just say to yourself, "I love you," or, "It's okay, I'm here. I'm not leaving."
Or, we can imagine that affirmation coming from someone else — a loved one, a spiritual figure, even a pet. The source doesn't matter as long as it's nurturing.
After RAIN, we can sense a shift in how we feel. We sense the quality of presence that's opened up from where we started to now.
For those of us not in the habit of nurturing ourselves, this can be a challenging step in the process. For instance, if I over-react to a situation, I later laugh at my lack of perspective. I realize that it wasn't a big deal, and I feel so much lighter when I'm able to laugh it off. Is this a form of nurturing?
Nurturing is any way that you create a larger, lighter, kinder space. And humor is fantastic. Often if I can laugh, I know the tangle is no longer dominating me.
And that's the thing with RAIN, it doesn't get rid of the waves of experience. It makes you more ocean-like. You have more perspective, more wisdom. Wisdom brings on humor. Wisdom brings on kindness. In other words, you're not suffering. What you're feeling is not pleasant, but you're not suffering.
So many of us are taught from a young age to be ambitious and aim high. How can we practice mindfulness and still achieve our goals?
What's interesting is that people have a fear that if they're mindful and present, they'll lose their motivation, that they won't be able to be so successful in the ways you're describing. But what I found is that anxiety actually leads to more mistakes, less empathy, less emotional intelligence and actually less effectiveness.
Where do you see this?
We train people in corporations and medical schools and they actually find mindfulness increases competency. Mindfulness doesn't remove motivation. It just allows us to be more centered and respond from our natural intelligence. Fear doesn't make us more intelligent.
Does mindfulness become easier the more you practice it?
Whatever you practice gets stronger. If you practice judging yourself every day, that gets stronger. If you practice recognizing, allowing, investigating, nurturing, that gets stronger and also quicker.
The real gift is that we start trusting our goodness. We start trusting the love and the awareness. Not only that, we start looking at each other and seeing that too. If we can trust the goodness, then we can help to bring it out in ourselves and each other.
Trauma Can Be Different For Everyone
Here’s how exercise reduces anxiety and makes you feel more connected
We all know exercise makes your body healthier and helps you live longer. A growing body of research shows exercise is also linked to a wide range of mood-based and social benefits.
People who are physically active are happier and more satisfied with their lives. They have a stronger sense of purpose, feel more gratitude, are more connected to their communities, and are less likely to be lonely or anxious.
Why? A big part has to do with how being active affects the brain. Here are five surprising ways exercise is good for your mind.
The exercise “high” primes you to connect with others
While typically described as a runner’s high, an exercise-induced mood boost is not exclusive to running. Similar good feelings can be found in any sustained physical activity, such as yoga, swimming and dancing.
Scientists long speculated that endorphins are behind the high, but research shows the high is linked to another class of brain chemicals: endocannabinoids(the same chemicals mimicked by cannabis) — what neuroscientists describe as the “don’t worry, be happy” chemical. Endocannabinoids reduce anxiety and induce a state of contentment. These brain chemicals also increase dopamine in the brain’s reward system, which fuels feelings of optimism.
Because endocannabinoids also increase the pleasure we derive from being around others, the exercise high primes us to connect. This makes exercise an excellent way to strengthen relationships. Among married couples, when spouses exercise together, both partners report more closeness later that day, studies show, including feeling loved and supported.
Another study shows that on days when people exercise, they experience more positive interactions with friends and family. As one runner said to me, “My family will sometimes send me out running, as they know that I will come back a much better person.”
Exercise can make your brain more sensitive to joy
Exercise provides a low-dose jolt to the brain’s reward centers — the system that helps you anticipate pleasure, feel motivated and maintain hope. Over time, regular exercise remodels the reward system, leading to higher circulating levels of dopamine and more available dopamine receptors. In this way, exercise can both relieve depression and expand your capacity for joy.
These changes can also repair the neurological havoc wreaked by substance abuse. Substance abuse lowers the level of dopamine in your brain and reduces the availability of dopamine receptors. Exercise can reverse this. In one randomized trial, adults in treatment for methamphetamine abuse participated in an hour of walking, jogging and strength training three times a week. After eight weeks, their brains showed an increase in dopamine receptor availability in the reward system.
Jump-starting the brain’s reward system benefits not just those who struggle with depression or addiction. Adults lose up to 13 percent of the dopamine receptors in the reward system with each passing decade. This loss leads to less enjoyment of everyday pleasures, but physical activity can prevent the decline. Active older adults have reward systems that more closely resemble those of individuals who are decades younger.
Exercise makes you brave
Courage is another side effect of how physical activity changes the brain. Exercise increases connections among areas of the brain that calm anxiety. Regular physical activity can also modify the default state of the nervous system so that it becomes more balanced and less prone to fight, flight or fright.
The latest research even suggests that lactate — a metabolic byproduct of exercise — has positive effects on mental health. After lactate is released by muscles, it travels through the bloodstream to the brain, where it can reduce anxiety and protect against depression.
Sometimes, specific movements allow us to experience ourselves as brave. The mind instinctively makes sense out of physical actions. So much of the language we use to describe courage relies on metaphors of the body: We overcome obstacles and break through barriers. We carry burdens, reach out for help and lift one another up.
When we are faced with adversity or we doubt our own strength, it can help to feel these actions in our bodies. Sometimes we need to climb an actual hill or work together to shoulder a heavy load to know these traits are a part of us.
Moving with others builds trust and belonging
French sociologist Émile Durkheim popularized the term collective effervescence to describe the euphoric self-transcendence individuals feel when they move together in ritual, prayer or work. Group exercise, such as yoga, dance or indoor cycling classes, is one of the most powerful ways to experience this joy.
Moving in the same way, and at the same time, as others triggers a release of endorphins. This is why dancers and rowers who move in sync show an increase in pain tolerance. But endorphins don’t just make us feel good; they help us bond, too. People who share an endorphin rush feel closer to one another afterward. It’s a powerful mechanism for forming friendships, even with people we don’t know.
Many aspects of a group exercise experience amplify the bonding effects of synchronized movement. For example, the more you get your heart rate up, the closer you feel to the people you move with. Adding music enhances the effect. Breathing in unison — as in a yoga or tai chi class — can also increase the feeling of collective joy. If you want to experience a state of belonging and self-transcendence, find a place where you can move, breathe and sweat with others.
Physical accomplishments change how you think about yourself and what you are capable of. One woman I spoke with shared a story about how when she was in her early 20s and severely depressed, she made a plan to take her own life. The day she intended to go through with it, she went to the gym for one last workout. She dead-lifted 185 pounds, a personal best. When she put the bar down, she realized that she didn’t want to die. Instead, she remembers, “I wanted to see how strong I could become.” Five years later, she can dead lift 300 pounds.
If there is a voice in your head saying, “You’re too old, too awkward, too big, too broken, too weak,” sensations from movement can provide a compelling counterargument. When you move with grace, your brain perceives the elongation of your limbs and the fluidity of your steps, and realizes, “I am graceful.” When you move with power, your brain encodes the explosive contraction of muscles, senses the speed of the action and understands, “I am powerful.” To discover a new part of yourself, choose a movement that reflects the qualities you want to develop.
Any form of exercise can lead to these effects. Move in whatever way feels good or makes you feel good about yourself. And know that you are not just strengthening your heart and your muscles. You are also strengthening your capacity to experience happiness, connection and courage.
Trying a new activity can transform your self-image
Physical accomplishments change how you think about yourself and what you are capable of. One woman I spoke with shared a story about how when she was in her early 20s and severely depressed, she made a plan to take her own life. The day she intended to go through with it, she went to the gym for one last workout. She dead-lifted 185 pounds, a personal best. When she put the bar down, she realized that she didn’t want to die. Instead, she remembers, “I wanted to see how strong I could become.” Five years later, she can dead lift 300 pounds.
If there is a voice in your head saying, “You’re too old, too awkward, too big, too broken, too weak,” sensations from movement can provide a compelling counterargument. When you move with grace, your brain perceives the elongation of your limbs and the fluidity of your steps, and realizes, “I am graceful.” When you move with power, your brain encodes the explosive contraction of muscles, senses the speed of the action and understands, “I am powerful.” To discover a new part of yourself, choose a movement that reflects the qualities you want to develop.
Any form of exercise can lead to these effects. Move in whatever way feels good or makes you feel good about yourself. And know that you are not just strengthening your heart and your muscles. You are also strengthening your capacity to experience happiness, connection and courage.
Change Counseling Welcomes Professional Counselor Kelsey Daniels to Our Team
Kelsey Daniels
Kelsey Daniels is a Licensed Professional Counselor who earned a Masters Degree from the University of New Haven in Community Psychology with a concentration in Forensic Psychology. Her approach to therapy is person-centered and strengths-based. She works to create a non-judgmental environment where people feel safe and heard. She believes that humor and transparency are key to the therapeutic relationship and to helping people learn to heal and grow.
Kelsey is currently accepting new clients at our Willimantic and Mansfield locations. Contact us here to set up an appointment with her today!
Therapy Doesn’t Mean Something’s Wrong With You
Turns Out Monkey Bars And Kickball Might Be Good For The Brain
Recess at Eagle Mountain Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, looks much like recess anyplace else. Some kids run and squeal, others swing, while a half-dozen of their peers are bunched up on the slide.
Journey Orebaugh, a 6-year-old in an off-white princess dress, is playing family.
"You just get a bunch of people and just act like who you want to be," she says. Journey likes to play the mom.
But in one sense, recess at Eagle Mountain is different. Journey gets more opportunities to role-play than many of her peers, because recess happens a lot here — four times a day, 15 minutes a pop for kindergartners and first-graders.
That's much more time on the playground than most public school kids get in the U.S. Over the past couple of decades, schools have cut recess time to make room for tests and test prep.
Ask Journey why she and her friends get so much more recess time, and she giggles. "Lucky," she says.
But ask the adults, and they'll tell you it's because Eagle Mountain is part of a project in which the school day is modeled after the Finnish school system, which consistently scores at or near the top in international education rankings. The project's designer is Texas Christian University kinesiologist Debbie Rhea.
"I went over there to find out where they've come in the last 20 to 25 years. Yes, their test scores are good, but they are also healthy in many regards," she says.
The biggest difference Rhea noticed was that students in Finland get much more recess than American kids do. "So, I came back with the idea to bring recess back to the schools. Not just one recess, but multiple recesses."
This year, Eagle Mountain Elementary started tripling recess time, from 20 minutes to an hour. The program also focuses on character development --things like empathy and positive behavior.
Rhea is working with a handful of local schools already. More will join next year in Texas, California and Oklahoma.
I came back with the idea to bring recess back to the schools. Not just one recess, but multiple recesses.
Kinesiologist Debbie Rhea
Teachers at Eagle Mountain say they've seen a huge transformation in their students. They say kids are less distracted, they make more eye contact, and they tattle less.
And then there are the pencils.
"You know why I was sharpening them? Because they were grinding on them, they were breaking them, they were chewing on them. They're not doing that now. They're actually using their pencils for the way that they were designed — to write things!" says teacher Cathy Wells.
Wells and fellow first-grade teacher Donna McBride have six decades of teaching between them and say this year feels different. They were nervous about fitting in all the extra recess and covering the basics, but Wells says that halfway through the school year, her kids are way ahead of schedule.
"If you want a child to be attentive and stay on task, and also if you want them to encode the information you're giving them in their memory, you've got to give them regular breaks," says Ohio State University pediatrician Bob Murray.
He has compiled research that backs up what teachers at Eagle Mountain are seeing in class. Murray says brain imaging has shown that kids learn better after a break for physical activity and unstructured play.
He and his colleagues wrote up a policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics suggesting that kids with regular recess behave better, are physically healthier and exhibit stronger social and emotional development. That's as school districts nationwide have been taking recess out of the school day.
"They want more academic time, they want more time to do the core subjects," Murray says. "They have pretty much carved away anything that got in the way of those minutes for teaching."
Debbie Rhea, the Texas Christian University kinesiologist, sees her program as a shift away from that thinking to giving kids more than just academics.
"We keep thinking as adults that we need to control the way they do things. I wish we'd get out of that. They know how to play, they know how to structure their own play — they need that time to grow responsibly."
When it comes down to it, Rhea says, our kids are better off if we just let them be kids.
Problem vs. Solution Focused
Everyone’s Growth Looks Different
Young Workers Seek Mental Health Accommodations, Employers Try to Keep Up
Managers and younger employees are struggling to adapt as a generation of people with higher rates of reported mental illness enter the workforce.
Many of these new workers are coming to offices from colleges and high schools where they received accommodations, such as extra time to take tests or complete assignments—in some cases from elementary school onward. They are confronting a world of work that operates under different legal standards and less-flexible pressures and deadlines.
Symptoms related to mental illnesses covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act—such as severe anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder—can be ambiguous, unpredictable, highly individualized and often invisible. That makes accommodating these disabilities one of the more difficult areas for employers, according to employment attorneys and disability experts.
“When an employee shows up with their leg in a cast, you know what the accommodations are,” said Jen Rubin, a partner with the management-side law firm Mintz. “When someone comes in and says, ‘I have severe anxiety’ or ‘I have stress,’ it’s much harder.”
Workers are making more requests for accommodations, lawyers say, and more are alleging that they are experiencing discrimination based on mental-health conditions.
The number of charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission citing discrimination related to anxiety disorders climbed to 371 in 2019 compared with 65 in 2006, according to the latest federal figures. The number that cite post-traumatic stress disorder rose to 208 from 35 in that time.
The EEOC has sued employers for allegedly firing workers with mental-health conditions or declining to provide reasonable accommodations. In one case, the agency sued a trucking company that allegedly charged a fee to a driver who needed a service animal in his vehicle to help control his anxiety. The company, Transport America, agreed to pay the driver $22,500 to settle. It didn’t admit liability in the consent decree and declined to comment about the case.
Another case involved a young woman with autism and anxiety who brought a job coach to an interview at a Party City store. The hiring manager allegedly attempted to cut the interview short and made demeaning comments about the applicant. The company agreed to pay $155,000 to settle. It didn’t admit liability and didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“Employers who fall back on fears or stereotypes could end up violating the ADA,” said Sharon Rennert, a senior attorney adviser at the EEOC. A requested accommodation may be unworkable, she added. For example, if call-center employees are expected to answer 10 to 15 calls an hour, and someone says their anxiety prevents them from answering more than five, the employer might argue that the accommodation deviates from standards that apply to all call-center employees.
“In that circumstance, the employer would have legitimate reason to say no,” Ms. Rennert said.
Several management-side lawyers said they advise clients that there is no one-size-fits-all accommodation for mental-health conditions, and that they should work with employees, when possible, to adapt work to meet business goals without engaging in illegal discrimination.
Young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 have the highest prevalence of serious mental illness among all age groups, with a rate of 7.5%, compared with 5.6% for ages 26 to 49, and 2.7% for those over 50, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Students in the U.S. who receive a so-called 504 designation—which is meant to give people with difficulties such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder a chance to handle the stress of schoolwork at their own pace or with accommodation—more than tripled from 2000 to 2016, according to federal data.
But rules that guide educational accommodations, such as who gets extra time for assignments, are different from those governing employment situations, Ms. Rennert said. Employers are required to offer “reasonable accommodations,” but they can also decline requests by arguing they create an undue hardship because of cost, productivity or some other reason.
“Historically, undue hardships focused on money,” said Domenique Camacho Moran, head of the labor and employment practice at law firm Farrell Fritz PC. A person with back problems might ask for a special chair, for instance, and their employer could deny it if the chair cost $7,000. Today, she said, “it’s less about a specific product and much more about a change in the work itself: the way it’s done, when it’s done, where it’s done.”
Companies are seeing more requests to work from home, have flexible schedules or take unpaid leaves of absence, she said. Sometimes employees choose not to disclose their conditions, or not to ask for accommodations, for fear of being stigmatized or penalized, which can create problems if their work begins to suffer, she said.
“You can end up in a scenario where someone is about to get fired and it turns out there was a really simple fix and it never came up,” Ms. Moran said. “The employee never raised concerns and suddenly it’s the eleventh hour.”
Even when employees receive accommodations, “new supervisor syndrome” can create instability, said Brian East, senior attorney with Disability Rights Texas. If a manager leaves, for instance, their replacement may bristle when they learn of an accommodation, such as a person’s need to have directions written in an email rather than shouted across a room.
“The supervisor doesn’t like it, thinks it’s a hassle and instead of trying to work with the person, they ratchet up the pressure in the hopes that the person will leave,” he said.
Attorneys and advocates stress that designing workplace accommodations requires an interactive process between employee and employer.
“If it’s a five-person office and the one person who does finance asks for a two-month leave—maybe they can’t afford to let the person do that,” said Ms. Rubin. “The employer can say, ‘How about you take a week off?’
“It becomes a negotiation,” she said. “That’s what the law is trying to promote.”
Complements for Kids Not Based on Appearance
Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Soil Makes Your Brain Happy
Soil microbes have been found to have similar effects on the brain as prozac, without the negative side effects and potential for chemical dependency and withdrawal.
It turns out getting in the garden and getting dirty is a natural antidepressant due to unique microbes in healthy organic soil. Working and playing in soil can actually make you happier and healthier.
What gardeners and farmers have talked about for millennia is now verifiable by science. Feeling like your garden or farm is your happy place is no coincidence!
The soil microbe mycobacterium vaccae has been found to mirror the effect on neurons in the brain that drugs like Prozac can provide, but without side effects.
The way it works is the “happy” microbes in soil cause cytokine levels to rise, which leads to the production of more serotonin.
This bacterium is found in healthy soil and when humans are exposed to it, the microbe stimulates serotonin production. Serotonin makes us feel relaxed and happier.
Conversely, lack of serotonin has been linked to depression, anxiety, OCD, and bipolar disorders.
Some studies on cancer patients have demonstrated better quality of life and less stress when patients were given mycobacterium vaccae.
Scientists also tested the microbe via injection and ingestion on rats and compared results to a control group. They found that cognitive ability, lower stress, and better concentration were notable benefits that lasted 3 weeks time.
Mycobacterium antidepressant microbes in soil are also being investigated for improving cognitive function, Crohn’s disease, and even rheumatoid arthritis.
Farmers and gardeners come in contact with this bacterium by having topical contact with it, inhaling it, and getting it into their bloodstreams when they have small cuts or other pathways for infection.
So while the physical act of gardening may reduce stress and lift moods in and of itself, it is fascinating to know there is some science to add to the happy gardener sentiment.
With no adverse health effects caused by mycobacterium vaccae and so much to gain, you might as well grow something. As a bonus you’ll produce fresh, local food, or at least something pretty to smell and look at if flowers and ornamentals are your thing. Bees and other pollinators will appreciate it too!
Advice From A Tree
Change Counseling Welcomes Professional Counselor Amanda Nowak to Our Team
Amanda Nowak
Amanda Nowak is a Licensed Professional Counselor who earned a Masters of Counseling Psychology degree from Assumption College with a concentration in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She brings humanistic qualities to the therapy experience through the promotion of mutual trust and understanding to collaboratively identity goals and objectives. Her clinical training and experience aid in cultivating an empowering opportunity for clients to enhance growth and move forward in strengthening their personal needs. She strives to provide a safe and genuine environment for all individuals and is privileged to take part in their healing process.
Amanda is currently accepting new clients at our Putnam location. Contact us here to set up an appointment with her today!