Quickstart Guide to Mindfulness for Mental Health | Live Chat with Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this morning's brief presentation. We're going to be talking about mindfulness. I've had several of you ask me over the past couple of weeks to do short little videos as often as possible. I'm not going to guarantee to do it every morning as often as possible on different tips and tools to help you live happier and healthier. So today we're going to start with one of the foundation skills, which is mindfulness. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. What is mindfulness? Well, mindfulness is being aware of what's going on in a moment. Worry is energy wasted on the future. We don't know what's going to happen five minutes from now, let alone five days from now now. So worrying about that is not going to do us a lot of good and it's going to use a lot of energy. If we're stewing on worrying about a test we've got or what's going to happen in a meeting with our boss. Can we be aware of something that's upcoming and plan for it? Certainly. But once we identify what's upcoming and do what we can, then holding on to anxiety is just using a lot of energy. It's like sitting in the car with the. The car in park and just revving that engine. You're just burning through that gas and not going anywhere. Resentment, regret, guilt, and a lot of other emotions often represent energy tied up in the past. The past can't be changed. Can we make amends for what happened in the past? Certainly. Can we learn from what happened in the past? Certainly. But continuing to hold ourselves or someone else hostage for something that happened in the past is again taking energy and just tying it up in a bundle and putting it back there, saying, okay, you know, I'm going to keep revisiting that. I'm going to keep going back there all the time. We can't change it. Can we learn from it? Yes. So it's important to figure out the best way to use our energy. Emotions are natural. Anxiety is natural. Anger, resentment, all of these things are very natural emotions. It's our brain's way of telling us what to do or that there may be a threat coming up. But that doesn't mean we're supposed to sit here and nurture it. If we heard the fire alarm go off in our house, we wouldn't just sit there and listen to it go off and fret about what could be happening. No, we'd get up and figure out what set the dagum thing off and figure out how to make it stop. That's what we want to do with mindfulness. Mindfulness helps you be aware of what's going on in the moment so you can use your energy to cherish what is. Notice what's going on. The hawks on the power lines, the bunny rabbits. I love groundhogs. And there's this one particular groundhog I see most every morning when I'm on my way to work. And just noticing him brings a smile to if I wasn't being mindful, if my mind was all over the place worrying about what I had to do at work or being upset about something that didn't go right already in the morning, then I probably wouldn't notice that. So mindfulness helps you cherish what is, but it also helps you figure out, okay, how can I improve the next moment? If I notice that I am not happy for some reason, if I notice that I'm anxious that smoke alarm in my brain is going off, then I can say, all right, let me check and figure out what's causing that distress, and what can I do to improve the next moment? Recognize the things I can change and change them, and recognize the things I can't change and figure out how to accept that. Mindfulness helps you remain aware of your strengths and your vulnerabilities. Nothing is going to be perfect a hundred percent of the time. When we're mindful, we're aware of where we are that day. If you wake up and you happen to be in pain that day or sluggish, then you're going to be aware that that's a vulnerability. When we're not feeling 100%, when we're not on our A game, we're more likely to be irritable and respond with unpleasant emotions. If we notice that we, for example, are hungry, you know that we can easily do something to address that so we don't become hangry, as a lot of people say, which is a combination of hungry and angry for those of you who aren't aware. But mindfulness also helps us remain aware of our strengths. You know, noticing, all right, what is it that I do have going for me right now? When you're tired, in pain, hungry, or just plain irritable, it makes you more vulnerable to negative moods. When you are in a vulnerable state, your body tends to be more on guard. You tend to notice more of the negative stuff, which tends to send you further down into that pit of unpleasantness, like a cold. The sooner you intervene with an unpleasant mood, the sooner you address Whatever it is that's causing your depression, your anxiety, your anger, what your pain, the easier it is to address it and the less impact it will have on your entire life. So how do you do it? Set a timer for two minutes or maybe five minutes if you're one who really likes to ponder, that's cool. Notice during this period of time, two to two to five minutes, how you feel physically. Just kind of do a scan. Am I hungry? When your blood sugar is low, you tend to be a little bit more irritable. Even people who don't have hypoglycemia tend to be a little bit more irritable. When you're thirsty, it actually makes you more sluggish, makes you have more difficulty concentrating. So that can contribute to fatigue and lethargy and just kind of feeling blah when you're in pain. You know, for most of us, when we're in pain, we tend to be a little bit crankier, but just, you know, how pain impacts you and what is your energy level? If you notice that your energy level is really low, then you know, what can you do to improve it? My most people's knee jerk reaction to that is drink caffeine. And you know, that's okay occasionally. But there are other things you can do. Maybe you can take a 10 minute power nap. They've shown that that increases. A 10 minute power nap in the middle of the day actually increases levels of norepinephrine in the body and can help people focus more. In a lot of countries after lunch, there is a period where people rest in order to get rejuvenated and it helps them. That period of rejuvenation helps them press through the rest of the day. So notice how you feel physically, notice how you feel emotionally happy. Well, great, let's run with that. Sad, overwhelmed, angry. If you're feeling unpleasant emotions, be curious, don't judge it. Say, okay, this is how I feel. It is what it is. I know some of y' all hate that phrase, but it is what it is. Notice how you feel and say, okay, what is causing this? Let me be curious. What am I sad about? What's making me feel overwhelmed? What's making me feel angry? The answer to these things, what's going on with me right now takes you to the next step. Identify what you need to do to improve the next moment. It's really simple. If you notice you're hungry, eat something. If you're thirsty, drink something. If you're in pain, maybe stretch or hot, heat or cold compresses. If your energy is low, you know, what can you do to improve it? One of the things. Did you know that you yawn most of the time not because you're tired, but because your body needs more oxygen. When you're not getting enough oxygen, you're going to feel fatigued. For some people, just deep breathing can help. Or going outside, getting a little sunlight so your body recognizes it's time to be awake. And deep breathing, whatever it is that you can do to improve the next moment and address whatever it is that's keeping you from feeling your best. That's all mindfulness is. It doesn't have to be something that is, you know, super duper complicated. All right? I promised you it would be short and sweet, and that's what it was. Are there any questions? Is there anything else that people want to talk about that I can answer for you today? And good morning, everybody. Good morning, Tina. See y' all are focusing on your mindfulness right now. I can tell. I encourage you to set a timer. You can actually. Oops, turned on my flashlight. You can actually download one of the apps that reminds you to take your medication. And you know those a lot of times people take medication three times a day and have it prompt you three times a day in order to remind you to do a mindfulness check in. Eventually it's going to become second nature and you're going to become more aware of how you feel on an ongoing basis. So you won't need that prompt. But initially, you may need a little bit of. Of reminding to check in with yourself. In our culture, unfortunately, we tend to operate on autopilot, and when we auto. Auto that. Auto operate on autopilot, a lot of times we don't notice something is wrong until it starts causing the whole system to break down. I don't know how it is in your area, but around here, we are getting our first really nice blast of fall this weekend, this week. So I am super duper excited. That's one of those things. If I'm being mindful, I know I'm in a better mood today because I know that the weather is just going to be glorious this week and I'm going to get to do some baking. So I'm excited about that. I'm grateful for that and I'm grateful for you all being here today. It. Citroxylon. Only a portion of your question came through, so if you would check that, I would be happy to try to answer it. Okay, so let me answer the first question in about ketamine. Ketamine has been fast tracked as a treatment for people with who are acutely suicidal and have treatment resistant depression and in some cases it's been shown to be somewhat useful for ptsd. What I have seen so far is what they are exploring doing is using it as sort of a last ditch or last ditch effort. It's not a necessarily a first line treatment under physician supervision where there's no chance of diversion or abuse. If it helps then, you know, for some people it may be the one thing that provides hope. For others, you know, it's going to be a an important thing to examine. I'm trying to choose my words carefully is going to be an important thing for people to examine with their physician and consider the long term effects of it, how long they're going to have to take it, etc. What do I think of mindfulness as a as functioning as an emotional boundary to help us regain composure and self integrity and knowledge when the outside world seems so irrational? I think it is a beautiful tool for that. Mindfulness is so incredibly important to help us get recreational grounded. There is so much input, there is so much stuff coming at us from all directions. Even if, you know, we turned off the Internet and everything else in our life, in our culture we tend to be pulled in, you know, a bunch of different directions at one time. So it is really important to take a moment to take stock and stop and check in with ourselves and say, how do I really feel right now? What is really going on with me? Not what mainstream media says, not what Facebook says, not what my dog says, but how do I feel and what can I do to improve the next moment? It's empowering when we start to recognize and start to check in with ourselves and recognize that there are things we can do to help ourselves feel better. So sometimes it means turning off the television or going out on a walk or playing with our dog. So mindfulness is a foundational skill that I think everybody needs to have and that includes toddlers. Toddlers can practice mindfulness and I used to practice it with my son all the time. Mindfulness is the beginning of teaching an emotion, emotional vocabulary. I think it's an excellent tool. Now can they do it for five minutes? No, five minutes is an eternity for a toddler. But you can check in with them and ask them how they feel and what would help them feel better. Even a 2 or 3 year old can respond a little bit to that. They may need to be coached, but it is a great place to start. And ketamine 100 smiles ketamine was actually originally used and it still is used as a horse TR equalizer. It is what a lot of veterinarians use in the field when they have to do surgery, you know, in the pasture on horses or cattle. So it is a really potent anesthetic. It has shown, you know, in, in the research you can go to PubMed and that's. I really always recommend going to PubMed and looking at the research yourself because, you know, from the horse's mouth, so to speak, you're going to get a lot more information than what is cherry picked by content writers for different websites. If company X comes up with a fake alcohol type whose consumption is not harmful and does not render one unconscious, would it qualify as a legitimate form of treatment? Treatment for what? I mean, right now we already have non alcoholic alcohol that people theoretically can use. The nice thing about that is if you're a person who likes the taste of alcohol, you know, is not going to mess with the neurotransmitters near to the extent, extent that, you know, actual alcohol does, however, that it's still extraordinarily, in my opinion, risky for somebody who has a history of alcohol misuse because it does set up certain expectations. How do we come overcome negativity in the lockdown? We know how to work on things after watching videos, but people around us just don't. And it's tough. Yeah, it is, it is really, it's really challenging when it seems like everyone around you is distraught. And it can be very oppressive when everyone or most everyone around you is stressed out and angry and just in an unpleasant place. And it can, it's oppressive. So what do we do? Well, number one, focus on what you can with yourself. If you can extricate yourself from those situations, then that may be something to do. For example, I have minimized my exposure to the media and to social media through the election. Right now I just, I can't take the name calling, I can't take the, you know, snipping and sniping and it just, it's exhausting to me. Even if I'm not getting involved, it's exhausting to me. I can't change that. I can't change them. In my house we have a time that for us it's dinner time where we focus on the positive. And there's a rule in our house that during dinner for that 20, 30 minutes, all we're going to talk about is what went right that day, what's going well that day. And you know, I can set those Rules, because my house, my rules. But then the other 23 hours and 40 minutes of the day, what do you do? It's important to remember or to be able to set boundaries and recognize what you can and cannot change you. Some people are not wanting to change their mind. Some people are so afraid of what may happen that they, they're, they're in extreme fight or flee mode and they're not, they're in an adrenaline haze. They're not able to get into what Linehan would have called their rational mind. So debating with them, arguing them, trying to quote, educate them about your opinions on something, it's probably not going to go anywhere and you're just going to get frustrated. So it's important to recognize that they can have their opinions and you know, they may be unhappy. However, you can have your opinions and that's okay. It's also important to make sure to do positive things for yourself every day. You need to force your brain to, you know, you know, up the levels of serotonin and dopamine and gaba right now because there is so much going on. Keep your circadian rhythm stable. Do positive things for yourself. Maintain healthy emotional boundaries, allowing other people to be miserable if that's what they choose to do right now. And try to create an environment as often as possible throughout the day that is emotionally and obviously physically safe so you don't feel like you're being bombarded with negativity. Let's see. And I personally do not believe that any medication or any drug, I don't know what you want to call it can be a substitute for addressing the rest of it. Addiction is a biopsychosocial disease. We need to address thinking. We need to address neurotransmitter imbalances, we need to address environmental issues, we need to address relationship issues. There's a bunch of social media stuff that needs to be addressed, whether it's done through counseling or step work. It's really important for people to not expect that there's going to be a drug out there that is going to make it all better. It's also important to remember that if you're switching to something, using your scenario like an alcohol free alcohol. Well, a lot of the reason that people drink alcohol is, is not because they like the taste. It's because of the way it alters their neurotransmitters to help them feel more relaxed, more at ease, happier, whatever the, the end point they're looking for. And a non alcoholic drink, if they know it's non alcoholic A non alcoholic drink is likely not going to do that for them. So it's, you know, all it is is flavored water and, and it's not going to do much in terms of assisting a person in long term recovery. And like I said, I think it's also a very dangerous, very slippery slope because the taste can be triggering and make them yearn for and want to, you know, progress. Just like we talk about other gateway drugs, Guided meditations can be very useful for helping get regrounded. And I encourage you to look online. There are tons of them I love. And you can look for the actual meditation online or there's a video on meditation on the YouTube channel. I love the, the loving kindness meditation and it's one that really helps inspire appreciation of others for being human beings. You may not like what they have to say, you may not agree with them all the time, but recognizing that everyone deserves to be loved and to feel happy, A comprehensive assessment is it depends on where you're at and what insurance company you're going through. A lot of insurance organizations want you to redo the comprehensive assessment at least once a year. I think people's situations change a lot more frequently than that, which is why reassessment is so important. You may not need to do a full comprehensive again, but especially in early recovery, I think reassessment every 30 days is really beneficial, not only for clinicians, but also for the person because it helps them see how far they've come, it helps them see what issues may still be out there and it may help them identify other issues that are now creeping in that they didn't notice before. Alrighty, everybody. Thank you for all of your participation and I look forward to seeing you. Like I said, I'm going to try to do this most every morning, but you know, I will do it as, as often as I possibly can. So I don't want to promise you every morning, but I will do my darndest to provide you some brief tools. All righty, have a great day and I will see you tomorrow. Oh. 100 Smiles shares that two channels that come to mind for guided meditations are Unlike youe Life by Lauren Ostrosky Fenton. Um, and there's another channel called Meditation Vacation, so check those out because evidently 100 smiles has been to them and really likes them. So y' all have a great day and I'll see you next time.