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Mindfulness meditation alters neurophysiological characteristics that are linked to anxiety and depression

Mindfulness meditation training is associated with changes in resting-state brain activity, according to new research conducted with elementary school students. The study, published in the Journal of Psychophysiology, provides new insights into why mindfulness meditation could be effective in improving symptoms of anxiety and depression.

“Our interest in the topic primarily resulted from a desire to identify alternative methods for attenuating anxiety and depression during preadolescence, a stage of development where children are particularly susceptible to internalizing symptoms due to increased social demands and a lack of psychological and neurological maturity to effectively cope with such demands,” said study author Nancy Aaron Jones an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University and director of the WAVES Emotion Lab.

“Children in this age-range have traditionally shown less responsiveness to traditional treatments such as medication and talk therapy compared to adults, and therefore we wanted to evaluate the potential of mindfulness meditation intervention in reducing neurological symptoms of anxiety in this age range and serving as a protective factor against later development of disorders.

“A second goal was to further understand the relationship between internalizing behavioral symptoms and resting-state brain activity measures in children of different age-ranges. This knowledge is valuable for understanding how the neurological mechanisms involved in anxiety and depression may fluctuate as a function of age.”

The researchers examined the impact of a mindfulness meditation training program on 66 elementary school students. The mindfulness meditation program occurred in class for 15 minutes once per day for 10 weeks.

The students completed self-reported assessments of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and mood before and after the mindfulness training program. The researchers also recorded the students’ electrical brain activity before and after the program.

Jones and her colleagues found that self-reported depression scores declined after the mindfulness meditation training program. Using electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings, the researchers also found that the program was associated with alterations in brainwave activity.

In particular, they observed increases in EEG alpha wave coherence throughout the entire cortex. The researchers also observed increases in theta, alpha, and beta power in the frontal and central areas of the brain.

“We hope that this study will shed light on the potential of mindfulness meditation to serve as a buffer against anxiety development in children by demonstrating that a daily mindfulness training program significantly altered neurophysiological characteristics that signify risk for anxiety and depression, namely frontal and central power as well as frontal and parietal coherence were increased following the training,” Jones explained to PsyPost.

“In the broader scope, we hope that parents, teachers, and superintendents concerned with the mental health of children recognize the helpfulness of short duration daily exercises for reducing stress, such as physical activity, music/art, or mindfulness meditation.”

However, two common EEG measures linked to anxiety remained largely unchanged.

“A major caveat of this study is that the participants were not formally diagnosed with anxiety or depression and therefore, we can not conclude that the same results would occur with clinical participants,” Jones said.

“In addition, we did not include a control group, which leaves open the possibility that other factors may have led to the reduced neurophysiological risk for anxiety in the preadolescent participants.”

“Additionally, the long-term effects of mindfulness are less well-understood, so future studies should evaluate the effects of mindfulness longitudinally with multiple time points at different stages of development. We feel one possibility is that mindfulness reduces anxiety by increasing cognitive control so it would be interesting to directly test that mediation factor,” Jones explained.

“We hope that this study and others will shed light on the appropriateness and effectiveness of short-duration mindfulness meditation training for school-wide implementation. In addition to lowering anxiety, mindfulness may strengthen cognitive skills that are beneficial for school performance.”

The study, “Mindfulness Meditation Intervention Alters Neurophysiological Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression in Preadolescents“, was authored by Nathaniel A. Shanok, Carol Reive, Krystal D. Mize, and Nancy Aaron Jones.

This content was originally published here.

The post Mindfulness meditation alters neurophysiological characteristics that are linked to anxiety and depression appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

Contrary to widespread belief, cannabis addiction is possible. Here’s what it’s like

“When I smoke a joint, one is never enough, and I want to smoke another and I want to smoke another,” explains Courtney Head of Fort McMurray, Alta.

Head, now 31, started smoking cannabis in her mid-20s.

“I tried it and I thought it was the best thing ever,” she said. “It’s relaxing, it’s this, it’s that. I kind of started smoking it socially — it wasn’t an everyday use kind of thing — but over time, I guess the more I smoked, the more I wanted to smoke.”

Over time, her consumption hit seven or eight grams every two days — “about 10 joints a day, depending on how big they are” — and she was diagnosed with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a condition that afflicts some heavy users with pain, constant nausea and the threat of dangerous levels of dehydration.

READ MORE: Four myths and misconceptions about pot and your health

Eventually, Head decided that while weed isn’t addictive for the people around her, it is for her.

“I first started thinking of it as an addiction when I realized that I needed it to eat,” she says. “I needed it to just function normally. I started planning my daily activities around it. I couldn’t really travel. I had to plan everything around my cannabis. I had to make sure I had a certain amount with me at all times, and if I didn’t then I couldn’t go.

“It started affecting my relationships with my family, it started affecting relationships with my friends, it started affecting my employment. I missed a lot of work over the last five years due to CHS.”

WATCH: Calgary-based addiction psychologist Jonathan Stea spoke with Global News about the misconception of cannabis being an addictive substance.

The vast majority of cannabis users enjoy it — or use it as medicine — without real trouble.

“I would always ask myself: ‘Why can all my friends smoke weed?’ Or ‘why can this person smoke weed and I can’t?’” Head says.

But for about one user in 10, cannabis use can spiral into a real addiction.

“I think it’s been a popular misconception that cannabis is not physically addicting,” says Calgary-based addiction psychologist Jonathan Stea. “I find that belief quite frustrating. I find myself trying to dispel that narrative quite often.

“People try to contrast cannabis being psychologically addicting versus physically addicting, but that’s sort of a false dichotomy. We have an endocannabinoid system, and it’s very well-established that cannabis withdrawal can occur.”

About 10 per cent of cannabis users will develop an addiction, Stea says. (To give that perspective, the equivalent numbers are 32 per cent for nicotine and 15 per cent for alcohol.)

“Other substances, such as alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and heroin, or opioids, have a higher addictive potential than cannabis,” he says.

“Cannabis addiction is a lesser harm than some of the other addictions, for sure. As a clinical psychologist, I’d rather be helping someone manage a cannabis addiction than an alcohol addiction or a heroin addiction because I’m less scared they’re going to die. That said, at the individual level, when somebody is managing a cannabis addiction, that’s not to be taken lightly, either.”

(Health Canada and the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health both say that cannabis addiction is possible.)

WATCH: If you regularly smoke several joints a day and get these symptoms, you won’t like the cure

Danielle, a Halifax university student who didn’t want to be fully identified for privacy reasons, was forced to quit cannabis, which she says she was addicted to, after she got CHS.

“I eventually ended up in the ER with just extreme amounts of nausea,” she said. “I couldn’t hold down food or water. One of the doctors finally brought up CHS to me and said cannabis can cause this.

“I didn’t believe her. I went home from the ER and smoked again and I just felt worse. That’s when I looked it up and finally came to terms with it.”

She had been smoking about a gram a day to cope with academic stress but eventually found it hard to stop.

“In my eyes, addiction is when you want to stop using a substance but you find that you’re unable to,” she says.

“There were definitely times that I found my cannabis use to be problematic, that I wasn’t comfortable with how much I was smoking. When I would try to not smoke any more, I would get anxious, I wouldn’t get hungry any more, and it was just easier to keep smoking instead.”

Like Head, she’s decided that weed creates problems for her that don’t seem to exist for others.

“I have lots of friends who have smoked every day for years. They’re stoners, they’ve never had a problem. I don’t know why this affects certain people.”

Friends have asked if they should avoid smoking around her, but she finds that isn’t a problem.

“It’s fine to be around people smoking. Because, honestly, as much as I found I was quite addicted to it, once I got CHS, I knew I had to stop. I felt so awful that all I wanted to do was feel better. It was honestly the perfect way to quit weed: my body pretty much didn’t give me a choice in it.”

WATCH: CHS — a mysterious syndrome that sometimes even emergency department staff have a hard time diagnosing

Both women said they had believed that cannabis couldn’t be addictive until they found out otherwise through personal experience.

“Most every person I’ve talked to over the years felt the same way: weed isn’t addictive,” Head says. “For most, it’s not. They can just drop it just like that. They can go days and days. It doesn’t affect them at all.”

The idea that cannabis can be addictive in the traditional sense seems to have gained mainstream acceptance in the last decade. As recently as 2010, former U.S. surgeon-general Jocelyn Elders said that “Marijuana is not addictive, not physically addictive anyway.”

In the same year, advocates of California’s Proposition 19, which would have legalized recreational cannabis there, argued that “Cannabis is not physically addictive,” a claim that was widely criticised. (A similar measure passed four years later, but the claim wasn’t repeated.)

Stea, who favours legalization, sees it as an example of legalization advocates overplaying their arguments.

“I think cannabis in general is a very polarizing topic,” he says.

Cannabis, he argues, is a complex plant with both benefits and potential problems.

“I think that where the myth that cannabis is not addictive comes from is probably on the side of cannabis enthusiasts who don’t want to acknowledge that reality.”

A survey of cannabis buyers in Washington State showed that about 17 per cent thought that cannabis could be addictive, almost the same number that reported that they themselves had had trouble stopping. Users over 50 were more likely to say that cannabis could not be addictive, and those 18-29 were more likely to say that it could be.

“I think there are misconceptions about what addiction can look like with cannabis use,” Stea says. “Sometimes when people think of addiction they think of the most severe opioid addiction they can imagine, or the most severe methamphetamine addiction they can imagine. And that’s not what a cannabis addiction looks like.”

WATCH: What causes some cannabis users to develop constant vomiting?

Why are some more vulnerable to cannabis addiction than others? It may be partly genetic.

“As far as we know, it’s a very complex topic about why someone develops an addiction,” Stea says. “It’s an interaction of many environmental and genetic risk factors for someone to develop an addiction.”

Mental health disorders, heavy use and a history of use in adolescence are all risk factors, he says.

Once Head quit, she had to endure withdrawal.

“I’ve had insomnia for weeks on end when I stopped smoking weed. That’s one of the biggest withdrawal symptoms I’ve found, is sleep. Even body temperature. I’d wake up in pools of sweat in the middle of the night. My body is just wet with sweat. That would last for a couple of weeks. It’s almost like my body is detoxing itself.”

The misery of withdrawal can push people back into using, Stea says.

“It’s more akin to a nicotine withdrawal, with its associated anxiety and irritability, as opposed to the potential fatality of an alcohol withdrawal, with seizures and delirium tremens, or the very debilitating, flu-like nature of an opioid withdrawal,” he explains.

WATCH: Everything we know about the health effects of marijuana

Some end up trapped in a thankless cycle of recovering from CHS, then being prodded by the addiction to start using again, which brings back the CHS, and so forth in a cycle that’s hard to break.

Legalization hasn’t made much difference so far to what he sees clinically, Stea says, but it may take a few years to tell properly.

“I happen to believe legalization is a good thing,” he says. “I happen to treat cannabis-related harms. I see some of the negative aspects of cannabis. But at a population level, I believe legalization is a good thing in general.”

Having gone through withdrawal, Head says she’s feeling much better.

“My sleep is great, my appetite is back to normal, for the most part. Sleep is starting to level off right now,” she says.

“Even today, it still crosses my mind. Oh, you know, it would be nice to smoke up, or it would be nice to hang out and relax and smoke a joint at the end of a work day, and I have to remind myself that no, this is an addiction.”

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This content was originally published here.

The post Contrary to widespread belief, cannabis addiction is possible. Here’s what it’s like appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.

How to Free Yourself from Your Spiritual Drama

“You have no friends. You have no enemies. You only have teachers.” ~Ancient Proverb

My very wise aunt, a talented psychotherapist and one of my spiritual teachers, has told me many times that the people, places, and things that trigger us are just “props in our spiritual drama.”

This phrase has stuck with me for years because it’s catchy and it rings so true to me. If we are struggling, it’s not a matter of the external force, it’s about what it provokes in us.

We don’t heal by trying to change others; we heal through breaking cycles; through knowing and honoring ourselves by creating healthy boundaries, processing the past, and living presently to make different choices.

We don’t grow by staying in the same circumstances and hoping they will be different, or by leaving one set of circumstances only to repeat the same patterns with new people and places. We grow by stepping out of our inner default programming and into discomfort, and by consciously shifting away from the patterns we know and choosing different environments and dynamics.

The people, places, and things that come into our lives are there for our spiritual journey, learning, and evolution. We can use these ‘props’ for good, we can use them to stay stuck, or we can use them to spiral down. As adults, the choice is ours.

The props in our spiritual drama are what trigger us the most. They may be people, situations, or even certain qualities we notice in strangers.  

My most challenging relationship is with my father, and while I could get stuck in that hardship story, I believe that he was placed in that role to assist me in the lessons I needed to learn while growing up and into young adulthood.

The guy that I just dated, who I fell hard and quick for, was a prop in my relationship practice and process in continuing to clearly define what I want in a partner and what healthy boundaries I need to set.

When I feel pain in my heart and want to stand up for the child who is being yelled at by a stressed mother on the subway, it shows me my own emotional hurt and the ways I haven’t expressed my truth about how my young inner child was treated poorly.

When I feel anger when confronted with economic inequality, inconsideration/lack of caring, and other injustices in this world, it teaches me that I am not doing enough to feel satisfied and proud of the ways in which I contribute positively to society.

Anything that I have not made peace with, found forgiveness around, or worked out within me yet continues to be a prop that encourages my spiritual growth.

As I’ve contemplated the props in my spiritual drama, I trust they are there to assist me on my path.

Challenging people and situations can be very difficult to live with and through, but I believe they serve an important purpose. If we are conscious and choose to move toward growth, freedom, and love, we can take this adversity and turn it into empowerment so we are more capable of being our best selves.

Two main points have stuck out to me as I try to evolve through my spiritual drama.

1. Situations repeat themselves until we learn the lessons.

The lesson is ours to be learned, so if we don’t learn it the first or the tenth time, the pattern will continue in a vicious cycle until we finally get the message and choose a different way.

Sometimes if we examine where or by whom we are triggered, the lesson is clear right away. Other times we need some guidance because we recognize something doesn’t feel right, yet we can’t get out of our own way enough to see it clearly.

Friends, mentors, and family members we have healthy relationships with can be great at helping us understand our cycles and patterns so we can break free. Other times, we need to go within.

When confronted with a low point, we have the opportunity to acknowledge what isn’t working and figure out in what direction our gut wisdom is guiding us.

Personally, I had a habit of choosing men who were very passionate about their career or a serious hobby, and they would prioritize this passion over me, which led me to feeling hurt and uncared about.

When I held up the mirror to examine myself deeply, I was able to see that as long as I wasn’t prioritizing myself and showing up to fully love for myself, I would attract partners who would partially reject me in the same way.

A second layer of this was that I was subconsciously living vicariously through my partners’ aliveness and passion because I was missing that in my own life. Once I developed my own passions and started doing work I love, the need to feel this joy vicariously faded away and I started desiring partners who are more balanced and can have multiple priorities.

The change may be uncomfortable, but usually quite rewarding in the end. And the discomfort we feel moving into the unknown is better than the despair we feel when repeating the same pattern over and over and staying miserable in the ‘known.’

2. Our triggers can help us discover unmet needs, and meet them.

Oftentimes we feel triggered by certain people, qualities, or situations because they represent ways we feel consciously or subconsciously uncared for, attacked, neglected, and rejected.

For example, let’s say your boss gives you some constructive feedback regarding your work, and you feel like it’s a personal attack or a criticism instead of feedback intended to support you to help you succeed.

In this scenario, instead of feeling attacked or rejected by your boss, you could ask yourself why you’re feeling such intense emotion. Is it because you’re hypercritical of yourself? Or do you feel shamed for not getting praise or approval because that’s a pattern you were taught growing up? In this instance, the trigger might teach you that you need your own approval.

The more we can meet our own needs and lovingly re-parent ourselves, the more these triggers will fall away. So the inquiry becomes the key to moving through this spiritual drama.

We need to ask why to understand our triggers more deeply, shift the immediate emotional response to curiosity, and eventually release the trigger by clearing past baggage and learning the lesson to show up for ourselves differently.

Whenever, I’m feeling particularly triggered by a person or behavior, I take a few minutes to sit quietly, go within, and ask myself what it’s about and what I need to do to take care of myself.

Maybe my inner child needs some reassurance that she is safe and loved.

Maybe my body needs some relaxation because my nervous system is over-stimulated or stressed.

Maybe I need to play, dance, and move energy through my body because I’ve been too much in do/go/on mode.

Once I take care of my own needs, I’m not focused on the other, the prop, the trigger anymore. I am peaceful and present.

This realization has served as a helpful reminder as I’ve moved through my life and felt the range of emotions that have come up. It’s never all about the other person; on some level, it’s about me. It serves me well to keep the focus on myself, what’s going on for me when the triggers come up, and what I can learn and process so that those triggers no longer live inside my body, mind, and soul.

As we own and clear what is within us, the props in our spiritual drama fall away and we become lighter and can live more peacefully.

May this serve you and may you be free.

About Alison Kate

Alison Kate is a NYC-based holistic personal transformation guide.  As a yoga teacher, hypnotherapist, coach, and ThetaHealer, she offers physical, mental, and spiritual practices customized for each client’s unique circumstances and desires. This quickly results in comfort in the body, peace of mind, and personal freedom that dynamically improve relationships, work, and overall lifestyle satisfaction. See more at: .

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Tips To Tone Your Body Smartly | Exercise & Fitness

Smart work in everyfield is need of the era. Here we are talking about smartly planning workout to achieve your fitness goals.

Quick Bites

Hard work is the key to success but it is not always true. In the present scenario, success is achieved only through smart work. You can not only win at the workplace with smart work but can also achieve the desired fitness goal. 

Wasting hours in a gym can not always give you better results. However, performing a planned workout with a balanced diet can work wonder and help you to get fit in a shorter duration.

Value of smart work

Since childhood, we are told to work hard in every sphere but do you ever thought how a competitor of yours manages to get a better result than you?

This is because of the planned strategy.

Working smartly doesn’t mean you don’t have to invest your time and energy on a task but it simply focuses on the use of time in a planned way. 

If you make a strategy for every day or week, you will be able to perform your task properly and efficiently. 

Like another task, your workout can be planned smartly which will provide you desired results. Before going for a workout, think for a minute about your fitness goal. 

Diet 

Nutrition too plays a major role in getting the desired fitness goal. Balancing your diet with the right amount of vegetable, fruits, and carbs combined with fluid intake helps in gaining fitness goals. Schedule your eating habits keeping time and right nutrition in mind. 

Also read: AMRAP Workout: The Latest Trend In The Fitness Industry

You can not achieve desired fitness goal in a week or month, it will take time. What you can do is planning your fitness regime smartly. Choosing the right exercise for your body type combined with the right nutrition can help you attain the right fitness at a defined time.

Read more on Exercise & Fitness

This content was originally published here.

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Meditation 101: 10 Tips for Beginners – Gym+Coffee

Meditation 101: 10 Tips for Beginners

The benefits of building a consistent meditation practice into your regular routine are well documented. From reducing overall stress and anxiety to managing your mental health, as well as providing physical health benefits, meditation is becoming a much greater part of many people’s lives.

If you’re just starting to explore meditation, we’ve created a list of a few things to think about as you begin your own personal mindfulness movement!

1. Start with just two minutes

You don’t need to launch into a full hour’s worth of silent sitting on your first go. Set aside a manageable amount of time (2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes) to begin with. This way, you won’t feel like you’re biting off more than you can chew, and you might be more inclined to stick with your practice!

2. Forget about how – just do!

Try not to get caught up in exactly how you should or could be meditating, just start doing it! As you learn more about meditation – its different forms and purposes – you can begin to refine your practice and the ‘how’ will often sort itself out. In the meantime though, set aside the time for meditation, close your eyes and just be!

3. But Also Think About Your ‘Why’!

While the how is not so important to begin with, it does pay to have a think about your ‘why’. Are you looking for a new way to manage specific stress or anxiety? Do you simply need some ‘me time’? Do you have a tendency for overthinking and want to develop techniques to clear your mind? If you know your purpose and the results you’re hoping to achieve, it can help you to focus your practice and find the right kind of meditation for you.

4. Commit!

Now that you’ve decided you want to explore meditation, really commit yourself to giving your practice a proper go. Set a couple of goals for yourself like exploring 3 different types of mediation over a three week period, or committing to practising for 3 minutes each day – you’ll be surprised at the immediate benefits you start to feel and how easy it is to incorporate mindfulness into your everyday!

5. Begin Your Day with Your Practice

Putting off any new thing can often mean that we wind up never doing the thing! Instead, remind yourself that it’s only 2 extra minutes out of your day, and by doing it first thing in the morning you’ll A) start your day with a calmer mindset, and B) you will have achieved a new goal before you even walk out the door!

6. But remember: You Can Practice Anywhere!

As you start out on this path, it’s a great idea to find time and space where you can fully disconnect and feel comfortable. That said, you can meditate just about anywhere and as you build your practice, you’ll find it easier and easier to meditate in all sorts of spaces! Take a minute on the train before work, pop into a meeting room in the office and take 5 minutes to yourself, or focus on your breathing and body-awareness as you walk.

7. Explore Different Types of Meditation

By starting your practice for just a couple of minutes a day, you allow yourself scope for trying all sorts of different types of meditation – there’s one out there for you! Body scans, mindfulness meditation, breathing-focused meditation, practice that incorporates spiritual elements like Buddhism or Hinduism are just a few of the myriad types out there. Try a few on for size and read up on their specific benefits or intentions until you find the one for you!

8. Seek Guidance

While meditation can be a very inwardly focused practice, you don’t have to go it alone! There are plenty of resources online as well as growing communities who practice group and guided meditations. These can be especially helpful for beginners – you’ll have a voice guiding you through your practice, it can help to have others there to refocus you if your mind starts to wander, you’ll meet likeminded people and you’ll learn a lot!

9. Observe!

Clearing the mind can be one of the lovely, calming things about meditation, but it’s equally as important to remain aware of thoughts, feelings and breathing. As you sit, focus on your breathing (without changing it), noticing the rhythm and the heat or cool of your breath. As thoughts enter your head (and they will), acknowledge them and then move on. Practice focusing on other elements in your environment as well – light, sound, temperature, or energy in the room.

10. Build Your Practice

As you get more comfortable, start to push yourself in your practice. Maybe that means adding a minute each day, or several minutes at the beginning of a new week. If you start with small periods of meditation, try adding one longer practice to your routine.

If you’re looking to really immerse yourself in your meditation practice, why not check out West Cork’s Dzogchen Beara Buddhist Meditation Centre on our MLR Map? They offer workshops and retreats all year round!

This content was originally published here.

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What Are You Doing Now?

When the decades of life are attached to a societal norm of being, looking around often answers the question, “Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Children are children, and when someone acts as a child does, the response elicited is often to stop acting like a child. Further, we are scolded to grow up. Not far out of childhood, it’s no wonder that the monikers attached to teens are often – indecisive, sulky, uncommunicative, and secretive.

According to research, the twenties is the decade of life most people, when asked, would want to return to … it is a period recollected as fun and free. Twenty-somethings are setting up households in new cities, towns and villages and even in new states. They are alone, many for the first time, in places far from home and without the presence of their immediate families. They are deemed an adventurous lot; exploring the possibilities that they have created for themselves.

In our thirties, we are supposed to be settled, and starting a new phase with families and careers of our own. The forties are for staying the term, buckling down and saving for education and retirement. Final push in the fifties to complete what we started, retire and have some time for ourselves to do the things that a caretaker never has time for …. self-care.

Sixties+ are reserved for pure enjoyment! Many return to the twenties way of thinking and begin new hobbies or start businesses in a completely different direction. Others are enjoying grandchildren and families, or traveling to see the world. Still others are grieving the loss of a spouse and giving themselves time to heal.

The focus of each decade is always the same however the verbiage changes. There’s moving forward, looking forward, and keeping up with; there’s commencement, graduation, planning for the future, what to do next, and bucket-lists to complete before moving on to the next thing. Multitasking helps us accomplish these endeavors in a way that propels us to the next project.

It seems to me that we live in the future when our future is actually right now – in the present. It takes some mindful mental effort to slow down our thoughts and be here right now and not thinking about what we could, should or would be doing if we weren’t doing the task we really are doing.

Sounds simple, right? Try it: when you’re vacuuming – just vacuum. When your mind starts to wander off onto the hamster wheel of thoughts that everyone’s does… bring yourself back to the present task without judgment or berating yourself by asking, “What am I doing right now?” Answer: “I’m vacuuming.” That’s it.

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Rebuilding Character In Recovery

The devastating effects of addiction on physical/emotional health and social functioning have been meticulously catalogued, but far less attention has been given to its toll on character and the role character reconstruction plays in the recovery process. A recent rereading of David Brook’s The Road to Character has spurred this reflection on character and addiction recovery.

All diseases have the potential to distort character—particularly in shrinking one’s world to a state of near-complete self-absorption (as observed by Samuel Johnson in 1783). But addiction is unique within the annals of medical disorders in the extremes to which one’s unique essence is distorted as the disorder progresses. By radically reordering personal priorities, addiction ultimately sacrifices all other personal commitments and aspirations to serve this higher need. It shrinks one’s world and hollows one out, leaving only this insatiable need and the painful consequences of serving it as the center of one’s self.

Addiction medicine—actually all medicine—is ill-equipped to address such pathologies of character and to fill the void once drugs are removed from the center of an addicted patient’s life. The person seeking addiction recovery is left with this same challenge: How does one escape such chemically-induced narcissism within a culture that, not just worships the self, but has itself become a “selfie culture.”

This dilemma is well-illustrated by distinctions between the terms remission and recovery. The former term is used in medicine and clinical research to depict the amelioration of addiction. In short, it says the patient once met, but no longer meets, the diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder. Remission is further specified by duration of symptom suppression, e.g., early remission (3 months not meeting diagnostic criteria) or sustained remission (more than a year not meeting such criteria).

Remission does not necessarily mean that alcohol or other drug (AOD) use has ceased or that all related problems have disappeared, only that any remaining use or problems are now below the threshold of diagnosis. Remission eliminates or reduces AOD problems to subclinical levels but may leave the remitted patient with an overwhelming sense of emptiness and disconnection.

In contrast, the term recovery, used more frequently by those with lived experience of having survived addiction, is often used to suggest a process of change far beyond the removal of alcohol and other drugs from an otherwise unchanged life. It depicts the process of moving through and beyond remission to refill oneself, develop depth of character, and propel one towards relationships and contributions that reach beyond the self. In some recovery circles, remission without “recovery” is even castigated as a shallow level of achievement (e.g. a “dry drunk” lacking “emotional sobriety”). In such circles, remission is viewed as the temporary suppression of symptoms (a process of subtraction) where recovery is viewed as the process through which the surviving person is transformed (processes of addition and multiplication).

Remission can be an act of self-assertion; but recovery, this larger achievement of global health and functioning, often comes through an embrace of one’s limitations and transcendence of self. It involves the acceptance of one’s brokenness (discovering in Kurtz and Ketcham’s language, the spirituality of imperfection); the practice of restraint and moderation in our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and finding a purpose for one’s survival. Recovery in this view requires replacing the “I” language of alienation with the “we” language of human connection—shedding the “selfie culture” and embracing a culture of humility, tolerance, interdependence, and community. It involves, as David Brooks suggests, shifting the focus from the exclusive needs of self to needs of the world, e.g., reframing the question, “What do I want from life?” to “What does life want from me?”

Awareness of imperfection and limitation allows us, through becoming “strong in the weak places,” to use adversities of character to build depth of character. Such depth is about far more than character reconstruction as a monument to self-fulfillment; it is about character in service to the larger needs of the world. To achieve this shift, Brooks suggests the need for “redemptive assistance”—resources beyond the self. The courage to face one’s empty self and the humility to reach out to others are the first steps in seeing ourselves not as the center of the universe and instead discovering how our small story fits into a much larger story. To recognize our brokenness and to heal in this way turns adversity and suffering into a transcendent purpose or sacred calling—finding our place within the arch of history and committing ourselves to “tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime” (p. 264).

Such a process requires something quite different than getting “into ourselves” through therapies rife with intrapersonal self-exploration and whose aims are to increase self-knowledge, self-esteem, and self-expression. It may instead require two quite different processes: 1) cultivating self-skepticism, humility, and tolerance; and 2) getting out of ourselves, e.g. seeking resources, relationships, and service activities beyond the self. The former strategy requires recognizing our flawed nature and quieting the roar of our own ego to the extent that we can actually listen to and experience other people—what at its best Brooks calls a “ministry of presence.” The latter strategy involves transforming recovery into a heroic journey that serves a larger purpose, while maintaining distrust of self and avoiding turning even the most righteous cause into a vehicle for self-adulation.

Extreme narcissism, self-will run riot in language of Alcoholics Anonymous, is the essence of addiction regardless of whether one sees this trait as a cause or consequence of addiction, regardless of whether that entrapment in self is manifested in grandiosity and acts of exploitation or in self-hatred and self-harm. It is a paradoxical entrapment that combines self-absorption and self-inflation on the one hand with self-hatred and deteriorating self-care on the other. Escaping these Janus faces of addiction may require the shift from getting deeper into oneself to finally getting out of oneself. That journey from the abyss to the world is what builds character. That journey is the essence of recovery and what distinguishes recovery from remission. We are learning a lot about the prevalence and pathways of remission through advances in addiction research; the processes of recovery have yet to fully arrive as a subject of scientific investigation.

Many of our addiction treatments, including an expanding menu of medications, can facilitate remission; few of those treatments offer hope for the long-term process of character reconstruction to achieve recovery. Men and women seeking the latter must look to other contexts for such support.



William (“Bill”) White

Emeritus Senior Research Consultant at Chestnut Health System

Recovery Historian

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New Pinterest Tools Promote Mental Health for Stressed Searchers | Digital Trends

Pinterest boards have long been a home for healthy recipes and exercise tutorials, but the online mood board will soon include tools to promote emotional well-being. On Monday, July 22, Pinterest shared a collection of emotional health exercises and resources that will pop up in the app when a search term suggests the user may be stressed.

Searching for terms such as “stress quotes” or “work anxiety” will soon include a pop-up within the search results linking to resources designed to improve emotional well-being. The resources include exercises designed to promote relaxation, improve moods and practice self-compassion, such as deep breathing, recognizing your own strengths, making a plan and expressing gratitude. The in-app exercises also list the time suggested for taking that mental break.

The mental health exercises were designed by experts from Brainstorm, the Stanford Lab for Mental Health Innovation along with advice from Vibrant Emotional Health and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Pinterest says the exercises aren’t meant to replace professional help but can help users that need some emotional support — or perhaps just a confidence booster after an epic Pinterest fail. Pinterest will also continue to direct searches for self-harm to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Pinterest says the mental health exercises are kept separate from the rest of the social platform, a move designed for privacy. Use of the mental health exercises are private and are not shared with followers or tracked for ads or other purposes, the company says, with a third-party anonymously storing the data.

“We know that life isn’t always so inspiring, and things on the internet aren’t either,” Pinterest’s Annie Ta wrote in a blog post. “According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 50% of Americans will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime. Real-life feelings and experiences carry over to our lives online. For instance, in the last year there have been millions of searches in the U.S. related to emotional health on Pinterest.”

The mental health exercises will begin rolling out to the Pinterest app on iOS and Android over the next few weeks for users in the U.S. Pinterest says they hope to expand the feature to additional locations in the future. The company also plans to continue exploring additional resources and tools.

This content was originally published here.

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How Can I Get My Point Across?

Dear Elizabeth: I want better communication with my family, but they just won’t listen to anything I say. What can I do to get my point of view across. Should I give up. trying to get my point across?

Dear Trying to Get Your Point Across-

Don’t give up. The world revolves around words and the distinctions in language. Communication, therefore, is an access to power and when it’s based on being right or fixing someone, it has a certain quality to it. Being committed to communication requires presence to the conversation outside of past experiences that may color the way a word is spoken or heard.

Bad Communication

Have you ever been in a conversation when you’ve thought you’ve “heard this before”?  You begin to formulate a reply even before your partner has finished speaking because you are certain of what s/he is about to say next. You have zoned out and are thinking, “blah, blah, blah”; you are not present to the conversation at all, in fact, you are waiting to jump in and to get your point across. This is an early warning sign of “No communication.”

You Have To Give Up Something To Have Healthy Communication

To access the power of communication is to abandon trying to get your point across and really listen and be present to what your partner is saying. Instead of drafting a reply or of a snappy comeback. When communication is important in a relationship, the question becomes what do you have to give up in order to really hear what your partner is saying?

Are you trying to get your point across because you have to be right?
Are you holding a grudge from something that happened in the past?
Are you not acknowledging or accepting what is true for her/him?
Could you be trying to steer the conversation in the direction of your thinly veiled attempt to “fix” your partner?

Are you willing to give that up in order to truly communicate in your relationship?

Communication Habits Can Nurture Or Destroy Relationships

If you find yourself trying to get your point across over and over again to your partner, it’s a pattern for you. Patterns are no longer about the issue. Rather, the issue becomes that you’re not communicating your feelings in a manner that your partner is hearing. This is a dilemma because it’s about you, and not your partner. To break the pattern, you must change your communication habit. Otherwise, you continue to perpetuate the issue and not solve it every time you have that same conversation, and every time you raise your voice in your attempt to get your point across.

When Motive Is Negative The Result is Negative

Conversation is not a contest if someone contradicts us. By taking the stance that you are right and that your partner is wrong or the one to blame for not understanding, you run the risk of alienating him/her in the relationship. When your motivation is negative, the chance of a positive result is minimal. Blame and judgment never reach the goal of conveying the reality we are attempting to communicate. They only serve to push a wedge between people who are trying to relate to one another.

I Hear And Understand You

Coming to a conversation from a place of acknowledgement opens up an entirely new possibility for you and your partner. There is an abundance of things in which you can acknowledge your partner for. Practice acknowledgement for the peace and harmony you desire in your relationships.

I Want To Hear Your Side

Start by listening for what your partner wants to be acknowledged for, and then acknowledge them for that.Take some inspired action to your next conversation and acknowledge your partner for something, be sure to include how grateful you are for their having done so…. and then lean back and observe where that conversation takes your communication and your relationship.

Elizabeth Viszt BA,MS, a Health & Wellness Coach in New York, is Master of Habit Change around the areas of nutrition, dieting, and personal relationships.

Reach Out Recovery Exclusive By: Elizabeth Viszt

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Mental health at university: wellbeing tips for students Education

There’s so much to be enjoyed at university, but for some people, it can be a time of loneliness, of feeling anxious about examinations, or of being weighed down by worries about finances.

“The first six weeks are the most difficult,” says Ruki Heritage, assistant director of student experience and head of student services at the University of Bedfordshire. She suggests talking to other people who have been to university so that you and your child know what to expect. Think about the kinds of problems your child might face; do they have difficulties with essay deadlines or managing their money? “A lot of students come in [to the wellbeing service] with financial issues that cause distress, when a lot of it could be avoided by learning simple budgeting techniques,” she says.

Heritage also advocates doing some preparation before starting – visiting the campus together, for example, so that you remove the anxiety of not being able to find a lecture hall or having no idea where the supermarket is. Most universities now ease the transition by using a buddying system where second- and third-year students show new students around, attend freshers’ events with them and answer questions about university life.

It’s a good idea to be aware beforehand of exactly what support is available, so that students can access it without delay should they need it, Heritage says. “It’s all about preparation – students shouldn’t wait until they get to that slump where they think: ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to do.’ As soon as they notice signs, if they’re feeling anxious, they should seek help from fellow students, as well as from staff and parents.”

If you worry that your son or daughter might have difficulties coping at university, then talk them through the options that are there to help them. Most universities now have a dedicated mental health and wellbeing service with a team of counsellors. Such services also typically run workshops to teach coping strategies for common problems such as exam stress or a lack of confidence. All students should register with a GP, who can either prescribe medication or refer them to therapy for mental health problems. Anyone who has a pre-existing mental health problem should notify the university before they arrive, so that support can be put in place.

Mental health and wellbeing services are not the only source of help. For problems relating to the course, such as difficulties with assignments, students can contact their departmental adviser. If your child is uncomfortable talking face-to-face, then online support may be an option. Many unis offer this via Big White Wall, a forum where people can find self-help resources, chat with peers and talk to counsellors on a one-to-one basis. Peer support is also available at most universities through Nightline, a phone, email and online chat service staffed by student volunteers. Student Minds, a mental health charity, runs face-to-face peer support groups at some universities, described by policy manager Rachel Piper as “a safe, confidential place that allows students to talk and listen without judgement”.

University can be a time when many students end up neglecting their wellbeing – drinking too much, eating junk food, or staying up late. But self-care is important, Heritage says. “Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of mental health problems. Also think about joining sports teams or going for walks, because exercise can help your mental health.” And if your child does have problems, encourage them to seek help as soon as they can – the earlier they find support, the more likely they are to resolve their problems and enjoy university life.

This content was originally published here.

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