All posts by Amanda Vaughan

brain, Breathwork, Exercise, Meditation, Mindfulness, Wellness topic, Yoga

How Meditation Affects the Brain

zen rocks pic

I’m facilitating a new class, Monday Yoga /Wellness Class, that starts Monday June 20 at 7pm (space is limited so contact me if you are interested.)

This class is aimed at developing an individual wellness/meditation practice.  We will do yoga postures to let go of any tension and to open the body up for relaxation for the first part of the class.  The rest of the class is focused on progressive relaxation, breathing, and a variety of meditative techniques.   (Props, chairs, and mats are available).

I have many people who come to see me that want a meditation or a yoga practice at home.  I created this class to help with that.  We will be exploring not only how and why to prepare before meditation but also will practice different meditative techniques for students to “try out”.

We will also discuss how meditation affects the brain.

The research is suggesting that a regular meditation practice (15-30 minutes a day) can increase gray matter in the brain, build new connections, clean out plaque that causes dementia, reduce the size of the amygdala which causes the fight or flight response, and increase our resiliency to cortisol (stress hormone).

There are many reasons to work on a meditation practice, especially if you are trying to be healthy and/or reduce stress and its effects.  Of course this should be easy enough, right? Why is sitting 15-30 minutes every day so difficult to maintain (and for some even start)?  One is that sitting in general can be painful and uncomfortable. Two, establishing any new habit or change is difficult. Consistency, consistency, consistency.  The mantra for true success ……Oh if developing consistency itself was easy.

Even if you practice now and then, it is better than none at all.  I would encourage everyone to try for 5 minutes and go from there.  You may surprise yourself that you can actually develop your own practice if you keep coming back to it when you think of it, no matter how long the in-between.

One also does not have to just “sit”.  I’m also hoping this new class will educate students on what is meditation by research standards vs other definitions.

Here are some links that discuss the effects on the brain from meditation and the research behind it:

Psychology today

Mindful.org

Washington Post

Change, Mindfulness, Stress Management, Wellness topic

Making “Not-So-Good” Habits Work for You

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“A process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.” – This is SAMHSA’s working definition of recovery.  this could be recovery from Mental Health or Physical Health concerns.

Recently I have seen  a good many clients that have come in reporting very similar symptoms.  They feel somewhat down or even distressed.  They are functioning relatively okay with work and home but feel like they have lost their way.  They report feeling empty, tired, anxious.  Most of these individuals have been very involved in family and/or community.  They have been the family coordinators, the church volunteers, the community activists.

When looking at the above working definition of recovery, these folks are definitely self directive, but somehow the other two areas of health and wellness and full potential have been overshadowed by others needs (others in their own family and others in the community).  When using the needs assessment tool I incorporate into my practice (the DLA20), it is clear that many facets of their life have been neglected and continue to be drained.  There’s just not enough nourishment and recovery built into their lives to keep pace with all the other routines in their life.

We live in a society of go, go, go.  Ample supplies of caffeine and energy supplements.  Ample supplies of foods and other items to grab quickly from moving to one activity to another.  We more and more are getting out of habits of nourishment and allowing for our bodies to recover.   Recovery is not just a mental feat but very much a physical feat as well.    We have to develop healthy routines to nourish our bodies and brain.  These routines have to be consistent in order to make an impact.   Just like we consistently go to the coffee pot, check Facebook, or volunteer to help another, we need to consistently eat nourishing foods, take time for some quiet,  and get some stress relieving physical activity.  But how?  It sounds simple but if it were that simple we wouldn’t have this problem of course.

The trick is to begin by connecting one activity to another.  The activity can be good or bad.  If you drink coffee every morning or check Facebook before bed on a consistent basis, then these are great activities to link with more nourishing habits like 10 slow breaths or eating an apple.    Once you have successfully linked these habits consistently you can build in more healthy habits like a walk or some yoga.  It’s better to start small though.  Later you may decide to even phase out the original activity, especially if it was doing more harm than good.  Getting overwhelmed and not doing anything at all is not an option if you want to stop the cycle of constant drain, low energy, and feeling like you’re in a fog.

Sometimes we need reminders, so setting timers, getting others involved are great ways to ensure more consistency.  Also subscribing to a blog whether it is mine or another wellness author could also be a good way to get a tickler to continue to work on developing healthier practices.  As with much in life persistence against failure eventually develops consistency regardless, so keep trying.

research, Treatment, Wellness topic

How to Get a Good Night’s Rest

Recommended Sleep ChartThe above chart comes from the National Sleep Foundation.    It suggests that an adult my age needs 7-9 hours of sleep.  Like good diet and exercise, sleep is a critical component to overall health.

The sleep foundation explains:

“One of the vital roles of sleep is to help us solidify and consolidate memories. As we go about our day, our brains take in an incredible amount of information. Rather than being directly logged and recorded, however, these facts and experiences first need to be processed and stored; and many of these steps happen while we sleep. Overnight, bits and pieces of information are transferred from more tentative, short-term memory to stronger, long-term memory—a process called “consolidation.” Researchers have also shown that after people sleep, they tend to retain information and perform better on memory tasks. Our bodies all require long periods of sleep in order to restore and rejuvenate, to grow muscle, repair tissue, and synthesize hormones.”

Many of us have difficulty sleeping.  Here are some general guidelines to follow in order to have a good night’s rest.

Stick to a sleep schedule , even on weekends.
Practice a relaxing bedtime ritual .
Exercise daily.
Evaluate your bedroom to ensure ideal temperature, sound and light.
Sleep on a comfortable mattress and pillows.
Beware of hidden sleep stealers , like alcohol and caffeine.
Turn off electronics before bed.

For those with an overactive mind:

Keep a notepad/journal and a pen near your bed to write down thoughts or things you want to remember.

You can also use this method to write down worries or concerns and if you’re having a hard time letting them go after writing them down, remind yourself you can just deal with it in the morning after you wake up.

At my practice:

Sleep problems are a common co-occurring issue that I see with my clients.  I usually help each person develop their own individual bedtime routine.  Many times we look at the therapeutic effects of yoga postures and breath techniques.  We practice these techniques in the office to figure out the right practice that will help calm the mind and body enough to allow sleep to take over at night.  Many times coming up with an answer to the individual’s problems will occur after tracking one’s schedule and diet over a week.  It is amazing what “hidden” sleep stealers we encounter throughout our day.  Sometimes changing something like when you have your last caffeinated beverage will be the miraculous fix.  Other times, what might solve the issue is long-term work on developing and keeping more healthy habits like exercise, balanced diet, and meditation.

If you would like to talk about finding your solution, please contact  Amanda.

 

 

 

Stress Management, Wellness topic, Work

Work-Life Balance

work in progress

I was asked to do a talk on “Work-Life Balance” the other week.  “Work-Life Balance” is the new catch phrase that’s being used instead of “Burn-out Prevention”.  So in essence my focus was on preventing burnout.  Burnout occurs when someone had once really loved what they do at their job but started giving more and more to the job until it took over more and more of their lives.  After this process starts, the individual then usually starts to resent their work and job to the point where they start to do less and less quality of work.  This usually results in low work performance and increasing resentment for not getting any past rewards they use to get for doing a good job.  It really is a downward spiral if there is no intervention.

The idea of “Work-Life Balance” is getting more to the root issue  in that one must have balance and perspective with the roles they possess in order to not experience burnout.  A good exercise is sitting down and listing all the roles you possess.  If there are roles you don’t want then you may want to take them off the list.  If you can’t get rid of the role then keep it, such as the role of “house keeper” if you are single parent and cannot afford to hire this role out.  So once you have the list of all the roles you have, then list one task to do for each of those roles.  Next get your calendar out and place that task on a day and a time to accomplish it.

This is just one way to help maintain balance during the week, but you will start to feel overwhelmed if you forget the role of “caretaker of self”.  You can’t forget to schedule in time for yourself to do something nurturing, like an hour to read, get a massage, see a movie.   You need time to reconnect to what relaxes and/or inspires you so that you can recharge and be able to do these other tasks in your calendar.  Don’t forget that you need time to let go of the other roles and remember yourself.

Change, Wellness topic

Maintaining Progress

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January, the time of resolutions.   Just checking out Facebook or talking to friends or coworkers you are bound to hear about new projects people are attempting.  Eating better, exercising, losing weight are big ones.  Also many people this year are de-cluttering and working on simplifying their life.  Some are doing away with bad habits like smoking or other dependencies.

Most of these resolutions are very admirable and when people first decide on them you can hear the optimism and hope in their voice.  But come March or April, how many are still focused on these resolutions.  How many in August?  December?  It’s difficult maintaining change and progress, especially if change is incremental.  So how does one maintain focus and progress?

I strongly believe that setting solid goals that are specific, measurable, realistic and with a deadline is the best place to start.  In counseling we use the acronym “SMART” to guide us in making goals with clients.  Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound.  So if the goal was to lose weight then you would want to set a deadline to lose a certain amount of pounds.  You would need to do some research to find out what is a healthy amount to lose a week (usually no more than 2 lbs is advised) and make sure your amount and deadline are realistic and attainable.  Then you would set small weekly goals and research the best options to lose weight to choose your strategy.

The next step would be incorporating supports.   Would you benefit from joining weight watchers or finding a friend to exercise with?  Do you need to track your diet in a journal or use an app like Myfitness pal..?

The third step is then identifying obstacles like donuts at work or eating leftovers from kids’ plates.  Then you develop strategies for each of these obstacles; like having alternative snacks handy at work or having kids clean up their meal themselves so you are not tempting to grab a bite..

Fourth is evaluation and noting the progress and setting fourth another goal.  This is where most people throw in the towel actually.  The idea of seeing failure is sometimes enough to call it quits.  I like to think of failure as an opportunity to really understand what didn’t work.  What obstacle do I need to prepare more for and what are my options for this obstacle?  This is where breakthroughs are made but so many times we are too fearful of feeling like a failure or we are burned out on the task at hand that we really don’t learn from it or keep the progress we really did make.