The seasons aren’t the only cycles that affect our lives.  There are also cycles that span our days, months, and life-time.  Vata energy is most prominent during the hours of 2-6 each day, both in the early morning and in the afternoon.  Because vata is so energetic and creative, we must be careful not to exhaust ourselves during these times of day.  They are times that call for mental and physical rest.  As I write this, I am reminded of the many cultures around the world that call for an afternoon rest period.  It is so common for people to feel unfocused and tired during the early afternoon hours, U.S. workplaces would do well to establish a post-lunchtime rest.  When I am being mindful (which hasn’t been happening enough lately!), I will take 30 minutes sometime in the middle of the day to rest.  I might take a power-nap, engage in silent meditation, practice yoga nidra, or listen to a guided meditation.  And believe me when I say this is an ongoing process for me…  playfully dancing between the pull of opposite poles.  At any rate, honoring our natural cycles promotes better productivity by taking advantage of the best times for work, rest, and play.

Balanced vata energy is creative, vibrant, and full of life.  It is what gets us moving and doing things.  Out of balance, however, it can be forgetful, disorganized, anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, and eventually exhausted.  As we go through these daily, monthly, and annual cycles, it is important to note how we are affected.  How is your mood at this time of year?  Do you feel energized and full of ideas?  Or do you find yourself feeling annoyed and overwhelmed?  Are you forgetting things and starting too many projects?  Or are you accomplishing things and feeling good?  This is where practices like mindfulness and self-reflection come in handy, so that we can observe the effects of these cycles on the body, mind, and emotions.  When we quietly observe what is happening externally and internally, we can uncover what is balanced and imbalanced within us.  Then we can make conscious changes that will balance our energies so that we can be at our best in our relationships with ourselves, our families, and our work.

If you’re not so sure about the mindfulness/meditation thing and you live in the L.A. area, join me for my next FREE meditation class on Monday, November 7^th at 7:00pm, in North Hollywood.  We’ll be focusing on mindful practices to incorporate into daily activities, such as eating, working, and interacting with others, keeping in mind the increased vata energy of this season.  You can also give me a call for your own personalized dosha analysis and yoga plan to balance your energy.  If you’re outside of L.A. and would like to learn more about how to balance your energy, you can use these links to find a yoga therapist or Ayurvedic practitioner near you.  Enjoy the Fall season and until next time, be well!

Website:  http://paintedbrain.org/
The Painted Brain on Facebook
Email:  thepaintedbrain@gmail.com

And stay tuned to Soulful Reading for stories and highlights from my recent participation in the 4th Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research in Pacific Grove, California.  Until next time, take care of yourself and be well!

Ayurveda is a complex and detailed approach to health and wellness.  As such, it is far too intricate for me to go into detail here (naturally, if you’d like to learn more about your dosha, or constitution, contact me to schedule your Professional Yoga Therapy^TM evaluation today).  I will say that the Ayurvedic yoga approach to depression, or any mental health imbalance, is one that is very individualized.  It is worlds apart from the “take two pills and call me in the morning” approach to health that Western medicine often takes.  That said, a variety of Western research studies have shown that yoga-based interventions are effective in reducing depressive symptoms (Wolf, 2000; Lavey, et al., 2005; Zerka Yoo, 2008).  I enjoy reading yoga therapy research, as I’m hopeful that this adds credibility to yoga therapy and reduces some of the “airy fairy” concerns that people have about using yoga in the health and mental health care fields.  Credibility is also one reason I like referring to the Sanskrit terms behind these concepts.  This isn’t a bunch of gibberish I just made up (I swear!), but a systematic and individualized approach to wellness that’s been around far longer than our current medical systems.  Consequently, taking an Ayurvedic yoga approach to address depressive symptoms could look something like this:

1. Energetic and cleansing breathwork – In yoga, we call breathwork “pranayama” (prahn-uh-YAHM).  For a depressed individual, I would recommend breathing strategies that energize, cleanse, or even bring balance to a person’s energy (again, depending on a variety of specific factors).  These could include Victorious Breath (aka “Ujjayi”, oo-JAI-ee), Sun Breath, and Alternate Nostril Breathing.  There is also the use of Bee Breath (a sighing exhalation) for the clearing out of physical and emotional pain brought on by depression.
2. Mudra (MOO-drah) – These are hand positions intended to focus or channel the flow of energy within the body.  Abhaya (ahb-HA-ya) Mudra builds inner strength and create a protective barrier against negative energy.  Jnana (ny-AH-nah) Mudra reminds us of our unity with all things (depression can make you feel alone and isolated, after all) and helps to focus the mind.  This is great for addressing the lack of concentration that is often present with depression.  Two more favorite mudras for depression include Pushpaputa Mudra, used to recognize the abundance that awaits us, and Rudra (ROO-druh) Mudra, which decreases heaviness and lethargy, increasing energy flow to the entire body.
3. Asana (AH-suhn) – This is the Sanskrit term for yoga’s physical postures.  To address depressive symptoms, I would focus my client on utilizing the energizing and balancing poses.  Again, specific recommendations must always take into consideration the severity and type of symptoms present, as well as the client’s physical abilities.  There are a wide range of energizing and balancing poses that can be used here.  These include everything from gentle, supported backbends on the floor to powerful standing poses and challenging one-legged balance poses.  Even if yoga isn’t quite your style, Zerka Yoo (2008) found that both hapkido and yoga were effective in reducing depressive symptoms.  So increasing your physical activity in general could be helpful.
   Walk around the house/yard and slowly graduate to walking to the corner and back, if you’re thinking a whole exercise plan is too much.

As I said in my last post on this topic:  Please consult with a qualified mental health professional, if you think you or a loved one are experiencing depressive symptoms.  You can also take this online Depression Screening Test to help you determine whether your feelings & behaviors match up with depressive symptoms.  Psych Central hosts this screening test and has an amazing collection of resources on the depression and its treatment.  If you do seek out yoga and Ayurveda to help treat what you think are depressive symptoms, please choose your practitioner wisely.  Professional Yoga Therapists are the most highly qualified yoga practitioners trained in the use of medical, research-based yoga therapy to treat health and mental health diagnoses within their specialties.  To find an Ayurvedic medical practitioner near you, visit the National Ayurvedic Medical Association or the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine.

As always, thanks for reading and take good care of your Self!
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References

Lavey, R.; Sherman, T., Mueser, K.T.; Osborne, D.D.; Currier, M., and Wolfe, R. (2005). The effects of yoga on mood in psychiatric inpatients. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 28, 399–402.

Wolf, D.B. (2000).  Effects of the hare krsna maha mantra on stress, depression, and the three gunas.  Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 60(7-B), 3584.

Zerka Yoo, Christine (2008).  Hapkido vs. yoga: Analysis of choice, persistence and psychological benefits.  Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 68(12-B), 8441.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been attending quite a few trainings.  I offer evidence-based interventions in my practice and they require ongoing support & training.  Two weeks ago, I learned about outcome measures for Seeking Safety, a program for those healing from trauma and substance use, and received an introduction to Supported Employment, a model that helps those with chronic mental health issues find & keep self-supporting jobs.  Last week, I spent a day and a half getting a booster training for Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT).  Then I realized that I had to go downtown again to deliver something to the Department of Mental Health offices that oversee one of the programs I coordinate.  Whew!  While being away from the office is challenging, I’ve enjoyed the trainings because they’ve given me an opportunity to reflect on what I’m doing well and what I can do better, as well as re-connect with colleagues that I don’t get to see very often.  Self-reflection, particularly when we can do it in a non-judgmental way, is an important part of both personal and professional growth.

I live and work in Los Angeles, where everything is r—e—a—l—l—y spread out.  We measure distance here not by miles, but by how long it takes to get from A to B, both with traffic and without.  Even if you’re only travelling 15 miles, it could take 20 minutes or 2 hours.  So in planning to go to several trainings in the downtown L.A. area, I decided to see if I could get there on the city’s Metro system.  Luckily, even my trainings was within a short walk of a Metro station, so I ended up taking 5 trips to the downtown L.A. area via climbing lots of stairs, sitting, reading, listening to music, and walking.  Now I can hear you saying to yourselves, “But, Amber, this has nothing to do with mental health and yoga!”  Ahhhh, but it does…  Here are 6 reasons why using public transportation can be good for you, the planet, and your yoga practice.

1. You’ll spend less time being grumpy in traffic – OK, so maybe you’ll still be grumpy on the bus/train!  But you won’t have all those other crazy drivers driving you bonkers with their unannounced lane changes and sudden stops.  Can’t you feel your shoulders relaxing just thinking about it?!  Yes, there are still lots of people to contend with on public transit and if you are so inclined, you can slip into your own world via your favorite music or reading material.
2. You’ll save money – My five trips to the downtown L.A. area over the last few weeks involved about 40 miles round trip each time.  That’s 200 miles total.  Driving that would’ve cost me around $16 in my little Prius ($4.10/gallon, 50mpg).  But then there’s wear & tear on my car plus parking.  I swear parking in this city is such a racket!  I think average costs for the locations I went were somewhere between $10-15 a day, depending on how close the lot was to the location.  So let’s say at the low end, I would’ve spent around $66 for mileage & parking.  My Metro passes?  $27.  That’s less than half the cost of driving!
3. You’ll have time to read – While you might try to read the morning paper during your daily drive to the office, it’s really not a good idea.  And all those books collecting dust on your nightstand will finally get some well-deserved attention from you.  Whether it’s funny stuff or spiritual stuff or academic stuff, you can sit and read during your time on the bus/train.  This is a self-nurturing activity that refills your energy stores to get through all those daily to-do lists.
4. You might gain some empathy for pedestrians – When driving, I’m not always very patient with people crossing the streets that I’m trying to drive on (yes, even when they do it appropriately & legally).  But as a frequent walker in the past two weeks, I gained a greater appreciation for the hazards of walking in the city.  Let’s face it, empathy is good for the soul because we’re all bozos on the same bus J  The more we can each recognize that we are all doing the best we can with what we have, the better off we’ll all be.
5. You can break out of your couch-sitting slump –  All the climbing up and down stairs, plus walking from the Metro stations to my final destinations got me a whole lot more exercise in the past two weeks than I typically get in my daily life.  I practice yoga regularly, but walking is a whole different thing.  And walking a few times a week can really shift you into a healthier lifestyle, as you get your body moving and heart working at the level recommended to maintain cardiac health.  (Naturally, consult with your doctor before beginning any exercise routine).
6. It’s good for the planet (and therefore, YOU!) – According to the Federal Transit Administration, all forms of transportation bundled together account for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.  Reported at that same FTA website, a report is cited that found “public transportation reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 37 million metric tons annually.^” That sure sounds like a lot to me!  So if you ride your bike, walk, and take public transit, you can decrease your carbon footprint.  Make no mistake, the earth was here long before us and she will be here long after us, but if we want the planet to sustain human life we probably ought to take better care of her.

If after reading this, you still live in a small city with no public transit or a big city with lots of public transit challenges (Ahem, L.A., anyone?  A few light rail lines  do not an efficient system make!), fret not.  Perhaps public transit isn’t the way for you to improve the health of you or your planet.  But there are lots of other ways to keep yourself healthy, whether physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally.  For more ideas, visit the Soulful Healing archives!  Thanks for reading and be well!

Sadness is a normal human emotion and while it may not be pleasant to feel, it is an essential part of our experience.  I think it is important to be sad about the above laundry list of alarming events…  Sadness — like all our other emotions — can be a messenger, if we let it.  Sadness alerts us that something important, significant, meaningful is happening.  Whether sad at the end of a fun experience or about living far from family or about the loss of a job or loved one, sadness is part of our collective story.  In addition, one cannot be happy all the time.  In fact, we call it mania when someone’s mood is excessively positive for too long.  Think about the cycles of nature…  There is birth, growth, death.  Plants require both sunshine and rain to grow, so how can we expect only sunshine in our own lives?  As the book of Ecclesiastes notes, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

While personal challenges and socio-political factors have a huge impact on a person’s mood, there is a significant difference between general sadness and clinical depression.  True clinical depression is deeply painful (both emotionally & physically) and makes it difficult for a person to function normally.  The disorder takes over a person’s thoughts, turning them almost exclusively to the negative (or at least making it really hard to think anything positive).  There is huge body of research on what is happening in the brain on a neurochemical level in a depressed person, but that’s beyond my purpose here in this article.  I’ll focus instead of the different types of depression, their symptoms, and some resources for more information. 

There are different types of depression, but when most people use the word they are probably referring to Major Depressive Disorder.  From the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder include:

• Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feeling sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful).  Children and adolescents may present with irritable mood.
• Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day
• Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite.
• Insomnia or hypersomnia
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation
• Fatigue or loss of energy
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness
• Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide

As you read through this list, you may have found yourself thinking, “I’ve felt that way before!”  It’s true, many of us have had these signs or symptoms at one point or another for a short time.  It is important to note that a person with true major depression will have at least five of these symptoms and experience them nearly every day for at least two weeks.   In addition, the above symptoms must be significantly impairing a person’s daily functioning.  This means that the person’s behaviors are causing them to have significant difficulties at work (e.g., can’t complete important tasks), school (e.g., sudden drop in grades), or in personal relationships (e.g., emotional withdrawal from or frequent arguments with one’s partner).

Another form of depression is called Dysthymic Disorder (from Greek, quite literally “bad mood”).  This is more of a low-grade depression that lasts for an extended period of time.  Two or more of the following symptoms must be present for at least two years in adults and one year in children (with no more than two months being symptom-free).

• Poor appetite or overeating
• Insomnia or hypersomnia
• Low energy or fatigue
• Low self-esteem
• Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions
• Feelings of hopelessness

Due to the training & experience required to properly diagnose a depressive disorder, I encourage you to refrain from diagnosing yourself based on the information presented here.  If you suspect that you or a loved one are experiencing depressive symptoms, please consult with a qualified mental health professional.  You can also take this online Depression Screening Test to help you determine whether your feelings & behaviors match up with depressive symptoms.  Psych Central hosts this screening test and has an amazing collection of resources on depression and its treatment.

In my next post, I’ll be exploring various treatments for depression, with an emphasis on how mindfulness, meditation, and movement can be used in depression recovery.  Be well and stay tuned!

What is Trauma?
For our purposes here, the term “trauma” refers to the serious physical or psychological harm of Self or someone else, whether actual or threatened.  The seriousness of the event is usually observed in the person’s  response of fear or terror.  Per the DSM-IV-TR, the diagnostic manual therapists use to categorize mental health diagnoses, the common emotional and behavioral reactions to trauma include:

• Re-experiencing the trauma
  • Flashbacks:  Feeling as though the trauma is happening again
  • Nightmares
  • Feeling very distressed when reminded of the trauma
• Avoiding reminders of the trauma or feeling numb
  • Avoiding people  or places that might trigger painful memories
  • Forgetfulness related to the event
  • Feeling detached from others
  • Difficulty experiencing a full range of emotions
  • Not wanting to talk about the event
• Increased arousal
  • Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
  • Feeling irritable, grumpy, or angry
  • Increased sensitivity to sound & movement – such as feeling jumpy or on edge
  • Difficulty concentrating

Trauma Responses as Helpful
These types of feelings and behaviors might serve a person well in a dangerous environment.  That might sound strange at first, but stay with me…  Feeling detached could be useful because a soldier, for example, needs to distance himself from what’s happening or he can’t do his job.  Difficulty sleeping is helpful when the enemy might attack during the night and a soldier needs to be fully awake & alert with little notice.  Developing an increased sensitivity to sound & movement is useful when a soldier needs to carefully observe everything going on around her in order to stay alive.  It is also not difficult to understand how irritability and anger develop under constant exposure to injury and death, especially since military units often function with the closeness of a family.

From Helpful to Unhelpful
So we see that certain trauma responses are useful in environments where danger is actively, and perhaps relentlessly, present.  But these challenges with sleeping, concentrating, irritability, and increased sensitivity are not useful when a person leaves that dangerous situation.  Nightmares and flashbacks cause the nervous system to be on high alert, which can lead to irritability and difficulty communicating.  Lack of sleep is physically exhausting and if insomnia is severe enough, it can  eventually lead to odd perceptual experiences and hallucinations.  Feeling numb and detached can lead to social isolation and failure to reach out for help when it is most needed.  Difficulty concentrating makes it hard to get work done and perhaps hard to hold on to a job.  Difficulty maintaining a job can create tension in one’s close relationships, leading to more social isolation, and self-blame.  Quite the vicious downward spiral.

Helping our Soldiers
If you or a loved one is struggling with the above feelings and behaviors, the good news is that there is help.  Taking that first step of asking for help can be really difficult and yet it the first step that is so important in the healing process.  It can also be such a relief to lay down the burden you’ve been carrying.  Here are some great resources for healing from the struggles of war and military conflict:

Give An Hour — Providing veterans of Iraq & Afghanistan, and their families, with free mental health assistance 
Heal My PTSD — A wonderful compilation of information and resources about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder 
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) –Providing support, education, advocacy, and research on mental illness.  Broswe around the site or click the “Find Your Local NAMI” to search for a chapter near you.   
NAMI’s Veterans Resource Center — A variety of resources compiled by NAMI to support troops, veterans, and their families.

Stay mindful and be well!

So in the interest of having a restful day, I am listing here some of my past articles on relaxation, rejuvenation, and reflection.  Whatever your ritual is today, I hope you enjoy it and bring some of that joy into the rest of your week.  Be well!
– Reconnecting with your Soul
– Time Out
– Emotional Balance
– Make Rest a Priority
– Coping with Stress

At any rate, I really was perplexed as to why whatever I was doing was NOT working.  Over the holidays, I took a complete vacation from my asana practice.   This wasn’t specifically because of the shoulder, but because I’d had a pretty stressful year and figured that some complete relaxation was in order.  Between resting, meditating, and occasionally using the back of a chair to massage under my shoulder blade, my right shoulder started to feel better.  Then I returned to regular life and wouldn’t you know it…  There was my old friend the shoulder pain  So I decided to take a restorative yoga class at a local studio as a means of re-starting my asana practice.  It was wonderful and gentle and got me thinking that maybe what was unhelpful about all the stuff I had tried before was the way I had approached my yoga.  I have a rather driven personality and enjoy being active.  Being still isn’t easy for me!  But that’s why I’ve loved yoga…  I can move, move, move, and then enjoy the peaceful inner and outer stillness that comes from that.

My experience in that restorative class prompted me to get back to basics.  I figured if what I had been doing wasn’t working, I needed to start over again.  I needed to stop pushing myself so hard and getting frustrated over my own limitations.  In other words, I needed to take the recommendations I regularly give my clients and apply them to myself.  That whole thing about walking your talk isn’t always easy!  So I pulled out my yoga therapy books and created a basic series that addresses shoulder pain.  Then I actually practiced it.  And let me tell you…  My shoulder has never felt better!  For two weeks now, I’ve been focusing on a few specific movements for shoulder issues, focusing on strengthening & lengthening the right combo of muscles to create a healthier me.  I notice how my right shoulder is very reactive to stress; it tries to jump into my ear at the slightest hint of stress!  But what’s different now is that I can breathe and move and keep the tight ball of badness from coming back.

If you’re feeling stuck, take a step back.  Do a little self-inventory and see what you find.  What are you doing that isn’t working or isn’t helpful?  What are you doing that is helpful?  How can you decrease the unhelpful and increase the helpful?  Find your way back to your Self and let that put you back on your best path.  As one of my favorite authors, Dr. Clarissa P. Estes writes in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, ‎”If you feel you have lost your mission, your oomph, if you feel confused, slightly off, then look for … the ambusher of the soul in your own psyche.”  Mine was an imbalanced approach to my life and yoga practice.  What’s yours?

This allowing for time and space in between urge and action is not easy.  First of all, feelings and psychological processes are powerful stuff…  The mind can either be a safe harbor for peaceful contentment or a mine-field of self-derision and negativity, as well as everything in between.  Our default way of responding to the world can be learned from our culture, our circumstances, and our families.  It can also be linked to our own genetic and neurological make-up.  Whatever the source of your automatic responses, the idea is to shift from automatic to conscious.  Often this process requires the help of a guide, whether that person is a friend, mentor, spiritual leader, shaman, therapist, or psychiatrist.  Regardless of your chosen guide, becoming more aware of your own internal process and communicating with others more effectively is a completely achievable goal.  As with so many things, it takes commitment and active practice.

One communication strategy that I and many therapist-types will share with others looks like this:   I feel ____________ when ____________.  You may hear this referred to as an “I statement,” because the idea is to get away from making assumptions about others in favor of discussing only your own feelings and observations.  The simplicity of this statement is deceiving.  This is because, again, you have to know what you feel before you let all the other junk racing through your mind just pour out.  Marshall Rosenberg, the creator of the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) method, adds another step to this statement, encouraging the speaker to identify what needs/wants trigger the feelings being expressed.  I really like this extended “I statement” because I believe it helps the speaker focus in on their own needs and how those needs create emotional responses.  So instead of saying, “It hurts my feelings when you don’t want to spend time with me!!” one might instead say, “I felt hurt when you said you have other plans, because I need to know that my interests are important to you.”  Yes, I know, this latter statement is longer and perhaps more tedious.  But this longer, more conscientious statement makes it easier for the listener to truly hear the speaker.  So instead of the defensive response, “Oh, get over yourself, you’re just being sensitive!” the listener will hopefully access her/his own compassionate nature and offer an empathetic response.  This is probably because “you don’t want to spend time with me!” sounds like a judgment at best and an attack at worst.  The NVC-inspired statement is simply an expression of the speaker’s emotions and thought process.  It’s the ultimate in honestly expressing what’s going on inside, without accidentally (or on purpose) attacking others.

If you are intrigued by this brief glimpse into the possibilities of Nonviolent Communication, here are some links:
– Center for Nonviolent Communication
– Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life (Book)
– Nonviolent Communication Companion Workbook