How to balance mood and mental health through physical health
What we are trying to do is shift our mood from one state to another we need to begin by meeting yourself where you are first, then titrating that energy towards the opposite state.
- Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Balancing totally rational moods
I’ve been thinking a lot about moods lately. Because moods are generally what we mean when we say mental health. So what are they? What causes them, are they different from emotions, where do they come from, and can we change them if we want to?
I just got back from a brisk walk with my 3 dogs. Walking all 3 of them together is the exact opposite of peaceful. Imagine a cross between tumbling carnival clowns doing double dutch down the sidewalk and you have a pretty accurate picture.
It is seriously irritating some days and today is one of those days.
We all get irritated from time to time. Apparently I have never been very good at hiding those moods like good girls do. I remember people telling me often enough that I was just hormonal. And that used to really piss me off. As if what I felt, specifically any negative emotion, wasn’t valid or rational. As if there was no rational reason one could or should feel pissed off in any given moment at any time of the month about anything for any reason.
That, my friends, makes absolutely no sense.
Sometimes, no matter what your hormones are doing, your mood and the emotions that accompany it, ARE completely rational.
Let me tell you a story.
In 2001, the August before 9/11 happened and changed the world forever and pre-yoga, my grandparents took the whole family on a 10 day Alaskan cruise vacation. It was incredible. And I’m very grateful.
But…I didn’t understand what that meant. If you’ve never done one of these tours it can be grueling. The first 3 days were on a cruise ship, then we took various forms of transportation to work our way up to Anchorage. Planes, 2 types of trains, buses (both charter and school), the big cruise ship and a riverboat. Alaska is huge. The bus trips were 8-10-12 hours long, Maybe more. Meal times were topsy turvey and off the boat we had to be up at 4 am every morning to have our luggage outside the hotel rooms to move to the next place.
My kids were young, 9 and 4. Most of the pictures of my daughter are of her sleeping.
From day 1 on the ship I thought I was going to lose my shit. By the end, my stomach hurt so bad I could barely stand up straight. I was angry and irritated the entire trip. I felt like and probably acted like a real bitch. And that was a totally rational response.
Here's why.
When you don’t eat (or get enough water), your body and brain says you’re not safe. It triggers hormones (yes hormones) that are supposed to make you go get food. Specifically the amino acids in protein and water. Nothing else really matters. So giant rice krispie treats for lunch just aren’t going to cut it. And if you go 24 hours without food alarms will go off.
So is it rational to feel angry and irritated, or anxious or withdrawn? Yes. It is perfectly rational.
When you don’t sleep, your body and brain says you are not safe. It triggers hormones (yes, hormones) to try to keep you safe. Those are high alert, hypervigilance hormones cortisol, adrenaline to give you enough energy to get from point A to point B hopefully safely but not necessarily with a lot left over to be nice to people along the way.
So is it rational to feel angry, short tempered and irritated or anxious or withdrawn when your sleep is chronically disrupted? Yes. It is perfectly rational.
When you don’t or can’t move for long periods of time the body and the brain says you are not safe. You reinforce the freeze state. The human body is very adaptable. But physical discomfort of any kind, from any source, (hunger, pain, thirst, muscle tension) triggers a request for action. This is fight, flight or freeze. Not moving when you want to move or are unable to move reinforces the freeze response in the nervous system. This releases hormones (yes, hormones) that shut down unnecessary systems. Like the digestive system and reproductive system.
So is it rational to feel angry, short tempered and irritated or anxious and shut down when you aren’t able to move, are in chronic pain or you can’t trust the physical systems in your body to do their job efficiently? Yes. That is a perfectly rational response.
Looking back, Alaska is a beautiful place but I muscled through that vacation. Part of that was that I was fighting all those feelings. Instead of taking better care of myself which at the time I didn’t know how to do, I was trying to override that stress response to be the “good mom.” I wish I’d known then what I know now about the nervous system. I could have had a much different experience. What a difference 20 years makes, am I right?
The next time you feel some kind of way, like when your 3 dogs wind you up in their leashes, take a moment before you fight that feeling. It might just be a perfectly rational response.
But what if those moods last longer than a couple hours? What if they go into days, weeks, months or even years?What if you get stuck there? Does that mean you have a chemical imbalance in the brain? Are you dopamine or serotonin deficient?
Turns out that’s not a thing. We used to think that but that’s not what the science supports today.
We might be in an adapted or more accurately a maladapted state. In other words your nervous system, brain and body have conspired to keep you safe and help you survive based on your experiences in the world. And because the brain lives in a dark cave and only has memories to make decisions with, it doesn’t always make the best choices. The only choices it gives you are fight, flight or freeze. And those can end up looking like anxiety, hypervigilance and depression.
David Berceli told me once that anxiety and depression exist on a continuum; they are like 2 sides of the same coin. That made sense to me because we’re all one nervous system.
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett describes mood as a summary of all the signals from your body to your brain about how you’re basically doing. Emotions are the way the brain labels those summaries. For example you could be feeling an elevated heart rate, sweaty palms, and butterflies in your stomach. Your brain could say that you’re nervous and excited about going on a date or it could label that as anxiety. The difference is in the context and meaning from your memories.
Ayurveda
Ayurveda, the sister science of yoga, can shine some light on some of this with a little different perspective and offer a pathway to begin to balance some of these things as they come up in our experiences. In Ayurveda depression is split into 3 types, Airy, Burning and Earthy depression. When I explain them you’ll see how they fit into our current understanding of mental health.
Airy depression - this is what we think of as anxiety disorders and very fear based. This is when the flight button is stuck on.
Burning depression - is a constant state of hypervigilance that shows up as overdoing. I think of this as the high functioning depressed person. This is where people are likely to burn out. This is when the fight button is stuck on.
Earthy depression is the one we typically think of with depression. Very low energy, sleeping a lot, low motivation. This is the freeze button stuck on.
That’s a quick and dirty overview. Of course there’s more to it for each of these but this will do for our discussion on finding balance.
The ayurvedic view is that like attracts like. Humans are really bad at self awareness in these heightened states so we typically continue doing the exact thing that’s NOT good for us because it’s what we know. It’s who we think we are. For example, someone with earthy depression has low energy so they think that they need MORE rest. So they sleep MORE. They stay put.
But Ayurveda also says that opposites create balance. So if you or someone you know, has earthy depression and are looking to change that you would look for energizing uplifting activity through movement, breath or sound. In yoga there are particular breathing techniques, mantras, postures and meditations specifically to uplift and energize the body, mind and spirit. And there’s science behind it. In fact, studies done by the National institutes of Health and Neurosciences in India found that Sudharshan Kriya taught by The Art of Living Foundation had a 73% recovery rate in the treatment of hospitalized patients with Major depression. That is incredible! I wish I could tell you exactly what this breathing technique is but it is exclusively taught through the Art of Living which is a kundalini path I think. The Kirtan Kriya has similar studies and improvements specifically for brain health and dementia. The point is there are ways to shift your energy through movement, breath, vibration (sound) AND of course through how you eat and sleep.
In fact if you’re looking for only 1 thing to do to boost your overall mood and feel better in every aspect of your life. That would be to sleep in appropriate amounts at appropriate times with appropriate nutritional support.
The tricky part here is that under enough stress your nervous system isn’t going to let you sleep and the less sleep you get the higher your stress response goes. So first, we need to give ourselves more evidence of safety during the day. There are ways to do that in ways that the body and nervous system understands. Through movement and breath in the immediate moment and then more long term through nutrition and connection.
Because what we are trying to do is shift our mood from one state to another we need to begin by meeting yourself where you are first. But then titrating that energy towards the opposite state.
In other words when we’re in a heightened state the last thing we’re going to be able to do easily is “just calm down”. Never say that by the way. We want to make that shift slowly.
When we’re anxious, agitated, fearful as in Airy Depression we can meet that state.
Movement + Breath
When we’re feeling anxious the first thing we want is safety. We can find grounding movements that challenge the body and slow the breath. Malasana squat is a great one. Slow intentional strength movements. Progressive contraction with a body scan can instantly ground us. Then we bring attention to the breath. Slowing the breath. Finding an equal ratio between inhale and exhale or lengthening the exhale. Ujayi breath is warming and soothing through the vibration at the back of the throat.
Tapping is an excellent tool as well incorporating both physical sensation and a face and replace approach with the set up statement. And that’s one of the most important things we can do to remap the nervous system response. We can’t just tell ourselves to stop feeling this and expect it to happen, we need to give the brain a better meaning to replace it with. Tapping works in all three depression states.
When we’re in an agitated, aggressive, activated state as in Burning depression we might need to start with faster, harder movements and then slow them and find cooler environments to move in. Finding the challenge in less doing and more being. When we’re here there’s a lot of “heat” physically and emotionally. We can let this out with some cooling breaths and inviting some lighter fun into our routine. Breath of joy is a great fit or shitali breath to cool off. Maybe get your workout on the pickleball court just for fun or simple walking in nature once or twice a week. Doing anything “just for fun” can help balance this state and count as rest and recovery.
When we’re in that low energy, stagnant state of earthy depression where it’s hard to move at all we’ll meet ourselves with slow simple movements to match a simple 3 part breath. Then pick up the pace. Some supine shoulder flows, or other gentle movements that move us into a seated or standing posture where we can use the breath to increase our energy. Bhastrika or Pulling Prana as well as Breath of Joy can do this. Finding the fun is important here also. It’s easy to forget what we love to do and believe we don’t like anything. But exploring new or old things that you love to do can be key.
These things work because our heart rate and breath rate are linked. If you are breathing fast for any reason, it elevates your heart rate. This is activating for the NS, the brain then labels those physical sensations as something that means something to you based on your history. That’s anxiety or it could be excitement, or happiness or anger etc.
So our purpose and intention with breathwork when it comes to our mood and mental state is to replace those meanings as we change those physical sensations.
ASK for help
If we find ourselves in one or more of these states for extended periods of time we want to seek help from a qualified mental health professional. Sometimes we need help. It’s important to ask for it.
Long term, when we understand that our mood and our mental health is basically our brain reading what is happening in the body then we can make choices to help support our body’s health to lift some of that pressure.
Nutrition
Ayurveda suggests that we can also use our diet to balance these states. There is a whole science around this based on our dosha constitution and the season. One that is beyond the scope of this podcast but in general the oversimplified guidelines are that folks in the anxious, airy state benefit from grounding kinds of foods, warm comfort foods root vegetables etc. Burning state can balance with lighter fare, less spicy, more cooling foods and for earthy depression we might look for warm and light like soups. There’s way more to it than that and if you’re curious I’d advise looking for an ayurvedic practitioner in your area to help you.
What we know in general is that the standard American diet isn’t good for anyone’s physical or mental health. Removing all processed foods and sugar as well as alcohol and in some cases caffeine can not only improve your physical health but also reduce or even reverse anxiety and depressive symptoms and many other mental health issues as well. Check out the book Brain Energy by Dr. Christopher Palmer. He talks about how the metabolic pathways in the brain could be the source of many of our mental health issues today.
Dehydration, lack of essential nutrients like proteins and micro nutrients and minerals and leaky gut over time put the body into an activated state from that deprivation.
Interestingly, Vitamin D is a hormone regulator (I suspect one of many). If you are experiencing wild mood swings and other “hormonal” symptoms that don’t seem to be connected to any particular event it could be a simple fix. A majority of people these days are vitamin D deficient sometimes very very deficient and getting your Vitamin D levels checked and supplemented could make a world of difference.
Deficiency in magnesium can affect our sleep cycles as well.
Things like this are how we can work with the body in order to feel better physically mentally and emotionally. Every part of our health is connected to every other in this beautiful network.
Connection
Connection is the final piece of long term mood balance and it can be difficult if we are struggling in one or more of these states. Other people might not understand what we’re going through from the outside. But part of connection is becoming more aware of what’s going on with us. And other people can help. They can become anchors to help ground us or calm us with some light hearted fun or lift us up and out. Cultivating friendships and community are important tools for mental health. We evolved to be connected.
If you or someone you know is looking to learn more about that connection and ways to naturally balance your physical, mental and emotional state I’d love to help you. I use Yoga and trauma release exercise to help stressed out folks stop working out and start working IN. That’s what this podcast is all about. If you’re interested in working with me I have a few openings for private clients and you can book a free discovery call at savagegracecoaching.com and links will be in the show notes at savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin
Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time.
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a resilience coach and fit-preneur offering an authentic, actionable realistic approach to personal and professional balance for coaches in any format.
Savage Grace Coaching is all about bringing resilience and burnout recovery. Especially for overwhelmed entrepreneurs, creators and coaches in the fitness industry.
Schedule a free consultation call to see if my brand of actionable accountability is right for you and your business.