Sacramento Massage Therapist

Paul Brown, CMT – You Don't Have to Hurt

Tag: anxiety

  • My Depression and Anxiety Strategy

    My Depression and Anxiety Strategy

    I’ve been diagnosed with major depression disorder since 2015. Before I sought care, I used to allow myself to perform my mindless, default behaviors, especially avoidant behaviors – things like staying in bed for days at a time, canceling social plans last minute. I lost many of my social connections: people gave up on me, stopped asking me to participating in things. Avoidance is a killing blow to one’s friendships, to work life, to one’s value system.

    Eventually, things got so bad, I was on the verge of suicide; I sought out care at the VA, and was matched up with a therapist who specializes in depression and anxiety care. Through therapy, I learned several coping strategies to help manage my depression and anxiety:

    Body Scan

    In this exercise, you sit with your hands resting on your lap or wherever is comfortable and close your eyes. Take a few breaths, then as you keep breathing, put your awareness in your feet. Notice how your feet feel, tension, discomfort, or pain? Don’t try to change or “fix” how you feel, just notice and acknowledge what you feel. Move your awareness up into your calves, and notice. Continue noticing and acknowledging the feelings and sensations in your body. The point of this exercise is to bring you into the present moment, to connect your mind and body.

    Change Your Language

    It’s commonplace for people to use being verbs to describe their emotions: I’m depressed, I’m angry, i am hungry, etc. instead of using “I am” language, instead say “I have” or “I am feeling” hungry, angry, lonely, tired, whatever you are feeling. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: to recognize that you are not your emotions, you have emotions and thoughts, and they come and go like the water flowing down a river. Secondly, that separation of you from your emotions gives you a little room to manage your decision-making process. Which brings me to the next behavior

    Define your values

    This takes time and is an ongoing process. Determine what is important to you, what kind of person you want to be. Commit yourself to acting in accordance to your values.

    Notice, acknowledge, test, take action

    .This behavior builds on the first two. You’re taking the awareness of your body’s sensations and descriptive language and using this framework to decide how to respond..

    Notice

    Pay attention to your body; it signals to you often before your brain has registered the emotion. Your solar plexus gets tight or constricted or breathing increases pace, or other signals which can indicate a feeling to process.

    Acknowledge

    Accept that you are feeling depressed or anxious instead of being on autopilot. This is important to

    Test Truth

    Ask ‘ yourself what is the emotion signaling? Is this an issue in the present moment, or a past remembrance of earlier trauma. This helps you to

    Take Action

    Now that you know what the feeling is signaling, you decide how to respond. We have a couple of possible r,esponses we could make: .

    • We can decide to listen to the emotion and take an action –
      • call a friend,
      • take a walk,
      • go to the gym,
      • whatever you need to do to satisfy the emotional need;
    • Perform an avoidance behavior, sometimes we need to be alone, and this is a valid response;
    • or, and probably most important, we can do nothing with that feeling, just let it move through your body and make space for your next thought and feeling. 

    Most feelings do not need to be acted upon. But when we do act, we do so based upon our values

    Healthy Diet

    Proper nutrition is crucial to maintaining brain health and function. If you need nutrition advice, a registered dietitian is a subject matter expert using evidence-based information to provide the most current recommendations for you.

    Enough Rest

    our brain needs sleep to assimilate the activities of the day, reindex, and reset. Sleep is like doing CTRL-ALT-DELETE on your brain. Read more about sleep hygiene here.

    • Daily Routine
    • Exercise
    • Take your meds
    • Cultivate a Sense of Awe – the feeling of awe: moments when we are confronted with the vastness of the world, and our smallness in it, brings many healthy responses: increases social connections, reduces depression and anxiety, calms the body and mind, brings more peacefulness. Examples of seeking awe include
      • Looking at the sky – this is one of the best means of cultivating awe. Looking up instead of down has beneficial emotional effects.
      • Look at the routine things you normally ignore – your neighbor’s beautiful garden; bees gathering pollen; a father and child playing catch. All of these things demonstrate the beauty and complexity and therefore largeness of the world. 
    • Stay in the present moment – this is the most powerful thing you can do to overcome your feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness. Being present will engender the kinds of habits 

    These are some of the things I do. It’s a lifelong effort and practice, and I don’t always succeed, but the more I try, the better get at them. 

    You can do it, thou art enough.

  • Pulled Up Short, aka Ctrl-Alt-Del

    Pulled Up Short, aka Ctrl-Alt-Del

    So back on 17 January 2024, I was walking along a sidewalk and I was struck by an F-150 pickup truck. I was briefly knocked unconscious and blah, blah, blah, sustained some injuries and damage to my electronics. Whatever right?

    Well, not really. Although I survived, and I will get the necessary care I need to heal as much as I can, the experience compelled to do some frank and cogent examination of the state of affairs of my bodywork practice, and more importantly, my attitude toward “tending the garden,” as it were.

    Since the pandemic began, the shutdown of all those businesses, and self-centeredly, my particular business, really put me in a holding pattern, a sense of uncertainty, a funky cold medina. My practice, one of the most important things in my life, languished, a malaise of depression and anxiety swept over me, and I struggled to maintain my wholeness as a practitioner of bodywork. Dark days, indeed.

    But it’s funny what an inflection point like getting hit by a truck will do to circling back around to our conceit of the show, to make you examine what is, and what you like to be. It sounds like an overwrought cliche: near death experience, man reevaluates his life choices. Odd, but true, and feels very much like how they portray it in the talkies, er, um, movies and tv. An important opportunity to think and make decisions.

    And decisions translate in to action:

    • I’m reinvesting in equipment and supplies and consumables and reviving previously used services and developing new ones
      • Using select essential oils to make harmonious blends for use in my practice, and making the blends available for purchase.
    • Doing more marketing and advertising to increase interest and client acquisition, being judicious and with specific goals to meet for increasing my numbers.
    • I’m about to paint my office to align my aesthetic and therapeutic goals.
    • Invested in a new grow light for my beloved but kinda ragged African Violets, so I can mimic the brightness and natural amount of light they receive.
    • Focusing to keep the office part of my space more visually appealing.
    • And continuing to improve and stay consistent with my mental health regimen to keep being as present as I can be for you, my delightful clients.

    All these things are happening or in the pipeline, because I am a dedicating myself to not just maintaining but growing my client base. I am making these important improvements in my service TO YOU, precisely because my core value and my actions will realign and make my work feel like play and flow forth toward you to help you.

    Thanks for reading,

    Paul

  • Hungry? Take the Apple Test

    Hungry? Take the Apple Test

    The Apple Test? What’s That?

    I’ve struggled with emotional, or comfort, eating for a long time, as long as I can remember. The coping mechanism might have been useful at some point in the past, but it helped me balloon up to 470 pounds, and eventually seek out bariatric surgery back in 2017, and lose 200 pounds. To help develop a healthier habit, I do what I call the Apple Test.

    How You Do It

    Imagine you feel hungry, what do you do? Here’s what I do: I ask myself, would I eat an apple?

    Yes to the Apple Test?

    If yes, I literally eat an apple! Then I iterate back: am I hungry? Would I eat an apple? And so on… So, I hear you asking, what do I do when I answer no? Good question!

    What to do if you Answer No

    Ok, you now know you’re not feeling hungry, but how do you actually feel? Here’s where we rely upon NATT, or Notice, Acknowledge, Test, Take Action.

    Notice, Acknowledge, Test, Take Action

    This is a mindfulness exercise that will help you identify what and why you are feeling what you are feeling.

    First up, Notice: where in your body is the feeling manifesting? What emotion is it? Try to put a word to it, then

    Acknowledge: accept that you are feeling whatever it is. maybe you’re feeling anxiety about something, maybe feeling a need to be social, whatever it is, acknowledge the fact and validity of your feeling. Let yourself feel it.

    Test: take a moment to listen to what that feeling is telling you is happening. Is this something from the here and now? A remembrance of past emotion or trauma? A combination of things? Only you know the answer to this.

    Take Action: what do you need to do about it? anxiety might mean do something right now, or it might mean you’re an old fear and I can let you pass me by. Feeling social might mean texting a friend, going out for a walk, grabbing a beer with a buddy, playing fetch with your dog, the possibilities are limitless.

    The Apple Test is Your Friend

    All told, the apple test is a great way to bring mindfulness into your day. If quick and easy and effective. The apple test is useful to maintaining emotional equilibrium, and right decisions for you in that moment. It can feel terrific and worthwhile to incorporate into your mental health toolbox. It has definitely helped me!

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