I hope you have been enjoying this series on brain health. This is the final blog in the brain series. There was so much information contained in Dr. Hyman’s Broken Brain series, it was hard to decide what to include and what to leave out. Today, I’m concluding the series with Dr. Hyman’s six steps for six weeks to better brain health.

“I’m losing my mind. I can’t think of the word I want to come up with!” This is a remark I will often hear from my Dad. Both of his parents had dementia, and he worries he is destined for the same future.

What I have been learning and what I have been sharing with him is this is not true. Just because you have a genetic history of a disease does not mean you are destined to get the disease. Science is sharing with us today, that even though you may not be able to change your genes, you can change how your genes express themselves…meaning which ones turn on or off and how that translates into health or disease.

Don’t Think You’ve Had One…Think Again

Over several summers of high school, I worked at a summer camp, primarily teaching swimming and skiing. It was a lot of fun, and I got my share of bumps and bruises but nothing that I ever thought had a lasting impact…until last year.

In 1989, I graduated from college and took a job teaching 1st grade in an elementary school. My first year proved to be one of the most challenging and rewarding of my five years in the classroom and one that deeply shaped my choice to focus my graduate studies in counseling and psychology

During that first year, I had a little boy in my classroom that was diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and an autism spectrum disorder.  He was a sweet child and unfortunately, struggled on so many levels.

For years we have heard the saying, “You are what you eat” and apparently that saying holds more truth than was previously recognized.

Here are some stats on anxiety and depression in this country currently:

• 1 in 10 Americans are on antidepressants.
• Over 40 million people have anxiety.
• Over 20 million more have depression.

These numbers are overwhelming, but there is hope!

I wanted to share this top 10 list, because the start of my New Year has not been what I would classify as great…very stressful would be a better description but more on that later.

This little analogy jumped off the page at me while perusing a book.  It cleverly explains the difficulty of trying to understand another’s perspective. After all, if you are a free fish watching one of your buddy’s splash around for no reason, you would tend to label him “a little crazy”; perhaps never realizing he was hooked on an invisible line.

“Hello, this is my daughter and my granddaughter.”

“Hi, have you met my daughter and my granddaughter?”

My grandmother always makes a point of introducing my mother and me to everyone she knows when we eat with her at The Village; a retirement center where she resides.

Recall as a child lying in bed and being scared of the dark.

Your mind imagines the monster under your bed. The creature is slowly crawling out from under the bed to pull you down; never to be seen again. You are frozen in fear just waiting, your five senses are on high alert, and every little sound sends your heart racing knowing for sure this is the moment the monster is going to grab you!

I had a young elementary aged child brought to me for depression and lack of focus. He had been a vibrant and excited child who did well in school, but in the last year, had begun a steep decline. Doctors had recommended pharmaceutical drugs for his condition, but his mother did not want to go that route and brought him to see me.

It didn’t take long for me to identify the problem.

How can you overcome this condition of time poverty? I don’t think I have all the answers, but what I can tell you is doing what you have always done will not improve the condition, it will maintain the insanity.

Are you still in a space of emotional recovery after the rollercoaster ride of Irma?! I have heard numerous comments from both friends and clients that they are still trying to catch their emotional footing after the ordeal of this hurricane. They express feeling emotionally wiped out, wavering between feeling relieved it is over, happy they came out okay, guilty that others got it worse, exhausted and worried if or when it could happen again. 

In case you haven’t noticed, Western Society tends to focus on the negative. The media would have us all in doomsday depression if we didn’t know better. Friends and relatives mean well, but sometimes they just can’t help themselves. People are often critical and degrading…of us, of others, and of themselves...

To anyone who’s ever been overwhelmed, and that’s plenty of us, those words may be all too familiar. Whether the experience is sudden or cumulative, chronic or acute, the feeling is one of drowning, immobility and powerlessness.

Heather, a baker for a catering company, began having issues with one of her co-workers after he bulldozed over her experience and capability in the kitchen. After her resentment had built up to a nearly unmanageable level, she called for a meeting, during which she explained to him how she was feeling.

Life is about making choices.

Imagine bellying up to the counter at your local Haagen Dazs and saying to the server, "Put in there whatever you think I'd like".

Of course, you wouldn't do that. With a veritable rainbow of ice cream flavors tempting you, making a choice might be difficult, but you would do it. "Give me Cherries Jubilee and Chocolate Night, put the chocolate on the bottom, and get a scoop with lots of cherries in it for the top." 

A client was experiencing a challenge with an employee. The employee was acting arrogant; like a ‘know it all’ about a project being developed by the team.

The individual’s attitude had created tension among both team members and the boss. The boss had addressed this attitude several times, but the employee continued to act like the expert; convinced that his analysis of the project was correct.

The longer daylight hours and warmer temperatures of summer are looked forward to by most, but summer can bring on its own set of stressors. I often hear people express both happiness and trepidation about the change of season. Remember to take a deep breath when your emotions heat up. Here’s a list of seven potential summer stressors and some ways to think consciously so you can stay cool when your emotions heat up this summer.