Workouts, Emotional Stress and Journaling: The Top 3 Health and Wellness Concerns of Last Year
Hello, I am Julie Donaldson and I am a clinical nutritionist with functional health training. I specialize in restoring balance in complex, chronic and acute health conditions. I welcome you to peruse other articles that may be of interest to you in your health investigation!
“I was once depressed, overweight & confused about all aspects of health, and thinking this was just my “lot” in life. Then came the gift of a friend telling me about Julie...can I just say people ask me all the time now, “What have you been doing? You look like a new person.” Do it!”
For many years, the top 3 health concerns Googled by Americans were diabetes, depression/anxiety and hemorrhoids! In 2022, the top 3 were workouts, handling emotional stress and journaling. They are all health and wellness related but have very little to do with specific physical conditions. This is a big shift from the last several years. What’s on our minds is being healthier in mind and body. We talk a lot about physical and biochemical approaches here at True Nature, but today this is all about personal practices. Holistic health absolutely involves body/mind health. The specifics of exercise and workouts, emotional stress management and personal growth are covered here. I’ll be talking about what I’ve witnessed to work well throughout my decades of personal healing and working with people who are healing.
Workout benefits
Let’s begin with workouts, and raising the bar!
One of the greatest joys of a good workout is having gone just a little further…lifted a little more, lingered a bit longer, gone a greater distance, etc. A second joy is discovering something new that you and your body love. But first…just get started!
There are so many benefits to exercise and working out. Here are some of the most impressive:
Improves memory and brain function
Protects against chronic diseases
Aids in metabolism, weight management and insulin regulation
Lowers blood pressure and improves heart health
Improves the quality of sleep
Improves mood
Maintains muscle & bone strength as well as flexibility
Improves energy
Supports sex drive and function
Improves skin health
There may be few practices for our daily lives that cross over as many mind/body balances as exercise does. But I find one of the big challenges, other than the simple final commitment to do it regularly, is to know what exercise works best for us. There are some general guidelines that I’ve seen over the decades with Metabolic Types®. Let’s discuss those but also keep in mind that a major tenet of MT® is that we need to live intuitively, listening to our body/mind systems and developing awareness of what does and does not work for us.
Generally speaking, those with a carb-type MT® do extremely well with a greater percentage of aerobic exercise. Building endurance and being in the aerobic cardio zone helps to support a slower metabolism. Those in the balanced MT’s do best with a mix of aerobic and weight-based training. Those who are protein types fare best with the majority of their exercise in weight/resistance. So, it’s quite helpful to achieving a real satisfaction with your workouts to know your MT® first! Keep in mind that any form of exercise that is done in excess or against the grain of your body’s metabolism and energetic predisposition can become a hormetic stressor. This can sneak up on anyone…we can believe we are doing something “healthy” for our bodies and all of a sudden there are signs of ill-health that we attribute to some mysterious condition. In reality, it can be a pile-up of stressors caused by too much of the wrong thing. The intensity and/or duration of your exercise should be monitored for your individual needs, and everyone needs days off where just a relaxing stroll is all that happens.
We have all heard for many years that we need 10,000 steps a day for maintaining longevity and low mortality rates. However, new research indicates that number is really 7,000 daily steps - beyond 7,000 there was no benefit in an increased number of steps. All causes of mortality were included in this extensive study.
I encourage clients to try a wide variety of workouts in order to discover both the positive physical effects and the joy aspects.
Leave the gym (or screen at home) sometimes and get out for an oxygen-filled hike. After all…"Nature always wears the color of the spirit." - Ralph Waldo Emerson We’ll talk a bit about spirit near the end of this article.
Try resistance training with bands - they are very effective and they increase flexibility as well as strength. These travel anywhere with you and you don’t need to pay for a membership.
Try body weight programs such as “Body by You” and “Be Your Own Gym”. These are focused on using the body’s own weight in ways that were very natural when we lived close to the land and did our own physical labor. They also travel anywhere with you.
Try ecstatic dance. It’s community-based, music-based and designed to increase a meditative state that encourages spiritual freedom. If the group aspect is uncomfortable for you, try dancing alone at home!
Try high intensity interval training (but begin with a trainer for safety purposes). It’s an excellent hormetic stressor when used the right way, in rotation.
Try Qi Gong or Tai Chi before your exercise to encourage the best brain engagement ahead of workout. Subtle, intentional movement is known to promote this. (For a truly personalized education and program of Qi Gong, I refer clients to my colleague (and true “sage”), Jacob Chinn, https://www.chinnchinesemedicine.com/. Jacob does group sessions at lower cost and also has many videos available for those who cannot do private work.
Next up, emotional stress management
Emotional stress. Everyone has it and very few of us had any meaningful training or modeling for managing it as we grew up. Unfortunately, many people got the opposite, with messages of “feelings are for babies”, “we don’t talk about those kinds of things”, “chin up”, etc etc. Emotions are a lot like small children - they have a lot of need to express and they tug at you constantly until you acknowledge them! Ignoring or rejecting emotions only makes them stronger - and yet, finding a respectful balance with them and not allowing them to control our lives is also very important.
Emotional stress
Google users asked “how to handle stress,” “how to stop a panic attack,” “how to cure depression” and “focus with ADHD.” These are the major concerns of our day with emotional stress, and while the internet can be a wonderful resource, it can also leave us without a very personalized approach. Working with a trained coach/professional to identify the biggest areas of stress and emotion is very helpful. Severe clinical expressions of mood disorders and mental illness require professional help. Mental health challenges have increased by 25% in the last 3 years, partly in response to COVID and in my (humble) opinion, also in response to increased exposure to news and things out of our control. We may be up against living in a world where the threats are so constant (when we pay attention to them) and we feel powerless as a result.
Here are some of my own processes used for decades with clients:
Heal your core beliefs. Beliefs drive thoughts, thoughts drive feelings, and feelings drive actions. If you hold a dysfunctional belief about yourself and life, there will be a constant feed of negative emotions surrounding that belief. This is a foundational change that needs to be made to stop an all-the-livelong-day process of “managing” emotions.
When an emotion surfaces, see it and give it acceptance. The 5 “biggies” are sad, mad, glad, scared and sexual - simplifying your recognition of these will help with knowing what is a feeling and what is a thought. Also ask yourself what you are attached to with this emotion - is it an outcome, revenge, continuing a lack of self love, getting attention, etc?
Ask yourself if it is an emotion that is in alignment with your core beliefs - or is it attached to an old, unhealthy one that is still operational? Reframe any dysfunctional belief and bring the emotion & situation to your new belief - see what you feel as you do that.
Ask yourself if you can do anything about the situation and emotion or whether it is something that is out of your control. If it is out of your control, BREATHE and let it go, still very much ok with yourself for feeling.
If you are in control, you can choose an action that empowers you. Write it down and make an agreement with yourself that you will act. Remember - action follows belief, thought and feeling.
On a daily basis, connect your emotions and your body…where is the stress? what do you feel physically - what tension, holding, pain, dysfunction goes along with the emotion? and BREATHE! In this video, I provide 4 breathing techniques researched at the Huberman Lab that help to calm the mind and nervous system - in clinical study, they gave 24 hours of lasting impact upon the nervous system. Anyone can do them, children included - think what a gift this is to learn this at a young age. As the breath calms the body, also, many times the emotion and its expression will just complete itself and no longer be a problem.
Stay in deep respect of your emotional status in order to better tolerate that of others. A very wise guide once told me that the greatest challenge humans have is in tolerating other’s emotions. Begin to watch this - you’ll be stunned at how true it is! A good bit of our own emotional stress comes from our reactions to others.
I also share this link to Gabor Mate’s video on healing with you: https://www.onecommune.com/a-return-to-wholeness-dr-gabor-mate-workshop In this talk, Dr. Maté shares the Lakota response to illness/hurt as “thank you”…because Lakota people believe that illness is a reflection of imbalance in the community and its spirit. What effects one effects us all. Towards the end of the video (around 44:00), he works directly with a man teaching the feelings of the body that help us recognize when we are being authentic with ourselves/our emotions - this is when the body feels calm.
With these regular habits, we can change the term “emotional stress management” to “developing emotional maturity”. The reframing of this creates less stress as we think about our emotional lives and instead, creates a sense of empowerment that our emotional lives are constantly maturing. As emotional intelligence and maturity increase, we are much less susceptible to any stress associated with feelings.
One of my personal favorites - journaling
Decades ago in the midst of a deep personal and family crisis, I read the book “The Artist’s Way”. I did not consider myself an “artist” and the reason I read it was to learn how to do stream-of-consciousness journaling. I am really, truly delighted that so many people are searching the internet for more information on this topic - it was life-changing for me. And here’s why: I considered myself to be a “feeling” person, ok to feel what I felt and to express it. But what I did not realize was that those feelings were taking up a lot of my internal “space” - and when the crisis became full-blown, there was so much chatter and so many hours of every day being used to try to manage and quiet it all down. Journaling gave me “brain drain”! It allowed me to have a safe space to express some of the things I was actually filtering because they seemed too dark/angry/unacceptable to anyone but me. And it helped me to get rid of unnecessary stimulation from feelings. This is the magic of journaling.
Journaling
Here are my tips for successful journaling:
Give yourself 10-15 minutes a day for some weeks to do the practice, until it becomes a habit and a reliable source of calm for you.
Do not write a story. Write anything/everything that comes into your mind in the quickest way. Use short phrases vs. sentences. Allow all “data” to come into play - not just what you feel emotionally/mentally but physical sensations (itch, pain, tension, tired, hungry, etc) . Everything that pops into your consciousness is taking up space!
Allow yourself to write LARGE, all over the page if necessary, when something big/overwhelming arises.
Allow yourself to draw a picture if it expresses more effectively than words.
DO NOT filter yourself - write it as true as it is and remove your judgment of that. All humans have difficult thoughts and emotions - we need a safe space to say it. You can rip the page out of your journal if using one, or if you suspect you will throw something out, you can just use single sheets of paper. (A special note - on any journal you are keeping, place a clear note on the outside “Not for anyone’s eyes but my own - this is private.” Your journal should be sacred and untouched by anyone else, but if you cannot assure yourself of this boundary, always use single sheets and burn or throw them out. You absolutely MUST be free to write anything without fear of discovery.)
As you progress through your minutes of this stream-of-consciousness journaling, watch for a calm shift that indicates your “draining” is becoming complete. At this time, allow any brief words of support, clarity and direction to be written - these should come fairly naturally to you as you have made space, they should not be “conjured up”.
REJOICE in the newfound creativity that arises! This was an unexpected result for me and I was the recipient of some new artistic inspiration. The art also fed my healing, simply by doing it.
An interesting note about journaling and sleep…research shows that using this practice at bedtime can significantly improve sleep! Particularly, writing down worries about incomplete tasks helped study subjects to fall asleep faster.
I also recommend keeping a dreams journal when possible. Keep it next to your bed, write any/all recollections from it, including just simple visual things - a red car, a brown dog, an orange dress, etc. Then, I recommend the use of the website www.dreammoods.com. It has a massive dictionary of dream symbols that are listed alphabetically. Look up each thing you remembered and you will begin to see the interrelationship of all the colors, textures, people, objects, etc. that came to you. This can be a profound part of personal journeying and healing.
Another possible addition to this type of practice is to use a guided journaling book. While this is a completely different process than stream-of-consciousness journaling, it can help to bring a number of things together as they develop over time. The “Big Life Journal - Adult Edition” is a good option for this.
A few final words about the magic of spirit
As the healing path unwinds, we do often need these practices and moments of raw expression and feelings. We are unsure, we are full of stimulus and it can be hard to believe things will be ok. But faith is the current that truly carries us when nothing else makes sense . I am not referring to any religious faith here (it’s one form). The genesis of faith is the giving of ourselves and our lives over to currents larger than us - so, no matter how you define that, it’s nearly impossible to deny that life is so gigantic in its energy and the wisdom of that energy. The only way to heal is through, and that takes faith that life is very intelligent and is, indeed, carrying us.
Please contact me at Julie@truenaturehealthconsulting.com for personal support. We provide holistic telehealth services.