As we close out our second year of the pandemic, we’re all feeling really burnt out and have been for quite a while. Many of you said you were looking for more mental health resources, so I wanted to zero in on this topic and see how we can come together as a community to support each other.
This will be a two-part series. This episode will cover general mental health, and next week we’ll talk more about cyclical changes in mental health.
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As we close out our second year of the pandemic, we’re all feeling really burnt out and have been for quite a while. Many of you said you were looking for more mental health resources, so I wanted to zero in on this topic and see how we can come together as a community to support each other.
This will be a two-part series. This episode will cover general mental health, and next week we’ll talk more about cyclical changes in mental health.
Listener perk: 50% off your first month of obé fitness live and on-demand workouts with code KRISTEN50
View all podcast listener perks here.
Referenced in this episode:
How you can work with me:
Keep in touch!
Website
Instagram
Virtual Tip Jar
Thanks for listening!
For today’s episode, I want to talk about mindfulness and mental health. Given that we’re closing out our second year of the pandemic, we’re all feeling really burnt out and have been for quite a while. I know several of you also said you were looking for more mental health resources, and I’ve noticed an uptick in people downloading my recipe guide on meal planning for stress and anxiety. So collectively, we’re that Real Houswives meme where the lady is like “I’ll tell you how I’m doing. Not well, bitch!”
So, now seems like a good time to zero in on this topic and see how we can come together as a community to support each other.
This is going to be a two-parter: I’m going to cover general mental health to start in this episode, and next week we’ll talk more about cyclical changes in mental health.
Before we begin, remember this information is for educational purposes only, it is NOT medical advice and it is your responsibility to speak to a qualified health care provider about your unique needs. The final decision when considering any diet or lifestyle changes, whether it’s discussed on the internet, in a podcast, or prescribed by your doctor, is always your own.
We have two ways that our mental health is influenced and those are external influences and internal influences.
External are the mental, emotional, and spiritual factors that impact your mental health. These are perceptions and beliefs that have an impact on your nervous system. Some examples of things that influence this pillar are your coping skills, life experiences, parenting and security, education, culture, family life, outlook, and opportunity. This can obviously also be shaped by systemic issues that lie within race, privilege, socioeconomic status, and other determinants of mental, emotional, and spiritual health. These are from the outside coming in. Incoming information that your nervous system has to accept in some way.
The second is biochemical reactions which is the internal. But it’s not 100% internal because biochemical reactions can affect, and be affected by the external. Our perceptions can determine how our nervous system deals with all that information I just mentioned, and biochemical reactions can also determine how our nervous system reacts as well. The internal stuff includes blood sugar regulation, nutrition, genetics, your microbiome, allergies and sensitivities, chemicals, medications.
In regards to blood sugar regulation, this is foundational for hormone health because hormone health starts with the brain, and the brain uses 30% of the body’s glucose. Honestly all you ever need to know about hormone health is that stress and blood sugar regulation are like, the most important things to manage. So many issues stem from these two problems, so if you’re able to manage them well, you’re going to take a lot off your plate.
With so much going on in our lives, I know it’s all much easier said than done, especially when not everything is in your control or is your responsibility.
I will go over some tools to get started with in a bit if you do want to improve these areas but first, I want to talk a little about the connection to gut health. Hormones start in the brain, and you know what influences the brain? Our microbiome, that collection of bacteria that lives in our digestive tract. There’s a connection between the two called the gut-brain axis.
The gut-brain axis is a two-way street, one can influence the other. This is also known as our enteric nervous system — the word enteric refers to the intestines. The gut contains 500 million neurons that communicate with brain through this enteric nervous system. Communication also happens through neurotransmitters, and through the vagus nerve — signals are sent to and from the digestive tract through this nerve. Activating the vagus nerve brings us into “rest and digest” mode, which is opposite of our stressed “fight or flight” mode.
Deep breathing can activate rest and digest mode because it stimulates the vagus nerve. Other ways you can stimulate it include gargling, gagging, and singing loudly. Basically activating the throat, because it passes through the neck and thorax to your abdomen. The thorax is what’s between your neck and abdomen, behind your rib cage.
Another connection for gut health and mental health is that 95% of serotonin is produced in the gut. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and one of your feel-good hormones. When the small intestine is compromised in some way, you can underproduce serotonin, which can be a factor in depression.
The microbiome is influenced by genetics, age, nutrition, stress, and more. And there is evidence that psychological stress can increase your risk of leaky gut, which means the lining of your gut becomes permeable and can lead to inflammation, immune health issues, and mental health changes, and that evidence also shows the microbiome can impact your emotional behavior too. There’s actually an emerging field of nutritional psychiatry now that more and more research is being done on this connection.
So knowing this, it makes sense that if you want to take care of your mental health, you need to be mindful of your gut health too.
Let’s go over some important nutrients for gut health and mental health.
The first is probiotics: This is the most obvious one if you’ve spent any time diving into the wellness world. As with anything, you want to start with food before popping any pills, so you can get probiotics from fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, fermented vegetables, or pickles that are actually traditionally fermented and not just in brine. Kombucha is one but I’d recommend making your own. I will link to a post I’ve written all about making kombucha at home, but I say this because store-bought kombucha can come with a lot of sugar, which kind of cancels out the benefits for your microbiome, as delicious as it can be. Properly fermented kombucha will be very tangy because it’s fermented most of the sugar out of the brew, but that’s not always palatable to the masses so just check the label for added sugar and see if it’s to your liking. Also, you don’t need that much. People will drink the whole bottle at once and if you can tolerate it that’s fine, but you can also get by with just having a couple ounces. I usually tell people that a quarter cup is good enough to start with if you’re not used to having probiotics in your routine, otherwise you might notice some digestive upset if you’re like, slamming back a 16oz Healthade as your first foray into this world.
Vitamin B6 is another important nutrient. This one is key for serotonin production and it has one of the most dramatic mood-elevating effects of all the B vitamins. Serotonin is actually created from tryptophan, which is an amino acid, because amino acids help build our hormones, and B6 is required for that conversion from tryptophan to serotonin. Some good sources are eggs, nuts and seeds, bananas, spinach, legumes.
Speaking of tryptophan, you can find that in turkey as you probably have heard, also chicken, fish, mushrooms and spinach. This also helps with sleep, because serotonin eventually converts to melatonin. Fun fact.
B vitamins in general are good for mental health purposes but B12 especially is helpful for the production serotonin and dopamine, dopamine is another feel-good hormone. We mostly get B12 from animal foods, but it’s also present in tempeh, sea vegetables, and bee pollen, however it’s not going to be in high amounts in plant foods, so if you’re vegan or vegetarian you may want to get tested, see where you are with your blood levels, and explore supplementation.
One more important nutrient is Inositol because it promotes chemical signaling in the brain and allows serotonin to travel in the body. You can find this in nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes. Cabbage and citrus are good sources as well.
Ok so you have some specific foods to incorporate. But I do want to emphasize what I mentioned about blood sugar regulation. The way to ensure this is through what I call the elements of balance — having the three macronutrients represented on your plate, that’s protein, fat, and carbohydrates. How that relates to your mental health:
Blood sugar dysregulation, so chronic high or low blood sugar, can lead to inflammation in the brain along with many other health issues, so keeping this balance in mind is so important for many systems in the body. I also want to stress that one meal, one day, even a few days of this isn’t necessarily going to collapse your whole system, depending on your health status and sensitivity. But we want to be mindful of what’s going in and how it’s impacting us.
On the topic of mindfulness… what does that even mean?
To me, it simply means presence, and pause — meaning, paying attention to what you are doing in the moment, and giving yourself the space to think about your actions so you can move intentionally.
In terms of food: It means getting comfortable and relaxed around food and nurturing your ability to nourish yourself so you can move on and stop constantly thinking about “clean” eating or if foods are good/bad for you. Because that’s a mental health concern on its own that can lead to mental and physical stress, and in some cases disordered eating.
I have five principles of mindful eating for you to consider:
The first is to eat when you are hungry.
I know that sounds super basic, but if you’ve been a chronic dieter in the past, you may not have any idea when you’re actually hungry. Or if you’re dealing with a hormone imbalance, maybe your hunger hormones are off. You might have simply lost touch with what hunger actually feels like.
Hunger can feel like actual rumbling in your stomach, feeling tired, losing focus, feeling jittery, maybe you get a headache or feel lightheaded, maybe you’re hangry and want to punch everyone and everything. Take some time to think about your signals, and try to start noticing the ones that come on before they’re totally obvious, before you are completely ravenous and tossing everything out of the fridge looking for the perfect food to satisfy your cravings.
If you are still having trouble, try getting on an eating schedule, eating your meals around the same time every day to get yourself used to a rhythm so you can start recognizing your signals again.
Meal prep can be part of this. I’m a big fan of meal prep for saving time and energy and stress. Having a plan in place gives you a good foundation for meeting your needs throughout the day because you have food available that you like and that makes you feel good.
The second principle is to make intentional decisions:
When you feel an emotional craving come on, I have clients ask themselves 3 questions:
What am I feeling right now?
How do I want to feel?
What do I need right now?
If your answer to the first one is anything but actual hunger, move on to the second question. We have a lot of different types of hunger - emotional, visual, aural. Think about how you want to feel, and whether the food is going to help you get there. Sometimes it will sometimes it won’t, and you can proceed however you want, the point is to do it with intention.
And the third question, if you’re not going to choose food, what do you need to soothe the emotion you’re feeling? Maybe it’s asking a coworker for help on a project when you’re stressed, or calling a friend if you’re feeling lonely.
Again, sometimes the answer IS food. Sometimes ice cream is what will make you feel better. And that’s okay, we just don’t want food to be our primary coping mechanism. But the key is INTENTION.
If you take a minute before immediately going to food, take a couple deep breaths while you answer those questions, allow yourself some space between your craving and the food, you also give yourself the space to make an intentional decision.
I had a client who was lactose intolerant with emotional eating habits but was DYING for ice cream. She said she sat with it for a little bit and then decided to go for it, accepting that she wouldn’t feel so great afterwards, but that it was okay and she would just have something extra nourishing for dinner. There was no guilt afterwards even though it gave her a stomach ache, and she felt better knowing she planned to eat something later that would make her feel good at dinner.
And that’s the difference between making an intentional decision with food and mindlessly giving in to cravings. Which brings me to my next principle.
Progress, not perfection.
When we do give into emotional cravings, whether it’s intentional or not, we have a tendency to take on a lot of guilt, which can cause us to either punish ourselves by skipping meals or by saying fuck it and just letting the rest of the day or week go. It’s a slippery slope, and it’s not very helpful for our mental health.
But like I said earlier, one day, one meal, one week, whatever, is not going to cause everything to collapse. It’s what you do most of the time that matters.
And like I just mentioned with my client, she ate the ice cream, and then carried on with the rest of her day and had a dinner that made her feel good.
People get caught up in staying “on track”, but the track you’re on should take twists and turns into account because we’re human, so there is no falling off the track because indulgences here and there are part of it.
The fourth principle is to pay attention to your food.
Think about your last meal, and think about these questions. If you don’t know the answers it’s okay.
- What did you eat for breakfast?
- Where did you eat it?
- Did you chew a lot before swallowing or was it rushed?
- Did you use your phone or go on your laptop while you were eating?
- What did the meal look like?
- What did it smell like?
- What was the texture like?
- How did it taste?
- Did you like it?
- How did it make you feel after?
- What made you stop eating it?
- When’s the last time you thought about all the details of your meal?
A lot of us are shoving food in our mouths on the way out the door, or eating at our desks, or in the car. We’re not chewing, we’re not thinking about whether we actually enjoy it, we don’t notice if it’s contributing to the way we feel.
These things can not only help you appreciate your food more, but thinking about all these details sort of draws out the experience and allows you to be more satisfied with what you ate.
The last principle is to incorporate non-food mindfulness practices.
Meditation and breathwork for instance are two important tools I like to use to bring more mindfulness into my life. This can not only help with your health but also getting used to how your body feels and being in tune with it.
Meditating and focusing on your breathing wakes up the vagus nerve we talked about that puts you in a more relaxed state.
The vagus nerve is also responsible for triggering your sensation of fullness, through a hormone called leptin which is released in the gut as part of digestion. The opposite of leptin, a hormone called ghrelin, stimulates appetite by turning off the vagus nerve. So if deep breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, it can also help better listen to your hunger and fullness signals.
So those are some mindfulness principles that revolve around mealtime. The theme here is really about awareness and intention.
With awareness, I also want to share some tools for self-exploration. I find that learning about yourself in different ways, discovering your personal design, learning about how you function and what makes you tick, it can be really helpful for mental health, self-acceptance, and helping you to move through the world in a way that works best for your unique needs.
You’re probably already well-acquainted with the first one here which is astrology. If you don’t know your sun, moon, and rising signs, I have a link to where you can look up your natal chart. I use Cafe Astrology, and they provide a really, super detailed reading of your chart.
One thing to know is that there are different house systems. Your chart is divided into 12 houses that represent different areas of life. If you look at your chart, it will say, for instance, that your moon sign is in your third house. However, different resources and astrologers might use different house systems. For example, on Cafe Astrology I have a lot of placements in the 12th house, but when I use the Chani app she uses a different system so it shifts all of that up one into my first house. Different sources, different interpretations. So if you notice any discrepancies between sources, that might account for the difference. There may also be a difference if you don’t know your exact birth time. I recommend trying a couple different sources and just going with what feels most accurate to you and what resonates with you best.
I like Cafe Astrology for a very detailed look at your entire chart. Again I also like the astrologer Chani Nicholas, she has an app called Chani and a book called You Were Born For This. And also the astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, of course, who was a guest on episode 20 of this very podcast. She hosts the podcast called Ghost of a Podcast and has a book called Astrology for Real Relationships.
I don’t recommend using apps like Co-Star or The Pattern because from what actual astrologers say, they are pretty much nonsense, but they can be fun to just look up what your chart actually is and to compare with friends. If you’d like more advanced options, the apps Time Passages and Time Nomad are both great and used by actual astrologers.
Astrology really does tell you a lot about yourself and how you function. And you’ll notice that they say different things influence your chart, so if you don’t fully identify with the description of a Virgo Sun, maybe it’s because there’s 0 other Virgo placements in your chart and you’re more influenced by other planets and signs.
Astrology can be a real DEEP DIVE but it’s a lot of fun and really helpful for understanding yourself on many different levels.
I also am into human design, which is sort of astrology-adjacent. You figure out your design type by plugging your birthday into the MyBodyGraph website and what pops up is a whole lot of confusing stuff, like an illustration from an anatomy textbook. You’ll see a chart of a body that has various parts filled in or not filled in. And based on what’s colored in, and on the connections or spaces between those aspects, and the numbers all shown, it all means something.
You can get a detailed reading from a human design reader, I have some recommendations for you if you need: I’ve had personal experience with Jeni Gage who was just excellent and spot on with her reading, I’ve experienced Arianna Maag and her work in group settings and she’s wonderful too, and also I’ve enjoyed the resources shared by Shaadi Oreyzi, who uses human design more for business purposes, which is pretty interesting.
The main thing you’ll need to know, whether you get a reading with a human design reader or not, is your actual human design type: there are projectors, reflectors, generators, manifestors, and manifesting generators. Understanding which one you are sort of gives you access to an operating manual for how you work.
On the MyBodyGraph website, you can click through all these pieces and it will give you more information, and there’s an audio guide to some of it as well. Also Jovian Archive is a great resource too. I’ve learned that I’m a Generator, which makes sense, I can churn out content like nobody’s business and when I feel like I’m in a good groove with work there’s no stopping me, but my not-self theme that it says I have is frustration, this means the feeling that generally pops up when I’m out of alignment. This is good information to know so that I now have something actionable I can do when I become frustrated, instead of stewing in it and letting it affect me mentally, I can stop and say okay, what’s not working here, what’s out of alignment right now.
There’s a lot more to human design, just like astrology isn’t easily explained in 2 minutes, but definitely another self-reflective rabbit hole to go down.
The final one is learning your Enneagram type. This is a personality theory that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. There are nine personality types and each one is defined by a core belief that is something that is foundational to how you operate in the world.
Each type also has what they call a wing, which is an adjacent type that you lean towards but aren’t fully embodying. So for me, I’m an Enneagram type 4 with a 5 wing. The wing is the number on either side of your type, so if I had answered the questions differently I could have been a 4 with a 3 wing. So another example if you’re a Type 6, you could have either a 5 or a 7 wing. This tells you about aspects of your personality that you are either working towards or against. It’ll make more sense when you read more about it and you will be like, are you reading my diary?
There are a lot of free quizzes out there that give you the basics, and that may be enough for you. I actually paid for mine because I was really interested, and I’ll link to where I got it in the show notes.
The Enneagram test is mainly used for personal self-knowledge and development, and just like human design and astrology, it offers us another layer of understanding our core motivations and beliefs about life, which can help us better manage things like conflict, interpersonal relationships, emotions, and more.
I’m going to stop there for now. Your action item this week, if it feels available to you — your challenge, if you choose to accept it — I’d love for you to at least start tracking your mood daily if you’re not already. See if you notice any patterns, see if there is anything tied to your cycle if you’re tracking that as well.
Also take a look more into at least one of the avenues for self-exploration that we talked about, astrology, human design, or the Enneagram test. If you do dive into that I would love to know more about what your signs or types are, and whether you felt that the descriptions for each of these things spoke to you or helped you shift your perspective on anything.
And keep me posted! I love hearing from you. Next week will be part two of mindfulness and mental health, and we’ll focus more on mental health as part of your menstrual cycle. Thank you so much for listening, have a wonderful week.