Thank you for all the great feedback on the Blogger Highlight series. I’ve enjoyed meeting each blogger and sharing their site with you. This week, we highlight Adjunct Wizard. Paul has a varied background that results in great and sometimes quirky posts. He is also the caregiver of his wife, who has Parkinson’s Disease.

Adjunct Wizard

I write this for me but I am always interested in other’s thoughts about life and dealing with chronic disease.

My favorite quote: Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.  —  Emerson

Questions I asked Paul

M. Looking back, what experience shaped you into who you are today?

P. Being fired from a job… makes you a better person by forcing you to understand importance of self.

My little post about it is “Don’t Sit On The Sticker Bushes”

M. What is your favorite post and why?

P. Black Underwear

Why ? That day when I wrote it and later as I refer to it, it is a metaphor for the strong love I have for Cheryl. In the early days of her dementia I felt like I was always scrambling to quickly find out how to help her and be there with her because she could appear “just fine” to her friends and family. I quickly wound up doing all the household chores — it is easy to get lost in all that and forget that the disease was not Cheryl. The laundry that day bought all those thoughts to the fore.

My favorite recent post is Is This Fly Shit or is it Pepper? I could immediately relate to my career. As I said, I’ve had anought Fly Shit to last a life time.

Stop by Paul’s blog, say hello, pull up a seat, and read through his archives; you will find a nice mix of topics.

Melinda

Looking for the Light

IDEAS.TED.COM

Jun 10, 2021 / Emily Nagoski PhD + Amelia Nagoski DMA

Stocksy

In their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, coauthors (and twin sisters) Emily and Amelia Nagoski reveal that completing the stress cycle — finding a way to let our bodies know we’re no longer threatened or in danger and we can stop being stressed — can be the most effective way to avoid burnout and emotional exhaustion. Physical activity or any kind of physical movement is one great way to do this, but there are several other ways. 

Here are 6 evidence-based strategies to help you complete your stress cycle:

1. Breathing

Deep, slow breaths down-regulate the stress response, especially when the exhalation is long and slow and goes all the way to the end of the breath so your belly contracts. Breathing is most effective when your stress isn’t that high or when you just need to siphon off the very worst of the stress so you can get through a difficult situation.

A simple, practical exercise is to breathe in to a slow count of 5, hold that breath for 5, then exhale for a slow count of 10, and pause for another count of 5. Do that three times — for one minute and 15 seconds of breathing — and then see how you feel.

Casual but friendly social interaction is the first external sign that the world is a safe place.

2. Positive social interaction

Casual but friendly social interaction is an external sign that the world is a safe place. People with more acquaintances are happier. Just go buy a cup of coffee and say “Nice day” to the barista or compliment another customer’s earrings. Reassure your brain that the world is a safe, sane place, and not all people suck. It helps!

3. Laughter

Laughing together, and even just reminiscing about the times we’ve laughed together, increases relationship satisfaction. We mean belly laughs — deep, impolite, helpless laughter. When we laugh, says neuroscientist Sophie Scott, we use an “ancient evolutionary system that mammals have evolved to make and maintain social bonds and regulate emotions.”

Aarm hug in a safe and trusting context can do as much to help your body feel like it has escaped threat as joging, and it’s a heck of a lot less sweaty

4. Aceptance

Sometimes, a deeper connection with a loving presence is called for. Most often, this comes from a loving and beloved person who likes, respects and trusts you, whom you like, respect and trust. It doesn’t have to be physical affection (though physical affection is great). A warm hug in a safe and trusting context can do as much to help your body feel like it has escaped a threat as jogging a couple of miles, and it’s a heck of a lot less sweaty.

One example of affection is the “six- second kiss” advice from relationship researcher John Gottman. Every day, he suggests, kiss your partner for six seconds. There’s a reason behind the timing: Six seconds is too long to kiss someone you resent or dislike, and it’s far too long to kiss someone with whom you feel unsafe. Kissing for six seconds requires that you stop and deliberately notice you like this person, you trust them and you feel affection for them. By noticing those things, the kiss tells your body that you are safe with your tribe.

Another example: Hug someone you love and trust for 20 full seconds, while both of you are standing over your own centers of balance. Research suggests this kind of hug can change your hormones, lower your blood pressure and heart rate, and improve mood. It doesn’t have to be precisely 20 seconds. What matters is you feel the stress easing, or what therapist Suzanne Iasenza describes as “hugging until relaxed.”

Of course, affection doesn’t stop with other human beings. Just petting a cat or dog for a few minutes can help complete the cycle too.

5. A big ol’ cry 

Have you had the experience of just barely making it inside your home — or bedroom — before you slam the door behind you and burst into tears for 10 minutes? Then you wipe your nose, sigh a big sigh and feel relieved from the weight of whatever made you cry? You may not have changed the situation that caused the stress, but you completed the cycle.

Have a favorite tearjerker movie that makes you cry every time? Going through that emotion with the characters allows your body to go through it, too.

You might experience completing the stress cycle as a shift in mood or mental state or physical tension, as you brethe more deeply and your thoughts relax.

6. Creative expression 

Engaging in creative activities today leads to more energy, excitement, and enthusiasm tomorrow. Like sports, the arts — including painting, sculpture, music, theater and storytelling in all forms — create a context that tolerates and even encourages big emotions. Arts of all kinds give us the chance to celebrate and move through our big emotions.

P.S. How do you know you’ve completed the cycle?

It’s like knowing when you’re full after a meal or like knowing when you’ve had an orgasm — your body tells you. You might experience it as a shift in mood or mental state or physical tension, as you breathe more deeply and your thoughts relax.

It’s easier for some people to recognize than others. For some people, it’s as obvious as knowing that they’re breathing. That’s how it is for Emily. Long before she knew about the science, she knew that when she felt stressed and tense and terrible, she could go for a run or for a bike ride and at the end of it she would feel better.  She has always been able to feel it intuitively, that shift inside her body.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure you can recognize when you’ve completed the cycle. Especially if you’ve spent a lot of years — like, your whole life, maybe — holding on to your worry or anger, you’ve probably got a whole lot of accumulated stress response cycles spinning their engines, so it’s going to take a while before you get through the backlog.

All you need to do is recognize that you feel incrementally better than you felt before you started. You can notice that something in your body has changed, shifted in the direction of peace.

“If I was at an eight on the stress scale when I started, I’m at a four now,” you can say. And that’s pretty great.

Excerpted from the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Copyright © 2019 by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Used by permission of Ballantine, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

To learn more about the stress cycle and burnout, watch Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s TED conversation: 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Emily Nagoski PhD is the author of “Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life.” She has a PhD in health behavior with a minor in human sexuality from Indiana University, and a MS in counseling, also from IU, including a clinical internship at the Kinsey Institute sexual health clinic. A sex educator for 20 years, she is the inaugural director of wellness education at Smith College.

Amelia Nagoski DMA Amelia Nagoski holds a DMA in conducting from the University of Connecticut. An assistant professor and coordinator of music at Western New England University, she regularly presents educational sessions for professional musicians discussing the application of communications science and psychological research, including “Beyond Burnout Prevention: Embodied Wellness for Conductors.”

The spacing is wacky this morning; the system will not allow me to save the changes.

Melinda

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NEWS.COM.AU

Sophie Goulopoulos

Trust your gut, as they say!

From about eight weeks old, Angie Kent couldn’t have breast milk. As she grew older, she realised lactose products were “ruining her whole day”, so she listened to her body and made adjustments. 

There are so many lactose-free dairy options out there now. But when Angie Kent was growing up, not so much. There wasn’t even much information about lactose intolerance, which she now realises was the reason she couldn’t take breast milk after about the age of eight weeks and why, after noticing how eating regular dairy products brought on discomfort and pain, she made a “conscious effort” to research her symptoms and seek medical advice.

Body+Soul: You’ve spoken often about your journey with being a coeliac, but not of your lactose intolerance – why is that? 

Angie Kent: Coeliac disease can be a life-threatening disease for many people and I felt it was important to bring attention to how serious this intolerance is. By comparison, for most people, lactose intolerance symptoms can often be managed.

How does drinking/eating lactose make you feel? What are the major symptoms for you? 

Eating and drinking lactose gives me overall discomfort. I feel as if my digestive issues have the power to ruin my whole day. I don’t feel my best, and I don’t feel like I can be relaxed or active due to my physical pain from bloating, toilet troubles, and skin breakouts.

When did you first learn of your intolerance, and how did you get diagnosed? 

I was a colicky baby and was not able to have breast milk from eight weeks old. As a child, there wasn’t much education around being lactose intolerant and as I got older I could no longer deal with the pain and needed to do something about it.

I started noticing a pattern after eating dairy and experiencing consistent symptoms, so I made a conscious effort to listen to my body, researched my symptoms, and learnt more about lactose intolerance, and then sought medical professional advice.

How did avoiding lactose affect your social life/general diet/ability to eat what you wanted/mood? 

I find catering to my dietary restrictions these days is much easier with the increased number of alternative milk and lactose-free options, as well as the amazing vegan products that are now on the market.

Being lactose intolerant has just made me more conscious of what I am putting in my body, but I don’t feel like I have to make major sacrifices in my life.

How has knowing about your intolerance improved or changed your general wellbeing? 

My overall well-being improved when I got a handle on my symptoms and felt more myself again. I certainly know when something my body doesn’t agree with has snuck into my food, because all hell breaks loose with all different types of symptoms. I’m a sensitive soul.

What is the worst thing possible for you to eat/drink for your lactose intolerance? 

I don’t consume any dairy milk, yoghurts or creams because of my intolerances but I am a sucker for cheeses! With so many lactose-free dairy products out there, I can now enjoy lactose-free cheese without all the stress on my body physically and mentally. If you’re feeding your gut something it can’t process or handle, your mental health suffers too. It’s important to know your gut is your second brain. Why do you think people say ‘trust your gut’ so often?!

What non-dairy and dairy alternatives are you able to eat with your lactose intolerance? 

So many dairy products have lactose free options nowadays that I don’t necessarily have to seek dairy alternatives, my favourite brand is Liddells. But knowing that most coffee shops always have a range of reliable dairy-free alternatives always makes things really easy for me.

What does your average day on a plate look like now? 

I am mainly veggie-based so I will make myself a smoothie in the morning with my herbs, supplements powders, dairy-free yoghurt, bananas, blueberries, and almond milk.

For lunch I try to have a salad with lots of greens and maybe some kind of seafood. Dinner I love to make myself a veggie dish or fish curry! The options are endless.

For snacks, I can now snack on some lactose-free cheese singles, avocado, and tomato with rice crackers. I am mad about it! Plus lots and lots of herbal teas.

Melinda

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