Mental Health

Internet, Video Games, Social Networks and Your Brain

September 26, 2021 by Dr. Cesar Vasconcellos de Souza - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

How much time do you spend each day on social media? Have you ever thought about going two days without accessing the computer? Have you managed recently to stay three days without video games? We are going to deal with electronic addictions today.

Internet, Video Games, Social Networks and Your Brain

We will have a look at some of the more recent scientific findings that have shown how addiction, and specifically electronic addictions, can affect your brain in an unhealthy way. Do you know that today there are specific treatments for people who are addicted to the internet, social networks and video games?

But let’s understand what an addiction is. An addict is a person who is dependent on something, so addiction is what becomes a god to you. If you look at what you are addicted to, you are worshiping this object and it becomes a god. Addiction is what dominates your thoughts, dominates your feelings and influences your attitudes. If we want a scientific definition of addiction, it can be: It is an unhealthy model of substance use or some other object, which leads to negative changes in your health.

Addiction separates you from your emotions. You may notice, when you stop or try to stop something that is the object of your addiction, there is certainly anxiety, restlessness, nervousness, insomnia, irritability and impatience. So addiction dulls reasoning and emotions.

If you are addicted, it can be sex, a substance that is legalized as alcohol, you certainly have a numbness, an anesthesia, a blockage of some reasoning, some thoughts, some feelings that you would need to be experiencing to have a healthier behavior. So you use a substance, you use a product, you use a practice, in this case video game addiction, social network addiction, internet addiction, you use that to numb your emotion, then comes a remorse: I spent a lot of time on it! Oh boy, I neglected my kids! I arrived late for work! I spent a lot of money, because I wanted to buy a more powerful equipment! Or whatever else! Then comes the guilt, then comes the feeling of lack of self-worth, because I think I’m no good as a human being, I don’t think there’s an escape, and then you feel more anguish, more sadness and then you can think: Let me get on a social network again to see if I can relieve myself a little. And you get this sick emotional ping pong, it’s really a destructive cycle!

Types of Addictions

Every addiction creates a destructive cycle for your health, for your peace, for your happiness and also for the well-being of the people around you. There are several types of addictive agents, that is, there are several instruments, several situations, several practices that can produce an addiction in your life, not just alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and what we are talking now about the internet. There are people addicted to work, to success, to spending too much, to gambling, to accumulating goods, people addicted to controlling others, to humiliating people, it is an addiction, a disorder, an alteration. You have to deal with it. There are people addicted to food, people addicted to sex, pedophilia, pornography, indeed, there is an epidemic of pornography addiction. People you never imagined are connected with this.

This is a symptom; the world is compulsive. Compulsive not in a positive sense unfortunately, of having a compulsion to do something good for society. The world is medicated, the world is anesthetized, the world is altered, in their emotions, in their reasoning due to various types of drugs.

A person addicted to video games - Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Some people are addicted to approval, a need to please, always neglecting their needs to see if they please someone. People in a savior role, people who are dependent on toxic relationships. What is a toxic relationship? It’s a relationship that’s bad for you, that will harm you. There are people who marry a complicated person, suffer a lot, separate, marry another complicated person, suffer a lot again. There are people with a mania for their physical outlook, their cosmetics and clothing, obsessed with aesthetics and plastic surgery, it’s just that these people want to try to look good on the outside, while on the inside they’re not very well centered. Some people are addicted to academic titles, there are various types of addictions there.

There exists a vicious cycle of addiction. The person has emotional pain, he has emotional discomfort, there is something that is not well resolved within him, some trauma. I don’t like this word because it gives the impression that emotional suffering has to do with a trauma, while in reality it is a set of situations in life that are, in general, painful and difficult, which develops the person’s emotional suffering. So he has pain, he looks for an agent to get rid of this pain, it can be cocaine, marijuana, sex, pornography, food, as I said, he has a temporary anesthesia of this pain, then it can have negative consequences, it will depend on the type of addictive object that he’s using, and then he’s finally going to have shame, guilt and that results in more pain and lessening of his self-worth and he gets stuck in this cycle.

Effects of Electronic Addiction

Some studies show that too much time on the internet infantilizes the brain. It’s showing that it can produce a generation of young people incapable to think for themselves. For anything, they get on the internet: Let’s see what that person says. They will access site a b c or d.

Dr Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, says the following: The immediacy of imagery in the internet impairs mental development in children and adolescents. These images are very fast, the child’s brain is not prepared to be able to manage all of this. So it’s different from stories told by parents in the past, They used to sit on the porch, telling stories of this and that to the children, but a story that has a beginning, a middle, an end, and a lesson. On the internet, those images with a lot of virtual stimulation confuses children’s minds. So these stories that parents can offer their children help the brain to think in sequence, reason from cause to effect, in addition to the emotional bond that father and mother have talking to their child and interacting with the family.((Greenfield S, “Excesso de internet pode criar geração de jovens incapazes de pensar por si próprios” Revista Ser Médico, Jan/Fev/Mar de 2012))

In the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a very interesting scientific study was done by a scientist named Fuchun Lin in 2012, he came to the conclusion that young people who surf excessively in the internet have brain changes similar to those seen in gambling compulsives.((Lin F, Abnormal White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study. Plos One, January 11, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030253)). So you see the matter is serious.

Teenagers with cell phone addiction - Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

At the University of Rochester, in a 2010 study by scientist Daphne Bavelier, she came to the following conclusion that there is a strong correlation between exaggerated computer use and brain abnormalities.((Bavelier D et.al. Children, Wired: For Better and for Worse. Neuron, Vol. 67, Issue 5, 9 September 2010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.08.035))

What To Do About Electronic Addictions?

What can you do if you’re addicted to electronics, social networking, you can’t go two hours without accessing and posting things? And if you stop you will feel symptoms of the withdrawal crisis, anxiety, irritation, impatience and nervousness, some lose their appetite, in others it increases appetite or causing insomnia? Let’s talk a little bit if you have children and don’t know how to dose the use of electronics in their hands, what can be done?

First, it’s important to understand that any compulsion can serve to keep you from realizing some inner needs, experiencing certain emotions, living certain thoughts, improving relationships in some areas of your life. If the family you live in is experiencing this problem of excessive use of electronics, then it is important that the family as a whole looks for solutions to this. It’s no use for you as a father, as a mother who is addicted to electronics, wanting to teach your child a moral lesson and say: “Stop it! Or: Turn it off! Give it to me! I’ll take it away!” But you are addicted too? You can’t put down your electronics, how are you going to exact this from your child? To fix the excess, the abuse of electronics that can already be characterized as an addiction, it is important that you lead by example.

A family addicted in electronics - Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

So in this family where there is a member who is really addicted, maybe a young man is leaving his studies, because he spends hours and nights on his computer, in his bedroom, he sees who knows what, even if you have parental control connected on the computer, you need to set an example. So this young person or child will need a limit in their computer time. You have to determine this as a father, as a mother, you have to have a firm hand, love has to be firm. If you’ve a small child, don’t put electronics in that child’s hand too early. Take it to the park or play an educational toy with them.

So parents need to lead by example. Because you as a dad or mom might not be addicted to electronics, but you can be addicted to something else. There are people who come home, tired from work and say: My day was so exhausting, let me have a drink of whiskey to relax! Oops! Or they may say: Where’s my tranquilizer, have you seen my medicine box over there? I’m nervous, I want to take an extra dose of tranquilizer! You know your son, your daughter is seeing this, is noticing that you are dependent on something to make you feel better.

Then you can allow internet access for your children after they do some chores or homework. It seems that parents today feel guilty about giving chores to their children. They want to give everything on a silver plate to their children. This is a diseducation. In a house, even if it is a middle-class or rich house, even if it has employees for house cleaning for example, it is important that father and mother finds some simple tasks for their children: “you clean your closet, you put the garbage out, you put the clothes into the dryer, you help me here to peel these fruits so we can have breakfast, because the maid hasn’t arrived yet. This participation, this setting of limits, giving tasks to your children, for everyone to participate, is necessary. This does not mean that you will be sitting in the armchair demanding: “Go there and bring me my coffee, go do this and that!” If you participate then this will help in setting limits for your children, including internet usage. This is an important factor, because the ones who set rules in the house have to be the father and the mother.

A child helping washing dishes to contribute to family chores.

Another important thing you can do with your children is to change the electronics use pattern, like: “Look, you’re only going to use the computer after doing a homework and school assignment. You only use your tablet after you shower.” That’s it, it’s set. You have to dialogue and explain, and keep that decision firm. Don’t go back. So don’t say something you won’t do, or you’ll lose morale. They will see that you say something and don’t do it, or give in easily. Being firm is different from exercising authoritarianism; an emotional dictatorship should not exist in the relationship between parents and children.

Children need an authority, that’s why God even placed a commandment: honor father and mother. Some scientific studies, analyzing young people who were raised in very dictatorial homes, compared to young people raised in homes that were very liberal, have shown that these young people in their adulthood had somewhat similar sufferings. In other words, children raised in very dictatorial homes, which can never do anything, had emotional distress in adulthood, and also young people who could do anything when they wanted to, also had emotional distress in adulthood. Why? Because young teenagers who had this freedom, said consciously: “Oh my dad, my mom, is cool, they let me do what I want!”, but deep down they felt like: “Do they care about myself? Are they interested in me? Do they want to know how my inner world is?” That’s interesting!

If there is any kind of addiction, you have already noticed that your child is too much hooked to the computer in his room, you will have to make a decision and explain: “Look son, I’m going to put the computer in the living room.”, especially if you’ve noticed that he’s hiding what he does, or if you’ve already seen that he’s been accessing some bad websites. It’s not even a dictatorial attitude, because you could even take the computer away from him. But you’re giving him a chance: “I’ll put the computer in the room for you to use in an educated way, for things that are good for you.” Because people go back and forth in the room, which restricts inappropriate use. Of course, there are also programs that block certain websites. You can also use a timer: “Look, I’ll put an hour here for you before you take a shower, or after you shower”. You can use this strategy.

It is also important to think about whether there is some kind of emotional disorder that is leading this person to this addiction. This may need a professional assessment. There are people who may be addicted to pornography, and then they will need to have specialized treatment to deal with it and get out of that kind of suffering.

Children playing outside with leaves - Photo by Charles Parker from Pexels

We might think: “Wow, that sounds somewhat backwards and outdated, how can I pass this on to my children?” Because kids today want electronics! How to go about it? Will you block everything? For infants yes, but for a little bit older children you can dose them. “You will play a little in the backyard, a little in the park, climb the trees, play on the beach and then you have a moment alone with your electronics”. It’s not one or the other, but you definitely don´t want your kids on electronics all day long without having any outdoor activity. The virtual world is not a healthy replacement for the real world. So, protect your kids from overexposure to electronics. And small child doesn’t need a cell phone. I would like to finish with the text that is in the book of Luke:

People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”((The Bible, Luke 18:15,16 (New International Version). ))
Luke 18:15.16

Take care of your children so that they don’t get their brains harmed by excessive exposure to electronics!

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Seven Foods to Reduce Stress

September 12, 2021 by Martin Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Just thinking about all the chores that are building up, the errands you have to run, the looming work deadlines and the social demands on your overbooked calendar can run you ragged. Talk about stress!

If left unchecked, stress can lead to many health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. Not to mention stress can also take a toll on your thoughts and behavior.

When life gets hectic and we’re feeling stressed, we tend to put healthy eating on the back burner. But heading to the vending machine or grabbing a meal at the drive-thru won’t alleviate the stress in your day.

To combat stress levels, take a look at what you eat. It may actually help relieve your tension. In fact, certain foods can help stabilize your blood sugar levels, can lower your cortisol and change your emotional response to stress.

Here are seven foods you can eat to reduce stress.

1. Oatmeal

This slow burning breakfast food is the perfect comfort food. It stimulates your brain to produce the feel-good chemical serotonin, which is antagonic to the stress hormone cortisol. Increasing serotonin will help you keep your cortisol level low.

A bowl of oatmeal wit fruits - Photo by Thiea Alhoz from Pexels

The soluble fiber in oatmeal keeps you fuller for longer as it provides a slow burn, maintaining your glucose level more stable throughout the morning. It’s sure to help you stave off stress and stay focused throughout your morning.

When we’re stressed our blood pressure can become elevated. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a diet which includes whole grains such as oats can lower blood pressure. Actually, all forms of whole grains like whole wheat bread, brown rice or whole wheat pasta will give you the same kind of benefits.

2. Brazil Nuts

This nut from the Amazon Rainforest is one of the best food sources of selenium. This mineral is an essential element to calm your nerves, alleviate fears, improve your mood and increase your energy levels. Besides that, selenium can help to improve your immune system. It is also important for proper thyroid function, cancer prevention and protects the body in many other ways. A consumption of 3 or 4 nuts will give you an adequate amount of selenium for the day.

3. Flax Seeds

This superfood is an excellent source of magnesium which may help regulate emotions, alleviate depression, combat fatigue and minimize irritability. Magnesium can also help fight PMS!

Flax seeds contain Omega 3, which is helpful for inhibiting inflammation and is great for cortisol reduction. Furthermore, it may improve mood by helping neurons to communicate with one another. Studies also showed a reduction of anxiety with the consumption of Omega 3.

Flaxseed is absorbed best, if you grind the seeds shortly before consumption. It is good to grind only what you consume in 2-3 days. Use a tablespoon daily in your food, over your salad, and in bakeries like bread and cakes. Mix 8 parts of toasted and ground flaxseed with one part of salt, and you have an excellent spicing for your salad plate.

A bowl of flaxseed - Photo by Vie Studio from Pexels

You can also include other omega-3 rich foods in your daily diet such as chia seeds, walnuts, wheat germs, tofu and cauliflower.

4. Citrus Fruits

Instead of reaching for sugary treats during stressful times, why not choose oranges, kiwis, some berries or any citrus fruit? Vitamin C can help slow down your body’s production of cortisol while also quickly clearing it from your bloodstream.

Vitamin C is also beneficial for the prevention of blood pressure spikes that usually occur as part of your body’s response to stress.

Get a good amount of citrus fruits in your diet. Citrus reduces levels of the stress hormone norepinephrine, thus making us feel much better.

5. Garlic

A Japanese study discovered that garlic is effective in reducing cortisol levels. Garlic is also a good source of antioxidants, strengthens the immune system and helps to lower blood pressure.

Garlic has lots of protective phytochemicals. Photo by Nick Collins from Pexels.

6. Microgreens

Microgreens are salad greens picked very young, usually soon after the first leaves have formed. The great thing about microgreens is that they contain higher concentrations of stress-busting vitamin C. Young cilantro and baby red cabbages contain up to six times more vitamin C than their mature versions.

If you have the time and space, growing your own microgreens is a good way of bringing nature into your home and of making nutrition just a hand-pick away. If not, they are usually readily available in the produce section of the supermarket, as they are highly sought for their nutritive, taste and garnishing qualities.

Microgreens in a bowl - Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels

7. Cashews

These kidney-shaped nuts are a good source of zinc which is a critical mineral that can help reduce anxiety symptoms such as irritability and lack of focus. Other good sources of zinc are sesame, flax seeds, Brazil nuts, chickpeas and lentils. Cashews are also a source of magnesium which is good for your emotions. You can easily add a few nuts for breakfast, or use them to decorate your salad at lunch.

Conclusion

In recent years science has discovered more and more links between the foods we eat and the way we feel. We have given you seven examples of foods you can add to your diet, that can help you relieve stress and improve your health and wellbeing. Actually, using plenty of plant-based food sources, the way that God has created them, will give you a lot of benefits for your health and mental well-being. Try it out for yourself!

Do you need a guide to help you understand how to cope with Stress in an all inclusive approach? Learn how to combat stress, mentally, physically, emotionally and strategically in your life.

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What food do you turn to in times of stress? Share it with us in the comments.

Understanding the Causes of Depression

August 27, 2021 by Dr. Cesar Vasconcellos de Souza - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Depression is the leading mental illness, causing death and disability worldwide. We need to understand the possible psychological causes of depression, and what a person can do to gradually come out of this illness.

John’s mother, whose name is fictitious, had postpartum depression and a new depressive episode 15 years later. His father was a melancholic, always complaining about life. John grew up in a family without major conflicts, but in an atmosphere of sadness and complaints that prevailed in his home. In adult life, after he got married, he had a depressive episode when he was anxiously awaiting a promotion and it didn’t happen. He even missed a few days of work due to symptoms of discouragement, apathy, insomnia, loss of determination to do things, decreased appetite and constant pessimistic ideas. John underwent treatment with a psychiatrist, used some medication for a few months and also underwent psychotherapeutic treatment. That helped him to come out of a depressive state.

Causes of Depression

What do we see in this brief clinical report about the influences on John’s life that favored the onset of the depressive episode? First it has to do with the genetic factor. John’s mother had important depressive episodes. Genetics is not everything, but it biologically influences the behavior of the descendants. The scientist Charles Nemeroff, a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine who specializes in treating depression says:

The cause of unipolar depression is about 40% genetic factors and 60% environmental factors.((C. B. Nemeroff, 2003))

A second factor favoring the emergence of depression in John has to do with the family environment, with a strong tendency towards melancholy, complaints and a negative view of life on the part of his father.

Other scientists such as Kenneth Kendler, professor of human genetics and director of the Institute of Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics at the Virginia Commonwealth University, have verified that, despite the importance of the genetic factor for many mental illnesses, this is not predominant or determinant. And Dr. Kendler is an expert in studies of genetic factors in psychiatry. His studies have focused heavily on the genetic factors in schizophrenia.

For him, the most important predictor for the appearance of mental illnesses is not genetics, but the existence of stressful events in the individual’s life, along with interpersonal problems and a personality with tendencies to neuroticism. The word neuroticism describes people who live cultivating negative pessimistic thoughts, always in a bad mood, too worried and complaining about everything.

So, we can see that in John’s clinical history, all of these factors, including genetics, are present, but one important thing that Dr. Kendler and colleagues found out about the cause of depression was that sensitivity to the effects of stressful life events leading to the depressive state, seems to be under genetic control, that is, genetics does not induce depression, but there is a control made by the individual’s genetics as to how he reacts to the stressful life events.

Research by Dr. Kendler and his team found that in people who had a higher genetic risk for depression, living at that time without major stressors, the chance of having depression was only 1.1%, but in the presence of significant stress at that moment, the risk increased to 14.6%. Do you know what were the most frequent stressful factors as triggers for the onset of depression in this scientist’s study? They were as follows:

Death of a close relative
Aggression
Serious marital conflicts
Separation and divorce

Mourning on the grave of a loved one - Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

These scientists I mentioned admit that emotional distress very early in childhood, the neglect of caregivers to the child or separation, can generate a type of neurobiological sensitivity, which predisposed people to react to stressors of adulthood through depression. The American writer Ellen White already wrote about this at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century:

More than any natural endowment, the habits established in early years decide whether a man will be victorious or vanquished in the battle of life.((Ellen G. White. Child Guidance, p. 202))

So we see how important people’s childhood history is. Some types of abuse suffered in childhood increase the chance of developing depression in adult life. For example, physical abuse, such as beating a child; sexual abuse such as rape, incest, child molestation, the neglect of basic care for them, not encouraging them with hugs, kisses, kind words. All of this creates an emotional climate in the person’s mind, which in the future when some traumatic event in adulthood occurs can trigger depression.

Women who were victims of abuse or other poor emotional care during childhood are twice as likely to have an attitude of personal disrespect, low self esteem and repetition of complicated relationships in adult life, compared to women without these sufferings in the past. Those who have had a history of these problems in childhood are ten times more likely to experience depression in adulthood.((Brown e Eales, 1993; Bifulco et al. 1998))

In the example quoted at the beginning, John had a depressive episode triggered by great frustration at work. However, when we analyze his emotional history, that is, when we understand the history of the family of origin where he came from, we saw that he was born in a home with a predominance of melancholy, sadness and complaints of his father about life, and the mother who went through postpartum depression, and a relapse into depression, years later. In addition, John has a sensitive temperament, which favors melancholy in the face of discouraging situations. His depression wasn’t caused by not being promoted at work. Frustration at the company where he worked was the trigger for his depressive state.

Pathway to Healing

You might ask: what’s the point of understanding all these things? Actually it helps a lot. Remember the words spoken by Christ, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”.((The Bible, John 8:32))

When John understood that: First, that he had an emotional sensitivity that pushed him towards sadness. Second, that he had lived in a family environment as a boy where sadness and the mother’s depressed state predominated, he understood that he would need to fight this melancholic tendency, forgive his father for the pessimistic model he passed on to him, and accept that his mother could not give him the best care in childhood because of the depressive episodes she suffered.

John understood that some things needed to be done about the tendency to become easily sad: First, he would need to observe what kind of thoughts came to his mind most often, and detect the pessimistic negative thoughts of defeat, and thus avoid these thoughts dominating his mind.

He also learned in psychological treatment that he needed to resist feelings of sadness, not focusing on them, but looking at his current life, and seeing the good things in it, the blessings, cultivating an expression of gratitude for those things. If John wouldn’t do that, didn’t work in his mind against the melancholic tendency, not letting himself focus on defeatist and pessimistic thoughts, the antidepressant drugs would probably work for a while, improving his sad mood, but with time it would no longer have an effect. Because he would continue letting sad feelings and negative thoughts predominate in his mind.

So an important question for a person who is dealing with depression is: What are you doing with your mind, with your life, with your thoughts, with your emotions, and with your relationships, without having to take medicine for depression?

Dimensions of Depression

Depression is a mental reaction to loss and frustration, trauma, violence, abuse, and it also has a physical and spiritual dimension. That is, depressed people who eat poorly, do not practice physical activities, are sedentary, live in an environment with a lot of air pollution, may have more difficulty in recovering compared to depressed people who strive to exercise, who decide to use healthy vegetarian food and living as close to nature as possible. Also depressed people who have a religious faith and practice this religion have better internal mental resources to deal with the difficult depressive moment they are living.

Returning to the psychological aspects that contribute to the depressive state, an important thing for us to understand the causes of depression is the way each individual reacts to a stressful event. The same problem – like the separation of parents – hits one child in one way and the other child in a different way. Family members, friends and professionals who deal with the depressed person need to understand that what may seem an easy trauma to resolve can have a very strong meaning for the depressed person, being neither easy nor quick for the individual with depression to come out of it.

How to Treat a Depressive Person

Glen Gabbard is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He is also a training and supervisory analyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, in addition to directing the Gabbard Center. He comments on how to deal with the depressed patient:

Perhaps the most common mistake by both family members and novice mental health professionals is trying to cheer up the depressed patient by positively focusing on comments such as: “You have no reason to be depressed”, “you have such good qualities” or “Why to commit suicide?” “There’s a lot to live!” probably has the opposite effect than intended. These “encouraging” comments are experienced by depressed patients as profound failures of empathy, which lead them to feel even less understood and more isolated, and therefore more suicidal.((Gabbard G. Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. Artmed, 2016))

That is, if you didn’t listen to the venting of the depressed person, if as soon as she starts talking about her suffering, you use these phrases right away, even in an attempt to help, it comes to him as lack of compassion, lack of understanding of his pain, creating in him more hopelessness, more feeling of loneliness, which can make everything worse.

If you want to help a depressed person, then let them talk first, let them vent. Just listen carefully, looking at him and not getting distracted by something else, but concentrating on what he says so that you focus on being really there with him. Even Solomon speaks of this in the Bible:

To everything there is a season,… A time to weep, and a time to laugh;… A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.((The Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1,4,7 (NKJV) ))
Ecclesiastes 3:1,4, 7.

These phrases can be used when a depressed person needs to vent and you want to help him: “Wow, there must be something in your life that makes you suffer like this, right?” You can say, “Tell me how you feel, I’m here to listen.” “It must be so bad to feel this sadness right? Do you want to tell me something about it?”

Then, after using comments that convey to the depressed your intention to help, you can and need to invite them to participate in the healing process, asking, for example: “I want to help you, so let’s think about what can be causing the emotional pain in you. Tell me a little bit, I’ll listen to you”. This way you invite the person to speak, as only then will it be possible to understand what is happening inside them. A professional caring for a depressed person will try to carefully assess what stressor, or factors, contribute to triggering the depression. Dr. Gabbard comments as follows:

Did the stressor involve humiliation and loss? Did it bring back the losses or traumas of early childhood? What was the particular meaning of the stressor for the patient?((Gabbard G. Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. Artmed, 2016))

The professional who cares for the depressed person will want to know what the patient associates with the factors that he says seem to have triggered the depressive state. Dr Gabbard, gives an example of a question to be asked to the patient, and that you family member can think and also ask your depressed relative, which would be like this:

Does the event that the person says caused depression recall other feelings, thoughts or fantasies that were present in the patient’s mind?((Gabbard G. Psychodynamic Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. Artmed, 2016))

Then we encourage the person to talk about it. Talking to an attentive person who wants to help can not only alleviate the depressed person, but also bring to light the true circumstances of the suffering, as it serves to reveal that the causes are not the ones that you might have thought they were.

Finding the Meaning

Dr. Constance Hammen, professor of psychology at the famous UCLA or University of California Los Angeles, found that the most important thing to drive a person into a depressed state is not necessarily the event that took place, for example, the death of a loved one, the dismissal of a job, the divorce, but the interpretation that the person gives of the meaning of the fact that occurred.

According to her research, the traumatic events that occurred in a person’s life, if they were linked to what the person felt was his self, were more likely to lead to a depressive state. In other words, Dr. Constance verified that a person whose sense of his self, of being a person, a human being from the psychological point of view, with the sense of being an identity; when this sense of self is partially defined by their social connections, the disruption of an emotional relationship important to that person can trigger depression. And when this same sense of self in the sense of self worth is connected with academic achievements or another work, there is a greater possibility of a depressive reaction to an apparent professional failure.

A man desperate at his computer - Photo by Tim Gouw from Pexels

That’s why it’s important for you to cultivate a sense of personal worth, not based on economic, academic and professional success, but on being a human being, a creature of God. You are the only person in this world with these specific characteristics. There is no one like you, not even if you have a twin brother or sister. Your worth has to do with the fact that the Creator God thought about your existence and allowed you to come to light, and maintains your life every millisecond. Think about that.

So, when a person, from an affective point of view, is overly attached to another, when he becomes too attached to another individual to feel important, he automatically puts himself in the hands of the other to have a sense of personal value. This is dangerous. What if that person leaves? What if the individual you’ve become too attached to dies before you do? So a question that a depressed person needs to ask himself at some point in order to get better is not who he lost that made him depressed, but what he lost in that loss. What is the meaning of the loss he is experiencing?

Conclusion

Dr. John Raymond Peteet, a psychiatrist at Harvard University, USA, commented on depression:

Depression is a major public health problem worldwide, including as a contributing factor to suicide. Compared to simple grief after a loss, it often involves a dynamic interplay between biological and psychological vulnerabilities, environmental factors, and spiritual aspects of the person.

One of the biggest challenges in responding to depression is recognizing how it distorts a person’s view of themselves and the world. For example, a depressed person may feel hopeless and justified in their pessimism and fear, or maladjusted when options seem limited and he feels out of control. If he is insecure, he feels worthless as a person. Severely depressed individuals often feel guilty and are unable to find forgiveness. All of this can make them give up on things we used to find meaningful, feel uncomfortable around other people, and withdraw.

Recognizing that someone is not seeing life clearly because of depression is an important step. Identifying what makes a person vulnerable to depression at any given time can help them re-evaluate priorities. Therapies such as CBT, cognitive-behavioral therapy, can help depressed individuals distinguish what is reasonable thinking and what is not, and take steps to protect against further relapse. Spiritual resources that offer hope, community, and forgiveness can be part of this recovery process.

Rather than thinking of depression as a temporary mood or moral weakness, it’s more helpful to think of it as a recurring but potentially manageable presence in someone’s life. I recommend a short online video from the World Health Organization called: “I had a black dog, his name was Depression,” which offers a number of suggestions for developing a relationship with your own black dogs.

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Are You Stressed Out about Having no Time?

August 15, 2021 by Martin Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

You surely heard the phrase: Time is Money. We may agree, but in practical terms, are you one of those people who turn around any penny you spend, but you do not think much about how you are spending your time? Do you try to do everything at the same time, but at the end you are frustrated that there are not enough hours in the day, and you catch yourself saying: I have no time? I think it is on the time to think about budgeting our time.

Are You Stressed Out about Having no Time?

If you are successful, you are able to earn more money, but there is something that not even a millionaire has more than you, and this is time. Everybody has 24 hours a day. Time is a finite resource. If you think about your time, you need to think how you want to invest it the most effective way. Are you smart in investing your money? Now think about the return of investment you will get from your time. Where are you going to invest it the most sensible way? This phrase gets it to the point:

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
William Penn

Set Priorities

President Eisenhower had an interesting approach to time management. He organized all his tasks in four quadrants: urgent or not urgent, important or not important. The urgent and important quadrant is the one you should give your priority.

There are some tasks that are important but not urgent, like your continual education for example. They will be coming right next in the priority list, and you should schedule a regular time for them each week, so that you make continual progress on something that will give you a better position in the future.

Now the urgent but not important category, you need to evaluate carefully if they are worth your time. Some tasks you may be able to delegate. Others you may drop from your list. You need to learn to focus on items that make the biggest difference at the end. The list of neither urgent nor not important items, you better store away for a day that you have really nothing else to do, but do not let your mind dwell on them.

I have heard another approach that can be quite interesting as well. You define 2 or 3 projects that you want to work on for this week or the near future. Those are the things that need your full attention at this moment. Then you have 3 or 4 projects that you target as next on the list. You may do a little bit of preparation to get the ball rolling, or you may start to work on them if you have some time left, but they are not your top priority for now. Everything else will go into the Maybe Later list, and you do not need to even think about them. Whatever method you use, you need to have a clear criteria, what is the priority for you to tackle at this exact moment.

Invest your Time Wisely

Think about your time as an investment. You need to think, what investment will give you the best returns. Think about sleep for example. If you sleep the hours you need, you will be energized the next day to tackle the tasks at hand with efficiency. If your cut your corners on sleep, your performance will suffer.

Sleeping man - Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

It is actually a wise move to go to bed early and rise early, in order to start your most important tasks when your mind is fresh in the early morning hours. We know that one hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight. So it is a wise investment to go to bed with the chicken and get the greatest benefit from your sleep time.

Be sure to start your day right. When you wake up, spend some time in the presence with God, so He can give you some insights for the day. You will see that things will flow differently when you are doing that. Be sure to get a good breakfast without any rush, because a substantial meal in the morning will give you the energy you need to start the day right.

Exercise is another time investment that will pay you high dividends. If you put in half an hour of vigorous exercise every day, it will surely safe you an hour or two while you work with more efficiency, plus you will put some time in your savings account, since it can prolong your live for several years. Talk about a wise investment!

Automation can be another investment that can pay you high dividends. Why do you need to tackle your payments every month, when you can automate them? It takes you once to set it up, but then you will never need to think about it again!

Budget Your Time

Like you have a budget for your expenses, you should have a budget on your time. When making a purchase, many people will be out to search for the best deal, instead of reflecting first: Do I really need this?

The same is true for time management. Most people will teach you how you can do your tasks the most effective way in order to save a minute here and get done more in your day. Instead of this, you should look at your schedule fist and reflect if you should not simply stop many of the activities you are doing.

Any commitment you make, think first if it is really worth your investment. What are your fist priorities? Your family? Your friends? Making a difference in your community? And at your work, what can make the biggest impact? Cut out some activities that are not essential and do not contribute to the advancement of your priorities.

Every activity you are planning to do, you need to estimate how much time it will take you. If it is something you have done in the past, you will have a good indicator how long it will take you. If it is something you never did before, you need to break it down in different steps, and estimate every step how long it will take you. Your estimate will be more accurate this way.

After having quantified your time investment, you need to evaluate if it is worth it, the same way you look at a product in the store to think if it is worth that price. Next you need to schedule the time in your calendar. If you do not have the time available, you need to either decline the commitment, or you need to drop off some low priority activities you have already scheduled in your calendar. Doing your proper planning can help to avoid a lot of surprises on the way, and will maximize the impact you can achieve with your limited time.

Price tag for fruits - Photo by Wendy Wei from Pexels

Track your Time

There are many ways you can track your time. Some apps can track your activities you do on the computer. Some people like a Fitbit watch that will track their sleep, their exercise and various other activities during the day. Some do a simple feedback on the end of your day, while others like to use an app to do a more sophisticated evaluations of their time. Tracking style can vary, but you should be conscious on how you are using your time.

It happens so often that we are just quickly looking something up on the internet, and before we realize, we have spent an hour surfing around without any purpose. Multitasking is another thing that was increasing greatly in the digital era. On average we are checking every 6 minutes on emails and instant messaging. That is draining your productivity. You need to get into the habit of being focused on one task, and when you are done, you can have a look whether somebody was writing you on messenger.

According to studies, an internet user is spending on average 2:25 hours a day on social media.((Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2020. Statistica)) You add to that almost 3 hours of TV time per day, and you see quickly why we have no time left.((Average daily time spent watching TV in the United States from 2014 to 2023. Statistica))

Start to reflect on your habits. Are the 2 hours of scrolling the infinite feed of Facebook really well spent? And when you watch a video on YouTube, how many suggested videos you end up binge watching afterwards? Is this time really well invested, or are there other activities that would be really worth your time?

Do you have no time to play with your kids? Are you wanting to start a hobby for a long time? You are thinking to learn a new language? You want to learn an instrument that you desired to play since you were a kid? I have just freed you up 5 hours a day to do all of that if you want.

Be Realistic in Your Expectations

It is interesting to see how times have changed. When a hundred years ago, a farmer was plowing a field, it may have taken him a day or two, and another week for planting, but at the end he was looking back at his work and he was satisfied with his accomplishments.

A traditional farmer after plowing the field - Photo by Archie Binamira from Pexels

Nowadays things are going faster. A tractor will plow the field within an hour, and an email can go around the globe within seconds. Things are moving much faster. But with that we have also different expectations. If we have no time, because we have overcommitted ourselves.

Our changed expectations will also show up in our homes. While the farmer’s wife was not worried about the dirty kitchen floor while cooking lunch, our kitchen today needs to be sparkling clean. The house got bigger, consuming more time for cleaning and maintenance, and the yard needs to be perfectly cared as well. Think about this statement:

Life is a disappointment and a weariness to many persons because of the unnecessary labor with which they burden themselves in meeting the claims of custom. Their minds are continually harassed with anxiety as to supplying wants which are the offspring of pride and fashion…

The sweet word “Home” is perverted to mean “something with four walls, filled with elegant furniture and adornments,” while its inmates are on a continual strain to meet the requirements of custom in the different departments of life.((Ellen White, The Adventist Home p. 150))

I think it is time to make some adjustment on our expectations. Not everything needs to be perfect, and normally simpler is better.

Better Done than Perfect

We can roughly divide people in two groups: Maximisers and Satisficers. Maximizers are a tribe of perfectionists. If they buy a new phone, they will study all the available reviews for a week, and try to purchase the very best. And even then, they are still concerned whether they have made the right choice.

A satisficer at the other hand will walk into the store, look for the first phone that looks right, asks the dealer if it does what he is looking for and purchase it on the spot.

When it comes to answer an email, the maximiser will investigate the question he was asked, try to write a lengthy response, rewrite it three times to formulate it better, getting all the punctuation right and sending it out when he thinks it is perfect. The satisficer will simply throw in a quick response, maybe not even write a complete phrase, and hoping that it answers the question he was asked for, because if not, they will ask back anyways.

It is easy to see that the satisficer will get much more done in a shorter time, and he will feel more satisfaction on the end of the day. I guess it is important to find a healthy balance between the two. We need to learn to invest our time where it matters most. If my work can really have an impact, it is worthwhile to invest some more time, but when it comes to writing an email, we better get it over, so we can make time for things that really count. And even on the impactful projects, sometimes it is better to get it out and improve later, then to try to make it perfect and never get done.

Plan Your Week

When you are planning your week, you want to look at the bigger picture. You think about maybe 2 or 3 major projects to tackle and schedule their time. You also want to block out some time for essential goals that are not in the urgent category.

A Calendar - Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

Then you look at your last week. You have scheduled anything that was left undone? Next look at the upcoming meetings and commitments that you have scheduled. Are they still your priorities? If not, you can decline or reschedule some of them.

And do not fill up your schedule to the maximum. Some tasks may take you longer than planned, and unexpected surprises are coming up all the time. Maybe keep some time open on Friday to catch up with things you could not get done during the week. This way you can get into the weekend with a satisfaction that you have accomplished your goals.

Daily Planning

When starting out in the morning, you need to spend a few minutes to get on track with your operating plan of the day. Is there anything left undone from the day before? What meetings do you have scheduled? Was there anything new coming up that needs to be treated with urgency? What are your top priorities?

Plans are important, but they are not set in stone, so you need to always recalibrate to reach your goals. But having something sketched out on paper, helps you to be more efficient in order to accomplish your priorities.

Get in Alignment with Your Passions

In a study of more than 3000 working people, researchers found out that those who were passionate about what they were doing, did feel less of a time pressure.((Jachimowicz J et.al. Why Passionate Employees Can Have It All: Passion Lowers Time Stress by Enhancing Goal Integration. https://psyarxiv.com/qd2zf/)) It is not so much about how long the activity takes, but more of how much you enjoy it. A sense of accomplishment did mean that they did not feel that their time was wasted.

A satisfied man - Photo by Jonathan Borba from Pexels

Researchers found also that some people perceived activities as competing for their time. For example, they felt that engaging themselves in the company was conflicting with coming home in time for dinner. Passionate workers on the other hand felt that activities were complementing, since a healthy meal at home with family was giving them more energy for the next day’s work.

Get Divine Wisdom

You have done everything and you are still struggling to make ends meet in your schedule? Is there an emergency coming up and you don’t know how to handle it? James was giving us an interesting counsel many years ago:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.((The Bible, James 1:5, NKJV))

James 1:5

If you are on a tight spot, you can always turn to God, and He will give you wisdom on how to deal with your situation. So often He is able to show us the right priorities, or what to do to avoid being stressed out about our day. And He has promised to be on your side as your Heavenly Father. Jesus gave us another wonderful promise:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.((The Bible, Matthew 11:28.29))

Matthew 11:28.29

We do not need to resolve everything on our own. If there is something burdening you, then you can bring it to Jesus and he promised to help you. When you do not know whether you should take up a commitment, have a conversation with Jesus and ask him if he wants you to do this, or pass it on. Understand the purpose that God has for your life. Then you will have a clearer picture on how you can make really the best of every hour that God has given to you.

Do you need a guide to help you understand how to cope with Stress in an all inclusive approach? Learn how to combat stress, mentally, physically, emotionally and strategically in your life.

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Dealing with OCD – Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

July 28, 2021 by Dr. Cesar Vasconcellos de Souza - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD is a very unpleasant mental suffering, that can have a drastic impact on somebody’s life. What is OCD, and what can somebody do to deal with it?

Dealing with OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OCD affects 0.7 to 2.5% of the population. So, for example, in a city with 100,000 inhabitants, there should be between 700 to 2500 people with this mental disorder. It is a suffering which bothers a lot, and can become so serious in certain situations, that it disturbs the studies, professional, social and family life of the person.

Famous and rich people also have OCD. For example, a Brazilian singer of popular romantic music, Roberto Carlos has obsessive-compulsive disorder. If you go to his official website, he published information about this suffering. Another example is actress Luciana Vendramini, who also suffers from OCD. Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who played the role of Harry Potter, discovered that he had OCD at the age of five. He said: “I had to repeat every sentence I said quietly again. And I would like to encourage everyone with this problem to go through therapy. That doesn’t mean you’re crazy or weak.”

Also David Beckham, famous English football player has always admitted that he suffers from OCD, and that in his life this mental illness manifests itself in the constant need for cleanliness and perfection of everything around him. Anything out of order produces tension in him, everything for him has to be in pairs. If there are three glasses in the sink, you have to add one more to make two pairs, or you have to remove one to make only one pair. There can’t be three pairs of soccer boots in his closet. He has to have either two pairs or four pairs, always an even number, that’s an example of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

David Beckham playing for Real Madrid - By David Cornejo, CC 2.0 Wikipedia

Another famous person with OCD was the singer Michael Jackson. In addition, it seems that he also suffered from a disorder called BDD body dysmorphic disorder, which is a mental illness that is characterized by disturbing the person’s perception of their own body image, leading to irrational concerns about defects in some part of their body, and this would then explain the countless plastic surgeries he had in his short life. His ex-wife Lisa Presley said he never took off makeup. Many who suffer from this suffering from body dysmorphic disorder are at greater risk of becoming addicted to plastic surgery.

What is OCD?

The name of this disease called OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder already says: obsession and compulsion. A person with this mental suffering has intrusive thoughts, which he doesn’t want to have and are disturbing his conscience. Examples of these thoughts could be like: Did I lock the door at home? Or: Did I germs from touching that object? Those are thoughts that don’t stop, don’t give peace, and the person feels a compulsion to do what the thoughts say.

In the first case I mentioned, in which obsessive thoughts are questioning if he really closed the door, this person has the compulsion to check several times if he really did lock the door. In the second case where thoughts obsessively say that he may have been contaminated, he will compulsively wash his hands over and over again, ten, fifteen or twenty times.

Door lock - Photo by Henry & Co. from Pexels

Compulsive thoughts keep telling the person with OCD to practice the compulsive acts, because if they don’t do it, anxiety arises that disturbs a lot, and if the person doesn’t practice what obsession says, he will be very restless. So, obsession in the case of obsessive-compulsive disease, obsession has to do with repetitive thoughts in the individual’s consciousness, and compulsion has to do with the repetition of attitudes, of acts that have the purpose of alleviating those disturbing thoughts. So obsession is thinking, compulsion is doing.

Former model and actress Luciana Vendramini, in an interview she gave to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, she spoke about the problem, saying that she had what I call synchronized intrusive thoughts, that is, she needed to imagine something good along with an action. For example, while washing hands she needed to think about nice things. When she had a bad thought, she had to wash her hand again, so she commented that she spent 24 hours repeating quirks. She used to spend 8 hours taking a bath. What suffering, right?

There are various types of obsessive thoughts, such as the thought that the person has committed an unforgivable sin, or that they have to tidy their closet perfectly, or that they have to fix a picture on the wall that is a little crooked, or that they have to do three-taps on the wall whenever they think of a word, or have to skip the lines on a sidewalk and other things of this nature. In fact, in the film: “As Good as It Gets”, actor Jack Nicholson plays the role of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Pictures on the wall - Photo by Medhat Ayad from Pexels

Normal people can have thoughts that repeat themselves in the mind, but it’s temporary and it’s not chronic, it passes, it ends, but in individuals with OCD thoughts become recurrent or obsessive, they persist and it becomes the pattern of thinking. This causes a lot of anxiety, and a lot of anxiety makes things to appear worse.

In OCD, the attempt to alleviate the anxiety produced by obsessive thoughts is to practice compulsive acts. For example, if in the mind of a person with OCD, obsessive thinking is about contamination, he may try to alleviate this through the ritual of washing his hands exaggeratedly dozens of times a day. If the obsessive thinking is about whether he really turned off the light in a room at home or at work, he can check if he did it dozens of times, one after another.

How to treat OCD?

Some scientists believe that OCD has to do with brain changes and that it’s necessary to use medication to treat it, but it’s not just that. There are other emotional complications that create a lot of anxiety, and the mind uses obsessive thoughts and compulsive acts as a defense against deep emotional pain. So in the cause of OCD there are physical factors, emotional factors, and even spiritual factors.

It helps to fight OCD by telling yourself that obsessive thoughts have no moral value but are the result of neurochemical changes, perhaps due to excess anxiety. That’s why the person with OCD needs to devalue obsessive thoughts as much as they can and tell themselves that they don’t have to do what they say.

Thinking - Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels

It’s also important to struggle to think of something else to replace obsessive thinking. This is difficult at first, it’s true, but with time a person may be able to avoid concentrating on obsessive thoughts, choosing to think about other things. This will be difficult at first because there is a strong anxiety that drives the person to these thoughts, and they in turn lead to repetitive compulsive acts. This means that when a person struggles to prevent obsessive thoughts from continuing in their mind to disturb them, they may feel more anxiety, they may be restless, distressed, but with time this anxiety may begin to diminish, without the person needing to practice compulsion to get relief from those obsessive thoughts.

So an exercise that can help, is when obsessive thoughts come, instead of just practicing the compulsive act, say to yourself: I will wait about 20 minutes without getting carried away by the need to act compulsively. After a few days or weeks, this waiting time can increase a little more. If somebody has the compulsion to wash hands for several minutes, the person can reduce the time spent washing their hands. He might decide to wash it using less time, instead of spending 15 minutes washing his hands, he might decide maybe it’ll be just ten minutes. Then further shorten this time and get busy with another task.

Don’t be ashamed to talk about this suffering to anyone. If you are unable to gradually stop compulsive acts, even trying hard to do so, then seek professional help with a psychiatrist or psychologist. It is because when obsessive-compulsive disorder becomes severe enough to disrupt the person’s social and work life, temporary medication prescribed by the psychiatrist may be necessary, in addition to psychotherapy with a clinical psychologist.

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9 Rules for Improving Sleep to Reduce Stress

July 17, 2021 by Martin Neumann - [rt_reading_time label="Reading Time:" postfix="minutes" postfix_singular="minute"]

There’s a strong correlation between how much sleep you get and how stressed you are. It’s a vicious cycle that can cause mental distress and even wreak havoc on your physical well-being.

9 Rules for Improving Sleep to Reduce Stress

It’s a well-known fact that people who don’t get enough sleep are lethargic and constantly experiencing an energy slump. This causes irritability, which also makes it hard to fall asleep. The reverse is also true. When you experience an exorbitant amount of stress during the day, it causes you to lie there awake – and that piles on more stress for the upcoming day. In many cases, this is leading to a vicious cycle that is complicating your stress more and more.

The Huffington Post conducted a poll where they asked people what their #1 stressor was. Lack of sleep was one thing that dominated the results. Stress and a lack of sleep combined can cause you to lose mental clarity and they can put more pressure on your body to perform at less than optimal standards.

For this reason it’s vital that you learn how to implement stress relief measures that also work to lull you to sleep at night. When you wake up fully refreshed, you’ll be able to tackle the world and anything it throws at you!

Rule #1 – Implement a Bedtime Technology Ban

If you want to toss and turn and have trouble to wake up in the morning, just keep your cell phone right by your bed. For some of you, that won’t be a problem – but for many people, it’s become an addiction that disrupts their sleep routine and causes a lack of sleep.

Some people have their computer right beside the bed and the glow of it lights up the room at night. The same is true for notifications that come in on cell phones – sometimes with lights and sometimes with the inclusion of sounds.

Not only is it a physical factor, but it causes a certain amount of mental unrest when you’re constantly checking emails or looking to see who posted what on Facebook.

Man using cellphone in bed - Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

The physical distraction of the computer glow tricks your body into thinking it’s time for you to be awake. Your body won’t produce the melatonin it needs and help you get (and stay) asleep, so you toss and turn all night.

Technology doesn’t just have to be left out of the bedroom – it needs to be shut down quite awhile before you go to bed. Your mind needs time to disconnect and wind down itself, and it can’t do that if you’re constantly feeding it information. If you go to bed at 10 PM, try disconnecting around 8:30 PM. Let your stress melt away and your mind relax. By the time you go to bed, all technology should be switched off or transferred to a different room. This isn’t an easy habit to break, but by having a plan you’ll be able to implement it.

Rule #2 – Create an Environment Conducive for Sleep

Your bedroom can do a lot to improve your sleep quality. First of all, it should be completely dark at night. Our sleep cycles are influenced by the dark light cycle, and a good night’s rest requires a completely dark bedroom. No lights on, and no electronic gadgets that are emitting light. If you have street lights out of your window, invest in a good curtain to block them off. Your sleep quality will appreciate it.

Next, your bedroom should be quiet. Some people got used to sleeping with radio or TV at night, and it seems to give them a certain sense of security. Just the sleep quality suffers from that, and in the long run, it might be better to find ways to overcome this habit. If you are impacted by street noise right outside your bedroom window, you may want to invest in double or triple glass sound blocking windows for your home. Your mind needs to be able to fully relax overnight and refresh your energies for the next day.

Be sure to also avoid any distractions inside your bedroom. This room should be designed for sleep, and not for continuing the frenzy you are suffering already all day long. The TV can stay in the living room where it belongs. And the less clutter you have in the room, the more your mind will feel at rest.

What can help a lot in the quality of your sleep is a good mattress. At the end of the day, you are spending one-third of your time in bed, and you should make sure that this time will be comfortable. A good mattress will be comfortable, but still firm, in order to give proper support to your spine. A pillow that is right for you can complement the comfort of your bed.

If you have trouble falling asleep, you can use a branch of lavender and put it below your pillow. As an alternative, you can purchase a lavender extract and sprinkle a few drops on your bed, just enough that you can smell it, but does not annoy you. For more severe sleep deficiencies you can try out to take some capsules of Valerian or Passion Flower, which are good options to induce you to sleep, giving you better conditions to resolve the underlying stress that may have caused your sleep deficiency.

Rule #3 – Wind Down Your Day With Exercise

It sounds almost backwards – putting forth extra exertion when you really need to be relaxing and calming down. But that’s just what exercise does for you! Exercise is a great stress reliever because it helps you release endorphins.

That’s why you sometimes hear of athlete’s bragging about their “runner’s high” – because although they may start out fatigued, they hit a point in their regimen where the endorphins are released and they feel good.

Feeling good is one of the first steps to you being able to sleep well tonight! Your body has probably been tensed and knotted up all day while you were at work. Allowing it to exercise gives you some relief – somewhere to pour all of that tension into. If you were sitting down all day long, this is exactly what your body needs.

Exercise also helps you sleep better at night. We joke as parents about letting our kids wear themselves out so they’re ready for a good, long nap – but the same goes for us as adults!

When the Huffington Post conducted a poll for people who exercise in terms of how they sleep, they discovered that people who exercise don’t just get more sleep – they get better sleep.

As you might suspect, the better your work out, the better you snooze each night! If you’re not used to exercising, start out slow and work your way up. You can start off with a simple 10-minute-a-day plan and increase it a bit each week.

Another good side effect of exercising is that you might shed some extra pounds! Poor sleep makes people gain weight according to recent studies – and stress definitely leads you to consume extra calories.

Try to exercise after work – but still plenty of time before going to bed. Making a strenuous workout just before bedtime will hype up your hormones. But if you do half an hour walk around 2 hours before going to bed, it will have a relaxing effect. If you exercise too close to bedtime and you discover that you still feel restless, just move your exercise up to an earlier time.

Rule #4 – Get a Soothing Bath

For some people, bath time is their only time of the day when they unwind and kick stress to the curb. There are no clocks ticking, no technology vying for your attention, and nobody talking to you.

It’s just you, your warm, soothing water, and whatever environment you’ve created to help you relax. The environment for your bath is just as important as the sleeping environment you create.

If it’s off, then you can’t relax. A cold, sterile bathroom won’t lend itself to a calming environment. Some people like to invest in a bubble bath or a lavender smell, while others put up candles to create a relaxing ambiance. Soft and relaxing music might be another option to get you into a tranquil mode.

Just as you’ve made the commitment to turn off technology at bedtime, do the same for your bath time, too. You can’t really relax if your smartphone is ringing off the hook. Just enjoy the moment, and forget about everything that was stressing you out during the day.

Rule #5 – Take a Light Supper

Eating a heavy meal late at night is a surefire recipe for troubled sleep. There is an old saying that we all know: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper. There is much truth in that.

Think for supper on something that is lightweight. This applies not only for quantity, but also the quality of our foods. What you should cut out as much as possible are fats, since they are very difficult to digest. So keep your fries for lunch and your nuts for breakfast. You should also go easy on proteins and focus more on carbohydrates for supper. So fruits together with a toast bread is a really good option, that will digest in a snap.

If you work all day long with your mind, you may even find that skipping supper altogether will improve your sleep. At night your body does not need this energy, and skipping supper helps you to wake up the next morning with appetite to face a substantial breakfast. Besides improving your sleep, this habit will help you a lot in your weight control, and controls your excessive sugar levels if you are diabetic. It may take you a few weeks to get used to it, but after that, you will feel the full benefit in your sleep quality.

For those who do not want to skip supper altogether, it should be lightweight and early enough to be completely digested before going to bed. A light supper should still be placed 2-3 hours before bedtime, to guarantee that digestion is done before you hit the bed. You do not want your stomach to work extra hours while you are at sleep. This will impact not only your health, but also sleep quality and your mood the next day you get up.

Rule #6 – Sleep at Regular Times

An alarm clock - Photo by Aphiwat from Pexels

Have a regular time for going to bed and a regular time to rise that allows you 8-9 hours of good sleep. Cutting corners on sleep does not help your productivity. You will be running around like crazy, thinking you cannot afford to go to bed on time and let your work be undone. The truth is, that the next morning you will be irritated and with a foggy mind, not being able to think straight on what your next step should be to get you to the goal you are looking for. More than often you will realize that you will work more hours and accomplish less.

If you are really on a tight deadline, you may be better off to go to bed an hour earlier than normal, but wake up two hours earlier and get some undistracted work time early morning, while everyone else is still asleep.

Our body is adjusting its daily hormonal cycle according to the light and dark cycle of the sun. For this reason, one hour of sleep before midnight is just as refreshing as two hours of sleep after midnight.

Getting into the habit of going to bed before 9:30 PM will help you a lot to wake up refreshed and full of energy the next day. If you have created the habit of burning the midnight candle, it may take you some time to adjust to the new schedule, but after a few weeks you surely will start to feel the benefits.

Many people created the habit to get by on a minimal sleep time during the week, but at the weekends they sleep in as much as they can. This is detrimental in two ways. First, there is no way that you can make up for sleep that you have lost during the week. You cannot recuperate the lost productivity you had during the week, nor can you make up the toll that sleep deficiency had on your health.

Second, the body gets used to a regular rhythm of activities you do during the day. If you totally change your sleeping routine on the weekend, your body gets out of sync and you cannot enjoy completely the free time you have. So if you have the habit of getting up at 6 o clock during the week, and on the weekends you can’t get out of bed before 10, this is a sure sign that you were sleep deficient on your weekday schedule. If you aim for a regular time to go to bed and a regular time to wake up, ideally even on the weekends, you help your body a lot to optimize the circadian rhythm for peak productivity.

Rule #7 – Become a Master at Time Management

During the Huffington Post surveys about sleep and stress, they noticed that most people started with phrases like, “Not enough time to…” Time is one thing we need more of and have less of in this day and age.

We have no time to relax. We push ourselves from the time our feet hit the floor in the morning right up until we go to bed – and we never get to bed on time. Instead, we give ourselves a minimal amount of sleep hours – and much of that is spent tossing and turning due to the stress of what all we couldn’t accomplish this day.

If you’ll get firm with yourself and look at how much time you waste during the day, or how much time you’re not as productive as you should be, then you’ll free up more time for sleep.

Notice that didn’t say, “free up more time to get tasks done.” Many of you will learn new time management skills and forget to learn your lesson about sleep. Instead, you’ll pack in more on your to-do list.

Make the exercise to journal for a week your daily routine. Notice all the times when you’re surfing the web or standing around chatting with co-workers. That’s time that you could be spending really accomplishing things so that once your day is done, you are rewarded with free time – “me time” – to pamper and nurture your body and mind.

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You might also find that when you implement the other rules here to accomplish proper sleep hygiene, you’ll be able to get more done throughout the day. That’s because your mental clarity improves and you tend to have more energy to tackle whatever the day may bring for you.

Rule #8 – Allow Deep Breathing to Replace Naps

There are some people who get in the habit of taking a daily nap – primarily because they’ve heard that power napping can help them achieve their goals for the day.

This might be true for many people. But if sleep eludes you, then naps could be causing the problem. A 10-minute power nap where you’re basically just shutting your eyes and deep breathing is beneficial. Going to bed for 2-4 hours in the middle of the day is a recipe for disaster. You’ll never be able to go to bed at a regular bedtime and you’ll lie there frustrated and annoyed that you can’t go to sleep. It’s a hard habit to break.

Try using deep breathing to energize yourself whenever you’re in an afternoon slump. Breathe from your diaphragm and try to watch how often you’re using shallow breaths throughout the day.

Rule #9 – Resolve Your Worries Before Going to Bed

If you find yourself troubled or upset make an effort to solve the problem as best you can before bedtime. If you had an argument with your spouse, or whether you were getting wrapped up with your coworker, if you are able to resolve it before bedtime, sleep will be so much sweeter. The Apostle Paul was saying already many years ago: “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”((The Bible, Ephesians 4:26 NKJV))

Sometimes you find that worries are wanting to creep up on you and be your companion at bed in order to rob your sleep. Some worries are good in order to get us into action. But more often we are worried about things that we can do nothing to resolve. At this moment, we need to turn our worries over to your Heavenly Father, trusting that He is well able to take care of your needs. This experience of peace can do much more for a sweet night of rest than anything else. This is exactly what Solomon was speaking about:

When you lie down, you will not be afraid; yes, you will lie down and your sleep will be sweet.
Proverbs 3:24

I wish you can make this experience for yourself. Because if you are able to turn over your troubles into the Hand of God, then your sleep with a peace of mind that you maybe did not now for a long time. You want to try this out in your life?

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