The Winter is Coming: Managing Mental Health Outside of Therapy

Those ominous words from Game of Thrones have taken on totally new (and dare we say intensified) meaning to Minnesotans this year. In an average year, the National Institute on Mental Health reports that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) impacts millions of Americans annually, lasts 40% of the year, and disproportionately impacts people living in the Northern parts of the country. This year, compounded by the pandemic, people who study and suffer from mental health are expecting this winter to be one of the worst on record. And similar to how hospital beds fill up with patients when there’s a virus outbreak, therapists have started filling up as we start to deal with the first wave of the mental health crisis. 

 So what do you do if you need to supplement therapy, can’t find a therapist, or don’t have the resources to get regular mental health care? We’ve got some tips to help you fight the good fight at home. 

1. Try An App or Two

   • Track your mood so you know where you are at in an objective way: Daylio and eMoods are two popular choices, but there are many more to explore!

   • Practice your skills at home with ACT iCoach, What’s Up, or DBT Diary Card

   • Increase your practice of caring for you: Happy Not Perfect, Grateful, and Sleep Cycle help you take the headache out of self-care.

   • Use an app to use less apps: OffTime helps take the shaming out of screen-time management

2. Offline Solutions

   • Workbooks: There are so many, it’s hard to know where to start! You can find one based on an issue (anxiety, depression, self-esteem) or pick based on a particular approach that appeals to you (ACT, CBT, DBT). Whichever you choose, these can be great ways to increase insight, coping, and positive change.

   • SAD Lamp: Sure, it may seem silly, but these powerful lamps help you get your daily dose of sunshine, even on the most cloudy of days.

   • Body Maintenance: We all know to eat right, exercise, and take care of our bodies, and try to do it when we have the time and energy to. When we aren't attuned to our bodies, it can be easy to ignore or explain things away that actually might have an organic cause. Going to your doctor and making sure your vitamin levels are at their levels and that we have optimized what we have control over can be empowering. If you think it's needed or appropriate, talk to them about your mood and if any if there are any solutions, natural or pharmaceutical, that might be appropriate. We do maintenance updates on our phones and cars... we might as well do it for ourselves, too.

3. Done Everything? Try Alternative Solutions:

   • Healing crystals: Change up the energy in your life and ground yourself with some stones

   • Try something natural: Harvard Medical School found some benefits to things like St. John's Wort and Omega-3 Fats for mental health.

   • Try a homeopathic solution: Acupuncture, Massage, and Aroma Therapy might not feel as legitimate, but their benefits have been well researched and studied. If you've tried everything else, it might be worth a new approach.

4. Get Fancy (When/If Appropriate)

   • Meditate, with training wheels: Use a brain-sensing headband and app combination, like Muse, to give you bio-feedback on how you're doing on your practice of daily meditation.

   • Get your frequency right: Brain stimulators, like Fisher Wallace, can be helpful in treating and managing chronic issues of insomnia, depression, and anxiety.

   • Get your rhythm right: HearMath is a program to get your heart and your brain in sync.

Still unsure about how you're going to make it through the winter, give us a call or email us and we'll be happy to connect you to the right resources for you!

What Trauma Looks Likes →

In this powerful short film from producers Nathanael Matanick and Christina Matanick, we witness the impact of domestic violence on a young girl.  The consequences of her caregivers’ violence are far-reaching.  The girl's world is shattered, her family breaks apart, and her life is turned up-side-down.   

This is trauma.

This film shows graphically how trauma fragments the world outside.  But it also depicts how the world within is injured.  Trauma undermines self-esteem and erodes trust,  setting the stage for difficulties ahead.

As difficult as it is to watch,  the film illuminates the core elements of trauma.  It offers a starting place for understanding, repair, and hope.

Stress in a Stressful Time

Even if your life before this year was relatively smooth sailing, likely, you are not making it through this year unscathed. After all, who could mentally prepared for civil unrest, unemployment, natural disasters, and a global pandemic all at once?

The dramatic events of 2020 are especially difficult for those with a trauma history. People with trauma include those whose past is marked by economic insecurity, frequent moving, homelessness, food insecurity, sudden or unexpected loss, or medical trauma.

Trauma survivors typically develop an “Early Warning System,” alerting against perceived danger. For example, suppose your parents fought a lot when you were a child. In that case, you are likely to be especially sensitive to tension, conflict, or discord around you. This additional sensitivity offers insight as to why today’s upheavals are incredibly stressful for trauma survivors.

 If this sounds like you or someone you know, what can you do?

Become fully aware of your feelings and name them.

If you’re watching the news at home and feel panic starting to flood your system, become consciously aware of your reactions. After acknowledging your feelings, recall that you have heightened sensitivity to current events because of your past traumas. Try watching the feelings as, in most cases, they will fade in time. Also, this is an excellent time to change your environment, like going for a walk.

Use your support system.

By putting your truth on the table with someone you trust and acknowledging the impact it’s having on you, you’re gaining control over the uncontrollable. You’re also modeling to others that it’s okay for them to share with you. If you have a limited support system, it might help do some resourcing online or in therapy.

Self-care is important.

Stretching, yoga, journaling, meditation, cooking, or watching comedy can help you feel safe and present. Taking good care of ourselves requires making your needs a priority. As we take better care of ourselves, we will show up as a better partner, parent, worker, and friend.  

If what helps you happens to be watching puppy videos on Instagram, please tag us so we can also enjoy a little puppy Prozac!

Be kind to yourself.

The world was stressful before 2020, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be winding down any time soon. Allow yourself to feel sad, scared, stressed, exhausted—whatever comes up. Give yourself time to acknowledge and validate these feelings. You may find it helpful to acknowledge at least one positive for every negative thing you noticed.Are you struggling to go back into the office? Remember that you now have half the traffic you used to  Struggling trusting yourself? Remember, it’s okay to not feel like the authority after your entire world has changed. Ask someone you trust what their honest evaluation is of the situation.

Making small adjustments like this work to help you to keep you in balance.

If there was ever an appropriate time to feel a little crazy, this is it. If you find that your internal alarms are going off an awful lot lately, remember you are hardly alone, and at least you know your system is working! Finally, if you are struggling to turn them off, we are happy to connect you with help. Feel free to call us at 866-522-2472 or drop us a line at bizoffice@birchcounseling.com.  

Accepting what is versus chasing happy

Somewhere, somehow most of us have learned that a happy life means never having to feel anything other than positive emotions.  When sadness visits, or anger, or disappointment, it feels sick, like something is wrong with us. It feels as though we are not enough, our lives are not enough.  We try to distract from negatives and chase happy feelings, only to fall short again and again.

What if we could learn to work with these “negative” feelings in a way that better informs us?  Accepting and being curious about the entire range of our emotions can help us become more compassionate, healthy and ultimately more resilient.  

An estimated 600,000 US Women Experience this Depression...

On International Women’s Day, we’ll take a look at a mental health issue affects a large number of women: postpartum depression (PPD), or a depression that occurs after childbirth.

Counter to what you might think, PPD is fairly common.  According to the CDC, 11 to 25 percent of mothers experience postpartum depression.

Sadly, more than half of those affected by it (15 percent) do not seek any professional help.

There are multiple issues that keep women from seeking help for this disorder, most notably guilt and shame. It’s difficult for new mothers to come to terms with “the baby blues” – after all, isn’t having a new baby supposed to be the happiest moment in our lives?

Postpartum depression can be serious. Symptoms may include:

• Depressed mood or severe mood swings
• Excessive crying
• Difficulty bonding with your baby
• Withdrawing from family and friends
• Loss of appetite or eating much more than usual
• Inability to sleep (insomnia) or sleeping too much
• Overwhelming fatigue or loss of energy
• Reduced interest and pleasure in activities you used to enjoy
• Intense irritability and anger
• Fear that you're not a good mother
• Feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt or inadequacy
• Diminished ability to think clearly, concentrate or make decisions
• Severe anxiety and panic attacks
• Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby
• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide

Hormonal changes and the stress from sleep deprivation that comes with caring for a newborn are thought to be causes of PPD.

Left unaddressed PPD can lead to chronic problems with depression and anxiety. Mothers with PPD often have difficulty bonding with their children, which impacts their development and so can affect their own mental health down the road.  For your sake, as well as the sake of your child, it is important to seek help. 

Postpartum depression can lead to suicidal thoughts.  
Should you have thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, it is critical to seek help right away.  Please ask for help from those who support you and your baby.  You may also contact:

• Your mental health care provider
• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255).
• The Crisis Connection, at 612-379-6363, or 1-866-379-6363.
• Your primary care doctor, minister or spiritual leader
• 911
• The mobile crisis team in your county:
  • Anoka: 763-755-3801
  • Carver/Scott: 952-442-7601
  • Dakota: 952-891-7171
  • Hennepin: adults - 612-596-1223, children - 612-348-2233
  • Ramsey: adults - 651-266-7900, children - 651-774-7000
  • Washington: 651-777-5222

Please remember: PPD is not your fault. 

Your body has just undergone significant hormonal changes, and you’re adjusting to a very stressful new reality.  You are not alone.  In the United States alone, an estimated 600,000 women struggle with this disorder. Help is available. 

For your own sake, and the sake of your baby, please reach out.

You are NOT your problems.

It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. And, it usually takes a lot of time to muster up that courage. 

But, by the time you ask, you’ve most likely internalized your problems. 

Internalizing problems over a long period of time can lead to ‘absorbing’ the problems into our identity, meaning you begin to define yourself by the problems. This not only exacerbates your problems, but it also becomes a malicious adversary in our lives. 

When you realize this, it’s time to begin to view problems as being ‘other’ and therefore able to be influenced, challenged, changed, even eradicated.

Therapy can help challenge any preexisting internalization of the problem. That is to say, therapy can be understood, in part, as a process by which the individual can begin to be separated from his/her problematic symptoms. 

No matter how educated we may be and intellectually or emotionally sophisticated; in the quiet moments when our problem presents as overwhelming how long until some version of the internal message ‘what is wrong with me?’ enters into our consciousness.

We live in a society that relentlessly facilitates the internalization of our problems; intertwined into the habitual fabric of our lives. Some of us grow up in homes where shameful messages were ever present. ‘Something is wrong’ so often became ‘something is wrong with me’. If our problematic symptoms are indivisible from ourselves then we are condemned to being ‘less than’, ‘broken’, being ‘apart from’. 

But this is not true.

• You are NOT your symptoms. 
  • You are NOT your problems. 
    • You are NOT your thoughts.

Through Narrative Therapy, we can help you externalize the problems and affirm that you are not the problem, rather the problem is the problem. 

We are here to help.

Birch Expands and Announces Appointments Within 24 Hours

Press Release    
For Immediate Release

Contact
John Komarek
john@curlycreative.us

BIRCH EXPANDS, ANNOUNCES  APPOINTMENTS WITHIN 24- HOURS AT NEW LOCATION

Golden Valley, Minn. – Birch Counseling announces the addition of Appointments Within 24-hours at its new location in Golden Valley.

“People experiencing a Mental Health Crisis are sometimes asked to wait for weeks, sometimes months.” Surerus said. “As a counselor, asking a client to wait for help during a crisis is unacceptable. We needed to eliminate that barrier.”

For ten years and counting, Birch has been dedicated to making essential counseling services more accessible, and through this new location and new service they increase that accessibility.

“A Mental Health Crisis doesn’t follow an appointment calendar, so why are people asked to wait?” Founder Christa Surerus said. “Birch is proud to offer counseling when a person needs it most: when they muster up the courage to call for help.”

Every year, 1 in 5 people live with mental illness and will need Mental Health Counseling during their lifetime Currently, it’s not unheard of to be put on a two-month wait list just to be seen.

“Life changing events happen to us all, and that can lead to the need for Mental Health Counseling.” Surerus said. “And during a crisis, minutes count. A small barrier like waiting for a scheduled appointment may have a large impact.”

Appointments Within 24-Hours are now offered at Birch’s Golden Valley location and will occur during business hours: 7am-6pm.

Birch Counseling serves Minnesotans with safe, compassionate, and confidential Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling. They have locations in Minneapolis, Hopkins, and now Golden Valley.

Birch Counseling Announces No More Wait Lists

Birch Counseling's Founder Christa Surerus announces that they will offer Appointments Within 24 Hours for mental health counseling at their location in Golden Valley.

Mind hijacked by worry?

“Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional.”

Worry consumes mental energy and uses it for concerns that are usually completely out of our control. When anxiety strikes, ask yourself this question:

Is there anything at all that I can do right at this moment to fix, address or keep what worries me from happening?

Most of the time, you will find the answer to this question is “no.”  

On the rare occasion when it is “yes,” you may notice that you’re not worried at all.  Instead, you simply deal with the situation, and so use your mental energy effectively. 

If you wish to lower your anxiety, you may benefit from centering techniques, such as meditation, breathing exercises, or yoga. For many, the serenity prayer has also been helpful:

May I accept the things that cannot be changed,
Have courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Anxiety/worry is suffering, triggered by imaginary scenarios.  Remaining calm and grounded within that which is in your control preserves mental energy, and so allows you to use it more effectively. 

Take care of yourself
Whenever you board a flight you hear something very important: put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others.  Unless we do what is necessary to keep our own balance, we are not very effective at accomplishing what we set out to do.  When you notice feeling down, anxious, irritable or stressed, it’s time to improve self-care.  Ask yourself:

When was the last time I moved my body?
Exercise is a highly effective way to improve your emotional and physical health. On a physical level, your metabolism speeds up and you feel like you have more energy.  Brain chemicals(dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine) that help you feel better are released during physical exercise. Of course there are also multiple benefits to your physical health.  

According to studies discussed in the New York Times, seven minutes of a daily strenuous workout is all you need to stay healthy.

Am I getting enough sleep?
We live in a world of complicated schedules, which can make it difficult to create a regular sleep routine. However, sleep is very important for your emotional and physical wellbeing. Sleep deprivation can negatively impact your ability to handle stress. Most doctors recommend between 6-8 hours of sleep. If it’s hard for you to fall asleep, or you suffer from broken sleep, a first recourse may be to follow recommendations of sleep experts.

How am I fueling my body?
Put bad in, get bad out. A poor diet affects both your physical and your mental health.  When we are busy and stressed, we easily get caught in a vicious cycle of eating on the run, and turn to convenient, highly processed, unhealthy foods. 

Take a moment to make a daily or weekly food plan.  Make sure it contains plenty of whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables.  

Have I talked to a friend lately?
We are social beings.  To feel good, we need to feel connected to people who can pick us up when we’re sad, offer another perspective or insight when we’re confused, and simply help us have fun.  Friendships that work are balanced, a two-way street.   

Make sure to call or visit a friend regularly.

Am I having fun?
Doing something enjoyable each day is part of a balanced life.  All work and no play is a recipe for stress, which brings with it a cascade of physical, emotional and relational consequences. Please, for your own sake, the sake of your coworkers, and the ones you love: carve out some down time! Take up a hobby. Go for a walk. Dance.  Laugh hard. Bike. Color. Paint. Draw. Play an instrument.  Make sure your life is balanced between work and play.

Does my mind need more challenge?
Play games that sharpen your mental faculties and provide challenges. From memory games to crossword puzzles, the small, fun challenges these games present may help you become better equipped to deal with stress. Take a class to learn a new skill.  Learn another language.  A mind that is used and stretched is more resourceful, flexible and agile. It ages better, thinks things through. Solves problems. 

Am I making a difference?
Make your life count.  Become the best version of yourself. Inspire others by your example.  Meditate. Pray. Forgive. Develop a spiritual practice that connects you with that which is greater than you.      

Addictions and compulsive behaviors are linked with feeling empty inside.  They cover up feelings of shame, anger, helplessness, and maybe a sense that our lives are not important. 

Please rethink that: you DO matter. The way you live your life absolutely matters. Every day, you affect in big or small ways the people who cross your path.  The world needs less judgment, less drama; it needs more of your smiles, hugs, solutions, affirmations, and support.