Category Archives: Covid19

‘Have an adult tantrum’: 40 tips to help your mental health during lockdown

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My July 15th 2021 Blog entry from my newsletter was used as content on social media to help more people cope with Covid19. The post caught the eye of a journalist and I was interviewed for this article that was published a few days ago online at the ABC Australian News Website.
https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/things-to-do-help-mental-health-during-covid-lockdown/100388366

It is very important to do the things that help free the build up of stress and trauma in your body. Positive thinking and distraction is not enough. This is a real world wide trauma occurring and your body is reacting on a daily basis. With each restriction or lockdown the stress multiplies if it is not adequately released in an ongoing way.

Don’t wait until your body hits overload to do something about it. Do something everyday. The list in the article is a good way to keep on top of the creeping stress build up. A few people have asked me to create a pdf of this list so they can check items off. It is on my to do list.

The two core health essentials during a lockdown for your mental health.

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Exercise (Movement) and Meditation (Stillness)
The two core health essentials during a lockdown for your mental health.

Today’s message is a simple way of maintaining a good habit for your mental health through lockdowns and other trauma effects of Covid19.

Exercise and meditation go together.

If you do one but not the other, you are losing a lot of benefit that you could be receiving for your mental and physical health.

I notice many people often do one of the two really well and neglect the other. There are the people who exercise a lot and are physically fit and energised, but are anxious and cannot sit still in a room. Then there are the people who meditate really well and deep but are depressed and slow moving, finding it hard to act when needed in the world, hiding from the world.

Those who exercise a lot, tend to be the extroverts in the world, and those who meditate a lot, tend to be the introverts in the world. This is their super power.

With Covid right now, both of those super powers are very much needed – together. Doing both is very beneficial and will help greatly in keeping you mentally stable and healthy through these lockdowns and world covid trauma.

So it is good to ask the two most basic questions each day –

Q1. Have I exercised/moved enough?
Q2. Have I meditated/centered myself enough?

Doing both, you are helping reduce any excess anxiety and any excess depression brought on by the ongoing effects of Covid19.

One, helps reduce the trauma effects of the fight/flight response. The other the trauma effects of the freeze response. One connects you to the world, the other, connects you to yourself.
One helps you go in, one helps you come out. Both of the in-and-out movements are necessary for a healthy stable mind in times of trauma, instability and change.

So which one were you missing today?

Always make time for both each day.

Freeing your Covid19 Lockdown Trauma

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The previous post focused with a trauma lens on the effects of a lockdown to your health. It can be very traumatic. In this post we look at what to do to undo those effects, even during a lockdown.

As you feel the stress in your body build, some of it can turn into a traumatic response. Freeing the trauma response as soon as possible is ideal. So what can you do? You can’t think it away, it’s not a prefrontal cortex (cerebrum) problem.

Answer: You have to move and feel it away.

Freeing the Fight response – Boxing bag, Pillow Fights, Weights, Gym, Kicking, Martial arts, Tai Chi, Competitive Sport.

Freeing the Flight response – Walking, Jogging, Running, Trampoline, Rebounder, Up/Down Stairs, Swimming.

Freeing the Freeze response – Meditation, Bubble Bath, Long Shower, More Relationship contact, Animals, Hugs/Cuddles, Heavier blankets, Massage, Play, Dancing. Stretches, Singing, Music. Reading, Gardening, Journaling, Being in Nature, More Sunshine.

Notice there is nothing on this list about watching more TV, playing video games, eating more, drinking more, working more, shopping, drugs, smoking. These are avoidance techniques that create addictions. They provide an initial brief relief, but cause more problems longer term.

Anything that doesn’t acknowledge the trauma in your body and offer a healthy outlet, only builds the pressure inside your body, making it worse later. Keeping your mind and body in limbo, is dangerous to your long term physical and mental health.

In fact it is important to make sure you are covering all these aspects at some point on an ongoing regular basis, Covid or no Covid, and even more so, if you have been traumatised in the past.

So how do you know which activities on the list above to do first? Enter your mindfulness meditation. Close your eyes, go down and connect in, wait and your body will tell you what it needs to do next.

The more you can let go (of that thinking brain), the more you will know (from your body.)

Lock down #5 – Staying in Control

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When a traumatic event hits – where your locus of control resides,
will greatly determine if that event will have a long term affect on your health and life.

Today my home state of Victoria just announced another (fifth hard sharp, five day lockdown) in Melbourne Australia.

So it is important to turn the trauma lens this week, on the effects of a lockdown to your health.

You can have a trauma in your life, if you have been: Failed, Attacked, Threatened, Abandoned, Terrorised or Abused by other human beings, and that their actions have made you feel (even for a split second) that you could die or be seriously wounded or hurt. Even if that didn’t eventuate.

This split second fear occurs because you don’t seemingly have control over your life’s safety. You could die – and for a moment there is nothing you can do about it. That moment is what fires the limbic brain’s amygdala, switching on a fire alarm in your body, which activates the lower brain into fight/flight to attempt to save you. And it can be quite a strong response in the body creating extreme stress and anxiety responses for years to come.

Having a fifth lockdown is now compounding the trauma/stress created by the first four lockdowns. Especially if people’s income/business have been severely affected. Losing a lot of income can feel like a serious threat to ones survival. And it can feel as bad as facing death, if there are no savings to fall back on.

So if this registers as a traumatic event, the fight/flight/freeze system kicks in. The fight – protests, anger, abuse for the government, blame and attacking. The flight – worry, anxiety, panic, firing staff, moving to the country.
The freeze – negativity, depression, giving up, feeling lost, withdrawing from the world. To name a few.

If your locus of control is outside of your body, then the lockdown can affect you as above. But..if your locus of control is within your body, you have a much better chance of limiting any traumatic reactions now and in the future.

To strengthen that internal locus of control, body mindfulness meditation is a great way to acquire that skill. Ongoing practice, helps keep that skill strong and a buffer to outside future unforeseen events.

Because from the inside you can control your responses. Body Mindfulness practice gives you more and more access to your internal world. The more you can access your body from the inside, the less affected you will be by outside circumstances and the quicker you can recover, when hit.

By focusing what’s happening right now in your body, you get more present, and can think more calmly in this moment, leading to better wiser decisions and less reactions day to day – however long the lockdown lasts

Corona Virus – Will it traumatise you?

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“Research shows that whether or not a person develops PTSD has more to do with the person’s ability to cope with stress than the event itself.”

Susanne Babbel, Phd – Heal the Body, Heal the Mind (2018)

What the world is experiencing right now with this virus spreading is a very heavy traumatic experience for many people.

How do you stop from going nutty over the next few months? How do you stop from breaking down, or getting PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) symptoms after the event?

This has been my specialty for 30 years in private practice. Helping people resolve underlying trauma that affects and limits their lives, sometimes for a lifetime (if not addressed).

How are you coping so far? What emotions are bubbling up in you that you are aware of? And what about the ones just under the surface? Stressful situations help to bring out what is already there that has probably been laying dormant within you for a long time.

This Corona Virus event doesn’t have to be traumatic – before, during or after the event is over.

Just because others are freaking or stressing out, doesn’t mean that you have to do the same. Sometimes the extra stress you feel is only because you feel you have to feel this way too, that this must be normal behaviour. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I will be offering (all free) mindful suggestions and meditations each week. And I’ll be posting them all with a short video. Video will convey the message much better. You will be receiving the benefit and experience of 30 years of deep trauma coping, releasing and healing tips, advice, techniques, tools and expertise. The Virus Buster will be the first, coming soon this week.

The limit of each mindfulness class this week will be four, to allow safe enough room between participants. (Half the participants showed up last week and that was completely understandable.)

At some point soon (highly likely next week) the classes will go online. You will be able to attend from anywhere in the world and the classes can be much bigger. I will be using the Zoom meeting software. It is free for you to use and fairly easy to run, once you learn. Youtube has a lot of instructional videos on how to use it. I am happy to help anyone where possible, that might need some help.

Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Messenger, WhatsApp and others will all become very important for continual social interaction during the Corona virus period.

The free instructional video for the Virus Buster mindfulness technique that I’ve been talking about, will be ready this week. I will follow this up with a free guided meditation to help you actually do it.