Video Transcript: Self-Care

Welcome back to mental health integration the mini course. I am Brandon  Appelhans. And I'm glad to be with you again. In this section we are going to be  talking about self care. In the previous section, we talked about medications,  and we talked about therapists and psychiatrists. And in this section, we're going to be talking about how you can take care of yourself to make sure that you  actually experience life. Now, why is self care important? Well, it's really simple.  You have a lot of choices in your life about how you take care of yourself, your  body is meant to work well, you have the choice on whether you want your body to work well or not work well. So how do you get it to work well, to answer self  care? What about sleep and exercise and diet? Seems like these are the three  things that come up over and over and over when we talk about self care. Are  you sleeping? Are you exercising? What's your diet like? And that's because  these are three of the things that help most when you're working with your own  mental health. Your sleep is critically important. There's been numerous studies  that have talked about the detriments of not getting enough sleep, the  detriments that happen, if you're cutting sleep short, over and over and over and then trying to make it up. There's been studies shown about the irregularity of  sleep. What happens when you go to bed at different times and try to wake up at different times. And then all of these things, you need to know. Sleep is a big  deal. You want to live your best life, you should probably get some sleep. Now, I  have a two and a six year old at home. So I fully understand the parents were  like you don't understand. There is no sleep. Oh, yes, I do. It was awful. There  wasn't sleep. But do your best anyway, because it's hard. And give yourself a  little bit grace. Because we all know, it's hard. The other thing about sleep is if  you sleep well, it does magic things to your body. Your metabolism metabolizes  better, your disposition changes because your brain chemistry changes, you are able to function better and think better. Your processing speed in your brain  goes up. All sorts of good things happen when you sleep that has nothing to do  with mental illness. They're just great. And on top of that, if you're on meds, they  probably work better. Now some medications make you sleep more. Or some  medications make you sleep a little bit less potentially. But if you can take the  time to try and make sure you get enough rest so that you feel rested, you'll be  in great shape moving forward, and you'll give yourself the best possible chance of making your meds work. The second thing there was exercise? How much  exercise do I really need? Well, there's more research on this than we ever want to say as well. And also more contrary information on exercise than you ever  want to see as well. But there are some basic things you need to know. If you're  like me, I have I have a blood sugar processing issue I've had. So I exercise  basically every day. That has nothing to do with wanting to be buff, or huge or  anything like obviously, I'm not the model of musculature. But it does mean that  my brain feels better and my body metabolizes sugar better. Which means that  my blood sugar levels can stay more even. And my medications work. So that's 

why I exercise because it makes me a better me. Not because I want to be the  strongest person in the room. Because if I did I should clearly do steroids or  something because I have little muscles. That was a joke, don't do steroids.  Exercise also pushes blood into your prefrontal cortex, which can change your  brain chemistry and actually lower the amount of depression you're feeling. Over six to nine months exercise has been shown to be as effective as an  antidepressant and mild to moderate depression. And long term has even better  outcomes. So if you're feeling a little bit down, go exercise every day. You got  this? Is there an amount that's right, or is there an amount that's too much? I  have personally found that I am doing cardio. I like running. I'm not very good at  it. I'm not a competitive runner or anything like that. It just makes me feel better.  If I'm out for a run, there's a magic line there's about 40 to 45 minutes where I  will feel better for two days, after a run, if I hit that mark. And otherwise, I won't.  Try it. If you need to see how exercise impacts your body and do experiments  on yourself, go try it. That'll help. The last thing is diet. I don't eat any refined  sugars and I, because I have a sugar processing issue. And I tend to eat really  clean whenever possible. So diet plays a big part in how your body is able to  digest vitamins and minerals, and how well your body is going to feel it. Also, if  you're exercising every day, it's going to dictate how well you feel about being  able to exercise. So if you exercise every day, your body's probably going to  start, you're probably he's probably gonna start craving and different types of  foods. And that's great. Eat well, it'll reward you. Now, what about media, natural remedies. just feel better, oils, prayer, community, engaging spirituality? What  about all these other things that people tell you to do around mental health?  Well, let's go ahead and walk through them one at a time. Starting with media.  Can you overdo it with media? Yeah. If you want to feel better, should you  probably cut down your media consumption a little bit? Yeah, depression rates  and anxiety rates have been going up since the advent of the smartphone. This  isn't rocket science. If anxiety and depression is going up, at nearly the same  rate that smartphone use is going up, maybe the two might be connected. So it  might be a good thing, to turn your phone off every once in a while and leave it  at home or at least silence it. So that you can actually function better. It also  means that you'll probably sleep better if you cut media and a couple hours  before bed. And it also means you might feel better because you're not in  comparison to other people all the time. What about natural remedies. I take  vitamins and minerals. I don't think there's any magic bullets with mental illness.  I think there's lots and lots and lots of tools that we can put in our tool belt. And I  think using as many as possible is a great idea. But I'm not going to say that you should use one thing, and then just avoid all the others. So do I take vitamins  and supplements? Yeah, I take some fish oil, I take vitamin d3, vitamin D,  vitamin E, but I do those to supplement what's going on with the rest of my self  care, my diet, my medications, everything else? So does it help. Yeah, it does. 

I've tried doing it, I've tried not doing it, if it's a placebo effect, it's a placebo  effect, I'm happy to go ahead and use those but don't replace them. They're not  a replacement for other forms of treatment. But if you should just feel better and  just be happy. I'm pretty sure that if you are still working on trying to get better  with mental illness, and you are working on medications, and therapy, and  natural remedies, exercise and self care and all of the things, you've probably at  this point also tried feeling better, and it didn't work. So I want to give you the  grace to say, do your best. And that's enough. What about essential oils, those  can change everything. I'm not going to be the one who says essential oils can't  change anything. Because research has shown especially in hospitals that are  using different essential oils that they can actually make surgeons more effective and different things like that. That was a study that came out of Tennessee. That was fascinating. If you want to use them once again, as a supplement to add to  everything else you're doing, do it. But don't try to just use essential oils to make you feel better. This use all the bullets in the gun, not one of them. Because it  takes all of these things to get better. What about prayer, prayer, just like  exercise studies have shown forces blood in your prefrontal cortex and actually  helps you feel better. Yeah, so prayer is great, especially contemplative or silent  prayer. Do it. Does it solve everything? No. Does it help? Yes. Does sometimes  God want to do something through prayer that actually will solve anything?  Yeah. Make sure that you consult with like your spiritual directors, your spiritual  guides, your pastors, and make sure you're not just drinking, you know, bad  eggnog in the morning. Make sure that you're getting the things that you need  and make sure that God is the one who's saying that you're being healed and  you're not just believing the number of people that I've talked to who hit a  hypomanic episode or a manic episode with bipolar disorder, and thought that  God was gonna heal them, who were not actually healed, and then who got  after them off of their meds is staggering. Don't do it. What about community?  Yes, community helps. Find people. What about engaging spirituality? Is that  really helpful? You're taking a class on mental health integration? Yes, it's  helpful, you need to do that. Finally, I'm going to give you one more tool. This is  HALTS, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stressed. This comes from AA. Normally we  leave the s off. It's just HALT. But these are a great way of saying, Am I taking  care of myself? So think about it. Are you hungry, angry, lonely, tired or stressed right now. If you're two of those things, you should probably go fix it. That's like  seeing a yellow light. If you're three of those things, it's a really good idea to just  stop whatever you're doing, and go fix at least one of those things, so you can  feel better. Our mental illness doesn't get better when we don't take care of  ourselves. Take care of yourself, and it'll help every other area of your life. Even  Jesus did this, right. Yet the news about Him spread all the more so the crowds  of people came to hear him and be healed of her sicknesses. But Jesus often  withdrew to lonely places and prayed. If Jesus is willing to step back, and sit and

pray and take time away from people in order to be most fully himself, maybe  we should follow his lead. Okay, self care is important. Go ahead and do it. It's  great. I'll see you in the next section.