It seems like the world is falling apart. These days more than ever.
Race wars, weapons, war, wealth concentrated into the hands of a few, and violence, Facebook is filled with videos that fill our heads and hearts with a complicated mixture of sadness, anger, anguish, confusion, frustration, enrage, injustice and a deep-felt sense of powerlessness. We struggle through these events to go on living—to go about our lives in a dignified fashion, to pay our rent, to engage our relationships, to find happiness and satisfaction in our lots in this world. It seems like the world is ending, and yet we still have our daily responsibilities. Our cynicism is engaged; our idealism is crumbling. Many of us feel hope leaving our bodies. Many of us feel frustration morphing into despair.
Stress is estimated to be the number one cause of disease. As a naturopathic doctor, my role often involves cleaning up the debris from chronic, long-term stress responses gone haywire. Oftentimes my patients don’t even perceive the stress they’re under. “I’m type A! I thrive under stress and pressure”, some will tell me. Other times the people I work with are so far in a state of overwhelm it’s all they can do to keep moving forward with their daily routines.
The World Health Organization estimates that 75-90% of doctor’s visits are attributed to by stress. I would estimate that 100% of the people I work with have on-going stress in their lives.
We doctors know that some people, the “Type B’s” in society, are more susceptible to stress. We know these people, we may even be one of them ourselves: the sensitive individuals, the intuitives, the feelers, the artists, empaths, activists and light-workers. We are individuals who are often drawn to artistic and healing professions, who care deeply about relationships, people, feelings and soft-ness in this world. We often find ourselves pushed up against hard edges, struggling to pay bills and cope with cruelty and injustice. We face daily struggles and the pain of living a disconnected, yet intricately interdependent life in modern-day society. Some natural doctors have terms us “parasympathetic dominants”—people whose nervous systems tend to get stuck in the parasympathetic (as opposed to stress-fuelled sympathetic) arm of the autonomic nervous system (the “automatic” nervous system).
We often feel overcome with a sense of overwhelm when faced with packed schedules, high stakes jobs that affect others, achievement-oriented striving and the prioritization of money and numbers over people. In this world of deadlines, assertion, aggression, fear, war and material wealth, we can often feel like we don’t fit in. We can suffer from burnout.
Burnout, “adrenal fatigue” or “parasympathetic dominance” happens when our stress response becomes depleted. It is characterized by naturopathic doctors as fatigue, excessive needs for sleep and quiet, lack of motivation, disrupted sleep schedules, difficulty losing weight, sluggish digestion, bloating and IBS, headaches and brain fog, poor memory, hormonal imbalance resulting in heavy or irregular periods, PMS, infertility and acne. Mental illness can begin to surface or worsen in this state, resulting in depression, anxiety, or even bipolar disorder and psychosis. The narrative of the mad, artistic genius, burdened by the weight and troubles of the world, surfaces to mind—the creative genius who is too sensitive for this world. We run the risk of becoming irritable, and losing some of our natural compassion as we drift off into exhausted survival mode.
Many of the people I work with are these sensitive individuals, myself included, and I’m proud to help this population. Through healing the sensitive feelers, we heal the world. The world needs a little more softness and more compassion. It needs people who can pick up on emotional nuances and care deeply about others. It needs people who listen, who feel, who create and share their versions of the human experience to teach others. Through the artists, we experience the depths of our own humanity. Through the artists, we see our pain and, through seeing our pain, we can begin to heal it. It is important that we can find fulfilling work and lives that nurture us, so that we may have the energy to extend our gifts to the world.
Healing parasympathetic dominance in my practice often manifests first as establishing a therapeutic relationship. We crave openness, time and space to explore emotional nuances and engage our natural sense of curiosity. We crave being deeply heard and felt. As a doctor, I do my best to listen, not just to the words, but the space between them, and the symptoms of the body. We look for root causes to issues so that we can establish lifestyle patterns that nurture us.
Creating a clean, nutritious diet: With lean protein, usually meats that stimulate metabolism and manage stress, healthy fats, anti-inflammatory nutrients and lots of fruits and vegetables, especially berries and leafy greens, we can begin to re-feed ourselves and heal inflammation.
Gentle, nurturing movement: I often suggest exercise that blends into the lifestyles of my patients, that works with them. Slow, meditative walking for an hour a day is a wonderful, scientifically proven method of bringing down stress hormone levels. It also creates space in the day for contemplation and integration.
Restful sleep: Through sleep hygiene and some strategically dosed supplements, improving sleep allows the body to repair itself and rest. Those suffering from burnout may need more sleep. Dealing with the guilt that can arise through sleeping in and saying no to non-essential activities to prioritize sleep is often a psychological hurdle in those who feel best when they are nurturing and giving to others, and not themselves.
Self-care: Journalling, meditation and engaging in creative pursuits are helpful armour in allowing one to integrate, express and stay open, energized and creative.
Nurturing mental health and emotions: Speaking to family and friends or a trained therapist or naturopathic doctor can allow us to dive more deeply into our own psyches. When we explore the corners of our mind we are able to heal mental-emotional obstacles to health and learn more about ourselves and others and alter the way we engage in the world. Opening ourselves up to deep-seated anger, fear and sadness is essential to clearing this repressed emotions and improving our experience in the world. My favourite forms of talk therapy are Narrative Therapy and Coherence Therapy. Both involve openly engaging the emotional and mental experience of the other to alter core beliefs and narratives and explore possibilities for living a preferred life experience.
Through the times we are facing, I urge us all to band together, embrace the healers and artists among us and engage in deep, nurturing self-care. Journal, spend time with friends and create. Take time from your activist pursuits and political readings to reflect, to meditate, to get some healing acupuncture and to cry or express anger. Feel the emotions that arise during this time. Take the time to listen to the narratives that emerge. Eat a diet filled with protein, try to keep to a sleep schedule, if possible. Nurture yourself and the complicated emotions that are arising within you and others.
We need you to help us through this time. It is people like you who can heal others, but only if you strive to heal yourself as well.
