Building More Content: Reframing As A Tool To Reduce Anxiety
It seemed like an ordinary moment. A mom, dropping her teen off to school, on a sunny day. Her son smiling, waving as he walks into school. But, it had taken almost 2 years, a painful journey and incredible inner strength to get to this place. Kim, sighs with gratitude thinking about how far they had come.
The proverbial storm started in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. Losing her mother to Covid that year was enough to cope with even before her son’s troubles started. Kim’s son who was 14 at the time, started becoming anxious and acting out. Initially Kim thought it was ‘normal’ teen behavior but quickly realized that the aggressive oppositional behavior could be a combination of in person schools being shut down and his previous trauma prior to adoption. Taking him immediately to a therapist, she tried her best to get him the help he needed, but after several weeks of back and forth, it seemed that inpatient therapy in a residential facility was the only option.
Coping with this devastating circumstance was time-consuming and difficult and led her to resign from her job a few months afterwards. After much research, and seeing many specialists she found the right treatment center for him. She dropped him off and came back to an empty quiet home in the middle of the pandemic. Most things were shut down with social distancing being a priority.
She decided to go visit a friend in New Orleans, thinking that a few weeks there would reset her. But it was not to be. Her friend found a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with cancer requiring a double mastectomy immediately. And adding insult to injury, Kim herself ended up with appendicitis and diverticulitis, in addition to caring for months for her sick friend and nursing her back to health.
How does one maintain their inner strength, ability to cope, and the energy to keep going forward when so many very adverse events happen?
Life circumstances can certainly raise the risk of depression and mental illness. Sadly, during and after the pandemic, rates of depression and anxiety have increased significantly. 1 in 5 adults are affected by some surveys and 1 in 3 kids will be diagnosed with a mental health illness by 18. ERs are seeing 30-40% more visits related to emotional and mental issues and the health system is strained. As experts and hospital leadership look to finding solutions and access to care, are there preventative strategies that could reduce the risk of mental illness ? Can to reduce the risk of certain mental health issues arising, just like we try to prevent certain physical ailments such as diabetes or cardiac disease via exercise, diet and other strategies?
In fact, we know that exercise can not only help physical disease, but reduce the risk of depression. A metaanalysis looking at 15 studies and over 190 000 people found that about 1.25 hours of moderate activity such as brisk walking could reduce the risk of depression by 18%. Meditation also has shown to have benefits. Not only does it help to calm and ground us, but can actually change the neural networks in our brain. In one study of mindfulness participants, grey matter changed by MR imaging in just 8 weeks with increases in areas of focus, and decreases of grey matter in the amygdala, often associated with anxiety and stress.
Kim feels that these two strategies really helped her. Meditation was a practice that she employed even before her mom got sick, but as she went through the year of difficulty, she did it more. ‘ I started doing it twice a day, going deeper, using the techniques of Art of Living and it really grounded me.
