Welcome to happiness isn't brain surgery
with dr. snipes. This podcast was created
to provide you the information and tools
doc Snipes gives her clients so that you
two can start living happier our website
doc Snipes comm has even more resources
videos and handouts and even interactive
sessions with Doc's nights to help you
apply what you learn go to doc Snipes
calm to learn more we're going to
continue in this section talking about
understanding symptoms and if you
remember from the prior episodes
symptoms can mean a variety of different
things low energy can be attributable to
not getting enough sleep to being
pregnant to being depressed having low
thyroid there are a lot of different
things it doesn't necessarily mean that
you aren't necessarily quote clinically
depressed or that you don't have enough
serotonin sometimes the symptoms of
depression can be caused by other things
such as things as simple as not getting
enough sleep for an extended period of
time or maybe the side effect of a
medication that you're on in this
section we're going to learn about the
causes and interventions for poor
concentration and hopelessness and
helplessness so the first one that we're
going to talk about is trouble
concentrating and when we're tired when
we're depressed when we're sick so there
are a lot of different situations in
which it can be difficult to concentrate
you know I don't know about you but I
know when I've got a sinus infection you
might as well hang it up I'm probably
not going to be on my a-game the
neurotransmitters hormones or blood
sugar imbalances caused by lack of sleep
poor nutrition or excess stress can
cause difficulty concentrating and
making decisions which leads to feelings
of helplessness causing you to
second-guess yourself because I know
when I'm looking at something and I'm
like crap I've read this four times and
I don't even remember what I read I am
never gonna get finished you know that's
a little bit of hopelessness and
helplessness not overwhelming but as
those things add up it can contribute to
a bad mood now again that doesn't
necessarily mean you are quote
clinically depressed it means you may
have some depressive symptoms and
whether it's depression the diagnosis or
depression the symptoms you can address
them so don't get stuck feeling like if
you're depressed if you have depression
you're gonna be depressed forever know
we need to look at what's causing the
depression what's causing the
neurochemical imbalance that is causing
the difficulty concentrating maybe low
energy and other things why do we do
this energy conservation if your body is
struggling just to keep going it's not
going to divert energy to higher order
thought processes unless they have a
direct impact on your survival so again
think about when you're sick your body's
trying to get better so it's not
devoting a whole lot of resources to
making memories and helping you focus on
that 17 page report your boss just gave
you or whatever else it's important to
understand everything that we feel
everything that happens generally has a
reason so we want to look at what's the
reason and what can we do about it one
of the things I tell people is when
they're having difficulty concentrating
identify things that help them focus
some suggestions might be breaking
things into small chunks when I'm having
a really foggy day I'll break things
into twenty or thirty minute chunks and
then I'll get up and I'll walk around
for a second I'll get refocused and I'll
do something else
likewise for me my energy is the highest
in the morning after about 11:30 I'm
kind of toast you know I start at like
6:00 so that's a decent amount of work
before I start getting tired but I know
my highest energy levels are first thing
in the morning so anything intensive
that I've got to concentrate on should
probably be done then other simple ish
interventions for concentration is being
kind to yourself
like Stephen Covey says sometimes you
need to take a break and just sharpen
the saw so if you can't concentrate you
can either sit there and read that same
paragraph seven more times and still not
get it or you can put it down do
something else and then come back to it
when you're a little bit sharper make
sure you're eating healthfully and
frequently to keep your blood sugar
stable and give your body the building
blocks to make your neurotransmitters
now frequently will depend on the person
that's something that your medical team
and you need to decide how often you
should eat in order to make sure your
blood Sugar's stable and you can focus
and concentrate my husband for example
has hypoglycemia so if he goes too long
without eating he turns into a great big
old creaky man's so it's important that
he eats relatively frequently and
healthfully if he eats pancakes in the
morning I can guarantee mid-morning he
is going to be a grump because that just
spikes his blood sugar and then it falls
really fast again so it's important to
understand how your body works and what
things are going to help you focus
breakfast
they've done lots of studies that
breakfast eating in the morning helps
get your body jump-started it says okay
it's time to wake up and it helps people
concentrate and learn better it doesn't
mean you have to eat a huge breakfast
but there have been a lot of studies
that have shown that it is important to
at least prevent hunger and when they've
looked at school students those students
who were sitting in second or third
period and were hungry and their tummy
was growling they were not able to focus
on work so help yourself focus make sure
you're adequately hydrated a 1%
dehydration and you don't even notice
that that's way before you start getting
thirsty a 1% dehydration can lead to
difficulty making decisions and making
memories so concentrating so it is
important to make sure you're staying
hydrated if you drink caffeine that is
not hydration
Venus is erotic so if you're drinking
caffeine you need to increase how much
other fluid you know water preferably
that you drink so carry around a water
bottle with you it's you know easy to
sort of mindlessly sip on a water bottle
and a lot easier to get your water in
then if you get a 16-ounce glass and
you're like okay I got to chug this now
so sip on it throughout the day it'll go
a lot faster you'll probably drink a lot
more water get adequate quality sleep
when you're sleep-deprived you're
probably not going to be able to think
as clearly your brain chemicals are kind
of foggy you're not they didn't reset
and rebalance the way they were supposed
to so you may need to make sure you get
better sleep the next day if you're
going to quote sharpen the saw I mean
think about your computer if your
computer boot is booting up and and you
hit something and stop it in the middle
of the boot up process it's enough to
get it up but you know you didn't let
everything quit lips continue to load so
things are going to be a little bit
buggy throughout that entire session
until you just reboot the whole thing
so this is what sleep does for us sleep
is our reboot and if you don't get
enough of it it's kind of like trying to
start writing in a document before the
computers fully finished booting up take
a power nap after lunch research shows
that a nap after lunch increases
norepinephrine one of your focus
chemicals up to 200% doesn't mean 45
minutes or an hour
it means 15-20 minutes of relaxation
after you have lunch when we eat our
body goes into rest and digest so after
you eat when it goes into that period
you start feeling a little sleepy if you
allow yourself 15 to 20 minutes to just
kind of close your eyes and take a power
nap it's likely you will feel sharper
when you get up and start moving that's
not true for everybody
you know I personally
don't find power naps overly helpful and
I tend to feel a little bit groggy ER
after I take them but the research says
it should help you focus more you need
to know your own body so we didn't spend
a lot of time on concentration and
decision-making because that is sort of
a symptom of other symptoms like not
sleeping well enough you know sleep
disturbances and feeling hopeless and
helpless and blah and unmotivated lack
of concentration kind of goes along with
it when you're happy chemicals and
motivational chemicals just aren't there
so we've talked about how to increase
those through sleep and nutrition
sometimes medication changing your
thoughts so you're not focusing on the
negative and draining your energy all
the time
so we move on to hopelessness and
helplessness and this is one of the key
features of what we call depression and
we all feel hopeless and helpless at
times you know something happens you
know you experience a loss or whatever
and it's just like it may feel like the
world caved in on you for a second
people may say things like I can't go on
like this anymore nothing ever seems to
work okay you know I think we've all
said something like that at one point or
another so we need to stop and figure
out what's going on what's our brain
telling us in a way the brain is saying
you've been trying to fight this for so
long and there's no way you're going to
ever win diminishing returns so I'm
taking all your motivation and all your
energy and I'm gonna store it up and
you're just gonna have to sit back I'm
benching you because there's no point
continuing to try to fight this fight
well most of us say oh you are not
benching me and try to fight it anyway
and then we have no energy no motivation
you see where this is going
alright so we're we don't want to go
there when all of this happens when
you're feeling hopeless and helpless
your brain chemicals are out of whack
you have too much stress stuff going on
and not enough relaxation happy stuff
normal relaxation chemicals like
serotonin and gaba maybe
insufficient for some reason and you
know yes you can take medication but
that's kind of like you know trying to
fix a plumbing leak by just increasing
the water pressure you know yeah you're
getting better pressure in the house but
it's still leaking and you know what
that leak is gonna grow so you probably
need to figure out where the leak is in
the public water line and fix it so it's
important to figure out what's causing
this imbalance causes can include poor
nutrition so check what you're eating
are you eating well are you OD'ing on
caffeine and nicotine and other
stimulants like diet pills pre-workout
supplements and are you working out too
much
some people can over train which can
contribute to all of these symptoms that
we've talked about lack of quality sleep
can cause a sense of hopelessness and
helplessness because you're fatigued and
it feels like everything takes 10 times
more energy and it can be exhausting and
you may feel like you're never going to
be awake again negative thinking
patterns can also keep you stuck if
you're constantly telling yourself this
will never get better and this is
hopeless and I'm helpless then you're
gonna stay there and you're going to
continue to press every one of the
things you can do when you have negative
thoughts like that is you know if you
tell yourself this is never gonna get
better decide that you're not going to
have an extreme attitude like that and
go this is awful right now what can I do
to try to improve the next moment in the
past when I felt like this how have I
improved it in the past when this hasn't
been a problem what was different in the
past when I felt like this what did I
try that didn't work because we don't
want to do that again either chronic
pain can cause a lot of people to feel
very hopeless and helpless and I've been
there you know I'm with you
so going for 6-8 weeks where you're not
sleeping through the night because
you're waking up in excruciating pain is
not only does it disrupt your sleep but
it feels you know
it's so frustrating that your your
doctors can't do anything to fix it and
you know it's just a you've got to go
through physical therapy and wait for
things to kick in it'll get worse before
it gets better all those things that
they tell you and you're just like but I
just want to sleep all I want is the
pain to go away for even 30 minutes and
I want to sleep so it's important to
figure out when you've got chronic pain
what you can do to best manage it for
yourself and what you need in order to
feel hopeful and empowered to take
charge of your life you may never be
completely pain-free but what things do
you have control of in your life and
what can you do to manage the pain to
the best of your ability the use of
opiates can also cause hopelessness and
helplessness opiates make your brain
trigger a lot of dopamine and endorphins
and you know really good stuff that's
good for pain killing and stuff but then
when people stop taking opiates they're
paying what normally wouldn't really
bother them actually hurts because their
body's not making natural endorphins so
they may feel overwhelmed and hopeless
and helpless it may feel like they're
going backwards because now everything
seems to hurt the good news is as soon
as your body starts making endorphins
again your pain tolerance will go back
up opiates also tend to mess with other
neuro chemicals in the brain that are
responsible for anxiety depression and
those sorts of things they can when
you're on them temporarily relieve
anxiety or depression but when people
when the dose starts to wear off people
tend to find that they feel even more
anxious or depressed what is the
function of hopelessness and
helplessness
well it's your body's way of signaling
that something may be wrong when you're
feeling like oh my gosh when you're
feeling like you can't breathe
it may be your body's way of going dude
you need some help something needs to
change so how do you cope what helps you
feel empowered
what are you hopeful about what are your
goals and what can you do to start a Qi
those goals make a plan you're gonna
feel a lot more empowered and hopeful if
you know that okay tomorrow I'm going to
do X I always feel more empowered when I
make a list in the morning of what I
need to get done at the office that day
because it keeps me on task and then at
the end of the day I can look back and
go hey I got my whole list done or 70%
of it so encourage yourself to have
goals to look forward to that's part of
hope is having something to look forward
to identify three things you can do
today to start making things better
whatever that means to you how can you
start making your situation better so
you feel more hopeful and happier other
simplest interventions simplest
interventions identify things that give
you hope or make you happy and do one of
those each day whether it's you know
watching videos on on TV or working in
your garden or playing with your kids
whatever it is identify the things you
do have control over and those are the
things you're going to focus on get
adequate sleep I know I keep saying it
it's important drink at least eight
glasses of water and eat a relatively
healthy diet water helps flush out
toxins that may make you feel sluggish
may increase pain it can help reduce
inflammation and eating a healthy diet
can do the same thing it can help reduce
inflammation it can also help your body
have the building blocks it needs to
make the neuro chemicals so you can feel
happier and motivated push that
norepinephrine out talk with a friend
and create a plan to get unstuck
sometimes when we're stuck we just can't
even see a way out of the quicksand so
calling a friend and going you know what
this is the situation what do you think
I should do or can you help me figure
out what the next steps are can be very
helpful they can be a sounding board for
you
imbalances in norepinephrine serotonin
gaba
and or having your threat response
system activated for too long can cause
feelings of hopelessness and
helplessness and just general stuckness
when you're feeling distressed you tend
to focus on the things you can't control
and the stuff that is stressing you out
instead of focusing on what you can
control and all the other things that
are going right in your life that you
have to be grateful for encourage
yourself to walk the middle path by
focusing on your end goals what you have
control over and those things that give
you hope in your life if you like this
podcast you can subscribe on your
favorite podcast player or join our
community and access additional
resources at Doc Snipes calm
you