Mindfulness May Actually Make a Difference

Recently, when trying to manage various conditions, my mental health nurse recommended the free app Smiling Mind. I was a bit skeptical about its efficaciousness, but have been learning to be more open minded so I gave it a chance.

Smiling Mind is called a mindfulness and meditation on app, but I am hesitant to focus on the word meditation as it can give Christians the idea that it is religious and anti-Christian. It is completely secular and uses pyschological techniques to induce calm. Hence why I chose to focus on the term mindfulness even though many people think it sounds silly.

This app has helped me tremendously. I often have insomnia and the breathing exercises have frequently helped me to sleep when I was sure sleep would be elusive. The meditations are usually short, between five and fifteen minutes, and are easy to fit in a busy day when you need some very quick stress reduction. It has definitely made a difference with general anxiety; my husband noticed my improvement on his own.

This is an aside from mental health, but the body scans have helped me to handle physical pain. Focusing on other areas of one’s body that are not in pain made it easier to deal with the pain that was there. I felt more gratitude when I was conscious of how many things don’t hurt all the time!

I really recommend the app Smiling Mind for anyone in any walk of life who struggle with anxiety.

Domestic Therapy: Knitting and Home Arts

This blog is definitely not meant to only be for women, but it is worth mentioning that different domestic arts can be very beneficial for one’s well-being. They are beautiful, which soothes the soul, and require mental exertion which exercises the mind. They are also lovely gifts for one’s family which give a sense of usefullness and purpose that people need to be happy.

I personally love knitting. However, I find concentration amidst chaos to be very difficult so have done less of it than I would like. No matter what your life calling it can be hard to practice these pursuits. My daughter introduced me to the free app Row Counter so that I cold manage interruptions better and follow the pattern more easily with household distractions.

I’ve found knitting to be very soothing. I love to feel the yarn between my fingers, my mind enjoys the comfort of patterns, and I love the sense of accomplishment when I am finished. Here is a baby blanket that I have been working on for the new baby:

Unfortunately, as I’m sure most of you know, homemade items can be very expensive. I try to manage this by buying my yarn on Ebay. I prefer yarns with natural fibers – this one is a cotton blend. It was a bundle of 10 skeins, but the blanket should only require three. This works out to £5 for the blanket. Not too bad!

What domestic arts bring you satisfaction and peace? Feel free to post pictures in the comments below!

Review of Catholic App: Amen

The free Catholic meditation app Amen, which is produced by the Augustine Institute, has been helpful to restore my Faith after my last spiritually damaging psychosis. I downloaded the app first to see if it would aid sleep and anxiety reduction, and found that it has been a beneficial spiritual tool.

One thing that is very difficult with trauma is how harsh the Christian Faith can seem to be. Believing in God’s love and presence is a challenge after you have endured a terrible ordeal. What I have found special about the Amen app is that it is a gentle, but doctrinally sound approach to Catholicism, prayer, and Christian meditation. It has prayers to follow along with, Bible stories, Christian thoughts, and Bible in a Year. The meditations focus on God’s love and forgiveness and a relationship with Christ.

The voices are pretty good. Sometimes the diction of some of the meditations isn’t quite to my taste, to be honest, but most of the time the voices seem normal and soothing. I don’t think the app would be jarring for most people.

At first it didn’t seem to help directly with sleep or anxiety. I have since several times calmed down and fallen asleep while I was listening to the prayers. However, I will refer to another app I have found to be better suited to addressing those issues in another post. If you would like a way to study your Faith and pray to God with a merciful and sympathic approach, I would highly recommend Amen.

Continue reading Review of Catholic App: Amen

Natural Anxiety Relief

It is a good idea to use natural remedies to treat anxiety if possible. Policy has changed regarding the use of benzodiazepines as they are being found to be highly addictive and dangerous. They still need to be used sometimes for extreme cases of anxiety/ panic attacks, but it is best to keep their use as minimal as possible.

One natural treatment that I have found to be very helpful is this £8 “Remedies to Roll” by Neal’s Yard Remedies:

Remedies To Roll – Womens Balance 9ml

It has a very nice fresh and gentle smell which definitely helps me when I am managing anxiety. Also, Made in England!

Firelight to Facilitate Healing

I’m sure there are a lot of studies on the benefits of firelight. A cursory look on google seemed to show some articles which say there are evolutionary reasons we love fire. Regardless, we know without a study that for many of us fire makes us feel happier.

We recently had some lovely friends over and got to talking about how wonderful home altars are. I’ve thought often how much I would love a home altar (I’ve had one before), but this put it in mind again and the following morning I finally cleared off a shelf in our dining room and made one.

Since I am temporarily staying home from Mass because of panic attacks and pregnancy pelvic girdle pain I am especially glad to have a home altar. Most of the items on the altar are gifts from my grandparents and husband that I have had for many years, so I can’t help you with cost there, but the candles from it are from Ikea and work out to being about 20p each. It is so lovely having candles burning on an altar or your dining room table for a nice dinner and needn’t be too expensive though it seems like such a luxury! If you can manage it though they can really bring some warmth and spirit to your home.

Panic Attacks

Panic attacks might seem strange and a bit silly when you hear about them. One conjures images of Mrs. Bennet and her “poor nerves”, but they can actually be quite horrible and scary. They can be so extreme in their symptoms that they have been confused by doctor and patient alike for heart attacks.

I have a family member who has had many of them. I always felt sympathy for her and did not seek to minimize her difficulties, but I simply couldn’t quite understand. One thing that struck me about her panic attacks which is different from anxiety (but not always) was the great difficulty with breathing that can happen. I always noticed this particularity.

I suppose it is fortunate that I paid some attention as I was more prepared for when I started having them. This last pregnancy has for some reason triggered them. The worst one was on a bus into Edinburgh to attend Mass. It hit like a tsunami immediately when the bus took off and for forty minutes I could barely breathe, was crying, and felt like I was dying. When we got off the bus I started sobbing on the streets of Edinburgh incontrollably. If I had not known about panic attacks from my relative I’m sure I would have gone to hospital.

I have had numerous panic attacks since. Unfortunately, they are not good for your baby when you are pregnant. The adrenaline and stress reduces blood flow to the baby. My priest knows the situation and recommends I stay home from Church until after the baby is born. I hope the panic attacks will desist when I am no longer pregnant and I can take stronger medication to deal with it if necessary.

I don’t have great coping techniques for really severe panic attacks. For mild ones breathing calmly, getting into an open space, and not been too warmly dressed seem to help quite a bit. I have also given up coffee to reduce the caffeine and that has mitigated them.

Please write in with any coping strategies you have!

Coping at Low Cost

I am very lucky to have a stable home environment and many benefits. I know lots of people with mental illness and mental difficulties do not have this. Throughout my blog, when dealing with coping mechanisms and self-care, I will be attempting to keep my recommendations either free or affordable. I will try to mention the cost of things that helps me so you know what to expect.

It is so helpful to see and hear lovely things when one is trying to heal – this can be expensive, but it is also possible to find beauty in small ways that can still bring great joy without spending a tremendous amount.

Here is a lovely teapot my husband just picked up for me at an antique fair for £5. I’ve given up coffee for a bit to help with insomnia and panic attacks. I now drink tea and the traditional teapot makes my morning more special.

Cheers! 

Anecdotes of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a pretty misunderstood illness. It isn’t a split personality, but a confusion of the mind. I really can’t write many details about what going through a paranoid pyschosis was like without feeling quite traumatized, so I will just give a few anectodes of my experience.

One element that is always present when I am unwell is the belief that everyone in the world can automatically know all my thoughts as they are happening. I am always absolutely sure of this and I think people give me cues and hints to tell me what they “really” think of me. I am often very quiet when I am ill because I am obsessively processing these cues and hints and also believe I am not allowed to talk and there is no point since they can understand my thoughts already.

I also always think I am being punished for something and feel compelled to confess things I haven’t done or are massively exagerrated to get the hell that I’m in to stop. I have confessed very strange things to priests and things I haven’t done because I felt tortured into doing so.

When I was first ill I thought everyone who had been in my life wanted me to kill myself and were sending me secret messages pressuring me to do so. My belief that I couldn’t as a Catholic and the fact that I was pregnant at the time prevented me from carrying this out – I would not kill myself while I needed to live to save my baby. Who knows if I could have kept withstanding the pressure I felt otherwise. My child may have saved my life.

They don’t really know why some people develop Schizophrenia. (No, I did not do drugs!) It could be genetics – although there isn’t any previous evidence in my family of which I know. I had risk factors as a child for it which I won’t go into right now. I became psychotic at the age people usually do – early twenties for men and late twenties to early thirties for women.

I won’t go into much more detail on this blog about my actual psychoses as it is too painful to relive the memories. An excellent book on what it is like to be schizophrenic is called The Center Cannot Hold written by Elyn Saks. She is an academic at the University of Southern California Gould Law School. It is hopeful and inspiring to read about someone who has managed to be so successful despite her illness.

I hope that helped to give you a wee glimpse into the life of someone suffering with pyschosis. Thank you for reading.

Rosary Sonatas

October, as you may know, is the month of the Holy Rosary. As a family we say the rosary every day in October which is lovely (and sometimes trying!) A beautiful devotion is to listen to Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s rosary sonatas. A study in Mexico demonstrated that classical music and baroque music were beneficial to those with depression.

“A 2010 study from Mexico enlisted a sample of 79 patients aged 25-60 years old with low and medium-grade depression. Half of the group listened to classical and baroque music for 50 minutes a day for eight weeks while the other half was subjected to psychotherapy. Using the Friedman test, the former had fewer depressive symptoms than the latter. The researchers recommend listening to classical music to help curb depression. ”

Here are the sonatas:

Pyschiatry, Natural Remedy, or. . . Both?

In treating mental illness different people recommend quite different treatments. In conservative circles natural remedies are usually touted for a myriad of illnesses. While this is a good instinct, both pyschiatric and natural remedies will be discussed on this blog. My medicine saves me from hell every day to which I am very grateful. That said, I have also been on a very strict gluten-free diet for over eight years now which besides helping my physical health considerably improved my mental health. I am not advocating this course for everyone, but rather suggesting that there are different solutions to mental health which should all be respected.

Besides needing Risperidone, which is an antipyschotic, I also take Sertraline (zoloft) for panic attacks and depression. It was quite humbling that before I started Sertraline I was really struggling badly with my faith and with nihilism. While taking the anti-depressant I have found joy in my faith again. Of course, not all spiritual difficulties are chemical imbalances, but mine probably was – leftover trauma from the past pyschosis that I am having trouble healing. My faith is now growing beautiful and comforting again.

I have also started using the free App SmilingMind. This is a simple meditation App which concentrates on calm breathing. It helps to reduce anxiety and aids sleep. The meditations are mostly very short and are a good break during the day when one is allowed to completely stop worrying.

There are many other things I do to take care of my mental health. What are some of yours? (judgemental comments will not be published.)