Overcoming Sadness and Despair

Transcript of Overcoming Sadness and Despair

Dr. Cates: Hi, this is Dr Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. Podcast. Today I want to talk with you about something that is troubling me. Lately I’ve heard so much in the news and within even my own community in park city about the high amount of depression and suicide that is happening around us. And in fact a suicide is now the second leading cause of death for people 15 to 44 years old. And on average one person dies every 12 minutes and the U.S. by suicide. And so this is, this is something that is, is a, an epidemic. And that’s not really talked about in the same way that the other health and wellness conditions are talked about. And so I wanted to bring some attention around this because I do believe that there are things that people can do to support their health, wellbeing, and their mental health as well as even shifting to a place of not only out of depression and suicidal thoughts, but actually to one of confidence and radiance inner radiance that is available to all of us.
Dr. Cates: And, at every age that is happening with these high rates of suicide, there is this opportunity to shift consciousness and shift awareness and help people around us as well. If we see people struggling to reach out to them and, and provide support. And it seems that at a time when we’re so connected online, it’s also a time when we often feel really disconnected because of the lack of actual human contact and interaction. And of course we’re still doing that. We’re still go to work. Kids still go to school, but we’re spending more time on electronic devices, on our phones and our computers. And there’s some fantastic things that happened with the technology of being online and social media and the ability for us to find out information, news and resources and get up to date information. And so, I’m not saying that technology is bad, but with the growth and change and development of technology, I believe that it may be creating more issues, especially with our young people.

Dr. Cates: So I hear it often from my own children. I’ve got, my kids are 12, 17, and, 20 and they talk about the struggles at school with us, the the kids and, and how many are, are struggling with depression and eating disorders and anxiety, suicidal thoughts or sometimes even kids that do commit suicide with drug overdoses. And so I wanted to just spend some time and I will have other podcast guests on to talk about this as well, but to just talk about some of my own experience. I grew up in a family with a group, a lot of artists and, and sort of this Bohemian lifestyle and it was a lot of fun, but there was also in my family, there’s a tendency to depression as well. And so I saw these struggles as I was growing up and I think all of us at some point struggle with the ideas around, you know, am I thin enough? Am I, am I strong enough? Am I smart enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I enough? Am I enough? And I think that whether you have had suicidal thoughts that are debilitating, what many people do or you’re just not optimizing your health the way you could, I think there’s tremendous opportunity.

Dr. Cates: So some of the things that I think are really beneficial are first of all … If you, if you are depressed and you’re struggling and you’re having suicidal thoughts, go get help. It’s really important for you to talk to someone. And, and sometimes it’s just a matter of talking to someone and having someone there to listen to you. Other times there are neurochemical imbalances, hormonal imbalances that are triggering and causing you to have some of these thoughts. And so work with someone, a physician, maybe even have a naturopathic physician and functional medicine doctor as part of your team. If you’re looking at getting to the root cause and helping support your Newark neurochemistry and your, and your hormones and making sure that you have the right nutrients in the right kind of diet. But also medications can sometimes provide temporary relief in certain cases. And I think that they definitely should be used with a lot of caution. I think a lot of these medication, a lot of these medications are overused. And I think that there’s a lot that we can do to support the body naturally and then also with certain types of therapy and to be able to support the person and using medications and saving those for when they’re absolutely necessary and lifesaving measures. But if you are, certainly talk to someone about the pros and cons and ask about the benefits and the downsides of taking medications, it’s always good to make informed decisions. And I truly believe and an integrative approach, and I, I think that there’s a place for, for, um, for medicine, but I definitely think that we tend to go too quickly to medication.
Dr. Cates: And so there with depression, we could have changes and our hormones that, that caused this. I mean we know that for example, that when, there are changes with the hormone for women, for the, the hormone progesterone for example, that when we start, especially for women, during their cycle, when progesterone’s lower or as they start to get closer to menopause and that can even be in there women, some women even in their thirties and forties, as they transition and their hormones are changing, that that can, I’ve seen that in my practice be one of the triggers for women to, to struggle with depression. And so that is something that can, you can, you know, see someone for get, get some help, support with balancing your hormones, especially if you’re having problems with your cycle. If you are noticing this, um, you know, at certain times. And then also if you’re experiencing insomnia, if you’re having difficulty sleeping at night, that can sometimes be an indicator of, low progesterone and those, there’s certainly other symptoms that come along with it. But again, don’t just assume that you need progesterone. Talk to someone and see if this is maybe one of the underlying causes of what’s going on.
Dr. Cates: And then there are newer neurochemical imbalances like with serotonin and dopamine. There are certainly other neurotransmitters that can, can play a role. And these are just two examples of neuro neurochemicals that, that play a role and helping us feel happy, connected, satisfied with our lives. And if those are lower, we’re having depletion and those. And sometimes that’s a genetic predisposition. Sometimes it’s after a certain drug use, whether that’s recreational drugs or or pharmaceutical drugs, there can be, um, a drop in those, there are different reasons why this can happen. It could also be from trauma that can lead to it. And certainly if you’re going through an experience where you have trauma or you have had trauma, whether that’s physical trauma or emotional trauma, that is causing you to experience some of these symptoms of depression or anxiety or not feeling that you belong, not feeling that. And, and I’m saying these other words because sometimes we don’t want to use the words depression and anxiety. Sometimes it’s that you’re feeling a lot of fears and that you’re noticing that you’re overly cautious. That is actually can be a form of anxiety. If you’re feeling like something bad is always going to happen and, or you’re starting to feel like you just don’t care about things anymore like you used to. And, and that is also can be a sign that something is out of balance.

Dr. Cates: And certainly this is a sensitive subject and people oftentimes don’t want to talk about it, but it is important to get help and professional help is often the best place to get it because you can work with people, trained to help people that are struggling and that are having suicidal saw thoughts. So certainly getting that support. And again, if you see other people that are struggling, reach out to them and do your best to help them.

Dr. Cates: And so of course sleep is one of the things that we need in order to, to have good mental health. And sometimes what happens is we struggle with sleep and because we’re getting, we’re sleep deprived, then that can lead to depression and other emotional concerns. And so making sure that you’re doing everything you can to set yourself up for a good night’s sleep is crucial. I’ve got some other podcast guests that have come on, like Dr. Michael Bruce, who has talked about how, uh, to get a good night’s sleep and tips and tricks to help with that and, and how to know what might be behind that for you. So getting a good night’s sleep is important.

Dr. Cates: Getting, getting out and moving your body physical activity and being out in nature. Those can also be extremely therapeutic and uplifting and being around other people, creating a community where you have support and even physical touch. If you, if you don’t have people around you, maybe you could go and get a massage or, or find someone that you can give a hug to. And if you don’t have that, then we certainly have, there are cats or dogs or pets that you can pet, even if you go into an animal shelter and get a chance to do that because that touch actually helps to release the hormone oxytocin. And oxytocin is one of these magical hormones that helps us feel connected in the world and, and feel connected to other people and gives us a sense of relief. So those are all really important things to do to help with overall health and support. In addition to going to see a professional.

Dr. Cates: And then food as medicine is powerful. There are foods that can, can help support our bodies and our brains. We do know that there is a gut brain connection, just like I’ve talked about the gut skin connection. There is a gut brain skin connection and that a lot of our, a lot of our health starts in, in our gut and that includes the health of our brain. And that is our brain health affects our memory and also affects our emotional state. So we do want to support healthy digestion, eating foods that help support a healthy gut and avoiding the foods that are bad for the gut. And this is also going to be one of the signs of an unhealthy gut can actually be showing up on your skin? So one of the reasons why I call skin our magic mirror, because it oftentimes is one of those early warning signs that something is going on the inside that’s out of balance. So when we look at our gut health, that that means looking at your digestion. If you have any problems with digestion, then you may not be absorbing the nutrients from your food. You may not be able to, to actually break down and process the foods that you’re eating and absorb the nutrients from them. Even if you have the healthiest diet in the world, if your digestion and assimilation is not working well, then, then you’re going to be missing key nutrients.

Dr. Cates: So that means doing things like healing leaky gut, that hyperpermeability of the digestive tract lining that we know leads to so many health issues, especially with the immune system. And it also plays into to the health of our entire body. So also we know that gut dysbiosis, so the imbalance of the micro organisms that live in and protect our digestive and our digestive track are crucial. That balance is really crucial for that gut brain connection and that gut skin connection. So eating the right amount of high fiber foods, lots of vegetables, high fiber content. And also you might want to consider eating some foods that are like fermented vegetables, kimchi and sauerkraut to get probiotic rich foods in your and your diet too. And you might want to consider taking a probiotic supplement, but really if you have dysbiosis issues, if you have an overgrowth of harmful bacteria or an overgrowth of candida or any of these kinds of issues going on or not enough of the right good bacteria like lactobacillus and bifido bacteria, then you’ll, you’ll want to probably, and especially if you’ve tried changing your diet and maybe you’ve tried, you follow the clean skin from within program and you’re still having struggles or you’ve taken probiotics and you’re still struggling the need. Then you’ll want to go and see a functional medicine or nature pathic physician and that way they can do some testing to identify what’s going on with your gut as to what kinds of gut dysbiosis issues you might have. And then also track to make sure when they’re doing treatment that they’re seeing improvement in the health of your gut. And this is really important. So much of our mental health and our emotional state starts in the gut and so I, it’s really important to get back to that, to the root cause.

Dr. Cates: And of course while you’re doing that then also getting counseling, seeing a therapist that you connect with. This is so key a, there are a lot of different therapists out there and they’re trained in all different ways. The important thing is for you to find one that works well for you that you connect with, you feel comfortable with that is helping you. And of course I know sometimes we have to go with one that our health insurance will cover, but even within your health insurance plan you probably have options. So it’s good to find someone that is going to be really helpful for you. And it might mean if you, if you have to pay out of pocket for that and find a means to do that, then that might be the best option for you. But hopefully you can find someone that, that you know, is within your, with you and your plan. And I think seeing a therapist, a high quality and highly trained and experienced therapist is great for all of us. I, I have a therapist that I see, I don’t see her as, I don’t see her all the time and I don’t see her every week at this point. But when I’m going through rough times, like during my book launch, there were so much stress in my life and, and I, my kids were having some struggles too. And it was, it was a tough time and it was nice to go and see her on a regular basis. Sometimes I’d even go in twice a week to go see her, just to have someone to talk to so that I didn’t feel like I was unloading on my team at The Spa Doctor or my team at work and I wasn’t unloading on my kids or the guy I was dating. I didn’t want to unload on somebody else because it wasn’t really, it’s not their fault. I’m working on my thing. So it’s nice to talk to a therapist who was a neutral party and who was being, it was being paid to listen to you and to who is trained to hear you and help you.

Dr. Cates: So I do think it’s a great idea too, to find a good therapist. It took me many therapists to find, find ones that I, that I really connected with and felt comfortable. And then, gosh, since I, since I found one, I definitely, you know, don’t want to lose her. So, but there are many of them out there. There are people with master’s degrees, there are people with PhD, there are MD psychiatrist. You choose whoever you think best supports what you need. And you know, I have a, a master’s degree in spiritual psychology, but I only use that just to compliment my naturopathic medicine degree. And I just use those as tools. The, the training that I learned in that program really helps to support people and, and in, removing the obstacles to helping us be brighter, healthier being cause. And I think that a lot of times we have these negative self-talk. We all do it. We all, we all have the, these little, these little voices in our head that tell us that we’re not good enough, that um, that, that I know that was a stupid mistake. Why did you do that? And, but if you think about it, would you talk to your friend, your best friend that way? Would you talk to your little girl that way or your son? You, you wouldn’t do that. So be gentle with yourself. And when you hear those voices coming up, those that negative self talk that you know is not healthy, that you know that you would never say those things to someone else that you love. Stop it. Just tell yourself, stop it. This is not serving me. This is not helping me.

Dr. Cates: And I think there are also some great tools, some of the other tools that I used, uh, that I learned and the program, the master’s then spiritual psychology program that I did was also doing some free form writing where you get blank pieces of paper you get, get a whole stack of them. Give yourself, maybe set the timer for 20 minutes so you have a good amount of time to, to really get your thoughts out. And especially as a great thing to do if you having a lot of these negative thoughts or you’re really angry at someone and you’re just, it just seems like you’re angry at them, then you should be, something’s just really getting you off your, um, your healthy state of balance. Then just take this piece of paper, take a pen, set the timer for 20 minutes and write, just keep writing anything and everything. It doesn’t matter if they’re negative thoughts. You can write it in the form of a letter if you want. You can write a letter to yourself. You can write a letter to somebody else and you write down everything that’s in your head. Just let it all out. Don’t try and censor it. Don’t try and stop it. Just write everything down. Here’s the thing though, I don’t want you to read it. Don’t read what you wrote. Just keep writing. Keep writing until the 20 minutes is up. Don’t read it because this is you releasing all these negative thoughts and ideas and all these misbeliefs and negative thought patterns. You’re just releasing that and maybe have pages and pages of it and after you’re done with that, then burn it because that’s a way of releasing that and amazing. It’s almost, if I think of it as kinda similar to being able to talk to to a therapist where you’re able to, to to just get these things out. But I find that this is really powerful tool because we can’t always get into our therapists. And also it’s nice to be able to do this anytime and just sit down, write it out, 20 minutes, burn it and release it. And it’s amazing how that can help shift things.

Dr. Cates: I do like to end free form writing with gratitude and maybe even some forgiveness. So if you’re noticing there was a lot of negative talk either directed to yourself or someone else, then you can write down some positive forgiveness. I forgive myself for believing blank or I forgive so and so for whatever it is and just do write down some forgiveness. A lot of times it comes back to our own personal growth and so a lot of that forgiveness is really ourselves forgiving ourselves for buying into a misbelief. So think about that and how you can do some forgiveness work, right? Those, those things down. You can also burn that if you want.

Dr. Cates: And then write down some gratitude, some wins, some learning, some positive things, and that’s what you can write down in a journal that you keep. Those are the things that you want to keep and maintain and and keep that positive focus. It’s amazing when you, when you are grateful, when you’re thankful for things, even if it’s something small, maybe I am so grateful that the sun is shining today. I’m so thankful that I woke up and got to work. I am so grateful that my kids are healthy. Whatever it is. It can be something smaller, could be something really big, but when you have gratitude, it pushes out some of the negative, I think of it as a lot of times when I talked to my patients about healthy eating, when I tell them, a lot of times I’ll tell them, just eat more vegetables because if you’re eating more vegetables, you’re eating more good stuff. You’re probably going to be cutting out some of the bad stuff because it’s gonna push out the bad stuff. You’re not going to want it as much. It’s kind of the same thing with these kinds of techniques of doing the gratitude. Because if you have the gratitude, it’s going to push out. It’s hard to have negative thoughts when you’re feeling grateful. So, uh, so here’s the biggest takeaway. If you need help, go get help. Ask for help. Ask your friends, ask your family, find a good therapist to talk to. Find a doctor who can help you get to the root cause of why you’re depressed, why you’re anxious, why you’re having these negative thoughts. And whether that is working with the functional medicine doctor in nature, physician or a medical doctor. Maybe it’s your primary care doctor. Just fine some help, get some support. Start moving in that direction and start doing some things that support you. What is your self care routine? You need self care.

Dr. Cates: You can’t take care of other people. I know you’re taking care of other people. You’re probably taking care of kids or other family members. Maybe you’re taking care of your parents or you’re, there are other people in your family and your friends that you’re taking care of. Maybe you’re a carer caregiver. And you’re taking care of people. You can’t do that as well if you don’t first have some self care. So find time for yourself, pamper yourself, don’t, don’t feel guilty about it. You’re doing this so you can help other people. So you can show up better in the world. You can be a better parent, you can be a better coworker, you can be a better spouse, you can be all those things that you want to be even better. If you’ve set up some time for self care and that is healthy, eating a good night’s sleep, getting outdoors, getting some exercise, moving your body, build your community, find your network, find your people where you feel supported.

Dr. Cates: And so that’s what I want to recommend for you today. Do your gratitude journal, do some of these things. You can also refer to like clean mind section of my book, clean skin from within for some more ideas. So I hope you enjoyed this little episode of The Spa Dr. Podcast, and for future episodes, you can go to thespadr.com and sign up for the podcast so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. And you can also take the skin quiz if you haven’t already. Go to theskinquiz.com and join us on social media, on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and join the conversation there. We always love to see your reviews of the podcast on iTunes or wherever you like to watch podcasts. And I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.