Tag Archives: depression

Getting through the tough times

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Melissa Killeen

As a recovery coach, I often see my clients need some help getting through the tough times, without using drugs, picking up a drink or acting out. Recently, I personally encountered some rough patches in my own life, so I went to my library of recovery books. Reading books on recovery is an import tool I use regularly in my practice. Several years ago, I was curious about Buddhist recovery, so I became an avid reader of the books by Pema Chodron.

Pema Chodron Celebrates 80 Years

Pema Chodron, is a Buddhist nun, she was born in 1936, in New York City, and is celebrating her 80^th year. After a divorce, in her mid-thirties, Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Buddhist teacher Lama Chime Rinpoche, and she studied with him for several years. She became a novice Buddhist nun in 1974. Pema moved to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1984, to be the director of Gampo Abbey and worked to establish a place to teach the Buddhist monastic traditions (waking before sunrise, chanting scriptures, daily chores, communal meals and providing blessings for the laity). In Nova Scotia and through the Chodron Foundation, she works with others, sharing her ideas and teachings. She has written several books, and in my time of deep spiritual need, I went to her book “When Things Fall Apart”.

Drawn from traditional Buddhist wisdom, Pema’s radical and compassionate advice for what to do when things fall apart in our lives helped me. There is not only one approach to suffering that is of lasting benefit, Pema teaches several approaches that involve moving toward the painful situation and relaxing us to realize the essential groundlessness of our situation. It is in this book, I discovered a simple breathing exercise I can use during these chaotic times so I can move into a better space. Pema advocates this tool as a breathing exercise, although this exercise could also be considered a mindful meditation.

I use Chodron’s tool whenever and wherever life hits me below the belt. I share this tool with my clients. It is all about breathing and consciously repeating words to yourself to accompany the breathing. Since we breathe every day, it is indiscernible whether you are using this tool as you travel on the bus commuting home from work, in a conference room with your boss, or when you are feeling low and want to curl up in a ball and die.

Breathe

Pema explains in her book, when things get way too complicated; step back and breathe. When the force of the world, the politics of the U.S., Great Britain or Italy start weighing heavily on your mind, breathe. When you look at all the pain around you and feel powerless to do anything, breathe.

Pema explains, inhale and say silently to yourself breathe in the pain, then exhale and say breathe out relief. Then, inhale, and say silently to yourself breathe in the relief, and exhale and say breathe out the pain. I find I need about 15 minutes of conscious breathing in this way. After doing this, I find I have new energy or something else crosses my path to move me into a different space.

If I continue to be in that negative space of worry or feeling powerless, then absolutely nothing will be accomplished that day. I know we all have something to accomplish every day, whether it is just getting out of bed, taking a shower and brushing our teeth or running a Fortune 500 company, this exercise gets us from zero to ten in fifteen minutes. Chodron’s exercise moves me to the space I need to be in, so I can function. It is what I need.

So, I invite you to try this simple exercise…and remember…keep breathing.

Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery Posts, alcohol, Alcoholism, body image, Drug Abuse, Family Dynamics, Gambling, Health, internet addiction disorder, love addiction, mental health, Opioid addiction, Parents, Pornography, pornography addiction, Relapse, relationships, Research, Sex Addiction, Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Loss, Sponsor, Uncategorized | Tagged addiction, addiction recovery coaching training, alcoholism, Buddhism, Buddhist Nun, Cape Breton Nova Scotia, Chodron Foundation, depression, Gampo Abbey, Melissa Killeen, Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart | Comments Off

Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

Posted on August 20, 2015 by Melissa Killeen

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being. The study is a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego[i].

More than 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) members who underwent a comprehensive physical examination were also asked to provide detailed information about their childhood experience of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. The initial phase of the ACE Study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente from 1995 to 1997. More than 17,000 participants completed a standardized physical examination and an ACE survey. No further participants will be enrolled, but the study group is tracking the medical status of the baseline participants.

The ACE Study findings suggest that certain experiences are major risk factors for the leading causes of illness, including addiction, leading to poor quality of life, as well as death. It is critical to understand how some of the worst health and social problems in our nation can arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences. Realizing these connections is likely to improve efforts towards prevention and recovery.

Compared to persons with no adverse childhood experiences, the risk of heavy drinking, self-reported alcoholism, and marrying an alcoholic were increased twofold to fourfold by the presence of multiple adverse childhood experiences, regardless of parental alcoholism. Subsequent reviews of the study found that the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and treatment of persons affected by adverse childhood experiences may reduce the occurrence of adult alcohol problems[ii]. Adverse childhood experiences seem to account for one-half to two-thirds of serious problems with drug misuse by adolescents[iii].

Children in alcoholic households are more likely to have Adverse Childhood Experiences. The risk of alcoholism and depression in adulthood increases as the number of reported adverse experiences increases. Depression among adult children of alcoholics appears to be largely, if not solely, due to the greater likelihood of having had Adverse Childhood Experiences in a home with alcohol-abusing parents[iv].

Clearly, children that have experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse in their early childhood are at a severe risk for addiction. To show you how small an amount of abuse is needed to tip the scales of raising a healthy child or an at risk child, read the last series of questions from the ACE Questionnaire, which are highly revealing questions.

Did a parent or other adult in the household swear at you, insult you, put you down or humiliate you?
Did a parent or other adult in the household push, grab, slap, or throw something at you?
Did you often or very often feel that no one in your family looked out for each other, no one felt close to or supported each other?[v]

This survey gives you an idea how delicate and impressionable a young child is.

For a sample of the ACE Questionnaire, click on this link: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/questionnaires.html

References used in this blog:

[i] ^{^[i]} “The Relationship of Adult Health Status to Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction“, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 1998, Volume 14, pages 245–258.

And

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html

[ii] Addict Behav. 2002 Sep-Oct;27(5):713-25.

Adverse childhood experiences and personal alcohol abuse as an adult.

Dube SR¹, Anda RF, Felitti VJ, Edwards VJ, Croft JB.

[iii] Pediatrics. 2003 Mar;111(3):564-72.

Childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction and the risk of illicit drug use: the adverse childhood experiences study.

Dube SR¹, Felitti VJ, Dong M, Chapman DP, Giles WH, Anda RF.

[iv] Psychiatr Serv. 2002 Aug;53(8):1001-9.

Adverse childhood experiences, alcoholic parents, and later risk of alcoholism and depression.

Anda RF¹, Whitfield CL, Felitti VJ, Chapman D, Edwards VJ, Dube SR, Williamson DF.

[v] Center for Disease Control web site

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/questionnaires.html

Posted in Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Family Dynamics, Research | Tagged Adverse Childhood Experiences, alcoholic parents, Anda RF, Anda RF1, Chapman D, Childhood abuse, Croft JB., depression, Dube SR, Dube SR1, Edwards VJ, Felitti VJ, household dysfunction, http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/questionnaires.html, neglect, risk of alcoholism, risk of illicit drug use, Whitfield CL, Williamson DF | Comments Off

I am hungry — Why I can’t make good decisions when I am hungry

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Melissa Killeen

Melissa Killeen

Hungry people are often difficult to deal with. Ask any waiter how pleasant a patron can be when they have been waiting over thirty minutes for a table. A good meal can affect more than our mood; it can also influence our willingness to take risks. Research proves that the willingness of many animals to take risks increases or declines depending on whether the animal is hungry or full. For example, a predator only hunts more dangerous prey when it is close to starvation.

Three studies have been released, recently, that look into the behavior of hungry people. Well, the first study deals with fruit flies, but eventually researchers will get to conduct this study using real people. A team of scientists led by Dr Grunwald-Kadow at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, in Martinsried, Germany, studied the behavior of hungry fruit flies. It was found that fruit flies have an instinctive fear of carbon dioxide, which they normally associate with danger even at low levels, because it kills them (a very healthy fear, don’t you think?). We all know that the fruit flies’ favorite food is rotting fruit. However, rotting fruit releases large amounts of carbon dioxide gas. So why do the flies want to eat rotting fruit? This fact lead researchers to explore the conflict between the regions of the fruit flies‘ nervous system, which was instructing the flies to get away from the fruit and the region of the flies’ brain which was telling them to sit down and eat, essentially to ignore the dangers of the CO2! These fruit flies are obviously risking death in order to eat. Being hungry shifts decision-making to a different part of the brain, bypassing the natural fight-or-flight reflex, which suggests there is an inherited instinct in other areas of the brain that was controlling the flies’ decision-making.

“The hungry flies continued to eat despite the presence of carbon dioxide, confirming that the brain was happy to trade off risk instinctively with the advantage of getting a square meal,” Dr Grunwald-Kadow explained. Now how does this effect a 180-pound human? Well, hunger is not always just sitting down and having a triple cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate shake at Wendy’s. Although making a decision to have a triple cheese burger when it could affect your risk of high cholesterol or heart disease is similar to a fruit fly eating rotten fruit. The chances are the fly will die sooner than you will. So, let’s look at another hunger. The hunger of addiction.

Yale researchers were focusing their attention on the brain’s reward circuits located in the midbrain to develop treatments for metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes. Funny, they were in working on diabetes and obesity research, and they came up with an interesting angle of interest in ‘novelty’ or risky behavior and stimulating behavior, also known as drug use. Yale School of Medicine researcher Marcelo O. Dietrich has found that increased appetite for food can actually be associated with a decreased interest in drugs. On the other hand, less interest in food can predict increased interest in cocaine. How many times have I thought: “I am hungry, but I don’t want to eat, because I want to lose weight, so I’ll smoke a cigarette?” The same reward circuits are working here. Can you see this thought working for you: “Boy, I have to work late to get this report done; I don’t have time to go out to grab dinner, let me do a line to pick me up until I am finished?” An interesting look at risk versus reward. Risk is completely ignored when the reward is food or drugs.

Finally, let’s think about how angry we get when we are hungry. Ohio State Researcher, Brad Bushman, presented his research at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2013. His Hangry Study (or the hungry-people-are-cranky-people study) provided couples with blood glucose monitors and voodoo dolls, and then instructed each partner to take their blood sugar in the morning and evening. Each person was then told to take their voodoo doll every night and stick pins in it, representing how angry they were with their partner on a scale of 0 – 51. Zero pins meant no anger at all, while 51 pins was, well, a bit more than just angry!

The researchers found that even when controlling a number of variables like overall relationship satisfaction, the people with lower blood sugar stuck their voodoo dolls with more pins. So Dr. Bushman fed them. And like magic, their blood sugar was elevated and they mellowed out.

Bushman speculated that this study could prove blood sugar is a possible factor in domestic violence – although I think that is a stretch. But have you ever yelled at a waiter? Yes. Thrown a plate at them? No, unless alcohol is involved. So research proves that if you are having a discussion with your boss about a conflict situation, make sure it is not just before lunch or after 3:00pm, and that you are well fed.

These studies all overlap with one result: Don’t make any decisions when you’re hungry.

Isn’t it wonderful knowing that HALT (hungry, angry, lonely and tired) has some real scientific underpinnings?

This blog was based on the following research:

Dr. Grunwald-Kadow and Dr. Stefanie Merker, June 25, 2013, Hunger affects decision making and perception of risk,Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology Web site, Martinsried, Germany. To read more go to: http://www.mpg.de/7422218/hunger-behaviour.

Emma Innes, June, 26, 2013. Why skipping lunch could make you a liability: Hunger affects the fight-or-flight reflex and triggers ’risky behavior’. Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd, part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. To read more go to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2348930/Why-skipping-lunch-make-liability-Hunger-affects-fight-flight-reflex-triggers-risky-behaviour.html#ixzz3H6AYqTYb.

Drug Addiction and Hunger May Be Linked, June 25, 2012. Sott.net is owned and distributed by Quantum Future Group, Inc., San Francisco, CA. Quantum Future Group, Inc. is a registered 501 (c) (3) nonprofit U.S. corporation, and Sott.net (Signs of the Times) is a research and news project of QFG. To read more go to: http://www.sott.net/article/247134-Drug-Addiction-and-Hunger-May-Be-Linked

Charlotte H Anderson,Do You Get “H-Angry”? Science Says Hungry-Angry is Legit [Plus: 11 More Funny Food-Emotions] April 15, 2014. The Great Fitness Experiment.com, the personal blog of Charlotte H Anderson. To read more go to:
http://www.thegreatfitnessexperiment.com/2014/04/do-you-get-hangry-science-says-hungry-angry-is-legit-plus-10-more-funny-food-emotions.html.

Jeff Grabmeier, April 14, 14, Lashing Out at Your Spouse? Check Your Blood Sugar- Study finds that ‘hangry’ husbands and wives get more aggressive.The Ohio State University Research and Innovation Communications Web site, Office of Media and Public Relations, Columbus, OH. To read more go to: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/hangryspouse.htm.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged angry, depression, eating, hungry, Lonely, tired | Comments Off