• Don’t Click Here

cultural atheist

~ Rejecting the gods of our culture since 1998.

cultural atheist

Tag Archives: mental health

The Sinister Mind

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by braddahr in Beginnings, Inspiration, recovery

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

COME2LIFE, emotional health, Freedom, life, mental health, Peace, recovery, Shame

One of the hats I wear is co-founder and coordinator for COME2LIFE. COME2LIFE engages youth in emotional health conversations, inviting them to experience help, hope & healing. Our signature workshop is called, The Butterfly Effect, a two hour, interactive, presentation that gets us talking about what causes our emotional health to be in chaos.

Recently, we had the honour of presenting The Butterfly Effect to 120+ grade 7, 8, and 9 students. We’ve got a lot of positive response from the youth but a few days later, one of them sent us this poem. She said we could share it.

The Sinister Mind
By Taylor P.

When I am alone, my thoughts tear me apart
Ripping at my heart it does
I am sick of feeling this way, my words are completely numb
“Please make it stop.¨ I say, tears flow as my thoughts scream louder and louder
The pain is deafening, fear and dread rip through my veins
Shame and guilt are words that rip and tear at my slipping sanity like wild dogs
Shove happy pills down my throat, I don’t care
I want my needless hurt to stop
I don’t want to sink further under, stones tied to my ankles
I don’t want to feel miles of shame for things I’ve never done
I want to be happy, calm, at peace
I don’t want to feel comfort by taking sharp metal to my scarred skin
My eyes burn red, my mouth feels dry
I want to sleep, I don’t want to eat
I want to be okay

As I make my way through the dark
I see a light, a placid light
The light caresses my face and brushes through my hair
It’s feather soft to the touch
It engulfs my body, covering every crevasse and every space
It wraps around the miles of skin that I possess
It’s warm and sweet and suddenly I am okay
Suddenly the light has returned in my eyes
For the first time in a long time, I am at peace
No more shame, no more guilt
The burden of being miserable is gone
The ache of being me is gone
The mirror is no longer an enemy
The demons that lurk in my mind remain nothing but ashes
The monsters that hide in my world are now the fuel that makes me stronger
As the wounds turn to scars, this battle was won
I made it through the grenades of doubt and the bullets of hate
I am free at last.

 

 

 

 

10 Questions for Better Health – Part 2

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Chiropractor, exercise, healing, health, mental health, recovery, witch doctor

As part of my health and wellness journey, also know as “the keep Brad sane plan,” I check in with physiotherapists, chiropractors, and massage therapists and ask them to perform their magic on me. Since moving to our new location, I have become a patient, and dare I say friend, of Dr. Shenaigh Newman (on Twitter @drshenaigh) a chiropractor who practices at ChiroCare Centre in Edmonton.

I tease Dr. Newman about being my witch doctor but I have really appreciated her help with a handful of injuries I have had. I like how she’s patient focused, doesn’t take herself too seriously, and she laughs at my jokes. Recently, I had the crazy idea that I would interview her about being healthy and share her answers with all of you so that we can both become internet famous.

These are the last five of ten questions. You should read the first five if you missed them.

BD: Let’s say I’m not injured, should I come see you anyway?

SN: I am a firm believer in something called “maintenance care.” Most of my patients live very active lifestyles either at work or at home and in order to continue doing what they love, they find that seeing me every month or so can really enhance their performance or help them stay pain-free. For example, I have a patient who used to get migraines once a week. Once she started to see me the migraines went away. She now comes in every six weeks for preventative treatment and no longer gets migraines. Once she missed an appointment because she was sick and the next week, her migraine returned. Now this doesn’t mean that every patient would respond like this but it is what this patient has found works for her.

I also find that if I am seeing someone on a fairly regular basis then if they do get injured somehow, then they tend to respond to the treatment quicker than if I hadn’t seen them in awhile. For patients like you that are really active, I find that they benefit from seeing me every few weeks so I can check how everything is moving and help prevent injury if there is some dysfunction building that may cause pain in the future.

BD: If someone wanted to fight crime, what key exercises should they do? I’m asking for a friend.

SN: Not the Superman! A superhero requires a lot of strength and stamina so focus on any exercises that work the muscles while giving them a good cardio workout as well.

BD: Do you see different injuries between men and women? What can we learn from each other?

SN: I find that traditionally women come in a lot sooner than men do when they start feeling pain. I’ll usually need less treatments with women because they’re not as bad as when the men come in. Women also usually listen better and will do the education or rehab exercises I prescribe them. Usually my male patients come in with an acute pain (from shovelling or lifting something at work) where they cannot move and their wife made them come in or I see them with chronic pain (usually from doing something at the gym) and their wife was sick of hearing their husband complain and they make them come in. Either way, they’re usually really happy when I can help them out!

BD: As a patient, how can I make your life easier?

SN: Referrals always help! Also reviewing me and the clinic on Google and Facebook would be awesome. The best form of advertising is word-of-mouth! I really love what I do and want to be able to help as many people as I possibly can.

BD: When you become a rich and famous chiropractor, do you think that will change you?

SN: Of course. Mansions and Ferrari’s all around. Haha! But honestly- I went into this profession to help people, not make money so I hope that I can continue to do that throughout my career.

giphy-3

I hope this interview was helpful as you pursue your journey towards health and wellness.

10 Questions for Better Health

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in health, Observations, recovery

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Chiropractor, exercise, healing, health, mental health, witch doctor

As part of my health and wellness journey, also know as “the keep Brad sane plan,” I check in with physiotherapists, chiropractors, and massage therapists and ask them to perform their magic on me. Since moving to our new location, I have become a patient, and dare I say friend, of Dr. Shenaigh Newman (on Twitter @drshenaigh) a chiropractor who practices at ChiroCare Centre in Edmonton.

I tease Dr. Newman about being my witch doctor but I have really appreciated her help with a handful of injuries I have had. I like how she’s patient focused, doesn’t take herself too seriously, and she laughs at my jokes. Recently, I had the crazy idea that I would interview her about being healthy and then share her answers with all of you so that we can both become internet famous.

These are the first five of ten questions.

BD: If you knew you were going to reach millions of readers through my blog, what’s the most important thing you would want them to know?

SN: Motion is lotion! Movement is so important for the body. We were made to move. I don’t care how you do it, just get out and move. Walk, run, swim, crawl; at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you do, just move. Our body was never made to stay in one position for long but for some reason that’s exactly what we force the body to do. Whether it’s sitting, standing, lying down- we should never stay in one position for long. I recommend my patients to try and change positions or move around every fifteen minutes; setting an alarm on their phone always helps!

BD: If I could do only one exercise what should it be?

SN: The forearm plank. It is such a simple exercise but it works basically your entire body from head to toe. Primarily, this exercise works the erector spinae muscles in your back and the rectus abdominis and transversus abdominis in your front, all of which are a large majority of your core musculature that is important to strengthen in order to prevent lower back pain. Secondarily, this exercise also recruits stabilizing muscles to help hold your body in that position. Some examples of stabilization muscles that are activated in the plank are the trapezius, rhomboids, the rotator cuff muscles, deltoids, pectoralis muscles, gluteus maximus, hamstrings, and quadriceps. When doing this exercise, it is important to ensure that your entire back is flat and that your elbows are in line with your shoulders. Initially, I give my patients the goal of holding the exercise for thirty seconds.Once they can hold this with no problem I will introduce a few more advanced moves to keep it interesting.

BD: I use weights, run, swim, and bike, and sometimes do yoga. What are the three things I must do to ensure I can still walk when I am older?

SN: It is actually quite smart to do such a variety of exercises because each and every one of them works a different part of your body to form a well-rounded complete workout routine. Some important things to remember to ensure that you will be able to continue this lifestyle for years to come are as follows:

1) It is important to continue to listen to your body throughout your workouts and make sure that you are adequately resting. If your body tells you to stop then listen to it. There’s nothing wrong with taking a few days off to rest because it’s better than having to take weeks or months off due to injury.

2) Ensure that you are properly fueling your body with all the nutrients you need including drinking enough water throughout the day and during your workouts.

3) Warming up and cooling down before and after your workouts are just as important to do as the workout itself. You are more prone to injury when your muscles aren’t warm. It is more important to spend an extra five minutes to prevent an injury down the line.

BD: What are three popular exercises people consistently do wrong and end up hurting themselves?

SN: I’m a huge fan of doing exercises either with free weights, resistance bands, or bodyweight only. You’ll notice I didn’t mention weight machines most commonly found at the gym. Although these machines are good for beginners, they usually only exercise a specific muscle while letting all other muscles take a back seat. I’ll admit when I first started working out at the gym and didn’t know better I just rotated from machine to machine because that’s what I thought was best. But now that I know better I find much better results and less injury using free weights and body weight for most of my exercises. I also find that with a machine, the muscle is only worked in one way and is not necessarily worked in a way that is functional or in the way that we need the muscle to work in our day-to-day life.

Seated Knee Extension/Flexion: This is a popular exercise used to work our quadriceps/hamstrings however when the weight is high and the knees are in full extension it places stress on the knee joint. The knee joint isn’t designed for this type of shearing stress at higher weights and you can end up injuring the knee. You can work out the quadriceps just as well with basic squats and lunges, add some weight or some plyometric jumps and you should be good to go.

giphy-2Inner and Outer Thigh Machine: Here’s another popular machine used at the gym that just needs to go! This machine works the adductors (inner thigh muscles) and the abductors (outer thigh muscles) in two separate ways. My biggest issue with this machine is the fact that it does not strengthen the muscle in a functional way… I mean how often are you doing this action in your day-to-day life? It is very important to strengthen these muscles as they are important stabilizing muscles for our hips but there are much better ways to strengthen them. You can do standing or lying adduction and abduction exercises with resistance bands or just the weight of your leg or do lateral lunges or skater squats for a more difficult workout.

BD: If you could wave a magic wand and make fitness trainers and exercise promoters stop teaching people to do three popular exercises, which three would they be and why?

SN: Hovering Leg Lifts: This exercise requires you to lie down on your back and lift your legs straight off the floor to hover a few inches off of the ground. The primary goal of this exercise is to work the abs, which it does, but at the cost of placing a huge amount of stress on the lower back which can cause injury. There are many other ways to work your abdominal muscles without loading the low back that should be used instead.

Superman: This one is a classic, I’ve seen it in so many pilates and yoga classes and it is so frustrating! I had a professor one time call this the “spine crusher” because at the base anatomic level, that’s exactly what it is doing. If you think about it, by raising the legs and the arms all of the weight is getting concentrated to your lower back and overtime it can lead to lower back pain. Although it is fun to pretend you are a superhero there are many other alternatives to avoid hurting your back.

Upright rows: This exercise requires you to lift a barbell with your hands close together and bring your hands up under your chin. I find many of my patients get shoulder pain while doing these because the exercise bangs the humerus against the acromion compressing the AC joint. Depending on how much space is in the shoulder, it can compress nerves and damage the cartilage in the AC joint. Instead of this exercise, try bent-over rows by bending forward 90 degrees at the hip and holding the weight down with hands a little more than shoulder width apart. Then lift the weight straight up towards your chest so your elbows and shoulders form a straight line. This puts less load on the AC joint which helps prevent injury and degeneration in the shoulder joint.

Check my next post for her answers to my last five questions.

*Check this out: I found Dr. Newman because she started handling the Twitter account for the clinic which happens to be walking distance from our home. I recall she liked something I wrote so I figured she must be a quality person.  Anyway, I made an appointment and started going to see her a couple times a month. A few weeks ago, I was being poked, prodded, and twisted by her and we were chatting about life stuff. Long story short, it turns out her good friend’s parents, her second mom, is my wife’s best friend from Yellowknife!  How random is that?!?  

Typical Work Out Week

06 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, health, Observations, recovery

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

depression, exercise, fitness, healing, health, help, hope, mental health, race, reoovery, spin class, strength, swimming, triathlon, weights, yoga

Have you transformed yourself; became something you weren’t before? My last few posts have been about how between 2012 and continuing through today, I went through a transformation. I was overweight and out of shape with bad blood test results, badly depressed, and a mostly inactive person.

img_2581

I have become a lighter, more fit, mildly depressed, fairly active triathlete! If you missed my other posts, you can check out how I started, my first big goal, and then what I did to stay motivated.

img_2030

So how does an elite triathlete train for optimum race day performance? I don’t know. Honestly, I really just want to be sexy, less depressed and finish races at least mid-way or higher in my age group.  I’m happy if I can improve with each race. All I can tell you is what works for me. If you’re starting out, I hope you take care, do that doctor check in thing that nobody does, and always remember that results vary.

giphy-3

The following is what I usually plan for each week. Sometimes I change it up or take a rest day when I don’t get enough sleep – sleep is critical for recovery! Sometimes my work requires meeting or events that mean I have to shift around workouts.

Swim:

  • Day 1 – Long course up to 2.5km.
  • Day 2 – Intervals or Fast 50’s as I like to call them.
  • Day 3 – Longer swim mixed with kick sets

Bike:

  • Spin Class – at least 2x a week.

Run:

  • Treadmill for 30 minutes – walk on incline to warm up then run at 6.5mph for 2-3 minutes, then walk for 1 minute then repeat.

Strength:

  • Day 1: Upper Body
  • Day 2: Lower Body
  • Day 3: Upper + Lower Body
  • Essentials and Core Exercises – 2 times a week

Most of the time, I am done and on to my usual day before 10 am. My work time is usually 11-9. In upcoming posts, I’ll give more details on my workouts and diet.

gwn-2016-finish

(I want to give a shout out to Shay-lon, a fitness enthusiast, trainer, and blogger living in the USA (but don’t hold that against her). I follow her blog and occasionally give her a hard time. She bugged me to write about this stuff even though it’s not my usual focus. I’ve enjoyed the process and now, when I die, there is a record for posterity.)

 

 

Blame the Survivor

23 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Observations, recovery

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Abuse, emotional health, mental health, narcissists, recovery, relationships

Has this ever happened to you?

Check out Shannon Thomas’ book, “Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.” (By the way, I don’t have any connection to Ms. Thomas other than I am reading her book and following her on Facebook and I believe I encountered and was attacked by a narcissist.)

The Butterfly Effect

06 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by braddahr in Observations, recovery, Spirituality

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

emotional health, healing, help, hope, mental health, workshop, youth

I am really excited to announce that I am working with a team of youth and young adults to present a workshop called The Butterfly Effect: Help, Hope, and Healing When Life is Chaos on November 5.

The Butterfly Effect will teach spiritual, emotional, and relational tools to youth and young adults aged 15 to 25 years so they can develop resiliency, strength, and healthy responses when faced with emotional injuries. The best part about this ministry is that it was initiated by youth for youth!

Basically, I’m just bragging!

butterflyeffect10

BeautyBeyondBones – A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by braddahr in Observations, Spirituality

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Faith, healing, mental health, physical health, recovery

Here’s another powerful post by BeautyBeyondBones that includes a new video post. The the time, it’s worth it.

 

Well guys, I officially cannot believe I’m doing this. Seriously. I’m sitting here thinking about it, and I’m like… Yep. That pretty much sums it up. In case you missed the title, I’m sharing a photo with you from my past. When I was in the throes. The video says it all…why I haven’t previously shared […]

via Sharing a Photo of my Past — BeautyBeyondBones

It’s Like Cancer

20 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by braddahr in Observations

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cancer, mental health, mental illness, recovery, self-care, stigma

At a recent event I attended, a multi-Ironman triathlete shared his story about the colon cancer that has drastically changed his life. He was having multiple health issues and not sure why. Once he was finally diagnosed he was scheduled for surgery. He said that after surgery, the doctor said he has a cancer that’s not removable or curable. The only way he would live is if he followed a strict chemo treatment regimen.

I’m sure most of us would struggle with such news. He did too, but then he realized it was actually good news. He now knew what he had to do to stay alive.

Mental health struggles are like cancer. The affect us emotionally and physically – they eat us up from the inside out. Not only is the struggle itself difficult, it’s bathed in stigma leading to shame and even self-contempt.

The good news is, as we increase awareness and understanding of our mental health needs, we can hear the doctor’s orders as a positive – if we daily take our “medicine” we will stay alive. Of course, what the medicine is, varies person to person but treatment, good supports, and ongoing physical and mental self-care are key components.  It’s not easy but the more intentional we are at taking our medicine, the more we can move forward with hope.

Zombies and You 

10 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by braddahr in Observations

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

boundaries, brains, care, family, Love, mental health, plague, safe, zombies

Unless you live in a cultural wasteland, you know that zombies are fairly popular these days. As long as there’s money to be made, the genre will continually be dragged out of the grave and reanimated. Yes, that was a pun and I will not apologize.

The general premise of zombies is, a person is dead but for some reason has come back to “life” and now roams around mindlessly. Even though they don’t seem to require oxygen, water, food, or even significant parts of their body to continue moving about, they have the need to attack and eat really living people. Yeah, that part makes no sense to me, either. Zombies are pretty relentless so they generally wreak havoc is some form or another. While getting eaten by a zombie is a fairly horrible experience, so I’m told, getting bit by a zombie is the worst because if your brain isn’t destroyed you will eventually become a zombie, too.*

Nobody wants to get attacked and eaten or turned into a zombie but the most tragic part of any zombie story is when a loved one becomes a zombie. This is heartbreaking, a huge loss that often leaves the survivor traumatized, grief-stricken, and lonely. Even though the practical course is to put the zombified loved one down, like one would a diseased or badly injured animal, who can do that to mom, dad, sibling, child or spouse?  The problem is, zombies are out of their minds so they don’t have the capacity to care or love. It’s not that they are evil or personally against you; it’s just that they are driven to cause destruction. Many a foolish person has had ideas that they can save their zombie loved ones or keep them close by until a cure can be found. This always ends in disaster for the caring person (and anyone else within 200 meters) – see above “attacked and eaten.” In a zombie situation, it’s best to have some sort of barrier between you and the zombified loved one as well as some strong tools to fend off their attack should they undermine your barriers.

Now get this… On your journey towards being real and healthy sometimes you will discover that those you are close to are “zombies.” Perhaps they aren’t emotionally healthy or, due to their own upbringing, don’t have the capacity to love and care for you as your recovery progresses. Surprised by your struggle, they could be in the grip of shame and feeling like a failure and now unable to cope or be compassionate. They could simply be ignorant, misinformed or ill-equipped concerning your struggles towards being a real person.

Whatever the reason behind their zombie behaviour, you need to lovingly set up barriers, aka boundaries, between yourself and your zombified loved ones. You must establish safeguards for your own mental health and continued journey towards real life. And just in case your zombies break through your barriers, you need to have tools at the ready to protect yourself until you can get back to safety.

I know t’s hard work to be real and the journey can seem lonely. Sometimes you might even think it would be okay to be around zombies rather than be by yourself. Please remember, even if a zombie is a loved one, you still need to protect your brains.
*I’m sure there are all sorts of nuances to the zombie mythology that I have overlooked or even disrespected but before you get mad at me, please remember that we’re talking about zombies.

The Value of Mental Health Awareness

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by braddahr in Observations

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

mental health, mental illness

Check out this great post by Steve Rose. “When we recognize that the underlying issue is not simply poor character, weak-will, or immorality, we come to see mental health the same way we see physical health. ”

In recent years, the concept of mental health has gained traction, helping to reduce the stigma. As Canada observes Mental Health Awareness Week, I want to contribute to the conversation by considering why awareness is so important. After all, what does awareness get us? Does simply having everyone aware of something solve real problems? I […]
http://steveroseblog.com/2016/05/03/the-value-of-mental-health-awareness/

← Older posts

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 325 other subscribers

Categories

  • Beginnings
  • Discovery
  • health
  • Inspiration
  • Observations
  • questions
  • Rants
  • recovery
  • relationships
  • Sarcasm
  • Shared Post
  • Spirituality
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • January 2021
  • March 2020
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • cultural atheist
    • Join 325 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • cultural atheist
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...