Emotional health comes before mental health.

This is the extended* article, first published in the York Press on Tuesday, November 21st, 2017.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/15668617.COLUMN__Control_your_emotions_or_they_will_control_you/

On Friday November 10th, I attended the Yorkshire Soroptimists’ Safeguarding Conference in Leeds.  I had been asked to speak on emotional health. That's not quite correct. I had been asked to speak on mental health. I changed the wording. The organisers had hoped to have a speaker from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Unfortunately the service is under resourced and couldn't spare anyone.  It was sad to hear that this is still the situation in 2017 and well publicised as a nationwide problem. 

It was due to the waiting times for help, that led me to open the York Practice in 2001. *A mother with a teenage child in Cumbria, had telephoned my training institute in Sussex for help. Her child had made an unsuccessful suicide attempt and there was no immediate support or help available. My tutor contacted me and newly qualified I was initially reluctant to help, especially as it was a long way to go from York. In the end I made several visits to Cumbria and a little later, they visited me in York at the practice I had then opened. Recovery took time and I didn't hear anything for many years. I'm pleased to report that I was contacted after the book was published and they were doing well.  

Having passed the practice to colleagues in 2010, I contacted them to find out whether the situation had improved from 2001. Sadly not. I was told that desperate parents are still seeking private help for their distressed children, due to the long waiting times for CAMHS. Another colleague from the West Midlands, who works for the NSPCC, also told me that due to the lack of resources from CAMHS, the local NSPCC are piloting a project for adults, "to provide better pastoral support for kids languishing on CAMHS waiting lists."

One of the conference speakers was from a West Yorkshire Multi-Agency Safeguarding Unit. She agreed with me, when I said that the majority of mental health problems start as emotional health problems and if not managed in their initial stages, can become mental health problems. We agreed that there was a stigma attached to the word 'mental', but not so much to 'emotional'. Then I heard something shocking. If the agencies do not use the word 'mental' to describe a problem, only ‘emotional’, there is no help available. The door is closed, often with challenging *and life-threatening consequences. If a problem has been diagnosed as a Mental Health problem, it is easier for it to become medicalised and medicated.

* I spoke to a charity director last Saturday from Snowdrop Project.  snowdropproject.co.uk The charity mainly works with girls who have been trafficked into sex work, domestic slavery, cannabis growing and other abusive practices. She also agreed that the word 'mental health' has to be used, to enable access to other services, although in many cases, it's the emotional needs which need addressing.  

The writer Daniel Goleman coined the expression, ‘Emotional Hijack’ when writing on Emotional Intelligence in the 1990s. It’s a perfect description of those times when our emotions rise to a level that inhibits clear thinking and there is an emotional hijack of our thoughts and behaviours.  At the root of the majority of depressive thinking, anxiety problems and addictive behaviours is an ‘emotional hijack’. Emotional maturity brings the ability to take control, not lose it. We can learn to understand our emotions, what has triggered them and our subsequent thinking, perhaps with help from a professional listener.  We can help ourselves take control of situations before they become out of control and an ‘emotional health’ problem develops into a ‘mental health’ problem. This approach is the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapeutic approaches.

‘Control your emotions or they will control you’ A Chinese proverb.

©AlisonRRussell2017

Taking control over the emotion of memories

This is the *extended Wellbeing column, published in the York Press on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015.

As yet, there is no link to the York Press website. No doubt due to staff on holiday.

This is the last column for 2015 and I have been asked to continue writing a monthly column in 2016, my third year of writing for York Press. So see you next year!

..........................................

“Strange how potent cheap music is.” Noel Coward.  Private Lives.

If music, cheap or otherwise, was not potent, then it wouldn't be used by advertising agencies to sell merchandise. At this time of year, we seem to be assaulted everywhere by Christmas music. Our brains block out most of it, but for many, there are one or two tunes that will ‘hijack’ our emotional brain and makes us stop and reflect on a memory that has come to mind. Perhaps our eyes become moist or we inwardly smile. Then most of us will stop the train of thought that is usually heading back into the past and get on with whatever we are doing in the present.

Personally, Chris Rea brings smiles from a warm memory, while choirs singing carols can bring tears of loss.

At home or in the car, I can listen to music of my own choosing. There is little choice elsewhere and I can be ‘emotionally hijacked’ in seconds.  The first thought cannot be helped, but there is control over the second.  If I wish to be self-indulgent and dwell in self-pity, it’s my choice. On rare occasions I will chose to continue to listen to music that makes me feel miserable, through the memories it evokes. Bittersweet memories.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is often offered to people when their thoughts and subsequent behaviours are unhelpful. People can be helped to take control and change their thoughts, internal dialogue and actions. A thought will be triggered by an emotional reaction to something sensory. A smell, sight, taste, feel or touch. I’m writing about music, but it could be anything. Sometimes it’s not an obvious memory and we can often wonder why we’ve reacted in certain ways. 

It’s this brain function that can make Christmas time such an emotional time, with its variety of sensory triggers. Many people don’t like it for that reason. It’s also a time for trying to recapture the past, which is impossible and can cause disappointment with unfulfilled expectations.

If I was granted a wish by the Christmas fairy, it would be to have the family at home, around the table on Christmas Day.  This is logistically not possible, so this year we arranged to have a pre-Christmas gathering in late autumn instead. I looked at the extended family interacting and dwelled on the ‘if onlys' and ‘what ifs’. I was living in the past. It felt sad. Then I changed my internal dialogue. If I focused my mind on the past, I was going to miss what was happening in the present. I had the opportunity to make new memories. It became a cognitive exercise, not dissimilar to Mindfulness. I changed my train of thought and enjoyed the moment. I was making new memories. I felt happier.

*Over the Christmas period, I have been 'emotionally hijacked' on many occasions.  I always had a choice of where I took the train of thoughts and what mood ensued. Sometimes I indulged myself, because a duvet of self-indulgant misery can be strangely comforting at times. But only for the short-term. 

None of us know exactly what tomorrow will bring, let alone a whole year. I wish you all the emotional strength to manage whatever comes your way, bad and good, sad and happy, despair and elation, failure and success, pain and pleasure and all the ordinariness of in between.  

Here's to 2016 with my favourite quote.

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." Helen Keller

©AlisonRRussell2015

Taking control when plans fail

This is the column that I wrote for the York Press in November.

So far this week, I have one friend who went into hospital unexpectedly, one friend's flight was diverted due to bad weather, my daughter is poorly and there's problematic snowfall in a resort that a niece is visiting. The news isn't providing much joy either. 

I read this quote from Eisenhower today, " In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensible."

I wish you all well for the next week, plans, no plans and serendipity.


http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/health/11606794.Body__Mind___Soul__Getting_that_control_back_when_people___s_plans_fail/

John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” 

Are you making plans for Christmas and perhaps 2015?

I wonder how many plans work out exactly how we thought they would? We have expectations. When these expectations are dashed, sometimes smashed into smithereens, it’s how we manage and take control of our reactions, that will help us and others affected by our behaviour. These emotional reactions range from mild disappointment, irritation, frustration, anger to life-changing, perhaps catatrosphic consequenses. 

The sooner we can come to terms with changed plans, the easier it will be. At first we may lose control, but then we can gain control. Blaming others instantly removes any self-control we may have. Continuing to blame others over a period of years can cause great unhappiness.

We all know people who appear unable to manage deviation to their plans. They are more likely to say, “such and such has ruined my day, event, life…” I suggest that we can all say that something has “changed our our lives.” because it will have done. But ruined? Only if we allow it. Changed plans can often bring new opportunities.

Another statement often heard is, “I knew that would happen.” That’s an interesting one, because it signifies that we have been mentally rehearsing a negative outcome.  A pessimist may say, ‘if I imagine the worst, then it’s a pleasant surprise when it works out okay.” My mother was one such person. As an optimist, I would tell her that I’d enjoyed imagining the best, whether it worked out or not.

I’m writing this in a quiet moment while running an information stand at a large conference.  I have a bird’s eye view of what happens when people’s plans go awry. It doesn’t always bring the best out of people. Similar behaviours can be observed at railway stations, airports and in shops. As the emotional arousal level rises in the brain, so there is a corresponding lessening of logical thinking. In situations of high emotional arousal, there is little or no access to the logical brain. We can’t think straight. Hence the term, being ‘unbalanced’. It’s why IQ (Intellengence quotient) is different from EQ (Emotional Intelligence).

Using positive visualisation of a forthcoming event can be useful, but never foolproof. I imagined postive outcomes to some major, joyful, future events last year. A sudden, major illness in the family led to a cancellation of all plans and major uncertainity on a daily basis. As well as managing the family situation, I had to manage my personal shattered dreams. It was a difficult time. I could so easily say that the family illness ruined everything, but I didn’t. Changed my plans and expectations? Certainly. Ruin them? That was in my control, so no, it didn’t.

The Greek Philosopher, Epictetus, was writing about the subject two thousand years ago.

“It not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” 

©AlisonRRussell2014

The last straw, the tip of the iceberg or some inaccurate memory matching?

A minor incident this week reduced me to tears. It was a silly misunderstanding. (How often does that happen?) The incident was insignificant, but my feelings were not.  

As ever, fascinated by how my brain was reacting, I found one part of me emoting, while another part was analysing the reasons why. Even though I wanted to justify my thoughts and behaviours as circa March 2014, I knew that deep down, this silly incident had touched a nerve. A nerve with a long root. A root that reached back to childhood. 

I felt like a wronged child. A child who had no place in the present day incident. A child (mini-me), who was trying very hard to hijack the adult.

In IT terms, I have described these emotional memory matches like a Google search. A word is put in the search engine and up comes pages of matches, most of which are quite unhelpful. Often the resulting incorrect, inaccurate or askew memory matches can lead to disabling thoughts and actions. This happens very quickly and can explain phobic and traumatic reactions.

Trying hard to keep control, rather than lose it and make matters far worse, I turned my attention to what really needed doing. I needed to catch a train. This involved a ten minute walk to the bus stop. I left the building, still upset and trying to justify my feelings. Five minutes down the road, I realised that in my emotional (trance) state I had left my handbag behind. Furious and trying not to take personal responsibility, I turned and walked quickly back, breaking into a jog at times.

I collected the bag and as I started walking again, as fast as was comfortable, to the bus stop, I realised that I didn't feel over emotional anymore and the damp eyes had dried up. Interesting. Evidence of the power of exercise and focusing on something else for ten to fifteen minutes, called a distraction technique.

My brain hemispheres had switched. My emotional brain, the amygdala, located in the right brain hemisphere stopped being in charge as the left brain hemisphere, in charge of logical thinking, took over. My emotional arousal levels lowered. I found it fascinating. Using this ability to force the hemispheres to switch is part of helping people to reduce their own levels of emotional arousal when they are unhelpful. But so often we can't be bothered to keep at it for ten to fifteen minutes. eg: Putting off the craving that accompanies addictive behaviours. In my case, I had little option.

In bygone days, before I learnt about the working of the brain, I could 'blow up' at small incidents, not understanding that really the root was about something much deeper and older. As a teenager, my daughter became used to the phrase, "this is just the straw that broke the camel's back." We laugh about it...now.  What I meant was that my head was dealing with an in-tray of varying stresses and whatever the small incident was that had happened, was the final stressor that caused overload and the brain fuse-box to blow-up.

This happens with many parents/carers and children. It's no wonder that children are bewildered when parents/carers lose the temper over something relatively small, while perhaps keeping calm over something more important.  This can be observed dramatically in cases where a child being treated aggressively by one parent/carer, verbally or physically, resembles a parent/carer who has fallen out of favour with the aggressor. It works in other person to person dynamics too.eg: workplace, schools etc:

The ten to fifteen minute trick to switch brain hemispheres and take control, can be used most effectively, if we perservere. 

When I'm travelling, I often stay in Ibis hotels. They have a fifteen minute contract. If a problem is not sorted in fifteen minutes, then the room is free of charge. There is an excellent illustrated card, or used to be, left in the room that advertises this fact. Somehow a copy found itself in my luggage!

On the front, it says, 'Keep Cool' and suggests the following, while waiting for the problem to be remedied:

1. Five minutes to breath. Sit in the lotus postion, close your eyes and breath in deeply. (They should add, breath in deeply and slowly, hold breath and breath out slowly.)

2. Five minutes to tone up: sit with a straight back, stretch out your arms and bend your body forward as far as you can go.

3. Five minutes to relax: Pull your knees up against you chest, put your chin on your knees then rock forward and backwards and from side to side.

This would be so useful in workplace situations too. I'm sure most hotel customers ignore the suggestions and dismiss the words.

We shouldn't. It works.

©AlisonRusell2014