10 minute read
On the Run with Dana Cardwell
On the RUN
By Dana Cardwell, LPC, LCDC
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Seventy percent of us will be affected by trauma in our lifetime. In the last issue I described being cyberstalked and moving forward with my life. Now I want to focus on natural healing for “hijacked minds.”
Dana Cardwell, LPC, LCDC
escaping psychotropic drugs, naturally
In my lifetime I’ve completed an Ironman race, four Half-Irons, seven marathons, too many half-marathons to mention, and many smaller races—but those were not life-changing. People talk about the runner’s high or the high you get after an endurance race, but mine were different. In fact, I think I did those races because I was not able to feel and tried so hard to push my body to actually feel—something. Anything.
Life-changing events
Besides marrying my amazing husband and having my beautiful daughter, there are only two life-changing events in my life— reading Anatomy of an Epidemic (R. Whitaker, 2015) and going to Rythmia in Guanacaste, Costa Rica this year. Anatomy of an Epidemic confirmed so much for me. It confirmed that psychotropic meds don’t cure an imbalance in the brain and can sometimes even create a brain imbalance. For some taking anti-depressants or anxiety meds, the brain doesn’t make serotonin/dopamine/GABA/norepinephrine on its own and they become dependent on a synthetic (man-made) drug to fill these substances’ receptors. The brain develops a dependence on the drug.
Further complicating the matter, some teens and young adults on these drugs present as if they are bipolar. But it may be the psychotropic medication or it could be simply the trauma they have endured. Trauma may look like one is bipolar, but it could be the brain’s amygdala that’s in constant smoke-alarm mode and is hyper-vigilant to stay safe. Asking someone, “Why are you over-reacting?” and telling them, “So you just got raped or pushed down a flight of stairs? You need to relax, here take this medication, you’ll feel better soon”—is not always the answer. Being on anti-depressants for over twenty years, I believe myself one of many females re-victimized after experiencing a trauma. In my book Hyper, I wrote about my anger, fear, and depression after an assault and violence. I went on to write how I became empowered by becoming an Ironman finisher. Not that I would recommend participating in major endurance races while taking those meds.
During the events I had low blood pressure and fainted, or my blood sugar went so low I couldn’t continue, or I’d get easily dehydrated. After endurance races, I often received bags of IVs in the medical tent. I truly believe the medication led to a major imbalance in my electrolytes and normal body chemistry. The body is made to repair itself, not to be bandaged up with synthetic meds. The molecular make-up of the psych meds are not the same as what your body chemistry makes naturally. In my twenties, anti-depressants led to anxiety and anti-anxiety meds led to sleeping pills. Luckily, I stopped the valium and sleeping pills after taking them for a short time and feeling worse while on them. After unsuccessfully trying to come off antidepressants in my thirties, I decided I had to find another way not to be a slave anymore to the big pharmaceutical companies. These companies made so much money off me that I could have bought a shiny, new Ferrari. I was being a good patient by being patient and waiting for a sign. That sign came in the form of the documentary The Sacred Science. I then read the book The Sacred Science (N. Polizzi, 2018). Polizzi writes that naturopathic medicine teaches us that the natural properties can heal us and that we don’t need to be masking our symptoms with band-aids (synthetic meds).
. . . no matter how big or small one’s trauma may be, a pill is only a Band-Aid covering up the wound.
I set up several jungle healings but felt those weren’t the right places for me (see my January 2019 article online at KerrCountyPeople.com). After watching the documentary, The Reality of Truth, I found Rythmia. Admittedly, it was expensive but very comfortable and educational—leading to a successful experience, a trip that changed my life. Please note that my life-changing miracle didn’t come in rainbows and butterflies—it came in life-changing tears. I didn’t even know I had become sad and felt so alone, but that’s what Rythmia teaches you—that something happens around or before age seven that disconnects us from our souls and leads to our smoke alarms (amygdalas) being in constant chaos. Their goal at Rythmia is to reconnect you with your heart and soul to become healed to live a blissful life. continue to next page
A different way to feel better
Ironically, the medicine plant ayahuasca in Quechua means “vine of the soul.” The message the plant medicine gave me is to help others who feel they have been a slave to psychotropic medication—to help those individuals who want to come off the medication to feel what they need to feel, whether it’s good or bad. I’ve been there, I can walk with them on the journey and remind them when struggles arise, and they will, that this too shall pass. It’s important to note here that negative people don’t serve us and can rewire our brains to be even more depressed or anxious. I’m gratefully now free of synthetic anti-depressants and I found my little Dana, my soul, while at Rythmia. I want to clarify that I am not against prescribed psychiatric medication. I simply feel too many western doctors rush to prescribe antidepressants and either leave patients on the meds for a lifetime or the medication is not the right fit to begin with. For example, I’m a hyperactive person. I managed my
Gratitude
The Daily Post (DailyPost.com, 11/2019) shared an article related to gratitude. In a ten-week study on gratitude, participants showed through functional MRIs that they had greater neural connections in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) which continued even three months after the study. The study found gratitude promotes brain function even on a chemical level by releasing dopamine in the hypothalamus, leading to a decrease in stress and an increase in the body’s metabolism—an encouraging result if you want to feel better or lose weight. As a result of the release of dopamine and an increase in the neural networks talking to the organizational part of the brain, participants saw an overall increase in self-worth and compassion for others. A nice bonus if you want to have better self-esteem and be a nicer person to others. Researchers noted that participants focusing on the positive and being grateful improved their quality of sleep while reducing feelings of anxiety and depression—additional benefits of being grateful. It’s important to note that like exercise, being more grateful takes consistent practice. Our minds can atrophy just like our muscles. We need to exercise both, daily, to stay healthy.
Steps to becoming more grateful
Keep a daily journal. List a minimum of three things you’re grateful for, daily. If you’re not ready to journal daily, at least write your grateful list. Tell someone you appreciate them or give someone a compliment, daily. Look in the mirror. Give yourself a compliment related to a quality you have or something you recently accomplished. Tell yourself one good thing, daily. hyperactivity and occasional depression bouts with exercise and a healthy diet. It wasn’t until my mid twenties when I moved from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, that I started eating junk food and drinking sodas, stopped exercising, and had no social support system—leading to my increase in depression. My goal is to impress upon doctors that a counseling therapist, a healthful diet, yoga, or other forms of exercise may be the first route to take instead of immediately placing patients on antidepressants. I lived the zombie life for too many years but I found clarification and my “Miracle at Rythmia.” Join me when I return to Rythmia in October 2020. Email me for details. If you can’t make it this year, email me for dates next year. Contact Dana for free lunchtime mind/body wellness presentations at your business, church, or social events. Dana Cardwell, LPC, LCDC, AcuDetox, Yoga Instructor, IronChickDana@
gmail.com, visit HijackedMinds.org or call her at 830-285-5095. 28 | SEPT-OCT 2020 | KERR COUNTY PEOPLE MAGAZINE
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy and Breath Work
The symptoms of trauma can be debilitating—exaggerated startle response, hyper-vigilance, nightmares, sleep disturbances, irritability, anxiety/depression, difficulty concentrating, agitated or flat affect, feeling isolated or detached from others, avoidance, feeling disconnected from body, foggy thinking, feeling numb, impaired social or occupational functioning. Mindfulness, EMDR therapy, and yoga/breath work have been shown to improve symptoms with better retention rates than conventional psychotherapy. EMDR taxes brain wave frequencies, i.e. high wave frequencies and slow wave frequencies, by using dual attention—taxing the working memory, allowing hippocampal activity to be moved to long-term memory. The hippocampus is responsible for long-term memories and the PFC for working memory in the present (planning, setting goals, boundaries, following through with plans, more short term memory, impulse control)—the executive function of the brain. Trauma tends to get stuck in the amygdala acting like a smoke alarm. It triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response. The hippocampus and amygdala are small areas in the brain, located near each other. Trauma and “getting stuck” disrupts normal thoughts, bypassing the PFC and hippocampus until EMDR is utilized to reunite neurons and link the event as an old, past memory. Trauma is then no longer experienced as so closely present. Through EMDR therapy and breath work, one can reunite and heal the brain to normal working capacity. The smoke alarm is turned off.
Breath work
Breath work addresses the HRV (heart rate variable). By learning to control the HRV and our alpha brain waves, we are able to adapt and control our body’s slower waves when relaxed and internally focused as with breath work and meditation. Theta waves occur before falling asleep when we’re very relaxed and are often associated with the subconscious and creative thoughts—similar to what we may experience with a good massage when half awake/half asleep. Delta waves take place in sleep, associated with regeneration and important for repairing the mind. Gamma waves arise with very fast bursts of high level focus and concentration, integrating information and insight, i.e. Einstein thinking. There are many beneficial types of yoga to choose from including Hatha, Vinyasa, Bikram, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Kundalini, Restorative, Yin, and Aerial. According to Harvard Mental Health and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score), studies by Amy Weintraub (Yoga for Depression) and Dr. Michele Riberio (Yoga for Trauma) show that yoga can reduce the impact of stress, decrease anxiety and depression, and increase one’s own self-soothing skills by improving overall well being and clarity. I have personally trained with each of these professionals and highly recommend yoga.
Prozac and PTSD
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneer psychiatrist in the field of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, helped coin the term PTSD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 1989, he conducted one of the very first studies with Prozac and trauma patients—Vietnam veterans and adults with childhood trauma. Subjects for Dr. van der Kolk’s study were traumatized patients who didn’t respond to psychotherapy. He found Prozac helped the severely traumatized patients reflect on themselves in the present, whereas in the past they effectively were stuck in a hijacked mind of fight, flight, or freeze. Trauma sat in these patients’ amygdala, causing emotional dysregulation and not permitting reflection to take place in the cognitive part of their brains—the prefrontal cortex/executive function part of the brain. Interestingly, Dr. van der Kolk notes that today he feels yoga/ mediation and EMDR are more important than chemical drug components for the brain to naturally work through trauma and release it from the amygdala. His book, The Body Keeps the Score, has valuable information on trauma research and how the body reacts to trauma. By doing daily gratitude exercises, EMDR therapy, and breath work, you can rewire your brain to be more optimistic, more compassionate, and more peaceful. Life can be stressful but with these ingredients you can make sweet lemonade out of sour lemons.
