Ierrellus wrote:Yes, my nuitrition and habits have much to do with the nightmares I experience. And I thoroughly agree with Stat's post on what's happening in the brain. I'm trying to work on the bad habits. The problem is that stress, for me at least, often negates attempts to live healthier. It takes away incentive. So there's a vicious cycle of bad habits, brain reactions to these, numbness, and return to bad habits.
Popular Dr. Oz claims that the two best ways of limiting stress are exercize and sex! One counselor told me I just needed positive feedback from others. I attempt the first of these, have little opportunity for the second. And do get some of the third. Endorphin receptors have much to do with the situation, which is one why of the habits. But how to break the cycle--ah that's the rub! Because of the brain/environment feedback loop, all habits are difficult to break, even good ones. And I came from a family who, although experiencing other than what they claim, contend that being closer to God is the cure.
One of the hardest things to do is exercise--at least for me, especially during our rainy season. But, heavy exercise really isn't needed. A stroll around the block is a good start, because you have to start slowly or else you're too easily defeated. Yoga stretches are also good and you can get books from the library that show you the poses. As for your nutrition, don't buy junk. Munch on uncooked green beans or sugar snap pea pods, instead of chips. Slice an apple and snack on the slices. Buy natural juices instead of beer. Ice water is also good, but you can overdose on water.
I don't know if this would work for everyone, but breaking habits is, imm, a matter of finding different neural pathways in your brain. My husband showed me an article about two right-handed men from separate parts of the country who'd each lost their right hands. They developed left-handedness as a result. After a couple of years, they both received fully functional prosthetic right hands, but they remained left-handed. They'd both rerouted their neural pathways so successfully that they didn't revert to being right-handed, although they could have. I'd also read that one good way to exercise you brain is to stop using your dominant handedness for about three weeks. I changed my watch from my left arm to my right, mainly to remind myself that I'm right-handed. Then I started using my left hand to do what I normally do with my right hand. I even put my pants on, both layers, with my left leg first. It was a challenge in the beginning--just remembering to do it. But now I find that I can do a lot of everyday tasks with either hand equally. That's the plasticity of the brain.
That's, imm, the way habits are broken. But you really have to want to do it. As far as nutrition goes, you have to really want to change the way you shop, first, so you don't have anything in your home that isn't nutritional. It's the
really wanting to do it that I mean when I say not to use your depression as an excuse--for anything. You may never be completely free, but you'll have more times when the depression is no more than the blackness lurking in the back of your brain just waiting for you to weaken so it can take over again. You have to really hate how you feel with depression in order to change your neural paths, because it's so damned difficult. And there's no guarantee you'll ever be completely successful because it's always there lurking and waiting.
As for getting closer to God?--That may work as a sort of transference for a lot of people--I'm sure it does, as a matter of fact. I don't want to sound sacrilegious in any way, but you might want to try a big, soft, Spanish teddy bear named Jesus, instead.
"Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
— Lewis Carroll
