Cheap therapy: only YOU can change YOU
- Julie Lane
- Aug 19, 2018
- 5 min read
Behaviour modification: preparing for the winter ahead.
My client, Sam, a 46 year old woman with a high powered job that has generally not caused her problems or stress, has recently noticed some changes in her mood, loss of focus and increased fatigue due to an inability to sleep through the night. In recent years, Sam has suffered from mild anxiety starting in late August and begins to dread the coming of a long, cold winter. By the time December rolls around, she is just looking to get through to the end of the year, but she is not looking forward to the deluge of parties over the holiday period. She knows her increased anxiety generally causes her to drink too much alcohol as a coping mechanism, and there are generally a lot of parties on her social schedule.
Her low energy levels and constant fatigue make her feel like she is completely unravelling at work which is knocking her self-confidence. December is always one of her busiest months and she feels the run up to Christmas causes more stress than it should. As much as everyone else looks forward to the Christmas holidays, Sam can’t wait for them to be over, and to restart in January. She insists her diet is relatively healthy as it’s mostly low-carb and high protein, and she is still managing to get a work out or two in each week.
Under the spot
Don’t put off changing your programme, make small changes now and keep at it. Slow and steady always wins the race.
When I started working with Sam last August, we put her diet and lifestyle under a spotlight for one week. The initial results weren’t terribly shocking considering all she had accomplished in the year which had been rewarded with a recent promotion that was inadvertently piling on the stress. But, they were a major eye opener to her as the changes were so small and subtle, she hadn’t really noticed. Since she had started having more trouble sleeping she had slowly been replacing her seemingly healthy diet with late afternoon ‘pick me uppers’ like an extra coffee or a 20 gram protein chocolate ‘treat’ type bar. Her early morning gym sessions also got scrapped as she was so tired from not sleeping she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning except to go to work, plus her body clock was out of whack as she spent an hour or two up in the middle of the night and then fell into a deep sleep just when she needed to get up.
Her usual 4 sessions a week had been cut to one at the weekend and even that one she did begrudgingly because she was now out of shape. Her constant exhaustion made afternoons so difficult to get through at her desk or in meetings, she sometimes ended up raiding the candy bin in the break room and downing an extra double shot cappuccino. Time was become a constant thief and even dinners were becoming too much to bear. She starting grabbing prepared ready meals on her way home – which she thought were healthy as she got them prepared at the local high street gourmet store.
Unpacking the small bad habits one at a time
Firstly, we started by examining her diet. She ate lots of healthy green vegetables and salads, but Sam was eating too much protein and caffeine while starting to rely on sugary snacks in the afternoons. Whilst a high protein diet can be extremely healthy heading into one’s peri-menopausal years for increased bone health, well balanced during this period is really more important. It is essential women up their complex carbohydrate intake which can be as simple as adding in some good old fashioned porridge oats for breakfast, or buckwheat or couscous as a base at dinner time. A high protein diet needs to be balanced with complex carbohydrates otherwise one’s brain becomes overactive, especially in the middle of the night as too much protein can cause the brain’s neurotransmitters to go on hyper drive, increasing anxiety. I also recommended she do a reboot of her system with a 5 day diet (highlighted in May 31st post) to help get the extra sugar, fat and calories from the ready meals and candy bars out of her system, especially before the holiday parties start despite being several months away, they creep up faster than not! That way, she won’t be ‘addicted’ to the sugar and caffeine and will hopefully be able to make better choices in terms of lowering her sugary alcohol consumption and hors devours selections at parties.
Commit to stay fit – physically and mentally – in the darker months
This commitment spans diet, exercise and lifestyle. I recommended she stop having any caffeine after 2 PM to give her body time to process it without keeping her awake at night. She also needed to have her vitamin levels checked, especially based on her fatigue and anxiety. Low levels of vitamin D directly contribute to chronic fatigue since vitamin D is required on the cellular level to produce dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine, all of which help regulate one’s energy levels. Also the combination of some of these vitamins and minerals are critical for maintaining one’s energy levels, but also essential for cellular repair.
Another crucial element to Sam’s new routine became soaking in magnesium several times per week for relaxation and remineralisation. Magnesium is a natural muscle relaxant helping decrease muscular tension. It is also required for melatonin production, essential for sound sleep as well as combining with vitamin D and calcium to assist in muscular recovery post working out. It is a general all around panacea to many complaints my clients have about sleep, pain, inflammation and sports recovery.
Recommended workout
When you don't feel like hitting the gym, keeping your workouts short and sweet makes them seem less daunting, especially if you look at it as only needing to spend 30 or so minutes working out. Just try to go in a few more times during the week instead of doing super long sessions, or go for a short 5k run.
Warm up for 5 minutes with a mix of mobility and dynamic exercises.
Do a quick heart rate raiser on the Spin Bikes, for example, set your base pace for 2-3 minutes, then do 6x 30 second all out sprints, with a 30-45 second recovery period. You will probably want to slightly increase the recovery as you carry on, e.g. by sprint 4 go from 30 second recovery to 45. To make it harder on yourself and to increase your time in EPOC, shorten your recovery periods. Cool down for 2-3 minutes.
Then do a bit of basic dumbbell training for your arms and core with weights heavy enough to challenge you. Repeat 3 times.
Deadlifts (heaviest weight) x8
Bicep curls x8
Uprights row x8
Lateral raises (may need to lighten weight) x8
Bent over row (go heavier again here) x8
Side bends x16 (x8/side)
On the floor, repeat x2:
Heal touch crunch x25
Slow bicycle crunch x25
Reach through crunch x25
Toe touch crunch x25
The change of attitude.
Sam also needed to make some lifestyle changes which are much harder to do. She came to me because she knew something had to change and she was tired of facing winter, and especially the holidays, with dread and despair. She knew she needed to make a choice, and that choice had to be to make small, manageable changes so she could begin to embrace winter once and for all. Also effecting her sleep had been too much alcohol which causes dehydration and loss of quality sleep. Essentially, your body spends the night fighting to stay alive with all of the toxins you’ve just chucked into your liver.
But with such immediate changes just through some light behaviour modification, plus her diet and exercise re-evaluation, she was feeling back to her power charged super motivated self and began to see winter in a whole new, if not slightly dimmer, light.
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