I unabashedly admit that I have an anxiety disorder, two actually: generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. While I’m not always a good student of self-care for anxiety, I do try my best each day to find little things to slow my mind’s engine from revving too high. If you’re among the anxiety disordered, you probably get it – the overthinking; the fretting over this and that; the what if, what if, what if; and the hyper-vigilance, if you have PTSD. The upside to all this is: You’re among good company.

Anxiety disorders affect 40 million adults in the United States each year. These disorders are the number one mental health issue among women, and the second among men. No worries if it so happens that you haven’t had the fortune of being DSM coded with one of these disorders; if you’re among the countless numbers of us who are unsure about the future of our nation, that’s enough to make you go bonkers. And with the holiday season fast approaching, ugh! Talk about an anxiety disordered person’s nightmare – crowed stores, traffic, “Jingle Bells” following you everywhere, pressure to spend just the right amount on a yankee swamp gift. Having an anxiety disorder is sometimes all consuming, mentally exhausting, predatory-like. There are days when I think of my anxiety disorders as the worst roommates I’ve ever had. If you get what I’m saying here, are you wondering how to kick your roommates (or roommate) out of your head and body for good? I wish I could say I had the one-size-fits all answer, but, alas, I do not. However, I do have a self-care for anxiety practice that might help during those most difficult, wonky-crazy moments when you can’t seem to get out of your own way.

After treating myself to a massage/reiki treatment a last month, the therapist asked if I had ever had any surgeries to my pelvic and abdominal area. I almost choked on my tongue. Yes, I had had surgeries: three abdominal and two pelvic. “I felt an outpouring, like hemorrhaging from those areas,” she said.  This could not be good, I thought,  but I had to ask anyway, because that’s what anxious people do, ask and ask again, just to be sure. “No,” she affirmed. “It is not good. You need that energy coming out of you for balance, to ground you.” Yikes, I thought. How much had I bled? What blood type matches imbalance negative? How many pints of blood do I need to bring my balance count back within the normal range?

Of course, she didn’t leave me bleeding all over the place. She looked at me with kind eyes and said I needed to give myself  some love and attention, a bit of self-care for anxiety. Because physical touch alone helps to reduce stress and anxiety, she encouraged me to place a hand over my pelvic/belly area each night while lying in bed. Then, with my eyes closed, tell myself that I am good. I am good enough. I am okay.

And so that’s what I’ve been doing. Sometimes I do forget, but I make up for it during my ten or fifteen minute periods of meditation. During those self-care for anxiety moments, I fill my head with not only good enough, I open myself up to all kinds of friendly  words: smile, joy, yellow, puppy, sunshine, laughter, starlight, full moon, beach, ocean, green, breath, bare feet, grass, warm bath, love, hugs, candle, art, cozy, blue, hope. Certain words often circle around again, which is just fine with me – there’s no such thing as too many smiles, full moons, hugs, or puppies, especially puppies.

I now leave you to fill your head with a lavender bath, soak for as long as you need to with your hand over the part of your body that is bleeding the most, and give yourself the transfusion you deserve: maybe it’s a  field of purple Calla Lilies or a walk in the woods, a warm cup of chamomile tea, or a love note to yourself.

Be well my dear friends.

Oh, one more thing: Don’t fret over the lumps in the gravy this Thanksgiving, because, as my mother likes to say, “It will only get worse.”

It’s been nearly fifteen years since I sustained a traumatic brain injury, and though you would think my brain should have fully healed by now, that’s not the case. In reality, the healing process for most brain injuries is ongoing, a lifetime of ongoing. I’ve submitted to all kinds of therapies over the years – cognitive therapy, herbal therapy, meditation, yoga, medications, e-stim, the list goes on. Now, in my efforts toward continued healing, I am a believer in  vision therapy.

Fifteen years ago, even as recent as three years ago, if someone had mentioned vision therapy to me as a possible treatment for my sensitivity to bright lights, as a solution to the dizzying fatigue I experience when in the grocery store, a shopping mall, at a July 4^thcelebration with dozens of fireworks lighting the night sky in frenzied colors, I would said, “What? Why vision therapy? And what the heck do you mean by vision therapy anyway?” Though knew of certain kinds of therapies for vision difficulties, like a lazy eye (I had to wear an eye-patch when I was a kid to correct my right eye that wandered like a toddler first learning to walk), I had never heard of vision therapy as a treatment option for TBI-related vision difficulties (FYI: not  only injuries caused by external trauma, but also injuries that are acquired, like a stroke or a tumor, can affect visual processing.)

We typically think of vision as what we see, but, dare I use a cliché, there’s more to vision than meets the eye. Vision also includes how the brain processes what we see. So, though I have 20/20 vision (when wearing my glasses), my brain struggles with interpreting images sent from the retina.

I’ve known for a long time now that something is wrong with my brain’s ability to process visual information, but because I’ve become used to melting into a puddle of confusion every time I walk down the cereal isle, with its endless options of whole-wheat, sugar free, and non-GMO, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel balanced and solid on two feet. (Thank God my husband loves to shop, sparing my brain the energy depletion of just walking into a store.)

Sometimes my brain signal’s my eye to read words on the page as a blurred mess, or my mind’s eye misconstrues words. When out for a walk, I sometimes see things coming at me from my right or left, like a flying rock, or a rogue tree branch, or an angry bird, when in fact none of those things are there at all. Not too long ago, my brain interpreted a fire hydrant as a dog. (No, I’m not on drugs, not the kind you might think I’m on anyway.)

Finally, just this past month, I decided it was about time I see an optometrist for a visual processing assessment. Honestly, the hour-and-a-half of testing was more like eye gymnastics. Here’s just a fraction of what that workout involved:

A kinetic field test in which I looked through a viewfinder with one eye closed. With that same eye fixed on a center point, the examiner shifted a pointer with a white tip beyond my visual field. Each time the pointer returned, I let her know that I could see it. I did this several times, each time the tip of the pointer a different color. Then I followed the same process with the opposite eye.

After that, I spent more than an hour with the optometrist. She first asked me to read various lines of letters on an eye chart. Then, as I looked through a viewfinder, she flickered a foggy, whitish light onto a chart that made it appear as if the letter U was floating all over the place, and asked me if I could see double. Yes, I did, but only once. Other than that, my eyes had trouble keeping up with the U. Then she had me close my eyes, and while she jingled a set of keys, I tried to touch them with one finger. I can’t explain exactly what the test reveals, but since the auditory and visual neuro-pathways run close together, if you’re struggling with visual processing it makes sense that you might also have difficulties with auditory stimuli, as in hyper-sensitivity to certain sounds. (The sound of crinkling plastic bags drives me crazy.)

Then, while looking through the viewfinder, the optometrist slipped in and out of the machine various shades of lenses, and asked which ones made my vision blurry, versus ones that made me see with clarity. A strange thing happened at one point. As she slipped in one of the lenses (one with a blue tint), I felt my stomach relax, a letting go of something – anxiety, stress. When I told her what had happened, she nodded, explaining that some people experience a visceral relaxation. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted more blue, more of letting go. That’s when she said I would benefit from therapeutic glasses with blue-tinted lenses. They’re nothing like every-day prescription glasses; they’re designed as a treatment for visual processing issues. At first, you wear them for only a few hours a day, slowly increasing the amount of hours over time. I’m still waiting for my new glasses to arrive in the mail.

Meanwhile, in an effort to recruit new brain/vision-related neuro-pathways, I’m following the optometrist’s instructions and practicing in-home eye-tracking gymnastics five days a week. While the exercises are yet one more thing on my brain-health to-do list, they’re worth it. After all, it would be nice to go for a walk without worrying about getting bit by a firehydrant.

Do you suffer from imposter syndrome, the belief that you’re not really a writer, a photographer, an inspirational speaker? And how often to you hear people say, “Just get over it” or “Stop feeling bad for yourself.” Do those responses make you want to scratch someone’s eyes out? Well, if so, you’re not alone. I get it, believe me. But that doesn’t mean self-doubt should be running your brain’s control tower. While I told myself this day after day, over too many years to count, I continued to let self-doubt into my mind’s home. Self-doubt followed me into the bedroom each night, into the kitchen while I waited for the teakettle to come to a boil, and sat next to me at the dinner table, at my desk.

But I recently kicked self-doubt out of my home, and double-locked the door, just in case it tries to break in with the slip of a credit card. I admit, though, I needed a lot of extra emotional muscle to help me follow-through with the eviction. The name behind the muscle is motivational powerhouse, best selling author, and award winning CNN commentator Mel Robbins. A writing peer introduced me to her work, and when I learned that she ran an online class called “How to break the habit of self-doubt and build confidence” I knew I had to sign up. I recently finished the last session (there are a total of 16), and I’m still energized by what I learned, by how much Mel’s class has changed how I think about myself. Believe me, if you take her class, I swear you’ll become a Mel addict.

Mel is honest from the get go, and shares her own difficulties with self-doubt and anxiety. At one point it became so debilitating for her she struggled to get out of bed most mornings. Finally, she came up with what she calls the “5 second rule.” From the moment she talked about her “5 second rule” as a solution to halt the self-doubt loop that plays like a skipping record through our brains, I was hooked. All you have to do is say “5-4-3-2-1” each time your mind is attacked by self-doubt, procrastination, anxious thoughts, worries. So if you can’t seem to drag yourself out of bed in the morning say, “5-4-3-2-1. Get up.” Say it every single morning. Say it each time you hesitate to send that email you’ve been wanting to send to your boss or friend or family member. Say “5-4-3-2-1” then get your butt in the chair, and write for five minutes (Mel quotes research that says most people will continue what they are working on for much longer; it’s the initiation part that slows us down.)

Along with her “5 second” solution to self-doubt, she has a lot more to offer, much of it backed my science: the traps that make us question ourselves, the connection between self-doubt, worry, and anxiety, the five steps toward self-confidence, and how to reframe anxiety into excitement. If finances are tight for you, no worries, you can meet Mel on YouTube  and watch some of her sessions on self-doubt for free. So no justifications, no saying “It won’t work for me” or “I don’t have time.”

One more thing from Mel: “No phone in your bedroom.” Why? Because she wants you to “engage in behaviors that put you in control of your thoughts.” When the phone is next to your bed, what is the first thing you’re going to do when you wake up? Look at your phone. “You’re dreams are not on your phone,” she says. “You’re priorities are not not on your phone. It’s other people’s garbage.”

If hard statistics are what you need to convince you to put the phone away, here it is: The average worker spends 6.3 hours a day on emails. According to a Time Magazine article, Americans collectively check their smart phones as much as 8 billion times a day. On average, individuals check their phones 46 times a day.

Let’s do this together: Put the phone away. Here, I’ll count with you: 5-4-3-2-1. Do it!

This past Saturday, at least fifteen thousand people marched through downtown Montpelier, Vermont, in the name of women’s rights, human rights, compassion, unity, and equality. I was among the thousands who sloshed through mud puddles and climbed over snow banks, each one of us determined to stamp out hatred and bigotry.

I’m not one for crowds, especially large crowds; if you have an anxiety disorder, like PTSD, you know what I mean. But I packed my Xanax – just in case – and drove the 40 miles with my step-daughter (thank you Rachel for being there with me) from Burlington to Montpelier, waited in five-miles of backed up traffic on the interstate before making an illegal U-turn (I can’t tell you how good it felt to break the law!) so we could exit onto an alternate route leading into town, then parked a mile from the state house. From there, Rachel and I took our first steps toward the center of inclusivity: the golden-domed state house.

Montpelier may be the smallest capital in the nation, but our voices here in Vermont are far from small. Yesterday, as we marched together, thousands waved signs reading, “Yes we still can … We should all be feminists … We the people … complacency is complicity.” We sang and chanted and shouted against oppression and injustice. We spoke out loud for what is right: helping the homeless and the poor, treating with dignity women, people of color, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, gays, LGBQTs, the young and the old. And the disabled.

I give the disabled a sentence of its own, not because I believe they’re superior to others; I do so because I know too many disabled people, mostly those who have sustained traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and are now living with chronic side-effects, such as vision difficulties, chronic anxiety, sleep disorders, and rip-roaring headaches. Due to their injuries, some find it difficult to engage in substantial gainful activity, a social security disability insurance (SSDI) term meaning your medical condition prevents you from doing more than “insignificant” work. And if your disability prevents you from working twenty hours or more a week, the typical threshold for receiving employer-based benefits, this likely outcome is this: no health insurance. With the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, though, those with disabilities had options, and they didn’t have to worry about being discriminated against for having a pre-existing condition (a TBI for instance). The ACA offered increased accessibility to community health centers, and enacted a provision that axed annual and life time limits – a godsend for people with disabilities. For those who receive SSDI and Medicare under the program’s guidelines, they are (or should I say “were?”) protected.

But it’s 2017, and winter has arrived. “He who must not be named” plans to eviscerate the ACA, with no alternative other than the ambiguous executive order he signed just hour after he was inaugurated directing federal agencies to relieve individuals, state governments, businesses, and health insurance companies from “burdens” placed on them by the ACA.

Whatever that means? In the meantime, there are nearly 50 million people in the U.S. who have a disability, and about 8.8 million who receive SSDI benefits. Though “he who must not be named” promises Medicare for All, this is sheer talk from a man who, well, likes to talk. And, of course, “he” has to deal with the Republican controlled congress. What do the millions receiving Medicare under SSDI benefits – and those sixty-five and older – have to look forward to?

I wish I had a magic wand to make it all better, but I don’t. Yet, I do have my voice. I share my voice with you, sing and chant and cheer for you, keeping in mind the words that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in 1965: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

The more we speak, the louder we speak, “about the things that matter,” the closer we come together, marching forward toward human progress and shaping a world in which every single one of us matters.

As you read this blog post, is your smartphone on speaker, playing bad “hold music” while you wait for a “live” voice to answer? Or maybe you’re glancing back and forth from the computer screen to your phone, responding to text messages in between reading a few sentences of this post. Multi-tasking is in vogue; it’s hip, cool. And how many times do you see “ability to multi-task a must” in help-wanted advertisements? But while we believe we’re multi-tasking, the truth is we’re not at all. A neuroscientist at MIT says that what we’re actually doing is “switching from one task to another very rapidly.” And, though we believe multi-tasking means greater productivity, each time we do this, he adds, there are “cognitive costs.”

Multi-tasking increases levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and the flight-or-fight hormone adrenaline, both over-stimulating the brain and creating what I call “brain fog,” causing loss of focus. To make matters more complicated, multi-tasking creates an addictive-like feedback loop in the pre-fontal cortex, ironically, the area of the brain responsible for helping us stay on task. In other words, our brains are rewarded for losing focus. Multi-tasking is like using cocaine; the more one uses it, the more one wants it, needs it. So when you talk on the phone, check your email, send a text message, boil water for tea, your brain is stimulated by a rush of endogenous opioids. (“More, please!”) Think of potato chips, ice cream, candy – they taste good going down, but the empty-calorie effect brings your brain, and you, to a crashing halt. And making the brain shift from one task to another causes it to burn extra oxygen and glucose, the very ingredients needed to stay on task. When this happens, you might feel wrung-out, ready for a long nap. What happens when you lose steam? You get frustrated, and anxiety ensues, triggering another blast of cortisol to your brain. You can’t think straight. You become more frustrated, and angry. Maybe you get so angry you take it out on others.

And the more you multi-task, the more decisions you need to make: should I answer that phone call, text, or email? Should I go to the grocery store now or later? Which apple should I buy: a Fuji or a Delicious? When making these decisions, you consume so much energy that you end up making poor decisions when it comes to more important issues, like loaning money you don’t have to an unreliable family member, or going out for drinks and getting so drunk that you can’t get out of bed the next morning to make it to that job interview your father-in-law hooked up for you. (Now you’re in trouble.)

Also, researchers have found that multi-tasking can reduce one’s IQ by as much as fifteen points. This decrease is similar to what researchers would expect from smoking pot or staying up all night. If you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter studying, or smoked pot, you know what it feels like: your brain might as well be stuffed with gauze.

Enough of the harsh truth. Instead, here are some tips to help you resist the temptation to multi-task. Shut off your cell phone when working, and place it far out of reach. If you can’t bring yourself to shut off your phone, envision a stop sign each time it rings or buzzes, and say to yourself, “No, I’m not responding.” Make a list of priorities each day and check them off when complete. Dedicate time each day to complete mindless tasks, like folding the laundry or emptying the dishwasher.  Keep your office door closed so others know you don’t want to be disturbed. Put a do not disturb sign on your door. Plaster your office door with yellow caution tape, set up a trap, eat a lot of garlic. Tie yourself to a ship’s mast – it worked for Odysseus, even though he did put up quite the fight.

Of course, I’m thinking big here with these tips, and you might be laughing at this post, saying, “She’s got to be out of her mind to think I can give up multi-tasking. Tell my boss this, and I’ll be fired in a New York minute.” The key is to guard against multi-tasking whenever possible; start small. Maybe it’s shutting off your cell phone for an hour each day for a week, then two hours the next week. Believe me, I too am victim to multi-tasking. In fact, while writing this post my cell phone rang. (I forgot to shut it off.) Guess whose name lit up on the screen? “Mom.” Yep, I answered it.