Physical exercise is known to have beneficial effects on general wellbeing and cardiovascular health. But did you know that exercising your body may also benefit your mind? A recent study suggests that exercise is effective in improving anxiety symptoms in people with a current diagnosis of anxiety and/ or stress-related disorders.

But what if exercise is not your thing and you always find an excuse why you “can’t” exercise? You may want to try a mindful approach. A study at the Washington State University looked at the effect of mindfulness on different aspects of exercise: perceived exertion, enjoyment and the emotional experience of a simple exercise of treadmill walking. Researchers found that when people approached the exercise with mindfulness, their focus, emotional involvement and enjoyment were higher than during their habitual routine and their perceived level of exertion lowered.

NEUROCISE:

The next time you approach an exercise session, start with a series of deep breaths and mindful yawns. Yawning is the fastest way to turn off emotional centres in your brain and remove excessive neurological stress. When you start exercising, go extra slow. While doing the exercise, observe the sensation in your body and your emotional reactions to the exercise, without judgement. Pay attention to how the exertion feels when you go slowly and how the sensations change when you speed up. Try to stay in the present moment during the exercise and notice the subtle shifts in your physical impressions and your mood. Keep moving for a while and then pause as you focus your attention on the changes in your mental state. Repeat this several times with any exercise and you’ll train your brain to enjoy the exercise strain. By exercising mindfully, you’ll get more benefits and will be more likely to continue an exercise ritual.

REFERENCES

Stubbs B, Vancampfort D, Rosenbaum S, et al. An examination of the anxiolytic effects of exercise for people with anxiety and stress-related disorders: A meta-analysis. Psychiatry Res. 2017;249:102‐108. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2016.12.020

Cox, Anne E et al. “Mindfulness and Affective Responses to Treadmill Walking in Individuals with Low Intrinsic Motivation to Exercise.” International journal of exercise science vol. 11,5 609-624. 3 Jan. 2018

Teive HAG, Munhoz RP, Camargo CHF, Walusinski O. Yawning in neurology: a review. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2018;76(7):473‐480. doi:10.1590/0004-282X20180057

Dear All

This is a mental health awareness week.

I thought you may be interested in this suicide awareness course https://www.zerosuicidealliance.com/training.

Suicide seems more of an epidemic than COVID-19 so far. The WHO estimated that 800,000 people died by suicide in 2016.

There’s a 5-minuted shorter version and a 20 minutes full course.

Main takeways:

• see the problem, say the words, signpost to support
• be prepared
• talk
• just being there, starting a conversation and listening is how you can help
• ask if they saw a health professional
• use the word “suicide“
• ask about a plan and if they’d done something
• what we can do now to make things a bit more manageable?
• offer practical help and support
• if someone is in the middle of a suicide attempt you have to get them to a safe place where they can get help
• don’t remind them that their suicide would hurt others, it could make them feel worse
• keep them “safe for now“
• families should be actively involved professional interventions

The course has been promoted by this BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52702048.

Everyone should be aware, able to detect signs and know what to do.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines stress in the psychological and biological sense as “an adverse circumstance that disturbs, or is likely to disturb, the normal physiological or psychological functioning of an individual”. When we hear about stress, we usually think of a negative impact that a stressful situation might have on us. Indeed, excessive stress is one of the major agents in causing physical and psychological problems. Now in coronavirus times in particular, we need to pay close attention to our levels of stress. The World Health Organisation warns that the COVID-19 pandemic is inducing a considerable degree of fear, worry and concern. The main psychological impacts are elevated rates of stress or anxiety. While these external circumstances are unavoidable, can we help ourselves cope with the situation by changing our perspective on stress itself?

Some level of stress may be motivating and prompt us into action. In fact, many people need the pressure of a deadline to accomplish in record time a difficult task they’ve been postponing for weeks! Recent studies show that how you perceive stress matters. If your perception of stress is negative and you see the situation as threatening, this may lead to negative outcomes. If your perception of stress is positive you may instead see the situation as a challenging opportunity for growth and personal development, this may lead to more positive outcomes. In fact, if you change your perspective and look at stress as an opportunity rather than as a threat, this can improve your chances to respond to the stressful situation in positive ways. If you change your mindset about stress in general, your cognitive, physiological and affective stress responses can become more constructive. You focus more on the positive sides of your life than the negative ones and this can improve your ability to cope with the situation.

NEUROCISE

So how can we recognise signs of excessive stress and change our perspectives on stress to develop a more positive view? Try this experiment: take a sheet of paper and write on top the stressful situation you’d like to examine. Divide the rest of the paper in two columns. On the left write all the threats that you are perceiving. Go into details and write down every thought that comes to mind. When you’ve finished, take a moment to close your eyes and do a few yawns. Yawning is the fastest way to reduce any neurological stress caused by the first part of this exercise. Make sure you yawn mindfully, observing where the yawn starts, how it develops and where it ends. Pay attention to every feeling and sensation the yawn brings you but don’t dwell on any, just mindfully observe them and let them go. You can add a few super-slow stretches, as slow as the slow motion movie on your smart phone. For example, try to spend a whole minute to roll your head from one shoulder to the other.

Now, let’s turn the threats into more positive affirmations. Staying in the mindfully relaxed state you’ve just achieved through yawning and stretching, in the right column re-write the sentences you wrote in the threats column but this time as opportunities for personal growth and positive change. Use your intuition to come up with strategies for change without generating excessive stress and don’t forget to write down your ideas. Visualize what now appear to be obstacles to growth, write down your ideas for how they might be overcome, and then savour the rewards that will come as you find the right balance of stress and confidence to insure success. Now try them out!

SOURCES

The role of stress mindset in shaping cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to challenging and threatening stress. Crum AJ et al. Anxiety Stress Coping. (2017)

Delineating the relationship between stress mindset and primary appraisals: preliminary findings. Kilby CJ, Sherman KA. Springerplus. 2016 Mar 15;5:336

Mental health and COVID-19. World Health Organisation technical guidance

A recent study indicates that a large difference between sleep patterns during the week and on the weekend may impair your attention. 

While a sleep-in on the weekend may be beneficial to recover from lack of sleep during the week, the irregularity of the sleep pattern may be detrimental to your cognitive performance.

Participants of the study were given a device to follow their sleep pattern for a week. On the test day, they were given a visual attention task to track movements of balls on a screen or to focus on a central point. Meanwhile their brain activity was recorded.

The results indicated that longer weekend sleep duration was associated with greater resting-state functional connectivity within the Default Mode Network (parts of the brain associated with imagination, creativity, and predicting potentially positive and negative outcomes).

Participants who slept longer on the weekend than during the workweek, showed greater deactivation of the Default Mode Network and displayed a better attentional performance.

This beneficial effect was only observed at the beginning of the workweek, indicating that the benefit of the catch-up sleep may be limited to  mild sleep loss. 

Sleep loss may also result in increased effort of performing middle to high attention-demanding tasks.

However, inconsistent sleep duration and inconsistent sleep timing are two independent indexes of sleep inconsistency.

Unlike inconsistent sleep duration, inconsistent sleep timing has been associated with worse attentional performance. 

It would appear that even mild social jetlag can impair performance during regular working hours.

CHALLENGE

If you can, take advantage of the lockdown period of fewer social commitments to improve your sleep regularity. For a week choose to go to sleep 😴 at the same time and wake up at the same time in the morning.

FIGURE

The visual attention task activated frontal, parietal and occipital cortices, cerebellum, and thalamus and deactivated the Default Mode Network:

REFERENCES

Sleep inconsistency between weekends and weekdays is associated with changes in brain function during task and rest
Rui Zhang, Dardo Tomasi, Ehsan Shokri-Kojori, Corinde E Wiers, Gene-Jack Wang, Nora D Volkow
Sleep, zsaa076,
https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaa076
Published: 10 April 2020
https://academic.oup.com/sleep/advance-article/doi/10.1093/sleep/zsaa076/5825065

Does “Task Difficulty” Explain “Task-Induced Deactivation?”
Sam J Gilbert 1 , Geoffrey Bird, Chris D Frith, Paul W Burgess
Front Psychol. 2012 Apr 25;3:125.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00125.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00125/full

The two‐process model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal
Alexander A. Borbély Serge Daan Anna Wirz‐Justice Tom Deboer
J Sleep Res. 2016 Apr;25(2):131-43.
doi: 10.1111/jsr.12371.

Jitka helped me to be able to better focus on, connect the dots, and compare the many creative thoughts running through my head.This coaching process is really good for helping you sort things out to make decisions. Thank you Jitka

Ruth Deutsch, Los Angeles, United States

I struggled to find my real “Why”.  Why, I wanted to be successful and what would push me through the tough times.  In November 2019 I decided to give Neuro coaching a try and was put in touch with Jitka Horcickova.  Jitka immediately made me feel at ease and comfortable with her.  She has a beautiful soul that shines through and is extremely patient.  After our first session I felt like I had found my why and I was feeling a clarity that I didn’t have before.  She asked me to ask my intuition if I needed another session and I agreed to one more and it was after this second session that my deepest why was reveled to me.  Through out both sessions I would have insights into my subconscious mind and learn more and more about what I needed to do or accomplish.  IT truly is an incredible experience and Jitka made the whole process so easy and comfortable, even when I had tears streaming down my face.  Thank you so much for your help in finding my deepest why and helping me discover my path to Freedom.

Terri Read, Christchurch, New Zealand

Jitka´s open heart and calm manner made me feel relaxed and present in our sessions. She has a lot of compassion for others and is eager to help. Her excellent listening and analytical skills have helped me move through my issues. She gives helpful suggestions without being pushy, and is a joy to work with. I highly recommend booking a session with Jitka 

Kjersti Hattrem, Oslo, Norway

Ho fatto una sessione con Jitka per smettere di fumare e devo dire che e’ il metodo migliore che abbia mai provato. Sicuramente richiede della volontà’ ma se si vuol smettere di fumare e’ un grande aiuto e Jitka e’ bravissima.

Translation: I had a session with Jitka to quit smoking and I have to say it’s the best method I’ve ever tried. Surely it requires will ‘ but if you want to quit smoking it’s a great help and Jitka is great.

Luca Pagliaro, Cosenza, Italy