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From Attempting Suicide to Feeling Full of Life: One Woman’s Story
It would be better if I wasn’t alive.
This is the text message T-Kea Blackman sent her friend after her suicide attempt. And it’s the words that begin her powerful memoir Saved & Depressed: A Suicide Survivor’s Journey of Mental Health, Healing & Faith.
Blackman had struggled with suicidal thoughts since age 12, regularly triggered by witnessing drug addiction and domestic violence. At the time of her attempt, she was 24 years old. She felt “powerless and hopeless.”
For years, Blackman also struggled with depression and anxiety. “They both were beyond exhausting to the point I became numb,” she said. The depression was paralyzing, making her feel like bricks were laying on top of her.
Her anxiety led her to feel like she “was in the middle of an ocean in a constant state of panic, flapping my arms and kicking my legs to stay afloat but I never drowned.”
As Blackman writes in Saved & Depressed, before she was formally diagnosed, she “thought it was normal to walk around on edge all of the time. I had no clue that being ‘worked up’ and worried 24/7 was a problem. In fact, I thought everyone struggled with uncontrollable and racing thoughts to the point where they could not focus, sleep, or get daily activities completed…”
An hour after Blackman sent that text to her friend, two policemen showed up at her apartment. She was taken to the hospital, and then transported to the psychiatric unit. Days later, she’d attend a partial hospitalization program for several months. This included individual and group therapy, and involved spending 6 hours at the hospital and going home at night.
Initially, Blackman had zero desire to get better. “Depression felt like home—a warm blanket and it was comfortable,” she said. However, after being in the hospital and attending the outpatient program, she started to feel a glimmer of hope.
With more treatment and support, that glimmer widened and brightened.
Advocacy Work
Today, Blackman is a mental health advocate, speaker, writer, and host of the weekly podcast Fireflies Unite With Kea. In particular, she focuses her advocacy work on the African American community, shattering the stigma of mental illness and help-seeking, and sharing stories of people who live and thrive with different diagnoses.
“As an African American woman, I was taught to be strong and keep going because that’s what my ancestors did. But being strong was to my detriment because I felt weak for needing medication and therapy. And there are other women in my community who deal with those same thoughts and feelings.”
Many African Americans also are hesitant to seek treatment because they “were taught ‘what happens in this house stays in this house’ and going to therapy to talk about things happening in your home [means] that you are airing your business and dirty laundry,” Blackman said.
Some are taught that therapy is exclusively for white people, or that prayer is the only thing they need, she said.
“My goal for my advocacy is to inspire my community to own their truth and more importantly heal.”
Blackman further noted, “you can pray and see a therapist at the same time. Attending therapy does not mean that you lack faith in God or are weak; it means that you are a human working through challenges.”
She also pointed out that therapy isn’t about “airing your dirty laundry”; rather, it’s about discussing “things that make it hard for you to sleep and function at your best. Therapy will provide you a safe space to be the best version of yourself.”
Staying in Recovery
Today, what helps Blackman remain in recovery is her “awesome therapist” and the support of her family and friends. She also connected with groups at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “I found people who could identify with me and support me.”
Most importantly, she said, her recovery resides in “living a self-directed life.”
“I have learned to define success and recovery for myself. As a peer support specialist and advocate, I have people who look up to me and I want to be the support I needed in my darkest days.”
Blackman also credits her strong faith in God and her hard work. “I believe God spared my life to do this work and help save others from suicide. Working on myself has been harder than both of my degrees combined but to see my growth brings tears to my eyes and helps me stay in recovery. I am amazed at how I went from wanting to die and attempting to end my life to being so full of life and excited about my future.”
If You’re Struggling, Too
If you’re struggling with depression or anxiety and feel hopeless and incredibly overwhelmed, Blackman wants you to know that even though right now everything seems dark and you’re convinced you won’t get better, you absolutely will “with the support of a therapist and if needed, medication.”
Blackman stressed the importance of identifying qualities or specialties in a therapist that are non-negotiable for you—and not to stop until you’ve found them. “When I was looking for a therapist, I wanted a black woman because that’s who I felt comfortable with. It took me a while but with the right therapist, I was able to make so much progress.”
“Also, do not feel ashamed if you need to go to the hospital; it could be the very thing that saves your life.”
In the moment, when you’re sick and feel awful, you can’t imagine a time when you’ll actually feel well. It’s similar to having the flu: You have a high fever. You are bed ridden. You feel weak. Even getting up to put a bowl of soup in the microwave feels impossible.
But then, as the treatment kicks in, your body starts to heal, your energy returns, your mind becomes clearer, and the days pass, you do start to feel better. And maybe you even get to a point where you don’t remember as much about those sick days, or they’re not as vivid and visceral. Because they felt permanent, but were not.
And even if you get the flu again, you’re better prepared. You have a good idea of what to do. You know what helps you. And you know it won’t last forever.
If you’re struggling, please know that with treatment you can thrive and live a satisfying, fulfilling life. Blackman’s story is proof of that. And it’s just one of millions of such stories.
If you’re thinking about suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK), text HOME to 741741, or chat online.
Parkinson's may start in the gut and travel up to the brain, suggests a new study in mice published today in Neuron, which found that a toxic neuron-killing protein (α-syn) associated with Parkinson's disease originates among cells in the gut and travels up to the brain via the vagus nerve.
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12 Intermittent Fasting Tips for Athletes
Yesterday, I explained the potential benefits and drawbacks of intermittent fasting for athletes. Maybe yesterday’s post intrigued you. Maybe you’re curious about this whole intermittent fasting thing but don’t want to sacrifice your performance in the gym or on the field.
What are my specific recommendations for athletes who wish to explore intermittent fasting? I’ve got twelve…plus some details about my own fasting and workout routine.
1) Use Restricted Eating Windows Over All-day Fasts
Athletes who want to lean out or maintain strength and performance while lowering body weight might have more success with shortened eating windows than with all day fasts or “one meal a day.” Fast for 12-16 hours, train, and break the fast. Then have 8-12 hours to eat. This will give you a nice block of almost pure fat-burning with enough of an eating window to get the calories you need to grow and maintain muscle and to recover from your training.
2) Small Amount Of Protein Pre-workout May Help
Having a small bit of protein (20 grams whey or maybe 10 grams BCAAs) can help if truly fasted workouts are too hard.
3) Fasted Walks In the Mornings
Whether you skip breakfast or dinner, you’ll have a block of time in the mornings before eating anything. That’s when fat-burning will be upregulated, and brisk fasted walking is a nice way to enhance it.
4) Light Cardio After a Fasted Lifting Session
A heavy lifting session will get free fatty acids liberated from your adipose tissue, particularly if you’re fasted. Doing some very light cardio after your weights should in theory help you utilize all that mobilized adipose tissue. Go for a 20-minute walk, do ten minutes on the bike, or something similar.
5) “Train Fasted, Race Fed”
This is a more intense version of “train low-carb, race high-carb,” a popular and well-researched method of enhancing fat adaptation and increasing fuel efficiency in endurance athletes. Training in a fasted state “forces” the athlete to burn stored fat because, well, there isn’t a whole lot of carbohydrate available. Plus, fasting necessarily increases the circulation of free fatty acids, which can be burned for fuel. This applies to everyone, not just people “racing.” The trick is to train in a fasted state (if you find it helps) and compete (whether it’s CrossFit games, a basketball game, a lifting competition, etc.) in a fed state—as long as it seems to improve your performance.
6) Most Of the Time, Break the Fast Shortly After the Workout
If you’re skipping dinner and eating breakfast, try morning workouts. If you’re skipping breakfast and eating lunch, try afternoon workouts.
7) Every So Often, Continue the Fast After a Workout
This enhances secretion of growth hormone, which fasting already elevates. Don’t make this an every-workout habit, though. Diminishing returns and all.
8) Every Athlete Can Probably Benefit From the Occasional Longer Fast (24 hours+)
This will normalize inflammation, boost growth hormone, and upregulate autophagy, giving you all the necessary co-factors for rest and recovery. Tissues will heal, joints will recover. Do nothing more on these days than easy movement (walks, hikes, bike rides, swims). Time this fast away from competition because your performance may suffer. Do these once a week or every other week.
9) If You Have Joint Problems (or Want To Avoid Them), Take Collagen or Drink Bone Broth Before a Fasted Workout
Fifteen grams of pre-workout collagen or gelatin with a few hundred milligrams of vitamin C has been shown to improve collagen synthesis in connective tissue, and collagen shouldn’t disrupt the fast too much.
10) More Isn’t Better
I see this a lot, especially with endurance athletes who get into intermittent fasting. They start eating breakfast later and see their times drop and their body fat disappear. They feel lighter on their feet, faster, just better all around. So they push breakfast even later and maintain the benefits, even building on them. Pretty soon they’re skipping lunch, and their performance drops off a cliff. When trying to use fasting to improve athletic performance, less is more generally speaking.
11) Realize That Exercise and Fasting Are Additive
For the average couch potato to get the benefits of fasting, he or she might need to go 16 hours without food. The couch potato isn’t liberating body fat through training. The couch potato isn’t getting into ketosis through physical activity. The couch potato isn’t increasing mitochondrial density—the power plants of the cells which actually process fuel—with exercise. The athlete is doing all those things. For the athlete, many of the benefits of fasting will appear with smaller fasting windows.
12) Consider Sleeping Low
“Sleeping low” is an alternative to full-on fasting that actually seems to work well. This is how you do it:
- Afternoon workout. This should be something intense that depletes glycogen—sprinting, metabolic conditioning, high volume strength training, high intensity endurance workouts.
- Eat protein and fat at dinner, no carbs. You’re not refilling your glycogen. You’re reveling in your lack of glycogen.
- Sleep.
- Wake up and do low-intensity cardio (walking, cycling, hiking, swimming) before breakfast. Eat carbs at breakfast.
- Repeat.
When a group of triathletes followed this protocol, both their submaximal efficiency and supramaximal capacity. High submaximal efficiency means you get more power out of each stroke/pedal/step with less energy required. Your “easy pace” becomes faster and more powerful. High supramaximal capacity means you can last longer at your maximum power output.
It’s likely that full-on fasting could be integrated into this protocol. Maybe with a compressed eating window leading up to the afternoon workout.
A Few Words About My Routine:
A few people have asked, so I’ll give an overview of how I approach this topic for myself:
Every day, I do time-restricted feeding. This isn’t a formal declaration I make with myself every day. It’s not really a schedule. It just happens naturally. I wake up and most days I’m not very hungry for anything but a cup of coffee, so I “skip” breakfast and eat my first meal around one in the afternoon following a workout.
Most of my workouts are performed in a fasted state, and I usually keep fasting after the workout for a few hours. I’ll extend that fast after the workout to really take advantage of the increased secretion of growth hormone. I’m not really trying to “get big” or anything, I’m more interested in maintaining body comp and function and increasing longevity. Natural pulses in growth hormone help with that.
Before most workouts, I’ll do some Collagen Fuel. This doesn’t seem to impair my fast and it helps me keep my joints working well—an important part of aging.
Half an hour before my weekly Ultimate Frisbee game, I’ll also include a little Primal Fuel (my whey isolate powder). This just helps me perform better. I’m not going to lose. (By the way, I’ll talk more about protein types for different functions in an upcoming post.)
That’s it for today, folks. Have you tried any of these fasting workout tips? Have they worked? Do you have any more to add? Let us know down below!
References:
Marquet LA, Brisswalter J, Louis J, et al. Enhanced Endurance Performance by Periodization of Carbohydrate Intake: “Sleep Low” Strategy. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2016;48(4):663-72.
The post 12 Intermittent Fasting Tips for Athletes appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
Showering daily — is it necessary?
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Do you shower or bathe daily? If you do, you’re not alone.
Approximately two-thirds of Americans shower daily. In Australia it’s over 80%. But in China, about half of people report bathing only twice a week.
In the US, the daily shower tends to start around puberty and becomes lifelong. But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why?
Perhaps your answer is: “because it’s healthier than showering less often.” Think again. For many — perhaps most — the daily shower is more about habit and societal norms than health. Perhaps that’s why the frequency of bathing or showering varies so much from country to country.
Are there reasons to shower every day?
Besides considering it healthier, people may choose to shower daily for a number of reasons, including:
- concerns about body odor
- help waking up
- a morning routine that includes working out.
Each of these has merit, especially considering that personal or work relationships can be jeopardized by complaints about body odor or personal hygiene. But what is considered acceptable in this regard varies from culture to culture. And some (perhaps a lot) of what we do when it comes to cleaning habits is influenced heavily by marketing. Ever notice that directions on shampoo bottles often say “lather, rinse, repeat”? There is no compelling reason to wash your hair twice with each shower, but it does sell more shampoo if everyone follows these directions.
When it comes to concerns about health, however, it’s not at all clear that a daily shower accomplishes much. In fact, a daily shower may even be bad for your health.
What are the health impacts of showering (or bathing) every day?
Normal, healthy skin maintains a layer of oil and a balance of “good” bacteria and other microorganisms. Washing and scrubbing removes these, especially if the water is hot. As a result:
- Skin may become dry, irritated, or itchy.
- Dry, cracked skin may allow bacteria and allergens to breach the barrier skin is supposed to provide, allowing skin infections and allergic reactions to occur.
- Antibacterial soaps can actually kill off normal bacteria. This upsets the balance of microorganisms on the skin and encourages the emergence of hardier, less friendly organisms that are more resistant to antibiotics.
- Our immune systems need a certain amount of stimulation by normal microorganisms, dirt, and other environmental exposures in order to create protective antibodies and “immune memory.” This is one reason why some pediatricians and dermatologists recommend against daily baths for kids. Frequent baths or showers throughout a lifetime may reduce the ability of the immune system to do its job.
And there could be other reasons to lose your enthusiasm for the daily shower: some people suggest that the water with which we clean ourselves may contain salts, heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride, pesticides, and other chemicals. These may cause problems, too.
The case for showering less
Overcleaning your body is probably not a compelling health issue. Yes, you could be making your skin drier than it would be with less frequent showering. This is not a public health menace. However, daily showers do not improve your health, could cause skin problems or other health issues — and, importantly, they waste a lot of water. Also, the oils, perfumes, and other additives in shampoos, conditioners, and soaps may cause problems of their own, such as allergic reactions (not to mention their cost).
While there is no ideal frequency, experts suggest that showering several times per week is plenty for most people (unless you are grimy, sweaty, or have other reasons to shower more often). Short showers (lasting three or four minutes) with a focus on the armpits and groin may suffice.
If you’re like me, it may be hard to imagine skipping the daily shower. But if you’re doing it for your health, it may be a habit worth breaking.
The post Showering daily — is it necessary? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.
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