It’s been almost 10 years since my first high school band concert, although I remember it well. I was very nervous. I was a band kid through and through. I was hooked since my first day of band camp my freshman year. 

Band was something special. Not every kid participated, and not every kid felt about it the way I did, but the ones who understood, were some of my best friends. 

Band was not just an extra curricular activity that we did reluctantly because our parents asked us to, or something that appealed to the college board. Band was a way of life. I didn’t participate in a ton of extracurriculars outside of band, but having gotten older I can guess that this is not a unique feeling to band kids. Every student who was actively a part of something, not just coasting by, probably felt the experience that I did, and learned the lessons that I learned. 

Band taught us how to conduct and present ourselves as a group. We learned how to organize ourselves accordingly before walking on stage, sit down seamlessly at the same time, make sure each instrument was facing the same way and resting in the same position, pick up the instrument at the same time and make music together. Tune to the ear of those around you for a harmonious sound, and act as one. 

We learned how to take pride in our appearance, a well kept uniform, black shoes, simple elegant jewelry, no nails, nothing flashy, nothing that set one apart from the crown that might detract from the audience experience. It was about discipline, and respect for your peers in the band. We took pride and comfort in knowing that each person there was putting in the same kind of effort you were. We strived to motivate each other, hold practice sessions as a group, and encourage one another to do better. 

I spent hours upon hours with these people throughout my high school experience. They made me a better person, and they taught me so much. I don’t believe that I am alone in this experience. I am sure that most others who participated diligently in team activities feel this way about their team sport, and have experiences exclusive to the culture of their respective activity. 

In my opinion, and experience, these are the only things that make high school worth it. It’s these activities, not the education, that play such important roles in shaping the young minds of students into who they are going to become.

Tonight, however, after attending a high school band concert almost 10 years after my first high school band concert, things were different. 

At times I feel like I live in an echo chamber. My two younger brothers are homeschooled and I spend so much time with others who feel the way I do about the public education system I almost forget that there are those out there who still believe in it. Not only do they believe in it, they trust it enough to turn their kids over to it. The thought horrifies me. And it should horrify you too. 

Tonight I witnessed a group of students so incapable of conducting themselves properly I couldn’t believe it. All sense of decorum and dignity seemed to fly out the window. Kids clambered on stage noisily in between bands, playing their instruments haphazardly while awaiting their band director, who could not have been much older than me, to give them further instruction. I watched a child walk on to the stage, pull his phone out of his pocket to check it, and then sit down in his chair before playing. I watched girls giggle and chatter in between songs on stage, I heard children laugh and chat endlessly in the audience while their fellow peers performed. A student in a reindeer onesie lept out on stage in front of everyone to solo on the slapstick during Sleigh ride, while another student put on a horse mask to then mimic the “neigh” sound featured on the trumpet at the end of the song. 

This had nothing to do with the music. Rather the music was good or bad, the attitude and general demeanor of the group should stay the same. Integrity should be present everywhere you try your best, and I did not see these kids try their best. 

I began to ponder, if you asked any of these kids what they cared about most in the world I wonder what it would be. What do their dreams and fantasies look like, what motivates them to work hard, what encourages them to do better and keep growing?

I bet many of them wouldn’t have answers. 

While it may not seem obvious on the surface, this feels intrinsically connected to the health of our young people. It’s my belief that the over medicated and overly processed world we live in is creating kids who are not going to be able to function in society in a healthy way. Of course, this isn’t a new thing, and it’s not just the medications and the foods we consume, it’s the parenting and the way they’re raised. It seems clear to me that we have a grown generation of children who are already so damaged from the processed foods and the medications, and the environmental toxins, that they, in turn, are unable to raise a generation of healthy kids. Kids today are sicker than ever, with higher rates or depression, autism, obesity, and chronic illness many are beginning to wonder where we went wrong.

They’ve never known anything but the mediation for every problem, but corn flakes and fruit loops for breakfasts, dozens of vaccines since birth, and they’re turning around and producing children even more damaged than themselves. 

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Teachers have reported an increase in uncontrollable children who are simply unable to control themselves. Students who can’t handle the word “no”, Students who can’t self-regulate when they don’t get their way, students who will not be able to emerge into society as functioning adults at the rate that they are going. 

Many don’t seem to know the solution to this, however the solution is simple. Simple, but not easy. Fix the food. Get rid of the medications, and learn to use the word “No”. 

The behavior I saw exhibited over two hours at a high school band concert instilled a new confidence in me at my choice to homeschool my kids. While I don’t have children yet, I can say with certainty, one thing I will never do is subject them to the kind of horrors that seem to go on in public school in this day and age. 

We don’t want normal kids any more. That seems to be the argument for public schooling. “I want normal kids”. What does that even mean anymore? Normal has skewed so far beyond what we once thought that you are sure to find more traditional normalcy in a kid who grew up barefoot on a farm than a kid who made it through all 12 years of public school. I know I’m not alone in this and I am hopeful for a future generation that experiences more home schooling, and less public schooling. 

The negative side effects of pornography have long been known by psychologist as well as most of the general public. One of the most prominent side effects that men experience is desensitization to the content that they consume. The longer they watch porn, often times the more intense the content has to become in order to achieve the same satisfaction, escalating until real human connection no longer satisfies you, and you’re only left with extremely graphic and intense content just to try and feel something. 

This has been talked about at length, but recently, it occured to me that we’re experiencing this everywhere in all facets of life. Humans are becoming desensitized to their emotions more and more everyday. 

Recently while driving around with my 15 year old sister, she asked me if she could put on her podcast, I said yes, actually excited by the idea of her listening to something besides y2k pop.                 

That excitement didn’t last long as we began listening to a woman recount in great graphic detail the history of a certain famous serial killer while she applied her makeup. I, to say the least, was horrified and disturbed. My sister, on the other hand, was enthralled. 

Now this is nothing new. Obviously this woman has built a following on people consuming this content, no matter how twisted you may think it is, and of course, we’ve been listening to murder mystery podcasts and watching “who done it” shows for decades. But the question is why? I think once upon a time, the idea of the this kind of content consumption would be horrifying to the average person. Only very disturbed people were interested in this kind of information. 

We’ve been discussing since the early 90s the effects of violent video games on a child’s psyche and rather or not violence in TV and video games can desensitize you to real life violence (evidence would suggest yes, it likely does) And now, it seems like we’re only seeing more violence portrayed in media that we were 30 years ago. 

Now this really isn’t about becoming desensitized to violence. It’s much broader than that. I would argue that as a society we’re become desensitized to everything. 

I think the biggest example of this is social media, and the way we consume content. Scrolling on social media releases dopamine by activating the brain’s reward pleasure system. Unfortunately, this is a rather unnatural way to release dopamine, and over time we become addicted to these quick fixes, giving us instant dopamine hits. Just like a regular drug addict, after time we need more and more to achieve the same effect, but this isn’t just “more” in terms of quantity. It’s more flashy, more instant gratification, louder and more dramatic content needed to grab our attention and release the same dopamine hit. 

“Doing things that are hard is one of the best ways to pursue a life worth living, because the pleasure we get afterwards is more enduring,”

–Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts

The immediate access to instant pleasure is a problem worth talking about, however, I think there’s another deeper layer here contributing to our desensitization that makes this a two-fold issue. 

The number of people on antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and other psychiatric drugs has skyrocketed over the last several decades, and I largely believe that this is a huge contributor to our desensitization. While these drugs are often used for their ability to alleviate depression, these drugs can alleviate all emotions, leaving us a shell of our former self, maybe not sad anymore, but maybe not much of anything else. Unable to feel intense joy, sorrow, or anything in between. 

“This flattening of feelings, also called “reduced affect,” is a potential side effect of antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Around half of people taking antidepressants report some degree of blunted emotions, according to research.[1] “

-All About Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs): Types, Side Effects, and More

As a society we have two things working against us at once. Theses drugs, numbing our emotions, and this huge influx of instant dopamine at our fingertips. It’s a perfect combination for an overly addicted, numbed, zombie-like society. 

The questions is what can we do about it? It seems many of these things are unavoidable, and in a way they are. It’s hard to get by in the modern world without a smartphone. 

I think the answer is to start small. Fine offline hobbies, try leaving your phone at home when you’re going somewhere you won’t need it. I often like to leave mine at home when I’m going out with my parents or other close family members. Try a social media detox. I recently did this and found it to be enlightening. You can read more about my experience with that here. Try engaging with your peers in the real world without a screen in your hand, talk to a stranger at a coffee shop. Imagine what life would be like, what you would do if you didn’t have a phone, and then try that. 

I’m not perfect. I can’t tell you how many times I stopped what I was doing to check my phone in the middle of writing this article. As a matter of fact, I’m sitting outside a coffee shop right now writing, rather than engaging with the world around me (sometimes you have to work) but last weekend I went to a party with my family and left my phone at home. Last week I lost my phone and decided to let it be lost when I went to bed. I found it again the next morning, and nothing bad happened. 

Being aware of these issues is, in my opinion, one of the crucial first steps to making changes to the world we live in. 

• Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior
• Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts
• Emotional Desensitization to Violence Contributes to Adolescents’ Violent Behavior

I pride myself on being virtually vice free. There’s that old expression, “everyone has a vice”. I contemplate this sometimes and wonder what my vice might be. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t even drink coffee, I don’t watch porn, I don’t eat junk food, I work out often, I like to read and I enjoy the sauna, and I don’t even really watch TV. In fact, I don’t even own a TV. I don’t use TikTok, I don’t use snapchat. I used to spend a lot of time scrolling on Tumblr but I managed to kick that habit as well. I don’t look down upon those who don’t do those things, I’m just striving for a life of optimization, and eliminating these things help me feel my best, and allows me to channel my energy into more important things And I’m happy, happier than almost people I know my age. 

But there is that *one* little thing. 

I spend upwards of an hour and a half a day on instagram. 

And I feel really bad about myself when I do. 

I can justify this in a few ways. I’ve moved away from a lot of friends, instagram is a place to keep up with them! 

But am I really keeping up with them? 

My reels are great, they’re full of homesteading and recipe videos!

Yeah but how often a day do the mind numbing videos creep in and take you down a rabbit hole you shouldn’t be in. 

Multiple times. 

And at the end of the day, how much time did you spend on instagram that could’ve been spent doing something more productive. A chapter of a book, working on an article, going to the gym or playing with the dog. 

So I’ve decided delete instagram off my phone for 30 days. 

I don’t expect this to be easy for me, and I don’t know what my plans are after these 30 days are up. I love to post photos like a digital journal to look back on, and I probably will keep doing that. My friends send me videos but I think I can live without them, and I think once I kick the doom scrolling habit, I won’t miss much.

I recently challenged myself to buy no new clothes or house wares for a month and that was difficult at first but then it become sort of freeing, and since then I’ve been much more intentional about what I purchase. 

So if I do go back to instagram after 30 days, I’m hoping that this can serve as somewhat of a mental reset and provide some intention for me when I return. 

DAY 1

Upon day one I was quite sure that I needed this challenge because I realized over several hours in the car (I drive a lot for work) I wanted to check instagram at EVERY red light! A reflex, a switch in my brain, the car has stopped, time to check instagram, and every time I had to remind myself that it was no longer on my phone. 

Sounds a little bit like a junkie if you ask me. 

So now instead I will occasionally check my todo list, or better yet, not touch my phone. 

On day 2 I woke up and journaled, which I usually do anyways, after about 30 minutes of instagram scrolling while sill in bed. I try not expose myself to the light early in the morning by keeping a red light filter on, but if something interesting enough captures my eye, I’ll turn it off, and then I’m even more likely to get sucked into the doom scrolling. 

One day I’d love to start my mornings barefoot in the grass but I live in Detroit and there’s broken glass in my back yard and it just doesn’t quite have the ideal Set up for barefoot mornings and sunlight.

So I started my day without instagram and by 9am I have made breakfast, talked to our route driver and sent the route to her, checked the emails, journaled, made some big batches of ginger lemonade, prepared 3 loaves of bread for the next stage of proofing, cleaned the kitchen, and written this article introduction. 

Honestly, I’m not jonesing for a dopamine hit, nor was I yesterday unless I was at a red light, but I have plenty to do and numerous other outlets to keep myself entertained if the work ever runs out.

Social media and our young people 

Social media has provided some amazing things to our society and overall for the adult population I can’t say rather or not is more of a net negative or net positive, but I know that for young children the addiction to the screen is doing some intense damage to their developing brains. The facts are in, this is not good for our young people. 

I wasn’t an iPad kid. Born in 2001 to a mother of 18, I often felt on the cusp of millennial and gen z but I am squarely in the get z age range. I grew up with cartoons and I had a flip phone at the age of 9. I was 12 when I got social media, and every day I thank god that I didn’t have it earlier. I wish I would have waited longer but all things considered I turned out all right. However, this is so rarely the case today. Abigail Shrier covers this in her most recent book “Bad Therapy: Why Kids today aren’t growing up” Shrier talks about a very interesting phenomena facing young people today. We are the generation with the most access to “mental health resources” and yet, we are by far the most mentally ill generation. Why is that? Many reasons, but a huge factor, based on the most recent research, social media. 

Take this article from Yale Medicine or this one from Mayo Clinic , this from the child mind institute

Really any article from a quick google search will tell you about the negative impact social media has on young people. Unlike certain things this is not information you have to search for. Who’s to say the effect on adults is all that much better? 

Half way update

It’s May 12th, about half way through my instagram free journey. I’m pleased to say my urge to doom scroll has dissipated. I no longer get the urge to reach for my phone and scroll when I hit every red light. 

My screen time is down significantly. From 7-9 hours a day to typically somewhere between 4-5. Nine hours a day is too high, as is five hours in my opinion and it’s not taking into consideration my computer time, but there’s no doom scrolling happening on there and it’s all for work. Ideally my screen time would be between 1-2 hours a day, but I use google maps for several hours a day on route for work or running errands. I also listen to podcasts on Spotify and YouTube and sometimes leave the screen playing on accident, both of these contribute to several hours of screen time a day. 

Anyone know a good way to track screen time that doesn’t account for google maps and other time not actually spent on the phone? 

I no longer spend my mornings doom scrolling and am spending more time journaling and reading, which I already do quite a bit of but am excited about incorporating more of. 

I will confess that on 2 occasions I have looked at instagram messages on a web browser or my iPad. I was expecting (hoping) for a message that never came. Thus making the whole thing, not worth it.  

Over all, I’m feeling really good about being pretty much entirely social media free, and am not 100% sure what plans are for the end of this month after this challenge. I love posting photos on instagram and I’ve found that I’m documenting things through photos less than I would previously. This is a side effect that has both pros and cons in my opinion. I love photography and I love documenting moments but I’m on my phone less and in the moment more which I think has benefits, obviously. 

I may start scrapbooking or keeping a photo album so I have some place to document and look back on, or maybe just download instagram periodically to post and then delete it again. There are some instagram accounts that I miss keeping up with. This feels very silly, I’m not missing much I realized I also use instagram to research, restaurants in the area, thrift shops, markets, it seems like instagram has its finger on the pulse of what’s relevant in a way that google doesn’t. And of course, there are the hundreds of recipes I have saved that I swore I was going to make one day. 

I can honestly say that I’m not missing much from my friends or other people I used to follow. I realize I’ve been out of the loop- apparently there’s beef with kendrick Lemar and Drake, I was so out of the loop I heard about this on a Joe rogan podcast. And that’s another thing I miss sometimes, I used to see who was hanging out with Joe Rogan and know who the next podcast guest was, and now I just have to wait until they come out. 

In some ways I worry about losing touch- what are the young people doing and talking about (I’m 23, and even I can’t keep up) what if I become the 23 year old equivalent of a weird home schooled kid (I already don’t have many friends) but at the same time, what’s being in tune with social media compared to being in tune with what’s around me. 

I don’t come home and sit on the couch and scroll anymore. I’ll read or journal, look at my Todoist, or better yet, just get straight to work because there is always another project to do. 

Ultimately why I wanted to give up social media

I have this philosophy in life that leading by example is one of the highest form of authenticity and good. I don’t have kids yet but I examined this first in my younger siblings (aged 15, 8, and 11 at time of publishing) 

Kids are a mirror into our own behavior and I began to see things in my younger siblings that I didn’t like in myself. 

Of course, that’s not to say that it was all bad. They mirrored some good things too. But I began to look at habits and behaviors in my life like this: Is this a good or bad habit, and do I want my future kids to exhibit this behavior or habit? 

If the answer is no, then the next questions is: Why am I still doing this? Could I justify this behavior or habit that I’m exhibiting to my future kids, even though I don’t want them to do it? 

And lastly: What can I do to eliminate this habit and lead by example? 

The greatest example I have of this is drinking. Why am I drinking? Because it’s fun, it makes social outings more enjoyable, and all of my friends are doing it. 

Do I want my kids doing this? No, absolutely not. There are no positive side effects to drinking, and the health impacts are severe. 

Can I justify this to my kids even though it’s something I don’t want them doing? No. Not really. Just because I’m an adult doesn’t make it healthy, worth it, or right to drink, given how I feel about it personally. 

What can I do to change this? I quit drinking. I wasn’t an alcoholic. I didn’t have problems with drinking. But I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by quitting, so I did. 

One by one I went through things like this in my personal life and eliminated (or continue to try) to eliminate habits that I don’t want my kids to have. 

Which leads us here. Do I want my kids to use social media? No! The jury is in, it’s wrecking our kids. They can absolutely live without it and be better for it. Therefore, it’s time for me to start to lead by example. Of course these kids don’t exist yet but my younger siblings look up to me and mirror my behavior. I think eliminating or severely limiting social media is a great way to lead by example. 

Last week 

We’re reaching our last week of no instagram on my phone, although I don’t intend to go back when it’s over. 

At my peak I was able to get my screen time down to an average of 2 hours a day which is pretty incredible in todays day and age, especially considering google maps usage. 

 I would like to continue to limit my screen time as much as possible. I’ve found that when I have my iPad charged, I am susceptible to looking at instagram, I don’t tend to dive very deep into the rabbit hole, but I will check my messages, and check up on those aforementioned accounts I miss and then close the app. 

There’s no longer all this stuff I’m checking up on, and therefore nothing to see. I get bored rather quickly, and while I still find the occasional funny or interesting reel, I don’t receive the same dopamine hit, or crave the next dopamine hit quite the way I did when I was stuck in my addictive cycle. Unfortunately for me, setting an app timer or even getting an external app to limit my screen time doesn’t help me restrict certain apps. I’ll simply bypass the protocols I have set up, and do it anyways. For me, the solution was the go cold turkey until I felt like the addictive cycle had been broken. 

Here are some better habits I’ve replaced with my desire to doom scroll. 

Reading a couple pages of a book when I feel my attention span shrinking from the task at hand. 

Writing a journal entry, I find that one page takes about 3-5 minutes and is a sufficient reset for me mentally. 

Checking my Todoist, and monitoring my progress on important tasks. 

Looking at Pinterest and finding inspiration for current projects or future goals. I’ve been creating Pinterest boards for certain future aspirations and I’ve been enjoying it, but I’m not addicted to it, it doesn’t feed the addictive side of my brain like social media does, and I usually spend 10-15 minutes building a board and then move on to something else. 

One month follow up 

It’s been a month since the end of my 30 days of instagram free challenge and I am here to report that I have not redownloaded the app on my phone. I do continue to check it sometimes and I have come to find that there are some people whose content I enjoy and seek out, but I’ll check on them occasionally and then move on. I no longer feel the need to doom scroll. I still post and keep up with documenting memories for my own sake, but I would still like to start scrapbooking at some point. 

Life is genuinely better since I eliminated my social media addiction, and I now feel qualified and capable to help prevent my future kids from developing the same problem that everyone else in the younger generation has. 

Like I said earlier in this article, the verdict is in. Social media is not good for us, and it’s wreaking havoc on a young generation of kids who have never known life without it. Taking a step back and evaluating the relationship that you have with social media as an individual can be instrumental to see this crisis more clearly, and helping others. As adults, it’s up to us to lead by example and set limitations and expectations for young people. We can do this by consuming content more consciously, as well as limiting our overall consumption of content, and encouraging our friends to do the same. 

A new poll by CNBC suggests 44% of older millennials (people born between 1981 and 1988) have at least one chronic health condition.

Migraines, depression, and asthma were the most common conditions with type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure closely following.

The poll found older millennials had a higher rate of chronic illness compared to the general public, including the age group older than them.

Among the survey group, cancer was almost as common among older millennials as it was in the general population. About four percent of the 33- to 40-year-olds said they’d been diagnosed with cancer, compared to five percent of the overall survey group. 

Nearly half of older millennials have at least one chronic health condition such as depression, high blood pressure or asthma by the time they turn 40, poll suggests

Obesity is an increasing problem for Americans of all ages but even more so for the younger population. Only 10% of the 4,000 survey respondents reported being obese, which is lower than the general population, with an obesity rate of 13%. Obesity can lead to a higher likelihood of chronic health conditions that millennials are more likely to suffer from.

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• Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet
• Best Supplements To Kill Candida and Everything Else You Ever Wanted To Know About Fungal Infections 
• How To Heal Your Gut 

A national survey of 977 parents with kids between the ages of 13-18 analyzed the mental health of teens since the beginning of the pandemic. Nearly half of parents have reported that their children are experiencing new or worse mental health problems since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos the C.S Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan medical school.

The restrictions to control the spread of Covid-19 have kept teens at home “at the age they were primed to seek independence from their families,” said poll co-director Dr. Gary Freed, who is the Percy and Mary Murphy professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

Nearly half of parents said teens face new or worsening mental health issues during pandemic, poll says

Parents of teen girls reported higher cases of depression and anxiety compared to boys. Thirty-one percent of teenage girls experienced depression compared to 18% of boys. Thirty-six% of teenage girls faced anxiety compared to 19% of boys. A quarter of parents have said that the pandemic has affected children’s sleep schedule.

I used to have terrible anxiety. Throughout high school, I had panic attacks so severe I felt like I couldn’t breathe. At my worst, I would shut down, in tears, unable to take a deep breath, while my whole body shook. The pit in my stomach would get so heavy I was sure I would be sick. Sometimes, I did get sick.

Image credit: Antonioguillem/Adobe Stock

I remember the progression from being a nervous person to realizing I had anxiety, to being able to recognize I was having a panic attack. Yet, I didn’t even realize how bad it was because I was used to living with chronic pain. But when I was 16, I had a severe panic attack, severe enough that I finally thought to myself, “This is not normal, and I am not okay. I can’t live like this.” It was another two years before I fixed the root of the problem.

For two years after that debilitating panic attack, I would practice deep breathing, and on rare occasions, take an anxiety pill to try and help calm my nerves. Unfortunately, my endocrine system was so messed up, there wasn’t much I could do to quell the anxiety without fixing the root of the problem.

I also used to weigh 320 pounds. I woke up anxious; I went to bed anxious. Every moment of my life was full of anxiety. After graduating from high school, I began to learn about the endocrine system. I’ve learned how my toxic lifestyle (diet, prescription drugs, and poor sleep habits) caused my hormonal imbalance and was at the root of my anxiety and numerous other health problems. If you would like to take a deep dive into how hormones work and how to fix the endocrine system, check out the following article:

The endocrine system is the collection of glands and glandular organs that produce hormones to regulate metabolism, tissue function, growth and development (which includes repair), sexual function, reproduction, sleep, mood, the immune system, and more.

HOLISTIC GUIDE TO HEALING THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM AND BALANCING OUR HORMONES

My anxiety was caused by two major things that were totally within my control:

• Poor diet
• Poor sleep

I’ve learned that my endocrine system was functioning so poorly because of my diet and poor sleep, which was also affected by my poor diet.

Diet

Diet is imperative to fixing the endocrine system and getting rid of anxiety. Just like with most everything else, it starts in the gut. When I eliminated refined sugars, gluten, and processed foods, I felt better within days. When I started eating a salad and drinking a gallon of cranberry lemonade every day, my life changed for the better, irrevocably.

We have an excellent article about the hormonal system that I urge anyone to read if they want to learn how to balance and heal the endocrine system. It goes into why diet is paramount to healing the gut, the endocrine system, and chronic illness in general:

As OLM always says, it starts with diet. Supplemental therapies are much more effective with a healthy diet, and for most people, the right diet is all they need. But there are plenty of people who do not have access to healthy foods, and there are many who have such a depleted endocrine system that the body is just plain going to need a lot of help.

HOLISTIC GUIDE TO HEALING THE ENDOCRINE SYSTEM AND BALANCING OUR HORMONES

Two months after fixing my diet, I decided to fast for a week. Within days my depression was back. I wasn’t as anxious as I had been, but the anxiety made it difficult to talk about how I was struggling. I had stopped eating vegetables, and I had stopped working out. I don’t think my gut was healthy enough for me to reap the benefits of fasting. A week later, the first thing I ate was a salad. I felt better immediately. As I incorporated exercise back into my life, my anxiety continued to fade.

I start to feel a little anxious when I don’t eat well enough as well as when I don’t take time to get enough sleep. When I say I’m not eating well I should be clear. My idea of junk food is stuff like homemade pesto with brown rice pasta, or organic brown rice chips with a chunk of goat cheddar cheese. Sometimes we make raw food chocolate pie or sourdough bread. While the average person wouldn’t notice any problems with these foods, and may even feel better compared to a typical diet, I get anxious when I eat wheat or pre-packaged processed “healthy” snack foods.

Sleep

Throughout high school, I would regularly sleep between 12-14 hours a day. I would often joke with my friends about how much sleep I got. While they were on one end of the spectrum, pulling all-nighters, I was on the other end, sleeping as much as possible. None of us were healthy. I struggled with depression throughout high school. I was always exhausted, no matter how much I slept.

Fixing your sleep schedule can be difficult or impossible if you’re not taking care of yourself in other ways. I sleep well when I eat well. Exercise helps, too. When I mess up my sleep schedule (which doesn’t happen often, but it does happen), I find that exercise is the best way to help me get back on track. No matter how mentally tired I am at the end of the day, I can still have a hard time falling asleep if I don’t go for a run or work out in some other way.

I also find that having a set bedtime and wake-up time helps. I generally go to bed by 9:30 or 10:00 every night. My wake-up time is not yet as consistent. Sometimes I’m up at 6:00 am, but other times, if my REM sleep is off, or I’m working out very hard, I can sleep past 8. I’m almost always awake by 9.

I find that my sleep schedule and my endocrine system are intertwined. It can be a vicious cycle when things aren’t going well! An unhealthy endocrine system makes it difficult to impossible to fix one’s sleep schedule, and a messed up sleep schedule makes it difficult to impossible to have a healthy endocrine system.

I find it interesting to pay attention to what happens when I don’t get enough sleep, and I get to experiment with this regularly. I have friends in college who often aren’t ready or able to talk or hang out until 8:00 or 9:00 pm when I’m ready to go to bed. And sometimes I can’t help myself, and I find I’ve pulled all-nighters or had too many consecutive days running on 3-4 hours of sleep while sticking to my very healthy diet.

when I don’t get enough sleep, the first thing that happens, obviously, is exhaustion. I have a hard time focusing and I feel very drained. Then I notice the anxiety. I notice a small pit in my stomach at the thought of doing something I don’t want to do. Something as simple as going on a run when I don’t want to can cause a slight twinge of anxious nausea.

The longer I go without sleep the worse my anxiety gets. It goes from that small twinge of nausea to a constant knot in my stomach at the thought of the unknown. My heart rate will spike unnecessarily at any unease. Happy excitement can turn into anxiety very quickly.

After one all-nighter or 2 days with less than 6 hours of sleep, I notice the bags under my eyes. They’re faint. Someone who doesn’t know me might not even notice them, but they’re there. Shortly after the sun comes up, I can barely see the purple-blue hues beginning to appear under my eyes.

I also experience dizziness when standing up if I’m not getting enough sleep. Recently, for two weeks, I did not get nearly enough sleep and was alternating between all-nighters and getting a couple of hours of sleep a night. Every time I stood up I would get lightheaded. I nearly fainted twice. There are multiple factors that go into this, but I believe that had I been getting proper sleep, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Since correcting my sleep schedule, the issues have gone away.

Conclusion

I remember what it was like to have severe anxiety. I know how hard it can be to treat. I find that like almost all other things health related, it starts in the gut. Fixing anxiety can take time. My panic attacks went away within days of fixing my diet, but it took months of regular exercise and a healthy diet to fix my endocrine system enough to alleviate my anxiety completely.

• The Effects of Anxiety on the Endocrine System
• Anxiety disorders are linked to inflamed thyroid glands
• 10 Ways to Naturally Reduce Anxiety

A new study, reported in JAMA Psychiatry, found Psilocybin to be four times more effective at treating depression, compared to antidepressants. Psilocybin is the psychedelic substance in magic mushrooms. This research comes after research suggesting that psilocybin could ease depression and anxiety in cancer patients.

The study involved 27 people. Patients received two doses of psilocybin on two different days, in addition to 11 hours of psychotherapy. Patients were administered the drug in what Alan Davis, lead author on the study, describes as a homey but safe environment. After being administered the drug, patients were blindfolded and given headphones, and told experience whatever was happening within the trip. Half of the patients were put on a waitlist to serve as a comparison group for the other half of the group, who began treatment immediately.

The group who began treatment immediately saw a significant reduction in depression and responded much quicker compared to antidepressants.

“The effect happened within one day after the first session and sustained at that reduced level through the second psilocybin session all the way up to the one-month follow-up,”

Rigorous Study Backs A Psychedelic Treatment For Major Depression