- [Narrator] If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available.

Call or text 988 to be connected to trained counselors from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Free and confidential support is available 24 hours a day seven days a week in the United States.

If it is an emergency, please call 911.

For more information visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org - [Narrator] More people around the globe Googled how to maintain mental health in 2021 than ever before.

Between the pandemic, politics and personal matters, we're stressed out.

The whole planet is stressed out.

We asked local and national experts for their advice and the research behind it.

Breathing intentionally, being mindful, exercise, connection, creativity, those aren't just buzzwords.

They're science-based strategies to help us build resilience.

Sometimes the little things can make a big impact.

(soft music) Let's start with a little thing.

- Shelving is one of the, it's a visualization strategy that I teach a lot.

And so shelving is the idea of saying when there's something that is really worrisome and you notice that you're ruminating, you can't stop thinking about it, you can't stop worrying about it, what you can do is you can actually visualize a bookshelf or a shelf of some kind and you imagine your worry as a box, as something that you can hold.

And so when you think about it, you can think, okay, in this situation do I have all the information I need to make a decision?

Right, maybe you're thinking, what college should I go to, maybe you're thinking, should we move, maybe you're thinking, should we quit wearing masks yet?

Right?

And the question can be do I have all the information I need to make the decision?

Most of the time, the answer is no.

Like I'm not quite ready to make that and I'm worrying and worrying and worrying about something that's not here yet.

And if that's the case, that you don't have the information you need, then what you can do is you can imagine this box.

You put it up on a shelf.

I am going to take it down and deal with it when I have everything I need, or when it's time.

But this is not the right time, so you put it on the shelf.

If you're a really visual person, you can make it, you can imagine your bookshelf, you can imagine exactly what the box looks like and you can put that on the shelf as many times as you need to.

Sometimes you're gonna put it on the shelf and then you're gonna notice it's right back in your hands, and you just visualize as many times as you need to, putting it on the shelf.

So I can think about this later but this is not the right time.

And so maybe it's not the right time 'cause you don't have the information you need.

Maybe it's not the right time because you don't have time for it.

You're at work I'm doing this.

I don't have space to give my whole day to this.

I'm gonna shelve it till I get home.

And you can make a time to say, when I get home, when I'm alone, when I've done my deep breathing and I'm in a good space, I could take it off the shelf, look at it, put it back whenever I need to.

- To me, anxiety feels like a ball in a pinball machine that's just ricocheting off of everything.

- It's tense, and your mind worries about everything.

I have generalized anxiety disorder.

And so, you know, it isn't just one certain type of thing.

I worry about everything and, yeah.

And your mind can get carried away with worrying and you start imagining the what ifs and everything.

- And there's a, something along the lines of like being constricted, I think, in a way.

But I think there's a lot of inability to move and I think that there's not as much like elasticity and freedom in the way that we approach things in our lives.

Right?

I think it also restricts creativity, which I think is one of the things that makes it really hard to understand how to address treating depression and anxiety and things like that.

- I remember saying to Dr. Keller one time, you know, I have a family member who's a child who's extremely shy.

What is that all about, and how can I help that child?

And he says, Laura, that is a diagnosis of anxiety.

Some of that, children just go through, but most of it is, it's anxiety.

So you have to find out about that child, what they're feeling anxious about.

And you know, there are those children who are small who stand behind mother's skirts or, you know go behind a couch whenever, if they don't want to meet somebody or they can't talk to anybody or look at them, that's anxiety.

- I meditate or try to meditate, you know try to just find like a quiet place and just not let my brain consume everything 'cause I feel like my - I think about things all the time and everything, I don't know, it just feels like, like I said, my brain feels like it's going at 150 miles an hour constantly.

- Another example I use is like a snow globe.

Things get shooken up, and it's hard to see through because you have all these thoughts, feelings, emotions, worries.

When that snow globe settles, you know, the stuff hasn't gone away.

Like, it's still there.

But it's not in the whirlwind around you, and you can kind of see more clearly and you can kind of see what's there.

- Describe a panic attack.

- I think the first thing I'd say is it feels like you're dying.

It feels like you're going to die at any moment.

I mean the fear and anxiety are just off the charts.

- It felt like my heart was going to explode and I couldn't breathe fast enough.

And mine came with being in enclosed spaces.

Like, one time I was on an airplane.

One time, I was in a 15-passenger van with 15 people and I just thought, I can't claw my way out of here.

What am I going to do?

- I was like in 7th grade when it happened, and I called my mom and she came and got me.

And then I went to the emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack but I know it wasn't a heart attack.

It was a panic attack and it feels like a heart attack, and it feels like you're gonna die and it scared me.

- You feel like you're up a thousand feet in the air on an airplane just hanging on by the wings of the plane.

And it gets real tiring.

If you have those over and over, it takes a toll on your blood pressure, your heart, everything.

But they're, they're quite frightening.

I never ended up in the hospital.

Some people end up in the hospital because of the - they think that you're having a heart attack.

That never happened to me, but it pushed me to the edge, pushed me to the precipice where I wanted to take my life and end it.

- Stress starts with the physical presentation, with the rapid heart rate and all of those things that you feel physically, and many people over time have developed some coping mechanisms to deal with that.

When those coping mechanisms aren't enough, then it results in things like anxiety or panic attacks or feelings of physical, "I feel like I'm having a heart attack" and things like that will actually bring them into the doctor's office.

- We know that anxiety results in all kinds of physical conditions like headaches and upset stomach and muscle tension.

And that's a little, you know, light-bulb moment for a lot of people when you're saying, you know, the underlying theme here could be that you've been struggling for a while with all of these stressors.

And it's popping up in these ways in your body, these chronic headaches, this upset stomach.

I think the underlying, the unifying root here is, you know, anxiety or depression.

And people are varying degrees of receptive to that.

- How so?

- Unfortunately, there's still a lot of stigma around mental illness, and I think sometimes people are more ready to accept that "I have IBS" as opposed to "I have anxiety that's causing IBS-like symptoms."

- It's protective, it's there to take care of us.

But when it gets out of control, it's something that we need to learn skills to navigate.

But I think it's really important to know that there's a strong brain-body connection with anxiety.

It's a physical reaction.

- In adults, we see a lot of muscle tension and fatigue and headaches and a sense of restlessness, too, like "I can't settle and relax.

I have to be doing something."

In kiddos, we see a lot of upset stomach and just kind of nebulous complaints, just like, "I don't feel good."

And I think that's because anxiety's hard to explain.

You know, even me, if you said, hey, tell me what anxiety is.

That's a hard concept to explain.

So for kiddos, it's just, "I don't feel good."

You know something's off.

When your anxiety's getting in the way of your ability to sleep, you just can't stop running your list in your head at night, or you're thinking about that one thing that you said in fourth grade and you just can't let it go.

Or you wake up in the middle of the night after having been asleep for a while and you're just awake and your mind is on, and you can't shut it back off.

That could be anxiety.

Anxiety also interferes with our ability to function and feel like you can make decisions.

- Sometimes when you have a lot of anxiety, you feel so dumb because you're like, "I know this isn't a big deal but I can't feel different than I feel right now."

A lot of the reason that is, is because the part of our brain that could help us process through it isn't working as well when we're anxious.

There's a weakened connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.

And the front part of our brain - that is bigger in humans than anyone else - we have that part of the brain so we can have logic and reasoning and figure out what to do in stressful situations.

The more elevated our anxiety is, the weaker that connection is.

And so it's really hard to plan your way out of it, to think your way out of it, because that connection is weakened.

- One of the things that we like to look at is looking at is looking at the Ls, we call them the Ls in someone's life.

Being sad, that's a normal human emotion.

Being worried, that's a normal human emotion as well.

But when those things start affecting those Ls in your life, your ability to live, laugh, learn, love or cause legal issues, that's when you're starting to like, be like, hey, this might be a little bit more serious.

- [Narrator] Nervousness and a sense of impending danger, panic or doom are among the symptoms of anxiety.

(soft music) - So, the gut is the second brain.

So, if your gut is not good, your brain is not good.

And I have had personal experience with this.

I've had maybe two panic attacks in my life.

And I didn't realize that my gut function was so poor.

I didn't realize I had food sensitivities.

I was eating things that my body thought was toxic.

There's a thing called gut permeability or leaky gut.

And you eat something that your gut cannot handle, and it leaks into the bloodstream and causes an autoimmune response.

And sometimes that comes in the form of an attack, a panic attack.

So I went through, you know, just months of just not wanting to do the things that I normally did.

I cried a lot.

I just, it didn't matter what anybody wanted to do with me.

All my friends, you know, I just put that aside because I just couldn't handle it mentally.

And so once I figured out that my gut was impaired, I started to repair it and got - and I quit putting fuel on the fire.

I got those things out of my diet that I wasn't supposed to eat.

- Sometimes the gut is called a second brain because it has so many millions of nerves and nerve endings there.

The brain and the gut originate from the exact same cells in the human embryo, and then they divide up to form two different organs.

But these two organs remain connected throughout life by the 10th cranial nerve called the vagus nerve.

(soft music) And this vagus nerve allows for chemical messages between the brain and gut and the gut and brain all the time.

- The brain is a amazing organ.

You know, it's so resilient, but there are certain things that feed it and there are other things that don't feed it.

A lot of things that happen with the brain can be inflammatory in nature.

So if you have a really bad diet, you're gonna create inflammatory issues throughout your body, not just in the brain.

- When the food we eat is broken down and digested, those breakdown products for our body can either help our brain and body or harm it.

When you are tending to go towards the fast-food restaurants and processed, ultra-processed junk foods, a lot of candy and those added refined sugars all the time, if that's the diet, you're leaning on - which is not unusual, that's typically the standard American diet.

That's why it's called the SAD diet for that reason, sometimes called the Western diet.

But those foods that many of us are consuming are not great for our waistline but also not great for our brain.

They feed the bad microbes that live in the gut and those guys love to eat sugar and candy.

But when they do, they cause trouble.

They cause inflammation in our gut and their breakdown products are more toxic in our body.

- And so, you know, when they say you - what you put in you get out, it's pretty true.

So if you're feeding yourself, you know, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables, and, you know, making sure that you have enough protein in your body and carbs are important as well for energy, then you feel a little bit better than when you've been eating let's say bean burritos and burgers all the time.

You know, you don't feel as sluggish.

You feel like you have more energy.

- When you are eating those healthy veggies, healthy salads, clean proteins, you know, the omega-3 fatty acids, the nuts, the seeds, the great spices, those feed the good microbes and their breakdown products of digestion are positive substances like short-chain, fatty acids, which help the brain.

So we want to think about food in that way.

Just very simply, move towards healthier whole foods.

I like to say, skip the store-bought orange juice, which has no fiber in it and a lot of added sugar.

Just eat the whole orange.

It's that principle you want to be thinking about with food more and more as you move forward.

Removing things like processed vegetable oil, soy oil, corn oil, palm oil.

Actually, a lot of processed vegetable oils are used in fast-food restaurants.

So unfortunately, those oils cause inflammation in the gut, and when inflammation happens, that's not good for that brain and gut connection.

Another one you'll be surprised by is artificial sweeteners 'cause it turns out even natural sweeteners like Stevia can drive or worsen anxiety, and research has shown that.

So if you've moved from a soda to a diet soda think about, over time, slowly cutting back on that if you can, because if you have anxiety those artificial sweeteners are worsening your anxiety.

- Really just, piece by piece, I was able to figure out what worked for me, and now I just really want to help others kind of figure out what might work for them.

So I was 220 pounds, and the lowest I got to was 135, and I thought I was a little too thin.

So that was 85 pounds.

And now I'm just under 150, so.

- What did you notice when you first started adopting that clean eating?

- I've lost 80 pounds.

- That's pretty good.

- Yeah.

You know, there - people are like, oh I can't lose weight.

I'm on antidepressants.

Well, I'm on three, and I lost 80 pounds and I've kept it off for three years.

- [Narrator] Studies have shown sticking to a healthy, balanced diet can help with the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

It can be a prescription for thinking more clearly, feeling more alert and improving concentration and attention span - Many studies and a lot of research is showing that a plant rich diet, so adding more vegetables and some fruit to our diet is going to help us.

It's going to help our mental health.

It's also going to help our physical health.

So start with all the colors of the veggies that you can get and are veggies that you like.

You know, different color peppers, different lettuces, the greener the better.

Here's why: The green actually is the chlorophyll, but also leafy greens contain vitamin B9, which is folate.

Low folate is associated with low mood and low - and a high stress level.

So what you want to do is be eating those leafy greens you know, lettuces, arugula, spinach, all of these are really good for you.

So start with that produce.

Don't forget fresh herbs when you can because those have great nutrients in them for your brain health as well.

In the United States, frozen - fruit and vegetables are flash frozen.

They're frozen at their peak.

So if you want to get cut cauliflower florets or broccoli or blueberries, they are less expensive, they'll last longer and you can use them from frozen, and they - they're good and nutritious for you, too.

So that's another time-saving tip for you.

Then you want to think about what types of proteins you want to eat.

And then the center aisles, don't forget about them because here's some good things: Omega-3 fats, we often talk about them in relation to brain health.

So they help with depression, they lower anxiety, and where can you get them?

Fatty fish like wild-caught salmon, sardines, anchovies, but you can also get them from walnuts and chia seeds and flax seeds.

You'll find some of those in the center aisles.

You'll find beans, legumes, you know, dry lentils.

These are inexpensive sources of plant-based proteins, great nutrients and great fiber for your gut and less expensive.

They last longer.

Then you get things like canned anchovies and sardines, even canned salmon.

So you don't necessarily have to find the wild salmon, may be a little bit out of your budget.

Try the canned because it'll still have nutrients that are good for your brain.

Start to think about dessert in terms of extra dark, natural chocolate, which is rich in cacao flavonols great for your brain.

It's rich in magnesium, serotonin and fiber.

So pure, extra-dark, natural chocolate is the direction you want to move in from candy bars because these actually are really good for your brain and will help you.

(soft music) So turmeric is this, you know, very bright, colorful spice.

It's one of the spices that goes into what's called a curry powder, but in fact, traditional Indian food uses it as an individual spice or blends it in with other things.

Turmeric is a great anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and has immense brain-boosting properties.

It helps lower anxiety.

It helps over time with mood.

Start slow, and start small.

Use a quarter teaspoon of turmeric with a pinch of black pepper.

Black pepper has an ingredient nutrient called piperine, and piperine activates the turmeric to make it much more bioavailable to your brain and your body.

Easy hack: Every time you little use a bit of turmeric, add a pinch of black pepper.

Use it in a tea, a soup or a smoothie.

Add it to roasted vegetables and other foods that you eat.

It's very powerful, and if you add a little bit over time, you are going to get the benefits of it.

(mellow music) So it's really easy to make a homemade turmeric or a golden latte.

And what this is, is any choice of milk that you like.

I happen to like a plant-based nut milk because it has more nutrition and it's great, great for the creaminess that I like.

You can try oat milk or milk of your choice.

Turmeric, just buy a nice ground powder.

It's bright yellow.

You just need about a quarter to half a teaspoon.

That pinch of black pepper, just use a sprinkle of black pepper.

I heat the almond milk in a little pan or you can heat it in the microwave.

To sweeten it, I use a touch of Manuka honey.

Why do I use honey?

Because honey has a ton of other positive benefits for your body.

Not asking you to use a lot.

I really do mean a touch.

And I sometimes, as an additional thing, I might sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon on the top, when it's ready, to sweeten it up.

It's a great warming drink that warms you through in the winter months.

But in the summer months, I also add ice to it.

So it's, it goes in many different directions.

- [Narrator] Next time on "The Little Things."

- We have this imagination engine that runs all the time, all the time, all the time, runs and runs and runs and builds up all this pressure.

And if we don't have ways to bleed off some of that pressure, it blows out in the form of anxiety or for some people anger or, you know, those are kind of the top two.

(mellow music) - So when you're eating things that your body can't handle you are going to be inflamed.

- And our brains don't like inflammation.

- Our brains don't care for that at all, and our brains tell our bodies to fight it.

- Adolescents between 12 and 19, between the elementary school child and the adolescent child are where you start to see anxiety and depression first.

And if that's not addressed then you have panic attacks and, and clinical depression.

And you have so much anxiety that you can't function or you can't do what you want to do.

- Unfortunately, we do live in a world where, you know social media dictates a lot of our free time.

You know, I know so many of my friends and myself, you know spend a lot of time on Instagram and TikTok.

And you know, recently I've been trying to put that away because when you're exposed to all of these glamorous beautiful women or men, you know, you think that you need to fit in that box.

(mellow piano music)