I’m Not Cured, but I Am Healed
Hi there — today PBS’s wonderful online web magazine, Next Avenue, published my OpEd on how we can journey toward healing in the face of chronic illness… and the important distinction between being “cured” and being “healed.” I so hope you’ll check it out, and that you enjoy. Links below! I’m Not Cured, but I Am Healed After years of pain and chronic illness, an author finds relief through breakthrough research on how the brain affects the body By Donna Jackson Nakazawa | April 4, 2013 http://www.nextavenue.org/article/2013-04/im-not-cured-i-am-healed
How We Handle the Wear and Tear of Today’s Stress Predicts Whether We’ll Be Depressed Ten Years From Now
The way we manage our emotional responses to the stresses we meet in day-to-day life — to what is happening right now, right here, in our life — predicts whether we’ll suffer from depression and anxiety ten years from now, says a new study in today’s Psychological Science. Researchers examined the relationship between how we handle daily stress and our mental well-being ten years later. They found that our longterm emotional health has less to do with what happens to us than with how we react to what happens to us. The better we are at managing our emotional responses and thoughts today — to whatever problem we’re facing at work or at home or with our kids — the better mental health we’ll enjoy ten years from today. The better brain we’ll own. When we respond with a lot of negativity and reactivity to our day-to-day stressors we’re more likely to be clinically depressed ten years later and experience feelings of “worthlessness, hopelessness, nervousness and anxiety.” We take those negative emotions with us, wherever we go. These findings, based on a study of 711 men and women between 25 and 74, show that mental health outcomes aren’t only affected by major life events — they are also affected by the “chronic nature of our negative emotions in response to daily stressors.” We know there are so many ways to manage our thoughts and get off the distress highway — and stay on the path. Mindfulness, lovingkindness meditation, noting our moment to moment habits of mind, breath work, yoga, seeking out acupuncture. In The Last Best Cure I spent an entire year learning from the best experts on the planet how to redirect my thoughts, calm my mind and quiet my stress response. And every day I continue to learn. Reading studies like these helps me to re-commit to these practices everyday. Because that’s what it takes. It’s not instant. It takes work. Discipline. But it’s also fun. It’s a relief to step away from our daily wear-and-tear stress-reactions and ruminations. A half-hour spent mindfully breathing or in walking meditation or yoga sure beats a half hour spent ruminating and rehashing the should haves and what ifs that are worrying me today, and it will pay off long into my future. Don’t we owe ourselves that small but priceless investment in who we are, and in who we hope to become?
Forest Bathing, Green Music
This past Easter weekend, we spent many afternoons in the woods, walking trails, going on photo expeditions. My husband, son and daughter and I are great lovers of what I call “green music” — the music of the rustling trees. We all enjoy the hum of how nature nurtures. I think for most of us that’s true. Research tells us that our cellular responses in nature are very different from those we have when we are in urban settings. We used to live in Japan, where physicians sometimes prescribe 20 minutes of Shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing” – for patients facing chronic conditions. In the United States, when many of our first hospitals were built, they included a sunroom or “solarium” where patients could view nature. The instincts of both Japanese physicians and early architects of American hospitals were spot on. Patients who enjoy a view of nature and trees heal more quickly, spend less time in hospitals, need fewer pain killers, and have less post-op complications than those in an urban setting. In our day-to-day lives, when we seek out “nearby nature” we tend to be healthier overall, and feel greater life contentment and satisfaction. It makes sense. Immunologic studies show us that a walk through a forest pumps up our parasympathetic nervous system and suppresses the sympathetic nervous — or stress-now system — for hours and even days. We do better on memory and attention tests after walking through nature. Immersing ourselves in nature results in lowered levels of inflammatory markers linked to virtually every disease from depression to back pain to autoimmune conditions to cancer. I often take walks during my writing day, and today, I felt the first fingertips of spring playing across the daffodils and crocuses outside my window, as if it were touching my cells. I called the dogs and headed out the door. I felt a lot of the worry and stress I’ve been carrying around with me (book tour is very fun, but also stressful) fall away. I’ve been catching my thoughts a lot lately: my worry about whether I’ve been doing enough promoting, social media, and book readings to spread the word about The Last Best Cure (I love doing book readings, but am not that great at social media!). Worry about getting going on researching the next book (it’s a critical topic… stay tuned!). Worry over my stamina between book tour and organizing Easter (this year, we had an unusual Easter egg hunt for all of the grandparents — those aged 75 and up got to play! Now that was fun, watching the grandparents hunt for eggs in the garden on Easter morning, laughing like children with baskets in hand!). Worrying if my kids were getting short-shrift as I travel around. And thinking about the reality of college next year, and what it will be like to have my son be so far away. I did a walking meditation under the budding trees. I listened, really listened, to the green music. I felt the life rising beneath my feet. Something very different began to fill me as I gazed out at the green ground cover and flowers starting to sweep the hills and fields like a carpet, leaping over the rocks and lichen and between the Jack in the Pulpit and beneath the fallen trees. I thought of something my son used to say when he was seven or eight, after seeing a show on PBS about string theory. “Mom, at the very center of things, in the middle of every atom of every tree and every rock and every star and even you and me we are all just strings — masses and masses of beautiful, vibrating strings.” I felt those strings vibrating inside me, inside the plants and trees. Vibrating in all things. For a second I thought of that oft-quoted moment from the Thorton Wilder play, Our Town. That moment when Emily asks, “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?” It’s so hard to do that, isn’t it? Realize life? Green music is a portal of sorts that helps me to realize life while I live it. What works for you? What helps you to realize life while you live it? I would really like to know. Lee J et al. Effect of forest bathing on physiological and psychological responses in young Japanese male subjects. Public Health. 2011 Feb;125(2):93-100. Maller, C. Healthy nature healthy people: ‘contact with nature’ as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. Health Promot. Int. 2006 March 21 (1): 45-54. Ulrich RS. View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science. 1984 Apr 27;224(4647):420-1. Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. (New York: Cambridge University Press 1989). Maller, C. Healthy nature healthy people: ‘contact with nature’ as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations. Health Promot. Int. 2006 March 21 (1): 45-54.
A View of the Week that Was
Some of you have inquired why my blog has been so quiet. Here’s why: book tour! This has been a busy week. it started with a conversation with Montel Williams on Joy Behar’s (of The View) show Say Anything, which we taped in New York. Montel is working hard to bring research funding and awareness to autoimmune disease and chronic illness, giving it his all given his own experiences with MS. We had a great chat both off camera and on. Here’s a small snippet from the show: http://current.com/shows/joy-behar/videos/author-donna-jackson-nakazawa-describes-how-to-step-away-from-stress/ Later in the week Baltimore Yoga Village and The Ivy Bookshop combined forces for a truly special evening — a Last Best Cure Wellness Event. Several of the teachers who were integral to my journey in The Last Best Cure, Trish Magyari and Mria Tessman (if you are reading the book you know who these amazing women are) along with Anjali Sunita, treated the crowd to meditation, mindfulness, mindful movement and breath work demonstrations. Afterwards I read a few excerpts from The Last Best Cure. To present with those who’ve taught me was a profoundly gratifying experience, and I’m grateful to the many, many readers who came out and asked such meaningful questions afterwards. You make me feel so fortunate to be able to connect with you through my writing. Here are a few photos from the book signing we held afterwards:
Double Book Giveaway C*O*N*T*E*S*T!
Are you ready? Today I’m announcing my Double Book Giveaway contest! This time, 1 lucky winner will receive A Double Giveaway Book Set: one signed copy of my new book, THE LAST BEST CURE, and one signed, first-printing hardcover copy of the award-winning THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC. Both books! Here’s how to enter. Post a review of THE LAST BEST CURE on Amazon. It’s easy. Just click on the Create Your Own Review icon. It will just take a few minutes to post your review and that’s it! You’ve entered! I’ll announce our BIG WINNER and send out my Double Book Giveaway Set on Saturday, April 13th. If you haven’t read THE LAST BEST CURE yet, that gives you plenty of time to read and post a few sentences about what you thought on Amazon. Here are some of the early comments that have been coming in via my blog and email the past two weeks http://bit.ly/Y5FwWi — so grateful to you all — if you post your responses on Amazon too you’ll be entered in the contest!
Come Join Me! Hope to see you at this very special event …
“Joy Factor” vs. “Fear Factor”
A new Harvard study out today indicates that in the past several decades our general mood and sense of well-being have declined, making it harder for us to stay on what I call, in THE LAST BEST CURE, The Life Channel. I’ve written a great deal about rising rates of stress-reactivity, and how stress-reactivity is linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety and chronic illness. What intrigues me about this new study is that it’s a subtle but telling sign of a change in how we view the world. And not a good one. In a review of literature in the 20th Century, Harvard researchers analyzed trends in the use of ‘mood words’ that convey joy, anger, fear and other emotions. Here’s what they found: words conveying fear have increased markedly since the 1970s, whereas the use of other “mood words” including those that convey joy decreased. This shift has occurred during the same years that we Baby Boomers have come of age. Researchers call this “Fear Factor increase” a “cultural trend.” I think it’s a trend that most of us are feeling inside, too. Here are 5 Key Facts to bear in mind about our National Stress-Disease Crisis: 1. Studies show that American’s stress levels are rising. 2. So are our rates of chronic illness, depression and pain — not just in adults but in children. 3. We are not as healthy as our parents were in mid-life, and we’re more likely than they were to suffer from chronic illness — at earlier ages. 4. Research links our higher stress levels to every imaginable disease, including inflammation, depression, autoimmune disease, heart disease and cancer. 5. Stress reactivity is as toxic to our immune system as a virus or environmental toxin, and does similar physical damage. And here are 2 more Key Factors: 1. We’ve developed many medications (such as anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depressants) to decrease our stress reactivity and calm our sympathetic nervous system (that branch of our nervous system that activates fight or flight, and sends forth inflammatory hormones and cytokines that damage our body and cells). 2. BUT there is no known drug to help us activate our parasympathetic nervous system; that part of our nervous system which activates deep feelings of well-being, homeostasis, calm. Our portal to a sense of joy and well-being. So. There are many drugs that help us turn down the volume of The Pain Channel. But no known drug to turn on The Life Channel. And yet. Nature has given us a remarkable tool box to shift our nervous system to a place of well-being, calm, joy. And it is just so simple. And free. And available to us anytime, anywhere. And fully under our control. Our brain is our Last Best Cure. THE LAST BEST CURE (which by the way, uses the word “joy” a lot!) is my own personal journey to walk away from the “Fear Factor,” and move toward what I think I’m going to start calling the “Joy Factor,” in hopes that I can help all of you to do the same. ### Acerbi A, Lampos V, Garnett P, Bentley RA (2013) The Expression of Emotions in 20th Century Books. PLOS ONE 8(3): e59030. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059030
Let Go of Regret
Today I had an unexpected conversation with a lovely woman, whom I’ll call K, who trims my hair. It began when I walked into the salon and the sweet receptionist, whom I’ll call A, surprised me by having a copy of THE LAST BEST CURE in her hand so I could sign it (her mom had bought three copies, and given one to each of her daughters, so sweet). As I signed, K said to me, “I really need this book right now…” K told me she couldn’t stop thinking about a recent health-related decision she’d made and “how unhappy” she was about what had transpired afterwards in her body and in her life. I won’t tell you her story but it was very moving. She got a little teary as she said, “I just can’t stop the thoughts from coming. It’s so painful, I just want to get away from thinking about it all the time.” I told her about a time in my life, when my kids were little, babies really, and we were moving to Japan. My husband, Zen, was already overseas, and my daughter, Claire, was two months old. As I packed up the house and went through the enormous stress of moving little ones to the Far East, I developed mastitis. I couldn’t breast feed because of the medications I was on, and then — my breast milk dwindled. My daughter turned out to be allergic to every formula and developed reflux. I spent much of our time in Japan taking her to doctors who said very obscure Japanese things like “she doesn’t like the wind this time of year.” I finally flew her home to our beloved pediatrician, who diagnosed her with allergic reflux and slowly, over time, we set everything right again. But here’s the point of my story. During those months I couldn’t escape from my own mental, spinning tapes; this is all my fault, if I hadn’t gotten mastitis, if I’d been like other moms and I’d been able to keep breastfeeding, she would have been so healthy and wouldn’t have developed allergies… or had painful reflux ..or had to endure hospital visits…or take reflux meds, and if I hadn’t…” I could not shut those tapes off. My ruminating thoughts became my constant companion. I just kept churning, over and over in my mind, how one bad thing had led to another and they all began with, as the vernacular would have it these days, my bad. That’s how the brain works. We get brain locked. It’s hard to rescue ourselves from ourselves. And when we’re at our most vulnerable (worried over an important health outcome, not feeling well) it’s all the more difficult. I told K this memory, this morning, as she cut my hair. And she teared up and I teared up, because it was a relief for her to feel that someone else understood how painful it is to be so deeply caught up in that place of ruminating self-lacerating. One more rendition of The Pain Channel. We have all tuned in too often to The Pain Channel, for one reason or another in our lives. Maybe the regret and ill-will we felt were directed toward ourselves. Maybe they were directed toward someone else. If you’re reading THE LAST BEST CURE you know I have a lot to say about ruminating and regret and how to break that cycle. I happened to have an extra copy of my book with me; I was planning to peruse what sections to read for my book readings, which begin tomorrow, and highlight passages while I sat under the dryer. Instead, I signed my copy and gave it to K. I told K something else, too. A fascinating new study in the journal Science offers some very interesting insights about regret. It turns out that when we’re still quite young, regret can be an emotionally important tool. When we look back at our choices and reconsider them in retrospect it can be helpful to observe exactly how we might have made better decisions — because we still have our whole future ahead of us, to apply any lessons we’ve learned. But as we mature, research tells us that we have to begin to let go of our regret about any missed opportunities or mistakes we’ve made. We can’t go back in a time machine and change the way things happened. The likelihood of second chances gets smaller as we get older, and the benefit of ruminating over what went wrong or why it happened — or even how we felt about it — disappears. This is more important than it might at first sound. It turns out that there is a brain region called the ventral striatum, which is involved in feeling regret, and an area known as the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with emotion regulation. Studies show that older adults who have a lot of activity in the regret area of the brain also have less ability to manage low mood and feelings of depression. On the other hand, healthy older adults, those who feel better about their lives, show a different brain-activity pattern, suggesting that they experience less regret. They are, in turn, much better able to regulate their emotions. Researchers propose that healthy older adults may use helpful mental strategies to keep from ruminating, whereas depressed older adults may blame themselves for the outcome and hyper-fixate on what went wrong and why and how… Avoiding getting caught up in ruminating about the past helps to preserve emotional health, mood, and feelings of well-being as we age. It can take discipline to stop the tapes and get off The Pain Channel and onto The Life Channel. But the steps to do so are simple, manifold and available to all. I’m glad this morning, when I walked into my hair salon, that I had a copy of my book tucked under my arm. Because in those 277 pages
I’m Blown Away by Your Comments
Thank you, dear readers, for these comments. To know that the book is helping you to change your own life story is the greatest gift an author can receive. Mary Sometimes I have to re-read a line or close the book, it is that powerful to my soul. Someone understands what I am feeling. I am on this journey . Donna is taking me to and opening doors to my healing. I am so grateful for this book. It has changed my life forever. Anna … the title drew me in as I am so desperate for that last best cure. I sat down and began to read… reading about ACE and how you can change your pathways to new pathways, well it was just overwhelming. And important. And profound. I had to put it down and breathe … Rebecca I opened my copy last night and read at least 4 chapters. And then cried my eyes out. Looking back at my life I realize how much time I have spent in the fight or flight mode. And continue to do so to this day. In fact I am dripping tears writing this post … I know I am not the only one out there who will benefit from this book to make a change leading to better health and less pain. Donna thank you for sharing your journey… I am more grateful that you will ever know. Patti I have only read a bit into the first chapter and I’m already hooked. I’ve got my highlighter in hand … Kathryn Such an amazing thing. I can’t remember the last time I cried and laughed at a non-fiction book. Thank you for sharing your talent with the world. Sandy … just finished reading your book and loved it! Beautiful combination of intimate personal insights with extensive scientific research. Reading it is like having conversation with a friend over a cup of tea :). Betsy Hi Donna, Just read the first chapters of your new book …Please let me know if you do workshops or small group shares. I could fill the room … Dede Greetings, Donna. Started reading your new book last night and couldn’t put it down. Already, I can tell there is so much hope and practical solutions contained in its pages. Thanks for sharing yourself — and all you know — with us. Donna M. I am a 44 yr old mom who was recently diagnosed with scleroderma — the future felt bleak until I read The Autoimmune Epidemic and now I am reading The Last Best Cure – The Last Best Cure is exactly what I was looking for. I am NOT going to sit back and wait for something to happen to me – I am going to be proactive and reclaim my life – I find your story very inspiring. Barbara Very enlightening – I am highlighting all over the place! Kathy I have no idea how I found your Facebook page, but it was an immediate decision to buy your book! Something led me here today and I’m happy for that! Peggy I am fascinated! Knowing all you have gone through and embarking on a year long journey of discovery is one of the bravest undertakings of all. It surely is resonating with me. There are so many insights of yours that just touch my heart… Peggy (again, two days later): I wanted to share that I just finished Chapter 17. It took a while as it is difficult to read when tears are flowing down your face! Yours is one of the most amazing, not to mention informative, books I have read in years. Thank you! Stacy Hi Donna! I loved The Autoimmune Epidemic. I am reading The Last Best Cure and I’m astonished at how much the brain has to do with healing… It takes so much dedication to write a book and the process is even more intense when you aren’t always feeling well. This book will be a huge success. Sarah ..As the pages unfolded, I realized that your desire to find joy and move past pain …was EXACTLY the place I find myself in at this point in my life… this book helped me to understand, finding joy is like taking a vitamin that’s as protective as any medicine in our medicine cabinet…I will honestly be recommending this book to all my friends and will be buying more than a few copies next week to give as gifts! Nicole I would love to see you come and visit our local bookstore! Thank you for all your hard work! Stephanie This is a book that anyone would benefit from reading, it reminds people that there is hope, and there can always be a “last best cure”. You might just need to take the chance as Donna did, and you might find yourself living a life of more joy. Margaret … to experience the ups and downs of your personal journey in such a compelling, heartfelt and earnest recounting is enormously satisfying on so many levels. We laugh, we cry, but more importantly we learn and share in the joy that you experience with improved physical, emotional and spiritual being. We are enormously fortunate that you embarked on this quest and that you have so skillfully shared your story with us. Eliza I am really inspired by your writing… I intend to be part of the change, as the Gandhi quote says, on the cutting edge of future medical professionals writing the future of medicine as we learn to maintain health and prevent disease, rather than merely treating it. Rock on! I hope to meet you at some point in the future on this path. Kasia Last night I went through the first 30 pages. I wept a long time. It is a beautiful book. It is deeply profound. SO thankful for this book. So glad you wrote it. For me, it is like a gift falling into
Your Advice?
I know THE LAST BEST CURE has only been out for a week but some of you have (so sweetly!) already emailed to tell me you’ve read cover to cover with highlighter and sticky notes in hand, and are buying a copy for a friend or family member who you think “needs it.” You’ve told me that you’ve laughed and you’ve cried (which, of course, brings tears to my eyes). In 3 days I begin giving readings in bookstores. And I have a favor to ask. I’d love it if you would post a quick response here on my blog or on my Facebook fan page and tell me the pages or chapters of the book that spoke to you the most (don’t give any of the storyline away though, we don’t want any spoilers!) What pages made you underline, or laugh out loud, or get out the Kleenex? When I see what pages get the most “votes” I’ll add those to my upcoming book readings! Oh, and, if you have a suggestion for a bookstore that hosts author readings — for now I’m traveling close to home — inWashington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut — let me know and I’ll see about weaving them into the tour!
