Speaker 1 (00:20):
PMDD shaped my life for 17 years before I could name it, I spent those years searching for answers, questioning my sanity, and desperately seeking treatments that actually worked. My painful journey had an unexpected twist. Helping others heal from PMDD became my life's purpose. Hi, I'm Jess, a board certified nutritional therapist coach, the founder of her mood mentor and your host. This is PMDD PEP Talk, A weekly reminder that your suffering is real, your experience is valid, and your future is brighter than your symptoms suggest. Each week we're going to explore the truths about PMDD that nobody talks about, the kind of truths that shift something deep inside you and make you think maybe there's more possible than I imagined. Whether you're in the depths of luteal darkness or riding the clarity of your follicular phase, you're exactly where you need to be because here's what I know for sure.
(01:18):
Healing PMDD isn't just about managing symptoms, it's about transforming your life. This challenge, as brutal as it can be, is an invitation to know yourself more deeply and live a more joyful purpose filled life. PMDD might feel like your whole story, but it's just a chapter and you get to write what comes next. Welcome to PMDD, PEP Talk, quick pep talk, pause. Remember that everything we talk about here is meant to educate and inspire. Always team up with your healthcare provider for personal medical advice. All right, now let's get into it. Hello and welcome back to PMDD PEP Talk. Today we are talking about such an important topic, one that I have had to learn through my own experience of learning to reduce and manage PMS and PMDD symptoms and one that I see my clients struggling with and my PMDD rehab students struggling with again and again, and that is the difference between rest and distraction.
(02:32):
When you're in the depths of PMDD, both rest and distraction can feel like lifelines, but they serve very different purposes, and we need to get clear on the differences between rest and distraction. And we need to bring more consciousness to how we're using both of these super handy tools because when we're using them unconsciously, we can get more overwhelmed and more frustrated thinking we're doing something to help ourselves when we're really, it's more of a smoke and mirrors thing and we're actually making the wrong choices for ourselves or we're not seeing the truth of what we're doing. And to be more specific, I'm being kind of vague there to be more specific. What I see my clients often doing is thinking they're resting when they need rest and they're actually distracting themselves and then feeling like I'm trying to rest, I'm doing all the things, but yet they're not conscious and they're not recognizing that what they're doing is not restful.
(03:39):
It's a distraction. So let's just define some terms here. Okay, starting with rest. Rest is a period of relaxation where you are not engaged and any strenuous or stressful activities, the movement is slowed. You are feeling refreshed and you're recovering strength where distraction on the other hand is doing something that's preventing you from having your full attention on something else. It also can be even more agitation of your mental state or your emotions doing something that agitates that state even more. And again, there are a lot of times throughout the day where we are moving through motions and we're not present in what we're actually doing. We're not conscious of what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how the thing we're doing is making us feel, getting a little philosophical here, but we have to have this conversation because there's so much overwhelm, there's so much escalation with premenstrual symptoms.
(04:59):
There's a huge mindfulness component to it. There's a huge mindset component if you really want to learn to reduce and manage your mental health, your mood disorder symptoms in the longterm. So this is such an important conversation. Thank you for joining me for it today, and thanks for riding the wave with me. When I do these podcast episodes, they're more stream of thought. I'm working through an idea that I have shared a lot, something that I have lived through in the experience or I see my clients living through, and I don't like to be super formulaic about it. I don't like to read a script. I just want to share the knowledge and share the viewpoint that I'm seeing from my perspective. So why is understanding the distinction between rest and distraction so important? These are both tools that you can use either preventatively to manage your symptoms or you can use these tools in an escalation when you're having A-P-M-D-D episode.
(06:15):
But if you are not clear about what is rest, what is distraction, you're going to end up like a lot of my clients end up where you think you're resting and then you're getting frustrated because you're doing the thing to help yourself and it's not working, but you really are not bringing that conscious awareness into what you're doing and recognizing that the thing that you're doing is not actually restful. We're pretty good at the distraction bit. We do it a lot. This is what I see in my practice, but we're less skilled at truly resting. And there are some reasons why this happens. One of the reasons is that our society is built around the circadian rhythm and we operate both on the circadian rhythm and the infra dian rhythm, that 28 day menstrual cycle. So while a male hormonal pattern follows that circadian rhythm every day, the hormones are following this similar rise and fall pattern in the female body.
(07:26):
We are on a 28 day pattern of changes of hormone fluctuations. So our energy is going to ebb and flow throughout the menstrual cycle. We are not going to feel the same every day. Our energy isn't going to be the same every day. And if we're trying to fit ourselves into that circadian rhythm box without understanding the biology and physiology of the female body, we're going to continually be struggling. We're going to be disappointed in ourselves. We're going to be trying to measure up to a way of being that is not logical to our biology. It's not biological to the female body. So during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, the premenstrual phase, when these PMM s and pm DD symptoms arise, we are more susceptible to HPA access dysregulation. The HPA access is your stress response system, that fight or flight activation. And we see it from the PMDD research that we are already, if we're living with PMDD, we already have disruptions in our HPA access.
(08:36):
But what happens is during the luteal phase, we are more on a high alert, we're more in a protective mode, and this happens because we don't know if we're pregnant or not. Yet, it takes some time after ovulation for HCG, the pregnancy hormone to communicate to the brain, Hey, we're pregnant. So during the luteal phase, the body does not know. During the luteal phase, the immune system is suppressed in order to facilitate conception. And so there is a protective mechanism happening in our body that has us on a higher alert. We're more hypervigilant, we're more sensitive to touch, to sound. It's going to spike our fight or flight response quicker. So you need to understand some of the physiology behind the female body when you're looking to reduce and manage these symptoms. Because it opens the door to compassion, it opens the door to more self understanding. Instead of feeling like, why am I like this? I just need to try harder. A lot of it is actually not about that.
(09:52):
So when our symptoms are escalating or when we're trying to manage the symptoms preventatively during the luteal phase, we need to use rest and we need to use distraction, and we need to understand that we are more susceptible to stressors during this time. We're going to be more easily overwhelmed during this time. And so this is the time of the cycle where we're symptomatic. This is the time of the cycle where we're going to be reaching for rest and distraction more than we are during the follicular and ovulatory phases. Another reason that understanding this distinction is important is we need to start to tap into how addicted to stress hormones are we, because when we're very addicted to stress hormones, I'm probably looking at you.
(10:44):
We are going to be more driven to distraction than we are going to be to rest. It's going to feel uncomfortable to rest. We're not going to like it. This can also be true for those of us that are on the neurodivergent spectrum where just being still resting is harder for those of us with a DHD, but these are some other reasons why understanding the distinction matters. Now we need to dive into next. We need to dive into what is resting versus what is distraction. So I'm going to give you some examples here. If we are looking to distract ourselves, we might be scrolling through social media. We might be binge watching a TV show or a movie, or might be immersing ourselves in video games, overworking or taking on extra tasks. We might be shopping online or in person. That's a big one. We might be texting or calling people.
(11:54):
We might be obsessively cleaning or organizing. We might be engaging in intense exercise beyond the normal routine or diving into a new and demanding hobby. And we might also be kind of constantly planning for future activities. These can all be signs of distraction, whereas rest is distinct. Rest is going to look like practicing yoga or stretching, engaging in mindfulness, meditation or breath work, taking a warm bath without distraction present, reading a calming book, listening to soothing music or nature sounds. You might be journaling or doing some other drawing or expressive writing, engaging in calming creative activities, maybe taking a short nap, practicing a relaxation response technique like yoga nidra or progressive muscle relaxation or autogenic training. Listening to binaural beats. You might be just sitting quietly in a peaceful environment or giving yourself a massage or laying under a weighted blanket. You might be engaging in a quiet or reflective prayer or spiritual practice.
(13:15):
So you can see here big differences between distraction and rest. Now, how do we put these two different tools to use? We're going to want to use rest during peak symptoms after an episode or in a preventative way. So we're pretty much going to want to use rest all the time. You're going to want to use distraction when anxiety is really high and you need temporary relief, and you can't, don't have a strategy for bringing that escalation down yet. The only strategy you might have is distraction. So that can be a good time to use it. But really you're going to want to be using rest more frequently than you're using distraction. You want to be drawing awareness and using your conscious awareness coming into consciousness to recognize how much you are distracting yourself versus how much you're resting. How does it feel when you're distracting yourself?
(14:26):
Is it making it better? Is it neutral? Is it making it worse? That can absolutely be a thing. You are having high anxiety. You go scrolling, you watch the news, not going to help be helpful for the most part. So rest, we're trying to turn more towards rest than we are towards distraction, and that's going to require you to become more present in the moment and to bring some curiosity to your patterns. How are you preventatively managing your symptoms? How are you reacting to the symptoms when they're very strong in the moment? So in my practice at her mood mentor, when I'm helping people learn to reduce and manage symptoms, we take a two-pronged approach. We work on symptom reduction and we work on symptom management. So when we're working on symptom reduction, rest is at the forefront. When we're working on symptom management, this is where distraction is going to come in, but also rest is going to be present.
(15:37):
So how do we lean into rest? How do we make it more accessible? Because oftentimes when I'm talking to my clients, they have this idea that rest, oh, I need a full day off work. I need to book a day at the spa to really rest and relax and I get it. I thought that too. I thought I needed to spend all of this time and have all of this effort in invested into resting. But that was a self-sabotaging belief because as I have worked through learning to reduce and manage my symptoms, and as I haven't seen my students and clients do this, you'll be shocked and amazed and delighted in how small moments of rest throughout your day transform your symptoms and transform your ability to manage your symptoms. So taking 10 minute breaks of true rest, maybe once, twice, three times in the day, can really make or break how bad your symptoms are, how well you're going to be able to respond verse react to the symptoms, and this is what really matters.
(17:04):
People are always coming to me and they're wanting to reduce the symptom. I want to reduce the symptom. I want to reduce the symptom. Of course, you want to reduce the symptom, you want to feel better. We can do that. It is really the management of the symptom that is so life-changing because when you are managing your symptoms well, it breaks the damage control cycle. When you're in a damage control cycle, you're spending a lot of time feeling guilt and shame and apologizing to people about the way you behaved in reaction to your symptoms. So the way you manage your symptoms can be the difference between you having custody of your children or not can be the difference of you being in a relationship or not can be the difference of you having a job or not having friends or not, because how you respond to the discomfort of your symptoms either results in a full on PM MDD episode, a mental health breakdown, or it doesn't.
(18:08):
And there is a big aspect here too, of that shame spiral, and we'll get into that and that damage control spiral, and we'll get into that in a different video, but rest is a key true rest. And becoming conscious of when you're, you think you're resting and you're actually distracting yourself, is going to help you unlock the capacity to heal. So give it a try. Take 10 minutes, lay down, put an eye mask on, do some deep breathing. Go outside for 10 minutes without your phone, sit on your porch or your deck or your patio. Take a 10 minute walk without your phone, without any distractions and see how you feel.
(18:56):
Do that two days a week. Do that three days a week and see what difference it makes for you. The difference is when we really get into the physiology of it, the difference is rest. That intentional downtime allows your body and mind to recover. It triggers your parasympathetic nervous system, the opposite branch of the fight or flight. It triggers the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest branch of the nervous system that tells your body, you are okay, you are safe. Whereas distraction can take your mind off symptoms, but it does not provide true recovery on a physiological level. Both are important tools. You want to know when to use each. You want to have both in your toolbox, but you don't want to be thinking you're resting when you're distracting yourself and getting frustrated that you're not seeing the results that you want to see, that you're not feeling better in the ways that you want to feel better, that you're not able to manage your symptoms in the ways you want to manage them because you think you're resting and you're distracting yourself. And there's no judgment here. I did this for 17 years myself, so let me know how this goes for you. If you're looking for more support. If you like this conversation, you'll love our PMDD rehab community where we're diving deeper into the depths of PMDD symptom reduction in management and the experience in our community calls and trainings that are available to you there. And I would love to connect with you and hear your on this conversation. Wishing you the best and hope you enjoyed this VM DD pep talk.
