By Jenna Lopez, LICSW, LIMHP
​
Hey Humans! It is that time of year again. The seasons are changing and bringing the falling leaves, sweater weather, holiday after holiday and our good ole pal, Seasonal Affective Disorder. This can be in reverse for some and to those of you I say “Cheers!” As their joy becomes a little easier to grasp those of us affected by winter are just about to begin our struggle.
 
As I wrote to you all last fall, it is a good idea to have a plan for the S.A.D. time of year that affects you. Adjusting and updating the plan as time goes on and we learn new things about ourselves. I thought I would share a few things I have learned and will be trying this coming winter.
 
A lesson the universe repeatedly gives to me is to stop robbing myself of joy. Coming out of last years S.A.D. times, I was able to recognize many ways in which my joy robbery seems to uptick in winter. I was able to become aware of how many things I wasn’t doing that I wanted to because I was talking myself out of it aka robbing myself of joy. I have been working on building the muscle that cultivates joy in order to decrease the strength of the muscle that grabs that joy away. In other words, I didn’t wait for the S.A.D. to come to initiate a plan.
 
The first change I made (because my therapist kept repeating the idea to me and I finally caught on) was to try harder to be curious about everything. Instead of allowing my mind to say things like, winter is going to be terrible!, I would pause and use curiosity to push back and say, But will it be terrible? A gentle reminder that I don’t know so why worry now and rob the peace I have in this moment. I used curiosity to help think about what things I thought could bring me joy, peace or excitement. Then I gently asked myself why I wasn’t doing them.
 
The best example of this is The Being Human podcast! It is something I have wanted to do for a long time but hadn’t. A gentle why not? Was all it took for me to evaluate that I was setting some expectations that I felt I couldn’t meet. Once I changed the expectation to “have fun” I was able to give myself this joyful experience of deep talking with amazing humans in my life. I do hope you all enjoy it, but that is also an expectation I had to let go of. I realized that if I was doing it for someone else, I wasn’t going to do it.
 
To all my winter S.A.D.-ies I wish you luck this go round. To those who are coming out of their S.A.D. time, yay it’s going to get lighter from here, I hope! How strong is your muscle for cultivating joy, peace and fun? Does it need to be strengthened?  

by Laura Crosby
 
How welcome is further inquiry into peace? The world is rampant with anger and strife, injustice and inequity. Many people, including me, are not feeling peaceful. 
 
For these very reasons though, peace seems to be calling as insistently as ever.
 
The global wisdom leader and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) taught about, “peace in oneself, peace in the world.” This suggests that our peace work requires just as much attention to the peace within us as to the peace around us. Our mindfulness inclines toward both with clarity and compassion. 
 
In this teaching I hear a courageous, unshakeable peace that transforms fear, hatred, and violence. One that offers a healing and connecting — yet still bold — path forward in each moment.
 
It is a peace that makes more peace possible, yet is not at all passive, silenced, or conforming.
 
Can we make lasting peace in the world without tending to a peace within ourselves? Can we find inner peace in a struggling world? If not, how does the world’s struggle ease? How do we nurture and embody peace in our individual and collective habits of mind, emotion, speech, and action?
 
This reflection on peace seems worth exploring for ourselves. After all, we have a choice in each moment about whether (and how) we water the seeds of peace within and around us. Thay offered this in perspective: “Our own life has to be our message.”
 
In the spirit of living into these questions, here are some inspiring works that can help exploring and practicing “peace in oneself, peace in the world.”
 
Books: 

• Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
• A Heart Full of Peace by Joseph Goldstein
• We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption by Kaira Jewel Lingo
• A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage, and Wisdom in Any Moment by Spring Washam

 
Talks:

• Justice is What Love Looks Like in Public by Kaira Jewel Lingo
• Peace is Possible by Jack Kornfield
• A Peaceful Heart In A Time of War and The Legacy of Thich Nhat Hanh by Jack Kornfield
• Navigating the Dark Ages by Tara Brach

 
And just for fun, a movie: Phantom of the Open
 
“There is no way to peace – peace is the way.” Thich Nhat Hanh
 
Author’s Note
When peace calls, I listen:
Interestingly, I had no intention of focusing this article on peace, especially since Jenna offered such a lovely article on finding your pace for peace last month. It seems the universe had other ideas. For days now, everywhere I turned “peace” literally called to me – articles, quotes, songs, conversations. On the day I found my bracelets forming a peace sign on my bathroom counter, I gave in. I can take a hint.

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By Marilyn Erickson, MSN, APRN
(Part one of a three part series)
 
Several years ago, when I was struggling with sleep, getting only 3 to 4 hours on many nights, I confided in a friend who then gave me a quote from William Shakespeare to impress upon me the importance of sleep. The quote she gave me is “Sleep knits the careworn sleeve of time” taken from Shakespeare's, Macbeth.
 
It seems that in our modern world, we have the idea that sleep does not go hand in hand with productivity. In fact, some reports suggest that at least half of the US population is not getting enough sleep. 
 
The widely accepted range of needed sleep for adults is between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. So, if you think you can function on less than six hours of sleep per night, think again.
 
Since our brains are wired to ignore signs of sleep deprivation, many people get used to inadequate sleep and never really experience the damage this minimal amount of sleep is doing to our bodies and minds. 
 
What did Shakespeare mean in the quote about sleep? The line by Macbeth means that sleep is a soothing time that heals or sews up all the worries and stresses of the day. 
 
During sleep, our brains are firing and our bodies are repairing. Here are some of the ways:
 
Healthy Brain Function and Emotional Well-Being:

Sleep helps our brain work properly. It is forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information. 

Sleep deficiency alters activity in some parts of the brain contributing to problems in any of the following:

·making decisions
·solving problems
·controlling emotions and behavior
·coping with change

Sleep deficiency has been linked to:

·depression
·suicide
·risk-taking behavior
 
Physical Health:

Adequate sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. It helps maintain a healthy balance of hormones that make you feel hungry or full. The hormone, ghrelin, that makes you feel hungry and the hormone, leptin, that makes you feel full are out of whack where ghrelin goes up and leptin goes down. 
 
Sleep also affects how you react to insulin. Insulin is the hormone that controls your blood sugar level. When you don’t get enough sleep, you have a higher than normal blood sugar level. Increased blood sugar levels increase our risk for diabetes. 
 
In addition, your immune system requires sleep to stay healthy. If you are sleep deficient, you may have more difficulty fighting common infections. 
 
Adequate Sleep (7-9 hours) Means:

·enhanced immune function and disease resistance, helping you live longer
·increased energy and strength, so you feel and act more vibrantly
·improved weight loss and blood glucose regulation, helping you lose fat and improve your skin
·upgraded coordination and flexibility so you miss fewer steps and catch yourself when you do
·boosted hormone levels, so you recover faster and improve your fertility
·increased focus and creativity, so you can perform at your highest level
·enhanced memory and ability to learn complex skills, helping you retain what you learn
·improved emotion regulation, so you can keep your cool under stress
 
What About Inadequate Sleep? There are so many things at stake:

Longevity 
·your likelihood of developing diseases and chronic ailments increases - including obesity, depression, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Energy and resilience
·your tissue repair slows and lactic acid builds up faster

Weight and metabolism
·your weight loss shifts to shedding valuable muscle rather than fat

Immune function
·your immune system is disrupted and handicapped at reducing inflammation

Effective thinking
·your brain accumulates toxins that impair behavior and judgment and your critical decision-making center, the prefrontal cortex, shows reduced activity 

Reaction time
·your cognitive impairment is equivalent to being inebriated after 20 hours of being awake 

Memory function
·your brain’s ability to learn and create long-term memories is compromised

Regulation of emotion
·your brain’s emotional center, your amygdala, increases activity and you are more likely to overreact to social situations, like fighting with your friend or spouse
 
It is evident that sleep is critical for the health of your body, mind, and spirit.
 
As a way of helping you more objectively measure the quality of your sleep, it may be helpful to keep a log of how well you sleep each night or you may have a wearable device which tracks aspects of your sleep. Having a better idea of how well you are sleeping can be motivating for you to develop more healthy patterns in your life. 
 
Part 2 of this series (in a later edition of the CML newsletter) will highlight the strategies you can use (without medicine) to help you get a good night’s sleep. 
 
 
References:
Eugene, et al. The Neuroprotective Aspects of Sleep. MEDtube Science, March 3, 2015.
Kelly, et al. Sleep Tight: A Purpose for Sleep. Neurosurgery, February 1, 2014.NIH, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency. December 13, 2021. 
Underwood, Emily. Sleep: The Brain’s Housekeeper? Science, October 18, 2013.
Worley, Susan. The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep. Pharmacy and Therapeutics, December, 2018.

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