Part 1: Weeding Phase
Supporting both Mental Health & Immunity Simultaneously

Three Questions about supporting Mental Health & Immune System I want you to start thinking about are:

  1. What are my current emotions during this Pandemic? (Assessment)
  2. Do I understand WHY I’m feeling these emotions? (Processing)
  3. What can I do today to feel better? (Action Plan)

What is the Brio Living Philosophy?

  • This is the Brio’s Clinic Step by Step Roadmap in helping patients move from only focusing on symptoms, to transforming their health.
  • There are 4 Distinct Phases: Weeding, Seeding, Feeding and Thriving
  • Garden Analogy: (Animation Video on Website: https://yourbriohealth.com/about/)
    • Weeding Phase: Weeds represent Symptoms. Not only do we want to help get rid of them, we want to prevent future weeds. Weeds are a byproduct of poor quality soil.
    • Seeding Phase: Tilling the Soil, Exploring Root Cause, Understand Systemic Imbalances. Establishing Healthy Habits
    • Feeding Phase: Deeper Healing. Breaking through stuckness, limitations and fears. Integrating balance in all aspects of life. Wheel of Balance.
    • Thriving Phase: Living your true authentic self, Outward blessing toward others, Balance of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.

What are YOUR current emotions right NOW?

  1. Define Emotions
  2. Distressing Emotions
  3. Positive Emotions
  1. What are Emotions?
    1. The feelings we are all experiencing such as fear, sadness, anxiety, love, hope, happiness are all called emotions.
    2. Emotions help us survive:
      1. Fear alerts us to dangers
      2. Love helps us connect and bond with people who keep us safe
      3. Joy leads us to people and activities that make us feel good.
    3. Emotions also help us enjoy, understand and thrive in our world.
    4. We all express emotions differently depending on our upbringing, culture, personality, genetics and past experiences.
  2. What are Distressing Emotions?
    1. Fear, Anger, Anxiety, Sadness
    2. Anxiety is different from fear
      1. Fear: Emotion that is focused on a specific external thing: a spider, snake, virus
      2. Anxiety: is internal and diffuse. Response to an imagined (or unlikely threat). It’s our brain’s way of anticipating something negative in the future. (repeat)
      3. If we let anxiety overcome us, it can snowball, and can paralyse us. We will discuss some strategies later to help us keep anxiety in check.
  3. What are Positive Emotions?
    1. Happiness, Joy, Love & Gratitude
    2. When we experience more POSITIVE emotions, research shows that we live longer, have less strokes, less cortisol release, and more Robust Immune System
    3. Feel–Good emotions are correlated with better mental health
    4. “Feel-Good emotions are a BUFFER in times of Distress – a sort of psychological immunization – and stimulate us to engage in the very behaviors that feed positive emotions, creating an upward spiral”
    5. Gratitude:
      1. It’s the feeling you get when you receive something – a gift, an action or experience – that someone else gave freely, often costing them time, energy or money.
      2. Gratitude used to be a passive emotion. Reflecting on what you feel grateful for….but now seen as an energizing emotion. Ex. watching somebody be charitable…activates the reward centers in the brain….you also want to do good and be more charitable.
      3. Can we cultivate Gratitude? yes!
        • 2003 there was a research study done on keeping a Gratitude Journal
        • Those who wrote down “blessings” once a week for 2 months, showed more optimistic views in life and ended up exercising more, sleeping better, compared to people journaling neutral observations.
      4. Guess What activity I am going to recommend later? I know it may sound Hokey to some of you, but it really does work.

Now that we’ve taken an inventory of what Emotions and Feelings are, let’s dive a bit deeper to understand what emotions YOU are Currently experiencing.

  1. What are you currently feeling?
  2. What can you control in your Current situation?

In the WEEDING Phase of your Health Journey, We are supporting your mental health and Immune Health Simultaneously, to help you feel more Grounded and less Anxious.

I invite you to watch this Video Over again and follow along with this Exercise

What are you currently feeling?
Take a journal or a piece of paper to write this out

Step 1: Make a List of ALL the emotions you are currently experiencing with this pandemic disruption to your life? Am you feeling Sad, Anxious, Angry, Hopeful, Optimistic? Be honest with yourself, Read over each word carefully.

Step 2: Is what you are feeling appropriate? Is it a realistic outlook?

Take a journey back to childhood. Are you currently feeling some of these emotions based on things you learned in the past? Is there a disconnect between what you were taught and how you are feeling?

Step 3: Is there anything I can be grateful for at this moment?

What can you control in your current situation?

  1. Your time, Your routine, Your nutrition, Your level of exercise,
    (All these have profound impact on your Mental & Physical Health)
  2. Sticking to a routine as much as possible and controlling what you can, will help you feel in more control, more grounded and less anxious.

The Last Section of this Weeding Phase is sharing with you MY ACTION Plan and Helping you Create your OWN action plan

Remember the Main Goal of the Weeding Phase is to Assess how you are doing. As we move later into the SEEDING, and FEEDING phases, We will go more in depth about Strategies on Boosting Immunity and Mental Health.

Dr. Jeff’s Game Plan:

  1. I have a Daily Habit of
    1. Deep Breathing: – Grounds me & calms my mind. (Watch Dr. Vanessa’s FB live video March 30th/2020)
    2. Journaling – I do a brain dump. Allows me to be creative. I write about my concerns, I write to do lists. I write my gratitudes
    3. Praying – This is where I can voice my Gratitude. I can tap into the Creator, and not focus and pray for myself, but to pray for others.
    4. Playing – I do something fun daily. Could be as simple as a bike ride, or playing with my kids, or watching a funny video.
  2. Daily Stand up Meetings (Try to form your own check-in with friends)
    1. Group of people that I’m accountable to
    2. How are you doing from a scale of 1/10
    3. What are you grateful for today?
    4. What is your one big thing you are going to do today?
    5. What support do you need?
  3. Weekly:
    1. Small Group meetings/ Church Community
    2. Mentor to a Youth Group

These activities have kept me grounded, more focused, and definitely a lot happier in this time of stress.
Please share this with your friends!

In health,
Dr. Jeffrey Lee
Naturopathic Physician & Registered Acupuncturist

Check out my Stress Youtube Series here.

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