7 Practices for Recovery and a Life Well-Lived

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• 8/9/23

7 Practices for Recovery and a Life Well-Lived

This lecture is from an undergraduate psychology course I offer each fall at the University of Mississippi. This particular lecture was filmed in November, 2013. The course is called "Abnormal Psychology" and by convention, it focuses on a fairly disease-oriented view of mental health. My own version of this course is not conventional.

I am a very practical guy. I want students to walk away from my classes with some very specific ideas about psychological struggles and some of the things we know that make them worse and make them better. I myself have a long and deep history of depression and addiction to drugs and alcohol. I have been in recovery since 1985. I suspect I carry vulnerabilities to psychological struggles. There are significant difficulties of this sort in my family history. My take away on these vulnerabilities is that I need to take very, very good care of myself to moderate this risk. This lecture is derived from a set of practices that I use to optimize my recovery and wellbeing. You can find a blog version of this set of practices here http://kellysonelife.tumblr.com/post/...

We are seeing an epidemic of "lifestyle disorders." In the so-called first world, and increasingly, the whole world. What kills us is no longer infections, malnutrition, lack of sanitary food, and potable water.

We die from the way we live. We die of cardiovascular disease, stroke, pulmonary illness, obesity, diabetes, and a huge range of stress related illnesses. We sleep too little, exercise too little, sit too much, eat too much (and mostly the wrong stuff), and we stress out....way way out.

The deck is stacked against us. The entire culture seems to encourage us to compare and evaluate ourselves against crazy standards. Huge industries spend billions of dollars to encourage us to eat, drink, smoke, and otherwise behave in ways that are killing us.

There are no loony bits of advice in here. Some of the conclusions drawn about optimal living are suggested from the study of animal models of illness. Not everything in mouse models prove out in human testing. However, things like "eat lots of vegetables" and "get enough sleep" do not seem likely to cause anyone any harm and seem pretty likely to help.

In this lecture, I explore what mental illness looks like viewed through the lens of lifestyle and stress related illness. In the video, I suggest 7 practices people can engage in to optimize wellbeing.

The core message I want students to take away from the lecture is that we do not have to wait. There is a ton of evidence that even small changes in lifestyle can have an impact on both physical and mental wellbeing.

At the end of the lecture, I show students a YouTube video that has gone insanely viral. The video is of Arthur Boorman's transformation from a life of disability into a life of magnificent recovery. Arthur is a veteran of the 1990-1991 Gulf War. The video of his transformation has had over 10 million hits! I do not think I have ever watched the video without coming to tears. Arthur, if you see this, you are an inspiration to us all. Arthur began his program of recovery with Dallas Diamond at DDP Yoga. Read more about Arthur and about DDP Yoga here http://ddpyoga.com/arthur.html. Thanks to DDP and to Arthur Boorman for the inspiration they have provided. Showing this video to my students is always a blessing.

Artist Name: Javier Colon

Song: Fix You

Buy it on iTunes for $1.29!

http://bit.ly/IAjWzw

This video was recorded and generously given to me by Mitch McCabe during the filming of her feature length documentary Make Me Normal. To find out more go here http://mitchmccabe.com/about .

By way of disclosure, I have no financial interests that are not readily apparent. I am a college professor, I lecture, I consult on research and implementation of treatment, and I write books. I have no connection to DDP Yoga. Likewise, I have no financial interest in the film Make Me Normal. I did, however, donate and do a little fundraising for Mitch's Make Me Normal Indigogo Campaign. I received nothing but my regular university salary and the undying affection of my students for this lecture.

Editing of this video was done by my awesome graduate student Emmie Hebert!

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