Episode 17: Dr. Diane Gilman, PsyD on How to Handle Burnout and Stress During the Pandemic
Show Summary:
Diane is a psychologist who has been working with our practice from the beginning. Diane specializes in the treatment of conditions including chronic pain and illness, anxiety, depression, phobias, and difficulty adjusting to life changes and relationship stress.
Dr. Gilman uses a holistic and integrated approach to therapy that utilizes several psychological theories such as Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Humanistic Psychology, and Family Systems Theory. Her goal is to provide a unique treatment approach that addresses the entire person to heal and empower her clients.
Join us for a conversation about what you can do to prevent stress and burnout to feel your best.
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Full Episode Transcript:
SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Dr. Diane Gilman, PsyD
Welcome to the Capital Integrative Health podcast, a podcast dedicated to transforming the consciousness around what it means to be healthy and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness. I am Dr. Andrew Wong, co-founder of Capital Integrative Health, an integrative practice committed to expanding access to holistic root cause medicine to the global community.
We are excited to bring you a conversation today with Dr. Diane Gilman. Dr. Gilman is a psychologist who has been working with their practice from the very beginning. Diane specializes in the treatment of conditions including chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and difficulty adjusting to life changes and relationship stress. Dr. Gilman uses a holistic and integrated approach to therapy that includes several psychological theories such as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, humanistic psychology, and family systems theory. Her goal is to provide a unique treatment approach that addresses the whole person to heal and empower her clients. Join us for a conversation about what you can do to prevent stress and burnout in order for you to feel your best.
Dr. Wong:
Welcome Dr. Gilman to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Gilman:
I'm so happy to be here.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. So, Diane, let's talk first about how you got connected with CIH all the way back in 2015.
Dr. Gilman:
Oh my gosh. Well, it started in 2013 when I met you and we used to get together at Dawson's for juice and to talk and my five year plan was to own an integrative center. I had the mind but not the body part of it and you had the body but not the mind and it was yeah. Do you remember those days at Dawson's?
Dr. Wong:
Awesome. Yes,yes.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. So, we all met together, the whole prospective team and by the fall of that year, we were all set.
Dr. Wong:
Everything kind of gelled at that point and just kind of getting back to kind of the basics, what motivated you to become a psychologist?
Dr. Gilman:
So, I've just always naturally been really interested in how the mind works in general. I've always been the friend that people came to but mostly once I took a class my senior year in high school andI was just really fascinated that people were almost like in their own jail cells holding the keys. Like if you showed them that the keys were in their hands, they could just get themselves out. Most of you know, anxiety depression is our own thoughts and that really fascinated me to be able to do that for people. And then later on, with the health specialty, the mind body connection really interested me and I went around to many different health practices in the area asking like where are some health psychologists and they said we don't know but if you find one, let us know and so the specialty came from there.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, it's a health psychologist and like you said, we're both our own prisoner and jailer. It sounds like we are able to get out of that once we kind of flip the switch and change our mindset. That's amazing.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. I mean ideally, yeah. Sometimes we get a little stuck, sometimes we go back.
Dr. Wong:
Right, right. And well, you personally answered this but what do you enjoy most about what you do in in your day-to-day life here?
Dr. Gilman:
I really love the people. All of the people that I work with are just, I love seeing them, I love watching them get better. I feel so honored that people trust me with their deeper secrets or things that they wouldn't want to say to anybody else and doing some of the mind body work for pain and illness and watching in real time like if we're doing a deep breathing visualization exercise and I can watch in real time somebody's anxiety going down or somebody's pain shifting sensations. It's just so neat to watch that play out alongside of me.
Dr. Wong:
Great. So, let's talk about psychology and your specialties now. So, we can talk about some conditions or topics that you work most often with.
Dr. Gilman:
So most often, it would be health related issues such as pain or illness that are either diagnosed or undiagnosed so a lot of times I get people who have undiagnosed symptoms which is really really difficult as an experience to go through as you can guess I'm probably not the first person that somebody with illness symptoms would come to. They would probably pick a medical provider but at the end of the day, they've either gotten told so much, they should see a shrink in a very negative way or they really need help processing the diagnostic process so that's the main thing that I see. I also work with a lot of anxiety and stress and then I guess lower on the totem pole would be like life relationships, adjusting as you can imagine during this last two years or so that's been a big one.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. And so as a health psychologist that specializes in chronic pain and chronic illness, what specifically got you into those areas, sub-specialties there?
Dr. Gilman:
So, I really started learning about the mind-body connection in grad school and was just really fascinated how you could use your mind to alter things that were going on in your body and once I moved back to this area from grad school, it was just clear that there wasn't a huge pocket of people who specialized in it and so that's kind of what I came to right away.
Dr. Wong:
Yes and what has it been like for you to work over the past two years during this pandemic and what themes have you found showing up during this time?
Dr. Gilman:
So, it's been really interesting. It blows my mind still that my job is able to be remote. I think in our field, that was something that never ever was a possibility so it was a transition at first figuring out you know HIPAA compliance and things like that and you know one of the challenges is you know some people are coming to me to talk about the people that are in their home with them that they can't get away from and so you know confidentiality is trickier and people feeling like comfortable in what they need to say but it has been actually I think a bonding experience for the people that I work with. You know we're seeing each other in our own homes and there's an element of that that feels like a little more comfortable in the relationship. People can, especially my chronic pain clients, you know they've got their pain aids right there so they're in their jammies and they're in their comfortable spot where they go when they're in pain. They've got ice or they can go get up and get like a heating pack so it's actually been very convenient for them as you know traffic in this area is kind of crazy so the stress of coming to an appointment would sometimes flare up illness or pain. So, it's been a really nice transition and people seem to really enjoy therapy from their homes or you know. I've talked to people on the side of mountains, I've talked to people in their cars. People seem to get really like the convenience of it so it's been a real surprise. I couldn't have predicted it but it's gone very very well.
Dr. Wong:
People are hiking while they talk to you, do you think or?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. Some people are taking walks. I had one client talk to me from the top of a ski mountain right before they were about to do some mobiles.
Dr. Wong:
Okay. So, now, while they were actually-
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, not while they were but people do take walks because I also allow people to do phone sessions. I understand that the videos are you know very fatiguing especially certain conditions that you know, screens are very aggravating for certain health conditions so some people will talk to me on the phone and go for walks or sit in their gardens or I've had some clients be painting while they're doing that so it's been really nice to get creative and see what works for people.
Dr. Wong:
So, one silver lining of this pandemic is that telehealth and you know, telehealth for mental health visits too has been really opening up and we didn't really know about this in either mental health or medical visits you know.
Dr. Gilman:
Yes, yeah. And there's actually, they just passed PSYPACT in Maryland which is a group of providers that wants your license within them which I just got licensed as a PSYPACT provider. You can actually provide teletherapy across state lines with other states that are in PSYPACT so currently DC, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are all PSYPACT states so it allows our clients to travel, clients that are going off to college. COVID has actually really really helped in terms of telepsychology for that reason.
Dr. Wong:
Everyone is seeing psychologists and mental health providers right now during COVID. I think this is definitely a time of really extreme or definitely not normal level of stress. I think we all have some chronic stress and burnout and things like that but this sounds like this is kind of brought it to the next level. So, let's kind of go into our first hand in here and talk about COVID for a second since we're still in the pandemic as we're taping this right now. What have you found in terms of COVID and sort of code related stress? How is
that impact to people's mental health?
Dr. Gilman:
Oh, huge. There's so many dimensions of it you know, it's torn families apart, it's caused you know relationally difficulties within people who have different belief systems, different vaccination you know strategies. You know, a lot of the clients that I work with are terrified of getting COVID, in what it does to their immune system and what it does to them long term. I've worked with a couple of people who have long-haul COVID symptoms and this is a brand new experience for them being chronically ill for the first time in their whole lives. You know, there's just I think that the stress and the isolation of the pandemic or some people you know the loss of their jobs if they have to be on site you know. I have a massage therapist client that that wreaked havoc on her so financial security, things like that. Some people who had to go into work and were incredibly stressed about that. And then, there is a population that COVID has really been helpful for them and so just kind of adjusting to how do they keep some of those changes going forward.
Dr. Wong:
I feel like in a way, COVID is almost like a physical but also an emotional, mental health tsunami you know, like those giant waves that you see on those woodblock prints. I mean
when you see that tsunami you know, how do you, where do you begin? Where do you begin with managing stress, avoiding burnout? What are the first steps you would consider whether it's a client or someone you're listening?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, good question. Usually where I go first immediately no matter what stressor they have is coping. I want to look at where are the gaps in their coping. I'm a big fan of filling a tool belt like can you cope anytime so a lot of people say things like I cope with yoga or gardening but what happens if you're in a meeting or in the car or in the shower, you're trying to fall asleep and so I’m really trying to look at gaps in their coping skills and give them some ideas for that and along with coping goes different mind-body techniques to get them immediately calmer like deep breathing or visualization techniques.
Dr. Wong:
So, filling that tool box or tool kit, Home Depot mental health edition essentially?
Dr. Gilman:
Exactly, exactly.
Dr. Wong:
What are your favorite tools that you said breathing, deep breathing, visualization? What are some other things you feel are helpful?
Dr. Gilman:
Deep breathing is the first thing I always do because it's the easiest and there's really no situation where you can't like even right now, I could be deep breathing in between while you're asking me questions.
Dr. Wong:
I'm totally doing that as well, yes.
Dr. Gilman:
Good, okay. Yeah, I'm gonna keep calm. Yeah, so deep breathing is the one I teach them first and then I usually customize deep breathing protocols for them, the counts, the holds, the visualizations, the messages that they're doing. Beyond that, any present based activity so like using the five senses, looking around the room, what things start with the letter P, how many items in the room have three letters in their name, anything to get them really focused in on the present moment. The sensory thing is five things you can hear or sorry, five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Those are a little trickier, the last two but anything to get people grounded into the present moment, those are the favorites because I can see them working even clients who have never done any deep breathing who are very very stressed coming in, I assess their level one to ten. Ten being a panic attack and even ones who are like eight, nine when they come in who have never done deep breathing will drop at least two to three points on that scale within about two minutes of deep breathing so it's very effective, very quick.
Dr. Wong:
Any mantra based breathing or techniques that you use like people saying a certain word or sentence?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. So, usually, I customize it for them. I ask them what are they feeling that they'd like to release on their exhale and what would they like to call in more of that they can pull in on the inhale but as a general one, you know, we have to remember that the stress response is our body responding as if we are not safe in the present moment. It's our entire body gearing up to preserve our life as if there's life or death situation. There's really no in between for our brain so a good general mantra is, “I am safe. It is safe to relax right now. It is okay to calm down”. Anything, usually. I'm safe to relax is the one that gets people the most, just repeating that helps our brain to shut it off.
Dr. Wong:
And I found that, you know, with obviously dealing with a lot of patients you know professionally but also you know personally just my own health journey, I have found that you know a lot of times we we don't even know that we're stressed. We don't even know that we have burnout, right? It's almost like the subconscious feeling and imbalance in the autonomic nervous system but we may not actually know that until we get to a safe place of relaxation and kind of settle into that chair and feel the body and kind of calm down the incessant thoughts that are happening, right? So, how do people know that they're stressed, you know? How do people actually know that there's an issue or is it just they need to try it and then try to figure out if there's a delta, if there's a change there?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, that's a really good question. My experience is that people are very unaware of when they're stressed or even what stress means and I think part of that is societal. We are like a very go go go especially in this area but I do think that during COVID, we have just been under a very chronic, high sustained level of stress and it doesn't even register as stressful anymore.
Dr. Wong:
It's the baseline now, right?
Dr. Gilman:
It's our baseline, exactly. So, I think you know for most people, I really get on people about check-ins. You know, ask yourself at least once a day. It can be meditation, it can be journaling, it can simply be checking in with yourself, and asking how you feel but you would be surprised how many people day to day do not do this and they just kind of fly through the day without any awareness so check-ins are a huge part of what I do in therapy for almost everybody. But generally, the signs you want to look for are, if you can't really remember things like I don't even remember like breakfast feels like five years ago when it's really been two hours, you know that if time is a little bit off or your memory gets a little fuzzy, you're probably not present and if you're not present, you're probably stressed in some way. That's one of the main things. How many sort of negative thoughts are running through your mind, have you been agitated, how have your conversations with other people gone, were you a little short or you know, were you more sensitive? Any of those are signs that you're stressed and something's going on.
Dr. Wong:
Going a little deeper here, can stress exist in the present moment?
Dr. Gilman:
Absolutely.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. And is it okay to feel that stress, right? You know a lot of times, we're kind of like, “oh, let's take some pill”, or you know let's go on the internet and look at the latest news, right? To try to escape that, right? Try to get away from that. So, how do we actually cultivate a healthy relationship with stress?
Dr. Gilman:
That's a good question. You know, happiness is like the zeitgeist and it's honestly toxic. The goal for us is not to be stress-free and happy and calm and just kind of like skip off into the sunshine, we are supposed to feel our feelings. We are supposed to have all of the feelings, that grief and loss and anger and fear and sadness and joy and excitement. They're all supposed to be felt equally. That's why we are not animals and that's why we're not robots and so anytime we block that process for emotions that we don't want to feel or we don't like or we're scared of or uncomfortable with, we really block up the system so to speak and so it is actually not healthy to just feel happiness and just be stress-free because you would be blocking the other emotions so once you understand that, you really start to get what it means to have good mental health.
Dr. Wong:
On a full spectrum of life experience, not a sort of a, I don't know, cookie cutter or kind of a gilded you know type of. Makes sense, thank you. What do you see as common root causes of burnouts? You know, we know a lot of people are burnt out so .
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. I would say the biggest thing is the lack of check-in like I mentioned before and along with that goes a lack of self-care and a lack of self-care routines. Those I think are the biggest causes. I also think you know we have these narratives that we're kind of stuck in certain situations but we can always get creative with our problem solving and figure it out. So, for example, you know during quarantine, people were very isolated and that was a real stressor for people and yet what are some things you can do to feel connected? What are some things you can do to feel joy? I always use the example like I'm a big traveler but obviously couldn't travel so I made a travel bathroom. I put all my souvenirs, I redecorated, was a whole project. I was at home anyway so just kind of getting creative to think about you know what your problems are and then can you flip the narrative to see if we can problem solve in a healthier way.
Dr. Wong:
First of all, travel bathroom, that's an excellent idea. We can get into that more I think later but yeah, you can really go anywhere you want depending on, you can create your reality essentially.
Dr. Gilman:
Exactly.
Dr. Wong:
Nice. Yeah, it just kind of reminded me of you said the lack of self-care and this idea that we're always checking about our cars like how much gas do we have in our tank, right? But we're not checking about how much gas do we have in our own tanks, in our own bodies.
Dr. Gilman:
A lot as the iphone battery or our phone battery where I mean we are constantly watching that. We know when it's time to plug it in. We anticipate if something's going to use a lot of battery, that we should probably get in ahead of time. That is a perfect analogy for how we should take care of ourselves.
Dr. Wong:
And you also see a lot of clients with chronic fatigue and we know that that's becoming an increasingly common issue and in our population of course. What are some common reasons for chronic fatigue that you see in your clients?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. Usually, what I see is tied to a couple of different factors. I try and look at chronic fatigue pretty holistically so I'm looking at diet, I'm looking at hydration, I'm looking at what their intake is with medication, supplements, I'm looking at their lifestyle factors like do they have good soft care routines, what's their sleep hygiene like, do they have good sleep wake cycles, and most importantly the biggie for chronic fatigue syndrome is the rest activity balance. Most people have a very wacky rest activity balance that contributes to the experience of fatigue. I've actually never met one client that didn't have an imbalance there. I think we all do it in general but it's very important to stay attuned to it with chronic fatigue syndrome.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah and I just started tracking my own work hours and it was pretty eye opening how much I'm working so I've been able to actually notice an uptick in my energy, not that I think I have chronic fatigue but definitely I notice more energy with a better rest activity balance so that's a great point. You know, sometimes, we're looking at oh what is the certain you know treatment, what's that kind of magic pot at the end of that rainbow but in fact we might be able to control it a lot more than we think based on our own life choices.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. I've had a couple of clients with persistent chronic fatigue syndrome go into remission once they're looking at the whole picture of things so I have seen it, I know it's possible. it's not going to be possible for everybody but you know, I do think we have a lot more control than we believe, any health condition or pain condition.
Dr. Wong:
Right so look at it holistically, look at it from a medical perspective, nutritional perspective, structural, mental health because at the end of the day you know it is a multifactorial condition but there are many things that we may have control over that we don't really necessarily know that we have control over like these kind of work life or activity rest balance and let's face it, we're not cars you know, we're not actually meant to run 24/7, burn gas you know, burn the candle both ends, right?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, that's fair. Yep.
Dr. Wong:
And I think if people do want to have an extra you know thing to do and they want to keep busy and you know but still be relaxed, they could also renovate a travel bathroom that might be a way to do it, something fun.
Dr. Gilman:
I have a lot of good ideas for that.
Dr. Wong:
Okay, great. We'll talk more about that. And anxiety and depression, I know this was common even before the pandemic and now it's like just totally blown up, right? What are some common root causes for both anxiety and depression.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. I mean I think that again diet and sleep and lifestyle factors certainly play into anxiety and depression as well so I'm always looking out for that. But beyond that, I do find that a lack of awareness in terms of our thoughts and our emotions really play a part in anxiety and depression. We tend to have I think, I can't remember the percentage but research shows that a giant percentage of our thoughts are actually the same thoughts as the day before. We tend to think the same thoughts over and over again and so if we understand that we have the ability to interrupt those thoughts and have novel thoughts that are more rational, more helpful for us, not happier but rational, more helpful, usually that can make a dent there. And that's usually what I'm using, something like cognitive behavior therapy for.
Dr. Wong:
Okay. So, CBT is helping to change those thoughts that otherwise would be kind of these repetitive same thoughts day in and day out and kind of wearing that person down and...
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah and it's really fostering the awareness that these thoughts are even happening. Some of them are at the conscious level but some of them are at the pre-conscious or subconscious level and we are just so used to seeing the world in this way or thinking these thoughts that we don't actually realize. Awareness is the biggest piece.
Dr. Wong:
We don't even know that we're wearing those colored glasses, right? We're like looking at the world that way. Got it.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Great. Alright, let's talk about one of the most favorite topics ever I think too is boundaries.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah.
Dr. Wong:
Not talking about like state boundaries or national boundaries, we're talking about just in general boundaries I think. You know, what are boundaries in our lives? How can we use them effectively in our daily lives?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. So, boundaries are really tricky for people and we have all different types of boundaries. People assume external boundaries with other people but they can be boundaries with our work-life balance, they can be boundaries within ourselves as to how we treat ourselves or how we talk to ourselves or the food that we consume. There's a lot of different boundaries but for me boundaries are really of and for the self. They're kind of like radical acts of self-compassion. Even if we're setting a boundary with another person, we are telling that person how to respect us and how to treat us so they are daunting for some people especially if they're not used to setting boundaries but the truth is that if we don't set them, we get the same thing over and over again.
Dr. Wong:
So, if I heard you right, setting boundaries with others or with the kind of the external environment and like you said there could be some internal as well but setting boundaries in any of those ways, externally or internally, is sending a message to yourself of a radical aspect, radical self-care, right?
Dr. Gilman:
Exactly, yeah.
Dr. Wong:
That's awesome. And what could be better than that in terms of root cause of you know, dealing with anxiety or depression or whatever people are dealing with, right? And that kind of brings us to the next question which is about the holidays since we are taping this right before some major holidays coming up. With the holidays coming up, how do you recommend people navigate difficult family relationships or relationships in general? Because a lot of times, people are spending more time with family or friends than they typically would.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, I mean we could have like five podcasts on this topic and that's pretty much all I'm talking about at work these days but I would say there's a couple of different big things to look at. The first being boundaries for sure. I really advocate that people set boundaries in advance so that they don't have to do the hard work when it's happening in person so you know these topics are off the table. I am going to leave at this point. I am not eating gluten, whatever the boundary is. Make sure everybody's on the same page before you even arrive to that place, really think about holiday plans as an option. A lot of people don't see them as an option, they see them as an obligation but if it's not healthy for you then yo should really think about that boundary within yourself, you know? Can you show up for five minutes? Can you not go at all? Can you do it virtually? And think about those boundaries for yourself. The other part is, how do we watch our own regulation while we're moving through these experiences? So, you know, if there's certain foods that are triggers that are going to be on the table, how do we make sure that we can enjoy ourselves but not sabotage our progress or sabotage our own health because we're stressed. How do we make sure that if we get stressed out at the table you know, what can we do, what are some little things so I often tell clients you know, excuse yourself, go to the bathroom, do five minutes of a visualization, come back, go get some fresh air, go you know help with the dishes, have some sensory experiences, really keeping your eyes on yourself and your mental health throughout the day which registers as selfish for a lot of people but it's the good type of selfish. It's the oven for the self kind of selfish that will help us move through the holidays easier and then the last thing is you know, I hate the term the holiday season
because I think what that does to us cognitively is it loads on a stress for two and a half months when in reality, we're talking about three days maybe five depending on what you celebrate and maybe like let's say 10 to 12 being generous if you have a lot of parties to attend but that's still a very small fraction of two and a half months and people just kind of go, “I'm not gonna diet during the holiday season” or “oh, I'll go off my gluten diet” and like have some trigger.
Dr. Wong:
Like a quarter of the year or something, yeah.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah and it's just like you can't. It's not a free pass to feeling crappy for two and a half months and so..
Dr. Wong:
Good point.
Dr. Gilman:
We really have to keep our eyes on ourselves through that time.
Dr. Wong:
Let's rename it right now. What do you suggest?
Dr. Gilman:
Oh, I would just say random days like we do for Mother's Day, Father's Day, this is Thanksgiving, this is Christmas, this is Hanukkah, this is Kwanzaa.
Dr. Wong:
Okay. Got it, got it. Yeah. We don't in other words we don't have to behave that way or treat every single day leading up to that point for two months before that like the holidays because it's not, right? Yeah, okay. So yeah and then there's the hallmarks and like there's the whole like even before I think even before Halloween, there's all these decorations coming up and you know stuff so..
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah, it's speeding us up.
Dr. Wong:
Which is the last part of it.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. As you see, the last part is you know people think that the holiday season should be joyful when in reality, the holiday season is very very hard for people. If you've lost somebody you love, getting together with family, the travel, the disruption of our schedule, the food. And so, don't beat yourself up if you're having a hard time during the holidays.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah. like it doesn't have to be like a hallmark postcard or something like that.
Dr. Gilman:
It's not really, usually.
Dr. Wong:
Right. And let's get back and you know, it's winter time. It’s the season in which the holidays
are and that kind of thing. What do you see in terms of the relationship between screen time and mental health? You know, like we're probably using screens more nowadays. Is there a healthy balance here that we can achieve so that we can optimize our mental health?
Dr. Gilman:
That's a good question, yeah. Well, I think first of all, you know watching the light frequencies that we're consuming, making sure it's not disrupting our sleep schedules, making sure we're also looking at nature and at natural light is very important. I think for some people who are feeling particularly isolated you know, screen time is helpful to zoom or facetime or things like that. If you're using screen time as avoidance so you notice you've been on instagram for the last like 40 minutes when you should be doing filling the blank then it's an unhealthy use of screen time. Now to be fair, that's normal and everybody does that.
Dr. Wong:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Gilman:
You know, don't beat yourself up for it.
Dr. Wong:
Yes. Enjoy that time, don't stress over it, right?
Dr. Gilman:
Correct, yeah. Or if you have something that you need to do that you're putting off with screen time, do that thing first then give yourself some screen time.
Dr. Wong:
So, the intention of it and you know oh I'm gonna go on instagram, I'm gonna go on facebook, do that, enjoy it for that limited period of time then do something else so it doesn't become excessive?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. I think too you know. I always talk to people about time in versus time out. Time in is focusing on yourself and your feelings. That would be journaling, meditating, walking, therapy, talking to a friend about your feelings. Time out is where screen time falls in, right? And sometimes, you need a timeout. You need to you know, just like adults, we need timeouts. We need to just check out and turn our brains off and mindlessly scroll. And sometimes, we do that in place of time in and that's where it becomes unhealthy. So, again, if you're not aware of your own feelings, if you're not checking in with yourself and you're instead focusing externally, that's when we get the recipe for poor mental health.
Dr. Wong:
So, that inside-outside balance, just having that ratio be. And is that ratio different for each person like how much inside time, how much inner work do we need in a day, let's say, I don't know if there's a good answer to that but.
Dr. Gilman:
I think so. I think to you know some clients who are really going through things and they don't want to check in with themselves, I always say that's fine. Just ask yourself how you feel like if you want to be on Instagram for an hour, just say before you get on Instagram, I'm feeling sad and then get on Instagram for an hour like that counts. You just don't not do it at all so just..
Dr. Wong:
Okay, so even like a five second check in before touching in that Instagram?
Dr. Gilman:
Surprised how much people don't even do that.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Gilman:
How am I feeling? Is there something I need today? That's all.
Dr. Wong:
Yeah.
Dr. Gilman:
So it doesn't have to be perfectly aligned, it can still be more time out.
Dr. Wong:
I notice the inside timer, does it really brilliantly, it talks about how you are feeling you know, good, great, fear, poor, whatever. It makes you press that button before you go on the meditation app. It's pretty interesting.
Dr. Gilman:
Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly the same thing.
Dr. Wong:
Use that. Well, we have some fun closing questions and we can talk about the travel bathroom more if you'd like but you're gonna.. First of all Dr. Gilman or Diane, do you have a morning routine and if so if you don't mind sharing that with.
Dr. Gilman:
Yes. I have very strict morning and evening routines which I think people forget about. The morning routine is always meditating for 40 minutes first thing. I know that sounds like a lot. I built myself up to that and it's really a sanctioned way for me to close my eyes still even though not bad and then usually journaling with a lot of natural light in the morning so that my sleep schedule is good and drinking something to start hydration. And then in the evening, usually it's a lot of dim lights, reading on my balcony no matter the weather, it's just kind of nice out there and it's usually like a slow shower just to calm my system down before bed.
Dr. Wong:
Nice. That big sun moon cycle, everything's kind of flowing in day to night to day. That's so beautiful. Thank you for sharing that and what book or podcast you're enjoying the most right now and what is it about and why do you like it?
Dr. Gilman:
So, right now, I'm reading The Midnight Library which is about like actions that we could, it's a fantasy about a library that exists between life and death and the library contains all the books of the different lives we would have if we've made any number of different choices and kind of the moral of that is you know, we're all on the path that we're supposed to be on and you know, there's no such thing as mistakes.
Dr. Wong:
It's so beautiful, thank you so much. And finally, what do you do every day to cultivate joy?
Dr. Gilman:
Definitely something in nature, definitely meditation, I do a lot of singing in the shower and cooking.
Dr. Wong:
Singing, cooking. Singing is definitely one of the best ways to activate the vagus nerve and..
Dr. Gilman:
That's right.
Dr. Wong:
Relaxation, we don't have to do a live singing but we can worry about it. Thank you so much Diane for coming on today and how can listeners learn more about you and work with you?
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. So, they can go to my website which is the centerformindandbodyhealth.com and that will explain a little more about me. I also have a profile on psychologytoday.com. If they want to work with me, so right now, I've got a wait list. My first time ever having a wait list coincided not surprisingly with COVID so there's more people who need therapy right now than there are therapists who can help. And so, I do have a waitlist at the moment but I'm very communicative with clients when they want to know where they're at or you know do I need to refer them out. They can email, they can call, or they can text.
Dr. Wong:
What I just want to say personally you know, what I really love about your practice and your work with clients that have you know witnessed with you know, sharing some patients with clients is that you really give people the tools and empower people to take charge of their own mental health and to you know kind of use those tools in that home depot mental health toolkit, right? So that they can move the needle on their health and that's so nice.
Dr. Gilman:
Yeah. Thank you so much. That I think my goal is that people don't need me anymore, that they can use the stuff themselves and usually that's pretty successful which is why I usually have a high turnover, just not right now.
Dr. Wong:
Right, right. Exactly. Thank you so much Diane for coming on today, it's been a pleasure. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen today out there and if you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to leave us a review, hit like, subscribe. It helps our podcast to reach more listeners and don't forget to subscribe so that you don't miss our next conversations and thank you so much for being with us today and thank you so much Diane.
Dr. Gilman:
Nice to be here.