Dr. Micaela

I was at a conference, actually a weird number of years ago now, because I don't think about how long I've been practicing, but...

I was listening to a group that was presenting on a ton of research on sleep.

And what they did was instead of focusing on a single like mental health condition or a single set of sleep behaviors, they just look at anyone who had been diagnosed with a mental health condition, their therapy seeking behaviors.

And then they're like, like rates of like remission or like how long that mental health condition went away and stayed away.

And what they learned was, fun fact, if you can't get your sleep in order, it is the single biggest vulnerability to relapse in any mental health condition, which is like so annoying, right, again.

And so it is one of the things that if I'm working with somebody and we're like, we're solid, we've made such good progress, part of getting ready to say goodbye in the therapy work that I'm gonna be doing with folks

is saying, hey, your sleep is still a little wobbly or we got your sleep dialed in.

That is going to be your kryptonite probably moving forward.

And so how do we make sure that you're not just focused on like, oh, doing my gratitude journal or hanging out with friends or staying connected to hobbies, but also making sure that you're thinking about how am I going to be committed to

to whatever my sleep practices are.

And then because life shows up and slaps us in the face often and mainly without our consent, right, is knowing that sleep is also going to get disturbed and that when that happens to really move that to the top of the pile of things that I need to be focusing on.

Um, yeah, I could go on about this forever and ever but I feel like I'm gonna maybe move on to our next topic because I think that will give us some of the similar rants but also some new things for you to listen to me battle about.

All right.

So my whole life, am I on the right one?

Yep.

My whole life, I thought I just had severe social anxiety, but it was all related to ADHD.

My mind is blown.

I had no idea that so many of my struggles had anything to do with ADHD.

For example, overthinking sentences before speaking, rephrasing things a hundred times in my head.

Preemptively explaining myself before doing anything, as referenced, click here.