Gray Area Drinking | Jolene Park | TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen

So I still remember the exact spot on the road where I was driving. I think I remember it very vividly because he was having one of the most important conversations I've ever had with myself. In that moment in my car, I knew deep down that I would never drink alcohol again. So you might be thinking, what was the background that brought me to that point? And the answer is… there weren't any! You see, I was a

gray

zone drinker and drank between two extremes. It wasn't a final stage, a drinker who lost everything, far from it.

If you had asked my friends and family if they thought I had a

drinking

problem, they would have said “of course not.” But he wasn't an occasional drinker either, having a glass of champagne, for example, at the wedding and then not

drinking

again for weeks. I didn't fall into any of those drinking categories or any of those extreme drinking categories. And…maybe you can relate? As a nutritionist working in corporate wellness since 2004, I functioned very well. I knew how to eat well, I exercised regularly, and I loved reading and studying everything related to health and wellness.

But what people didn't know was how much I loved the "off" switch that wine provided to my "on" and often anxious brain. I loved the immediate effect that the red wine produced. And people also didn't realize how easy and frequent it was for a glass of wine to become a bottle of wine. There is a common characteristic and pattern in the

gray

area

of ​​alcohol consumption that I experience and have seen many others experience as well and that is to stop drinking and restart. Once I left it for 7 months, another time I left it for 30 days and other short periods in between, and then I was like, “Why am I being so restrictive? “I can be a social drinker.” So I would drink again only to return to a level of drinking that I regret.

This back and forth drinking and killing was exactly what I knew I wanted to end that day in my car on the highway. And maybe you don't really relate to drinking in the gray

area

because not everyone will. But here's what I know with absolute certainty: There are people in your life right now, they could be family, close friends, colleagues, and they are worrying and wondering as they reconsider their drinking because they are in the gray zone. , but chances are they're not talking to you about it and they're not talking to others about it because they think they're the only one and they think they're alone.

So how do I know this? I have lived this for many years. The more I speak professionally about my experience with gray zone drinking, the more my email inbox floods with emails from lawyers and therapists, high-level managers and nurses, stay-at-home moms, yoga instructors, and many others. . And the words are different, but the joke of what they write to me is the same and they say: “I identify with your drinking story. I haven't hit rock bottom either, I want to be able to drink socially, but I end up regretting how much I drink on a regular basis." This gray area of ​​the alcohol consumption spectrum is real and broad.

And there are a lot of high alcoholic beverages. But beyond the gray area , drinking is something even bigger and that is a collective story of anxiety and I think this is where we are collectively failing. We don't need more cognitive hurdles to jump over and we don't need more ways to focus our willpower and twist it in an attempt. To “fix” ourselves, what we need is practical training in how to nourish our nervous system in a new and revolutionary way. There are many components and pieces to this, but an interesting component and place to start may be understanding your neurotransmitters.

So let's start with GABA. So GABA is the natural anti-anxiety neurotransmitter. When GABA is low, we can feel anxious and. Our mind can get caught in a loop of worrying, ruminating, or obsessing about anything. Serotonin is the natural antidepressant neurotransmitter. When serotonin is low, we can feel more depressed, unhappy, crave things like carbs and alcohol, and have trouble sleeping. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is in charge of our concentration and motivation. When dopamine is low, it can be difficult to maintain normal levels and stay on track with your goals and routines. That's why people with low GABA levels often say they drink to relax.

That was me. People with low serotonin levels will say they drink as a way to have fun, and people with low dopamine levels will say they drink as a way to connect and interact with others. But here's the problem and this is what I want you to know and learn from this talk: it may be relatively easy for most people on the gray zone drinking spectrum to stop drinking, but it can be difficult to stay sober, especially if we are not replenishing our neurotransmitters and nourishing our nervous system comprehensively and consistently. So here's the good news: It turns out that there are actually specific foods, movements, and lifestyle practices that, while great wellness tips for everyone, have very direct and immediate roles in increasing all of our neurotransmitters.

So, as a way to give you some practical ways you can start stimulating your neurotransmitters now, I'd like to start doing so using the acronym "NOURISH." So N - observe nature. Research shows that our pleasure, which is dopamine, and our happiness, which is serotonin, start to increase when we go to areas with a high density of trees or a large body of water like an ocean. All you need is 20 minutes of being in nature with lots of trees and lots of water for your GABA, serotonin and dopamine to start increasing. Or - watch your breathing. There are many medications that can stunt, blunt, and block the fight-flight-freeze response in your body;

There are no medications that can stimulate the calm response. But there is a mechanism in your body that can do it naturally. And that mechanism is your breathing. When our breathing is regulated, our neurotransmitters are regulated. Take a break! How do you feel? You all just gave your GABA, serotonin and dopamine a little boost. U - join with others. The research is solid: close social ties, community, and social connections have a direct impact on our nervous system. In our technology-driven world we have become very deficient in human contact. Hug the people who support you, hug your pets, get body work, massages or Reiki, it doesn't matter, whatever resonates with you.

Physical contact has an immediate impact on increasing GABA, serotonin and dopamine. R - replenish with food. When you eat protein, whether it's animal protein or plant protein, it doesn't matter, it's broken down into amino acids and amino acids are what replenish GABA, serotonin and dopamine. When you eat healthy fats, particularly in the form of Omega 3 fats like fish oil, flax seeds or walnuts, those Omega 3 fats are the raw materials that make your neurotransmitters. When you eat carbohydrates, specifically in the ideal form of vegetables, and even more specifically, leafy green vegetables, they are broken down into B vitamins and the B vitamins are the precursors that produce serotonin.

When you replenish yourself with food, you replenish your neurotransmitters. I - start the movement. Any exercise will stimulate neurotransmitters. Boston University did a study with yoga participants and asked them to do a 60-minute yoga class. And then when they measured their GABA after that class, they found that everyone's GABA increased by at least 27%. In some participants GABA had emerged up to 80%. Compared to a control group that read a book for 60 minutes, there was no change in their GABA. A 60-minute yoga class can start a boost in all your neurotransmitters. But after being active, we must be still.

S: Sitting still gives the nervous system the opportunity to respond and embrace a complex world in which we live and work in a very enriching way. And in particular, sitting in stillness and silence, invoking a prayer, meditation or sacred scripture can really fuel and replenish your GABA, serotonin and dopamine. H: Take advantage of your creativity. Dopamine loves the creative flow. And the way to get into a creative flow is to choose a single focused activity that ends in "ing." Some examples are gardening, fishing, painting. But be careful because there are some other activities that end in “ing” and that make us feel as if we are receiving a dose of dopamine: drinking, smoking, overeating.

Fishing, painting, and positive hobbies increase your dopamine. The other: drinking, smoking and overeating depletes dopamine. Take advantage of your creativity, but be very aware of how you do it. As of today, it has been 1054 days since I drank alcohol. But I didn't have a rock bottom moment that got me to this point and you don't need to either. From the outside, watching my drinking didn't seem problematic, but from the inside, looking at the road I was traveling on, I knew the way I drank was a problem for me. And I'm not the only one who makes this decision.

There are thousands of people in this country, in the UK, Australia and Canada who are reconsidering their alcohol consumption and quitting because they want to, not because they have to. An entire paradigm is shifting and we are embarking on a whole new wellness movement that begins to stop consuming alcohol. But I'll be honest, there were two things that worried me when I stopped drinking. And the first was: what would happen to my relationships? This one surprised me. The important relationships in my life, family, stayed with me, but they deepened. And I look back at all the wonderful new people who have come into my life in the last 3 years, some drink, some don't, but our relationship is not based on my personal decision not to drink.

We have been able to connect and relate and we are aligned in a way that is new to me. And it's been really nourishing to add these relationships to my life. The second thing I was worried about was what if something terrible happened and it was so painful that I wanted to numb it with a glass or bottle of wine? That concern came true. Eighteen months after not drinking, I suffered the worst personal financial crisis of my life. If there was ever a time when I wanted to numb the experience and anesthetize the intense anxiety and fear I felt, this was it.

But I did not. And I think the reason I went that long without drinking was not because I had an intellectual understanding of the nervous system, which I do, but intellectualizing something is what gets me through something. And it wasn't because I had great willpower, which I don't have, my willpower fatigue is as much as anyone else's. But what I had was a very specific food that I had given to my nervous system up to that point in a very new and different way. And that had given me a zone of resilience and an internal zone of resilience that I had never had before.

So whatever path you are on, wherever you are on that path with your own internal conversation, whether you are a healthcare professional like me, a business professional in any industry, a parent who stay at home or anyone else, if you know in Your bones that you are in the gray zone with drinking or anything else as an attempt to regulate the anxiety in your body or the discomfort in your life, don't forget: your GABA, your serotonin and dopamine are waiting for you. Activate them with certain foods, movements, and lifestyle practices, and when you do, you're giving your nervous system the nourishment it's been craving all along.

Thank you!