Hi u/susitoni! Thanks for joining us today. These are great questions!

I definitely believe in the power of lifestyle changes in reducing mental health issues. I take a holistic approach to my therapy and believe that you need to treat not just the mind but also the body. Psychiatry too often tries to create an arbitrary distinction between the two areas, when the more studies that are done the more is revealed about how the things you put into your body affects how you feel. Did you know that there is an estimated 90% of our serotonin (which is one of the neurotransmitters responsible for positive mood) is located in our gut? Which means that the things we eat play a big role in how we feel.

Consuming caffeine can set off a lot of the symptoms that we typically associate with anxiety especially in folks who are more sensitive to it like a fast heart rate, jitteriness, racing thoughts, insomnia, stomach upset, etc. For my clients who have anxiety, I will ask them about their caffeine consumption and bring more awareness to the link between caffeine and anxiety. In terms of dietary changes, there is also an increasing body of evidence that eating a diet high in processed foods can contribute to low mood, low energy, and inflammation of the immune system over the long term. While I'm not a nutritionist, and don't make recommendations to my clients about specific dietary plans, I do discuss this in our sessions with clients who struggle with healthy eating and I try to help them bring more mindfulness to their food choices. There's a great book on this topic called Eating Mindfully by Susan Albers that I recommend.

In terms of the difference between intrusive thoughts and thoughts that have something to do with OCD: intrusive thoughts can be a component of OCD they are the "O" in the OCD because it stands for obsessions. However, intrusive thoughts can also be a component of a number of other mental health disorders including generalized anxiety, depression, trauma, among others. The key thing about how they operate with OCD is that people have intrusive thoughts and then they have some sort of compulsion they engage in that helps them momentarily try and make the thought go away. This can include rituals like handwashing, checking doors, counting, but can also be more subtle like googling symptoms or asking for reassurance repeatedly.

Hope that helps!

No problem! I think it was a good one :)

It sounds like you're asking are there common activities or social norms that hinder the process of connecting with others? I would definitely say that social media can be both a great resource for connecting to others but at the same time can serve to further isolate folks, depending on how it's used. I've had some clients get connected to niche groups in the Austin area like sober social events through IG that they probably wouldn't have been able to find without social media. At the same time, I've had clients who have needed to either take a break from using social media or significantly cut back on the time they were spending on there because they were feeling disconnected and like it was keeping them stuck in unhealthy places. Does that answer your question? Or were you asking something else?

I think loneliness plays a big part in the reason people come to see me for counseling. While I can't speak to how it might have been different before the pandemic, I hadn't started practicing as a psychotherapist yet--maybe Adam could speak more to this point. But, at least right now it feels like many of the clients that I see list loneliness as a major contributing factor to their mental health issues. Many people report feeling a lack of camaraderie and sense of purpose that they had when they were going in person to their offices or social events, that now is severely lacking. It seems that many people are having to adjust to the new reality that the pandemic has created and it isn't always a smooth transition.