- Green Pill by Alex Shinkarovsky
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- Green Pill 005: Non-Linear Benefits of Emotional Work | 1 Key Knee Pain Hack
Green Pill 005: Non-Linear Benefits of Emotional Work | 1 Key Knee Pain Hack
"If you’re not taking care of your sleep, exercise and nutrition, you’re not giving yourself a fighting chance against depression and anxiety."
Happy Saturday, fitfam (tardy),
This week's resources to improve your life, and get you where you want to be.
Green Pill Stories: non-linear upside of emotional work
Weekly Quick Recs (Meme, Knee Pain Hacks, Article of the Week, Quote)
Deep Dive - psychiatric meds
Green Pill Stories - Non-Linear Benefits of Therapy
So, I spoke with Lisa Tahir LCSW, this week, about her family issues growing up.
Lisa hosted a therapy pod on Los Angeles Talk Radio. Her latest book was reviewed by the Dalai Lama...so she's had a lot of success in telling the world her story.
Therapists have the most interesting personal stories.
Imagine wanting to sit in a room daily and listen to tough problems of people?
Well, Lisa was inspired to do this...
....because her own parents divorced at 13, and her mom was addicted to alcohol.
She found herself in addiction in her teens, and found therapy around 20 y/o.
She never looked back - realizing that doing the hard work of emotional processing and self-reflection paid non-linear dividends - essentially, you got more out than you put in.
Do the hard work emotionally to suffer less - and clear space for better things.
Listen to the whole pod on YouTube (subscribe to get notified, live in Feb).
Highlights of the Week
Meme of the Week:
Health Hacks I’m Testing: Knees over Toes (KoT) Guy:
KoT for 2 years has helped me get a lot of athleticism back. Multiple sports physios with more anatomical education than I have endorsed his method & trained me in it.
In physical therapy & typical bodybuilding, we were always told to not let the knee go past the toe. KoT guy (1.8M IG followers) demonstrates that in going down stairs, jumping & low squats, knees DO go over toes. So we need to train that range.
In fact, he suggests that many knee surgeries & replacements stem from not training full range. Deeper dive here.
What I’m Listening To: My own mini-podcast, Green Pill! I did a soft launch. To Green Pill someone means to positively influence their health. I interview health pros and ask how they spread the message about health in their personal lives (not just patients). First two episodes live on YouTube.
What I’m Reading: Not a ton, but always nerd out on scraping data. How to extract contact data from Google Maps [Including emails!] Way more potential to get useful data than most people realize.
Quote(s) I’m Loving:
"There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist‚ except an old optimist."
Sponsored by...me!
It all started when I asked a new personal training client whether she wanted to me to "run her life". 3 months later, we trained 3x a week, but she also texted me daily, we went to Whole Foods together, I tracked all her sleep, made her "eat this/not that" take out menus, and she lost 35 lbs, went to therapy and started feeling confident.
Deep Dive - Taking Meds
No Deep Dive this week, I'm working too much! One quick nugget — I found a lot of benefit from starting a mood stabilizing drug, Lamotragine. It's pharmacological and prescribed by a psychiatrist.
Sharing this because I encourage you, if you are struggling with being relatively okay on a daily basis, and have sharp fluctuations of highs/lows, or deep downs regularly, you don't need to keep suffering (as much!).
To be okay or unplug, you go out and drink, smoke weed, do recreational drugs, but stigmatize pharmacological interventions prescribed by MDs.
Worth a shot if you're a skeptic. Lmk if you need a psychiatrist or therapist rec in NJ or NY.
Thanks for reading. Your feedback really helps! This takes me an hour to put together.
You may find out more about my lifestyle adjustment & coaching services at my site, or read a Case Study here.