Action snack: Can you tell the difference between sadness and low blood sugar?

Here's how to find out

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels

Hey there everyone—

The mental health clinic at the Portland VA, as one might expect, is permanently busy, fully booked, and staffed with as many people as possible. Part of the larger hospital, its hallway floors are tiled in cream, bleached regularly, and lit by fluorescent light that bounces off the white ceilings and walls. There are attempts at humanizing the space–beautiful photographs of natural scenery are hung on the walls–but the furniture is institutional, sturdy, and the padded chairs that fill the waiting room covered with a plastic-like material that’s stain and liquid resistant, for easy clean-up.

On my first day I was told, with great apology, that I was to have the smallest office in the place, as it was the only one that was empty. It was at the end of the long hall, next to the emergency exit and the bathroom. The walls were thin: I could hear the flushing. It was far away from the router, so I couldn’t really check my phone. The “office” must have been a closet in a former life. It was a windowless rectangle, just big enough for my small desk, one lamp, one bookshelf, and a chair next to the desk, for clients. When I met with someone, I had to back my chair away from my desk, or our knees would touch. 

I decided that instead of fighting the space, I’d enhance it. I would make a dark, warm, cozy nest. A place that was as much of an energetic contrast to the hum and buzz of the institution as possible. I covered the floor with a tiny rug, woven of discarded saris in blues and purples. I turned my standing lamp’s light down, to a warm soft glow. I kept the surfaces as clear as possible, to keep from feeling cluttered and hemmed in. I never turned on the overhead light, as it was fluorescent.

It worked. When a veteran came in, shoulders up, hunched forward, protecting themselves from the overstimulation and institutional history they carried, they’d sit down and sigh. We’d take a moment together to check in, or crack snarky jokes about federal bureaucracy or the latest failure of the pharmacy to send the meds on time. Then we’d get down to the session itself. 

I’d never had a windowless office. Because my phone didn’t really work, and because my schedule was back to back, starting at 8 am, I often existed in a kind of lightless, timeless void. I’d get up in the Portland winter dark at 5 am, take two buses, and the sun would just be rising as I walked down the hallway. At the end of the day, I’d open my door for the last time, exit the building into the darkness, take the two buses home. Make dinner, eat, make tomorrow’s lunch. Sleep. Repeat.

After months of this routine, I started to notice that at some point in the day, I’d start having dark thoughts. Sometimes I’d be anxious and scanning. Others, I’d be hit with existential questions about my meaning and purpose, and whether anything really mattered. Some days, I’d become aware of a running loop of the kind of self critical and hopeless thinking that often accompanies depression. I was familiar with all of these mental states. What was odd was that they came on so suddenly, and with such ferocity. I couldn’t tell, at first, if they were a script running in the background, and I was just becoming aware of them when I had a break between sessions. It seemed, though, that they just arrived, with force, and took me out. I’d have to do some mental work to get back to center, or to get some distance from my thoughts. I started to wonder if there was a pattern: if the thoughts really were coming on at a particular time each day. They weren’t a result of anything that had just happened: they had a life of their own. Maybe they were a result of mental exhaustion? Of not physically moving, sitting in my cramped office for hours in a row? 

I decided to treat myself as a lab rat. I’d watch the thoughts, look at my day, track what was happening. I noticed that my mood was linked to certain physical sensations. Heaviness in my chest, queasiness in my middle, sometimes a feeling of sudden exhaustion and a desire to flee. One day I just walked out the emergency exit in the middle of the day and took a bus home, because I felt trapped and in no mood to be around anyone.

It took about a month for me to recognize that what I thought was depression, or worse, was coming on after hours of focused concentration in low light, and that the queasiness that I mistook for lack of appetite was actually the end state of hunger pangs that I’d not noticed, because I was concentrating. I started to see how much my animal self was driving the bus. Or trying to, with little success. It didn’t matter that what “I” wanted to do with my day required me to sit still, focus, work, type up notes. There was a part of me that was working hard to override that “I.” Those dark thoughts were its bid to get my attention. 

This was years before I learned more about nutrition, and the best way to sequence my meals, and the body’s clocks of self healing. It was really my first step: the first time I saw how much I had been conditioned to take my thoughts and feelings seriously, especially given my job, but not to differentiate between “mood” and physical sensation. To see how close the feeling of sadness is to the feeling I get when my blood sugar is in my socks. To see how easy it might be to misrecognize a cue from the feedback loop of body and mind—to think what I needed was to explore my feelings further, when instead what I needed was to eat, and move. Clearly, it’s best to be in tune with our entire system, and to “feed” all our parts. But at the same time, most of us are rushed, interrupted, asked to do too much in too little time. It’s hard to focus on more than a few things at once.

It takes slowing down and really sitting with a body’s signal: asking what does this feel like and how might I recognize this feeling again? To repeat this action, over and over, with different feeling states. To build a map of each momentary feeling, each more prolonged mood state, and to ask how closely it aligns with physical signals of hunger, exhaustion, stiffness, pain. 

What does anxiety feel like, for you? What is its signature in your body? What do your thoughts do? Where do they eddy and pool? What happens to that anxiety if you walk? What happens to it if you eat, even if you don’t feel hungry? What happens if you interrupt it, by asking yourself to notice your surroundings, or to list a few things you’re grateful for? To ask: How did I sleep? What did I have for breakfast? How much caffeine or alcohol have I consumed in the last 24 hours? When is the last time I moved my body in a way that felt good? To not get immediately consumed by our thoughts, but rather to ask if there’s something else present that needs attention, first. 

It can be quite humbling, recognizing how much we are tossed around when we don’t pay attention to our body’s needs. I have always known that I am a person who loves light. I choose apartments with lots of windows. I sit in the highest story of the building I’m in, to see “out” and as far as I can. Once I realized my windowless office, and my lack of awareness of what time it was, was throwing off my body’s clocks, I started sneaking across the street into the main hospital building. I’d take the elevator to the top floor; I think it was 14 stories up. There were wards on either wing, but just behind the elevator bank there were a couple of benches, facing the plate glass window. It was always deserted. Looking out, I could see the Columbia river, and on clear days, Mt. Hood in the distance. I could watch the ridge, and the sky, and see the contours of the valley floor. I could watch the crows circling. I’d come back into relationship with all of that, and quell my day’s concerns for a moment, before returning to my nest.

Action!

If you want to increase your awareness of the difference between your body’s signals and the emotions that may or may not be linked to these signals, try this, for at least a week, better if it’s 10 days:

Grab a sheet of paper, or a spreadsheet on your computer or phone

Set a timer on your phone for three times a day. When the timer goes off, jot down 1–3 words that describe your mood, or your current feelings. If you feel numb, or flat, or empty, try to describe the physical sensation of that “flatness” and note whether it is connected to any other physical sensations. (“I feel flat, I notice my lower back hurts and I have a headache,” for example.)

At the end of the day, in another column, write down what you ate and as best you can, what time you ate.

Bonus: write down in a third column any time in the day that you moved. Note: I am not saying “exercise.” Movement can be taking a short walk around the house or walking the dog; doing a few stretches; going outside to breathe fresh air for a second. It doesn't have to be for long, or be characterized as “fitness.”

Don’t worry about looking at any of this until you’ve completed your week. Then, see if your awareness has changed. What have you noticed? Can you discern the difference between your feelings or moods and the physical cues your body is sending you? Are there any other patterns that you can see?

Please try to be patient with yourself if you choose to do this activity. Just because you notice something doesn’t mean you have to immediately change anything. This action is about noticing and honing awareness, not giving yourself more stuff to do.

Stay safe out there this week—

xo

Rebecca