The "Crappy Childhood Fairy": A unique resource for trauma/PTSD self-care and recovery?
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Now... I will comment that I wonder if something feels incomplete about her approach. It might just be naive of me, it could be that there's no getting around the slow tail of healing the scars even when you've released the largest trauma wounds... It sounds like we are at the point where some are starting to arrive at systematic knowledge of how to address trauma from multiple angles, and getting a more generalized view of it that makes sense of why therapy doesn't help some people, for instance. However I wonder if even more dramatic and thorough healing is possible.
Maybe, in the end, the "alchemical" process is the only thorough one? The Work, in its personal, individually refined, and elaborated form? ...One thought that has occurred to me.
Anna Runkle's approach focuses a lot on using re-regulation strategies for healthy coping. She talks less often about the next steps of healing. I think this is largely because she feels that people need re-regulation strategies first of all, thus she mentions her free 'daily practice' in almost every video, though she doesn't mention her website's paid services every time (the memberships, "boot camps" -- which include individualized attention, I think -- or courses on specific topics like relationships, or self-isolation/lack of boundaries).
I think that the overall approach sounds correct, because the re-regulation strategies she proposes tend to overlap with what we've learned here on the forum about emotional healing, which often seem to overlap with body-health stuff.
Re-regulation strategies:
1. "Daily Practice" writing exercise
2. Meditation
Daily writing practice to unburden the mind from fears and resentments, followed by 20 minute meditation. Recommended twice daily. My mother commented that Anna's writing exercise sounds a lot like the "clearing" exercise she learned from the "Sidetracked Home Executives" book decades ago, which she says has helped her a great deal to manage her life over the years. So this info has been around in one way or another!
It's also noteworthy that meditation increases Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which is correlated with willpower reserves (See book "The Willpower Instict"). I bet these other practices increase HRV as well; in other words, these practices are about regaining Free Will. In G's terms, "Right exercises that lead to mastery of the organism", perhaps? After all, to "self-remember", first you need to claim some control over your attention, a control that is even more sorely lacking in the traumatized, as I understand it. In some sense it's about meeting "shocks" while in a regulated state. Because if you are dysregulated, you will just react, fight-or-flight(-freeze-fawn-etc.).
3. Cold showers
Anna mentions this as being an "emergency measure", very useful when emotional dysregulation is overboard and really isn't being helped by anything else. As we know, given the cryo-therapy research and the revelations Wim Hof has helped to bring to light,, cold showers can actually be much more than an emergency method, and have general health benefits.
4. Diet adjustment
She references carbohydrates as being short-term regulating, but long-term dysregulating, in some of her videos. As such, she doesn't recommend then for coping, and instead recommends protein-based snacks. So far so good. Here on forum we've taken those ideas further based on "Life without Bread", "Primal Body, Primal Mind", and other related books and research. Keto seems the way to go, or at least as far in that direction as one can manage depending on personal biology.
As a side note, I want to say that I had a powerful "positive emotional shock" in my life recently (and may have released some trauma burden as a consequence), and discovered it really affected my biology. I was able to function very well for at least three days on minimal food (when normally fasting like that would trigger some rebellion in the body), and my diet has really balanced an improved almost automatically. (No doubt in part due to having all of the diet info in my head from the years reading here - don't forget the pre-work, sometimes knowledge doesn't "kick in" until later!)
5. Exercise
I forget whether she included this one (I think she did), but I'm going to anyway, because the research supports it, and it fits in alongside meditation in "The Willpower Instinct" book for increasing HRV/willpower reserves, and increased HRV seems to be a sign of increased regulation overall.
6. Immediate, momentary self-soothing techniques: Centering, locating the body in space, body awareness
This includes techniques such as feeling how your body presses against the chair, alternately tapping both feet on the floor, hugging yourself (even pressing your back into a corner to make it more thoroughly enclosing and trigger the body instinct connected to being held), and others...
7. Contact with/immersion in nature
Again, this one I'm taking more from "The Willpower Instinct", but it seems to reasonably belong with the others. Of special note... Electrical grounding, i.e. "Earthing" might be a hidden little bonus here to balance the body's system a little (or a lot, in some cases) better. With this speculation in mind, even if I do no other exercise, I've taken to trying to do a full set of push-ups on the grass at least once a day, usually when I go outside to read. Multitasking!
I've started reading "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, and also have the other book she recommends, "Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving" by Pete Walker. ...C-PTSD seems to include developmental trauma/narcissistic family trauma, what I've taken to calling "emotional malnourishment", because it communicates so much better that it's not just about abuse, but emotionally unavailable parents/caretakers, too. At least that is how it seems, because I notice there is a chapter in the first book about developmental trauma.
I'm really getting the impression that at least one of these books, if not both, might deserve to make it into the recommended reading list. Because personally, I read several of the trauma-realted books, and found that I was still in a fog as to whether I had any substantial trauma issues, and more importantly, what to do about them.
When do you go to therapy? When do you give up on a particular therapist? When do you accept medication as a potential solution? How do you avoid getting taken advantage of in therapy, especially given that the more traumatized you are, the more vulnerable you are to psychopaths, AND the more likely you are to have symptoms that could land you in a further traumatizing drug-and-forget lock-up facility. How to start? Basically, all of these important decisions are more difficult and harder to approach without just getting swept along, the more traumatized you are. That's my impression.
Anna Runkle and her recommended reading (the above two books) begin to organize things wonderfully, and provide a much more nuanced view that doesn't assume therapy, medication, or self-help to be "all-good", or "the one solution", but instead encourages re-regulation, which proceeds into exploring the available options with a clearer head, trying things, and finding out what works for you.
Or so it appears.
Maybe, in the end, the "alchemical" process is the only thorough one? The Work, in its personal, individually refined, and elaborated form? ...One thought that has occurred to me.
Anna Runkle's approach focuses a lot on using re-regulation strategies for healthy coping. She talks less often about the next steps of healing. I think this is largely because she feels that people need re-regulation strategies first of all, thus she mentions her free 'daily practice' in almost every video, though she doesn't mention her website's paid services every time (the memberships, "boot camps" -- which include individualized attention, I think -- or courses on specific topics like relationships, or self-isolation/lack of boundaries).
I think that the overall approach sounds correct, because the re-regulation strategies she proposes tend to overlap with what we've learned here on the forum about emotional healing, which often seem to overlap with body-health stuff.
Re-regulation strategies:
1. "Daily Practice" writing exercise
2. Meditation
Daily writing practice to unburden the mind from fears and resentments, followed by 20 minute meditation. Recommended twice daily. My mother commented that Anna's writing exercise sounds a lot like the "clearing" exercise she learned from the "Sidetracked Home Executives" book decades ago, which she says has helped her a great deal to manage her life over the years. So this info has been around in one way or another!
It's also noteworthy that meditation increases Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which is correlated with willpower reserves (See book "The Willpower Instict"). I bet these other practices increase HRV as well; in other words, these practices are about regaining Free Will. In G's terms, "Right exercises that lead to mastery of the organism", perhaps? After all, to "self-remember", first you need to claim some control over your attention, a control that is even more sorely lacking in the traumatized, as I understand it. In some sense it's about meeting "shocks" while in a regulated state. Because if you are dysregulated, you will just react, fight-or-flight(-freeze-fawn-etc.).
3. Cold showers
Anna mentions this as being an "emergency measure", very useful when emotional dysregulation is overboard and really isn't being helped by anything else. As we know, given the cryo-therapy research and the revelations Wim Hof has helped to bring to light,, cold showers can actually be much more than an emergency method, and have general health benefits.
4. Diet adjustment
She references carbohydrates as being short-term regulating, but long-term dysregulating, in some of her videos. As such, she doesn't recommend then for coping, and instead recommends protein-based snacks. So far so good. Here on forum we've taken those ideas further based on "Life without Bread", "Primal Body, Primal Mind", and other related books and research. Keto seems the way to go, or at least as far in that direction as one can manage depending on personal biology.
As a side note, I want to say that I had a powerful "positive emotional shock" in my life recently (and may have released some trauma burden as a consequence), and discovered it really affected my biology. I was able to function very well for at least three days on minimal food (when normally fasting like that would trigger some rebellion in the body), and my diet has really balanced an improved almost automatically. (No doubt in part due to having all of the diet info in my head from the years reading here - don't forget the pre-work, sometimes knowledge doesn't "kick in" until later!)
5. Exercise
I forget whether she included this one (I think she did), but I'm going to anyway, because the research supports it, and it fits in alongside meditation in "The Willpower Instinct" book for increasing HRV/willpower reserves, and increased HRV seems to be a sign of increased regulation overall.
6. Immediate, momentary self-soothing techniques: Centering, locating the body in space, body awareness
This includes techniques such as feeling how your body presses against the chair, alternately tapping both feet on the floor, hugging yourself (even pressing your back into a corner to make it more thoroughly enclosing and trigger the body instinct connected to being held), and others...
7. Contact with/immersion in nature
Again, this one I'm taking more from "The Willpower Instinct", but it seems to reasonably belong with the others. Of special note... Electrical grounding, i.e. "Earthing" might be a hidden little bonus here to balance the body's system a little (or a lot, in some cases) better. With this speculation in mind, even if I do no other exercise, I've taken to trying to do a full set of push-ups on the grass at least once a day, usually when I go outside to read. Multitasking!
I've started reading "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, and also have the other book she recommends, "Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving" by Pete Walker. ...C-PTSD seems to include developmental trauma/narcissistic family trauma, what I've taken to calling "emotional malnourishment", because it communicates so much better that it's not just about abuse, but emotionally unavailable parents/caretakers, too. At least that is how it seems, because I notice there is a chapter in the first book about developmental trauma.
I'm really getting the impression that at least one of these books, if not both, might deserve to make it into the recommended reading list. Because personally, I read several of the trauma-realted books, and found that I was still in a fog as to whether I had any substantial trauma issues, and more importantly, what to do about them.
When do you go to therapy? When do you give up on a particular therapist? When do you accept medication as a potential solution? How do you avoid getting taken advantage of in therapy, especially given that the more traumatized you are, the more vulnerable you are to psychopaths, AND the more likely you are to have symptoms that could land you in a further traumatizing drug-and-forget lock-up facility. How to start? Basically, all of these important decisions are more difficult and harder to approach without just getting swept along, the more traumatized you are. That's my impression.
Anna Runkle and her recommended reading (the above two books) begin to organize things wonderfully, and provide a much more nuanced view that doesn't assume therapy, medication, or self-help to be "all-good", or "the one solution", but instead encourages re-regulation, which proceeds into exploring the available options with a clearer head, trying things, and finding out what works for you.
Or so it appears.
I think that learning to regulate is quite a step because, therapists that don't have an understanding of this nervous system effects that trauma has on people, might re-traumatize them, not because they're mean, but because they're clueless. I think that, generally speaking, people can benefit more from therapy if they are a bit more regulated, or even better, if they find a therapist who knows how to work with regulation.
One thing that I learned recently about therapy is related to what both Peter Levine and Stephen Porges say about the importance of co-regulation. They both say that humans need another human being to co-regulate and when it comes to trauma, especially relational trauma, this is what gets a bit unbalanced. So, in this light, therapist who are aware of this (know about regulation, dis-regulation, polyvagal theory, etc.) are more prepared to guide their patients towards regulation by co-regulating with them. In their models of therapy, the therapist not only applies different techniques but serves as a model for regulation which teaches the other person's nervous system to co-regulate and self-regulate more effectively.
All of this can be learned, but it is true that there are people who are generally more capable of co-regulating with others in healthy ways without them having to know the 'theories' behind it. So, therapy can be good, if you find a good therapist, and the good thing is that it seems that Peter Levine and Stephen Porges have been working a lot to get this information out there for it to reach as many people who are involved in health as possible. I thought it was amazing to find that nowadays there are lots of people in the field who talk about polyvagal theory, Peter Levine, etc., when 5 years ago it seemed something that not a lot of people knew about. That is wonderful!
One thing that I wanted to mention regarding self-regulation is that, of course it is good to learn it or improve it on our own if we can, but at some point we have to move to co-regulation too, that is connection with other human beings. Even Anna Runkle (The Crappy Childhood Fairy) seems to be focusing a lot on the importance of connection lately, because, as humans, we need it (some more than others, true). But, of course, if you are all dis-regulated, risking to connect might be too much sometimes, so, working on your self-regulation first is good, I just believe that, little by little, one needs to make steps towards healthy connection with other people so that healing can happen more fully. And, sometimes, a good therapist can provide this 'safe' connection while encouraging the person to connect more and more with other people.
Just some thoughts.
Yes indeed, it really seems that way. Sad thing being that the less regulated you are, the moe easily discouraged you are, the less of your prefrontal cortex and left hemisphere are online to help you protect yourself while searching for a good therapist, or muster the courage and motivation to do so, etc. It's quite a puzzling bind, by appearances. "To him who has, more will be given. From him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." Or however exactly that Bible quote goes. Matthew 13:12, looks like. Of course the context of that is different in the text.
There is a segment in "The Body keeps the Score that's directly relevant to what you wrote, which I was planning on quoting here anyway. But before quoting that, I want to relate it to Oxajil's question and study:
Page 73 is the end of a chapter called "Running for your life: the anatomy of survival". Bessel van der Kolk outlines some brain anatomy and studies he was involved in that illustrate how trauma rewires the brain by causing certain regions to be less active and other to be more, and how those patterns relate to the functions of those brain regions.
Just after talking about how some people respond to trauma by "blanking out" (dramatically decreased brain activity in more or less all regions during a trigger episode, rather than the fight-or-flight conscious or unconscious "reliving" that many others experience), he closes out the chapter with this:
So it sounds like maybe we need to be a little careful and make sure that when studies report a "reduction in symptoms", they aren't unwittingly reporting that the patients are developing a desensitized mode of living. "Competent but dead inside". I'm not assuming that was the case for that particular study, it's just a thought to keep in mind.
One thing to note about Dr. van der Kolk is that he got his medical training in the late 1960s, and began on the path of studying trauma in 1978 or so. in other words, besed on his descriptions, it sounds like trauma has been his primary focus during pretty much the entire span of modern trauma research. He was there for the whole thing, and in fact contributed to a fair share of it, by the sound of it. He was one of the first to witness the dramatic and hope-inspiring effects of Prozac, but also the way in which that initial hope gave way to an overbearing money-driven system based on the "brain chemical imbalance" model of mental illness, which medicates and enables coping but often does not heal its patients.
The book is also very readable so far, an impressive dynamic blend of personal narrative, historical context, and scientific data, without filler. I'm very much thinking this is a candidate for the main reading list.
I'm coming to realize that none of the trauma-related books currently recommended seem to give quite the overview that this book seems to offer (as well as "Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving", which I'll read next). Nor do they really give a comprehensive enough picture for someone like myself to feel like a had an idea what to do or where to start, having read them. (To be clear, I read "The Narcissistic Family", "The Myth of Sanity", "In an Unspoken Voice", "Healing Developmental Trauma", "Fear of the Abyss", "Thinking Fast and Slow", "The Adaptive Unconscious", "Writing to Heal", "Political Ponerology", "The Anatomy of Violence", and "Inside the Criminal Mind", with at least one or two others).
It might be bold of me, but I think we lack a synthesis that unites our healing materials. Personally, I've had motivation issues for a number of years, plus problems with beating myself up over it (consciously or not, I think, "trying not to" isn't the best approach, I'll report, haha). Since I like to learn, I've been able to accumulate a decent amount of knowledge (at least "first pass knowledge"), including tools and concepts. Eiriu Eolas, Pennebaker's Writing to Heal concepts, cold therapy, references to various therapies one can do with a professional.
Trouble is, to do those, one has to be able to reach a state of a certain amount of self-regulation in the first place, to "make the hop" to action. Or at least it seems, tentatively, that's part of the picture. This is where I think Anna Runkle's emphasis on regulation strategies, and recommendation of these two books, is very valuable. It provides a starting point that is more reachable and enables/potentiates the next steps.
Or so I think.
Wild coincidence, I was listening to some of her videos, did a search on the forum for something completely different, yet the search results included this thread. I find it amazing that she's a survivor, not a therapist, but has figured out so much via study and practice and expresses the "inside" perspective so well because of the healing she's done. I have a friend who routinely attracts (or is attracted to) survivors of severe childhood trauma (starting with his ex-wife and then nearly every relationship since then, all in the span of five years), and yet is bewildered each time by how the relationships play out - probably because he repeats his own patterns of relationship behavior without adding to knowledge by study. Those around him see this, but now he is finally observing the patterns, talking about it, doing searching on his own - and asking, so I've been helping him find such resources for study.
Menna
The Living Force
What works for me regarding Trauma. Well let me digress first you have to remember you were traumatized as in my experience if you experience Trauma that caused one to disassociate or according to the Polyvagal Theory switch on the reptile nuro defense mechanism of immobilization (playing dead) the opposite of the mammal nuro defense of fight/flight one’s Trauma may be trapped in the body and amnesia can occur.
In 95% of my traumatic cases the way I “get over” or at the very least come to terms with Trauma is by knowing how it came about and how why my body responded in the way it did. Awareness/knowledge is like a special medicine that can help one advance/progress in the direction they want. Just the knowledge of what happened, how it happened, why it happened and awareness of how one’s body handled or didn’t handle the Trauma properly is enough to allow me to process the event and move forward. Although never completely healed I move forward with a preverbal limp. Albeit, in moving forward with knowledge and awareness gained one can acquire enough experiences/impressions to heal that limp and walk straight again Pre trauma maybe this time with a new appreciation, frequency, wisdom and love.
I have experienced the above regarding some of the Trauma (physical) still trying to see if the above proves true for the other parts intellectual/emotional IME those centers are harder to heal or get back on track
In 95% of my traumatic cases the way I “get over” or at the very least come to terms with Trauma is by knowing how it came about and how why my body responded in the way it did. Awareness/knowledge is like a special medicine that can help one advance/progress in the direction they want. Just the knowledge of what happened, how it happened, why it happened and awareness of how one’s body handled or didn’t handle the Trauma properly is enough to allow me to process the event and move forward. Although never completely healed I move forward with a preverbal limp. Albeit, in moving forward with knowledge and awareness gained one can acquire enough experiences/impressions to heal that limp and walk straight again Pre trauma maybe this time with a new appreciation, frequency, wisdom and love.
I have experienced the above regarding some of the Trauma (physical) still trying to see if the above proves true for the other parts intellectual/emotional IME those centers are harder to heal or get back on track
I am through two-thirds of the book and do think it explains quite well the behaviour of traumatised people and that's really useful. Understanding our own behaviour makes it easier for us to feel compassion for our life history and to lessen the shame that we carry with us. The book sheds light on sensations and emotions that may seem inexplicable to the uninformed. He also explains why it is so difficult for some to put traumatic experiences into words, as memories are often fragmentary and brittle and don't have a beginning, middle or ending as normal memories do.
Here is one of Andrew Huberman's most recent podcasts that mentions the above book, I haven't watched it yet, but apparently, the title of the book is wrong as it is the brain that keeps the score:
There is a very nice example in the book that I mentioned above where Van der Kolk deals with a patient who is very scared and the first thing he does is making her focus on her breathing while making sure the door of his room was open in case she wanted to leave/flee. That's all they did the first session but she came back afterwards (she thought he was weird
). In the beginning of their work together they only focused on "calming the physiological chaos within." He is a friend of Peter Levine and Stephen Porges, so that explains a lot.From my supervisor I heard that going for a walk while talking and looking around you is like EMDR. It's not just the eye movements, but also the left/right movement/rhythm of the body. I thought that was fascinating.
This is interesting because I noticed one of the most helpful exercises to me, was the left and right swinging motion in the beginning phase of EE, although not as rapid. I've wondered if it was related to EMDR, because it's not as effective unless I allow my eyes to track objects in the room as I move. Otherwise the effect is more dissociative.
Want to add, after finishing The Body Keeps the Score recently, there is more to this that has to be considered. One thing van der Kolk mentions in the book is that sometimes talk therapy leading to re-experiencing may simply teach the patient's brain to switch from an over-activation (fight or flight) trauma response to a freeze/shutdown/deadening/dissociation response to trauma, resulting in an illusion of "recovery" when in fact the patient is merely less disruptive. The result being such a patient may be labeled as "recovered" by becoming deadened to positive and negative emotions in general. In studies that rely on checklists to estimate PTSD status, this may produce an overblown illusion of recovery.
Basically, some patients may be getting retraumatized by talk therapists who may not be up to speed on trauma research and don't have the "eyes" to spot a shift into emotional deadening. Shifting into a different coping mechanism, which while less disruptive to society, perhaps, does not bring the patient all the way to freedom. It vaguely sounds like the way kids get medicated for "ADHD" instead of looking for and addressing deeper root causes of behavior problems.
In addition to this, some treatments, such as EMDR and Neurofeedback, while they can produce emotional healing reactions, seem to do so at a lower rate and in a more bearable fashion. By no means at all is van der Kolk writing off or preaching against talk therapy and CBT in a flippant way, rather he seems to be trying to address a discrepancy: developmental trauma, aka Complex PTSD, in particular, has a way of being resistant to talk therapy, while simultaneously being more widespread and devastating to society than cancer and other high profile diseases.
I counted something like 12 or more trauma healing tools/approaches in the book aside from talk therapy and meds (which he advises mainly for temporary emotional stabilization in more extreme cases, while other avenues are pursued to properly reintegrate the traumatic memories).
Being deadened to positive emotions can actually be a PTSD symptom as defined by the DSM-5. So it shouldn't be seen as a sign of recovery. You'd have to be a really bad psychologist if you label shutting down as "recovery".
One of the reasons why some people don't want to talk about their traumas is because there's a fear of going insane if they were to face it all again, only to learn over time that they didn't and they're stronger than they think. There's a lot of avoidance behavior in PTSD patients, they can avoid places, people, smells, sounds, certain movies, talking about it and so forth, and it's through trauma therapy and exposure therapy (slowly facing their fears) that they can become more free. In a way, it basically comes down to doing what 'it' doesn't like. Once that's done, they may need to (re)learn about trust, love, friendship, learn to set boundaries and improve their self-image. It can be a lifelong process. I think we're all in a process of processing experiences and learning in varying degrees. Though our experiences are probably nothing much compared to the heartbreaking experiences some PTSD patients have been through.
A psychologist can't traumatize a patient unless they abuse them physically or verbally, but they or the therapy can trigger them unknowingly and a good psychologist will recognize the freeze, shutdown or dissociation response (or any other trauma response). When dissociation happens, the psychologist slowly helps the person to bring themselves back. It's then emphasized that they did it all themselves, that they are in control. With this method, dissociation can decrease in frequency and length. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but there was a patient who was very scared to dissociate as she would often 'wake up' by the side of the road or in parks or elsewhere. The psychologist asked her "Isn't it interesting that you always wake up in a place where you are out of harm's way?" It's because a part of her is in control and that realization was helpful for her recovery. You can't address these things if you avoid therapy out of fear of being retraumatized or triggered. Of course the choice of therapist is very important and the environment should feel safe for the person.
Yeah, that's important to keep in mind. I don't even think you need to be a trauma expert to know that emotional deadening is not a sign of recovery. I think that in therapy a lot of attention should also be spent on learning good coping strategies.
I've read an interview with him in Dutch (after all, he has Dutch roots!) and I agree with him that there's no one size fits all and I also agree that trauma patients would benefit from different therapies. Not just EMDR, CBT, neurofeedback, but also body exercises (such as yoga, swimming, gardening, martial arts, or working out) and massages (such as rolfing), diet and supplements, meditation and animal therapy. It's true that some people don't respond to EMDR or CBT, but might respond to other therapies or even medication (and vice versa). In rare cases, controlled use of psilocybin might even be the key to recovery. Often not mentioned, but a good supportive network is also crucial for recovery. My two cents.
And the individual must want to recover or change whatever it may be left after the trauma. I think that's the first ingredient for whatever therapy modality to work.
I think it was Marta Stout who mentioned in one of her books how she saw a stark difference between certain individuals, some progressed and some stayed stuck and part of it is, I think, the sincere wish to leve the place one is in, because there's also the fact that one can become rather attached to one's current situation, because it is familiar.
Which leads me to think that without that choice, very little will be effective, and that the choice has to come from within, otherwise one will not be fertile ground to any modality.
Yes, another way to put it was that those people who progressed and got better took responsibility for themselves to get better instead of wanting to stay the victim.
Andrew Huberman comes to the same conclusion, i.e. that there are many therapies out there that can help with trauma. He also mentions trans-generational trauma, but being the scientist that he is doesn't mention family constellations therapy that uses the morphic field (see the thread Inherited Trauma: It didn't start with you) and I don't think there is any research out there.
Surprisingly, he mentions saffron as being beneficial.
Surprisingly, he mentions saffron as being beneficial.
Yes, I was thinking about this today, and perhaps a good way to put it is that, no matter what you try, if you don't want to change, nothing will effect a change beyond temporary. But if you do, then anything you try will further your progress.