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Anxiety · Depression · Digestive Health · Miscellaneous · Nutrition · Sleep · Tools · Wellness · Women's Health

8 Ways to Reduce Anxiety

by Ellen Vora, MD on Feb 18, 2020 / Share

Originally published in goop

Reduce Anxiety

When it comes to anxiety, we all have a different baseline. Some of us naturally feel steady under stress, while others are prone to spiraling at the sight of an upsetting headline in the news. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. And while we can all make certain lifestyle changes to keep anxiety in check, some of us may never be totally free from gut flutters and nagging worries. If you’re one of those, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, with the right mind-set, it could be a strength.

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Gut Health, Inflammation & Mood

by Ellen Vora, MD on Feb 6, 2020 / Share

Gut Health

If you’re feeling down, anxious, or just “off,” think of this as a gut and inflammatory issue until proven otherwise. Avoid foods that compromise your gut health and inflame your body (gluten, +/- dairy, sugar, industrial vegetable oils), aim to eat more gut healing foods (ghee, bone broth, fermented foods), and fill your plate with nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory foods (vegetables, pate, egg yolks, fresh herbs, spices). Believe it or not, these changes will improve your mood.

What It Means To “Do The Work”

by Ellen Vora, MD on Feb 5, 2020 / Share

Do The Work

At least in my internet bubble, you hear the term “do the work” thrown around a lot. What does it even mean?

It can mean a lot of things, from 7 years of psychotherapy, to having difficult conversations and incorporating new ideas, to reading Byron Katie, to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. I think all forms of “doing the work” boil down to the same concept:

Stop living in distraction, and sit in discomfort to get closer to the truth

If you’re going through your daily life distracted and numbed out by social media, video games, interpersonal drama, or booze, consider dropping your distraction crutches for a period of time, and give yourself space to sit in stillness and silence. Very likely, some form of discomfort might bubble up. Rather than immediately reaching for your phone, a drink, food, or a codependent relationship to airlift you out of the discomfort, consider sitting right there, in the middle of the fire. Get curious about it, explore it, listen, and lean into that growth edge. Chances are, when you emerge, you will have gotten closer to some truth. It may be something you can put into words, or it may simply be a subtle shift in your body.


You’re doing the work. Now simply rinse and repeat for the rest of your life 🙂 This is just my definition. How do you define “do the work”? I would love to be corrected!

Navigating Our Broken Medical System

by Ellen Vora, MD on Feb 3, 2020 / Share

Broken Medical System

I’m no stranger to the fact that our medical system is broken, but every time I engage with it, I feel renewed outrage. As a physician and a recovered people-pleaser, I’m well-positioned to advocate for myself. Yet still (!), I felt dismissed and subtly bullied by the systemic misogyny and adversarial attitude peppered throughout the medical system.

I also learned that the medical field has a poor understanding of what a body needs after miscarriage. My body was screaming for naps, baths, bone broth, soup, and gingersnap cookies. Instead, the medical advice I got was to run around the city to get additional sonograms, blood tests, and IV fluids. The morning after a miscarriage! I didn’t need IV fluids in an ER gurney, I needed to sip tea while lying on a couch under a blanket watching Jane The Virgin.

After an enlightening conversation with Kimberly Johnson (author of The Fourth Trimester), I learned that the time after miscarriage is essentially a post-partum period, but without a tradition of rest and time off from work (at least in our culture; and the U.S. barely understands the necessity of this even after childbirth, but that’s a separate conversation). She also recommended vaginal steaming to help my body heal.

If you’ve experienced a miscarriage, give yourself time to rest, stay out of gravity (standing, unnecessary activity), consider vaginal steaming, and nourish yourself with iron-rich foods like pate, bone broth, nettle tea, red meat, spinach, & blackstrap molasses, along with citrus fruits for vitamin C. Floravital can be a helpful supplement.

Give yourself space to process, and welcome all feelings, whether it be sadness, grief, defeat, anger, rage, relief, ambivalence, questioning your faith, or deepening your connection to the divine.

Trust what your body is asking for and, within reason, question the knee jerk medical advice. My follow-up sonogram can wait a couple days (I already had one in the ER to rule out ectopic pregnancy, a true medical emergency). For now, my focus is on rest, nourishment, and turning inward to process this experience.

Pregnancy Loss

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 31, 2020 / Share

Pregnancy Loss

Sunday night, I miscarried.

A week ago I announced my pregnancy. I did this to normalize talking about pregnancy in the 1st trimester so: women don’t need to hide that they’re tired and nauseated, and–if and when a miscarriage happens, it’s not a shameful secret. Women don’t have to suffer in silence, and we can begin to understand just how common miscarriage is.

I knew I was taking exactly this risk, that there was a chance the universe would call my bluff. Was I really comfortable talking about this? Well, here are some rough draft reflections:

I’m not actually devastated. It almost feels like I’m supposed to be. Yet, I feel okay, and I’m letting myself be okay with feeling okay. In no way do I mean to discount anybody’s immense sadness after pregnancy loss. That is truly understandable. But I also need to be honest, and I want to give people license to feel however they feel. There’s no right or wrong. I have a daughter, my life is full, I know that my body has already given birth to a healthy child, I trust that it probably can again, and I love my body and myself even if I no longer can. My worldview, which has been shaped by grief and ecstasy alike, is to surrender and trust this journey that feels vastly beyond my conscious understanding. I can understand how someone might feel worried they’ll never have a baby, can believe there’s something “wrong” with their body, and can feel an unimaginable sense of defeat after multiple pregnancy losses. At the very least, my hope is that we can all drop the shame and self-blame, and that miscarriage can serve as a call to action to get quiet and ask your body what it needs. But also, miscarriage happens even when your body already has what it needs. Miscarriage happens, full stop. It’s a part of the childbearing journey. It’s part of the “full catastrophe” of being human. This understanding helps me feel less attached and less devastated.

If you have experienced pregnancy loss, my whole heart to you. I hope in some small way this post can give you comfort and new ways of understanding what so many of us go through.

3 Tips to Prioritize Sleep and Avoid Burnout

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 28, 2020 / Share

Originally published in Epsom Salt Council

Anxiety sleep

While both stress and anxiety can contribute to difficulty sleeping, what’s more important is to understand that lack of sleep, which can be due to preventable factors, can dramatically contribute to anxiety and poor stress tolerance. In other words, when we don’t make sleep a priority, we’re contributing to our anxiety and burnout.

Getting a good night’s sleep is the ultimate form of self-care. It’s free, it feels good, and it does more for your health and sense of well-being than any self-care practice out there.

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Shut It Down

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 23, 2020 / Share

Shut It Down

– Trouble falling asleep at night? Shut it down.

– Feeling depressed/anxious/insecure? Shut it down.

– Can’t find time to meditate? Shut it down.

Want to wake up to your life, sleep well at night, have energy during the day, experience more self-love, and generally feel good? Shut down the phone. Try it now.

Normalize Miscarriage

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 22, 2020 / Share

Motherhood

I’m pregnant. Ten weeks pregnant. Typically, people don’t announce their pregnancies until they’re in the “safe” zone of the 2nd trimester (12 weeks), because there’s a lot of uncertainty in the 1st trimester. Miscarriage is common: ~10-20% of pregnancies. So people wait until the risk is lower before they tell the world. But there’s a problem with this: we rarely hear about the early pregnancies that end in miscarriage. It creates the illusion that all pregnancies you hear about magically work out. And then, when women have a miscarriage, they’re left suffering in silence. They wonder: what’s wrong with me? Why did this happen to me and not to everyone else? ⁠
⁠
But in reality, it does. Miscarriage is so common, yet it’s a last bastion of secrecy and shame. While we work to blast away any residual shame around mental illness, let’s go ahead and add miscarriage to the mix. It’s not shameful; it’s common, natural, and normal. It’s mother nature’s version of genetic screening. It can happen to anyone. And it’s tough, on a physical and emotional level. So I’ve decided to use my platform to announce my pregnancy. Not because I necessarily want the world to know this personal detail of my life, but because I want to model announcing early pregnancies. If I miscarry, as much as that will be physically and emotionally difficult, I will again use my platform to talk through that experience. If you’re early days pregnant too, consider letting a few people in on your secret. See how it feels to welcome them into the excitement and uncertainty. And if you miscarry, if it feels okay, talk about it. Let people support you. And remember there is zero shame in miscarriage. These things are hard enough without shame. ⁠
⁠
To any patients reading this, I hope you will understand my telling you this way. Since it is so early, we have a lot of time before anything changes.⁠

Sleep Procrastination — How I Finally Stopped

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 15, 2020 / Share

Sleep Procrastination

I used to be an epic sleep procrastinator. I knew I should be going to bed around 10pm, but I often decided to finish “one last thing” for work before bed, and I would inevitably stay up just late enough to ensure I would never get enough sleep.

I finally fixed my sleep procrastination with this one simple realization:

That last 30 min of productivity late at night translates to feeling tired the entire next day. Thirty minutes of productivity in exchange for an entire day of squandered productivity. It’s simply not worth it.

With that thought, I have finally learned to shut it down, crawl into my cozy bed early, and feel energized, focused and inspired the entire next day. Try this tonight.

Healthy Eating vs Social Connection

by Ellen Vora, MD on Jan 14, 2020 / Share

Healthy Eating vs Social Connection

Over the years, simple dietary changes have helped countless patients mend their depression, anxiety, ADHD, and bipolar. And yet, I have created a few cases of orthorexia (an obsession with eating correctly) along the way. This weighs heavily on me. On Instagram, someone recently asked what to do about the fact that she’s obsessing about meal prep and avoiding social situations to eat clean. This is the crux of the issue.

Those of us who know we feel better when we eat in a particular way can get stuck avoiding social situations that are oriented around food and obsessing about meal prep. Once you’re avoiding social engagements to eat in a way that serves your body, you’ve gone too far. Good social connection is better for your health than any amount of clean eating, so avoiding dinners with friends to eat clean is counter-therapeutic.

Solutions I’ve found in my own life: I bring a dish with me when I go to a dinner party; I’m not shy about asking to have my dietary restrictions accommodated at a dinner party (sorry for all the extra trouble friends! Please keep inviting me over), I hire a task rabbit 1-2 hours a week to help me with meal prep and cooking so it doesn’t feel like a part-time job; I steer dinners out toward restaurants I trust; when I eat at a restaurant I don’t trust, I order very simply and sometimes off menu (e.g., veggies, rice, potatoes, legumes, occasionally fish); I carry nuts and dark chocolate in my bag for emergency blood sugar crashes; and when all else fails, I just slacken the reins and eat whatever is available and remind myself that my body is strong and capable.

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Dr. Ellen Vora

About Me.

Dr. Vora takes a functional medicine approach to mental health–considering the whole person and addressing the problem at the root, rather than reflexively prescribing medication to suppress symptoms.

She specializes in depression, anxiety, insomnia, adult ADHD, bipolar and digestive issues.

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