Green Pill Case Study - Eric
So, Eric was referred to me by his psychiatrist.
He called and said - I'm only sleeping 4 hours a night, and I'm a corporate lawyer who works all the time.
Eric is 57 and very successful in his career, but does not exercise, eats a lot of sweets and is overweight.
He was on meds for depression and anxiety for 10 years+. He is highly obsessive and was honest about his addicted to games on his computer like Solitaire & chess.
He saw his role as to provide for his family...and has had depression for a long time.
“I don’t care about my health, as long as functioning. Let God take me to Montefiore [the cemetery] as soon as I have done by duty"
I often see highly successful people who ignore the interoceptive feedback from their body.
It seems to me that the validation gained from work almost replaces a satisfaction in their daily lives from activities like movement, sex, being outdoors, listening to music, etc.
Perhaps you see this in your high-functioning patients, as well?
He was basically interrupting his sleep by eating dairy & sugar @ 8PM, resulting in terrible cramps and sweating during the night. He also had to be on call 24/7 and had his phone in bed, amongst construction noise. He was not exercising or doing any mindfulness.
Some of our interventions:
- install blackout curtains (talk to his wife to get buy-in)
- change high sugar, dairy-based sweets for vegan dark chocolate*
- we chose vegan chocolate in case Eric had a lactose sensitivity, and because typical low-quality milk chocolate has preservatives, stabilizers & is not organic, making it more likely to trigger an autoimmune response.
- make his room cold (68 degrees)
- install f.lux to darken his laptop screen
- get a manual (non-phone) alarm
- use a Dowdow pre-bed breathing device
- wear a WHOOP health tracker to track correlations between habits & sleep. We reviewed his data together on weekly calls.
Eric now sleeps 7 hours a night (I still have his data)...see below:
But there was an even more important outcome, 1 year later, that I only found out recently.
But what was the biggest improvement?
Eric reduced psych meds by 75%, and hardly sees the psychiatrist who referred him!
You can refer your patients to AlexLovesHealth, and meet with our coaches monthly to monitor their care.
We specialize in getting people to "okay" on their sleep, food, movement and emotional health habits.
"If you’re not taking care of your sleep, exercise and nutrition, you’re not giving yourself a fighting chance against depression and anxiety."