Angry. Weepy. Irritable. Unfocused. Tired. Anxious. Emotional. Withdrawn. Combative. Hopeless. Depressed. Invaded by negative self-talk.

These are just a few of the states I’ve passed through in the past year. After sustaining a concussion last November, I’ve experienced a range of symptoms like sensitivity to light and sound, nausea and pain, but the hardest one to work through has been my inability to sleep through the night. In the beginning, I could barely sleep at all. Over the past couple of months, I’ve found a range of remedies that have not cured me completely but have gotten me to the point of actually functioning. Since I started researching, and since a global pandemic raised the collective anxiety, I learned I was not alone. In fact, insomnia plagues 10-15% of the US population leading to 5.5 million office visits in 2010. I would venture to guess those stats are elevated now.

Long term, insomnia can cause impaired performance, slowed reaction time, increased risk for mental health disorders like anxiety and depression, and increased risk for long term illness like heart disease or high blood pressure. And if the health effects aren’t enough to worry you (although they should be), a 2011 study found that insomnia costs the U.S. workforce $63.2 billion in lost productivity every year.

Thanks to an increase in collective anxiety, depression, isolation, greater family and work stress, excess screen time, and stress-related fatigue, a lot of us are having a hard time sleeping well. We’ve had some time to adjust and most states have reopened, so maybe our schedules are a little more normalized, maybe we’re getting out more in the fresh fall air, but maybe it’s still not quite what we need to get quality sleep. If at this point sleep is still an issue, it could become a more long-term problem like insomnia disorder, circadian sleep-wake disorder, or nightmare disorder. Or maybe you’re finding yourself in some weird in between place like me where you’re starting to get sleep again … just not quite enough.

I’ve tried a lot of things to get my sleep back in order. Things have helped, things have hurt, things have done nothing. The following isn’t medical advice, just the reports of my experiments with a range of remedies spanning over the past 7+ months. Consult with a doctor before getting too crazy.

Food + Beverages

Almonds
Almonds are a great source of melatonin and magnesium. Enough for them to do anything on their own? Not really, but I will grab a handful if I didn’t eat enough dinner and start to get hungry before bed.

Chamomile Tea
The soothing effects of this tea are certainly not lost on me, but again, not quite strong enough for my issues.

Turkey
Turkey contains tryptophan which increases the production of melatonin. I have had ground turkey for dinner a few times and I’ve had overall better nights of sleep, but I also just ate better in general on those nights. Like the above, it’s not a cure, but it doesn’t hurt.

Tart Cherry Juice
While tart cherry juice has been shown to elevate melatonin levels, I didn’t notice enough of a change to write home about. It was a delicious pre-sleep beverage, but with all these liquids, I’m more likely to wake up to pee.

And more…
There are tons of foods recommended for inducing and elongating sleep which may or may not have some effect, however, none of it seems to be strong enough for those of us with bigger sleep issues. I try to have a solid clean meal two hours before bed, full of protein, fat, and veggies, sometimes with a light carb element.

Accessories

BedJet
This cooling device blows cold air into the covers so my overheated body stays cooler for longer, but the mattress beneath me still gets warm and I usually have to move to cool down. Helpful, but not a cure.

Eye mask
Hell yes. Darkness lets our bodies know it’s time for sleep. This is a solid piece in the sleep-well puzzle. At least it is for me. I use an eye mask that kind of looks like a bra so it doesn’t press on my eyes, although some people like that pressure. Go wild. Experiment. I don’t use it every night, but if I’m going to bed earlier and there’s light creeping in from the living room, it’s essential.

Earplugs
I started using earplugs long before this issue came up. As a light sleeper living in New York City, I used them nightly to drown out the sounds of motorcycles, music, and general debauchery on the streets below. The habit has stuck with me through the move to Miami and especially now in my partnered state, it keeps his snoring from waking me … most of the time.

If you’re a light sleeper at all, earplugs can be a godsend. I alternate between reusable ones like Happy Ears and foam ones.

Acupressure Mat
Whenever I have a pain or anxiety flare up, this is my go-to. Some people love it, some people hate it. If you are not down with a little pain, I don’t recommend it. But for me, ten minutes of acute pain can lead to some relief from anxiety and more chronic pain. Studies show its potential for pain relief, as well as its safety!

Exercises

Viparita Karani (Legs Up the Wall)
As a yoga instructor, this is one of my favorite restorative poses. Throw your legs up the wall or onto a chair and just feel those femurs sinking into the hip socket. It’s relaxing and good for almost any kind of pain in the back or pelvis.

And of course, a long-term yoga practice is great for your body, mind and spirit, bringing clarity of mind, awareness, and it even reduces inflammation.

Meditation
I’ve been a consistent meditator for nearly 6 years. It definitely helps every aspect of my life and well-being, but it got harder after the concussion and chronic pain set it. I’m not as disciplined as I used to be, but I try to get in at least 10-20 minutes per day. It’s definitely helpful for sleep.

Cardio + Strength Training
Thirty minutes of cardio per day has been shown to improve sleep, as long as you don’t work out right before bed. Strength training also leads to better sleep quality and duration. In my experience, there’s a sweet spot. If I work out to exhaustion and cause a lot of extra pain, my body gets more stressed than tuckered out.

Habits

No Screens Before Bed
So I started this as a battle against blue light, but apparently the science on that is still under debate. However, I find staring at my phone and scrolling, or watching TV doesn’t let my body wind down. I get much better sleep when I spend the hours before bed listening to music, using the acupressure mat, reading, and listening to music.

Listen to Something
I don’t have headphones that I enjoy sleeping with, but I did find some benefit to listening to binaural beats or some audio like Bedtime Stories helps prevent anxious thoughts and gets me back into relaxation and sleep mode.

Consistent Wake Up + Bedtime
I hate this one, but I do my best to go to sleep between 11 and 11:30PM. I usually wake up between 7:30 and 8AM. I used to prefer early morning wake ups, but this is what my body wants right now, so I must obey. This one is super important and beneficial for everyone.

Another technique people use is having the same wake up time, even when you have trouble falling asleep to train your body, but I lack the constitution for that kind of torture.

Cutting Down Caffeine + Alcohol
After a poor night of sleep, pounding coffee seems like a great idea, but I try to stick to one cup before 11AM so that it doesn’t keep my nervous system too amped up. (I’m extra sensitive to it, but the average person should be fine.) I don’t drink alcohol because it’s bad for my brain and my body hates it, but it also really messes with sleep quality. I have never smoked cigarettes (except for that one week in Paris and a few sad-girl nights out in my early 20s), but that’s not great for sleep either, just FYI.

Keeping it Cool
65°F is the optimal room temperature for sleep. I feel bad cranking the AC that much, so I opt for 68°F, but if you live somewhere cooler than Miami, bless you and enjoy.

Hot Bath or Shower
Taking a hot shower before bed actually cools the body down, letting the body know it’s time for bed and helping the average person fall asleep more quickly.

Changing Locations
Often when I wake up, staying in bed just makes things worse. I’m restless or too hot and can’t get comfortable. I used to move to the couch and fall asleep for a while and eventually make it back into bed. Now, however, I move to another mattress.

Mindset Manipulation
At its worse, my insomnia kept me awake most of the night, anxious, tired, and frustrated. A common phrase to describe the post-concussion brain is “tired and wired” so you can imagine how fun that must be. I started getting super stressed any time I woke up, dreading the horrible day ahead.

Over time, it became clear that even if I was tired, it wasn’t the end of the world. When I was still in recovery, I had to take time for naps to heal my ailing brain. Now, a bad night of sleep just means the next night will probably be pretty good.

Supplements & Medication

5HTP Supplement
5HTP is an amino acid that your body uses to produce serotonin. It has a range of benefits from easing depression to helping with sleep. It didn’t really help me sleep, but I think I was less cranky while I took it after a poor night of sleep.

Melatonin
Melatonin supplements alone didn’t do much for me, and it’s not recommended for long-term use, so I ditched it (although it comes in another supplement mentioned below). It’s mostly recommended for short-term use like jet lag.

GABA
This is another one that made a little difference. Maybe a little calmer, but not much. GABA is an amino acid that works as a neurotransmitter. Studies show it can help with anxiety, insomnia and fatigue, but the studies were small and it seems our bodies aren’t great at absorbing it in supplement form.

Advil PM
When I need pain relief in addition to help sleeping, this is my go-to. However, I find that taking the recommended 2 capsules can sometimes make me feel wired out and unable to sleep. With just one pill, I usually do pretty well. Some folks prefer Benadryl for their OTC sleep aide although I try not to do this more than a few times a month.

Magnesium
After a concussion, your magnesium levels drop really low, and I have the lab results to prove it. Furthermore, studies suggest 75% of Americans are not hitting their daily intake needs of this essential mineral. I take a few different supplements, but for sleep I prefer might nightly CALM drink. I used to use the regular one but then discovered the “Calmful Sleep” one which contains GABA, L-Theanine, and melatonin cutting my supplement game down, getting more magnesium into my brain, and helping to induce that state of relaxation.

CBD
While studies are ongoing for CBD, it has shown promise to treat pain, anxiety, and sleep, and my baseline anxiety has definitely leveled out since I started taking it. While the magnesium calms my muscles, this soothes my nerves and makes the wind down relaxation time a little easier. I use 2-3 droppers full of Charlotte’s Web CBD oil — which comes out to 35-55mg — 1-2 hours before bed. (And I don’t make money telling you that, it just works for me.)

In Conclusion

Eating well, exercising and keeping up my meditation practice definitely help my body stay on track for health, but they’re not always enough for chronic sleep issues. For now, my best bedtime routine consists of a hot shower, 20 minutes on the acupressure mat, lowering the AC to 68°F, making my CALM Magnesium supplement drink, some Viparita Karani time, ~60mg of CBD oil, and reading War & Peace until I get too drowsy to keep going.

I tried a lot of things that worked and a lot that didn’t. But ultimately experimentation was my friend and allowed me to shake the hold insomnia had on me. Remember, this is all super personal so talk to your doctor, experiment, and find what works best for you!

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About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.

This election year, we want to do our part to help encourage creatives to get out and vote. We asked our incredibly talented candidates to submit their illustrations and designs to fit the #PromoteTheVote theme, and they did not disappoint. Check out some of their artwork below, and don’t forget to do your civic duty and vote on or before November 3!

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Zoom experienced a meteoric rise during the pandemic for everything from socially distanced business meetings to online learning to social gatherings. It’s so pervasive that there are now commercials poking fun at bad video call etiquette. While working across time zones and distance is easier, too many presenters express a sense of dissatisfaction with the medium — and it often shows. Creatives can learn a few lessons from the dance community, which has successfully utilized the technology in unique ways.

Work With What You Have

Some facilitators spend time pointing out all of the things that they’re missing out on by presenting on Zoom or on other videoconferencing tools. It’s unskillful not just because it gives participants FOMO, but because it doesn’t embrace the medium that they do have and the — albeit different — advantages that it offers.

Interestingly, dancers, who typically rely on rehearsal space, group classes, and live audiences, quickly adapted to the “new normal.” Add to that their use of sweeping physical movement, rather than a static presentation, and the adjustment is notable. Katy Pyle, a dancer, choreographer, creator, and teacher of Ballez, which aims to have more queer representation in ballet, attributes part of this adaptation to a “need to dance, a need to be physical.”

Feeling a sense of hopelessness with the current state of affairs and facing personal setbacks after rejection from funding sources, Pyle started filming themself dancing alone in their apartment hallway. They share: “I liked the physical limitations of the hallway, of being in contact with three walls, sometimes at the same time. It was like a ThunderShirt, holding me.” Home was a safe container to release rage, sadness, grief, and even experience moments of joy and pleasure again. They posted the dances as #ExistentialDreadHallwayDance. Since the project didn’t involve collaboration or funding, they found it creatively liberating. (The videos were later commissioned for display at a hotel in Milwaukee.)

In My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, somatic therapist Resmaa Menakem shares that all the talk therapy in the world won’t help people to metabolize trauma. He explains that it needs to be done through deliberate training and settling of the body and mind. Similarly, dance is both a “physical practice and a chemical release,” as Pyle adds. During a time of collective grief and sadness, then, it’s no wonder that presenters who include short breaks for mindfulness or movement during their video calls seem to connect better with their audiences.

Embrace New Audiences

Companies are being challenged with maintaining the clients and relationships that they have while cultivating new audiences. Some performing artists bemoan the loss of a live audience for their work, but others lift up the value of increased accessibility, whether financial, physical, or temporal. People with disabilities point out the opportunity for public assembly to be more expansive.

Big names in dance are releasing archival footage of performances for audiences to enjoy at home while theaters are dark. The pause in public gatherings also led to increased intimacy, with many performing artists sharing rehearsals and the creative process in ways that weren’t previously available to the public — except perhaps for a few major donors. These offerings are excellent ways to repurpose already existing content and to create new content in a cost-effective way.

Some of the archival footage is membership, donation, or fee-based, but other performances are being released for free. This shows an understanding that building a wider audience now for the long-term may mean that you don’t have to monetize everything, especially at a time when so many people are struggling financially.

Practicing and Celebrating Together

Pyle remarks that it’s grounding to take classes with other students. They quickly bought a barre to continue teaching students at the New School and company classes from home. They encouraged their 72-year-old mentor to host her classes online. Pyle also teaches outdoors in a basketball court. “It’s not a controlled environment,” they laugh.

Pyle intentionally builds community online by having “open barre” chats, encouraging people to set their screens to gallery view, or having introductions with personal pronouns and a probing question such as: “How are you experiencing pleasure in your dancing lately?” As dancers, they even use the formal bow, or révérence, to one another at the end of practice. Repetition and ritual help to build stability and deepen connection.

Other dance events and communities like Dance Church encourage participants to release pent up energy through movement with a shared community online. Feeding participants in a heartfelt way leans into collective healing.

Asking for Support by Personalizing

As practitioners of an “under-supported art form” Pyle believes that dancers are “fiercely independent and productive” — a skill set that is an advantage when there are so many things in flux. With arts funding taking such a deep hit, many companies are personalizing the focus of their fundraising efforts or sharing videos of performers practicing at home in small spaces. Orchestras might be rehearsing with masks, but dancers created this extraordinary Swan Lake Bath Ballet.

Get Comfortable with the Unknown

Pyle describes movement in a tactile and sensual way. They explore how the elbow connects to the wrist, how the air feels, how the temperature in the room is. They marvel at the sublime: “There’s a space where you don’t understand. Not knowing our physical experience in the way that we know our mental experience. There’s mystery.”

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About the author.
Jess Powers writes about marketing, food, and wellness. She has experience in nonprofit communications and emergency management. Follow her @foodandfury.

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve written a few versions of this because it’s hard to know who I’m writing for. We’re all having such similar and yet such varied experiences throughout this pandemic. Throughout these global cries for justice, as we watch the wealth gap widen and the dreams we were promised if we worked hard enough crumble. While we watch innocent Black folks killed by police officers again and again. My intention here is to offer some tools for mental and emotional resilience no matter your circumstances, which can be a struggle financially, mentally, emotionally, physically, or a combination or all of the above. I hope you are getting your basic needs met. I hope you are finding joy.

For those of us who still have a roof over our heads and some sort of income, we may be reciting the same phrase. Something along the lines of, “I’m doing well, honestly, I feel really lucky all things considered.” Maybe we even mean it. But there is something about this “stuckness.” Something about how this feels like everything is happening and yet parts of life feel like they’re on hold, unless we consciously find creative ways to move around those barriers. Maybe that’s the kind of creativity we need right now.

Whatever your current struggle, you are not alone. Maybe you’re physically exhausted. Maybe the emotional toll of risk management is spiking your anxiety. Maybe the most recent tragedy in Kenosha, on top of so many others, is driving you deeper into despair. Maybe you are burning out on activism. Maybe you feel helpless and the stress of it is making everything worse. Maybe you’re out of work and unsupported and facing financial hardship.

Maybe you’ve experienced “the hell zone.” I found myself having periodic dips during the first months of isolation and social distancing. I would go from “everything’s going to be okay,” to crying on the floor in a matter of hours. That has leveled out. Become less extreme. I’ve come back to my grounding practices and been able to sleep a little more. Maybe you’re still swinging on the pendulum. Maybe you’re finding yourself numb. Maybe you’re too tired to care. There is no wrong way to cope.

Your grief, your trauma, your despair, your rage, your fury, your exhaustion are normal under the circumstances. It is tragic, but it is true. While many of our systemic issues have existed well before the pandemic, they are clearer and more inescapable than ever under present circumstances.

So how do we cultivate resilience when we feel like we’re falling apart? What do grounding practices look like? How can we build up our reserves to prevent this fallout in the first place?

With no shortage of traumatic events and studies, science can offer us some suggestions for how to come out of this stronger. Methods of processing and adaptation. Below are a couple of the ways you can relieve stress, build your reserves, and find the inner strength to become your most functional and resilient self.

Acknowledge your feelings

It’s vital to recognize the feelings that have come up for us and where they’re coming from. Right now, they’re probably coming from a lot of places. Taking the time to sort out today’s cocktail of grief and stress may help manage them and limit burnout and breakdown.

Is it anxiety about catching COVID? Is it financial stress? Is it the unyielding grief of oppressive systems felt most prominently in Black communities? Is it physical illness? Is it a job layoff? Inconsiderate behavior coming from partners or roommates? Is it an old trauma response resurfacing? If we don’t acknowledge those sticky feelings, it’s easy to get them tangled. When I work with clients, I call this practice “unraveling the emotional threads.”

Understand the source to understand the feeling.

See yourself as the architect of your reality

When studying children of troubled backgrounds, psychologists discovered a common thread among the most resilient, the ones who thrived despite their circumstances at home. These children, more often than not, had an internal locus of control, meaning they saw themselves as the architects of their own reality or the “orchestrators of their fate.”

When we see ourselves as participants in our own stories rather than victims of circumstance, it gives us a sense of control. The pandemic has revealed all the places where we only had an illusion of control, so how can we possibly reconcile this? By focusing on what we can control: our reactions, our habits and our perspectives. Once we acknowledge the source of the stress, we can be more proactive about how we deal with it.

Show a little compassion

We can be so critical with ourselves, but taking a moment to stop the judgmental voice in our heads can be really good for us. Maybe you’re not as productive or creative as you were before COVID. Maybe you feel like you’re falling behind. These are all stories we tell ourselves that don’t reflect the reality of our present moment and will only further harm your mental state.

You can start by noticing the negative talk in your head. Something like “I’m failing right now.” Take a breath and be kind. “I don’t feel like I’m succeeding the way I want to be, but that is okay in this moment. I won’t feel this way forever.” The negative talk is not going to get you out of the dark spiral of doom. But being nice to yourself, even when it feels gross and impossible or like you don’t “deserve it” might create the necessary space to pull you out.

Talk about it

Humans are social creatures. We need community. Isolation has been hard on that. While many people have been able to expand their pods of community, others have not. Do you have people you can check in with? Do you have people who will check on you? Maybe there is online support for the issues you’re working through.

Some friends have been catching up via group video chat calls. I have been on two and hated them, so we all have to find the methods that work for us. Maybe you need more than a friend right now. This could be a great time to explore therapy, especially since many are offering virtual sessions. If you’ve avoided therapy because of the stigma, I promise it’s cool now. We all do it, and it’s great.

Mental Health Resources for BIPOC

APA Resources and Crisis Lines

Write about it

Maybe you’re not quite ready to talk about your feelings. Try writing them instead. A consistent writing practice of expressing negative emotions can have beneficial health effects both mentally and physically. It’s an excellent supplement to talking to someone (like a friend or therapist) and can even serve as an alternative until you are ready to talk.

Create meaning

The ability of a group of people to thrive after a crisis often has strong ties to the meaning they create from that experience. At the end of a crisis, post-traumatic growth rises as people ascribe meaning to their hardship, as Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel writes about in Man’s Search for Meaning. When all is said and done, what have we learned, how have we grown in spite of and because of this hardship?

Flex your muscles

Maybe you can’t make it to the gym, but you can still move! We have tons of body weight exercises you can do at home right here, or simply go for a walk, bike ride, swim, or dance in your bedroom. The boost of oxygen and endorphins can keep that perspective clear and less likely to take you into doom town. Studies show regular physical exercise is associated with emotional resilience for acute stress. While the stress of COVID and everything else is probably more chronic than acute, keeping up with cardio and incorporating some more restorative practices (like foam rolling, stretching, or yin yoga) can certainly help in cycles.

I honestly cannot stress this one enough. Last week, I was combative and sulky and weepy after consuming too much news. After 45 minutes of outdoor yoga, I felt like the dark cloud consuming me had lifted. Our minds are fragile ecosystems that require nourishment.

Take breaks for mindfulness

If you haven’t tried it already, cultivating a yoga practice can be a helpful gateway into exploring mindfulness. A yoga practice is more than the exercises (known as asana), but also includes meditation, breath awareness, as well as following ethical guidelines for living. There are yoga and meditation classes galore for you to try, but the core of what you need is to practice awareness of the present moment. Notice how you’re sitting as you read this. The feelings in your body. Are you tensing up anywhere? Can you breathe a little deeper or more slowly? Can you feel the air against your skin? Your feet on the floor? Your seat in the chair?

A practice like this on its own might not feel like enough. We can only understand resilience in relation to stress. If our well constantly “leaks,” there is no way to stay emotionally satiated. However, cultivating a mindfulness practice can help you identify the “leaks” and manage how you react to them.

Find moments for gratitude

The neuroscience backs up gratitude practices as a way to build resilience. Focusing your thoughts on the good and positive things in your life, helps foster a more uplifted state of mind by exercising your neurological wiring. This is not about “light-washing” your experience. This practice acknowledges the hardship but allows for the space to recognize what small pieces of joy we can claim today. Whether taking a moment in the morning or before bed, or making it a journaling practice, or taking a daily walk to connect with those bits of joy, there’s a reason it’s a core tenant for many religious and spiritual practices.

Find ways to help

As Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés reminds us in her letter “We Were Made For These Times,” nothing heals the heart like standing up and being there for others.

Of course, what’s especially challenging here is our limited ability to help if we’re not on the front lines. Action is what takes that anxious energy and helps us to process it, however, going out into the world now carries a certain amount of risk and may exacerbate that anxiety for some. It could be critically dangerous for others.

Some of us have been able to start venturing out with the proper precautions. From protests to volunteer organizations, there is no shortage of people giving back to their communities, demanding justice, and working towards a better tomorrow.

Maybe it’s not safe for you to contribute in that way. That’s okay! You can still make calls, write letters, send donations, raise awareness, and check in on the people in your life. Building your resilience can start by helping one person in any way you can. Maybe you write letters to the elderly. Or donate to indigenous students. Or make calls for justice. There are ways to help regardless of your ability to leave the house.

Long-term effects + children

The intergenerational effects of traumatic stress are rampant at the cellular level, as has been studied in Holocaust survivors and their children. While many of us are doing okay, many others are not. This is also why cycles of poverty and abuse are so difficult to get out of, contributing to inter-generation and systemic poverty and child abuse that are entrenched in the fabric of our society.

In order to develop resilience, children need to feel supported. According to Harvard Graduate School of Education, children who go on to thrive after traumatic events have at least one stable and supportive relationship with an adult.

What that looks like during these times can be different for everyone, but allowing space for questions, confusion, explanation and understanding can be paramount to keeping a level of trust, comfort and understanding. Experts suggest brief but honest answers to their questions, as well as labeling and validating feelings to help children cope emotionally.

This is a difficult time for everyone in wildly different ways, but we are also being presented with opportunities to change how we interact with the world. Like a seed cracking or a chrysalis bursting open, this liminal time is uncomfortable, but also unavoidable.

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About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.

For the intelligent and creative, bouts of self-doubt, depression, low self-esteem, and imposter syndrome may be acquaintances we know well. (Every gift has a cost, I guess.) While difficult at times, the right tools, routines, and support systems can get us through the dark and back into creation mode. But what happens when work dries up and we’re driven into isolation?

With overactive brains, more time to ruminate, fewer distractions from a potential spiral, less social interaction, and sometimes less opportunity or incentive to exercise or walk around, perhaps you’ve fallen prey to difficult thoughts. Some of my favorite existential crisis questions and thoughts include the following:

• What is the point of any of this?
• I’m unproductive and worthless.
• The work I produce is meaningless.
• I’ll never be as good/successful/accomplished as [insert person you admire].
• I’m not smart enough to make this work.
• Will I ever find “real” success?
• All my ideas are garbage.
• What if people are just pretending to like my work/me?
• We’re in crisis. What does creativity do you for in crisis? YOU CAN’T EAT ART
• If other people really knew me/saw the art I REALLY want to make, they would hate me/think I’m stupid.

If any of this sounds familiar, I have great news: you’re not alone, and you’re probably wrong!

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

Let’s start by pointing out the cognitive bias many of us know and hate, the Dunning Kruger Effect. The thing is, if you have the ability to doubt yourself in the first place, you’re probably smarter and more qualified than you think you are. The Dunning Kruger Effect illustrates that with lower intelligence comes greater confidence. Yikes. Basically, the fact that you doubt yourself in the first place means at the very least you have the smarts to think critically and consider opposing arguments.

Imposter Syndrome

You may additionally experience imposter syndrome, which while not classified as a disorder, can go hand in hand with low-self esteem, depression, and anxiety. The experience of imposter syndrome includes dismissing any accomplishments and a fear that you have landed where you are by luck rather than skill or merit. Many experience a fear of being found out as a fraud.

While external validation, producing work, and social interaction (not to mention, getting paid) can mitigate these experiences by creating a temporary sense of relief, how do we get through when those external factors are severely limited?

Reflect on how far you’ve come

Our brains are wired to focus on our blunders. Negativity bias will keep you focused on the one negative comment or feeling instead of the 5 positives. That’s why it’s so easy to get hooked on whatever negative thought that might enter your brain. Plus, if you’re dealing with imposter syndrome, you’ll disregard the positive comments completely. When we’re isolated, we may only be getting that feedback through social media (or the couple of people we’re in general contact with), which can be a dangerous game in and of itself.

If you’re feeling down or lost, maybe a decade review can help you see how far you’ve come. Where were you five to ten years ago? How have you evolved? How has your approach to your work changed? What have you learned? We so rarely truly look at the big picture in that way. Can you take a moment to notice the wins? Can you take the losses and see how they’ve brought you to where you are today?

Reflection can be a powerful tool in understanding yourself, learning from your journey, and consciously integrating lessons into your life.

Turn your inner critic into an ally

You can also overcome your brain’s fear response and use that self-check impulse to simply create better work. One of the most effective ways I have found is to speak to the overly critical voice in my head like a very nosy friend. Listen to it, and then ask why. When you have to get specific, you’re no longer blanket-statement-bad, but rather you start to find useful tips to make the next round better.

So, for instance, I’m not “a terrible writer,” which my inner critic loves to tell me, but perhaps this article could use tighter language and more structure. Something specific can be fixed! (And maybe it doesn’t have to be 100% perfect to be really useful.)

Keep your eyes on your own paper

Of all the ways we start to feel down on ourselves, comparison is by far the most detrimental. We compare the mess of our process to the finished products of others. When you see those humble brag announcements across your feed, or the seemingly overnight success of some celebrities, it looks like magic, but we have no idea what it took other people to get where they are.

We have no idea what their dark night of the soul looked like. Maybe they have found confidence and success because they suffered losses so brutal they thought they would die, but when death refused to take them as they stood over a pile of ash, marveling at the miracle of still being alive, they dragged their charred bodies up a never ending mountain until finally, something clicked. Maybe the depths of their despair cracked open something within them and gave them the eyes to see opportunity.

And then again, some folks may be exaggerating or lying! Either way, upward social comparison, especially through social media networks like Facebook or Instagram, contribute to low self-esteem. So if you’re in a creative funk, delete the apps (even if you’ll just re-download them later).

The quickest way to feel like a sham and a fraud is by comparing your “in process” to someone’s polished product. Comparison is the enemy of producing good work. So stop it. And find the space to create the thing that can only come from YOU. Which brings me to…

Remember what you love to create

If you have a moment, what would you create for free? For yourself? What I’ve found really helpful is playing with a medium that isn’t my main art form. So instead of writing, I’ll draw for a little bit. Or dance. Then from that space of getting out of my head, I can come back to writing something just for me. Without an audience. The silly little poems and fan fiction stories that come from my soul, instead of my brain.

What can you create as a service to yourself?

Break the cycle

When we feel like imposters, we can get stuck in cycles of over-preparation or procrastination that become a weird self-fulfilling prophecy or otherwise help us scrape by with only the slightest bit of relief. To get out of this, we need some real inner confrontation.

Reframing anxiety-producing tasks can help us get out of our heads and into the game. Some helpful advice I got recently when an anxiety-producing task made me cry (yeah, I can admit that to you, dear reader) was this:

“It’s not personal. It’s just business.”

Whatever it is, creating art, negotiating a better result, submitting a paper, applying for a job, prepping for an interview, is just business. It’s not your whole identity. We get scared because we conflate actions and output with who we are. Face the anxiety (maybe break down crying if that is your thing), notice it doesn’t kill you, and break the cycle.

Figure out where these standards came from in the first place

For most of us, this inner critic had an origin. Whether it was a teacher, a parent, a friend, a family member, or the culture at large, the idea that we’re somehow deficient is not something any of us were born with.

There are plenty of ways to explore this from mediation to therapy, from personal coaching to self-help books. Try asking the question, and see what answers come up for you. If you’re looking for resources to start, you can check out my reading list.

Know you’re in good company

Even in the best times, it’s extremely common for creatives to be plagued by imposter syndrome. Despite objective worldwide success, renowned artists question and doubt themselves. Some of the most famous folks who have dealt with self-doubt and imposter syndrome include:

• Maya Angelou
• Meryl Streep
• Chuck Lorre
• Viola Davis
• Don Cheadle
• Kate Winslet
• Neil Gaiman
• Tom Hanks
• Emma Watson
• Sonia Sotomayor

And if it takes time for you to crawl out of a self-esteem slump, that’s okay too. These are dark times, you know, and there’s no right or wrong way to process here.

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About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.