frumpkin's tea shop

to really boil it down to essentials like ...

childhood trauma is overwhelmingly common

childhood trauma creates long term stress which leads to nervous system disregulation [same source]

nervous system disregulation leads to inflammation in the brain

inflammation in the brain leads to "mental illnesses" like schizophrenia, major depression, and ptsd

these things contribute to stress, ensuring the stress stays chronic as well as the nervous system disregulation, which leads to physical illness and premature death

and then you look at like ...

spending time in green spaces like forests and blue spaces like oceans and rivers are both therapeutic

singing (especially group singing) boosts your immune system, mood, and regulates your nervous system

exercise regulates your nervous system and alleviates "mental illness" symptoms

playing is therapeutic and integrates your emotions and identity even in the face of trauma

and its like. oh okay. as modern cultures we barely have time for and are discouraged from participating in all the things we evolved to thrive with while constantly heaping on the amount of stress we can possibly fit in our day to day lives

and its like well no wonder people love concerts and karaoke and national parks and sports and going to the beach and playing games. these things Literally make us healthier

but also we need to make these things more regular parts of our lives if we're gonna have the endurance to fight rising global capitalism, fascism, and genocide

so my tips for Surviving All This Shit:

go to the park or be around a body of water at least once a week. schedule a time & make it part of your routine

exercise for 20-30 minutes most days, whether its walking around your neighborhood, playing a sport, lifting weights while you watch tv, swimming, etc

sing with your friends. go to local concerts. sing to your pets. sing at religious services. join a choir

play a game at least once a week. obv my recommendation is ttrpgs (anything but d&d 5e, i beg), but this also includes any video game that's not online competitive games against strangers. playing video games for 30 minutes a day but not over 3 hours a day is literally healthy for you

stop looking at traumatic news if youre not going to do anything about it. if you read a news article and then go volunteer, get involved in a community, donate money, or engage in activism, that's awesome!! keep it up. if you read the news regularly and it makes you upset and scared and depressed and then youre too overwhelmed to do anything about it Please Stop For Real you're both not helping the situation and also actively literally killing yourself. find one topic to engage with, find a way to make a difference for that topic, and delete the news app from your phone im being so real right now

read nonfiction by indigenous authors! this is just a general tip but also like. open your mind to other ways of society operating. it was not always like this and does not have to stay this way. if you see a recommendation post on here seriously look at the recs and try to get one from your library. there's a rec list of indigenous nonfiction here and another rec list here for some options that could be good to start with (both very north america focused). you can also search "indigenous nonfiction" in the tumblr search to see what others are reading. i'm currently making my way through braiding sweetgrass and indigenous economics is next on my list

i did also want to address the tags left by @blackvelvetofnight which i feel is relevant here:

i do want to thank you for adding these tags bc i think the like. "idealized utopia full of enlightened nature fairies" view of native people and precolonial indigenous societies that a lot of leftie folks have is like. deeply harmful as well as not actually being productive or beneficial in any way. and i was worried my original post could come across like that and was attempting not to and i do not think my phrasing entirely landed

many early, indigenous, and/or precolonial societies were full of struggle, intentional harm and violence, or cultural norms that most modern leftists no longer align with. and still, with that said, of the ones i have been educated on, the material realities of those societies were still psychologically healthier than the modern western world, due to a combo of factors including culture but also their most used technologies vs ours, their most common forms of labor vs ours, their available sources of entertainment, what they turned to for meaning & understanding, and many other things

like you said: all this shit is brand new & our bodies remember. living in the modern world (in many places, especially western / colonized / formerly colonized places) is like trying to run the biggest ps5 game you can think of on a laptop from 1998 ... our hardware (body, brain) is tens of thousands of years old and like. smartphones didnt exist until i was in high school lmao, yknow? i thought the video calling from the original pokemon anime was far too futuristic to ever exist in my lifetime. like. our brains have had No Time to adapt to this stuff and the world is changing FAR too fast for them to!

i was actually originally inspired to make this post not due to the writings of indigenous authors (tho that did inform a lot of my subsequent research and recommendations) but because the last 6 months ive gotten reinvolved in a jewish community after being separated from one for nearly 15 years

and like. so quickly my mental health skyrocketed. def in some part bc of my brain being happy about finding familiarity after a decade of upheaval. but also bc like. a lot of the structure of following judaism, which my people have been doing for thousands of years, is just ... inherently healthy on a psychological level?

weekly mandatory rest, social gathering with your community, meal sharing with your community, group singing, and reflection (shabbat); taking time to interrogate your beliefs, practicing critical thinking and analysis (torah study); spending time outside (many holidays); reading books & learning (inherent to many aspects of judaism and a mitzvah); being active in matters of social justice and activism (also inherent to judaism & a mitzvah, with varying levels of "mandatory" depending on your age & situation - i had weekly school hours dedicated to volunteering when i was in jewish dayschool); prescribed times to mourn, celebrate, and make amends for your mistakes, in ways that are scaffolded and supported by the community (such as the high holy days); the list goes on ...

i did have a conversation about this with a friend and fellow congregant who is a therapist, and she was shocked when i pointed it out and laid out my evidence but she did agree

i think what i was trying to get at in my original post and failed is that there was a time where many societies and the cultures they formed were not designed and run with malicious intent. and in our modern world, that is no longer true, due to colonialism, capitalism, and also many modern technologies just being fundamentally harmful in various ways. me saying "read indigenous lit and see that our society doesnt have to look the way it does now" was less me believing that indigenous cultures were all a utopia and more me understanding more and more that many people just like. dont even Know things can opperate any other way. you dont know to look for things you dont know you dont know, and many people in power have a very vested interest in the general population thinking This Is Just How Things Work

I mean, just look!

* two quarters and two dimes

** Interstate 64

* Interstate 95

** Northern Virginia

* northern virginians

** get vehicular manslaughtered by a tesla driver just outside the mixing bowl

*** west maryland

**** cut through loudon county