Last week, I wrote about the seductive quality of nutritional supplements, and how sometimes it’s necessary to slow down, reevaluate, and maybe not take some of them. This brings me to the point of today’s post, which is that sometimes subtracting is better than adding.
When it comes to our health, particularly with PCOS, we have this mind set that more is better. More exercise, more restriction, more supplements. Must be better, right? But sometimes more is just more, and it might even be counter-productive. When you get to a place where exercise is interfering with getting enough sleep, or ruining your social life – or it might even be part of an eating disorder. Or when you’re on the no sugar, no alcohol, no wheat, no red meat, no dairy, no fun diet plan, to the point where you’re burned out, irritable, and chronically on the edge of a binge – and, oh yeah, it’s wrecking your mood and making you the world’s most boring dining companion – maybe it’s time to reconsider. Same with the supplements, as I wrote about last week. Over-indulgence may actually be counter-productive to health. Even meditation can be counter-productive, if that extra 20 minutes a day is cutting into your sleep.
Overdoing it can extend into any area of your life – social, educational, and of course work. Again, more isn’t necessarily better. It’s just more. Contemplate that. It’s just… MORE. Kind of like our emotions. The emotions themselves don’t actually have any power. They come in, we observe them, and they move along. It’s when they pile up inside (MORE) that they tend to create problems.
What if instead of doing more, buying more, being more, limiting more, working out more, you tried less? Less commitments, less restrictions, less stress, less choices? Maybe even a little less blog-reading!
Gretchen Kubacky, Psy.D. is a Health Psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, California. She has completed the inCYST training. She specializes in counseling women and couples who are coping with infertility, PCOS, and related endocrine disorders and chronic illnesses.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. HOUSE or her practice, or obtain referrals in the Los Angeles area, please visit her website at www.drhousemd.com, or e-mail her at AskDrHouseMD@gmail.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @askdrhousemd.