Double check you’re getting the “biological basics”
Double-Check You’re Getting the “Biological Basics”. Any time you experience emotional turmoil, review the biological basics.
One constant is your need for adequate quality and quantity of sleep, proper
hydration, and regular meals consisting of a balance of protein, carbohydrate,
and fat. When biological needs aren’t met consistently, your nervous
system senses danger, which can elicit fear, anxiety, and other dysregulated
feelings. The dysregulation that occurs when biological needs aren’t met
can easily be misinterpreted as emotional dysregulation—it is emotional to
not have your physical needs met!
Review the following list to ensure your physical needs are being met:
Am I getting about eight hours of sleep a night? Is the quality of my sleep good? Am I waking up during the night? Do I feel rested when I wake up?
Am I drinking enough water? Am I using a lot of coffee, soda, or other sources of caffeine?
Am I taking my medication as prescribed? Do I need to revisit dosage with my prescriber? Might seasonal, environmental, or life changes necessitate a change?
Am I eating about every four hours? Am I getting too hungry sometimes?
Am I getting a balance of protein, carbohydrate, and fat?
Am I eating foods I like and find satisfying?
Do I have an adequate variety of foods at home?
Am I moving my body? Are any physical conditions such as pain or injury going unaddressed?
Is there anything causing me to feel physically unsafe?
If one or more of your biological basics are lacking, please tend to them
as best as you can. There may still be acute emotional needs, but stabilizing
your body in these ways will help you have the resilience, cognitive flexibility,
and compassion necessary to navigate them.
2. Assess Your Basic Emotional Needs
As an emotional being, your basic needs are not limited to your physical
body. Community, connection, spirituality, intimacy, sensuality, touch,
comfort, and pleasure are some of the things you need to feel human. If
these needs are not regularly on your radar, you may be chronically deficient
in basic emotional nourishment.
Some questions to ask when you are feeling emotional distress include:
Have I been in touch with friends and family?
Have I been able to share with someone (friend, family member,therapist, etc.) what is really going on with me lately?
What have I been doing for fun? What makes me laugh these days?
Have I been doing the things that give me joy? Cooking, reading,dancing, painting, singing, learning something new, listening to music, or watching movies, for example.
Other than food, where do I find pleasure and comfort?
What am I doing these days that fills me with delight?
Am I getting enough physical touch these days, whether through sexual relationships, other sensual touch, nonsexual touch, massage, self-massage, or masturbation?
What am I doing for my spiritual self?
What am I doing to connect with community, whether through AA, Al Anon, church, synagogue, meditation center, community center, volunteer work, affinity group, book club, or something else?
What am I doing to manage my stress? Is my current stress level above or below average?
How are my mindfulness and meditation practices going?
Even if you are not having a difficult time, these questions address the
basic emotional needs all humans share. Check in with this list periodically
to ensure you are meeting your needs for satisfying relationships, physical
touch, pleasure, and community. When you have these things, by the way,
getting through tough times feels a bit more manageable.
Journal Prompt: How often do you think about whether your body is getting its most basic needs met when you’re struggling emotional? What is it like to make the connection between unmet biological needs and everything feeling harder emotionally? What are the biological needs you’re most likely to forget? What are the biological needs you’ve learned to tend to most consistently?