There is a significant functional connection between food, emotion, environment, and movement to one’s physical body. When most people are faced with discomfort in life, they make ways to refresh from such stress by taking alcohol to manage the pressure. This should not be the case since the brain craves more than alcohol, and it is essential to understand. This is supported by Jolene Park in a TED talk about what she refers the grey area drinkers and how to get out of alcohol. This paper will react to Jolene’s TED video and discuss how the materials presented relate to my career as a developing counselor and clinician.
Many people are missing the physiological pieces essential in reducing anxiety and cravings such as excessive alcohol consumption. Due to the lack of these pieces, modern people find themselves getting drunk quickly, but they feel there is no problem. A grey area of drinking is every day among people across the globe, where people’s drinking habits are not rock bottom, they do it to ease their anxieties (Park, 2017). I agree with Jolene that whether you are drinking to manage stress or deal away with discomfort in life you need to understand how important it is to replenish one’s neurotransmitters. It is through this that one will get to rediscover themselves and make sober judgements about drinking.
Understanding the brain’s cravings is a fundamental discovery anyone can make and connect with from this TED talk video. The brain does not crave alcohol in times of body discomfort, and anyone who finds drinking under such circumstances is in the gray area. Moving from the Grey area drinking, you need to connect with your GABA, your serotonin, and your dopamine. Both GABA, serotonin, and dopamine can be activated by different foods, body movements, and changing lifestyle practices, which in turn gives your nervous system the nourishment it craves (Park, 2017). The TED talk helps understand how to increase GABA and serotonin for the body and when they are not activated. Visiting nature, physical body interactions, and connection with different foods or pets are essential in increasing serotonin levels, hence nourishing the nervous system. This assists the body by replenishing the neurotransmitters more consistently, which is critical in stopping drinking. Therefore, there is a need to make more connections with nature and physical people or animals that resonate with oneself
As a counselor, the video relates to me in that people in the grey area drinking can resonate well with their decision to quit alcohol. They do not need any medical intervention since their drinking is not at rock bottom and can make a great decision towards understanding what the brain wants. People are afraid of losing different things or people associated because of making certain life decisions. This is proved in the TED talk that those relationships that needed to work were left strong and people around Jolene. For clinicians, the connection between serotonin, dopamine, and GABA and their different roles in the body relates well in this video. It is essential to nourish one’s nervous system and the clinical methods towards activating serotonin and dopamine that the system craves. Therefore, the materials of this TED talk relate to me as a developing counselor and a clinician by making connections to body nervous system and behaviors of the human body.
Reference
Park, J. (2017). Gray Area Drinking | Jolene Park | TEDxCrestmoorParkWomen. Www.youtube.com.