Break the Fear Cycle: Brain Expert Shares Advice for Building Resilience During Challenging Times
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Forced social isolation, shuttered businesses and canceled or scaled-down worship services have contributed to an overwhelming sense of loss and fear among people all over the world. And there’s a scientific reason for these emotions, explains Timothy R. Jennings, M.D., board-certified psychiatrist, master psychopharmacologist and founder of Come and Reason Ministries.
Dr. Jennings is a much sought-after speaker who regularly addresses non-medical professionals on the subjects of Spirituality in Medicine, Depression and its Spiritual and Physical Connections, and Alzheimer’s Dementia. He also speaks to medical professionals on the topics of Psychotherapy in Clinical Practice, Major Depression in the Primary Care Setting, and the Neurobiology of Depression — among many others.
He describes how the measures taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 can have physiological and psychological impacts that, like dominoes, will topple our sources of strength and resilience.
“Research shows that social rejection, isolation and loneliness activate the brain’s stress pathways, thereby increasing inflammatory factors, diminishing immune response and increasing vulnerability to viral infections and cancer, and make you less resilient in life,” he says.
In the shadow of government mandates that restrict our interactions with others, what can we do within our four walls to build our resilience and guard our overall wellbeing?
Dr. Jennings suggests we can boost our resilience through physical exercise, eating a healthy diet, getting regular sleep, cognitive training, having a healthy relationship with God and spiritual development — measures that can actually alter the way our brains react to stress.
“Healthy spirituality confers resilience in a multitude of ways,” he says. “It develops your higher cortex, which calms your fear circuits. You have less fear and you’re less anxious if you’ve got a developed prefrontal cortex. And if you have a loving relationship with a God you trust, that’s part of your prefrontal cortex. And if people have more love, they have less fear.”
Another part of our prefrontal cortex is altruism — something those with healthy spirituality are more likely to engage in — and helping others also calms fear circuits.
Our ability to face a crisis and bounce back is, in part, inherited from our parents and even grandparents through our genetic makeup, Dr. Jennings explains. But through a combination of mental, physical and spiritual adaptive measures, we can boost our resilience and improve our ability to overcome life’s challenges.
Dr. Timothy R. Jennings operates a private practice in Chattanooga and has successfully treated thousands of patients. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Life-Fellow of the Southern Psychiatric Association.
He is also a prolific author whose books include The God-Shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life; Could It Be This Simple? A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind; The Aging Brain: Proven Steps to Prevent Dementia and Sharpen Your Mind; and The God-Shaped Heart: How Correctly Understanding God’s Love Transforms Us.
To hear his presentations and to learn more about Dr. Jennings and his approach to brain and body health, please visit: www.comeandreason.com.
Possible discussion topics for Dr. Jennings:
How do positive social interactions reduce our inflammatory markers?
How does wearing masks contribute to feelings of social isolation?
Explain epigenetic markers and the role they play in our ability to be resilient.
Explain how our life experiences can alter our gene expression and lead to improved resiliency.
Trish Stevens Helen Cook Senior Publicist Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 903.654.0938 Direct 281.333.3507 Office [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
Parenting an Addict: Mother Tells Her Gripping Story of Unwavering Love
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Like a drowning woman, Christine Naman grappled for a lifeline and choked on her harsh reality: it was time to let go of denial. The tin foil, spoons and lighters she found in her daughter’s vanity weren’t the makings of a science experiment; they were drug paraphernalia. Christine’s only solace was that she hadn’t found any needles. Three days later she did.
About Natalie is Christine’s raw, compelling story of her valiant fight to help her daughter overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. It is a gripping, cautionary tale of how, in spite of a loving family and a comfortable life, a child can end up on the wrong path, meet the wrong people and get lost in the unthinkable.
About Natalie takes readers deep inside Christine’s emotional and mental turmoil as she grows into her new, unfortunate role as the parent of an addict. She steps on syringes left on the floor and wrestles one from the family dog’s mouth. She lives the nightmare of finding an unresponsive child on the floor and uses Narcan to revive her. She struggles and wins, struggles and loses, cries and rages.
She chases away a drug dealer and stays up all night waiting for her missing child to come home. She rejoices during periods of recovery and hope and is devastated during relapses. When her daughter suffers, Christine suffers right along with her. But through it all, never once, does Christine ever contemplate giving up.
At its core, About Natalie is a story of fighting for — and right alongside — the ones we love, no matter how difficult the circumstances. It’s a story of keeping the faith, battling hard and helping a child get back on the right track. It is the story of struggling, living through it all and coming out on the other, better, side.
Christine has watched a perfectly healthy daughter thrive and then succumb to the pull of substances. She has suffered the feelings of isolation, pain and humiliation that being the parent of an addict often brings. She hopes that by sharing her family’s difficult story she can bring understanding and knowledge to those who do not know the problem firsthand as well as provide comfort to those who know the nightmare of addiction all too well.
Bestselling author Christine Pisera Naman is a wife to a beautiful man named Peter and a mother to three fantastic kids named Jason, Natalie and Trevor. In her free time, she enjoys crocheting, which she does poorly; painting, again poorly; and volunteering at her local hospital, which she hopes she does well. She is the author of the Faces of Hope series of books that are now housed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City. Her other works include Caterpillar Kisses, Christmas Lights, The Novena and The Believers. About Natalie is her heart poured onto paper.
About Natalie Publisher: HCI Books Release Date: May 2021 ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2385-0 (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-0-7573-2386-7 (ePub) Available from Amazon.com
Trish Stevens Melanie Howe Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com 281.333.3507 Phone
Trish Stevens Teresa Hinojosa Ascot Media Group, Inc. Post Office Box 2394 Friendswood, TX 77549 832.569.5773 Direct 281.333.3507 Phone 832.569.5539 Fax [email protected] www.ascotmedia.com
(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Climb Aboard The Western Star And Witness The Adventures Of A Lifetime
The year is 1979, and 12-year-old Annie’s life has been upended. Her parents have announced that their home for the next nine months will be a 53-foot sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean. The thought of leaving behind her pets, friends and a life she loves—plus coexisting in close quarters with her older brother—has left Annie spiraling through a kaleidoscope of emotions. Heartbroken at first, Annie turns to writing, and through her detailed journal of daily life aboard the Western Star, she reveals a remarkable transformation.
Girl Sailing Aboard the Western Star is the engaging, poignant result of Annie’s chronicle of her family’s adventures in the Atlantic. Readers get to experience through Annie’s eyes the raw, unfiltered angst of a girl on the cusp of being a teenager, as she grapples with feelings of isolation, resentment and uncertainty. Page after page, hints of new awakenings rise to the surface, as Annie learns how to trim the sheet, raise the main sail and navigate using a sextant. She also learns about the stars and constellations and about the amazing creatures living under the boat. The journal takes readers along as she snorkels, scuba dives and jet skis her way through The Bahamas, the Caribbean and the Virgin Islands.
Drawn directly from Anderson’s real-life story of living on a sailboat with her family, this charming coming-of-age tale shares Annie’s day-by-day emotional evolution, as she discovers new worlds above and below the deep blue sea and lives the adventures of a lifetime.
Author RA Anderson is a wanderer who has lived all over, from California to Belize, and currently, home is a town called Rome, in Georgia that is! She grew up on horseback and sailboats—“the most amazing way to grow up!”
A lifelong passion for creative writing and photography became her life. Her award-winning photographs have been featured in table books, magazines and front-page news, and her writing has been published in magazines, poetry books and children’s books. Her children’s series include If Pets Could Talk and Iceland: The Puffin Explorers.
Three boys—her heart and soul—call her Mom. She and her husband—whom she calls her “strength and passion”—are recent empty-nesters, leaving them more time to travel.
Girl Sailing Aboard the Western Star Publisher: My Favorite Books Publishing Company, LLC Release Date: January 1, 2020 ISBN-10: 1950590038 ISBN-13: 978-1950590032 Available from Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com
