GABA as a Non-Addictive Solution for Racing Thoughts & Body Anxiety
Anxiety in Artists
Waking up feeling soft, integrated and grounded in your body, this is the dream. It’s also the rare experience for the creative spirit. With your heightened imagination and ability to see all angles of every situation, it’s very easy for your mind to accelerate. Your body can follow this and ramp up quickly to match. Lying in bed first thing in the morning and feeling your heart and mind racing is an overwhelming way to start a day. The morning should be a time of gentle entrance into the world, full of softness.
Knowing you, you’ve already been weaving yoga, breathwork, and meditation into your days to naturally ease the anxiety. Avoiding caffeine, herbal teas, eating upon waking, getting natural sunlight in your eyes first thing… you’ve been doing it all and yet it still isn’t fully resolving. It helps some days, but isn’t enough on other days. I hear you and get it.
Foundational Causes of Anxiety
You need a deeper support for those tough mornings. Perhaps you even need to look into your biological or emotional status to address the foundational sources. When it comes to anxiety, these are the areas I consider:
Biological
Gallbladder Congestion
GI Pathogens
Adrenal Hypo/Hyper Function (cortisol issues)
Reduced or Elevated Hormone Release
Toxin Burden (mold spores, mycotoxins, endotoxins, heavy metals, etc.)
Emotional
Unprocessed Stored Emotions
Attachment & Relational Wounds
PTSD
You do not have to be perfect to experience peace, but these areas should be reviewed and addressed if they are strongly affecting your body’s function or your ethereal state.
Natural Solution for Quick Relief
Whether you choose to address the above or not, a solution for the here and now until you find everyday ease is amino acid therapy. Amino acid therapy is my go-to solution for bringing you to a place of resilience now. It is non-addictive and can provide temporary ease if not full relief until you are able to go deeper.
Amino Acid Therapy: GABA
GABA stands for gamma-aminobutyric acid and is one of the brain's most important inhibitory neurotransmitters. It supports communication between brain cells (neurons) and ultimately slows down the rapid interactions that can occur. When it is at healthy levels in your body and brain you feel calm, cool, and collected. Often times a downstream effect of the foundational imbalances I listed above is neurotransmitter deficiency. GABA is commonly low in sensitive artists, especially when your schedule demands constant production and performance. Always being “on” can quickly deplete the body’s natural GABA reserves if your body’s foundations are already rocky.
The good news is that GABA can be taken as a supplement. The body absorbs and utilizes it very quickly, so you’ll feel the calming impact within 15 to 45 minutes of consumption, especially if taking your correct dose in the form and manner that suits your body.
Neurotransmitter Lab Testing for Anxiety
If you have time to test your neurotransmitter levels, I highly recommend it. This allows us to confirm exactly what you need. At times, excess GABA can also create the same symptoms as deficient GABA or another neurotransmitter imbalance could be at play. Testing cuts right to the problem and makes it very clear what will work and will not work without much experimentation. You can book a single session plus labs with me and order the Brain/Mood or Brain/Mood + Stress panel right HERE.
Dosing
If you need support ASAP and a 2-3 week turnaround time for testing is not an option or you want to combine your options and try GABA while you wait for test results, in case you can get some relief right away, then do it!
Here’s how to dose, if you’re trying it on your own. Please remember this is general advice as I do not know your starting state or full symptom presentation, but it may be enough to get you rolling. There is a lot of nuance in dosing, so I share this as an overarching guide.
Start low and slow. GABA comes in a couple forms. Begin with pure GABA capsules to keep it simple. I recommend no more than 100 mg per capsule, less if you can find it. Look at the fillers, avoid supplements with a long list of additional ingredients, like dextrose and rice flour. I do not recommend getting mutli’s or blends. Save that for later once you know how you respond to GABA on its own. Quality and effectiveness is everything when it comes to supplementation. I’ve included a few starter brands below for you to try.
Take away from food or other supplements so you can clearly observe how you feel. I recommend opening the capsule and pouring ½ on your tongue. Observe how you feel after 15-45 minutes. Set an alarm clock or ask a friend or partner to give you feedback on how you are acting 1 hour later. If they observe you smiling more, laughing or just seeming generally lighter, you know you’re on the right track! If you feel nothing, then the next day try it again, pouring 1 full capsule on the tongue. Continue increasing in this manner, but you only need to pour the first capsule on your tongue. You’re sending a message to your brain that the nutrient is available so that it responds quicker. If you cannot stand the taste, I added chewable options below for you to try as well.
If you feel more irritable within 15-60 minutes, then you know GABA is not the right fit and I would highly recommend testing your neurotransmitters.
Please note: if you’re on medication, consult with your prescribing physician before adding any additional mood balancers.
Once you find your right dosage, you can take regularly until you resolve your foundational imbalances or you fill up your GABA deficiency tank. You may find that after some time you need less support to feel good. This means that you gave your body what it needed to resolve the underlying imbalances, even if that was just the space of having a calm nervous system from taking GABA to bring everything back into working order, and it is now producing enough GABA on its own. Eventually, you will not need it and can keep it in the house for highly stressful seasons when you need extra care.
A peaceful grounded morning is possible for you. Give your mind and body the extra support and space they need with amino acid therapy.
Recommended Starting Supplements
Reminder: Please run everything medical by your preferred licensed provider before proceeding.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for the Sensitive & Chronically Ill Artist
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
The healing nap. HBOT is one of the top, if not the most, potent and deeply regenerative modalities available to humans at this point in time. A painless and technically simple experience, its mechanism is to reset the body at the cellular level allowing imbalances such as brain inflammation, toxicity, chronic illnesses, and autoimmunity to dynamically improve, if not resolve.
My Personal Experience
My own health journey has been life-long, but the last 3 years have seen the most profound recovery and change. I owe a good portion of my upgraded health to HBOT.
I believe we all have one symptom that has our greatest attention. It’s usually something that activates our insecurities or fears and is what tends to keep us seeking and pursuing support and healing. I call this your north star. For me, my north star was my hormonal health until 2018 when a small spot began to develop under my left eye. Over the next 7 years this spot slowly grew and then eventually progressed so much that it became a point of great concern. By 2022, I had tried numerous topical solutions, considered all the emotional elements, started dramatically clearing mold toxicity, worked with a holistic dermatologist, spoke to natural skin experts, and even went to an angel healer. Nothing seemed to stop the growth and no one seemed to be able to identify it. The theories were all over the place, but I started really connecting it to mold exposure and emotional pain. I had heard of HBOT, but it didn’t become a solution in my mind until my dermatologist mentioned it as a possible support. The more I looked into it, the more I knew my entire body needed this therapy. I have now completed 3 rounds, all different, and have seen dramatic shifts from each.
I love using my body to experiment and research healing modalities before recommending them. I’ve been directing clients to HBOT since 2023, offering my recommendations to get the best results and, more importantly, to reduce Herxheimer reactions in sensitive bodies like mine that are navigating multiple layers of chronic illness. HBOT can transform you, but if not done with awareness it can also create flares that prevent you from continuing its use. This is my magic – guiding sensitive, weary, overburdened bodies through potent healing tools, so they can see deep change without suffering further!
The Science
HBOT has been around since the 1660s, but became more well-known as a recovery treatment in the 1950’s. It has numerous clinical trials and papers to back up its effectiveness and is considered soundly safety.
Let’s talk about how it works. Simply put, you climb into a spacious container that feels like a submarine and rest for 60-120 minutes while breathing pure oxygen. The atmospheric pressure is slowly increased while you’re in the chamber to improve your ability to absorb and carry the oxygen throughout your body. The beginning and ending of the session feels like flight take-off and landing, where you may have the desire to pop your ears and yawn. Oxygen is what the body uses to activate, heal and regenerate. You normally intake around 20-21% oxygen from your daily inhales and exhales, so this therapy empowers your body with the juice to hyper-speed healing processes. When used correctly, this can save you time, money and years of pain!
The Body Impact
HBOT is a systemic therapy, meaning that it doesn’t focus on one area, it has an overall effect. Oxygen is a key component to every cellular function, in every organ throughout your body. By maximizing its presence at the cellular level, we are touching everything.
Your body is brilliant and has a to do list of all the work it needs to address, manage, and also delay, to keep you alive. By giving it a tool like HBOT you are offering it the chance to check some very vital items off its list. The downstream effect is that anything that was backburnered now comes forward and you can start to heal at levels you would not have reached for many years without HBOT.
An important reminder, if your to do list is short then you will see amazing results very quickly. If your to do list is long, you will see recovery in the areas your body prioritizes (which may not be your desired areas, but remember the body knows best) and if you continue you’ll see the relief of the rest of the list over a longer period of time, but again still at a much faster and more efficient rate than without HBOT.
I personally experienced:
massive positive shifts in my gut microbiome
greatly improved brain clarity and recall
increased stability in my nervous system
a more resilient immune system
activation of my ovaries & improvement of my menstrual cycle
elevated hormone production & libido
clearance of mycotoxins
weight loss back to my authentic levels
reduced swelling
strong increase in energy
The Emotional Impact
This was an unexpected result. The first time I did HBOT, I noticed a welling in my chest and eventually I found myself crying in my sessions. By my second round, I was expecting the emotional release and opened up to it even more. I observed a sense of freedom and deep grief identification, not only during the session but afterward and between sessions. It was never overwhelming. It was freeing. By my third round I was leaving my sessions full of energy and joy!
I connect this to the Traditional Chinese Medicine understanding of organ function and Dr. Emoto’s theory of emotional impact and storage in water. The lungs absorb potent pure oxygen, which will activate the lung tissue and cells and ignite a release of any stored emotion. Water holds emotion and the lungs are made up of water-rich cells and water-composed interstitial space. The lungs are connected to the emotion of grief in TCM, so when we infuse the lungs with oxygen under pressure, it’s no surprise that with the activation comes the release of water from these cells and tissues, carrying with it the emotion of grief. Additional emotions may be released as other organs, such as your brain, where trauma lives in your amygdala, are also infused with healing oxygen. I believe it’s very important that you are prepared for this possibility and enter the HBOT round with a team to turn to if you need emotional support or nervous system regulation.
After doing multiple rounds and clearing many layers of stored grief and providing space for my body to rebound, I began experiencing a pulse of energy through my body. This energy uplifted my spirit and gave a lightness and joy that I had not felt in many years. I believe this is a strong part of why HBOT gives full body resets, because it addresses both biological and emotional build-up.
HBOT for Everyone
I am obviously a strong proponent for this modality and in my dream world everyone has a chamber in their home. That being said, it is currently a more exclusive investment, but I see it as beyond worth it in the long-term. If you have the means or the insurance coverage, do it. I am not a licensed doctor, so these are simply my recommendations based on clinical research, personal and client experiences, and intuitive pattern recognition. Confirm with your preferred doctor as needed.
Here are symptoms or body states for which I would highly recommend HBOT:
Mold, Lead, Asbestos, Glyphosate & Other Pesticide Toxicity
Radiation Sensitivity & Recovery
Chronic Viruses
Lyme & Co-Infections
Mast Cell Activation
Cancer, especially skin
Autoimmune Activity
Allergies
Stubborn Dysbiosis – multiple pathogens in the gut
Brain Fog
Lack of Focus
Memory Struggles
Mood Imbalances
Poor Circulation
Slow Healing
Surgery Recovery
Skin Regeneration
Hormonal Imbalances
PMDD
Infertility
Pre-Mature Aging
PTSD
How to Incorporate for a Sensitive or Chronically Ill Body
It’s important to understand the state of your body before jumping into a chamber. This is why I do not have my clients start with this therapy till I have them in a certain place of stability. This looks different for everyone, but you should feel very prepared and supported to handle whatever response your body, mind or heart has to HBOT.
Begin slowly. I do not recommend the standard protocol you’ll hear from most experts around HBOT. Frequent and longer is not necessarily better when you are dealing with a sensitive body and many layers of imbalance. I often start my clients off on 1x a week for 60 minutes max and we observe how their body processes it over the next 7 days. At times, we slow down even further if their body is clearing rapidly.
I always include specific supplements to support the increased antioxidant need and according to their lab work, astrological chart, and lifestyle we step in with heavy weights, like glandulars or hormone therapy, where needed. Again, I cannot say this enough. My approach is so individual.
Once your body is thriving, gently increasing the frequency up to 5x a week and the length to 1.5-2 hours a session is possible. It may not happen right away though.
Most rounds are 10-30 HBOT sessions and depending on your starting point you can expect to see profound results after 1-3 rounds.
There are ways to enhance and play with the results by pairing HBOT with other modalities like light and heat therapy. I’ll share more about what I’ve done personally as an example below.
Starting HBOT
Choose your HBOT Style
You can enjoy HBOT a few different ways. It is available in medical facilities, bio-hacking optimizing centers, as a home-delivered rental or a permanent home-installed unit. I recommend trying out at least one session at a highly-trained facility prior to renting or purchasing a unit.
If you are like me and can feel a little claustrophobic I highly recommend starting out by going to a facility with well-trained technicians that can guide you through it with care. Choose a chamber that feels spacious and open, not a tight capsule. You should feel calm and safe and be able to see out and communicate easily with your technician.
The chamber itself can be either soft or hard. The hard chambers are able to rise to a higher atmospheric pressure (meaning more oxygen into your cells per minute), so they are typically the go-to for chronic illness and deeper recovery. Soft chambers tend to be used for gentler imbalances and recovery, anti-aging, and health optimization. Both are effective, it just comes down to how intensely and quickly you want to recover, your schedule/location flexibility and your budget.
For potential coverage, speak to your insurance company and see what recommendation you will need from your doctor. A smaller round of HBOT is often covered following any kind of surgery.
My Favorite HBOT Resources
HBOT Facility (Los Angeles): Oxynergy2
HBOT Center (San Diego): Rejuv
HBOT Rental: OxyHealth
HBOT Home Unit: OneBase
Stacking HBOT With Other Therapies
I love HBOT on its own, but you’ll see even greater results when you pair it with heat therapy, light therapy, and specific antioxidants and binders to match what you’re addressing in your body.
Herxheimer Reactions
The best way to prevent a healing reaction is to know and respect your body’s limits and to be able to interpret what it’s asking for at each point of the HBOT round.
If you experience extreme exhaustion, hives/rashes, skin eruptions, swelling, brain fog, migraines, sleep disturbances, anxiety, GI or menstrual pain, please slow down or pause completely. This is a sign your body is not properly supported or your detox pathways are not open. HBOT can work for you, but you will need to be fully resourced in order to stabilize and make space for the level of clearance that your body is attempting.
If you have fear around this, I understand. I’ve been there and have avoided many therapies in the past because of my fear of feeling worse. Come see me and we’ll walk you through it safely. My Concierge Reset is structured to navigate these exact situations for you. You never have to walk this alone. Please get the support you need. HBOT will change your body and give you a surge of hope alongside it.
Reminder: Please run everything medical by your preferred licensed provider before proceeding.
My Take on PCOS
Understanding the Label of PCOS
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is a very common label for Artists and Sensitives. It was actually my first and started my healing journey in my late teens. It’s often given when your body expresses abnormal behavior like irregular or paused menstrual cycles, extra hair on the face, nipples and arms, elevated insulin, acne, sleep issues, and stubborn weight gain around the abdomen. What you may also be experiencing is an increased sensitivity to the sun, accelerated aging of the skin, susceptibility to toxins like mold, brain fog, memory loss or struggle with recall, low energy, anxiety, and depression. There’s ALOT going on here that is rarely discussed or identified.
I am not a medical doctor, so diagnoses is not in my wheelhouse, but I can speak to the body’s expression and how we can resolve the symptoms that lead a medical practitioner to qualify you for this box.
Many of these symptoms can range from mild to intense. What’s notable is that you’re good at managing them. You limit your eating (especially carbs), put your body through intense workouts, see estheticians regularly, and if the doctor insists, take medication. What you may not know is that while these attempts may lessen and even fully hide your “flaws” they are not resolving the foundational need causing the body to send these messages in the first place. Your job most likely requires you to look flawless and to have boundless energy. Therefore you have to figure something out. I get it. I really do, but if you want to resolve these messages we have to dig deeper and not just manage.
The Common Cause
The cause of your PCOS label is most likely low hormone production, as a downstream effect of a blood sugar imbalance, caused by elevated cortisol, due to profound emotional trauma experienced as a child.
Wow, right? Now, I know you’re already in therapy or at least consider yourself self-aware… BUT if the symptoms are still manifesting in the body it means your body is still swimming in a pool of fear. Your cells do not feel safe. Just taking blood sugar medication like metformin or focusing on your diet is not going to resolve this. Your hormones are not going to regenerate and produce at healthy levels until your body feels safe. Hormone production is run by your brain (hypothalmus and pituitary) and it considers reproduction the caboose of your primal train. Your body will continue to put all its energy toward keeping you alive and safe over resolving many of your symptoms.
The Mêrfleur Wellness Approach
I feel we need to speak to the body at every level. We must start by supporting your body’s capacity to move through trauma by balancing your neurotransmitters and your stress management organs (think the hypothalamus/pituitary and adrenals). When your stress capacity expands you can utilize powerful tools like EMDR to release the trauma from your stored memory and body. I highly recommend my dear friend and colleague Janelle Nelson. I also love using vibration remedies like flower essences to ease the grief and other emotions that may come up during these therapies. It softens the whole experience!
Next, we rebuild your metabolism through evaluating and rebuilding the pulse of your thyroid gland, so the body is not on a roller coaster of energy every day. Your insulin receptors and glucose levels will begin to tune into this shift and make alterations as well, improving your blood sugar. Any remaining needs can be refined through slight nourishment adjustments to match your authentic nutrient needs.
Once your stress capacity expands, your trauma is disintegrating, your metabolism is firing and your energy is balanced, you may experience a reduction of some of the other symptoms I mentioned above. That brain fog can start to fade, your skin can begin to glow, overall inflammation can drop, and your weight authentically balances, even though all you’re doing is walking or yoga.
It’s at this stage that we can take a look at remaining or lingering messages. We evaluate toxin exposure and address any buildup of metals, mycotoxins or pathogens that have gathered while you were stuck in low capacity. It’s very normal for the drawbridge of your castle entrance to be lowered and the gate unlocked when your body is focused primarily on staying alive. It doesn’t have time to deal with outside issue it’s just trying to feed your brain and keep your heart pumping. It’s in these seasons of life (or perhaps your whole childhood and young adulthood) that you become susceptible to taking on toxins and microorganisms.
I use advanced lab testing to identify your current state. Once we’ve identified your unique situation we make a plan to clear and reset. Guessing at this level (or really any level) is not helpful. You’d be surprised how common it is. Some classics include starting a parasite cleanse or assuming it’s candida (fungal) or mycotoxins (mold toxins) without actually testing the body… if you do any form of eradication it must be guided by what’s truly present in your body. Please know that eradication of any kind can be harmful if it’s done unnecessarily or approached too generally.
After we’ve cleared and reset your body on all these levels, we sit back and wait, watching your menstrual cycle for 3 months. Why? We are giving your body a chance to show us what it can do with all the space and suport we just gave it! Another improtant tip - the body is brilliant. Often times it’s only stuck becuase its to-do list is too long and it’s overhwhelemed. When we check some of those items off the list, suddenly the body can speed up healing tremendously. All your efforts and investments compound over time, my friend.
If your body does not show promising signs of rebuilding itself, we bring in temporary hormonal support. We’ll do this until your body can ramp up production of its own healthy amounts of progesterones and estrogens alongside its (most often) healthy levels of testosterone. As a note: I rarely see elevated testosterone. This is very common for the typical PCOS presentation, but as you are not the standard, you may find that the imbalance of hormones actually originates from low levels of progesterones and estrogens. This can cause a false dominant presence of androgens (testosterone) in the body. It’s only ruling the scene and creating symptoms like excess hair because the counterbalancing hormones (progesterones and estrogens) are not robust enough to create equilibrium in the body.
Accuracy & Personalization are Key
All decisions at Mêrfleur are guided by your advanced lab testing, your personal health story, your astrological health map and syndromes and my intuition. There is no guessing and there is no unnecessary pushing or prodding. The goal, whether it’s PCOS or another label, is to get you back to your authentic state. We reset your default.
There’s Always Hope
I hope this has been encouraging and helpful! PCOS does not have to be your reality. You do not have to manage this forever. There are solutions. As a Natural Sensitive, even if you feel you’ve tried everything, I highly recommend you look at it from the perspective I gave above, it may shift your approach and give you the results you’ve been seeking.
Your childhood was intense and there may still yet be another level of unlocking to be found. Give your body the support it needs to go there and let’s see what you find. Here to guide, encourage and hold your hand if needed. Sending love, always.