Anita Sandoval's OMST Journey: A 12-Day Exploration of Mental Well-Being

Welcome to my OMST Journey,' a 12-day mini docu series where we delve into the fascinating world of Optometric Multi-Sensory Training (OMST). As a licensed professional counselor with EMDR certification and a background in neurobiology, I'm excited to share my personal experiences with this unique therapy and its potential impact on mental health. About the Series: Join me on this immersive exploration as we focus on various aspects of mental well-being, including: Focus Retention: Discover how OMST influences concentration and attention. Memory Retention and Recall: Explore the effects on memory functions and recall. Restlessness: Addressing feelings of restlessness and finding a sense of calm. Sleep, Dreams, and Nightmares: Uncover the connection between OMST and sleep patterns, dreams, and nightmares. Dissociation Level: Investigating how OMST may influence dissociation experiences. Muscle Tension and Release: Exploring the impact on physical tension and relaxation. Cravings and Urges with Sugar: Discussing the role of OMST in managing cravings and urges, particularly with sugar. Intrusive Distorted Thoughts: How OMST may contribute to managing intrusive and distorted thoughts. Engage with the Journey: This series is more than just a documentation of my experiences – it's an invitation for you to engage and share your thoughts. Feel free to leave comments, questions, and your own insights as we navigate through this 12-day journey together. Subscribe for Daily Updates: Make sure to subscribe to the channel for daily updates. Each video in the playlist will be a chapter of this exciting exploration into OMST and its potential benefits for mental well-being. Are you ready to embark on this journey? Let's dive in!

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Transcript

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Hello, everyone. I'm Anita Sandoval, a licensed professional counselor with an EMDR certification and an expertise in neurobiology. And I am beyond thrilled to share this journey with you that I'm about to embark in on a 12 day journey exploring OMST. As a licensed professional counselor with a focus on EMDR and neurobiology, I've always been fascinated in the potential connections between sensory experiences and mental health. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. This is where I work with eye movement, bilateral stimulations of different tones and tactiles to help process trauma, disturbing memories from the brain, from the right side of the brain, where trauma is stored and isolated so that using the different sensories, then they can be processed to the left side of the brain. And therefore it could make. sense, provide meaning, and it would then be released from the autonomic nervous system. So therefore the memory becomes just that. a memory. So this is where my fascination with a neuro optometrist here in the valley, I was able to consult, interview, and excited on this OMST journey that has a potential overlap for the mental health aspect. of this journey, which is why, for me, I'm always thinking of my patients. And seeing how can they be more resilient to help process the day to day challenges and increase their resilience and window of tolerance. Before I recommend anything with my patients, I always like to try things. Myself, which is why I decided to start this mini docu series, as I call it here for my own knowledge, for my own experiences, which then I will share with you between the overlap of OMST. and EMDR within the mental health. I can't contain my excitement. I'm just so excited. As I delve into this unique therapy to share my experiences with all of you, we're going to explore the impact of OMST on various aspects of mental well being from focus retention recall and everything in between. Before we dive in, I do want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Dr. Barajas for having me be a part of this journey and including me with the OMST and sharing his time to be able to Help me implement these experiences just for you all to each and every one of you joining me on this journey, your support means the world to me, I'm sincerely grateful for the opportunity to share this experience with such an incredible community. So over the next 12 days, I will be documenting my daily experiences with OMST, discussing its potential effects on focus, memory, sleep, and more. It's a little bit like an open diary and I'm inviting you to witness the ups, the downs, and everything in between. The process of OMST is before you get a full evaluation to see where you are at and then we get ready for the OMST each day, you get on for one hour, 30 minutes, you get down for a little break, you get back on for 30 minutes. The room will be dark. This is just to help bring in the different sensories, touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, and calibrate those senses. The focus with the OMST is grounded in the principles of the bottom up approach, inspired for me in the neurobiology with Dr. Bruce Perry, the neuro sequential model in regulating the nervous system right here in the brainstem. OMST employs visual, auditory tones, and bed movement to stimulate sensory input in a therapeutic manner. So the integration of these modalities in OMST aligns with the bottom up approach targeting the foundational regulation of the nervous system. So by incorporating visual and auditory stimuli alongside with the subtle movement of the bed, the therapy aims to create a harmonious multi sensory experience. This holistic approach is designed to promote neural regulation, fostering a sense of safety and security within the individual. Drawing on the principles of EMDR and neurobiology. What does this all mean? Patients who have struggled with the autonomic nervous system of fight, flight, freeze, people, please, and appease, where they feel that sense of danger, they don't feel safe. The nervous system then brings in those chemicals to the body. The body starts reacting with the dopamine and adrenaline and the muscle tension and the tightness and the headaches. The OMST helps regulate those senses within the body to make sure it feels safe. The regulation of the nervous system in the mental health aspect of the autonomic nervous system. which includes the fight, flight, freeze, people pleasing a piece, and it's physiological components. So therefore, my goal for OMST is to find out and seek if it will improve or enhance focus retention, memory recall, alleviate restlessness, improve sleep quality, reduce muscle tension, and dissociation. These are the common symptoms for When your nervous system is dysregulated in the autonomic nervous system, the fight flight, freeze people, please in a piece. Now, something I wanted to add, but I'm not so sure if it will work or not, but that's why we're just doing this as a journey. In EMDR, whenever there's processing of memories, disturbing trauma, sensations, within EMDR, there might be some insights, connections, dreams, nightmares, because on the right side of the brain, there's no time. There's no concept. They're just symbols. And therefore memories mean something. And that's where the trauma and the memory and anything that is disturbing within triggers is stored. So I want to know, I wonder if I'll get dreams. I wonder if I'll get nightmares whenever we do have them. It's because there is a stored memory there like a filing system. It opens up the filing system, gets out the folder and go, Hmm. There is this memory here. Where do we file this? So when you have dreams, it's like you open the filing system and now it's storing it in a different place. In a place where it maybe was supposed to be stored and then it can be released from the nervous system and it just won't be attached there anymore. So therefore it just becomes a memory with no bodily sensations attached to it anymore because once it's stored on the left side of the brain, It won't really attach to the nervous system. You won't get the same symptoms as if it were, let's call it flashbacks. Because right side doesn't know the difference between past, present and future. It just knows you get the trigger and it attaches it within the body sensations. I've also included in there a structured approach in managing cravings and urges, particularly related to sugar consumption because that's my vice. I'm addicted to sugar. Okay, everybody already knows. I'm sharing with you all. Sugar is my thing it helps me whenever I feel a certain way just gives me those good Dopamine rush with the sugar that it gives you and I do know the sugar with it within its own chemical Physiological components, but I want to know how it is attached also with the emotional part So I just wanted to track to see hey Will it matter when it comes to my cravings and urges whenever it's attached to a certain mood such as sadness Like in the movies, whenever there's a heartbreak, they turn to chocolate, they turn to ice cream. And so these are information processing symptoms that we're programmed thinking whenever we feel a certain way, we need to go get the food to feel better. So I'm trying to see maybe using this journey. 12 days of OMST, we can detach from that emotional component where I do not need to go and seek the ice cream or the cookies or the chocolate whenever I'm feeling sad, but rather know that I'm capable enough and strong enough, resilient enough to process those emotions without any conditional or food sugars to help fill in that gap. My main goal is to facilitate positive changes in the mental health Aspect by addressing these various aspects of sensory processing and regulating within the nervous system. This is going to be real time observations. Today is day one. I will begin later in the evening after work schedule is done. And I do want to assure you that this series will provide real time observations, day one, day two, day three, reflections on my mental health throughout the OMSD process., I will focus on my muscle aches, on any pain medication, headaches. I will track my sleep with the Apple watch. How my eating habits with cravings and emotions are correlated. Am I eating because I'm hungry or I'm eating because I just feel sad or I feel stressed? Comfort eating. And maybe to see if my mind was wandering. If I was dissociating, if my mind was in a fog, if I felt disconnected from my body, if I was on automatic, dissociation is one of the survival skills we're born with. It's common to have dissociation. What's not common if it's done in longer periods of time. I'm a type of person that might get distracted a lot I think of a lot of things and so I want to see if this will help me focus more on retaining the The focus on whatever i'm working on there were some reservations about this process and I want to be transparent with you all First and foremost, the efficacy of the OMST. Some concerns, of course, with the efficacy, addressing the specified mental health aspects. Every individual is different. So Thank you. I don't know how effective it will be, which is why I've decided to do this and share with you. Now, personal comfort with the process. This is a lot for a person to go, Oh my gosh, what senses, how is it going to feel? How using all the senses, touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, what part of it will be uncomfortable? What part of it will be comfortable? And if it is uncomfortable, what am I going to do? So yes, there was some apprehension about adapting this OMST process and because it is new and unfamiliar sensory experiences, but know that if anything goes very uncomfortable, I do have a mental health therapist that is more than willing to help me. Regulate my nervous system. If anything does go wrong. So impact on my daily routine. That was the other one because it is 12 days. Yes, that's going to take on my schedule and I had to rearrange my schedule rearrange my patients. I had to get in touch with my My family for family support to make sure everything's covered. Even though it's just one hour, it's a lot knowing that every single day I'm going to put my body through those different sensory experiences. So that is something that I am mentally preparing for as well. This is a commitment for that 12 day routine. I will be documenting any challenges that I foresee or that may be happening during these 12 days. The challenges. Documenting my experiences, my emotions, and any changes that I might observe. Um, I'm not aware of any potential side effects, awareness of my side effects of maybe the temporary discomfort with OMSD, especially in the context of mental health symptoms. Maybe something will come up that I'm not aware of that I'm maybe I'm suppressing. There's a reason why it's called suppressing. Is there something in my subconscious mind that I'm not aware of? If anything like that happens, I do have a mental. Uh, health professional on call to make sure that I'm able to process that immediately. I do also recommend that to any and all of my patients as well. Think of this as a supplement. I'm trying to be. As transparent as I can with you all, you all, those that do know me and my profession know that I am author of a book called Broken Chains, how I went from victim to survivor, from a third generation of abuse and neglect, and this is also my journey to heal forward forward. from generational trauma into generational growth. So knowing that I come from a childhood or project of abuse and neglect, I want to see what else is stored in there that I may not know of so that I can heal from. I will also include an interview with the doctor who will be helping me in this process with OMST therapy. So Therefore, I can be able to answer any questions that you may have. Know that this series is an educational resource for viewers who are interested in OMST. It's a supplement incongruent with therapy, with mental health therapy. It's an intersection between the OMST and mental health. I do encourage you all. To just share your thoughts, share your comments, share your questions. I will get to them and answer the best that I can. If you have been a part of this journey, I would love to hear from you. I do want to offer a disclaimer. I do want to clearly state that this journey and experience is unique to me and any individual. Who will, and is interested in OMST, all those experiences may vary. I'm just sharing. So you all could know from the inside how it is, and you never know, you might get a better effect than me or not. This is why we begin this journey. And I do advise. So I would probably recommend that you interview any person that is viewing this to consult with their healthcare professional and explore similar therapies or seek mental health therapy, because this is not for mental health therapy, but this is a supplement to help regulate your nervous system so that by the time you seek mental health therapy, you would have relieved some of that stress and be able to Just take in that information. And I do encourage you to leave your thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments. Let's make this space for a dialogue and shared insights positive. So whether you're familiar with OMST or not, it's entirely. new to you, I hope this series sparks curiosity and perhaps even some inspiration. So buckle up because this is going to be an exciting journey and I'm honored to have you all along for this ride. Thank you for being a part of this community and let's explore the world of OMST and mental health together. Day one starts now.