Blog
How Oxytocin Antagonizes Cortisol and 3 Ways to Use It!
Have you ever noticed how a warm hug from a trusted friend instantly lowers your shoulders, or how speaking kindly to yourself after a mistake calms your breathing?
That shift isn't just in your head—it's a real biological transition happening across your nervous system.
At Coriander Living Collective, we often look at wellness through an integrative lens, connecting emotional health with neurobiology. Today, we're diving into the relationship between two powerful chemical messengers: cortisol and oxytocin.
Bibliotherapy: The Power of Brainspotting: An International Anthology Editor Gerhard Wolfrum
This anthology was required reading for my Brainspotting Consultant-in-Training Program. It is not a casual read, it is clinical and dense with information. Each chapter is written by a different Brainspotting expert.
Bibliotherapy: The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50
Midlife isn't a dead end—it's a passage. When you see it for what it really is, the pressure eases tremendously.
If you’re in your 30s or 40s and wondering why life feels heavier than it should, or if you’re staring down 50 with a sense of dread, The Happiness Curve is an essential read. It flips our fear of aging on its head and offers a reassuring truth: your best years may very well be ahead of you.
Rumination vs. Worry: Understanding the Difference and How to Settle Your Mind
Have you ever found yourself trapped in a loop of anxious thoughts late at night, wondering why your mind just won’t give you a break? While it’s easy to group all our anxious moments under the broad umbrella of “stress,” our brains actually process different types of distress in distinct ways.
Meeting Your Nervous System: Which of the 7 Faces of Anxiety Are You Wearing?
In his groundbreaking book The Chemistry of Calm, holistic psychiatrist Dr. Henry Emmons explores this beautifully by introducing The Seven Faces of Anxiety. He breaks down how anxiety flows through our biology, categorizing it not just by how we think, but how our body and brain react.
By understanding how your specific anxiety shows up, you can stop fighting your body and start working with it to restore resilience. Let’s unmask these seven faces and explore how to guide your nervous system back home.
Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice by Jennifer Mullan, PsyD
In her book, Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice Jennifer Mullan states that we must hold white supremacy accountable, she discusses how white supremacy disconnects us from our humanity. Race is a social construct that was first named in 1795. Racism is race prejudice plus power over another. White supremacy is the result of colonization.
BIBLIOTHERAPY: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
I originally read this book in 2020 as part of a year-long book study group. It was a pivotal time in history and catapulted my personal evolution in the realm of white supremacy culture, race relations in America, and somatics.
BIBLIOTHERAPY: Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds by Kelly A. Turner, Ph.D
Dr. Turner’s Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds is her labor of love. She researched cancer case anomalies from around the globe and compiled a database of radical remission stories that she shares in this book. She hopes it motivates and empowers cancer patients to make lifestyle changes and navigate their cancer healing.Reach out for a free consultation!
BIBLIOTHERAPY: The Sensitive Patient’s Healing Guide by Neil Nathan, MD
The Sensitive Patient’s Healing Guide by Neil Nathan, MD review.
Coriander Living Collective LLC recognizes that we are whole person systems and that one factor influences all the other parts and whole system. We believe our nervous systems are in our service of survival and strive for integration and health. Our bodies are miraculous and we are bombarded with daily threats to our wellbeing. Psychotherapy and BRAINSPOTTING can be important treatments to support recovery from sensitivity and chronic health struggles. We are familiar with these conditions and would be honored to join you on your recovery path. Reach out for a free consultation!
Bibliotherapy: Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
Pleasure is a life-enriching, natural, safe, and a liberated part of life. Our bodies are miracles, magic, and should be celebrated. This book explores many of the ways in which we have been socialized and marginalized, and how accessing and practicing pleasure is a road to liberation and freedom.
Bibliotherapy: The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way is a classic. It is designed as a 12-week course and guide of explorations to connect with your creative self. Cameron states that creativity is life energy, infuses all of life, is a gift from and to God, and that we are creations.
BIBLIOTHERAPY: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
Social Psychologist, Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness gives strong support for a global cultural shift that happened for kids born after 1996, where free-play-based childhoods were replaced by phone-based childhoods and along with it the rates of mental health symptoms spiked. “Overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world” lead to an anxious generation.
Bibliotherapy: Magnificent Sex by Kleinplatz & Ménard
Peggy J. Kleinplatz, Ph.D. and A. Dana Ménard, Ph.D. in their book, Magnificent Sex: Lessons from Extraordinary Lovers share research and insights gathered from conducting interviews with extraordinary lovers. They realized there was much research on sexual dissatisfaction and dysfunction, but little evidence on magnificent sex. Here is what they learned from their Optimal Sexual Experiences Research:
Magnificent sex, “it can be life altering.”
Bibliotherapy: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, PhD
I would highly recommend this book whether you’re an A+ sleeper, a parent, or struggle with sleep. Coriander Living Collective is here to support you in creating a life well lived, and sleeping well is a pillar of that! Reach out for a free consultation!
Bibliotherapy: The Chemistry of Calm by Henry Emmons, M.D.
“The Chemistry of Calm is intended as a guide to reclaiming your resilience, to moving from a state of stress, anxiety or fear to a place of calm, balance, and equanimity.” Dr. Emmons covers in his book his resiliency approach to health and calm. He’s an integrative psychiatrist that practices out of Minnesota.
As one of its core values, Coriander Living Collective believes in expansion and personal growth. Bibliotherapy is a great way to do that and so we share what we’re reading to support your healing journey. Enjoy!
BIBLIOTHERAPY: Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine: The Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, and Life Itself by Lee Know, ND
Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine: The Key to Understanding Disease, Chronic Illness, and Life Itself is a comprehensive review of cellular biology and scientific evidence and yet he strives to make the complex content accessible.
BIBLIOTHERAPY: Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism by Stanley Rosenberg
Stanley Rosenberg is an expert cranial sacral and Rolfing bodyworker with over 30 years of experience. He wrote, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism as a practical guide to understanding cranial nerve function for psychological and physical well-being, building on Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory.
Bibliotherapy: This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol by Annie Grace
Bibliotherapy: This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol by Annie Grace
In her book, This Naked Mind, Annie Graces aims to bring your unconscious programming around alcohol use into light, educate you on the dangers of alcohol, and eliminate your desire to drink.
Coriander Living Collective does not specialize in addiction treatment or recovery, yet substance abuse and use are dynamic and complex, psychotherapy and counseling could benefit your recovery. We would be happy to offer you a free consultation and resource connect. Just reach out!
Bibliotherapy: How to Change Your Body: The Science of Interoception & Healing Through Connection to Yourself & Others by Saga Briggs
Most of us are aware of our five senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, hearing), but we also have proprioceptive (spatial), vestibular (movement), and interoceptive senses. Interoception is our awareness of our inner body sensations, our ability to monitor what we are sensing ie. hunger, pain, joy, etc. Saga Briggs in her book, How To Change Your Body, makes the argument that many mental health disorders are related to a dysregulated sense of interoception, impaired body awareness, low body trust, disconnection from bodily signals, and are interpersonal in nature.
Bibliotherapy: breath is life by Laurie Ellis-Young
I heard about this book from one of the trainers in my Adler Graduate School, Working with Law Enforcement Course. I loved it! ♥️ I think most of us have a general sense that breathing is good for us! 😁 Ahha! As long as we are breathing, we are still living! I consciously use my breath as a tool in psychotherapy sessions to help clients regulate their breathing and nervous systems. Breath is one of our greatest tools to help manage our nervous systems and lives. I can tell that I will come back to this book over and over. It is rich with information and practical tools for a better life.