Category Archives: Inspirations

Here we are, in the time of family visits, gifting and caroling, decorating and lights. It’s a fun, busy, chaotic time of year! So I wanted to check in with you all: How are you doing? There seem to be so many reasons for joy and celebration, yet many are not finding that reality at all. Some people are remembering past losses and tragedies that occurred at this time of year, some are stressed out and overwhelmed. Not everyone is having a good time. Some of us are just holding our breath until it’s over! What about you?

Let me share a little about what I’m doing at this time of the year. This time is what I refer to in our family as “high season”. Starting with Halloween and the costumes, we follow that by an anniversary, hubby’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, then all four kid’s birthdays in the 30 days after Christmas. Whew! I try hard to be organized and order, shop and plan in advance, but it’s a hustle and I can’t say I always do it gracefully. This year, I’m also finishing my integrative nutrition school program, and there are a lot of shifts happening at work, much of which I am involved in because I now lead my group. This doesn’t include the ADLs (Activities of Daily Living – kids, church, work, cleaning, cooking, etc). Did I mention we also have family in town and I only took two days off work? Honestly, some days I just want to hide. In a hut. Far, far away.

So here are some of the things I’ve been doing this week:

Kids’ cleaning jobs, meaning MY cleaning jobs. They’re learning…

Crafty gifts for coworkers

Coats for Christmas coat drive – big ol’ mess in my hall…

So what do we do? Here’s my problem: I can’t seem to figure out what to eliminate. I know that there are 24 hours in a day, and if I load them up with too much, I will be strung out like a violin string. They snap, you know. That’s not the goal here, right? But I have all these great ideas and projects and responsibilities and I often can’t figure out what to eliminate to make my schedule more sane. Gotta go to work, have to do school to graduate, kids need to be fed and watered, the Christmas and birthday gifts won’t buy themselves you know. Besides, I bought all the supplies for that cute gifting project, I need to exercise so I don’t blow up with the holiday eating (don’t I?), and I have these pesky ethical considerations about the food for Christmas dinner, so…

It’s madness, really. I make it hard on myself. So when I found myself praying in a puddle on my closet floor this week, I knew my balance was completely off. There are lots of things that are required, but sometimes, some things are optional, even if they don’t feel like it. I had to make some quick changes and give up some stuff. I had to remind myself of this: if I “do it all”, and my attitude sucks because I’m anxious and sleep deprived and miserable, that’s what my family and I will remember; how hard and stress filled the holidays are, and how it’s a time just to get through. That’s not the memory I want, or want to give to my kids. So, what do I really want? Answering that helps me make those hard choices about what to keep and what to cut.

Making granola for family breakfasts

This may sound a little woo-woo, but I’m setting an intention. My intention is to create a welcoming and warm environment in my home and between my family members. That’s more important than getting every detail right. So, I have to make what I do manageable for me. Then I can give myself to them, not just gifts and activities. Someone told me a long time ago that mama sets the tone of the home. Remember “If mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy”? Well, like it or not, I’ve found it to be true. And no one can pour from an empty reservoir. You may have different ones than I’m making, but here are my cuts…

No Work

The afternoon I was supposed to start my two day break from work, I was sitting at my computer fighting through the February schedule for the thirteen health care providers I supervise. A bunch of changes came out and I was tempted to leave on my work phone in case someone needed me to make more changes as the week unfolded. Then I thought about that.  I made the December schedule to accommodate EVERYONE’s vacation requests, including several who will be off all next week. I am working next week. So, I finished the schedule, sent it out, and let all who may care know that I’ll be back on Monday (the office holiday – I’ll be on call). I’m practicing setting my boundaries. Phone off.

Daily Exercise

So, yes, exercise can help keep you balanced and more even-keeled during times of stress. I highly recommend it to you all. BUT, in my case, sometimes an extra 30 minutes of sleep is the more critical need. I’m not saying I quit exercising, just maybe not every day. And I’m definitely looking to do restorative yoga, or qi gong – I ask my body what it needs that day and give it that. The heart pounding exercise hasn’t been on the list. Not this week.

No dishes for Christmas.

I just can’t. I mean, I’m all environmental and green and stuff, but if I’ve got to do all the cooking and clean all the dishes, I’ll probably go postal. The thought of a properly set table with china, silver, and all the Pinterest inspired crafty centerpieces is so pretty and ideal, but the thought of having to make that happen too makes my blood pressure go up. I suppose enlisting the family to do the dishes is an option, but I’m a little uptight about the state of my kitchen and I can’t seem to stay out of it when it’s a mess. I bought cute matching paper plates and napkins. I’ll put them on shiny red chargers. Pinterest fans, it’ll be fine, really and truly. Me washing the dinner dishes? Out.

The Completely Organic Christmas Dinner

I tried y’all, I really did. And I feel like a big ol’ hypocrite, but they wanted that commercial ham with the crunchy sugar glaze, and despite my ethical objections and desire for a responsible raised piece of pork, I caved. It was too easy and the alternative too hard this year. I did buy an organic turkey and will do all the sides from scratch, but the ham got me. I’ve got a lead on a local pig farm for next year though…

Christmas cards

Not happening. Every year, I feel a twinge when my family and friends send me these beautiful family Christmas cards. I feel it when someone at church hands me their card too. I always think, “You know, I should save these return addresses and make a list so that next year I can give our family Christmas card to everyone too!” But really, no. Maybe in a few years…

Christmas cookies

Ok, I’m still trying to decide on this one. I have a gluten free sugar cookie recipe that I want to try to make with the kids, so they can make star shaped cookies for Santa. (GF because the 3 year old’s eczema has been on fire and I’m trying a GF diet for her – I have to DO something!). But if Saturday is crazy, it may become a grab-the-slice-and-bake-at-the-grocery-store. Gotta know when to pull the ripcord!

The family hearth, complete with welcoming fire. Ahhh, the vibe I want!

How do you grab on to the joy and good of the holidays and limit the chaos? Where do you make your cuts? Share in the comments section below!

Ok everyone, here comes the final installment of the Good For You Series. What could possibly be the last essential thing we need to incorporate into our lives to help us feel balanced, centered, and whole? Well, exercise of course!

Ok, ok, I hears some groans already. So, if you don’t like to exercise, I get where you’re coming from. I felt that way for most of my life. If you want to read about how to turn this around, go to my post Learning to Love Exercise. It may help…

On the other hand, if you already love exercise, maybe you don’t even need to read this post. So what are we going to talk about? I want to expand our definition of exercise a little. There are a few pitfalls that I’m finding that I and others are falling into when we think about exercise.

The first pit we fall into when we think about exercise is around WHY we exercise. Fairly frequently, I will be talking to a patient about weight and they say, “Yeah, I really need to start exercising again.” Many people exercise because they want to lose weight. And I agree that exercise is a good thing for the body, in lots of ways. But in order to burn enough calories to actually lose weight, you have to be an elite athlete and be 18 years old! Don’t get me wrong, I think exercise is important, but alone it’s not the key to weight loss. Getting into a good exercise routine helps us to make better food choices and stick to our chosen eating plan. We do more things that help us take care of ourselves when we are exercising. But the benefits to exercise are far greater than losing a couple of pounds. Exercise strengthens our hearts, improves our sleep, helps our bowel function, keeps our bones strong and keeps our joints limber.

So what’s the real reason we exercise? Everyone wants to be healthy – no one would choose to be sick! So, we exercise for health. Did you know that the word “health” comes from the word “whole”? And isn’t that what we are striving for? To become whole? So what if instead of “doing my cardio”, or “working on my upper body”, we used our exercise as a way to encourage wholeness within ourselves? What might that look like in our lives?

Walking the beach…

Another trouble area we get into is thinking that only certain strenuous exercise is worthwhile. The “if I can’t run on the treadmill for at least 45 minutes, I might as well cash it in” mentality. Hardcore, sweaty, blood pumping exercise is great for your heart and lungs, helps tone your muscles and burn some energy. But other, less intense exercise counts too. There are incredible benefits to exercise in yoga, qi gong, Tai Chi. Sure, rocking out with weights or taking a high impact Zuumba class is good for your mind and body. But what if evolution was the focus of exercise? Not just fat-blasting or body sculpting or getting an endorphin high, but actually connecting the mind and body, facilitating the union of your higher self with your physical self? What might you be able to become if your mind and body were more whole and connected? See, I think we often treat our minds as separate from our bodies, not remembering that much of our body can be brought under the conscious control of our minds. But we have to connect them, link them, join them, so that they work together. Any kind of exercise practice can help the health of the brain, and health in our bodies helps keep the brain strong. But if the purpose of exercise was to strengthen the mind-body connection, then yoga with its balance and stretching, qi gong energy work and other practices can bring us into a level of union between our mind and body that we may not reach in other ways.

The little one practicing yoga with Mommy…

And what is exercise? It may not be a gym workout. Ever heard of kundalini yoga? There are techniques with breathing in this type of yoga that will energize your internal organs, shift your energy completely around, and make you sweat and you’re still sitting down! And qi gong can help you to go into a deeper more settled space in your self. That energy you want to take along on your day! Sometimes, between the crash diets and extreme exercise, we treat our bodies so harshly that they don’t relax and unwind, ever. Then we wonder why they don’t do what we want! Sometimes, what we really need is restoration and connection, and we can use exercise to do this for ourselves.

Getting my sunlight AND balance in!

So certainly, lift the weights, pound the pavement, play some hoops. But maybe you incorporate some other ancient mind-body exercise into your routine too. Your knees may not let you jog forever, but you can do yoga, tai chi, and qi gong into your elder years!

What kind of exercise helps you feel your best? Share more in the comments section below!

Glad to have you back! Here we are at week four of the Good For You Series. We’ve covered some important needs and have been working to get more of the good stuff we need into our daily lives; good sleep, gratitude, human touch.  I hope you’ve been able to increase all of these in your days, at least a little of each! I caught a cold a week ago (because I was doing too much), so I immediately starting my immune boosting program, including more sleep. What’s my immune boosting program? Well, that’ll have to be another post. Suffice it to say, this cold only bothered me for a total of three days, instead of being miserable for the full 7-10 days. Sleep was a big part of the healing, for sure! I also have been giving more conscious hugs and I’m working on my third list of 1000 things I’m grateful for. I’m growing in this series too!

So what are we going to talk about this week? We haven’t talked about food yet! I left this one for later in the series because so many people think that eating a whole foods diet is hard work, so I wanted to add other good things in first. But really, what kinds of food you consume can completely change your mood, sleep, energy, weight (of course), and your physical makeup. You can medicate (or poison yourself) with what you put in your mouth. Did you know that in addition to the childhood obesity epidemic, some children and young adults are developing fatty liver disease because of the amount of sugar (sodas, sugary foods, high fructose corn syrup) they consume? We used to only see that in chronic alcoholics…

Anyway, let’s get to the good stuff! I’m going to share a few tactics I use to make sure I can get whole foods for my meals. I don’t buy much in boxes (cereal for the kids and crackers, though I have made them too). Dinner doesn’t have to be rip open a box and add water or order out again. Just a little planning and a whole food dinner is served!

Zucchini and onion

Think ahead and buy what you want to eat

I like to shop at a farmer’s market. They carry so many different kinds of fruits and veggies and I like to try new things! But no matter where you shop, you can think before you go about what kinds of things you want to cook. Then buy one new one and google a recipe. You might find a new favorite!

Use aromatics!

You can chop up an onion and garlic and add to almost any veggie, saute it up, and it’s pure deliciousness in minutes. Onions and garlic are not only nutritional powerhouses, but they make everything taste good! Cabbage, kale, mushrooms, zucchini, squash, spinach… A couple of minutes chopping, stirring, add salt and pepper and you’re done! Maybe a few herbs too…

Sauteeing the onions in my sage-rosemary compound butter from Thanksgiving… 

Prep your food

If I know I want to cook something the next day, I’ll often do the “mise en place” (french for “everything in place”) and do the chopping ahead of time. If I cut up the onions, garlic, and veggie of choice, season the chicken parts or measure out the quinoa, put them in their own bags, then the cooking part is just kind of a dump-and-stir. The prep work I can do in 15 minutes in the evening, but that’s 15 minutes I don’t have when I want the food on the plates the next day!

Cook in advance

I boil eggs and keep them in the frig, or cook enough chicken legs for several meals and freeze some. I love to make soup – eat it once and freeze bags for later! It’s hard to freeze rice, but breads, pastas, meats, and lots of other things freeze well. Cook multiple meals at one time, and you can defrost in the morning and warm it for dinner when you can’t cook that night. Sauteed veggies can be thrown over fresh greens for a lunch or dinner salad and boiled eggs travel well for a breakfast at your desk. Your cooking efforts can pay off for multiple meals!

My beautiful farm eggs! Breakfast, egg salad…

What do you do to make sure you get whole foods in your diet? This one was short and sweet. If you want actual recipes, let me know. Share in the comments section below!

Hello all! Everyone over their turkey and football coma? Actually, the tryptophan-turkey, sleepiness-after-eating-turkey thing is probably overblown, but it’s a nice excuse to nap away the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day. You’d think that I was going to say something this week about healthy eating, or clean eating, or something that will help you clean up your act after the overindulgences of last week. Well, I’m not. Holidays are for making fun memories, and I don’t think that goes well with a dollop of guilt on top. If you overdid it, next year make a smaller plate and enjoy small plates of leftovers the days after. That is all…

So, what are we talking about this week? What do we desperately need to get into our lives that we often are missing? This week is going to be fun, easy, and no-calorie. We can indulge in this to our hearts delight and not worry that we’ll see it on the scale the next day. This week we are going to meet our need for human touch.

As a society, we are touch-starved. Even if you are in a relationship or have children, we often don’t get touched very much. We pay for nourishing physical touch from our massage therapists or other professionals. Think about it: What’s the best part of a pedicure (unless you’re really ticklish)? The leg and foot rub, of course! I’m certainly not suggesting we don’t get massages and pedicures, but I am suggesting that those activities meet a greater need than relaxation or pampering. As we’ve gotten more “advanced” in our society, we’ve also gotten further apart from each other. We live in bigger houses, drive alone in our cars, eat in front of the TV, and all sleep in our own rooms. I remember thinking it was odd when my oldest daughter (who had her own room at the time), complained that she was “the only one who had to sleep alone”. See, the twins slept in the same room, and mommy and daddy slept in the same room, so she was lonely! I hadn’t thought about it that way…

Did you know that there are actually scientific studies done on the benefits of hugs? (Google it.  I’ll wait…)  Studies have shown that hugs stimulate the release of a bonding hormone called oxytocin, and that touch helps lower blood pressure, possibly through the release of hormones that decrease stress. Oxytocin release can cause better immune function, lower heart rate and reactivity to stress, reduce inflammation and allow better pain tolerance. I need more of that in my life! Bring on the hugging!

One reason I think we are touch-starved is that we are aware on a deep level that touch is intimate, and we want to be sure that our physical actions don’t send sexual messages unless we mean them. And this is smart! It’s really important that we don’t confuse the need for human touch for the need for sex, and just as important that we don’t send signals for sex when we want human touch. People make this mistake often and try to meet their need for human touch with sex, sometimes casual in nature. Ultimately, this is why this kind of sexual contact doesn’t meet our need in the way we hope – we’re trying to meet our need with a lesser substitute. Now, don’t get me wrong, sex is (or can be) a wonderful, bonding and fun physical contact, and if that’s what you are asking for, then that’s how to get that need met. You just can’t fill the need for touch by substituting sex. And here’s my disclaimer for my younger and/or celibate readers: sex can bring plenty of complications to your life, especially if you are not in a good, safe relationship (and sometimes even if you are!). Open that box and fill that need when you have the support and love around you to do it safely, and only when you are fully ready for all that it brings. 

Whether you are having sex or not, meeting the need for human touch is essential. So how do we do it? Seems like things could get awkward if you just run around randomly touching folk, right? And how do we do this without mixing our signals to the people receiving our touch? Well, here are a few guidelines to follow…

One, start with people you are close to. Friends, spouse, kids. You can more easily explain to them that you just want a hug or a snuggle, and they are most likely to understand you. 

Two, ask permission. If you are friendly with someone at work and want to give a hug, ask first. “Is it ok if I hug you?” will usually do the trick. Usually they say yes without hesitation. If they hesitate, it’s ok to give them an out. “It’s ok if you’d rather not” with a smile is good. Don’t take it personally if someone says no – some people are uncomfortable with touch, so it may have nothing to do with you. If you are uncomfortable with touch, practice with those mentioned in tip #1.

Three, if you’re going to hug those outside of family and close friends, hug people of your same gender. It cuts down on those mixed messages we talked about earlier.  If you are going to hug someone of the opposite gender, you may want to consider whether a full frontal hug will bring up sexual feelings, either for you or the other person. We want to be able to fill this need for touch, but we should be wise while going about it. Touch is intimate, and is supposed to be, so choose carefully who and when you touch someone.

Four, hold hands. Younger kids will still hold your hand, and your spouse might just have forgotten that you used to do this when you were dating! Ask them, and then enjoy the feeling of another hand in yours. Maybe get or give a hand, foot or shoulder massage. It feels good to give and to receive…

Aria still likes to hold mommy’s hand…

Five, cuddle up together. Pile your kids around you on the couch with blankets and read or watch a movie together. Snuggle with your honey. It’s easy to be rushing out the house in the morning and barely given each other a peck on the way out the door. That’s fine for a quick goodbye, but doesn’t do much for building closeness. Spend a few moments – it’ll last you much longer than it takes!

So that brings me to the last thing: How do you get a good hug? The most important thing is to slow down. This isn’t a nice-to-see-you hug. Wrap your arms around the other person and gently hold them close. Then breathe, in and out, at least twice. Usually this gives you and the other person time to slow your heart rates and enjoy the moment. The great thing is, you and the other person both are filled up with this kind of hug. Both giving, both receiving. Everyone smiles!

Alright everyone, ready to go out and get and give some hugs? Ready to fill up that tank with human touch? Go out there this week and hold close some people you love. You’ll feel great!

What are your favorite ways to meet your need for human touch? Share in the comments section below!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I have wonderful memories of being at my grandmother’s house, hanging out with my cousins, eating the turkey, cornbread stuffing (dressing?), stewed tomatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, collards, and on and on. It’s a day about family, food and football. Every year, when the Christmas decorations come out earlier and earlier in the stores, I remember the reason Thanksgiving gets skipped over: There’s no real commercial aspect to exploit. That’s the biggest reason I like Thanksgiving – it’s all about abundance, giving, and spending time with people you love. Not spending money and running around in stores (except for the food!).

My white pumpkin centerpiece this year…

I’m sad about Thanksgiving this year though. I’m on call for 24 hours on Thanksgiving, so I didn’t prepare a big dinner, because I may not be here to cook it! Since we can’t travel and don’t have family here to do the dinner, we were invited to a friend’s house to share their dinner. The nice thing is, Perry and the kids will have a Thanksgiving dinner, even if I can’t go. But I’m hoping and praying I will be able to go. And I’m cooking our turkey and sides on Friday (no, I’m not participating in Black Friday shopping – I just can’t fight crowds for stuff!). We gotta have Thanksgiving leftovers!

The holidays can be hard too, though. Many people are missing loved ones who have passed on, and some have endured tragedies in holidays past. All the hustle can be a bit much too; the preparations and the cooking and the cleaning, travel and packing. All the running around and doing can make you want to pack up like a hermit and not come out until the new year. Maybe that’s just me. I have five birthdays and an anniversary to celebrate in addition to the holidays between Halloween and the end of January, so this is definitely the “high season” in our family. It’s a lot!

So here’s what I’m learning: It’s all about how you look at it. I can so easily pick apart all the challenges and difficulties, even create a few in my head that never happen, and then I feel so rushed and worn out. You wonder why some people are ready for this season to be over? This is why. But I’m learning how to slow things down. And this is part two of Getting the Good We Need: Gratitude. ‘TIs the season!

Our grateful tree with our most cherished gifts…

There are lots of reasons to be grateful. The benefits to a gratitude practice include:

You know, I’ve been thinking… What keeps us from doing the things we need to have in our lives to be well? We often know what we should do, or even what our needs are. If we don’t, that bears some consideration and research. But even when we know what changes we need to make, we don’t. What’s stopping us?

The wall that stops us…

Here’s how I figure it: Two main things stop me from making the changes I need to make in my life, even after I’ve identified what they are. One: I just can’t figure out how to incorporate the change into my life. Two: I’m just not motivated. Either I don’t see why it’s so important, or it seems really painful or complicated to make the change and I just don’t want to go through all that. It seems like there are so many things that we are supposed to do to be well, so many things we are doing wrong, but it’s hard to make it happen.

Enough already! I want to live a full, happy, joyful life, not one where I drag myself through my days. And I don’t want to get worn out, sick and miserable, on lots of medications and feeling bad because I haven’t spent any time on taking care of my own body and soul. Soooo – what are we going to do about it?

Here’s my plan: We are going to do a mini series on living well and getting what we need. I’m going to write a short piece each week for the next five weeks on how to incorporate the things we need in our lives, one at a time, and we’ll focus on each one together. At the end of the five weeks, we’ll have taken a big step forward in improving our lives and we’ll enjoy ourselves in the process. No really, it will be fun!  We are going to eat better, sleep better, and feel better. When we get consistent about caring for ourselves, we are going to have more energy and look forward to our days.

So let’s get started! What’s the number one thing that we really need more in our lives? What is it that makes us feel weak, dragged, worn out and like we’d rather not get out of bed in the morning? Lack of sleep! We have to wrestle this gorilla to the ground. When I don’t get enough sleep, if it weren’t for my bladder I probably wouldn’t get up in the morning. I have the worst time having a positive outlook, being patient, and generally caring about much at all.  When I was in my first year of residency working between 80-120 hours a week, we were asked to be reading about the various medical and surgical conditions we were seeing in our patients. Honestly, I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to read an article, and I certainly had no intellectual curiosity about any of it! The first thought I had in the morning was about what time I could go back to sleep, and my last thought at night was about how many hours of sleep I was going to get. That was extreme, but the chronic sleep deprivation we experience when we only get 5-6 hours of sleep a night also colors our days. Generally, a gray, washed out color…

Why do we need sleep? Many of us look at sleep as a burden, a tax our bodies put on us to allow our daily productivity. We treat sleep as a nuisance, a thing that gets in the way of our “real” lives. We treat lack of sleep as a badge of honor, as though going without sleep is the mark of a stronger character or constitution. But sleep is restoration and creativity. The brain uses 25% of our metabolic energy, though since it’s only 2% of our makeup by weight it should use much less. Sleep allows all the metabolic waste products that we produced during the waking hours to be washed away.  Lack of sleep is also linked to obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, early aging, heart disease… Need I go on?

Sleep also has different components or phases. You’ve heard of REM and non-REM sleep patterns? We generally spend the earlier parts of our sleep in non-REM sleep and in the later hours enter REM sleep. That’s when the dreaming happens. If you cut your sleep short, you cut your dreaming off as well. So when we are sleep deprived, we are also dream deprived. That means our creativity during the day also suffers. So when we need to be the most alert, clear, and creative, that’s when we need our sleep the most!

So how much sleep do we really need? Most adults need between 7 and 8 hours a day. Don’t groan – we can get there! If you’re one of the few rare individuals who can thrive with less, bless you, but most mere mortals need more than 7 hours.  If you could “sleep in” on the weekends because you have more time to sleep, you’re running a deficit during the week. If you sleep enough each night, your body will wake you at a consistent time, even on the weekends. If you hit snooze again and again, you’re running a deficit. If you need an alarm and often don’t hear it because you’re so tired, you’re running a deficit. How can we get more sleep?

Let me make my medical disclaimer: I am speaking to people who know that their lifestyle and decision making are impairing their ability to get enough sleep. I am NOT talking to people who are wrestling with an actual sleep disorder. Having said that, anxiety, depression, stress and our lifestyles often are the things that are pushing us into disordered and inadequate sleep. If you can use what I’m going to write below, great! If you need professional help with your sleep life, go get it. You deserve to sleep well!

First, get honest about what you’re actually doing.  What time do you go to sleep? When do you get up? Is your sleep dependent on whether you’re up watching a Netflix marathon or do you catch up on all your email before going to sleep? Are you staying up to catch up on the laundry or cooking late at night? Are you getting in the bed on time but tossing and turning, worrying? What is getting in the way of you getting the sleep you really need?

Let’s talk about how to create the environment for sleep. Treat your bedroom and bed as a sanctuary for sleep. Nothing gets done in the bed other than sex and sleep. Maybe a little light reading (no thrillers!), but no work, TV, laptop, or devices. (Medical articles are perfect.) Train your brain to know that when you get in that bed, it’s time for sleep. Also, try to cut off your screen time (of ALL types) in the two hours before you want to be asleep. Blue light emitted from electronics impairs the release of the hormone melatonin from your brain, and melatonin is the hormone that signals your body to sleep. Even if you can fall asleep immediately after screen time, your later sleep is disrupted because of the light, though you don’t know it. Also, keep your lighting dim in the night time hours. We overdose on artificial light in the hours that should be dark, but then wonder why we can’t settle down for sleep.  Prepare for sleep like you might prepare for a big meeting or event – you would everything prepared in advance, not wait until the last minute. Guard your sleep – your rest and sleep is your repair and restore time. It matters!

We all have very busy lives, and I for one live with a low level of anxiety that I’m going to forget to do something important. Our thoughts might be brilliant, but often they are transitory and fleeting – they blow away like the wind! So I help myself and my brain by writing everything down. I used to think my mom was a little over the top because she always had a huge list of things to do with her. I really didn’t understand how much she had to get done! I keep a running list, daily, and this helps me to wipe away that feeling that I have something I should be doing but I don’t remember what it is. It’s right here! Also, keep a pad of sticky notes or paper and a pen next to your bed. When you have that thought at night that you don’t want to forget by morning, jot it down (but don’t turn on the light!). That way, you won’t lie there obsessing over whether you’ll remember your brilliance in the morning. You’ll just add it to your to-do list in the morning. Your thoughts are safe and recorded!

Do you remember having a bedtime routine when you were a kid? Bath, story, warm milk? Well, you need one now too. I don’t do much liquid at night, because disrupted sleep for bathroom runs is not for me. But a warm shower or bath, dim lights, snuggling in a blanket and reading for a few minutes helps my brain to know it’s time to settle down for the night. Whatever routine you want to set up, just do it every night. Consistency trains the brain, and you want to put yourself to sleep on command, not allow your brain run wild when it’s time to power down. Also, a plan for the morning is essential. Figure out how much time you need for your morning routine and set your clock accordingly. Do NOT use the snooze button. All you get is a few extra minutes of disrupted sleep and you get out of bed at the last minute anyway. Set your alarm for the latest time you can allow and plug your phone and other electronics away from your bed (keep the electromagnetic field away from your head!). When the alarm goes off, get up to turn it off and walk away from the bed. Your day has begun!

Finally, you have to make some hard choices. Do you need to cut off your TV habit to get the hours of sleep you need? Do it. Does the TV need to be removed from your bedroom? You may need to have a hard conversation if you share your bedroom, but it needs to be done. Will evening social media or work email need to find a different time slot in your day? Probably so. Maybe your evening laundry or cooking habits will also need to find another home, but your sleep is more important. Maybe it’s time for the kids or spouse to learn to do a load or two. What about the kids learning to cook? They need to know how to do it anyway. Yes, everything takes time and we each have the same 24 hours to to what we need to do. Sleep is a need, so protect it and find ways to get enough. You will feel better and be more productive during your waking hours when you get the sleep your body needs!

Whew! Let’s focus this week on our sleep. Don’t worry about the other things we need – we’ll work on those in the upcoming weeks. If you can add 30 minutes more sleep a night, that’s a good start. Clearing away your sleep deficit takes time, so just work on creating a new normal and adding more sleep each night.

What are you going to do to get more sleep? Post in the comments section below!

Sounds like we’re talking about body sculpting or a new piece of body shape wear today. But I’m not going to talk about how to fit into a special dress, or a new weightlifting program. I don’t want to tell you how to make your thighs look thinner or make your hair more shiny. I like the idea of looking great in a dress or having rock star hair too! Actually, I want to talk about a different kind of trouble area. For me, the things that wear me out, suck away all my energy, and make me want to roll up in a ball under the covers aren’t usually my clothes or hair. Now I know – how we look can affect our mood. When I was heavier, it was a challenge to find clothes that I felt REALLY good in. So I’m not downplaying outward appearance. How we feel in our bodies absolutely affects our minds. But even more than that, I find that the pace of life, my responsibilities, and how I choose to manage them can either help me feel great, or feel wrung out, anxious and jittery.  So let’s talk about how to target THESE trouble areas in our lives…

One of the biggest trouble spots for me is busyness. I run my life with to-do lists that I continually update, rewrite, cross off and add to. It works well for me, because I get a lot done. Being a full-time physician, mommy to four young children, and a wife generates a long list! Here’s where the trouble comes in – I get hyper focused on the list. That leads to a performance mentality, where a good day means I got through the list and a bad day means I didn’t. Often, I feel overwhelmed by all the tasks I need to finish and just feel hopeless, like I can’t manage what I need to. Anyone with me?

Another trouble spot I get into is anxiety. I hate that word! It brings up feelings of weakness and vulnerability, which is scary to me. Nobody likes to think of themselves as weak and vulnerable (at least most of us. The most humble of us isn’t so afraid of vulnerability.) In general, I’m calm and focused, at least on the outside. Training over the years has taught me to get through feelings of stress with a plan – organize and execute. You know, don’t just sit there, do something! And often I do feel better when I’ve got my feet moving and things are in motion instead of hanging over my head like a guillotine. Yet, there are times when I wake up at 3 or 4 am and can’t go back to sleep because of all the thoughts swirling around in my brain. I feel this fatigue and dread hanging around like a heavy dark gray cloud, like something bad is going to happen, because I don’t have it together. I know I’m not alone in this – rates of anxiety and depression are unbelievably high in our society today. It’s funny though, we all manage to feel like we are the only one going through these feelings. We look at social media and think everyone else has it all together and yet our life is falling apart. You know what I mean?

(Disclaimer: I don’t downplay that there are some folks who have true diagnoses of depression and anxiety and need medication. But I suspect that the new normal that is at least low level anxiety for many of us isn’t something medicine is designed to fix. Medication can change brain chemistry for sure. And if that what’s best for you, do it. But I think there are some traps we fall into that we can get out of by doing differently, instead of medicating ourselves and staying in the mind traps that we haven’t unlearned.)

Another big trouble area is being forward focused. What? Is that even a thing? Sounds like it should be good, right? Goal oriented, ambitious, aspiring. This sounds positive, but here’s the trap: I can spend more time looking ahead than looking around me. It’s possible for me to look up and weeks, months, even years have flown by and I haven’t enjoyed my life! I’m so busy working toward a goal that I’m not living in the moment at all. Good example: sitting at dinner in a nice restaurant, thinking about all the things I need to do when I get home. Or busily reorganizing my list in my head while I’m trying to watch a occasional TV show. Working through “the list” while my kids are laughing and showing me a picture they’ve drawn. Before I know it, I’ve missed some truly beautiful moments in my life.

So what do we do? Personally, I don’t want to look up in my later years and realize that I’ve missed a lot of the time I had here. I used to think it was about doing meaningful things in my life, not frittering away my time on worthless activities. It is possible though to do many good and worthwhile things, and not really be part of or enjoy any of them. They just fall off the to-do list and you’re on to the next thing. There is hope though! I’ve found a few things that help me enjoy this life I have, so keep reading…

Be still.

Really, when’s the last time you sat down and weren’t looking at your screen, reading something, opening the mail, or talking on the phone? Just sat, for a few minutes, and took a few breaths. Thought about how you’re feeling? It’s tough! I know I always have more to do and I’m tempted to keep my feet moving, but sitting for a few minutes helps me step off the hamster wheel and look around. What’s really important right now? How am I feeling? Do I need something?

Get outside.

When was the last time you went out to breathe the fresh air, look at the clouds, walk in the grass with bare feet? I love the feeling of the warm sun and breeze on my face. There’s something about being outside that lets me feel free. Try it – get out there and take a short walk down to the corner, or stand in your back yard. Or if you live in the city, sit on a park bench for lunch. You’ll get a little vitamin D from the sun and you’ll feel better, I promise!

Phone a friend.

It’s always good to have someone to talk to. I’m not talking about a griping session where you have a group complaint sharing time. Actually, that sometimes backfires and makes you feel stuck or worse. I’m talking about a time where you talk about what you hope for your life, share dreams you have, and even get into the fears that hold you back. I know, that’s got to be a special friend to do all THAT with. And maybe we don’t always have that kind of friend. Here’s what you can do though: BE that kind of friend. Pick a few people you want to be good friends with and listen to them. Be supportive. That time you put in will come back to you and you will grow friendships that nourish you too!  Now, if you have that kind of friend, MAKE THE TIME to get together. We let our busy lives keep us from spending time caring for some of our important relationships. Then we wonder why we feel dried up and worn out. We need care too!

Pray.

One of the hardest things to manage is when I feel like I have to have it all under control. I can work hard, organize, plan and do everything I know how to do, but I can’t tell the future. I don’t know how all the pieces are going to come together. But because I believe in God, I know that He DOES know how it all works out. If you don’t believe in God, then that makes this harder. I find peace in knowing that He is there, loving and listening to me, helping me along the way, even when things don’t work out the way I want them to. MY kids don’t always get things the way they want, and when it’s hard, painful, or sometimes just plain awful, I’m there to love them through. Even though I don’t always change it for them, I’m with them. I’m in the same place, talking to my God and knowing that in the end, it will be ok.

Here’s an insight I’ve gained in the past few years. Women are so programmed to take care of everyone and everything, that we don’t take good care of ourselves. It’s just not a priority. And we justify this by rationalizing that our kids, husbands, jobs, and responsibilities are more needy than we are. We’re strong – we can handle it! So we run ourselves ragged, don’t sleep enough, don’t exercise, don’t BREATHE, and wonder why our life isn’t attractive and enjoyable. Here’s the thing though – if you ask me if I want my daughters to look at me and imitate that kind of example, the answer is no. I want them to live full lives, yes, but I want them to enjoy those lives, not race through them to the bitter end. My girls will follow my example, even if the example I set isn’t a good one.  So I’m working on me. I’m learning to take some time to enjoy the moments of my days. I’m learning not to fill every moment with work and tasks. I get a pedicure sometimes, take a mini spa day, go to a book store and read – alone. I’m learning, little by little, to approach my time here as the gift it is and revel in the goodness in it!

What do you do to slow down?

How do you make sure to enjoy your life?