by Deirdre | Mar 7, 2013 | Inspired Living, Mindful living
A very good friend who has known me through many an up and down was over for dinner last weekend with her husband. We’re at a new stage — our kids go out for dinner without us, leaving us to fend for ourselves. This is a very different scenario from the days we started connecting over hot dogs and plastic plates. They brought over a bottle of Dom Perignon to celebrate our sort-of freedom. (I have to admit that it really made my week to be considered – to paraphrase Elaine from Seinfeld – Dom-worthy.)
She wanted to know what I’d been doing, health-wise, for the last while. She said she’s noticed a gradual, but consistent, improvement in my energy, weight, skin, and overall love of life. I couldn’t point to any one thing. It’s been doing hundreds of little things that have worked together.
I’ve learned an awful lot about what health really is since doing my training at Duke Integrative Medicine. I had a short bout with chronic fatigue a couple of years ago that made it all very personal. I’ve come to appreciate how much your body can really heal itself if you give it time and space. And it was really, really helpful to change how my body reacts to stress.
When I look at the habits that have made the biggest difference it comes down to four pillars of resilience:
- the type of exercise I choose
- working with how I put myself to sleep
- and, most effective of all, practicing different ways of mindfulness
Nourishment
One of the first things I did was look at how my patterns of eating were causing stress on my body. Was I doing a mini-starve during the day? Our bodies love regular meals. I learned how to balance the macronutrients in each meal and snack so that I wouldn’t cause an insulin spike. When your insulin levels go off they pull all your other hormones off kilter with them, causing a host of annoying side-effects.
I put sugar on a strict budget. I don’t like cutting things out entirely because I need at least the illusion of freedom. But having a sugar budget made me start really savoring my sweet indulgences.
I experimented with the possibility of food sensitivities by going on an elimination diet for a few weeks. I found I wasn’t really allergic to anything, but that processed carbs do add a certain pudginess that can’t be explained only by calories.
Being mindful about what my body was asking for gave me a lot of insight into stress. I know the stress hormones in my body are rising when I really feel like I deserve something sweet or a glass of wine. There’s a momentary belief that pops up that eating or drinking something will give me enough of a lift to make it through.
Things like sugar and alcohol make your body work overtime to heal from their effects. When that little voice is coaxing me I consciously choose foods that help my body heal – fruits and veggies full of anti-oxidants, or protein rich foods. I also worked with a couple of really great naturopaths who helped me find supplements that added to my energy and gave me a little more nutritional oomph.
I resisted mindful eating for a long time. But that changed when I realized it wasn’t about restricting how I ate. Instead I’ve added gratitude to my diet, with a pinch of breathing room, and finished with a soupcon of kindness. I put my fork and knife down after each bite and think about how I’m enjoying my food and my family. I try to use the daily routine of feeding a family as a guidepost for creativity. Sometimes I’m Matisse with a knife and other days it’s like painting on velvet.
Intentional Exercise
My biggest aha came from reading Spark by John Ratey. I knew exercise was important, but didn’t understand that exercise is the most powerful medicine we can take. Food is medicine but exercise really, really is medicine.
The more I read, the more I realized that you can change your body’s physiology by the kind of exercise you choose. Aerobic exercise is excellent to rebuild our brains because it stimulates a host of chemicals that act like fertilizer to rebuild our neurons. Interval and strength training increase our muscle mass and make us younger by stimulating human growth hormone and testosterone. Yoga balances our neurotransmitters and has a wonderful effect on our moods and anxiety.
In the early stages of recovering from burnout it was critical to rest and restore my adrenal glands and rebuild the way my body used energy. But over time something shifted and I didn’t notice. My body went from being burned out to being deconditioned. The symptoms are very similar – the main one is energy crashing after exercise. I found invaluable advice from Phil Maffetone in the Big Book of Health and Fitness and embarked on a six-month re-conditioning program. I admire my friends who do bootcamps, races and other amazing feats of strength and stamina. I hope to join them again when I’ve put in the slow, steady progress on the elliptical.
Restorative Sleep
During the worst of my burnout phase I would almost dread settling in for the night as I was almost guaranteed to be awake again a few hours later. The more I talk to women, the more I find this is a very common experience. It’s a drag the next day when you’re dragging yourself through the day, but what you’re really missing out on is the time to rebalance your hormonal levels to set you up for the next day.
The key to getting restorative sleep is to mimic the natural patterns of nature as much as possible. I try to shut down my computer and start turning off the extra lights at about 9. I sleep in total darkness with as few clothes as possible. I go to bed at 10, if I can. I try to be as relaxed and mellow as I can when I cozy into bed. These are all things that we can’t possibly fit in, but it’s good for us if we try.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is really what changed my life. Mindfulness is many things, but the biggest difference for me was learning not to fight what was going on and to accept things as they were. This seemed like defeat at the beginning, but I began to see how I could conserve energy by not fighting reality. Then things had a chance to change – and they did.
I was at an amazing conference where Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the early champions of mindfulness, said: “Everything that rises in your awareness is the curriculum.” I started to shift my reaction to the day’s events towards kindness, self-compassion, gratitude and right action. Some days better than others. Some minutes are better than others.
But in the end it was better, and healthier, than treating those events with bitterness, anger, resentment and blame. Each time I practice I get a little better at it and it gets a little easier the next time.
Posted by Deirdre Walsh,
Image: iStockphoto.
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by Deirdre | Dec 17, 2012 | Mindful living
I was invited to a video chat by a lovely coach from New Zealand, Zivana Anderson of Soul River Coaching. She is a gorgeous soul who coaches sexy funny quirky goddesses who wonder what lies beyond the day-to-day hamster wheel. We talked about mindfulness and self-care during Christmas, particularly how to handle emotional eating.
If you struggle with emotional eating, particularly over Christmas, here’s a grab bag of tips, ideas, suggestions, and things to ponder to help you guide yourself through Christmas without a food hangover. Pick and choose ones that appeal to you:
- Try to make yourself first in your life. You can change this at other times of the year, but put more priority on yourself for just a few weeks.
- Try to connect with your body – music, download some guided imagery – and ground into your senses to get out of your head.
- Punctuate the days with rest periods – cups of tea or small breaks. Lie down in the middle of the day if you can. It’s very beneficial for the adrenals.
- Don’t diet! Eat as regularly during the day as you can.
- Think about shifting the meals you can control to low carb alternatives – avoid pasta, breads, etc. when you have the choice.
- Have lots of sparkling water on hand – hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
- Watch how much alcohol you drink, because it makes you drop your defenses, it has calories, and it screws up your sleep – shifting your hormonal factory.
- Think back to trigger times for yourself. What was happening, who was there, what kind of mental and emotional state were you in. Write down a plan for dealing with similar situations.
- Write down your negative thoughts about emotional eating over the holidays and throw them out in the garbage. Things like: I can’t control my eating, I’m no good at this.
- Write down your positive thoughts about eating over the holidays: “When I’m rested I can manage what I eat.” Put those in your purse or wallet and carry them with you over the holidays.
- Enjoy being with family and friends. Stay as long as you’re having a lovely time. Leave when the time the energy is still harmonious. Make the connection your nourishment.
- Try as best as you can to get to bed at the same time every day. Winter is a time of rest for the body. Try to sleep a little bit more than usual.
Wishing you every blessing for a lovely holiday.
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
Image: Star Mince Tarts by Christmas Stock Images. Licensed under Creative Commons
by Deirdre | Dec 14, 2012 | Mindful living
Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!
Christmas has become the season of abundance – lots of, parties, prezzies catching up with friends, concerts, cooking, shopping, and decorating. So much fun and joy packed into one small corner of the year.
This abundance has a stressful side. So much eating, drinking, staying out late, rushing from one event to the next, and shopping in harried crowds, too. Unless you have a your own merry band of elves to make stuff appear you’re probably feeling a little run down and, dare I say it, fed up with Christmas by this point of the seasonal festivities.
I’ve started to give thanks at Christmas that my “make it perfect” days are behind me. While I fondly remember the painstakingly coordinated Christmases of yore – the lovely traditional dinners, the mounds of presents under the tree, the gingerbread house decorating – I’m putting a different emphasis on the joy of Christmas. And it’s the joy of celebrating what’s here now.
I had a stunningly simple idea last year at Christmas.
I asked my family what would make Christmas most meaningful for them and then made those things happen first. Before I bought a single gift, or planned a single meal. I was guided by what they said they wanted to experience to make it a joyous and memorable Christmas for them.
This is what happened – what everyone wanted was really, really easy to organize. Nobody really likes turkey, so off the menu it went. We’re having raclette instead and I’m saving myself hours of work. It was all about connecting with friends and having time to enjoy the respite from the usual routine. Chocolate was on the list. Watching movies we don’t get to during the year. Staying late at parties.
The biggest difference for me is that Christmas has stopped being a “project” I need to push through and then recover from. I don’t need the same supports I gravitated towards in other years – sugary treats, a steady flow of wine, protective crankiness, emotional eating. I feel more like I’m choosing those pleasures rather than using them as a prop to get through the next task.
And it’s starting to feel more like joy.
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
Image: Green Christmas Balls by Christmas Stock Images. Licensed under Creative Commons
by Deirdre | Dec 3, 2012 | Mindful living
A fave part of my job, after coaching itself, is being ever on the hunt the latest and greatest in body-mind-spirit healthy news for you, my dear readers. I was at a really interesting talk last week by Dr. Erin Wiley about brain health. She was sharing the latest information about chronic inflammation and mood disorders like depression and anxiety on behalf of Orthomolecular Medicine.
Inflammation is the body’s response to injury or infection. The reaction is really powerful and helpful when it’s defending us from outer threats. But there’s growing evidence that stress (and the way we deal with it) is linked to a low-grade inflammatory response. That response starts to overload the body as if it was constantly fighting an infection. There’s also good evidence that chronic inflammation contributes to heart disease, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. We start to notice chronic inflammation with things like allergies, skin conditions, aches and pains and the like.
The damage of inflammation comes from a process called oxidative stress. This is the havoc that free radicals cause to our cells by degrading the structural proteins, fat and DNA. One way to think about it is how oxygen changes iron to rust when it’s left outside in the weather. Dr. Wiley had a lot of suggestions to manage inflammation through lifestyle and diet changes:
What to eat
- Use coconut oil for cooking and olive oil for taste. Don’t skimp on healthy fats because your brain (like your butt) is made of fat. They both become big and beautiful when you treat them with good fats.
- Low carb diets reduce inflammation. A couple of better known are the paleo diet or the ketogenic diet.
- Vegetables and fruits. Your plate should be half full of green and colorful veggies. And broccoli for the win.
What not to eat
- Refined sugar. Plain and simple. Refined sugar is inflammatory, which is the opposite of what you want.
- Foods you are sensitive to. The most common ones are gluten, dairy, soy, eggs and sugar. They make you bloated, foggy, achey, and older. I’ve written more about how to find them here.
- Carb-y meals followed by carb-y treats, and chased with carb-y drinks. Your daily recommended dose is 3 – 6 servings per day.
Here’s how you soothe your inner 4 year old – the one who’s lower lip is quivering at the thought of giving up her favorite carbs. Make them good ones! Be a connoisseur of carbs. Spend time making yourself your most favorite carbs and really, really enjoy them when you have them. (In technical terms, that’s called mindful eating!)
How to exercise
Walking half an hour a day will do a lot to manage inflammation in your body. Dr. Wiley suggested watching 23 ½ Hours by Dr. Mike Evans if you’re still not sure about this.
- Bonus points for walking in a forest. They are full of organic chemicals that are antimicrobial and generally good for you. (It’s called forest bathing in Japan – that’s a fun thought)
Just move your body: yoga, pilates, running, dancing, trampoline, whatever you like.
- Strength training is really, really good for you if you can fit it into your exercise routine.
How to live with modern products
One of the first tipoff’s that our brains and bodies are inflamed is that we start to react badly to chemicals in our environment. You’ll notice it with wine, coffee, perfume, fragrances, and cleaning chemicals. But the damage has been done over the years of exposure to pesticides, solvents, BPAs and phthalates.
Cut down on the allergens that make you feel crummy, in order of least important to most important to you. Maybe you can stop before you get to your favorite allergen (ahem . . . wine).
How to relax
Your brain needs to relax, too. Try mindfulness (yes!) and any meditative activities to soothe your stress. Yoga, tai chi, qi gong are all good for the inveterate multi-taskers. Prayer is superb.
How to supplement your diet
Dr. Wiley had two unreserved recommendations to combat inflammation – fish oil and probiotics. They have unblemished safety profiles, even at these therapeutic doses.
- Fish oil of 1000 – 2000 mg/day of EPA. You are going to have to hunt around for this because most commercial blends are much lower. The ratio of EPA:DPA should be 6:1 because we get enough DPA in our diet.
- A probiotic containing lactobacillus Rhamnosus daily.
How to repair the damage
Now this is where the talk started getting even more interesting.
There are a few different ways we can help our bodies turn on our healing response and clean up the damage that free radicals cause to our cells. You need to work with a naturopath to follow these so they can make sure that you’re dosing properly and using good quality products.
- Turn on your genes. There’s a molecule called an nrf2 activator that will actually turn on your genes to stimulate your body to make glutathione, a powerful anti-oxidant that protects your cells against oxidation. Nrf2 activators are found in low levels in common foods – green tea, coffee, turmeric, broccoli, and red wine.
- Supplement with glutathione. Glutathione is the body’s superstar anti-oxidant, so it makes sense to supplement with it. The problem is that it breaks down in your stomach and becomes ineffective. So save your cash and don’t buy oral supplements or protein powders with glutathione added. You can find vitamin/glutathione IV therapy through some NDs.
- Supplement with glutathione precursors. There are two precursors of glutathione — alpha lipoic acid and n-acetyl cysteine. Dr. Wiley said there was evidence that supplementing with these two can make sure you have enough raw materials to make glutathione on its own. Work with a naturopathic doctor on this one.
by Deirdre | Nov 16, 2012 | Mindful living
Ajahn Brahm is one badass Buddhist monk. We went to see him speak at U of T a while back. One of my friends had seen him before and said he was wise and entertaining. He was in town on a retreat and lecturing at U of T to students about psychology, Buddhism and science.
At first it was a bit trippy to hear him parse Buddhist teachings in a London cockney accent. But that soon passed as he opened into his musings about how science should try to tear down Buddhism (and vice versa), his stories from Cambridge (he studied theoretical physics, and got drunk, with Nobel laureates in the late ‘60s), and his Buddhist jokes.
There was a ferocious noise one day just outside the spiritual centre that Ajahn Brahm runs in Australia. The monks ran out to see what was going on and found their beloved cat squished on the road. It lost its nine lives, one after another, when it was hit by the 10-wheeler.
Ajahn Brahm loves iconoclasts and was begging the students to question everything. Traditions, conventional thought, and mindless habits in particular. He asked them to hold everything to the same burden of proof, whether the ideas come from Buddhism or science.
He had three lessons for everyone that I thought I’d share with you.
Lesson #1
Don’t react to life with a canned response. You must react with your truth, no matter what others might expect of you. Something that’s difficult for most people may not be difficult for you. Or something that’s easy for most people may not be easy for you. He talked about the connection that was possible by approaching people he’s visited in hospitals and prisons in a lighthearted, joyful way. We all get tired of being treated as our outward circumstances and long for people to connect with us from our mind and heart.
Lesson #2
Mindfulness is great. But without compassion it is ineffective. Ajahn Brahm spent a little time “gloating” about how psychology is turning to Buddhism to look for answers to mental health. He noted the popularity of mindfulness these days – how it’s being touted as a cure for almost everything.
But mindfulness on its own is not really effective at working with our psychology. True mental health comes from welcoming difficult feelings with kindness, setting a place at the table for them and holding them closely with love.
Feelings show up in both our body and our mind. He talked about using mindfulness to see where the feeling was showing up in our body – your chest, solar plexus, or shoulders. Then soothe the area by rubbing or breathing into it with kindness and tenderness. When he’s used this with people they’ve found that the difficult feelings become much less frightening and easier to manage.
Lesson #3
You cannot know reality until the mind is as still as a lake, without the winds of anger and desire. I never understood why Buddhists were so keen on working with attachment. It seemed a bit dry to me. I’m very attached to the pleasure of a good meal, or a walk by the river, and I couldn’t understand why that would be discouraged. But what I saw through him is that if we run after things because we want them so badly, or we react with anger when they don’t come true then we’re not really experiencing real life. We’re just experiencing the winds of our mind.
Is there a place in your life to test some of these lessons for yourself?
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
by Deirdre | Oct 26, 2012 | Blog, Resilient Mindset
I tried a local hot yoga studio twice or so a couple of years ago. It was full of promise – young, hip owners, a reclaimed space with exposed brick and high ceilings, close to home. It all added up to a much funkier experience than we’re used to in our suburban ‘hood.
I knew that I was going to be struggling in the back for a while, but I had no idea what was in store for me. The class was filled with amazing devotees ready for some hard-core yoga. There was a small-time local celeb ready for the heat, wearing a tiny outfit that I will never be able to unsee. It was serious yoga for serious people.
Still, I was willing to be the neophyte in the back, ready to take the pity stares as part of the yogic lesson. That is, until one of the young, hip owners came over to adjust me and then informed the class, in a Valley-girl kind of nasally tone, that how we are on the mat is how we are in life. I had a sense of being nagged on the mat – not what I was going for. The peace and balance I was looking for evaporated and was replaced by irritation.
I wasn’t loving the delivery, but I knew she was saying something very important.
How we are is how we are
How we are on the mat is how we are at our jobs, is how we are with our friends, and on and on. The amount of mindfulness and care we bring to the things in our life is pretty consistent across the board. Sure, we can pull out some fresh energy and motivation when something is new or really important to us. But for the routine daily habits of our life, we almost always bring our own mix of attention or distraction, and frustration or patience, and self-compassion or inflated demands to our routines.
To bring peace and balance to our day we can start with just about any area of our life.
Peace and Balance Start with Mindfulness
A powerful way to begin is with mindfulness. Mindfulness is about using conscious effort to shift your thoughts towards what is going on from moment to moment. It moves us away from thinking about the past or the future and toward being present to what’s happening right now. It is closely aligned with meditation, but you do not have to meditate to be mindful. The saying “Stop and smell the roses” captures the idea of mindfulness very well.
There are four main parts of mindfulness:
- Being aware of your breathing
Eating is as good an entry way to balance as any other. It’s something we do every day and it’s also an activity that carries a lot of our emotional baggage for us. I’ve stopped being surprised by how engaged people by are by what they eat, when they’re eating, and who was with them. A mindful way to peace and balance in your eating is to focus your attention on gratitude. You can be grateful for the people that brought your food to the table. Or simply to the fact that you have the nourishment that you do. There are a hundred ways to bring mindfulness to your dining.
What brings a sense of gratitude to your meals?
Posted by Deirdre Walsh
Image: Adam Krowitz. Licensed under Creative Commons
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