3 Ways Meditation will Make You a Better Human

It took me awhile to get into meditation.

I mean years. I can’t really blame my environment, I had spent the last 4 years in Eugene, Oregon and then was living in Portland. It wasn’t that I didn’t have time, single no kids.

I just wasn’t into it.

Which was weird because, full disclosure here, I’m the type of person who gets into things just because I know they’re good for me. Even if sometimes I don’t like them. For example, eating brussel sprouts and flossing every day. So meditation seemed like it would’ve been one of those ‘good-for-me’ things to add to my list. But it wasn’t.

To be honest, I don’t know how that changed? Peer pressure? FOMO? Who knows. I think I was just worn down after repeatedly hearing about all of the benefits of meditation and just kept trying it until one day it stuck.

Fast forward 20 years and it’s still stuck. Fortunately it has graduated from the brussel sprouts category.

Here are 3 reasons why I’ve kept it up and know I’m better for it. Maybe these reasons might help you give it another try, despite your misgivings.

1. Meditation gives you a buffer between feeling irritated and ‘losing it’. Ever feel like you have too short a fuse or wish you had a tad more patience, especially when something irritates you? Me too, and actually I now do. I credit meditation but who knows actually what happened. Maturity? Nah, it’s gotta be the practice of being able to sit while tons of thoughts swirl through my head and not letting them get a rise out of me. And that is what happens after meditating for awhile. Getting in the habit of taking deep breaths, not clinging to each thought like velcro, and being able to become an ‘observer’ to our experiences allows us to better pick and choose our reactions. All of that contributes to developing the helpful thing called patience and buys us some time before losing it.
2. Meditation helps you strengthen your ‘don’t freak out’ muscle. Although the systematic study of meditation is still in its infancy, research is suggesting that an active meditation/mindfulness practice strengthens our emotional self-regulation, or as I like to think of it, our ‘don’t freak out’ muscle. It has something to do with meditation increasing the gray matter volume in our orbito-frontal cortex and hippocampus regions of our brains. Okay, so technically it doesn’t strengthen a muscle at all but important regions that help us keep an even keel when we need it most. And that even keel feels pretty good!
3. Meditation helps you stop your ‘broken-record’ loops in your thinking. It’s been estimated that we have tons of thoughts per day and most of them are repetitive. I actually had a hard time finding research behind the often quoted 50,000 or so thoughts a day but I think we can all agree that we have a lot. Most of them, we can probably also agree, are not unique snowflakes of thought but ones we have over and over all the time. If mediation does something really well, it’s that it highlights our active mind and helps us have greater awareness of thoughts as they happen. With practice, this increased awareness of our thoughts can help us interrupt them when they seem stuck. The more we interrupt them, the more we stop them. This was one of the first benefits I noticed.

If you’re not into meditation I totally get it. No judgement from this side because I’ve been there. However, I’ve gotta say that it might be worth that one more try. Who knows, keeping these benefits in mind, it may just be the try that clicks!

You Are The Average of What?!?

You know the saying, “You are the average of the five thoughts you spend the most time with.”

Wait, something doesn’t sound right about that. And yet, actually, that sounds totally right.

The famous saying I’m riffing off of is by the late Jim Rohn. “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” What he meant by that is that when it comes to relationships, we are greatly influenced — whether we like it or not — by those closest to us. The people we spend the most time with affect our way of thinking, our self-esteem, and our decisions.

Sure, we like to think we are our own independent snowflake, but research has shown that we’re more affected by our environment than we think.

I think the same can be said for your emotions and thoughts. I think if you were to reflect on your main thoughts you would see that they shape you more than you think.

Check it out and see for yourself. What are the thoughts you have most often? Are you having a hard time remembering specifics? It’s really not much of a surprise if you are because scientists estimate we have anywhere from 12,000–60,000 thoughts per day!

If it’s hard to figure out one of those 60,000 thoughts per day off the top of your head, you can work backward from what feelings you recall having most often. We’re often more aware of how we feel then the actual thoughts that are causing the feelings. So think of the five feelings you usually have most throughout a typical day. Gratitude? Resentment? Pressure? Joy? Uncertainty? Irritation? Anger? Impatience? Creative? Stress?

Good. Once you identify the feelings you have most often you can backtrack to what types of thoughts might be causing them. You don’t even have to necessarily identify your exact thoughts, a ballpark grouping fits the bill here.

Use the feelings you just identified to recognize the thought “ballparks” you find yourself in most often? Negative thoughts, positive thoughts, worrisome, hopeful, realistic, unrealistic, anxious, assured thoughts?

It’s estimated that a ridiculously high percentage of the thoughts we have each day are repeats. That’s right, most of our thoughts are recycled over and over each day.

If you are spending most of your day repeating negative thoughts, then it really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that you’re going to trend toward the negative. If you spend most of your day repeating worrisome thoughts about this, that and the other thing then well, you can see how that will end up playing out. Likewise if you spend most of your day repeating thoughts along the lines of hopeful or positive thoughts, you’re going to trend in the opposite direction.

If you want to make changes in your life, start by tackling the thoughts you spend the most time with. If you find your thoughts aren’t ones that will help you, you need to start thinking different thoughts. It actually is that simple.

Simple but not easy! I know, that’s an annoying saying…but it is true in this case. When you find yourself thinking or feeling a way you don’t like insert a different thought. Literally any other thought (assuming it is not similar to the one you want to get rid of) will do.

Often the hard part is being aware of your thoughts in the moment, which happens to be the ideal time to insert new ones. But the good news is that choosing new thoughts/feelings whenever you remember to think of them will start to produce positive results over time!

2 Ways to Start Mindfulness That You'll Actually Do

Mindfulness can be thought of as the repeated act of intentionally paying attention to where you’re putting your attention.

It has less to do with the adage ‘Live in the Present’ even though that is one of the inevitable outcomes and more to do with regaining awareness and control over where you’re placing your attention. Most of your attention throughout each day is being pulled around by powerful invisible forces called habits. With the greater awareness and control over where your attention is being placed through mindfulness, you can increase your sense of well being as you ultimately increase your capacity to influence your thoughts, feelings, reactions, and behaviors.

If you’re thinking this sounds great but it also sounds so abstract, here are 2 strategies that’ll bring it down to earth.

• A great way to start accessing your natural ability to ‘pay attention to where you’re putting your attention’ will be to use the little voice in your head to narrate your experiences as you’re having them. For “I’m cutting the vegetables for salad tonight, noticing the colors and textures” or, “As I drink my iced tea, I’m noticing the coolness of the cup in my hand and now turn my attention back to my project that is due tomorrow” or, “I’m noticing that I’m scrolling through Instagram now instead of doing my work, I’ll spend one more minute and then get back to what I need to do.”
• Another way to get started is to ‘set it and forget it’. Set a chime on your phone to sound periodically throughout the day. Start off with twice. When it chimes, take note of where your attention is. After seeing where your attention is, intentionally choose where you place it next. Do you return to what you were doing or do you pick something else on which to focus your attention?

Mindfulness isn’t meant to be a steady state but a regular touching base. At first, it takes an effort to remember to be mindful. You may need to put reminders on sticky notes on your computer, your bathroom mirror and your steering wheel. But after regular practice and repetition, you’ll become better at it and it’ll become second nature!

Let me know in a comment below if you've found some other ways to integrate mindfulness in your life. I love hearing what works for others!

Is Your Bargaining Perpetuating Your Anxiety? 5 Things to Try.

We’re all bargainers. No, not like the world class ones you’ll encounter as you nudge your way through the busy shops of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, or wander through the famous stalls of Jemaa El Fnaa in Marrakech, or if you get lost in the maze of the ancient markets in New Delhi. Actually, that’s not the type of bargaining I’m thinking of at all. 

I’m thinking of the constant bargaining and negotiating we do all the time without even thinking of it! If we were to turn up the volume on our awareness, we’d shock ourselves with how often we are wheeling and dealing…with ourselves!

Here are some examples. Have you bargained with the anxiety gods that as long as you keep your anxiety they will protect you from really bad things happening? Or convince yourself that as long as you keep your worry front and center, you’re being responsible and ‘fighting the good fight’ and that it will eventually pay off? Or have you traded your ‘peace of mind’ in exchange for providing for your family?

The problem with this type of internal bargaining and negotiating is that it is a one-way street. The other side might be at the table but they aren’t signing the contract. So, because in our minds so much is at stake, we end up with exceptional follow-through. We live up to our side of the bargain and worry, keep our anxiety, avoid certain things, even throw in a panic attack or two, and the other side? Well, they’re still not signing and there are no guarantees that they’re going to come through for us.

Would you EVER enter into a business deal like this? Even if your job doesn’t require making deals…logically does this make sense to you?

Me either.

So where does that leave us?

5 Ways to Stop Bargaining with Your Anxiety

1. We need to shed some light on the bargains we’ve made with some unreliable counterparts. Constant anxiety in return for life turning out ok. Lack of sleep in order to ensure business success. Chronic worry in order to guarantee my kids stay safe. Being overweight in order for my kids to get to their activities. Panic attacks to stay employed with my demanding but high paying job.
2. We need to ask ourselves if this is the only way that we will get the outcome we are wanting. Do I really need to wake up anxious in order for my life to turn out ok? Is the picture I’ve painted for my life the only picture that will work? Is being afraid of losing what I have or what I want to have the best way to keep it? Ask yourself some real questions along these lines.
3. Think logically even though anxiety isn’t logical. Anxiety is usually based on something that is potentially real and so logically an anxious reaction does make sense, though exaggerated. Once we accept that, we then we can think of other logical ways to deal with whatever we’re struggling with. We keep anxiety as one option and then we add other options to our menu. For example, you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities at work. One option is to wake up each morning before work feeling anxious, another option is to call in sick, or start looking for another job, or talk with your boss, or reframe what’s being asked of you, or take an online class to fill in skill gaps, or talk with a friend, or learn natural ways to help your body calm down, or make sure you exercise, or or or…
4. We need to experiment with other options. We can always return back to an anxious reaction. In a screwed up kinda way, anxiety will actually even feel comfortable because the known is always more comfortable than the unknown. But, we need to try out other reactions to address and deal with what is totally stressing us out because anxiety isn’t effective and makes life complicated and sucky. The key when we’re experimenting is to actually give the new reaction repetition and time to see if it works. Too often we try something once or twice and determine it doesn’t work. Our anxiety has had plenty of time and practice so we owe the same to other strategies!
5. Cut ourselves some slack. I know, that goes against all the hard-a$$ ‘wisdom’ out there. It flies in the face of all the self-critical cheerleading that has become the sacred path to success in our culture. Most likely you’ve been going that way too. It really doesn’t work for the long haul. So, maybe throw this one into your experimenting cycle too. You’re not going to the opposite end of the spectrum, lighting patchouli and telling yourself, “It’s all good.” You’re merely accepting a little bit more of being human, having reactions that make sense, and doing your best to make changes going forward…minus the self-flagellation.

Backing out of a past negotiation with your anxiety is ok. I think your anxiety is expecting it any day now.

Leave a reply and let me know what you just unbargained out of :-) 

Short and Sweet (10 Second) Anxiety Trick

I learn some of my best tricks from the clients I have worked with in the past. They’ll see something or try something new and, if it works, will pass it on to me. This type of feedback loop is extremely helpful and is a reason I’m constantly asking people to share their experiences with me. 

The 10 Second Anti-Anxiety Trick came to me in just this fashion. My former client passed along this gem from an article in July’s issue of Prevention magazine from two summers ago. It’s short and sweet…excuse the pun.

Here it goes. “The next time you’re feeling anxious, ditch the happy beach thoughts and rattle off as many ice cream flavors as you can. The exercise leverages a technique known as “grounding”, which can help bring your brain and your body back to the present,” says Vaile Wright of the American Psychological Association.

“It frees you from overwhelming feelings and unhealthy thoughts spinning in your head.” 

Why ice cream instead of, say, state capitals? The familiar dessert adds a level of comfort and nostalgia, researchers say.

Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you! Would another ‘list’ type exercise work better for you? 

5 "Must Try" Strategies for Anxiety

It is waaaay too easy to be anxious these days.

As we become tethered to our technology, we are bombarded and overwhelmed with more input than our brains and bodies can handle. As we get older our responsibilities seem unflinchingly complicated and arduous. Dreaming of being on a deserted island takes on a surprising appeal.

Well, the deserted island may evoke even more anxiety, so let’s slowly back away from that last one.

We all lead busy lives so I’ll keep this simple and brief. If you are struggling with anxiety, here are 5 things to keep in mind and try to help you start finding some relief and regaining your confidence.

1. Know that your anxiety comes from strong associations your brain has formed from past experiences. When they start to appear, name them to tame them. Say to yourself, “I’m feeling anxious because of the break in”, “I’m feeling anxious even though I don’t know why”, “I’m feeling anxious because of things happening in politics”. Don’t enter into a long conversation with yourself. Name it and move on.
2. Shift your attention to something else when you feel the first inkling of anxiety. Anything. But not in a panicky, ticking time bomb kind of way. Practice doing this as calmly as you can manage. My “go to” is to turn to my breath because it is always with me. I take deep breaths and just try to pay attention to how it feels. I try to breathe twice as long “out” as I did “in”. After a few deep breaths, I turn my visual attention onto something in the here and now. My goal is to keep myself in the present and disrupt rising anxious thoughts as soon as I am aware of them.
3. Know it will pass. Seriously, this is legit. Even if you don’t do anything, this overwhelming feeling of anxiety WILL pass. Experiment with it. Next time, try to just observe what it is doing. Your thoughts, feelings in your body, the time it takes, the level of discomfort. Don’t do anything and just observe it pass through. Sorta like that unexpected and inconvenient couch-surfing friend of yours from college. Phew, that visit was brutal…but they’re gone!
4. Know that any new association, thought, action or choice you can make when you are feeling anxious will start a new neural pathway. These new neural pathways strengthen with each repetition. The key is in the reps. The ultimate goal is retraining your brain away from your past anxious associations. Repetition of new associations will do it.
5. Self compassion. Your first inclination may be to hate yourself for “doing this” to you again. Actually your second and third inclinations may be the same. As soon as you possibly can muster it, you’ll need to forgive yourself and be nice to yourself. I would bet the farm that you’d never say to a friend the things you are saying to yourself. Turn that understanding inward A.S.A.P.

There you have it in a nutshell. Minus the effort and practice.

3 Things You May Not Know To Look For In a Therapist

Finding a therapist isn’t something most of us have much experience with doing. On top of that when we’re needing to find a therapist for the first time, it’s most likely coming at a time when we’re frazzled, distressed, sad, and feeling super vulnerable.

Needless to say it can be hard.

To help with that here are 3 things you may not know to consider when you’re looking for a therapist. When you picture working with a therapist do you picture:

1. Someone who speaks and describes things more ‘clinically and academically’ or someone who presents ideas, etc. in a more casual way? We may not know we are biased to favor one way or the other. We also may not realize we attribute more expertise to people sounding one way or another. Or can connect better with people sounding one way or another. To figure out which you might prefer, think about how you’ve responded to other situations in your life and that may indicate which way you’ll want to lean.
2. Someone who has you do all the talking and figuring things out or someone who shares ideas and connects some dots too? Are you needing a sounding board and picturing long sessions reclined on a couch? Or are you tired of trying to figure out all of this stuff on your own and want someone to jump in and give you some pointed direction for you to try out? You’ll want to know what you’re expecting in this area so your expectations can match your experience.
3. Someone who is available at times outside your appointment time or someone who isn’t? Some therapists allow text message, email or phone questions between sessions and others don’t. Figure out what type of availability you are looking for and make sure the therapists you are checking out fit the bill.

Have you discovered any others? What are somethings you’d add to this list?

20 Ways to Naturally Increase Your Serotonin and GABA

Remember playing in the sand at the beach when you were a kid? You’d dig a hole in the dry sand with your hands only to have the sand slide back in and fill in the hole as you go. It often felt like one step forward, two steps back.

When our bodies are low in GABA or serotonin it can have that ‘one step forward, two steps back’ effect on our anxiety, our ability to calm ourselves or our mood in general. We try to feel better and shake things off but we just don’t seem to get any traction.

Fortunately, there are some natural things we can do to help get these two important levels back in balance. These suggestions don’t require major overhauls of your life, just little tweaks here and there. Little tweaks, when practiced consistently, can make huge changes so please don’t brush them off and continue with your status quo. Your life is too important for that.

Also, if you’re like me, knowing specifically why you’re ‘doing this’ or ‘not doing that’ is extremely motivating! For example, in the past when I would hear something about the importance of reducing stress I would think to myself, “Yeah, yeah, I know…” But once the dots were connected with stress’ contribution to low GABA and serotonin, figuring out how to reduce stress seemed particularly valuable!

If you want a quick reminder of the different symptoms for low GABA and low serotonin, I listed them here .

GABA (Gamma-AminoButyric Acid) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that has a calming and relaxing effect in the brain.

Serotonin is also an inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps us with impulse control, pain relief, appetite, sleep and is probably best known for its role in helping to create a positive mood.

If you are interested in getting more information on how these two neurotransmitters might be affecting how you feel, make an appointment with a functional medicine doctor near you. If you don’t live near one, there are some wellness centers online that do tele-consultations.

Leave comments below if you’ve had particular success with these or other natural ways to improver your GABA and Serotonin. I’d love to hear what worked for you.

Could this Be the Holy Grail of Stress Resilience?

I feel like I have discovered the holy grail of stress resilience! It is free, available to everyone and doesn’t require breaking a sweat or twisting into uncomfortable, yet beneficial postures.  It can be used anywhere and at any time.  

It actually is so basic, I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!

But, I didn’t.

And Dr. Richard Brown and Dr. Patricia Gerbarg actually went further and have written a whole book about it, The Healing Power of the Breath.  They’re not the first and they won’t be the last to try to educate the masses on the healing power we have at our disposal, our breath.

The little nugget of wisdom I’m practicing and want to pass on is this: 10 minutes each day of coherent breathing. I call it little, because 20 minutes would be Uhmazing, but 10 minutes is still a great start!  

Now the coherent breathing practice has just a few parameters to it. Sit comfortably or lay comfortably keeping a tall spine. Breathe in and out through your nose, 5 times per minute. That comes out to breathing in for six seconds and breathing out for six seconds. Count. Put your attention on your breath and this rhythm of sixes. If you need to breathe more often, say 6 or 7 times a minute when you are beginning that is ok. Start there and work your way down to 5.

Time flies by as your parasympathetic nervous system is engaged in a pure, rejuvenating, resilience building, oxygenated love fest!

Your parasympathetic nervous system is the one that helps reset after our sympathetic nervous system is activated to handle the daily rigors of life, stress and anxiety. If we don’t actively practice resetting, soothing and strengthening our parasympathetic nervous system, we run the risk of burning ourselves out with our overactive sympathetic nervous system.

Sounds almost too simple to work or be worth it, doesn't it? Usually that's the kiss of death to a new habit. When it sounds too easy we often dismiss it at first glance. Or we forget to schedule it into our daily routine, thinking we'll just remember to do it. 

Well, since we totally are too smart for our own britches, let's not let this holy grail go the way of all our past holy grails. Join me in making this one stick/work.

Take a moment now to type it into your calendar. It takes only 10 minutes to start practicing coherent breathing. I'd love to hear about your experience with it!

Is Anxiety Your Superpower? Ugh, I Hate That Word...

I’m not glamorizing anxiety, because it stinks. But there’s a new way I started thinking about mine that totally disrupted my old narrative and shifted my thinking. It might help you do the same.

As a former teacher, I used to attend tons of professional development talks and workshops. They invariably started with the leader asking everyone to introduce themselves. Say your name and... your superpower.  Ugh.

There was a period where that happened 3 times in a row. I’ve never related to that superpower idea and even found the trendy use of “superpower” a bit irritating. I mean, I’m good at a number of things but superpower just sounded stupid. 

So, I always just made something up.

That changed a couple of years ago when I had stopped teaching and started writing a lot about anxiety. Out of left field, I started to realize that I did have “superpowers” and for some reason, that notion no longer seemed stupid. But they came from a place that I definitely wasn’t thinking about during those ice-breaker questions. They actually came from a place that I didn’t like to think about at all and had some embarrassment around. My anxiety.

Sure, when my anxiety is at full force these characteristics are blown out of proportion, exaggerated and definitely not helpful. Not a superpower.

BUT, in my normal day to day free from anxiety, these characteristics are present and make me really good at what I do. I now think of them as my superpowers.

• Proactive planner

• Prolific option thinker

• Highly tuned in to the environment 

• Advanced facial recognition 

• Highly imaginative

• Quick to energize for action

• Excellent brainstorming what-if scenarios

• Extremely realistic

Can you relate to any of these? What do some of your anxious qualities look like when dialed back? You don’t have to think of them as superpowers, because I know that can be annoying, but use them to help you start thinking of your anxiety in a different way.