Endorphins are your body’s natural painkillers. These chemicals reduce pain and diminish the effects of stress. Good news, one of the things you can do to increase endorphin activity is to eat chocolate!
Dopamine is one of your body’s most important neurotransmitters. According to Livestrong.com, “Dopamine has the enormous job of regulating mood, behavior, sleep and cognition. It also is associated with motivation and reward.”
Caffeine can actually increase dopamine levels. This explains why I feel better after a cup of coffee! However, too much caffeine can disrupt the levels of serotonin (another chemical in your body) which will affect your mood.
You’re on your 18th diet. You’ve lost weight before – many times – and you’re planning on doing it once more. You’re going to the Bahamas this spring and you want to look good.
Why do you find yourself back in this place again and again?
You had the wrong kind of motivation.
There’s short-term motivation and long-term motivation. Short-term motivation is fueled by factors outside of the goal. For example, you’re motivated to lose 15 lbs. because you want to look good for your trip to the Bahamas. “The Bahamas” is not only outside the contiguous United States, but it’s also outside of being healthy and fit. You’ll be able to take the weight off, maybe. But the weight will come back. This is because your motivation lies outside of you. It’s external.
If you want to lose 30 lbs. because you want to be more ambulatory or because you want to get off your blood pressure medication and you want to feel more energetic, then your motivation is internal and you are much, much more likely to stick with your exercise, diet and all the other healthy habits that you need to adopt for the change.
This goes for any goal you create for yourself. If you want to ensure that you make a long-lasting (permanent) change, define for yourself the internal motivation for it. The externals are easy: more money, the respect of others, prestige, etc. But the internals? These could include: new skills, peace of mind, confidence, mental strength, and physical strength.
Of course, there are consequences for hard work. You very well might make more money by gaining new work skills. You might get noticed and gain fame. You might look great on the beach. But make sure these are not part of your motivation and it’s more likely that you’ll sustain your success.
We’re a little over a month to the New Year, but it’s never too early to think of New Beginnings. I’m not into countdowns, as that takes your mind out of the present moment. However, I believe reflection and assessing the areas of your life can be important in getting what you want. Perhaps everything is great: your marriage, the kids, and your health. But your career is flagging? Or maybe your career is going great, but your relationships are strained?
Can you identify the areas of current strength and happiness? Which area(s) would you like to address? Pinpointing your target areas is the first step to improvement.
Practicing gratitude improves your life in a multitude of ways. According to Amy Morin, a psychological business writer for Forbes.com, reflecting on all that you have to be grateful for benefits you in the following ways:
Opens the door to more relationships.
Improves your physical health (fewer aches and pains)!
Improves your psychological health (reduces your emotional toxins)!
Enhances empathy and reduces aggression.
Helps you sleep better.
Improves your self-esteem.
Increases mental strength.
Reflecting on gratitude is a form of living in presence.
When I use the “chuck it” with my dog, Opal, she runs as fast as lightning. I’ll throw the tennis ball 6 or 7 times and when we’re done, Opal is exhausted and happy. And then she’s mellow for the rest of the day. She is kinder with other dogs and she’s a delight to be around.
When I skip my own workout, I feel sluggish. I don’t have as much energy. When I force myself to work out – despite fatigue – I feel energized and I’m ready to take on my work.
Sometimes, the “magic pill” is just hard work.
What is it for you? Meditation? Yoga? Weight lifting? Set yourself up for success and do it, even if you don’t feel like it.
The hippocampus in our brains is responsible for our learning, our emotions and our memory. As we age, we get concerned about its health.
We’ve known exercise is good for the brain, because studies have shown that exercise pumps blood throughout our gray matter, improving mood and thinking.
But which type of exercise is best?
Aerobics?
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Weight-lifting?
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High intensity interval training?
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It’s sustained aerobics!
According to Mindful.com, an experiment on lab mice in Finland showed definitively, that sustained aerobics produced the most neurogenesis.
Weightlifting is great for your muscles (and aging). High intensity interval training is excellent for calorie burning and aesthetics. But aerobic exercise is excellent for the brain. Whatever your fitness routine, don’t skip your spinning (or slimnastics or dancing or kickboxing classes)!
My daughter gave me not one – but TWO – compliments today. Usually, she snottily asks me what happened to my hair, or why am I wearing “those ugly shoes,” or she offers to help me with my very sad eyebrows.
But today, she:
asked to wear one of my shirts to school tomorrow (!) and
asked me why I wear big shorts when I have such nice legs (!)
I know this appearance thing is a phase. I try to not get irked too much when I see her taking her 99th selfie or when she practices her smile and picture poses over and over again. But I worry when I see old men ogling at her at the grocery store. She’s fourteen! I want to scream at them. My friend does scream that at dirty old men who look at her step daughter that way. Maybe we all need to scream it.
Another friend of mine (who has been through numerous miscarriages and a stillbirth), told me she turned to her husband the other day and asked,
“Remember when I just worried about being pretty?”
I exercise every day. I used to workout in order to look good. Now, I do it to FEEL good. Having daughters, I am keenly aware that they are watching me. Telling them that being strong is one thing, but showing them is entirely another.
When you know better, you do better, even if people will be poopie about it.
Why did I make the change? Because I promised the Power That Be that I would eat better if I could survive cancer. Because natural is better than artificial. Because I want my family to be healthy.
Ingredients in Jiffy Peanut Butter:
MADE FROM ROASTED PEANUTSAND SUGAR, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: MOLASSES, FULLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OILS (RAPESEED AND SOYBEAN), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SALT.
Ingredients in Laura Scudder’s All Natural Peanut Butter:
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Eckhart Tolle’s premise that Judging others and ourselves, Attaching (to things) and Resisting reality (JAR) all lead to unhappiness and that if you eradicate these three things, you will be happy.
Counting down to vacation, the weekend, or the end of the work day are examples of moments when we resist reality. These are opportunities to stop and think: we need to stop resisting our reality, our longing to be elsewhere.
I used to have a Countdown app. Long story, but I was in a job with a terrible boss. The job would end in 102 days. When I realized this “secret,”- that counting down was the antithesis of living with joy – I deleted the app and paid attention to my life. I did my best to enjoy every minute of the job, despite this awful boss. And I really began to love it!
Enjoy your present moment. Our lives are made of a chain of present moments, right? One right after another….this makes up a lifetime.
I was eating lunch with someone. She said, “I wonder what we’ll have for dinner.” Don’t do that. Fully enjoy your lunch. Dinner will happen when it happens. “But I have to plan it. I have to think about it beforehand, it doesn’t just happen,” you say. True. But while you eat your lunch, eat your lunch. Enjoy each bite. Being fully present for each bite…realizing when you are full and stopping…this is the best “diet.” When it comes time to plan your dinner, do it. And plan your dinner, but only do that. Be fully present. Be happy.
We were driving to violin lessons today. It’s a 45 minute drive. The car in front of us was crossing the line and coming back. The car in the other lane could not advance because of this. I thought, “Either this driver is drunk, or texting.” We passed the car and I saw the driver looking at his lap, obviously on his phone. How dangerous! We saw several people driving in this manner.
Multi-tasking is not only the enemy of happiness and excellent work, it can also cost lives.
So do not countdown to the next thing. Do not do two things at the same time. Slow down. Relax. Be mindful. This is the secret to happiness.
A couple months ago, I received my Garmin Vivofit tracker. Thank you. It has put my OCD mind (a little) at ease because now I can confirm (and double and triple confirm) the number of steps I have taken and need to take, how much sleep I received the night before (including deep and light sleep hours) and, with the chest strap, I can track my heart rate and how many calories I burned.
Great.
But we need to talk. You and I know who purchases your products. People like me: control freaks. Obsessive, compulsive perfectionists. We sync our trackers just to watch our progress several times a day. We lock ourselves in the Starbucks bathroom and do a quick jog until the red lineof shame goes away.
So why – oh why – do you torture me when I am stuck in the optometrist’s office for a three hour appointment (the doctor had to check not only my eyes, but the health of my two daughters’ eyes, too)? Why do you state the obvious?
By the way, when I walk more than usual, I don’t receive a “Wow, you’re exceeding your average – way to go!” You don’t send me a message appreciating the fact that it’s 108 degrees out there and that I still managed to surpass my goals. Please, go easy. Take mercy on us tracker users. We’re a damaged breed.
Kismet 