The world has fought a lot of wars throughout history, and it feels as though we’re fighting a war now. A battle against a tiny microbe—officially named COronaVIrusDisease-19 (COVID-19)—invisible to the naked eye. That’s one of the problems with this particular battle. We like to see our enemy, be able to predict what he’s going to do next, calculate how to handle him and thwart his plans.
But with this little halo-surrounded enemy, it seems we can only develop hypothetical models that keep changing, shut everyone behind closed doors, and hope for the best.
It’s obviously a little more complicated and sophisticated than that, but to the average person on the street—who has now been told in some places to continue staying off the street (or beach) or get arrested—it all seems about that simple.
A time of stark contrasts—
The times we’re living in, the battle we’re fighting, brings to mind the opening line from one of my favorite books, one of the best books ever written: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. A lot of you could probably recite it without looking it up—
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
This beginning of the very l-o-n-g first line pretty much says it all for us. We can relate.
Dickens tells the story about life in another war, the French Revolution, and he continues with a string of contrasts.
…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”
A far-flung range of emotions—
How many of us have gone through, or are still going through, these wildly contrasting emotions?
For those of us who cherish our families and time spent with them, we feel doubly blessed to be around them so much.
But domestic violence is on the rise, and tensions are developing in families suffering from too little personal space, or outdoor space. And upended orderly, hyper-scheduled lives.
Drunk driving accidents and arrests are way down; but drinking and drug use have increased dramatically.
We’re looking to trained professionals to give us answers, and we get a multitude of opinions.
A possible breakthrough medication is mentioned, and a couple thinks their fish tank cleaner containing some of the same chemical will work for a homeopathic treatment. After all, they don’t want to get the virus, so—without doctor recommendation or consultation—they ingest their fish tank cleaner. (Who does this!?) The husband dies, and his wife blames our country’s president for her stupidity.
It’s a time of people being terrified and too self-protective, and a time of people throwing caution to the wind, inviting trouble, and putting God to the test.
It’s a time marked by notable events, when we desperately want to believe someone, and a time when we’re so shocked by the unfolding circumstances we doubt everything.
For believers in God, it’s a time when they see Him moving, showing His power, fulfilling prophecy; for the unbeliever, it’s a time of sadness, anxiety, and paralyzing fear.
For those able to maintain their jobs and support their families, it’s a blip on the inconvenience scale. (For some, like my husband, it’s a blessing to not have to rush to and from work every day.) For those watching their lives and livelihoods unravel, they feel stunned, betrayed and helpless. Their futures look dark and impossible. Hopeless.
For them, there is nothing before them.
For others, their greatest fear is whether or not they’ll have enough toilet paper to last through the lockdown. For so many around the world, they don’t know if they’ll have food to feed their children their next meal.
For all of us, we only know what we have right now—before us—and see only a question mark for our and our countries’ futures.
What next?
When will this end, or will it? Will we have to permanently adjust to a “new normal?’
Will staying quarantined, hunkered down, and apprehensive change our brain chemistry so much that we wouldn’t be able to return to normal even if we wanted to?
Rarely in history have we felt the collective “we” we’re now experiencing. The global “we” that for a brief blink in time puts us squarely in the human fragility boat.
As a young man said during an international prayer call I joined in on a week ago: “Thank you, Lord, for bringing us to our knees and showing us just how small, helpless and vulnerable we are.”
It was an admission of humility, of God’s omnipotence. And it was also a plea for mercy to a God that listens when His people cry out to Him. He’s not the detached, aloof God of the Deist; He’s a God of His creation, His people, His children, who listens when they say, “Abba (Daddy), help!”
It may not seem as though He’s listening or moving, but He is. He always is.
What’s in a name—war or not?
Some people don’t like referring to this pandemic as a war. While it may not be in the strictest sense, for many people it certainly is a battle—emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially.
As during Dickens’ story, we are living in a time of stark contrasts:
hope and fear
knowledge and ignorance
trust and suspicion
resignation and obedience and blaming and rebellion
hope and hopeless
Light and Darkness
hope and despair
joyful solitude and despairing isolation
resolution and waffling
meditation and anxiety
acceptance and rejection
prayer and self-focus
gain and loss
Good emotions versus bad emotions—
I could fill pages with these contrasts. And strike up a passionate discussion.
Are these negative emotions bad?
No. They’re honest emotions, reasonable and human reactions to upended lives, unknown futures, unanswered questions, and death.
The negative emotions aren’t bad, unless we allow them to swallow up or control our thoughts, kill the positive emotions, and rule our lives.
But the ultimate question is: which contrast do you want to cling to, to practice, to emulate? To grow in. To emerge from this pandemic a better person than you were when you entered it.
Because it is a time of change and growth. A time when we’re confronted with difficult decisions. And we need to look to Someone who can shine a Light on the best ones and guide us down the best paths.
Ultimately, we do have a choice to make it our worst of times or our best of times. Or the opposite.
I don’t mean to imply that this is easy. It’s not. It may take every last ounce of energy we have to successfully emerge and resume a more “normal” life. One that’s hopeful and purposeful. God’s been known to do that to people throughout history to make alterations permanent.
It helps us remember.
A little encouragement—
Before I sign off with the invitation for today, I want to leave you with a couple of encouraging truths:
“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” —Thomas Merton
“It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” —Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)
Invitation
Write down all of the emotions this pandemic and chaos has caused you to experience. Don’t judge them, or yourself. Just jot them down.
Then write down why you think you’ve felt these emotions—like fearfulness, anxiety, weepiness, peace.
Draw pictures to accompany your feelings.
Continue to do this as your lockdown progresses or restrictions are eased.
Do you see changes in your emotions and their ability to control you?
Write the steps you can take to make sure your emotions and physical and spiritual life end up on the positive side of the contrasts.
Or turn it into a prayer, asking God to help and guide you to accomplishing those attitudes and behaviors.
Better yet, turn it into worship. It’s hard to feel negative emotions when you’re singing praise and worship songs!
Here’s one of my favorites to get you started.
And I’ll see you back here next week (or sooner)!
Blessings,
Andrea
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
If you suffer from or know anyone who suffers from depression, you know how debilitating it can be. Suicidal tendencies, sleep disturbances, nutrition problems, weight changes, and substance abuse are only some of its side effects. The financial toll it takes on society is huge. The toll it takes on people physically and and spiritually is immeasurable.
And an astounding statistics about depression? A Medscape report noted that between 15 and 20 percent of people are affected by this mental illness.
But depression is complicated. It’s often difficult to get a handle on its root causes. You might have genetic vulnerability, a significant life stressor, be taking a depression-triggering medication, experienced a serious and debilitating illness, or an injury. Depression can be a surgery side effect. And it can occur as a side effect of painkiller or drug dependence, or be caused by the use of these substances.
Do you know that it can cause long-term damage to both the brain and body?
What is the brain connection to depression?
Numerous conditions can affect your brain and its mood-regulating process. Grief after the loss of a loved one or a major life-changing event—moving, changing jobs, having a child—can start the depression ball rolling. If not addressed quickly, it can roll out of control.
An August 2019 Bridges to Recovery article covered how major depression affects the brain and body. The article covers the memory decline and sleep-disturbance link between the hormone cortisol (which is released when you’re under stress); the disturbing findings that long-term depression sufferers have 30 percent more brain inflammation than their mentally healthy peers; and the link between hypoxia, or reduced oxygen, and depression.
Those are staggering statistics that have tremendous health consequences.
How can we better deal with, overcome and prevent this threatening illness?
Treatingdepression—
The toll depression can take on your body is significant. But there are alternatives to taking anti-depressants, which can also have their own negative consequences.
Powerful, effective drug-free alternatives exist that you might want to explore, or use with your prescribed medication to enhance results.
These alternatives are listed under a treatment category referred to as mind-body medicine.
Depression and Mind-Body Medicine—
Mind-Body Medicine is becoming more popular and mainstream, and you may have heard the term and been wondering exactly what it is and what it could do for you or a loved one.
In a nutshell, Mind-Body Medicine is integrative medicine—medicine that takes the whole person and her lifestyle into account—it helps you control your physical and emotional responses to the world around you.
The Center for Mind Body Medicine defines it as medicine that “focuses on the interactions between mind and body and the powerful ways in which emotional. mental, social and spiritual factors can directly affect health.”
It cannot be emphasized enough that the brain is connected to the body, and vice versa. So if we want to have overall, optimal health we must strive to be whole body connected.
A question you might want to take time to ponder is:
“You might be taking care of your body but what about your mind?”
Maybe you’ve recently noticed that you aren’t taking care of your mind, or paying much attention to it outside of knowing what you’re thinking or worrying about at any given moment. Many of us know it’s up there, somewhere above our shoulders, but some of us don’t know what to do with it. Instead of trying to exert control over it, we’re more likely to let it control us. The results can be rapid heart rate, sweaty palms, anger, frustration, fear, and depression.
Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Amit Sood has pointed out that
“Impressive advances in neuroscience research have brought to our attention a startling and exciting discovery—the mind can change the brain.”
Thankfully, after decades of research, scientists have discovered that our amazing brains do have what they call plasticity— the ability to change throughout our lives. Our brain can be soothed and coerced into being more completely engaged. We can become more resilient, happier, more thoughtful, purposeful or intentional.
Many of the techniques I’m going to give you I learned as an undergraduate and grad student. I’ve tried them, applied them, and researched them. They can work, when you practice them properly and faithfully.
I’m going to address 13 activities. With so many, I’ll be breaking them into three posts, so let’s get started today on the first five:
Biofeedback, Guided Imagery, Meditation, Muscle Relaxation, and Music Therapy.
At the end of each section, I’ve provided YouTube video of the activity for you to learn more, participate in or practice.
Biofeedback for Depression—
Physical therapists, athletic trainers, coaches and psychiatrists have used this technique for years. But what exactly is this technique that’s been effective in 150 medical conditions?
Biofeedback is used to help your mind control your body.
But just what in your body are you trying to control?
You’re trying to control involuntary (reflexive) responses. Bodily functions you don’t typically have control over, like blood pressure, muscle tension and heart rate. And a lot of tension can translate into a lot of muscle and joint pain.
How does biofeedback work?
Electrical sensors are placed on different body parts/areas. These sensors then give you audio or visual feedback on your heart rate or how much muscular tension you have in that particular body part.
Then you’re taught how to focus on and “feel” the tension, cause the tension to occur (through voluntary contractions), and then release the tension by deliberately allowing, or causing, the muscle to relax. Patients can lower their breath rate, heart rate and blood pressure using this technique.
You also learn to recognize exactly where you “hold” tension in your body.
When you become more sensitive to your triggers and body tension areas, you are more able to control and overcome the tension when you encounter stressful or stress-triggering situations.
If you’re interested in giving this a try, find a trained biofeedback therapist in your area. You shouldn’t go at this alone, unless you want to snag a book at your local library and try it without the feedback machine bells and whistles. You won’t do any harm trying it this way.
Guided Imagery for Depression—
What makes you relax and smile? Where’s your happy place? A walk in the park? A stroll along the beach? A forest hike?
Guided imagery involves thinking of a personally pleasing scene, vision, or pleasant memory. Then imagine yourself plunked down in the middle of it, with all 5 senses engaged to “experience” this intentional daydream. This relaxation technique is called guided imagery, or visualization.
Try laughing or smiling during your visualization exercise and notice the relaxed, happy (or happier), and contented feeling you’re experiencing. That’s those happy hormones (endorphins) being released into your body, just like they’re released during exercise or crying. Mayo Clinic calls it “an important tool in treating a variety of health problems.” (If you want to give the smiling or laughing affect a try, go ahead and smile or laugh right now, as you’re reading this, and see what kind of feelings that result.)
This is what else Mayo Clinic has to say about it:
“Researchers using positron emission tomography (PET) scanning have found that the same parts of the brain are activated when people are imaging something as when they’re actually experiencing it…Vivid imagery sends messages from the cerebral cortex to the lower brain, including the emotional control center of the brain. From there the message is relayed to the endocrine and the autonomic nervous systems, which affect a wide range of bodily functions, including heart, expiration rates, and blood pressure.”
The endocrine system is a collection of hormone-producing glands. Some of the body systems these hormones control are metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, mood, sexual function, and reproduction.
The autonomic system is the part of our nervous system that regulates the control of our internal organs and some muscle function.
How’s Is Guided Imagery Done?
First: Relax.
It’s important that you have no distractions, so leave your cell phone in another room and put an “I’m Visualizing Right Now” sign on your closed door!
Put on loose, comfortable clothing and sit or lie in a comfortable, quiet spot. Start with deep, slow breaths in and out through your nose.
Second:Breathe.
Now really concentrate on your breathing. Slowly fill up your lungs and pay attention to the stress leaving your body when you exhale. Think of exhaling your stress away. Don’t allow random, distracting or negative thoughts to permeate your mind or interfere. (This will undoubtedly occur, but it will get better or easier to control with each session.) When you’re done dispelling thoughts, return to focusing on your breathing.
Next: Visualize.
Now comes the fun part! Intentionally choose a desired image and focus on it. It could be an event, location or person. If your mind wanders, bring your focus back with a slow, deep breath. (If you have difficulty conjuring up a scene, choose a pleasing photograph or picture to look at.)
Finally: Affirm.
Select a positive word or phrase to connect to your vision. This will serve to create a positive image that will be stored by your brain, easily recalled later, and provide your brain and emotions with positive thoughts and feelings. Some practitioners think that attaching a word to your feelings helps to engage both sides of your brain.
One of my favorite places to visualize is Waikiki Beach, hearing the waves crash onto the beach, envisioning the moonlight on the water, holding my husband’s hand as we stroll along the beach at night.
If you’re suffering from grief due to the loss of a loved one, it may help to envision a happy time you spent with them.
If you have a moment right now, even if you’re sitting in a chair to read this, stop reading and give guided imagery a try. It doesn’t have to take more than five minutes, and you may be surprised to feel your breathing slowing down.
Meditation for Depression—
Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines “to meditate” as: “to spend time in quiet thought for religious purposes or relaxation.”
Other definitions include: to engage in contemplation or reflection; to engage in mental exercise (as concentration on one’s breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness; to focus one’s thoughts on, to reflect or ponder over; to plan or project in the mind.
One of mediation’s many synonyms is “to chew over” which is what its definition is in the Bible. When we’re told to meditate on God’s word, we’re being told to chew on it, like an animal chewing its cud, regurgitating it over and over; or to work on it like a lion shredding its prey so we can possess it, understand it, be changed by it.
Recent research indicates that the most beneficial part of meditating can be the breathing techniques associated with it. It’s also one of th easiest and most portable activities that can be done just about anywhere.
So whether you’re meditating to clear your mind, or meditating to really concentrate on something, you’ll find benefits.
How To Start
Like Guided Imagery, meditation begins with a quiet place, controlled breathing, and dispelling distracting thoughts. Then choose a word or verse on which to concentrate.
When I’m sitting on the floor of the small sitting area off my bedroom, in front of a lighted candle that emits a subtle scent of hyacinth, my favorite thing to concentrate on is a person.
When I repeat the name, “Jesus,” and think of all of His beautiful attributes, my heart, body and mind are filled with joy, peace and love. (A mind-and-body-transforming, heavenly love.) I’m brought to a state of physical relaxation, mental calmness, alertness, (yes, you can simultaneously be calm, relaxed and alert!), and psychological balance. These are all benefits of meditation. (Concentrating on and repeating a word or verse from Scripture also gives me the same effect.)
So, when people tell you that in meditation you need to first “empty your mind,” that’s not necessarily true. You need to first lay aside distractions and banish those from sneaking in your mind’s door, then intentionally choose what you will allow to enter in to that delicate, impressionable space.
While your goal is to empty your mind of the stress and concerns, you don’t want to just empty your mind and allow any old thought to come in. You want to think deliberately, try to gain control over your thoughts.
But don’t judge yourself harshly when negative or distracting thoughts rush in, as they so often do. Just acknowledge them and then discard them. Don’t dwell on them. You can transform yourself by renewing your mind.
Meditation benefits—
Meditation has received rave reviews by researchers because it’s been shown to reduce anxiety, reduce blood pressure, improve attention, improve sleep, decrease chronic pain, improve blood sugar level control, and decrease job burnout. It can even help you achieve sleep at bedtime. At the very least, it helps you manage a hectic, stressful life!
If you desire a meditation training aid, like directions or music-to-meditate-by, go to www.mayoclinic.com and search for “mediation.” Or simply Google, Mayo Clinic Meditation, which will lead you to videos, tablet and smart phone apps.
Progressive Relaxation Therapy for Depression—
I love this one! It’s easy, quick and helps reduce depression, anxiety, muscle tension, stress, panic disorder, and high blood pressure and improves concentration.
Getting Started
First, remove your glasses or contacts and loosen any tight clothing and choose a chair or floor in a quiet place. Remove your shoes.
Starting with your feet, deliberately tense your feet muscles and hold the tension for 5 seconds. Then slowly relax the muscles and keep them relaxed for 30 seconds. Feel the tension leave the muscles as you relax.
Repeat this tense-and-hold one more time with your feet and then move up to the legs (calf area). Repeat the 5 seconds of tensing and follow with the 30 seconds of relaxation two times, as you did with your feet. Then move up to the thighs, pelvis, abdomen, chest, hands, forearms, arms, neck, face and head, following the same 5-second tense and 30-second relaxation structure.
At first, don’t be surprised if you have some difficulty isolating the specific muscle groups. But keep trying! You’ll find success soon enough and reap the benefits.
Aim for a 10-minute session. Muscle Relaxation can be done anywhere. It helps reduce stress and relax the mind in seconds! It’s also often used in conjunction with Biofeedback.
MUSIC THERAPY for Depression—
Do you like to listen to music? It turns out that music has one of the most powerful effects on the mind for memory and people and event association.
But how can it be used for therapy?
Music therapy was first recognized as a bonafide treatment back in 1945 when musicians treated injured United States military personnel. It’s now used in a variety of ways to improve mental and physical health. Patients may listen to a particular piece of music and then discuss how it affects them. It can also be used to achieve a state of relaxation.
Studies have shown that music therapy improves students’ sleep quality and reduces pre-exam anxiety.
Your choice of music can relax your overactive mind and help you concentrate on the subject at hand, or energize you. You can select the genre and tempo based on your mood or activity, or the mood you wish to achieve.
Music therapy can revive your spirit, get you up and moving, and, for some people, actually reduce pain and suffering. Ever undergo an MRI? The music you can select to have piped in through head phones they place over your ears to drown out the horrid noise can settle your nerves and queasy stomach and make it seem as though the exam is shorter than it really is.
So don’t forget about music as an important part of your healing process. It can be combined with other treatments, like visualization, to optimize and enhance results.
It can improve mood, reduce heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety. And some anti-depressant medications actually work better with music therapy!
Wrap-up—
I think you’ll be pleased with the positive effects you’ll receive from these mind-body exercises, and they’ll become an integral part of your stress and depression-fighting medicine toolbox. If you have any questions about them or difficulty performing them, please don’t hesitate to respond in the reply box or send me an email at: andreaarthurowan@gmail.com.
Or let us know how these techniques have benefitted you!
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NEXT TIME: Fighting depression with Pilates, Relaxed Breathing, Tai Chi, and Yoga.
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Until then,
don’t give in or give up, and fight the good fight against this debilitating illness!
Andrea
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and an award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
(Some information and quotes for this post were taken from Mayo Clinic Guide to Alternative Medicine, published by Time Home Entertainment.)
Last week Friday, I headed to the gym for a morning workout. I thought I’d switch to a once-a-week morning exercise to see if what they say about morning workouts being better for fat burning were true. I was in high spirits, until I saw all of the cars in the parking lot and had to drive around it a couple of times just to find an open spot.
After scanning my membership code, and being greeted by a young, chirpy employee, I strode around the welcome desk and headed to the locker room. My mouth dropped at the number of people packed into the large facility.
Nearly every treadmill was taken. Every stationary bike had a sweaty, or soon-to-be-sweaty occupant. The free-weight exercise equipment area was packed. People swung weights, stretched, grunted and hopped around on nearly every square inch of the fake turf exercise area.
Where did all of these people come from!? I wondered.
Then it dawned on me—New Year, New Resolutions.
And I wondered how many of these well-intentioned, hopeful people would still be pumping the weights, spinning the stationary bike wheels, or padding the revolving treadmill a month or two from now.
If a recent Forbes article is accurate, only 25% of them will be able to make it past 30 days, and a measly 8% will be able to achieve them.
Those numbers are discouraging.
It could be that a lot of these just chose the wrong goal, latched onto someone else’s goal, or were mimicking what they read somewhere.
Or it could be that they picked the wrong activity, got lured in by the discount price, were told by their doctor that they needed to lose weight, or else; or they wanted to start out the new year feeling good about themselves by doing something.
Exercise is important for overall physical, emotional and psychological health, but just how can you increase your chances of success and steam past those dismal statistics numbers?
Upping your chances of resolution success—
How timely it was that after my morning workout my mom’s AARP healthcare healthy living newsletter Strive arrived in my mailbox. I peeled it open to see what they had to say about sticking with a new fitness program and making it a habit.
They gave four tips, most of which I’d agree with.
Set doable goals.
This is a big one and a major factor in stick-to-it failure. People, as the old saying goes, bite off more than they can chew.
If you want to be able to walk 10 miles (consistently) on an outing by the end of the year, work backward to set your daily or weekly walking goals.
If just walking around your half-mile block leaves you huffing and puffing, then you might only be able to trudge down to the corner and back on your first try. Keep doing that until you’re walking at a comfortable pace and not gulping for air.
To avoid injury and stick with it, the rule of thumb is to NOT increase your mileage by more than 10% a week, and NEVER increase your mileage and your moving speed simultaneously. Focus on ONE or the OTHER.
If you’re just aiming for mileage, then the week after making it around your half-mile block three times (or daily, if you’re really pushing yourself), then increase your mileage by 10%, which wouldn’t be very far. But that’s okay. We’re not shooting for the Olympics here, (and all of those Olympians had to go through this type of baby-step training process when they started). We’re aiming for consistent, recreational fitness, to help you enjoy life better and add more life to whatever years you have!
Once you get to a week full of mile walks, then add another tenth of a mile. As you can see, the higher the mileage you’re capable of, the faster the gains as you get closer to the ten-mile goal. It’s like a snowball that gets bigger and gathers steam as it rolls along.
If your goal is to walk a half-marathon by a certain date, use this same formula and work backward. You may be surprised to learn that your goal is too ambitious. Don’t give up; just walk your own half marathon on a day your selected and reward yourself with a trophy, medal or something you’ve wanted to purchase. Or enjoy a nice meal out with your significant other. And then check races/walks in your area to see what the next nearest event is. It might be a fundraiser. That alone could be a great incentive for you.
But the most important part of this advice is that you must know what your goals are!
Too often, when I ask a client what their goals are, they give me the deer-in-the-headlight look. They don’t know.
So, your first step is to think long and hard about what your goals are (try to keep it to one per area—physically, emotionally, spiritually), and then write one down for each. Once you’ve achieved that goal, you can tweak it or add more. Just be reasonable. You don’t want to sabotage yourself from the starting block. It would be like lacing on clunky hiking shoes to run a marathon!
And if you find that you’ve taken on too much, or too little, feel free to adjust. It’s okay. You’re allowed to play around with this goal stuff. As long as you don’t play around with it so much that you doom yourself to accomplishing nothing, like a procrastinator does.
Just have fun.
I know what their point is, and, for the most part, I agree with it. But as a former athlete, I can tell you that some of my days just weren’t fun. Far from it. They were painful, annoying, scary. Most of the time I was having fun, but not always. But I still had to drag myself to the gym to practice.
And you know what? Most of the time I was really happy I did. I felt proud of myself and much better after the practice. I felt as though I’d climbed an obstacle and achieved something.
And that brings me to the next part of having fun: the better I got, the more fun it was!
When you’re just starting out a new activity, it can feel laborious and not worth the effort. The brain actually rebels with the new moves. But after a while, when new neurons are formed, your body responds better, it builds up a motor memory, and you can do things faster and better.
So whether you’re taking up salsa dancing, violin playing, (like a former co-worker of my husband who took up the violin after retirement and a horrendous round of chemo for cancer), swimming or hiking, remind yourself that it will get easier—if you stick with it.
Track your progress.
Not only is it motivating to keep a record of your improvement, it’s also essential to sticking with and meeting your goals!
That can’t be stated enough. Research shows that those people who don’t write down their goals and share them with someone else are unlikely to succeed.
So get yourself a notebook and track your progress. Post a chart on your refrigerator or laundry room wall. I have a chalkboard calendar mounted on the utility room door in our laundry room that I mark my weight loss (or gain!) on every other day after I weigh myself. It keeps me honest and tuned into my goals.
It’s when I ignored my weight for an entire year that I packed on an extra 15 – 20 pounds my frame (and knees) couldn’t afford for me to pack on. It’s agony trying to get them off, but my new reduced-acid diet, workout program, and every-other-day weigh-in keep me motivated.
I also like to use a notebook at the gym to record my progress. When I notice that I’ve plateaued in my workout, I can change it up and re-start the body’s adaptation system.
Reward yourself.
When you reach a milestone, treat yourself, as I mentioned above.
It may be that you can enjoy a rummage-through-your closet day to try on pants and skirts or other items to see if you can reduce a size. If so, toss those too-big clothes and buy yourself a couple of items to replace them. Don’t go too wild if you’re planning to lose more weight. Save the big treat for when you’ve reached your final goal.
If you’re still working, treat yourself to a vacation day.
It’s okay to pat yourself on the back for doing a good job. And if you’ve enlisted someone else as a cheerleader, include them in the celebration with a thank you gift.
And I’ll add another goal to the list.
Even if you hit a snag, don’t give up.
Know that there will be obstacles and setbacks. Life is like that. Don’t be surprised by them.
If you’ve found that you’ve already dropped the ball on your goals the third week of January, don’t be discouraged or give up. If you’ve determined that you picked the wrong activity, try another one. If you’ve overdone it and burned yourself out already, re-set and try again.
And don’t let anyone else sabotage you. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t like it when they see someone else succeeding at what they know they should be and could be doing.
Your consistency and passion (not your berating and belittling) may be just what they need to join you and set their own positive goals!
Until next week,
Get out there and enjoy the fruit of hitting your goal!
Blessings,
Andrea
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro, and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Are you feeling a little post holiday-letdown melancholy? Today I’ll give you a tip on how to combat it.
I was feeling a whole lot of letdown. Because we’d been remodeling our home, the decorations and tree went up just days before Christmas, and then it all seemed to be over so soon. And I was trying to extend the festivities. The emotional, feeling part of them.
Our holidays were unexpectedly full and joyous, and I was still trying to live on the happy fumes. The house became eerily quiet after our kids and their wives and sweethearts departed. My heart ached over the feeling of loss, and I didn’t want to let go of their happy, energetic presence. Their spirits still lingered in the house.
But the outside world was busy moving forward and trying to drag me (and other reluctant earthlings) along with it. Even when I found myself out grocery shopping January 2, I was in a happy, festive mood. Everyone else in the store, though, seemed anxious and grumpy. The store was packed with edgy people, all getting in one another’s way. Couples were yelling at each other about taking too long to find a particular food.
When I arrived at the checkout counter, the young woman and I struck up a conversation. The topic of the stressed out and angry clientele came up. “I know,” she said. “It’s awful. I don’t like it. Everyone seems upset.” She went on to say how happy and relaxed she felt and the customers were chipping away at that.
And that was on January 2, the second day of the New Year!
The second grocery store I wound up shopping in was already hawking Valentine’s Day chocolates, not too far from their deeply-discounted Christmas ware. Home improvement stores were already displaying their spring and summer items.
But I’m determined to ease into 2020 a bit more slowly and intentionally divest myself of the holiday trappings.
So last week, I took some action.
While some of our decorations were beginning to disappear from our shelves and walls, the Christmas tree was still full. And I decided to use it to my advantage last Thursday.
My intentional retreat day—
I had planned a full-day retreat, a day to seek God’s direction. To read, pray, sing, praise and zero in on life and where I was headed—or should be. Not just for this year, but potentially for the next five to seven years, or entire decade (since we just started a new one).
I originally had a grandiose idea of going to a local botanical garden, to wander along their winding desert paths and sit on a bench to read and write in my journal. I thought the peaceful surroundings would give me just the jolt and inspiration I needed to receive a word from the Lord.
But my budget and unexpected cold, cloudy and windy weather disrupted those plans. So I enjoyed a warm-up sojourn around our hilly neighborhood and then settled down in our library with my Shetland sheepdog, Dolly, in front of our library fireplace.
And I turned on the Christmas tree lights to add an atmosphere of joy and promise.
The results—
After a day of reading voraciously, praying, and filling pages of my journal, I finally felt ready to bid adieu to the holidays, tuck the precious memory of them into my hart, box up the tree and ornaments, and step firmly into the new year, and decade.
What a retreat day can do for you—
Taking that time helped me focus and open myself up to possibilities and hope. It helps you slow down, extract yourself from the world and its incessant, tiresome demands, and focus on the important stuff. I would highly recommend to everyone that they take a retreat day before we get too much further into the year and other demands or allow well-meaning people take you in directions you hadn’t planned on, or shouldn’t be going.
The time leaves you refreshed and excited. Content. More focused, purposeful and intentional. And that gives you a feeling of control, something so important to our emotional well-being.
Now my husband is trying to figure out when he can take his own personal retreat day, something that always recharges his emotional, spiritual and physical batteries.
Planning and taking your own personal retreat—
Try to block out an entire day. But if you don’t have the luxury of a full day, then block out a 4-hour time period in the morning or afternoon.
Turn off your smart phone and stash it someplace where it won’t be a distraction or temptation. Turn off your computer and any other electronic devices.
Make sure you’re by yourself and won’t have to endure interruptions. If you have babies at home, hire a babysitter and head out to a favorite place to enjoy your retreat, preferably someplace quiet. Ask your spouse to take care of the kids for a day. If you’re choosing a Saturday, have your husband/wife take the kids to the zoo, the movies, or a kids’ museum so you can retreat uninterrupted. You need to be able to focus on what God’s saying to you without worrying about distractions.
Grab your Bible, journal (or notebook/paper), and a pen, prayer beads, and anything else that will help you focus on God, your relationship with Him, and the direction he wants you to take this year.
Write down the activities that make you happy, the ones that really recharge and satisfy you. Make a mental note of doing more of those this year. Pencil them into your calendar for January to get a kick-start.
Identify your strengths and weaknesses, and brainstorm how you can utilize your strengths and dilute your weaknesses.
Make some notes on the tremendous blessings in your life, including people, events, work, etc. Thank God for those.
Identify the things in your life that are time-wasters and energy-drainers. What are you doing just because someone else wants you to do it, or because you feel guilty if you don’t. If you must do them for a good reason—like maintaining the family finances or health—ask God to give you a heart for them. Otherwise, make a point of releasing yourself from these wheel-spinning activities.
Identify what areas of your life you could change in order to give yourself more freedom and joy. Does your home need a thorough run-through, to throw out old clothes, unread and will-never-read books, and dust-gathering knickknacks that don’t fall into the family heirloom category. How can you simplify your life, and what can you do to achieve that goal?
Identify those people in your life that you’d like to spend more time with and develop a plan on how to achieve that goal. What individuals or groups do you want to nurture friendships with?
Choose any area of your life and pray about how you might make it more enjoyable or prosperous.
Identify areas God wants you to expend your energies. Remember that His yoke is easy and His burden is light!
Pick out some Bible verses to pray, personalize, and write down, and post in conspicuous places in order to remind you of your focus.
Will all of your plans come to fruition by December 31? Probably not, but as God reminds us, people perish without a vision.
Our (my husband and my) year will be focused on getting out of all debt, gaining freedom and preparing for retirement in the next five to seven years. For us, that means we have to forgo our coveted travel (even to the Northwest to visit our boys and daughter-in-law).
Since travel is one of our high-priority activities, it’s going to be tough. But we’re already looking forward to the possibilities and rewards, and are experiencing a new sense of freedom and control. It’s triggering ideas for alternative, scaled-down, budget-friendly activities. And it’s a great place to be in a marriage.
Now it’s your turn. You’ve got 18 days left in January. Pick out a day and get refreshed through a retreat! Face this year with joy, promise and expectation.
Until next week,
May your new year, and decade, get off to a great and promising start!
Andrea
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro, and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Well, the results are in, and you may not like what they have to say about your favorite diet.
U.S. News & World Report loves to provide “Best” rankings for a slew of categories, such as doctors in every specialty and colleges. Now their panel of experts has weighed in (no pun intended) on what they have whittled down to the top 35 diets overall. You might be surprised to learn where your particular diet lands on their favorite list. I’ll cover the top 5 only, and then tell you how the popular Keto ranks and why, but you can go to the link at the bottom of this post to see all 35 diets.
How the top 5 diets rank and why?
Okay, here’s number 1.
Drum roll, please. Brrrrrrrr….
Mediterranean Diet
No real surprise here. This diet has been studied and emulated for years. But which country bordering the Mediterranean are they following the recipes and food of? They all tend to eat slightly different foods.
I think by now most people know that people that live in this part of the world consume good oils—like olive oil and good fats that primarily come from fish, but other key take-aways to any Mediterranean diet are that these people:
Have active lifestyles
Eat in a way that helps control weight
Consume low amounts of meat, sugar and saturated fat
Eat a lot of produce, nuts and other healthful foods
Eat primarily organically-grown fruits and veggies (that come from smaller or personal farms)
This diet was also awarded kudos for being nutritionally sound and having diverse foods and flavors.
DASH Diet
Okay, I must admit I’d never heard about this diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. But evidently it’s known for fighting high blood pressure and its nutritional completeness, safety, ability to prevent or control diabetes, and its role in supporting heart health.
It emphasizes:
fruits
veggies
whole grains
lean protein
low-fat dairy
It turns its thumbs down on:
fatty meats
full-fat dairy foods
tropical oils
sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets
Under the pro category, this diet was noted for being heart healthy and nutritionally sound.
The Flexitarian Diet
Here’s another one I’d never heard of, which came about in 2009 when dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner published her book The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease and Add Year sot Your Life.
This diet—which is the marriage of flexible and vegetarian—emphasizes fruits, veggies, whole grains and plant-based protein. But Ms. Blatner says you can be a vegetarian most of the time but still enjoy an occasional fatty burger or steak when the urge strikes.
It was noted for its flexibility and abundance of tasty recipes.
WW (Weight Watchers) Diet
Weight Watchers has done a good job evolving with the times and bringing their diet up to the modern research. It scored highest for overall weight loss and fast weight loss. But WW is also focusing on healthy living and overall well-being.
A big plus to the WW diet is the support system, via in-person accountability and support workshops and on-line or phone chats. The support people are trained in behavior weight management techniques.
With no foods being listed as off-limits, this diet scored big for being able to eat what you want, and for the flexibility in shaping your own diet.
Mayo Clinic Diet
I did this diet as a high school junior. Way back then, it focused on very high protein meals, with eggs and meat being the centerpieces. I lost a heap of weight in two weeks, in time to be a bit more svelte for the National Gymnastics Championship.
Now it focuses on making healthful eating a lifelong habit. It also earned high marks for its nutrition and safety.
Mayo’s diet is focused on helping you get your eating habits straightened out and breaking bad habits and replacing them with good ones. They also have their own unique food pyramid, which emphasizes fruits, veggies, and whole grains, which allows you to eat more while taking in fewer calories.
According to Mayo, someone on the diet can expect to lose 6 to 10 pounds the first two weeks (!), a lot of which I would expect to be water, and then 1 to 2 pounds weekly until you’ve hit your goal weight. I’m not sure what you do when you hit it, but that is probably in the book.
The 6 to 10 pounds seems like a lot to me. I’ve read a lot of information cautioning people against losing that much weigh that rapidly—for heart reasons, and also for the inclination your body has to reset your calorie point to a lower per-day need before kicking into starvation and fat-storing mode with such drastic weight loss.
But they’re Mayo, and they’ve undoubtedly done their research and checked it twice.
It got additional marks for being nutritionally sound and allowing you to shape your diet.
MIND Diet (Tied with Mayo and Volumetrics below)
The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) is another new one to me, but it’s definitely keeping up with the current concerns on maintaining mental health, as it aims to prevent mental deterioration.
One expert found it to be a healthy, sensible plan backed up by science. (I always love how they throw that in, and then we learn a decade later that “new” science has deleted the old facts.)
What this diet does is take both the DASH and the Mediterranean diets and focus on the foods in each one that specifically affect brain health.
I’m always a little concerned when diets focus too much on one aspect of health, but evidently this diet has been found to reduce Alzheimer’s risk by 35% for people who followed it moderately well and 53% for people who really adhered to it. So I think it deserves a closer look.
It does focus on fewer carbs than is currently recommended by our government guidelines and is known to bring on quick weight loss.
The pro category had marks for its blending of two proven healthy diets and its brain-power boosting focus. The cons were that the diet details were not “fleshed out” and the recipes and resources were slim.
Volumetrics (Tied with Mayo and MIND, above)
Penn State University professor Barbara Rolls pioneered this diet, which experts say is really more of an eating approach than a focused diet. It’s designed around:
learning how to decipher a food’s energy density
learning how to cut that energy density in meal planning and eating
making choices that fight hunger
Food is divided into four groups: very low-density, low-density, medium-density, and high-density. You might already guess that non-starchy fruits and veggies would fall into the very-low density category, while crackers, chips, chocolate candies, cookies, nuts, butter and oil fall into the very-high level.
The pro checkmarks for this diet were that it is filling and no food is off-limits. The negatives included lengthy meal prep, and if you don’t like fruits, veggies or soups, sticking with it could be tough.
The list continues with a total of 35 rankings, including Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, Dr. Weil’s Anti-inflammatory Diet, Dr. Dean Ornish’s Diet, Vegetarian, Vegan The Engine 2 and Paleo.
But where did the Keto diet fall?
In spite of its increasing popularity and the medical attention it’s receiving, experts rated this popular diet near the bottom, at #34, behind Paleo (at 29), and Atkins (32). And even though more research is being done on the effects of this diet, a July 2019 Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine (JAMA Internal Medicine) stated that “enthusiasm outpaces evidence” when it comes to a keto diet having a dramatic effect on diabetes or obesity.
A friend of mine from high school is a keto-type diet aficionado and it has helped her tremendously with her diabetes control and weight maintenance. She said it was such a relief to no longer have to count carbs for her daily glycemic intake measurements. The last time I saw her, she looked healthy and had a ton of energy.
Granted, that’s anecdotal evidence, but it’s important to her and her health. Since it takes a long time to do research, it may be that the evidence is just taking time to catch up.
To see the entire list, read the overviews, and get more information on each of these diets, see the report.
And until next week, (when I’ll tell you about the new diet geared toward people suffering from acid reflux that my husband and I have embarked on),
Happy Dieting!
Andrea
*This list is to serve as general information and not to be intended as an endorsement of any diet plan or a prescription. Always consult with your physician or personal health practitioner before beginning any diet or exercise program.
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is an award-winning inspirational writer, fitness pro, and chaplain. She writes and works to help people live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
