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In This Issue:
Featured Wellness Message: Take a U-turn Toward Your Heart
Recommended Resource: Tara Brach Lecture & Meditation
My Psychology Today Article: Is Clean Eating Healthy?
My Featured Post: The Negative Impact of Prolonged Survival Mode
Take a U-turn Toward Your Heart
Science has proven that having something to look forward to—going to a special event, lunch with a friend, a vacation—boosts our motivation and mood.
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But let's be real. We often take positive things for granted or downplay what is going well. In fact, many of us are caught up in worries about future problems or stewing about past events. We mire ourselves in fear, blame, anxiety, criticism. The negative story we tell ourselves is harmful in so many ways, from being unable to be present in our most precious relationships to feeling frustrated with ourselves.
When you are caught up in negative stories and feel out of sync with the people you love, you may notice that it even impacts your eating. Did you know that improving your connections to others and having more effective interpersonal skills is one of the most science-backed therapies for binge eating? It's true. Interpersonal therapy offers strong scientific support that expanding our relationships and deepening our closeness make a big, positive impact on our general health and mood, and on our eating too.
When you find that a stressful situation has cast a dark shadow, consider what compassion expert Tara Brach calls the U-turn: a willingness to return to your self "with gentleness, kindness, and clarity—to touch the vulnerability that we're feeling directly in our body."
Because what happened in the past or what may happen in the future become far less important than where you are at in this moment.
The bottom line: the quality of how we relate matters.
My wish for you this month is to make the U-turn back toward your own heart whenever things get rough.
“Ask yourself what you love. Without fear of consequences, without force or shame or guilt. What motivates you to be kind, to take care of your body, your spirit, others, the earth? Trust the longing, trust the love…. Give yourself that much.” ​― Geneen Roth, Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
Tara Brach Lecture & Meditation
Brach shares meditations that can open your heart.
So how do you build connection to others? One way to do this is through compassion. When you can open your heart to another person, it strips away "otherness."
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In this video, compassion expert Tara Brach speaks about our human need to belong, our inherent desire to be caring, and the state of contraction that keeps us from doing both. When we are contracted, she says, we are preoccupied, suffering, withdrawn. Yet, that is when we need connection—and compassion—the most.
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If you ever feel uncertain about reaching out to someone, have a listen to be reminded about the purpose of love.
Is Clean Eating Healthy?
Find out the difference between clean eating and healthy eating.
The term “clean eating” may sound healthy, but it has all the hallmarks of a fad diet. Eating "clean" typically refers to eating only foods deemed healthy, including fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and other foods that have been very minimally processed.
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Sounds good so far, right? The problem is that it is a rigid, rule-driven food plan. It can cause hyper-focusing on inflexible beliefs about food choices, food production, and food preparation. Clean eating can escalate into an eating disorder such as orthorexia nervosa, a condition defined by an unhealthy obsession with “healthy” eating.
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In contrast, healthy eating is varied, flexible, and responsive to a person’s hunger and fullness cues, health needs, schedule, preferences, lifestyle, medical conditions, and food accessibility.
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Healthy eating is different for everyone. If you think you might have an unhealthy fixation on clean eating, or orthorexia, treatment is available. Please read the full article for more details.
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The Negative Impact of Prolonged Survival Mode
Understanding arousal states can help you thrive under stress.
Survival mode originally evolved to help us handle threats. When we cannot escape or fight, which are states of physiological hyperarousal, we are wired to freeze, a state of hypoarousal. Both hypoarousal and hyperarousal responses are highly effective for brief stressors. However, if the stress is constant—such as it has been for many of us during the pandemic—prolonged survival mode becomes maladaptive.
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A study published in March 2022 sheds light on how we're coping with long-term stress:
Survival mode can trigger unhealthy coping, such as problems with eating and substance abuse.Survival mode can cause declines in mental health and the onset of anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and neurocognitive decline.Youth are experiencing a mental health crisis, with suicide and self-injury incidents increasing by a staggering 42% among children ages 5 to 17.
Fortunately, there are many ways to cope with stress in a healthy way. Becoming familiar with arousal states may also help; read my full blog post to understand what's happening in your brain and how to respond skillfully.
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