Write away your fear

This morning a client informed me of an article in Science magazine about a recent study testing the effects of expressive writing, about test anxiety, on test results. Turns out the results were conclusive. (I also found an article on the study told in more lay mans terms)

The study found that taking a few minutes to write about the forthcoming anxiety actually helped alleviate it and the students performed better on their exams. I think that we could use this information to help us in all kinds of situations.

This totally goes against what we naturally feel inclined to do. Have you ever told someone who was nervous about something, “think of something else; just let your mind relax and think happy thoughts?” I certainly have. I tell myself that all the time. Just be positive, Sarah. Don’t focus on the negative Sarah. The glass is half full Sarah. And that’s all well and good for daily life thoughts but I am talking about specific instances when anxieties are getting the best of you.

Maybe you have to give a speech or sing karaoke or disappoint a friend or go to a high school reunion.

Maybe taking a few minutes before doing any of the above things could actually help alleviate the stress. The idea being that if you get the anxiety out of your mind and out of your body, you will have more space for success. Think of all the cortisol building up in your body while you fret over an impending work meeting. Put those worries to paper and you just might surprise yourself with the space you have left to wow your co-workers.

Pick something, anything that might normally cause you anxiety and all this week immediately before you do it, try writing about it. That’s the clincher too, it has to be immediately before you do it otherwise you will have tons of time to jack the anxiety back up.

Do you get worked up before rush hour with impending doom about the traffic? Free write all your fears; the worst thing that could happen, then get in the car, turn on the tunes and drive home happy. The anxiety can fester on your desk.

Nervous about a first date? Write out those anxieties and all that scares you, then put on some lipstick (or whatever date attire makes you feel great) and proceed with confidence, because your worries will be literally left at home.

I know that you might be scared that if you write down your fears they will somehow be real and they will come true but I promise that’s not going to happen. That anxiety you feel is living inside of you and putting it on paper is only going to get it out.

What’s the worst that could happen? Now on a count of three, let’s write…

Be Good to your Body, it's where you Live

Namaste

Have you ever wondered what yoga teachers mean at the end of the class when they say, Namaste? The first time I ever heard a yoga teacher say that, I felt insecure. I wondered why I didn’t know what it meant? I wondered why everyone else in the class looked so serene and serious and how they all seemed to know just the right way to bow and how far down to bow. It was like they were all a part of this special church and I was the girl in the back who was taking communion but had never been confirmed. I was sure everyone was staring, wondering why I was drinking the wine; it’s so obvious I wasn’t ready for the blood of Christ.

For years, I muddled my way through yoga classes pretending I had some semblance of a clue as to why we were chanting, bowing, or continuing to say that word, namaste. I even started hearing people using it in non-yoga moments. Famous people started bowing during acceptance speeches, yoga girls were using namaste as a thank you when the barista handed them their skinny chai lattes. It’s emblazoned across t-shirts and baseball caps, it’s everywhere, this word, and I was still unsure what it meant. Eventually I drummed up enough courage to ask a yoga teacher; I was a little nervous but it went pretty well. The teacher said to me, “It means I bow to you.” Oh … I see, now I completely understand. I walked away nodding my head and smiling like a person who has suddenly had their eyes opened ... not.

I bow to you? That’s it? It’s just a description of what everyone has been doing?

What was she talking about? I was even more confused than before. Why was it so important? Why were celebrities saying it? Does it even need to be said if that’s what you’re doing when you say it? So many questions … if only there had been Google then.

Since that fateful yoga class, I have done my own fair share of studying and yes, it does mean, I bow to you, but it’s much more than that. The mantra I use for myself is this: When that greatness, which you possess and which lives inside of you, is shining bright, and that greatness, which I possess and which is living inside of me, is also shining bright, we are connected. That light I am referring to is you; you when you are alive and present in the moment.

You could say higher being, light, spiritual being, God, or divinity. It can be done as a salute, a bow, or a respect, it can be said at the end and beginning of a yoga class, as a thank you or as a greeting, but no matter what, when or how, it all seems to mean about the same thing. One definition a yoga teacher I love often uses is:

“I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells. I honor the place in you, which is of love, of integrity, of wisdom, and of peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.”

Sometimes in daily life, it is really easy to get tunnel vision. Often I will only see what is directly in front of me; I can easily forget that the world is bigger than my apartment, UCSF, or San Francisco. This week, I urge you to pay attention and to honor those people around you who contribute to your world. That is what I think namaste means. I think it is recognition that we are all in this together and that if each and every one of us tries to stay open and present, we will all be connected. Honor can mean whatever you want it to mean. It might mean that you say good morning to people as you pass them on the street, maybe it means you take an extra moment to say thank you to someone who holds open your door. Maybe you let someone go ahead of you in line, or you pay someone’s bridge toll. Perhaps you volunteer on the weekends at a shelter or at your kid’s soccer camp, I don’t know, it’s all relative and it’s all personal. All I do know is, if we all try a little harder to respect and honor our fellow woman, we will all be better off, we will all be living in a better world and we will all be able to say, Namaste.

Be Good to your Body, it’s where you Live

Walking with Lalane

I would be surprised if someone reading this hadn’t heard of Jack Lalane. He’s the guy who was always trying to sell us juicers late at night, right after Cindy Crawford tries to improve my skin and George Foreman insists I start grilling more. I am sure you know him. He’s famous for much more than juicers though. He is the original fitness guru convert. He was a junk food addict and at age 15 heard Paul Bragg (who makes the best salad dressing in the universe by the way) speak and it changed his life. It was all health after that. Jack invented some of the first weight machines and opened a gym in our very own Oaktown. He was a chiropractor, body builder and health extraordinaire. He recently died at the age of 96 (just last week) and in memory of his amazing contributions to the world of health I am dedicating this weeks wellness update to him.

When thinking of what aspect of Jack to write about, a girlfriend mentioned the health of Jack’s wife, Elaine. “Did you know she was a smoker, overweight and eating donuts for breakfast every day when jack met her?”

Jack was so into Elaine that he fell for her, tobacco and all and they started dating. Elaine began to change her habits because of spending so much time with Jack. They would exercise together regularly. She started eating better and eventually quit smoking. I am not saying that in order to be healthy you need to marry a health nut but it makes sense that spending time with a healthy person could eventually rub off on you.

Think about it in the opposite direction. If you are going out to dinner with a group of friends and the majority of your friends want to eat pizza, it’s going to pretty hard to say, “No! I want something healthier.” It’s much easier to say, “Oh, I will just order a salad and have one slice.” You compromise to fit the majority. If you are with a group of health nuts all vying for a nutritious meal, it’s going to be equally as difficult to insist on pizza.

I am obviously not telling everyone to dump his or her Doritos loving amigos. Heck, even I love Doritos every now and then. But if you are trying to exercise more, eat healthier or decrease stress, maybe spending more time with your like-minded buddies is a good start.

This week would be a great time to call that friend who loves power walking and make a date for some chat/walk time. Or have the Smiths over for dinner this weekend (Did you know Laura Smith doesn’t eat sugar?) Maybe you should spend your lunch hour with Donn from down the hall. (Doesn’t he meditate at lunch?)

Ok, here’s the caveat: Sometimes I have negative feelings towards overly healthy people. Yes, it’s true. The person who only eats fruit and nuts that have fallen from the tree and can’t go out to dinner unless the produce is from an organic farm next door and the fitness freak who can’t spend a day just relaxing in front of the TV. Sometimes these people make me crazy. It’s just as detrimental to be fanatical about health as it is to be unfanatical. We all need to be balanced. So if you are the person who can’t go out to lunch with friends because it means missing spinning class, or you are unable to enjoy a bite of your daughters birthday cake because of the calorie content, I recommend hanging out with some oppositely minded people this week. Let go for a day. Have some cake, dance a little, and sleep in. Health is about balance. I think Jack Lalane was great but he may have been lacking some balance, which is why I think Elaine was just as good for him as he was for her.

Be Good to your Body, it’s where you Live

Feel the Pain

Lately I have been in an unbearable amount of pain. A few months ago I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. RA is one of those pesky autoimmune diseases where the immune system attacks itself. Unfortunately it’s attacking my right wrist in a pretty bad ass way. What’s amazing is just how unpredictable it seems to be and also how much it hurts. Being in pain is like being in a constant bad mood. I am just a little bit cranky all of the time. It’s also affecting other parts of my body. I protect my wrist from possible pain by tensing my shoulders and tightening my jaw. In doing that I am most likely causing the pain in my wrist to worsen because I can’t relax.

Most of you know that I am a mindfulness maniac and I believe we should all be paying more attention to our bodies, our minds and our meals, but our pain? I mean come on, why would I want to purposely draw attention to this part of my body that hurts so bad I want to cry sometimes. I don’t want to pay more attention to it. I want to escape it. I want drugs. Give me something to take the pain away!

Unfortunately my doctor doesn’t make 8pm drug runs on a Monday night so I was stuck with mindfulness. I sat down on my sofa and looked at my hand. I started to describe to myself what I saw without any judgment. I described the way the skin looked on my wrist. I counted the freckles and hiked the terrain of my veins with my eyes. Next I began to describe the feelings in my wrist and hand. Words like sharp and tightness and warm and cold and pulsing began to surface. I stopped labeling these sensations as the thing that is pain and rather as the sensations coming and going. Because it’s true that the pain does come and go and if I focus on the pain, this thing that I hate, my zoom lens is incapable of seeing anything but it. If I keep telling myself how painful it is, I risk getting caught up in un-mindfulness and I am making pain the enemy. If I instead describe the feelings and the present moment, it becomes something else. It's not something bad or good, it just is.

Does this make sense? Mindfulness is not about just paying attention to something. It’s about paying attention without judgment. Just notice it. Be curious about it. Describe it.

This week I would love for everyone to join me in taking a look at your pain and actually noticing what it feels like. No pejorative terms allowed. Instead use words like heavy, tight, tingling, sharp, tense, stiff and dull. You can use pain that’s emotional or physical. Mindfulness can work for both; in fact, it’s great for both. And it’s actually been proven to help reduce overall “pain” and change our brains for the better, so there.

So get focused, get present, and get rid of pain for good.

Be Good to your Body, it's where you Live

Any suggestions on how to cure the 'common' but oh-so-annoying cold? I'm tired of not being able to breathe or smell or taste anything! Thanks!

My belief with the common cold is that it is telling us something. When I have a cold I think of it as a signal from my body telling me I need to re-evaluate some of my choices. Have I been going to bed too late? Not drinking enough water? Letting stress get the best of me? A cold is a chance to do some healthy things for yourself. Stay in bed and watch a movie, drink lots of fluids and take care of yourself. A lot of the time a cold will stick around because we don't give it a chance to get better.

Ask me anything

Let them eat cake

How many of you have a "bad" foods list? Even if you don't have a full blown list I bet you have a couple of thoughts on the matter. I'm not talking about bad like, "I don't like it, it's bad", I mean "bad" as in, I have pejoratively decided to label this food as detrimental to my health and waistline. Can you relate and if so, what's on your list?

Mine is candy, baked goods, cookies, cake, cream, bread and pasta. Now to clarify, I don't think there's anything wrong with any of these foods. I think cake is awesome, coffee means nothing without cream and there isn't anything better than cappelini with tomato sauce. But sometimes when I eat some or many of these foods I will subconsciously feel as if I have done something wrong, as if I have failed. This is a common occurrence for a person who has lived for many years in the mindset of a dieter.

What happens to the average dieter when they have eaten something "bad"?

Well many things could happen but here are some common ones I've seen. The dieter may feel guilty and overcompensate by exercising excessively in order to negate the trigger food. She might feel sick and disgusted with herself which could lead her to eating more of said food because, "the diets already ruined anyway, right?" He might go into a starvation mode and decide adamantly that he will never eat said food again, thus creating anxiety about the possibility of future engagements in which this food is present. Regardless of which scenario occurs, the end result is too much time obsessing about a food that isn't actually bad in the first place.

What if instead of writing foods off as bad or good, we start to pay attention to what our body wants to eat. What if there were no more labels? What if we could eat whatever we want, without any of the negative feelings and none of the anxiety? What would happen? Well for about the first week we would probably go crazy, bingeing on sugar and pasta and baked goods. But then, once we realized that sugar isn't going anywhere, that we can have it whenever we want, that eating it does not make us bad or weak or wrong, we would begin to notice that our body craves other foods as well. And then eventually we would settle into a lifestyle of eating when we're hungry and eating what our body needs.

I know that the idea of letting go of negative food ideals is a little scary for some people. You may be thinking, "But Sarah, what if I eat cake every day and then I gain 10 lbs?" If you truly let go of your "bad" food label you wont eat cake every day because your body will crave other things. Do you really think that your body would want to eat nothing but sugar all day long? If you truly listen to what your body needs and wants, you will crave a rainbow of foods. Sometimes it will include cake, and that is definitely not a bad thing.

Be Good to your Body, it's where you Live

Hope for a miracle

There is a sea in Margarita; an island off the coast of Venezuela where it is said that “taking a bath” there can heal even the most horrific of disease. There is a man in Brazil named John of God, who has cured brain aneurisms with only the touch of his hands on your heart. As a therapist I meet people regularly who have experienced the most horrible traumas and tragedies and yet still have unbelieving faith that where they are now would be impossible without the help of something bigger. There are stories in every culture, in every language, of miracles that happen, at times when it just doesn’t seem possible that they could. Believing in those miracles keeps us healthy and it paves the way for even more miracles to occur.

Many people believe that this thing, this helper greater than us has to do with religion or a God. I think it’s absolutely wonderful if you have found a God to believe in and that helps you have hope, but if you haven’t found a God or if you just don’t believe in a God, that’s fine too. I am not trying to get you to believe in God. In fact I am not even fully sure what sort of God I believe in, but I do believe, in the healing power of hope.

“Hope is the desire for something, combined with a belief or positive expectation that it is possible to have what you want.” There is an element of trust or faith in our notion of hope. In fact, many linguists believe that the word hope shares its roots with the word hop, as in leaping in expectation of a good outcome.

In Greek legends, when Pandora opened her box to let out all the Gods, hope remained in the box. That kind of says to me that hope is the one that will always be there to guide us even when the Gods have left the building.

You may be scoffing me right now, “Sarah, I have desire and I have belief that greatness can happen, but it still doesn’t happen.” And to that I have a religious joke:

There once was a man named Joe. Every day Joe would pray to his God to give him a million dollars. Joe believed so deeply that God could grant him this wish. Religiously, every night Joe would kneel in front of his bed and pray, “Please God, please, give me a million dollars. Every day Joe would visualize how he would use the money to help his family and save his home and every night he would pray. Eventually Joe passed away and he never made a million dollars. As he stood at the gates of heaven he pleaded with God, “why did you never give me a million dollars?” And God said to him, “Why did you never buy a lottery ticket?”

“Hope is a desire for something and a belief or positive expectation that it can happen.”

And it is also about having the will to make it happen.

This year, in 2011, my hope for all of you is to believe in yourself. To have the desire, the hope, the positive expectation and the drive to make your life the way you want it to be. Be your own miracle.

Happy New Year!