Category Archives: body

The easiest shortcut to health you can make

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Gretchen Reynolds on ‘The First 20 Minutes’ – NYTimes.com.

Loved this article about Gretchen Reynolds’ (no relation) new book, The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer.

Reynolds, a New York Times health and fitness columnist, looks at what you can do to makes the most difference for your health with the least effort. It’s surprisingly easy. Exercise trumps diet, and it only takes 20 minutes a day, and it doesn’t have to be anything more than standing.

This interview reinforces the new knowledge that prolonged sitting is unhealthy. I now use a timer to remind me to stand up and move when I’m doing anything that requires long hours at a computer.

Here are some good bits:

The first 20 minutes of moving around, if someone has been really sedentary, provide most of the health benefits. You get prolonged life, reduced disease risk — all of those things come in in the first 20 minutes of being active.

If someone starts an exercise program and improves his fitness, even if he doesn’t lose an ounce, he will generally have a longer life and a much healthier life. 

But the science shows that if you just do anything, even stand in place 20 minutes, you will be healthier.What would be nice would be for people to identify with the whole idea of moving more as opposed to quote “exercise.”

There is a whole scientific discipline called inactivity physiology that looks at what happens if you just sit still for hours at a time. If the big muscles in your legs don’t contract for hours on end, then you get physiological changes in your body that exercise won’t necessarily undo. Exercise causes one set of changes in your body, and being completely sedentary causes another.

I really do stand up at least every 20 minutes now, because I was spending five or six hours unmoving in my chair. The science is really clear that that is very unhealthy, and that it promotes all sorts of disease. All you have to do to ameliorate that is to stand up. You don’t even have to move. 

The human body is a really excellent coach. If you listen to it, it will tell you if you’re going hard enough, if you’re going too hard. If it starts to hurt, then you back off. It should just feel good, because we really are built to move, and not moving is so unnatural. Just move, because it really can be so easy, and it really can change your life.

Organic cotton sheets from Target

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Target has been one of the sponsors of this blog recently, and I am going to plug something that Target sells, their 100% organic cotton sheets.

Pardon me if this is awkward. Hawking things is not my strong suit, yet like everyone else, I have preferences in the material aspects of this world we share. I like good quality things at a good price.

I also like companies that are sensitive to their customers and that understand they operate and depend on a planet with limited resources.

I sleep on Target’s organic cotton sheets and use them on my massage table. They feel really, really good against my skin. With a 325 thread count, they’ll last for a long time. That’s not the highest, but they feel tightly woven and substantial.

When I was buying sheets for massage school, a classmate turned me onto these. They turned out to be the best deal around at under $30 for twin size, and there are 10 choices of colors/patterns.

I was surprised to discover that a mainstream store such as Target was selling organic cotton products. I used to only find organic cotton in high-end and/or specialty stores.

I am happy that organic is becoming more mainstream.

Check them out here: http://www.target.com/p/Target-Home-325-Thread-Count-Organic-Cotton-Sheet-Set/-/A-13712146

BTW, I don’t make a cent off plugging these. I’m just plugging a good product that I use from a commercial sponsor of this blog.

My only beef with Target has been that it donated corporate money to a right-wing, anti-gay political candidate. That action deserved the uproar from its employees and the public that it engendered and the talk of a boycott.

It illustrates the pitfalls of the Citizens vs. United Supreme Court decision.

Just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s a smart thing to do, corporations.

To its credit, the Target corporation was responsive and did apologize.

I stopped shopping there for a while because of that donation (before I learned about the public apology — I don’t keep up with the news that well), but the only real competition that Target has (at least here in Austin, Texas) is Wal-mart.

Please don’t get me started on Wal-mart.

If corporations are now considered to be people, I would like them to be very good people who care about their fellow humans and the planet we all share and depend on.

Toxic stress, school discipline, and unconditional love

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Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% « ACEs Too High.

Thank you, Katie Raver, for sending me this blog post about a principal at a high school for troubled kids who changed the approach to discipline — with amazing results.

Here are the numbers:

2009-2010 (Before new approach)

  • 798 suspensions (days students were out of school)
  • 50 expulsions
  • 600 written referrals

2010-2011 (After new approach)

  • 135 suspensions (days students were out of school)
  • 30 expulsions
  • 320 written referrals

It’s a long article with a lotta good info about chronic trauma and family problems and how they affect learning. It describes a measure of toxic stress called the ACE score.

The two simple rules for creating a school environment that doesn’t retraumatize already-traumatized kids:

Rule No. 1: Take nothing a raging kid says personally. Really. Act like a duck: let the words roll off your back like drops of water.

Rule No. 2: Don’t mirror the kid’s behavior. Take a deep breath. Wait for the storm to pass, and then ask something along the lines of: “Are you okay? Did something happen to you that’s bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?”

I want to learn how to do this.

“It’s the sitting, stupid.”

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Stand Up for Fitness – NYTimes.com.

Exercise only slightly lessened the health risks of sitting. People in the study who exercised for seven hours or more a week but spent at least seven hours a day in front of the television were more likely to die prematurely than the small group who worked out seven hours a week and watched less than an hour of TV a day.

So to paraphrase Bill Clinton on the economy, “It’s the sitting, stupid.” Make that uninterrupted sitting:

In an inspiring study being published next month in Diabetes Care, scientists at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, had 19 adults sit completely still for seven hours or, on a separate day, rise every 20 minutes and walk leisurely on a treadmill (handily situated next to their chairs) for two minutes. On another day, they had the volunteers jog gently during their two-minute breaks.

When the volunteers remained stationary for the full seven hours, their blood sugar spiked and insulin levels were out of whack. But when they broke up the hours with movement, even that short two-minute stroll, their blood sugar levels remained stable. Interestingly, the jogging didn’t improve blood sugar regulation any more than standing and walking did. What was important, the scientists concluded, was simply breaking up the long, interminable hours of sitting.

Find a way to break up sitting into chunks punctuated by standing and walking. Keep exercising too. You’ll feel better and live longer.

Also, when you do sit, make some of it sitting. That is, seated meditation. Just sit and be.

Meeting Tom Best, who became my teacher

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Whew. I can tell this is going to be some blogging that will take a few days to write, as my experience sifts itself into lasting words, and I’ll probably reread and retouch it a few times after posting as the clarifying process continues its magic. I don’t know now how it will come out, but it’s time to start writing.

Someone who has been important in my life, a teacher primarily and also a friend, since 2007 died, shuffled off his mortal coil, transitioned to a higher plane, passed away, left the planet, shed his body, entered the clear light, or however you like to put it.

I like how my friend Katie broke the news to me:

MaryAnn, I have some sad news to share, but not really.

She told me that our teacher, Tom Best, had had a brain hemorrhage on Monday afternoon. He took a nap, and when his wife Bobbi went to wake him up, he was breathing but didn’t wake up. Their dogs licked him, and he still didn’t wake up.

It sort of gets garbled here but he was taken to two hospitals because the first one couldn’t do a brain scan or something like that, and he looked like he was just sleeping and could just wake up at any moment, and with his wife and dearest friends gathered around him, the doctor didn’t hold out much hope but agreed to leave him on a ventilator overnight to see if his condition changed (it didn’t), and on Tuesday afternoon, he left his earthly body surrounded by loved ones.

People who were there said that as they stood around his bed as he was leaving his body, it was as if they sensed someone entering the room, and that energy seemed to be above them, and then it was gone.

I really want to thank Katie for telling me like that. This has been a really different experience of processing a death/absorbing a loss than I’ve experienced before, and much of it has to do with the person who died, and some of it has to do with me.

I first met Tom Best in 1998 or 1999, when I went to visit my friend Linda in Prescott, Arizona. She was close friends with Tom and Bobbi Best. We went to their place to borrow their new adorable white German Shepherd puppy Dakota and take him for a frolic in the forest. Linda introduced me to Tom, and I remember meeting a slight, wiry man with gray hair, kind of average in beauty, greeting me with a gaze that was really different from what I’d experienced before.

His eyes were very blue, a warm blue, and his attention was totally on me for those few moments of introduction with the best eye contact I’d experienced. I felt that he was genuinely interested in me. I felt an openness, a curiosity, a direct energetic connection, and a feeling of caring emanating from him in those few moments of the typical greeting ritual we all know so well in which names are exchanged and hands shaken.

I felt seen. I felt engaged. I felt cared for. Wow, all that in just a few seconds!

As I would later learn from him, I had just experienced news of difference.

I am pretty sure that was the first time I met anyone who transmitted his presence so clearly and directly to me, and I could not have described our first meeting like I just did had I not had him for a teacher later on.

I tucked that memory away, and in 2007, I was dating a man, Norm Sternfeld, who had studied NLP, and I thought of Linda who had studied NLP, and I thought to myself,

Hmm. People who study NLP use their minds well. I want to study NLP.

So I enrolled in practitioner training here in Austin, Texas, and when I showed up the first day, there was that same guy, Tom Best, whom I’d met in Arizona eight or so years earlier, at the front of the classroom, and in a very short time, I knew I was in the right place.

to be continued…

In praise of reflexology and reflexology sandals.

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Last Sunday, I took a reflexology workshop at the Lauterstein-Conway Massage school to further my bodywork skills. It was awesome. Although some people are very ticklish, most people love having their feet worked on, so it was great to expand my knowledge of the body and to begin to develop new skills.

I learned how much just working on the feet can do for the whole body. I now know of two very experienced massage therapists/teachers who begin and end with the feet. I’m changing the way I work to do this myself.

You’ve probably seen those charts that match parts of the body to parts of the feet. I had a massage client on Wednesday who told me she was feeling stressed and in need of support for her adrenal glands, makers of stress hormones. When I got to the adrenal points on her feet, they were very tender.

In reflexology, we ease up on the tender places but stay longer, gradually increasing pleasure as good energy returns.

I do find it miraculously wonderful that points on our feet can affect our glands, organs, and other body parts remotely.

One of my fellow students at the workshop was wearing sandals with little nubs on the insoles. Reflexology sandals! She said if she doesn’t wear them, her back hurts. If she wears them, her back doesn’t hurt. That’s a pretty solid testimonial.

My back is fine, but my feet have been hurting — not in the typical way of tired, overworked feet but of feet needing more stimulation, now that I’m back working at a computer to recoup financially from a year off work.

As I’ve posted before, sitting all day is not healthy. I get up and walk around, but it’s not enough.

So I bought myself some reflexology sandals, and I have to say, I love them! They feel great, the little nubs pressing into my soles with each step. They’re very casual (could work as beach sandals or shower shoes) or I’d be wearing them all the time.

(I once had a nubby bathmat that was pure heaven to step on in the morning. Wish I’d saved it when it wore out — could have cut it into nubby insoles!)

I rarely write testimonials for products, but I want to let you know about these, since this blog focuses on wellness and health.

The sandals are made by Adidas, and the style is called Adissage. And actually, I would have preferred a less flashy style without the brand name, and it would be nice to have nubs where the round logo is in the heel. Ah, well.  I’ll compromise on the looks because the feel is so great — and maybe someone else will design a pair that matches my taste.

You can get them at Footlocker, Academy, Amazon, Zappos, and other places for $20-30. They’re available for women, men, and children.

I bet your feet will love them as much as mine do.

Next week I’ll be working from home most days. Can’t wait! I’ll either be barefoot or wearing these.

Self-soothing activities that involve reclining

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I just had a brainstorm. What do these things have in common?

  • Lying in a hammock.
  • Soaking in the bathtub.
  • Floating on a raft in a pool or natural body of water.
  • Star-gazing.
  • Watching clouds.
  • Taking a nap.
  • Getting a massage.
  • Sunbathing.
  • Doing restorative yoga poses.

All of them are done either lying down or reclining, and all of them are restful, restorative, self-soothing activities.

Lying down/reclining probably activates our neurology and chemistry to induce relaxation and create a natural high.

I spent some time this past weekend out in nature, lying on my yoga mat with my head propped enough to see and hear my teacher teach, yet able to gaze up into the gorgeous fresh green canopy overhead.

I found it so much more relaxing than sitting.

If you are really in need of shedding some stress, plan on doing some of these things!

The starfish story: making a difference

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I’ve heard two people tell this story recently. Each told it a little differently. Wanting to share it with you, I googled and learned the original was called The Star Thrower and was published by anthropologist/philosopher/writer Loren Eiseley as part of an essay in 1969.

The story has been adapted and used by motivational speakers ever since and was also made into a children’s DVD, Sara and the Starfish, in 2008. It was adapted again as a beautifully illustrated children’s book, Starfish on the Beach, in 2012.

I found this version on Wikipedia, and apparently it doesn’t violate anyone’s copyright.

Here it is:

An old man had a habit of early morning walks on the beach. One day, after a storm, he saw a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer. As he came closer he saw that it was a young woman and she was not dancing but was reaching down to the sand, picking up a starfish and very gently throwing them into the ocean.

“Young lady,” he asked, “Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”

“The sun is up, and the tide is going out, and if I do not throw them in they will die.”

“But young lady, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You cannot possibly make a difference.”

The young woman listened politely, paused and then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves, saying, “It made a difference for that one.”

The old man looked at the young woman inquisitively and thought about what she had done. Inspired, he joined her in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.

If I adapted it, I would probably leave that last paragraph out. Yes, we love happy endings and want all the starfish to be saved, but that’s not why she did it, or why he joined her. Rather than detaching or being overwhelmed by the task, she took action. She threw one back, and then another, and another.

She made a difference to each one she threw back, even though they may have added up to only a tiny percentage of the washed-up, dying starfish. She did what she could.

How often do we look at some problem and feel paralyzed because it seems overwhelming? How often do we detach and think it’s not our problem? Racism, sexism, war, violence, poverty…the list goes on of seemingly intractable problems. It’s so easy to get stuck in helplessness, passivity, cynicism, separation.

And yet it’s our world.

So instead of thinking about what you can’t do, consider what you can do. What is one action you can take? What is the smallest action you can take? It might even be just to think about the problem differently. Maybe it’s a personal challenge that you need to rock yourself out of complacency.

Maybe you can make a bigger difference than you think.

Look at a problem in your life, one that seems intractable, and think of the tiniest action you can take. It doesn’t even matter what it is, as long as it is in the direction of health and resolution.

Then do it. And yes, I am talking to you.

How do you soothe yourself? Here are some of my favorite ways.

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Self-soothing is an activity that nearly anyone can learn and get better at. It encompasses techniques and behaviors that we can use to soothe our emotions when ruffled, disturbed, distressed, overwhelmed — when we encounter difficult situations in life.

Self-soothing means not going to others expecting them to make you feel better. Of course, if we’re lucky, we have healthy loving people in our lives who help us feel better, but what if they’re not around? And…how can you become one of those healthy, loving people?

Self-soothing is a skill that you can cultivate to take better care of yourself.

You start with recognizing when you need soothing. It starts with self-compassion. Maybe you experienced a bad day at the office, an argument with a loved one, an unpleasant bit of news, mistreatment by a clerk, a fender bender, or all of these things.

Can you treat yourself as well as you would treat a friend in these circumstances if you had the resources to treat your friend really well? If you’re not your own best friend, who else is going to be?

You probably already use some self-soothing techniques without thinking about it. What do you do that brings you pleasure? I’m not talking about special techniques like EFT or NLP. This post is about ordinary things that people can do to soothe themselves, by themselves.

Here are some of my favorites –and I believe it’s good to have many self-soothing techniques in your repertoire that you can draw on when you need to. It’s a way of adding richness to your life, and you can share these with others, enhancing their lives as well.

For visual refreshment, I love walking in botanical gardens, especially Japanese gardens. I love looking at landscapes, cityscapes, sunrises, sunsets, and the star-spangled night sky — the big picture.

I buy myself flowers on occasion, and depending on the flowers, the color and shape not only please my sense of sight, the fragrance pleases my sense of smell.

Walking on a scenic trail or kayaking or paddleboarding on water is very pleasant, and the sensations of movement, temperature, and more just add to my pleasure.

Traveling to a beautiful place is awesome! I love Maui and West Texas for the gorgeous — and very different — scenery. Those landscapes feel very friendly to me.

Reading a good story takes my mind off my problems and sweeps me up into some other story.

Music is one of the greatest soothing inventions ever. Hearing a beloved golden oldie, music that you associate with good times and good feelings, or listening to new music that engages and calms — those can shift your comfort level profoundly. A couple of my favorites are Wachuma’s Wave and Chakra Chants.

Listening to a waterfall, rain falling, the ocean — the sounds of water definitely soothe me.

I just love listening to Mango purr. Listening to someone read some good writing aloud is also quite pleasurable.

I adore smelling fragrant flowers, any essential oil, herbs and spices and fresh produce, and teas. I once grew a rose called Souvenir de la Malmaisson that smelled so much like a fine wine, just the fragrance was intoxicating. It was like catnip is to a cat. I wanted to roll in it!

Petrichor is the word for the smell of rain. I wish I could bottle it because it’s always so refreshing!

Soothing touch includes feeling soft, sensual textures in bedding and clothing. Curling up is relaxing. So is tuning into the sensations of just breathing. Of course, you can touch yourself pleasingly, and I need not say more!

To some people, exercise soothes. They love sweating. I love yoga and dance. The movements please me and wake my body up pleasingly.

Be careful about soothing yourself with taste. It is the self-soothing method that many people use to the exclusion of all others, and it can easily result in weight gain and/or an unbalanced diet and dis-ease. Be mindful — take tiny bites, eat slowly, let your taste buds savor — and have lots of other self-soothing techniques.

Another fine thing you can do is to take a happy memory and relive it as fully as you can, re-experiencing the sensations and emotions.

Finally, laughter soothes jangled nerves, aching hearts, hurt feelings, failures, and disappointments. At some point, you’re ready to laugh again.

In that case, watch a good, funny video, listen to a funny audiotape, or read a funny book. To each his or her own. Steve Martin, David Sedaris, George Carlin, Saturday Night Live, Christopher Guest, Ellen deGeneres, Monty Python — there are lots of funny, funny performers, films, and books available that you can bust a gut enjoying.

If you have any favorites not listed here, I welcome you sharing!

Body by yoga: beautiful video

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Love this video of a committed yogi practicing at home, in her underwear, while a man sleeps nearby.

You can read an interview of the yogi in Elephant Journal here. Amazingly, she talks about having body image problems and an eating disorder. She got help through Overeaters Anonymous and yoga.

She’s also a mother.