Stress Management

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Stress Management

The Bands that Pull

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Her partner held the stretchy band across her waist and pulled from behind while she tried to run forward. She would do maximum effort for 45seconds and then the class instructor would tell them to switch. As she ran she felt the pull of the band pulling her back. Her body got tired of trying to stretch it forward and her mind started to see that she was not going anywhere. She felt her will giving away and she decided she would just allow herself to be pulled to the floor, when the instructor said, “Switch!”

“You are too pretty to be a doctor. You should be a nurse!” The band pulled at her just as she started to run. She had seemingly come out of the womb with grit and strength and bossiness that would later develop into standing at the foot of the bed of limp and blue child and commanding the dance of an emergency department resuscitation team. But that was 20 years of training and experience in the future. She was just starting out with energy abound, but felt the pull of the band slow her run ever so slightly. “Maybe he was right,” became a seed that she tried to bury and ignore. But those seeds still seem to grow; especially if they are weeds.

“Why do you need a promotion? Your husband is a rich anesthesiologist!” The band, growing tighter and tighter over a decade, grew tighter still. She was tired and worn as she held her promotion packet that contained evidence of doctoral degrees and research theses and publications, educational lectures, and international medical experience. A portfolio she had willed and worked into being despite never being thought of or asked into opportunity. She looked at it resigned. Maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe she didn’t belong at the next table. Truth be told, she was nearly exhausted from the pull and wasn’t sure how much she cared anymore. Why was she running? She just wanted to let her guard down, to laugh, to not feel alone.

“Get out of my office! How dare you demand to be included! Get out now!!” She stood rooted to the floor in fear. The band was pulled so tight she was going to fall. She had grown tired of not being seen and done her best self-advocacy. But now she was physically scared as the senior colleague rose up to his full height and yelled in her face. She didn’t fall largely from the fear and the adrenaline. But the band snapped. She could not run against the pull anymore. She quit.

She started her new life that was what the world expected. She became who they all thought she should be, and the pull lessened. She rested and slept and played in her garden. She slept some more and took long walks outside and made herself eat nutritious food. She laughed and felt the sun. It was good to be free from the pull.

“We get shit done.” She was stronger and older and found herself in a leadership development meeting where her test answers had placed her in a small group with the ones labeled with a “commanding leadership” style. She looked at the all male towering crowd from her small frame and knew her people as she spoke up. These were the people who knew her insides. They were the helpers that without much decoration of pomp or words, ran into hard missions and led others through. When she looked at them, she saw herself more clearly than she perhaps had ever seen herself.

That day she saw that she was strong and capable, fierce and protective, and most importantly, she had been born exactly that way for purpose. She had simply gotten too tired from the band. The band that other people had placed and pulled around her. The band that she had broken. The band that she never had to accept back. Switch.

Rested and ready she looked at the future and then up to the sky with a smile. “Let’s go,” she said. “We are free.“

 

Lifestyle Medicine Stress Management

Taking My Medicine on Days Like These

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Some times life hands you sunny days and peaceful times. Ahhh…those are so nice. *sigh*.

Other times, like today, life hands you clouds and hurricanes, political intensity, young adult college applications, mid life hormones, and work meetings on zoom.

It is days like these that I purposefully lean into the six pillars of Lifestyle Medicine. It is more than tempting to set them aside and pull the blankets over my head, but in my experience I never feel better laying around going down The Weather Channel rabbit hole. In the old days I might just pull out the wine and try to handle life from a nice fog, but I discovered that life is always still there waiting for me.

So ESPECIALLY on hard days I treat this like real medicine in a pill. I have six prescriptions that I need to take today to stay healthy. The prescription never asks if I *feel* like taking it. It only tells me I need to take it.

This is what this looks like today for me:

  1. Physical Movement: The world seems to be cancelled for a hurricane. Local school is cancelled and we are all racing to charge our devices and make our coffee before the power goes out. But, for now, the YMCA is open. So, it seems anti-hunker-down-worry-mode-mentality, but I go to my 545 HIIT class. I take my medicine
  2. Nutrition: I drink water and make myself a whole-foods-plant-based breakfast of grape-nuts and blueberries and bananas. I have mentally already planned and prepped my lunch and dinner even if the power is out. Tragedy and bad weather make me want sweatpants and Oreos, but this morning I will do as prescribed.
  3. Stress Management: I got up and did my prayer time as usual and took time to do 5 minutes of meditation after my exercise, my prayers and meditation were scattered as my mind jumped around with all the work meetings and clinic schedules needing to be down today in the midst of power and travel unknowns. It wasn’t my best effort, but I did as prescribed to the best of my ability.
  4. Restorative Sleep: Last night (and tonight) I put down my phone before bed. I read a fiction book to give my mind a rest and let my eyes get tired. I reminded myself that tomorrow will still be there tomorrow and I can set it down for tonight. It’s doctors orders as I picture myself setting it on the shelf by my bed.
  5. Social Connection: I will reach out to those with personal connections to the areas hardest hit, and to my neighbors. I will be of service if I can, and use my voice and my actions to communicate and remember that we are all here together on this wild ride of life. It might be unpredictable but we don’t need to, and in fact can’t, do it alone. It’s a prescription to plug in to life, not just the power outlet.
  6. Avoidance of Risky Substances: Today I will not drink the storm away or engage in mindless scrolling. I will make a plan for the day that includes rest and things enjoyable, and walk through the plan to keep my own mind from getting lost and looking in the wrong places for peace and rest. My mind needs this medicine on days like today

I don’t know what today will hold, but I do know that you and I can do it together, and living out Life’s Medicine means we can be the strongest and most resilient selves to show up.

Lifestyle Medicine Physical Activity Stress Management

Workout Wednesday: Less than Perfect

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I want to envision myself leading the perfect healthy life. My diet, my exercise, my temper , and my hair all just cooperate perfectly. Every. Single. Day. I once proudly told a mentor that I was a perfectionist. Without hesitation she replied, “Well, I can always tell when someone has a problem with dishonesty.”

Because perfect is dishonest. It is not a true part of being human. Sit down to hear me say this: You will never get it perfect. This applies to all your hard work on fixing your spouse too. It is slightly disappointing news, right before it is freeing.

Two facts were true this week. I had Covid and I really need my exercise time for my mental health. There was a time when the sudden intrusion of illness, or any big life event, would mean I would skip exercise because I couldn’t do it “perfectly”. By this I would mean that I couldn’t go to the HIIT class, or I couldn’t give it my usual effort.

But this week I stopped expecting myself to exercise and just considered a goal of “body movement”. I wasn’t sick enough to be stuck in bed, so I put shoes on my feet, and good music in my ears, and walked a mile outside on a “photo walk”. This is a walk where I take pictures of things in nature that I find beautiful. It is good for the soul.

Then I did 12 squats x 2 on a bench, 12 lunges x2 on a flight of stairs, 12 toe taps x2 on a parking bumper, and 12 tricep dips x2 on a garden fountain. There are many things on a walk can be used for strength training and making your own gym is creative and fun!

I then used my Tabata app timer to jog a minute, walk a minute, for the mile back to my home.

It wasn’t my best workout. It was far from perfect. But the truth is that right now my body is not at its best. I’m not perfect. But adding gentle movement to my day is always a win.

Stress Management

Looking Higher

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I know a guy who claims to have no God. He is a proud atheist. He will also tell you how important Service is for his own health and clarity. He routinely recommends “service to others” as a path to good mental health and I could not agree more.

Walking with a Higher Power, something that is beyond my own skin, might be one of the most important things I can do for health.

Most importantly, this practice protects me from trying to BE that power myself.

Because when I try to manage, fix, manipulate, direct, enforce, punish, reward, or worry into submission the world around me, I fall prey to anxiety (aka fear) and depression, self-pity, selfish behavior, anger, slightly more than white-lies, and using others as actors in my direction of my play. It’s exhausting. It’s exhausting for me and wearing for those around me. It’s the opposite of good health, true social connection, or stress reduction, and leads to sleepless nights, Oreo eating, and so much hand-wringing that I become unable to move my body with joy.

When it was first suggested to find a Higher Power, something greater than myself to look toward for direction, I chose the Power of Good. The Power of Good is invisible like the wind, but you can see the effect of both things in people’s lives. “Goodness” was a Power outside of my own skin that I could believe in and reliably trust. I learned that religious people call this Faith.

I first started asking this Higher Power for direction at the beginning of my day, and then in the evening I began reviewing my actions through its lens. Before long I started to converse with it anytime I was unable to figure something out, or fix something myself. I learned that religious people call this Prayer.

Today I belong to church as one part of my practice, but my Higher Power bursts out in unexpected places and at unexpected times. It cannot seem to be controlled in a way that is most akin to when you get the giggles inappropriately and cannot stop. I learned that religious people call this Grace.

I intuitively know I am seeing only a small part of something too big for me to get my human arms and mind around. For me, it seems to have no definite body or pronoun, exudes wisdom and loving perspective, and seems to not have an ounce of fear, anger, or self-righteous judgement; things that can cover me like a heavy wet blanket from which I cannot escape. I learned that religious people call this Sin.

For me, even with my human limits, I can rest in this Higher Power. I can trust it to lead me. My atheist friend calls his power “Service” and I call mine by many names including: Goodness, Love, Joy, Grace, Patience, Kindness, Beauty, or for short, just “God”.

I am coming up on 11 years of finding a Higher Power and I can tell you that turning toward this Power, talking to it, listening back, letting it guide me in all situations, has been the best life change that I EVER made for my health. I learned that religious people call this “Finding God.”

And as my friends in Kenya like to say, “God is Good. All the Time.”

Lifestyle Medicine Stress Management

Chasing Peace

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I have spent a lifetime waiting for peace. Working for it, wrangling it, and negotiating with it. It’s been a lot like a laughing toddler slipping from my grasp and running ahead as I tried to wrestle it back into place.

I was positive that if I got into medical school life would finally be good. Only to find that, wait, no, if I get into residency it will be settled. This turned into peace once I find a job, once I get promoted, once I complete my thesis, or once I get perfect patient experience scores. Then, surely, I will finally be able to sit on top of my career aspirational mountaintop and rest.

I prayed once in bargaining fashion to find someone to marry, and then twice that we have a healthy child, and now repeatedly that these teenagers make it to adulthood without killing themselves. I’m sure once they find someone to marry, or once everyone is settled and happy, that then I can sit on my happy matriarchal couch and enjoy the situation.

I have told a friend that once I lose this weight, once I run a 5K, once my blood pressure is fixed, once I finally take up yoga, or when I retire and finally have more time, to de-stress and meditate that then I will be able to feel at peace and healthy.

I can’t tell you how many times in my life I am sure I finally will be rid of my worries and challenges and find peace, IF (insert desired outcome).

But sadly, chasing the outcome-based peace never came and stayed for more than an hour or two. There was always more work to do.

Most recently I was riddled with fear about this country’s upcoming national elections. I was full of what my husband describes as “piss and vinegar”. I was giving my political speech to him, throwing noble-cause punches into the air, all while still in my jammies.

But, he had to go help a friend move a refrigerator and I needed to get dressed to meet my friends for coffee, and so we both needed a little reprieve from my fervor. My husband easily stepped away from me, but I was stuck with me, and needed a little help.

I did what mentors have taught me and tried a prayer to help locate some peace. (I truthfully always do this reluctantly and as a last resort as I run out of my own solutions.)

Maybe you’ve been there too: Peace being held hostage to the future and a present full of fear that is hard to manage.

Soon after that prayer I found myself with friends talking about upcoming surgeries and other scary things, when an awful truth wedged its way into my consciousness. With the flash of a bright light turning on, my mind held the thought, “It won’t be done on November 6th.”

With this thought came a full and powerful realization that I will wake up on November 6th, and there will still be work to do. I will still need to figure out how I will be a citizen, how I will model to the younger, how I will build bridges to neighbors. I have this work to do today, AND I will still have this work to do later.

And strangely, that is where I found peace today. It was in the realization that it will never be done. There will always be a sunrise that comes with a day full of decisions about what work I will do. The assignment may change from school to residency to job, or from babies to young adult children, or from working for one civic issue that matters to another, but it will never be finished.

When I realized this truth, peace stopped being something that ran ahead of me like a laughing toddler trying to get away, and instead climbed right in my lap to be in the middle of the wild ride, with an eager face that said, “So where are we going next??”

Positive Social Connection Stress Management

The Space In Between

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Welcome to The Jolly Heart; Beach Week Edition! It’s a week of travel, family time, and seeing good friends. Routines will be upended, unanticipated challenges will come, cooking will be for multitudes, and new memories will be made. It’s a vacation, but it also has moments of chaos.

I have been thinking of chaos lately. It might be because I live with young adult children, my job can keep me on my toes, and the news has never been newsier. It all leads to days of feeling unsettled. I try to pay attention to getting movement and eating well, but I also tend to something I call The-Space-In-Between to get some relief.

I had a mentor tell me once to draw a circle around my feet and look down. This is what I could control. This was the space I was in charge of managing. It contained my own body and mind, but, I also realized that circle encompasses the space in between my feet and yours.

If I was New Age I might call it my Aura, but Lifestyle Medicine doctors call it “Social Connection”. It is a very important contributor to our health and as important as not smoking to our longevity.

When I first started paying attention to The Space In Between I went after low hanging fruit. Not using my middle finger while driving meant a successful day for me. It’s important, I believe, to realize when we put our frustration and exhaustion into The Space In Between. It affects those around us and we have no idea of fully knowing what’s going on in their circle and at their feet. Snapping at my husband after a long day at work, barking at my kids to clean up, sarcasm, eye rolling, denigrating another behind their back or on social media; these are all examples of how I can, unthinkingly, pollute up their space with my own fear, my own frustration at the clunkiness of life, my own desire to have it all the way I like it. It can hurt worse than a slap to the face and it creates a divide: not only between me and them, but also between me and others witnessing. There are no bridges and connections being built. And without these connections, research tells us, we are taking years off our own life.

After controlling for pollution, I started to challenge myself in The Space In Between to try some beautification. Small things like eye contact and a smile with a cashier, sending emails with gratitude folded around the business needing done, thanking my family for their own acts of kindness, bringing curiosity and grace to other’s anger and frustration. I started to sprinkle those beautification seeds everywhere I went and I felt different. I felt happier regardless of what others around me were doing in their space. I was tending my space and it made me feel healthy and strong in a world full of chaos.

On our beach-bound road trip we stopped in a Wendy’s. While my family ordered the food, I noticed the straw/napkin/utensil station was a mess. Trash overflowing on the counter around the trash holes, no napkins, low on utensils, etc. “Sheesh, Wendy’s,” I thought, “my grandpa, a man with an eye for details and the original lover of the Wendy’s Frosty would be disappointed.”

I went up to the counter to ask for some napkins- because road trips can never have too many napkins-and the gentleman sighed in a kind and tired way and grabbed at a large wrapped brown paper package. As he ripped open the big package of napkins, he muttered as much to himself as me, “Everyone called in today…I was on my way to replace these..”. He offered me as many napkins as I needed before he was called by another customer to ring up an order. I looked at my feet and imagined that circle…all of it…and I grabbed a few fist-fulls of napkins and put them in the napkin dispensers best that I could. (I obviously missed the employee training session about Wendy’s napkin dispensers.) I hoped it bought our guy a few more minutes to do the job himself. My husband chuckled and said, “You’re hired!” and my teen just looked slightly embarrassed, but there it was: The Space In Between.

Just like my garden, I don’t always get it right, I never get it perfect, but it’s where I see magic and holiness happen, and for me, where I see my God at work: The Space In Between your feet and mine -in a world full of chaos- is important.

Stress Management

Guarding Our Hearts

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“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life” – Proverbs 4:23

I love following a certain musician on social media.  His music feeds my soul and his life story is inspiring. Yesterday, I decided to visit his page on social media.  My heart was full and content as I had experienced a productive morning full of purpose, the sun was out, and I had a delicious lunch in front of me.

I opened up the social media app and was greeted by the latest news cycle.  I started doom-scrolling.  In under 15 minutes, I went from a heart that was full and content…to texting my husband that we needed to move out of the country because our young adult boys would be drafted and surely killed.  After all, World War III was just around the corner.     When I looked up from my phone, I was physically in the same place, sitting outside on a beautiful day, but mentally I was in a very different space. The beautiful breeze and sunshine looked at me mockinly as if to say, “Yeah, this is all coming to an end soon.”  I felt helpless and hopeless and unsure what to do next.

As I went about my afternoon, with now a heavy heart, I kept circling back to the future vision that my heart held after the doom-scrolling. (I never did make it to my favorite musician’s page).  It was bleak.

Then I looked up on my wall where I had a framed picture of  Proverbs 4:23, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”

In my most recent health coaching class we talked alot about nutrition and cardiovascular (heart) health.  We talked of cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure, or in other words, “the plumbing” of heart health.  But yesterday I started to see how not guarding my heart, and engaging in doom-scrolling, I was also hurting my health.

As cortisol and other stress hormones were released my heart was gearing up for a fight, or a flight, just like if there was a tiger in the room.  And if I was being honest, I had let this tiger in the room.

What we do know is that our hearts, bodies, and minds, are not meant to live in a state of “fight or flight” from tigers.  Tigers are supposed to be infrequent and temporary.  Our caveman ancestors would say, “For goodness sakes, get out of the tiger’s lair!”

But now with the world in our hands, we can call up the tiger anytime we want.  And we do.  Maybe we feel like we should.  Maybe we believe we are doing something productive.  But, on the contrary we are doing damage.  We are not guarding our hearts.

My heart needs fresh foods that are whole, and colorful, largely from plants.  It needs love and connection and a little sunshine.  It needs exercise and purpose.  And it deserves and needs a place to be protected from the tigers.  This is ALL my responsibility.

I can’t change the fact that there are tigers out there in the world, but I can stop inviting them in for a cage match in my mind.  I can instead  ask myself, “What is the next right thing to do?”  It may be to vote or run for office, but it may also be to find out how my neighbor is doing, smile at the check-out person, tip generously, or other things that can nourish my heart and make it grow.

What can you do today to guard your heart: to nourish it and watch it grow? Let’s make a list in the comments below!