#getting a little weepy and funny and trying to remember that numbers aren’t just numbers

[shibaraki]

don’t mind me just another reader appreciation post: thank you so so much if you’ve ever taken the time to read and interact with my fics. you are a huge source of encouragement for me and many others. without you I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to share and grow and build this safe little community around me. much love!!!!

[howtoimprovementalhealth-blog]

WHAT’S YOUR MENTAL FITNESS SCORE?

My friend Audrey works out five days a week. On the sixth day, she does Bikram Yoga in sweltering heat. Then on the seventh day, she “rests” by doing an 8-mile walk.

Know someone like that?

Yes, we all know that one person who exhausts us, just by telling us their workout routine. As a nation, we spend over $26 billion annually, on fitness. That’s great; we’re looking hotter, wearing muscle shirts and lifting our body weight on our pinkies. In fact, in our online health bootcamps, the fitness section ends up being very popular!

However, let’s talk about mental fitness for a change. Suicides of stars such as the iconic Anthony Bourdain or beloved designer, Kate Spade are shining a much-needed spotlight on our mental health crisis which is costing us of $200 billion and affects about 60 million Americans. Yup, 1 in 4 Americans suffers from some mental illness every year. It’s very likely that this number excludes the underreported teen mental health crisis.

So what is going on?

Some of the mental health issues are complex and inescapable, and my heart goes out to those struggling to heal from them.

However, a portion of this crisis, in my opinion, is due to our mental “obesity”. We are mentally fat and out of shape, incapable of handling this crazy roller coaster ride, called life. Our mental muscles are weak and flabby from overstimulation and overfeeding on a buffet of mentally disturbing media tweets, posts, alerts, and dings.

We have to remember that we are a beautifully brilliant mental program that’s absorbing everything around us.

Unfortunately, what we absorb today by the way of mouth, sight, sound, smell, and emotions is driving our less than joyful mental state.

It’s time we started treating our mind as the muscle that it is, and feed and flex it to keep it strong! In my opinion, the feeding of our mind includes not just nutrition but also sleep, socializing and social media.

So, if we watch crap, eat crap, and sleep like crap, we are bound to feel and act like crap. Hanging out with crappy people? Guess how you’re going to feel the next day?

I see it as simple math that no one mentioned to me when I talked to my primary care doctor years ago. Her terse reply was, “what do you expect, you’ve got two little kids, a full-time startup job and a traveling husband. Its normal to feel weepy and exhausted.”

Now looking back, having conducted 75+ interviews with health pioneers, I can say definitely that it was not normal and it was totally fixable.

Every day, every action either feeds your mind to joy or jitters.

I wasn’t sleeping well, eating right or breathing and resting. I was literally doing everything to contribute to a terrible state of mind,

So, whenever you feel sad, anxious, angry or reactive, take some time to think about what you’ve been feeding your mind lately. Better yet, become mindful of giving your mind exactly what it needs to stay fit!

Check out the short and totally unscientific quiz below that I crafted to help you gauge your mental fitness. Then scroll down to see your results and the explanation for the quiz. Let’s get started!

MENTAL FITNESS QUIZ

Do you laugh at least 3 times each day with genuine (not fake!) glee and find joy in small things?

Do you have the willpower to say NO to that extra brownie, drink, smoke, or double cheeseburger 90 percent of the time?

Do you get at least seven hours of deep restorative sleep every night?

Do you view social media, TV, Netflix etc for less than 2 hours every day?

Are you consciously grateful for the little things like running warm water and almond milk at Starbucks?

Do you spend time with people you love at least once a week?

Do you get out in nature and say hello to the sun for at least 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week?

Are you loved? Do you love yourself?

Do you rest and breathe deeply several times a day for a few minutes?

Do your meals include 50% healthy fats, fresh fruits, and vegetables?

SCORE

THE BOSS: MENTAL ROCKSTAR (8-10 YES)

If you answered YES to about 80% of the questions above, your mind is rock solid. You are the boss of your emotions and you’re not about to let anyone tell you how to feel or what to feel. You know you are in a creation of love and are strong enough to handle any crap that may come your way. Also, you have strong boundaries and try to live mindfully.

THE INTERN: MENTAL MIDSTAR (5-8 YESes)

If you answered YES to at least 50% of the questions above, that’s a good start! However, you’re definitely not in charge yet. You’re like an intern, still doing what others tell you to do. Like a poor intern, your emotions are on a roller coaster depending on the 10 factors above. For you, a bad day is just one social media post away. Or around the corner from one sleepless night. It’s an exhausting way to live and you’re probably moody as heck!

Remedy: Keep a diary and track which of the above-mentioned skills you need to work on to become the Boss!

THE JANITOR: MENTAL ROOKIE (0-4 YESes)

If you answered Yes to 4 or less, you’re probably familiar with mental messiness. Janitors have the fun job of cleaning up all the mess and so do you.  Your mental mess maybe the extra or unwarranted irritability, anger, anxiety, fear or just a constant stream of negative self-talk. You may be contemplating using or already using sleeping pills, happy pills, wake up pills, weight loss pills and any other pill you hope will fix whatever you think is broken.

Sadly, no pill will. But there’s great news still: YOU can fix your problems!

Remedy: Take each question above and figure out how to get to a YES on it. Take your time, but be sure to get that question to a yes before you move to the next. Eventually, life should get lighter, easier, and more engaging. Before you know it, you’ll be the Boss of your emotions and a heavyweight champ in mental fitness.

(Legal disclaimer: See your doctor before you make any change to anything).

QUIZ EXPLAINED

So you’re probably wondering what the science is behind this totally unscientific mental fitness quiz created in a Starbucks while sipping steamed almond milk with nutmeg?

Having interviewed almost 60 brilliant health practitioners I’m sharing how I came up with the quiz questions and the recommendations.

 1. Do you laugh at least 3 times each day with genuine (not fake!) glee and find joy in small things?

Our brain creates pathways based on emotions. The more often you travel on the same emotional path, the more your brain subconsciously jumps onto that pathway. Translation – if you tend to laugh a lot, you’ll laugh even more. If you tend to find faults often, everything will always appear faulty. So the great news about this revelation is that we can fake our way to mental fitness. Find reasons to laugh (watch cat videos, memes, comedy channels, whatever tickles you) and you’ll find more and more things funny and entertaining.

 2. Do you have the willpower to say NO to that extra brownie, drink, smoke, double cheeseburger 90 percent of the time? If you remember your first yoga class or your first marathon, then you know what it means to push through when your body is screaming “NO WAY”. Willpower is the basis of mental fitness. Having the power to say No to spending an hour on Facebook, or simply deleting your twitter account is a significant piece of mental fitness. Otherwise, you’re merely one step away from being a robot programmed by the masterminds around you. Just like it takes willpower to walk away from a Krispy Kreme doughnut in the office kitchen, it takes serious willpower to walk away from negative self-talk. But, you can develop the inner strength if you focus on it. Start small, make a list of what you should be saying “No” to but aren’t. Then get started with one item at a time. Before you know it, you’ll be in charge with a strongly developed “No” mental muscle.

 3. Do you get at least seven hours of deep restorative sleep every night?

According to so many studies, if you lose sleep, you lose your mind. There are hundreds of studies that show an undeniable connection between sleep and the mind. So if you’re a proud night owl, insomniac or a college student, your constant thoughts of misery may just your brain being sad about not getting enough zzzs. For some of us on the wrong side of 40 years, we would like to sleep, but can’t quite seem to catch that perfect snooze. Thanks to a little help from my podcast guests I now sleep like a baby. My secret potion? I apply some magnesium and take a drop of vitamin D with K. If you’re getting less than 7 hours of quality sleep, prioritize fixing it. These days there are such great natural sleep supporters that you have no reasons to suffer poor sleep. Just remember sleeping pills are not the answer, according to various doctors. It is vital to get natural, deep, restorative sleep.

 4. Are you on social media, TV, Netflix etc for less than 2 hours every day? Imagine eating the buffet at Bellagio, the Venetian and Mandalay Bay combined, at the same time, and for free? That is exactly what happens to our minds on social media! Naturally, our mind enjoys living vicariously through other people. Lying in bed scrolling through a celebrity’s social media feed, reading about a recent feud or reading someone’s food recipe is to our brain what a bubble bath is to our body. It just wants to sink in with a glass of wine and never come out. But then, there’s the subconscious thought flow that accompanies the passive scrolling: “I’m not as pretty, as rich, or as successful, as ____” producing an inevitable sense of sadness. The results of studies performed to evaluate emotional states after Facebook binging are not pretty. Worse still, the stories we often get riled up about on social media, in the news, or on Netflix are just that — stories! Perfectly filtered to feed our lowest emotions. Do not fall for them. It is time to take back your sanity! Limit social media and entertainment consumption to less than 1 hour a day, total. Instead, read a good book or go for a walk with a friend.

 5. Are you grateful for the little things like running warm water and almond milk at Starbucks? While social media can make you feel unloved and “not very special”, gratitude can fix it in less than 5 minutes every day. It is the closest thing to a “silver bullet” for all that ails you. For one thing, you can’t be grateful and sad/angry/anxious at the same time. So make up a list of specific things you are truly grateful for and read them daily! What I did during my two years of my health crisis is write a word of gratitude in the morning and right before bed. I ended up creating The Health Journal, a weekly health tracking and inspirational journal, as there was nothing easy or quick to track gratitude and my health. I’m not the only fan, check out what Kelly Noonan Gores says in our interview on the HEAL documentary.

Just start by acknowledging simple, wonderful things that happen daily, like waking up! Jokes aside, millions don’t wake up every single day, so if you woke up that’s worthy of a little gratitude (according to Sadhguru) and me! Now that I’ve developed this practice, I find myself constantly saying thanks – for a delicious brownie that I couldn’t eat a year ago to the warm hugs from my teen daughters.

 6. Do you spend time with people you love at least once a week? There’s a sad transition that happens between childhood to adulthood. We stop hanging out with the people who love us unconditionally (ahem, parents) and start spending time with those who we want to associate with for various reasons. That might mean choosing the mean but popular kids in high school, the hot/cool teens in college, or the boring boss who controls your promotion. Nevertheless, we are subconsciously aware that these are transactional and transitional relationships built on some form of codependency and not love. As I get older, I realize how crucial it is that I cultivate loving relationships with people who respect me for who I truly am inside. Even the presence of only one loving friend can bring you a sense of general well-being. Yes, your spouse counts too! Prioritize spending time with people who really love you, from your family to those few friends who will drop everything if you ever need them.

 7. Do you get out in nature and “say hello” to the sun for at least 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week?

As humans, we have gone from living under the sun and in nature to living inside and under artificial lights. This has changed everything. We often forget that the sun and moon power our design in a significant way. Our brains are wired to pick up cues from the sun, and our body needs the sun for thousands of processes (not found in a bottle called, Vitamin D+ K, although I take it regardless).  We need nature to keep us in balanced and in rhythm, yet, so few of us spend time having a picnic or a hike over the weekend. After sleeping, this is the second most important of the ten factors for mental fitness. It’s virtually a shortcut to better fitness! Schedule your daily lunch in the sun with your feet on the grass, instead of eating in a tiny cubicle, and watch everything get better! I am not exaggerating. Try it for 40 days and share your experience in the comments.

 8. Are you loved? Do you feel loved?

Can you look in the mirror and say, “I love you” without cringing? Try it. It took me months before I could do it without giggling or making funny faces at myself. One of my favorite authors and inspirational speakers, Louise Hay, introduced this concept and calls it mirror work. The brilliant and famous psychologist to the stars, Marisa Peer, talks about the critical importance of being able to say, “I am enough.” A great antidote to the world making us feel unworthy is to look in the mirror and repeat, “I love you.” In my interview with Dawson Church on beating anxiety, he said at the very end that the most important thing anyone can do is to love themselves. It sounds easy, but so few of us treat ourselves the way we treat others. Track how many times you are mean to yourself with words like, “you idiot” or “stupid you.” How many times do you acknowledge that you love YOU? Every cell is listening, and they need to know that you love them no matter your size, color, level of education, bank balance, or accomplishments. Ensuring that you love you is the single most valuable thing you can do, starting today. Other than, you know, sleep, sun and laughing.

 9. Do you rest and breathe deeply at least a few times a day?

Somehow rushing around has become a norm. Trying to pack three days of work into one has become a thing of pride. Perhaps not for all of us, but some of us. This only ends in sheer exhaustion. Rushing around creates many ripples with an overall dangerous impact. First, it makes you breathe poorly. You begin to experience shallow and quick breathing which creates a lack of high-quality oxygen needed by cells. Second, constantly hurrying signals to your brain that there’s a tiger somewhere (your body uses breathing to figure out when to release fight or flight hormones) which propels it into action by changing your chemical composition in seconds. More glucose is released, your digestion shuts down, sending more blood to your extremities. Your body is ready to fight or run and certainly not prepared for that sandwich you’re wolfing down while driving madly through traffic. Then, we wonder why digestive issues are the new epidemic! So, take time to rest, as your grandmother did. Rest after lunch. Take breath breaks where you simply sit for 5 minutes and a deep breath. Check out some great breathing exercises for anxiety with Dr. Mukta Khalsa here.

 10. Do your meals include 50% good fats, fresh fruits, and vegetables?

Finally, we cannot conclude any fitness talk without a section on nutrition. After all, without food, we die. However, because our poor minds cannot speak as loudly as our cravings, they are ignored. So, I’m here to remind you that your mind would like some good fats, like avocado and olive oil, to feel safe and loved. It would love some juicy organic in-season fruit to feed its creative juices. It would like some dark greens as a connection to our beautiful planet. Feeding our mind a diet of lab-made food (sorry, but did you think that chicken nugget was real food for your mind?) only creates a huge deficit, which no amount of sleep is going to balance. Just like your car won’t drive on good wishes, your mind isn’t getting fit on nuggets. I’m not making a case to boycott nuggets if that’s your thing, but it should be an occasional treat. Prioritize feeding your mind for fitness. It will reward you with a burst of joy like you’ve never experienced before.

Let’s prioritize mental fitness and together create a more loving life experience for all!

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Reena Jadhav Host of Podcast HEALTHIER and founder of HealthBootcamps.com the leader in online health programs with renowned doctors to beat cancer, heart health, weight loss, beat diabetes and more.

[cosmosogler]

hnngngh it’s already 12:20. i was going to start writing as soon as i finished the picture but the internet went out for like 15 minutes.

i got up at 10... my dreams were ~wacky and silly~. there was a musical number. it was about as good and relevant as this one:

at first i was stuck in a dark mansion with a bunch of people i haven’t seen in a long time. i was also naked. i was also looking for a wet swim suit to put on. there were lots of second hand sweaters and pool noodles and board games stuffed into every closet but i needed that wet and sticky swim suit i guess! the last part was like a cross between mary poppins and peter pan. i was doing the chimney sweep dance with a bunch of chimney sweep guys dressed in black when pirates showed up and wanted us to walk the plank. there were suddenly children in pajamas there. i got shoved off the plank since i was procrastinating about jumping off but a chimney sweep caught me at the bottom of the building so i guess it was fine.

i woke up irritated and exhausted. i only slept for maybe 7 and a half hours.

i don’t really remember what i did all morning! i was on the computer. i received some emails from my new classmates about studying for some kind of intake exam which immediately stressed me out a lot. i scanned in my art so i could digitally color it after therapy. i microwaved my leftovers from yesterday. oh, and i showered.

i got to therapy on time. it was hard to focus on my daily check in paperwork. when asked about which medications i was taking i just scribbled “the usual suspects” and was unable to figure out what my goal was for the session.

i was able to avoid talking about myself for quite a while! but unfortunately everyone else finished with time to spare so i had to talk about how i was feeling. or rather, not feeling, i guess. we talked about how i seem to be unable to form normal relationships with other people. my therapist said i rarely ever talk about myself, but i worry that i talk about myself too much around friends. i guess that’s the point she was making.

for some reason my mind wandered to craig. he wasn’t the start of the phenomenon of course but... definitely the worst offender aside from maybe mother, but that’s mostly just because i have spent far more time with mother. i quickly brushed over our relationship saying he “did stuff” before trying to move on but the therapist stopped me and asked what he did. 

i guess... while i was trying to describe the many fun experiences i had with him, particularly the whole “ignoring my firm no to climb on top of me” episode, i started crying really hard? it was embarrassing. i don’t know why it was so hard to talk about at that moment. i have talked about it before without that violent of a reaction. i’ve been so dang weepy all evening since then. i cry more over my dogs than anything else. 

i kept getting upset over and over again while i drove home and fed the dogs and cooked a semi-nice dinner for myself and walked wiley. remembering stuff. i’d forgotten that mom blamed me for everything that happened. it wasn’t important for other people to know. i kept getting the urge to, like, email the group therapist with everything i was thinking about, but i don’t really want to spend all my therapy time whining about stuff that doesn’t matter...

like... hanging out with other people, getting to know them, learning about their lives, i don’t want to think about this stuff! it’s upsetting. and i don’t want to upset them. craig was very careful to tell me i was “too much” anyway. 

all my interests are stupid. i mean, i don’t think they’re stupid, but other people will think i’m stupid for liking them. all my friends already treat me like i’m a kid. i’m “cute.” how is anyone ever going to take me seriously if i tell them i like pokemon?

i know that my friends, like asher, say “cute” with the best intentions. i’m glad they like what i do, i guess. and i am small and get flustered easily. but it dovetails so nicely with the “aww, sammie’s growing up!” comments whenever i bring up anything vaguely sexual as a joke. i’m not 12. i’m 24. i know what a dick is. i have a large mental collection of really stupid bedroom ideas from urban dictionary. “how/why do you know that?” my friends ask. like i don’t come across these things just by existing on a college campus.

like, if they’re not going to take me seriously anyway, why bother with anything but stupid jokes. my “no” doesn’t mean anything obviously. no one in my life, for so long, wanted to hear about anything i had to say. i can count on my fingers the number of times i got someone to listen all the way through a monologue. i don’t know why my middle school friends stuck around. maybe there wasn’t anywhere else to go. i certainly wasn’t nice about it.

it’s so hard to accept the idea that people might be interested in something i am also interested in, and want my opinion on it for real. asher at least humors me, though he does remind me often that he’s not able to follow my long diatribes on steven universe or adventure time or stock science fiction plots. and i’m afraid to make new friends in a fandom. what if i don’t like it as much as they do and i turn into That Guy? what if they also immediately decide i’m “cute” and that’s all i am after that?

it’s easier to just show people things they will think are cute. cute emotions. cute stories. that sex subplot in that story was really out of place. you should cut it out. cute jokes. cute personality. cute dreams (nightmares). cute approaches to problems. cute anxieties.

i might sound angrier than i actually feel right now. i’m actually just really tired. and i do think my jokes are pretty funny. it’s not that those things aren’t genuine. but they are also cherrypicked from the overwhelming noise to make other people less unhappy. and when i get negative feedback i load up on the “cute” so that the bad thing is... less.

maybe that’s why i’m so miserable. it’s hard to make connections because i feel like people wouldn’t take me seriously anyway. and then they stop taking me seriously so it’s hard to make a connection.

i’m not entirely sure though. i mean, yeah, that’s probably exactly why jay was kind of a dick to me. but at the same time, i feel like i do make, if not entirely, then at least a little more serious, connections? or do i always water down my emotions when conveying them to other people? do i only tell people things i don’t care if they know on purpose? when’s the last time i told someone something really for real private about how or what i think?

it was craig, wasn’t it. i bring up concerns with other people now, things relevant or likely interesting to them, not secrets.

but why would anyone listen to something i say if it was only about me and nothing else? that’s not useful information.

before i left my therapist asked if i was going to be able to rest better tonight than last night. i said probably not. it’s after 1 again now. tomorrow i’ve got a party with raven and my other graduating classmates at 6... i wonder if i’ll be able to sleep.

the group mentioned self care. asmr, soaking in the bath, using essential oils, that kind of thing. i don’t really like any of those things. i was thinking about that... i don’t like feeling relaxed. paradoxically, the thought puts me on edge. i just drew my picture for a couple hours instead and i hurt my hand and fingers because the tablet is so low quality haha. but i finished it, and i practiced with the tablet a little bit, and that has to count for something, right? even though it was so that it could be used by someone else. i mean, i draw my own characters for myself, but... 

everyone thinks my characters are “cute” too. even kyral i guess? i mean, there’s a degree of “not taking it too seriously” to all my stories. and kyral does, objectively, overreact to almost everything. but if i didn’t goof off with the characters a little bit i’d just make myself depressed. it can’t all be horrible. even my life isn’t all horrible.

i tried to at least stay hydrated. and have some chocolate milk, because i like chocolate milk. but the box exploded on my desk so i had to mop up chocolate milk instead of drinking it. i didn’t have as bad a stomachache today as yesterday. i tried to play it a little safer food wise for dinner. that may have helped.

i will try to sleep now. at least i talk more or less honestly about myself on the blog. there are probably things i don’t realize about myself that i don’t write about, but that’s because i haven’t thought of them yet. but of course, as always, reading my blog is totally optional. i try not to talk about my friends too much though, even when i do think about them, because it’s not generally nice to talk about people while they’re not around. i just spend a lot of time talking to asher is all.

i hope he is doing ok in canada.

ok, going to bed for real. i think i said everything i wanted to say. i hope you are also doing ok.