Category: The Problem

What keeps you up at night?

Is it money? Work? Family responsibilities? Relationships? Health?

Have you considered that what keeps us up at night is our thoughts about life situations?

Lying awake at night is simply one of our body’s reactions to the meaning we give to life situations.

But do we see things for what they truly are?

Join me in exploring how to be in charge of your power by choosing the way you look at what we have come to define as the major challenges of our existence.

21 Guideposts to Being Grateful

We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Greece, where I grew up, but I have come to really like this American holiday.

For starters, I like roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry relish, but mostly I like Thanksgiving because it is officially the day when we are invited to practice gratitude.

Gratitude is a powerful human emotion. We can choose how to respond to life and make conscious choices about where to invest our attention. I recommend choosing gratitude.

Not that long ago I used to roll my eyes when anyone mentioned the myriad benefits of a gratitude practice. Not only was I a scientist through and through, but I also lived by the philosophy, “no pain, no gain.”

But as it turns out, I was wrong!

Ample scientific evidence exists that clearly proves that the choice to place our attention on elements we are grateful for can lead to more happiness, physical health, and meaningful and satisfying relationships.

It takes twenty-one days to form a habit. I invite you to use the following twenty-one guideposts, as thoughts to start your day. You can also use them as your chosen focal point to redirect your attention to, every time something happens in your day that takes you off-balance.

We have no control over much in life, like the economy or our obnoxious work colleague.

On the other hand, we have complete control over what we choose to put our attention on. Focusing on positive things we are grateful for has a tremendous impact on our happiness, health, and performance.

So, let’s begin!

Day 1: What do you love about yourself today? I invite you to view yourself as the amazing human being that you truly are, free of concerns about your abilities, your age, your body shape or size. Instead, consider how many challenges you have already overcome, how much adversity you have endured, and in how many ways you have positively impacted the world we live in throughout the course of your life.

Day 2: Celebrate what a scientific marvel you are. If you are wondering how a certain part of your anatomy looks in a specific type of outfit, I invite you to shift your attention to the fact that in every second you are alive your brain orchestrates six trillion actions using the 100 trillion cells of your body to keep you in perfect balance. That realization should put any concerns about size and parts of your anatomy into perspective!

Day 3: Take a few moments to appreciate your heart. Consider that no matter how many times your heart is broken over the course of your life, it will continue to beat over 100,000 times per day sending blood to 60,000 miles of blood vessels!

Day 4: Take a few moments to appreciate one aspect of yourself that you usually do not like. Challenging parts of ourselves are a little bit like a bratty child that acts up when ignored. By embracing a negative part of ourselves, for example, our inner critic, we make friends with it and then we can work together toward our purpose.

Day 5: Cherish the power of your breath. Remember that your breath can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, the part of you that is your natural antidote to the stress response! Isn’t it funny that we look for power externally in things like money and material assets when we have so much internal power to shut down what does not serve us and open the doors to so many wonderful things simply through the power of our breath?

Day 6: Treasure your ability to calm your nervous system on demand.

A calm nervous system halts the production of cortisol, which in large quantities interferes with the optimal functioning of your body systems (immune and digestive, just to name a couple). Did you know you are a fabulous chemist and scientist in the laboratory of your life every moment you are alive? By simply changing the narrative we give to a life situation, no matter how stressful the situation may be, we can calm our nervous system. For example, if we just got laid off, we can acknowledge that the situation is challenging, but focus on how many times we have been able to overcome similar situations in the past, instead of how this is the “end of the world.”

Day 7: Recognize the incredible power you have within your amazing neurobiology! Being in a balanced state of gratitude allows you access to the relational parts of your brain (right hemisphere) and allows you improved functioning of executive regulation (pre-frontal cortex). Is there a person in your life that you would love to share a positive relationship with? Recount five things you love about them before you talk to or see them next time and notice what happens!

Day 8: Be grateful for the gift of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the greatest neuroscience discovery of the last 150 years. We can grow regions of our brain associated with desired traits by simply shifting our attention to having experiences that foster those traits. For example, we grow optimism by consciously shifting our attention to being grateful for the positive sides of even negative experiences.

Day 9: Revere in your ability to activate your reward center and trigger the release of dopamine. You can activate dopamine, our “feel good” hormone, simply by identifying rewarding aspects of all experiences. When our “feel good” hormones get triggered by certain experiences, these experiences are flagged for protection and safekeeping. This means that over time, one positive experience at a time, your automatic response will become gratitude.

Day 10: Fill your heart with gratitude for a person that makes you feel cared for. When we consciously recall people and situations that make us feel good, our body functions (heart rate, temperature, blood pressure) remain at optimal levels. In todays’ era of information overload, we seem to operate from our stress response state quite a bit more frequently than what we were physiologically designed to handle. Thank heavens we have a natural antidote for this problem!

Day 11: Adore your strong muscles today. Do something that gives you the chance to encounter your physical strength. And don’t forget that much like muscle fitness, gratitude sculpts and increases cortical tissue in brain regions that are associated with harmonious emotional regulation. That means that the more time you invest in being grateful, the better you can process and manage negative emotions like fear and anger.

Day 12: Savor and trust in the universe that you are part of. Feel free to let go of what does not serve you, knowing that when you allow yourself to be the beautiful, amazing you who you are in your true essence, the whole universe will conspire to bring to your path all that you need. Have faith and trust the universe.

Day 13: Nurture the joy you hold inside your heart! We are so used to living life from a threatened state focusing on the challenging aspects of existence. Joy is not something that we arrive at in a conditioned manner and trust me—it does not come when we arrive at certain material milestones. We can find joy in the beauty of appreciating mundane details like autumn rain drops or being fully present without getting hi-jacked by past regrets or future worries. Let go of concerns about what’s to come.

Day 14: Be grateful for the ones that caused you pain. I know this does not seem like a typical thing to be grateful for or one that is easy for us to do. I invite you to consider that everything that comes along our path has a beautiful and precious reason and purpose. Acknowledge that when our interaction with another ends up in suffering, it is an incredible, fertile ground for growth for us. What is the message this person is here to give you? What can you do within your control to arrive at a harmonious outcome with another as a result of the lessons learned from this experience?

Day 15: Delight in your ability to be an active participant in reciprocity. Did you know that when you share gratitude with another it spreads like a positive, wonderful, wildfire? It feels good to be the recipient of appreciation and it drives us to “pay it forward” to others. Gratitude allows you to be part of a positivity wave that has the power to triumph over so many unnecessary human conditions, like hate, discrimination, and intolerance.

Day 16: Think about a recent situation when you did something great. How did that feel? Did you know that when you pause and actively recall what something wonderful felt like, you actually enhance your brains ability to replace negative, pre-existing wiring with positivity?

Day 17: Love your brain today. Your immaculate brain cannot focus on too many things at the same time, so if you occupy as many of your neurons (brain cells) as you can with gratitude, you have to let go of thoughts of self-doubt that might come up. This is the basis of many proven strategies, like mindfulness meditation, that have the power to increase our focus on one positive thing and away from our scattered “monkey mind.”

Day 18: Bring consciousness to how brilliant you are. As you go about cooking your meals, pouring your heart into your work, or raising your children, about thirty billion basic nervous system cells are at work forming the fiber of your life. Through nerve cell connections, our brains will select and save the experiences we have taught it to value. You can take action now, by telling your brain what YOU value.

Day 19: You are an inspiration to others simply by the choice of your actions. Consider how many great things you actually do every day. Beyond business plans and professional goal attainments, think of all the times you make someone smile! You have so many choices of actions you can take. I invite you to choose to nurture someone special today, or to simply empower and inspire the people around you by being the wonderful you that you are.

Day 20: Enshrine your power of responsibility and accountability. By recognizing which of your chosen views and actions do not take you to a destination you wish to arrive at, you actually give yourself the gift of choice. You can then play with your glorious ability to change anything that does not serve you. This is our natural antidote to learned helplessness, which fosters depression, as Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, has shown us.

Day 21: Embrace the myriad of elements that make you who you are. You are just as amazing as Aristotle or Albert Einstein! Embrace your beauty and all of your imperfections, decide which ones you want to work on, and rest peaceful that you are more than enough just the way you are.

A fellow Greek by the name of Plato once said: “A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.”

It is truly amazing that over 2,500 years after Plato noted this modern research has proven him right.

But what is more amazing is that by making the simple choice of practicing gratitude everyday, we can harness the promethean light of Greek philosophers and modern science to illuminate our path to optimal well-being.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Self Care for a healthier, happier and more productive reality.

I am celebrating my birthday this week, one of my favorite days of the year to give myself some much-needed self-love and care. I know I ought to be giving myself “birthday love and care” every single day of the year, but out of the 365 days per year, most days there seems to be something else that takes precedence over taking care of myself.

The truth is that optimal performance; peak productivity, happiness, and health are not possible without scrupulous self-care. Our species has achieved some amazing accomplishments throughout our history: We have uncovered the human genome; walked on the moon; and created masterpieces of art, like the Sistine Chapel. But we continue to fall short at practicing self-care, which is a major obstacle to realizing self-mastery.

Why is taking care of ourselves so hard for us to put into practice?

Here is a small collection of guidelines about self-care—possibly the most critical component to realizing all noble human pursuits:

  1. If and when the cabin pressure drops, you have to put on your mask first before you can help anyone else that may need your assistance!

Isn’t it time we got over the conditioned way of thinking that we are selfish if we take care of ourselves before we take care of the ones we love? If we have people we love in our lives, we need to remember that we cannot be there for anyone in our lives if we become ill.

  1. Re-think your “number goals,” and change them to ones that truly matter.

We often sacrifice self-care for the goal most of us make number one on our numbered lists of goals: money! But which of these number-related goals might be more important than money: Thirty minutes a day of physical activity? Five servings of fruit and veggies everyday? Twenty-five grams of fiber per day (if you are a woman) or thirty-five grams (if you are a man)? What unique, beautiful, body number goals should you be considering? Do you need to have a blood pressure goal, or an HbA1C goal if you are a diabetic? Re-think your number goals.

  1. When it comes to your physical health, strive for balance versus perfection.

If you don’t get your thirty minutes of exercise today, can you add an extra ten minutes per day over the next three days? Events happen that take us off-balance. Becoming good at reinstating our balance when it’s lost is one of the most important and impactful things we can do to take good care of ourselves. After all, we cannot eliminate the myriad of life situations that will often challenge us and in significant ways. However, becoming better at how we land back on our feet after each setback and regain our balance is key to arriving at desired outcomes.

  1. Nurture your mind everyday.

Self-care goes above and beyond the American Medical Association’s recommendations regarding our physical health. Challenging yourself to find one way to nurture your mind everyday will increase the grey matter in the parts of your brain associated with inner strengths like resilience.

It only takes a few minutes to listen to a TED Talk or a short, guided meditation, or to read a few pages of a powerful book. But the benefits of re-sculpting your brain toward a happier you last forever!

  1. Self-talk matters.

How do you talk to yourself? Often, we are our self’s worst critic. We camouflage self-criticism under the label “high standards.” A helpful antidote is to picture yourself as your BFF (your best friend forever). How would you talk to them? If your self-talk does not pass the “BFF test,” it’s time to revamp the elements of your internal dialogue. Reframing is a fabulous way to calm our nervous system and bring us back home. For example, if we try something and fail, we can look at it from this perspective: “We are a fabulous person simply having an experience of failure.” Although it may seem like semantics, the act of reframing a negative to a positive is enough to allow us to support our nervous system to work with us towards our health and not exhaust it by employing it for our defense from imaginary threats.

 

  1. Give yourself the gift of connection and human touch everyday.

Regardless of how many ups and downs each day may bring, make the time to hold your loved ones up close and personal. When we hold or touch a person we love, the hormone oxytocin floods our blood stream. Oxytocin is a potent modulator of critical nervous system functions involved with anxiety, depression, and pain perception. If you feel that life becomes a little too much at times, don’t forget oxytocin—the most natural and potent anti-depressant, which is free and has no side effects. All you have to do is reach out and touch the ones you love!

  1. Take an active stance against negative thoughts, words, and people.

We don’t often consider the negative consequences of the vibrational frequency of any type of negativity. But if you think of a time in your life when you nurtured a plant, you know how toxic it would have been if you had chosen to water your plant with an acidic fluid, like bleach or vinegar. We, too, are delicate flowers easily taken off our optimal levels by any threat that sounds our alarm! There is nothing more alarming than negative thoughts, words, and people.

Each and every one of us has a very special purpose, regardless of our background, history, or humble beginnings.

We often believe that the economy, unique life situations, or circumstances outside of our control are responsible for us not living the life we want and deserve.

The truth is that we have everything we need to arrive at all our desired outcomes.

All we have to do now is focus on effectively closing the gap between the optimal results we expect and the quality of care we provide ourselves.

As it turns out, the love we put into anything important at work or at home will determine our results.

But the one thing we need to always remember is that we cannot love anyone anymore than we love ourselves.

The time to start loving yourself more is now!

The Most Profound Way to Make Friends and Influence People

We invest much energy and time in trying to become a popular person. We beat ourselves up at the gym to have a nicer body; we starve ourselves to lose weight; we go under the knife to change physical attributes; and we go into debt to buy designer clothes and other material trophies. And what is the outcome of all of these efforts? We are more isolated and lonely than ever.

Do you want to know a secret? The key to being the most likeable person at work or at home is to be the person who is best at establishing safety with others!

 Why is safety the only quality that truly matters?

Our nervous system is built like a sounding board. Much like a mirror, our neurobiology perceives and reflects the internal state of the people around us. Research shows that when we see someone else in pain, the regions of our brain associated with pain get activated. We don’t have to be neuroscientists to witness our mirror neurons at work. Just notice how we tear up while watching a sad movie, although the sad story is not actually happening to us. Emotions are indeed very contagious.

When two people are interacting and one person’s internal state is not calm and balanced, it will activate threat-related neurons and the stress response in the other.

In fact, our nervous system appears to play a very important role in how we feel and behave without us even realizing it. Steven Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory, specifically uncovered compelling data on the role our autonomic nervous system plays in the regulation of affective states and social behavior. Most of our physiological responses occur without our awareness, due to neuroception—a sub-conscious process of threat and danger detection.

When we define others in a negative way, are critical and or contemptuous towards them, their stress response gets activated. The stress response shuts down the brilliant, thinking part of our brain and slows down critical functions, like our immune system. Needless to say, being under the emotionally hi-jacked state of our stress response does not feel good.

We will have a very hard time making friends and influencing people if we elicit the stress response in others when we interact with them.

Three million years have passed since the Stone Age, and we now seem to reside in the threatened brain era, where it is estimated that we activate our fight or flight response over ten times per day. Six hundred million years of evolution have yielded us a brain that has the propensity to assume the worst. What can we do practically to intercept our built-in negative bias and master the art of building safety with the people that matter in our world? Here are some ideas:

  1. Say what you will do and do what you say.

This is one of the best-kept secrets describing the quickest and most effective way to build trust with anyone. It appears to be challenging in the midst of it all to prioritize and remember all the things we said we would do for all the people in our lives. But if you wish to be more popular at work or at home, being the person others can truly depend on is gold. Knowing our own limits and not over-promising and over-extending ourselves is critical too. It is much better to say “no,” than to say we will do something and not do it. Being a man or a woman of our word is a potent ingredient in being liked and having influence over others and, may I say, it is extremely rare.

  1. Replace judgment and resistance with compassion. 

When another behaves in a way that rubs us the wrong way, we take it personally. At that point our threat-related neural activity increases and the right hemisphere part of our brain, which governs our relational ability, shuts down. It is then easy to slip and slide into becoming judgmental, defensive, and resistant to connection. What if instead we choose to focus on feeling compassion for the other person’s temporary inability to relate to us in a healthy way and take the high road in reinstating the sense of safety between us? Research from Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism has uncovered that nothing releases bursts of dopamine (our “feel good” neurotransmitter) in our brain as much as compassion does. If you become associated with dopamine release in another, you can actually become addictive in a good, positive way!

  1. Practice having power over your mind.

When something in another triggers negative emotions in you, redirect your attention to identifying at least three positive things about them. Although not visible on the exterior, emotions are perceived under the surface through contagion neurons. And if you have any concerns that thinking positive thoughts about someone who is upsetting you is letting them off the hook, think again. Redirecting our attention from a threatened brain state to a calmer state will allow us to have the clarity of thought to handle this, and any other, situation effectively. In addition, this practice is critical to the mastery of self-control, a rare skill that everyone admires and is attracted to.

  1. When emotions run high, use “I language.”

Communication between two people is nature and science at work. Since it is natural for two people to have differences, we must exercise caution when expressing any discomfort we feel and not put our fellow human beings down. When we do, safety is immediately removed, and the person across from us is no longer interested in resolving our differences. They are now busy defending themselves.

When views, perceptions, and understandings are shared with “I language,” they do not trigger defenses. We feel honored and special when someone shares their feelings as opposed to defining us in a negative way. Think of your last, heated discussion with another. How would that conversation have ended if you had expressed your feelings and needs instead of blaming the other person for how things turned out?

  1. Invest wholeheartedly in your healing!

We don’t typically like to admit it, but we are complicated, powerful systems that come with no directions, driven most of the time on autopilot from procedural memory. As much as we prefer to be known as easy-going, we all have varying degrees of wounds, past pains, and baggage we carry along with us, which frequently get triggered when we least expect it.

We are hot beds of emotions driven by our never-ending efforts to get further away from pain and closer to pleasure. Nothing is more powerful than being the admired person and role model we strive to be. We do this best by processing, unpacking, and making coherent stories of our past experiences that otherwise hold our spirits hostage and disrupt and sabotage every effort and good deed we make toward connection and belonging.

As it turns out, it is not the perfect exterior but a well-regulated interior that appears to be the most attractive attribute we can bring to our personal or professional life.

Although we can continue to play the part, use the right words, wear the right clothes, and do things the way others like us to, we know that maintaining a status quo façade is an ineffective way to create authentic connection and trust with the people in our microcosm.

If we want to make a difference and be part of a small revolution, nothing can set us apart from the crowd like being people who are predictable, accountable, reliable, and who say what they mean and do what they say.

You can be the person others know they can depend on, no matter what. You can be the one they always feel calm and safe around.

And I promise you, a person like that is definitely the one everyone wants to be around and everyone wants to follow.