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.

What Cancer Research Taught Me About the Antidote to Stress

stress and cancer

Are you stressed out? Feeling overwhelmed? You are not alone!

Based on the latest American Institute on Stress survey, 75% of us regularly experience moderate to severe symptoms of stress, 50% of us lay awake at night worrying, and 68% of us consume alcohol at the end of the day to relax.

Additionally, the latest Gallup survey reflects that 70% of American employees are disengaged at work.

Is there a better way to respond to life’s daily challenges? What if you had the power to change anything that you do not like about your life? You do!

The cumbersome symptoms of stress that we experience are simply our body’s reactions to the meaning we give to life situations. What keeps us up at night is how we think about these situations.

We can choose to be in charge of our power by choosing the way we look at what we have come to define as the major challenges of our existence.

If you are you ready to challenge the conventional way of thinking and get reacquainted with your best self, you may want to consider the best lesson cancer research taught me: the conditioned way of defining the important elements of our life can cause miscommunication between our body and mind that lead to feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

Cancer – The devastating outcome of miscommunication between cells

My humble experience of developing cancer drugs in the laboratory taught me a critical truth: Cancer cells are not that different from any of our healthy cells. They just somehow lost their ability to communicate effectively with other cells, and hence they proliferate uncontrollably.

Stress is the way our body handles demands from the environment. It only becomes problematic when we constantly interpret situations as threats when they are not.

Just like in the case of cancer cells, we miscommunicate with our body systems.

In the face of my biggest challenges, I realized that central to the cause of human suffering is the hidden impact of the way we have allowed our conditioned way of thinking to disrupt the accurate communication between our body and our mind.

We have accepted the way critical elements have been defined by the status quo, never questioning the origin or validity of these terms or how much strain these definitions are putting our body under. For example, if our limiting beliefs have established our definition of success to be related to financial abundance, we will constantly be asking our body to invest more and more intensely in our work, never giving it the chance to revive in between sprints. Being in a constant state of expecting our body to rise to whatever occasion work requires of us, can lead to what we know as chronic stress, which is associated not just with uncomfortable short-term symptoms but also long-term health consequences.

Accepting the conditioned ways we define critical components of our life not only impacts our ability to communicate effectively with others and ourselves but greatly impacts our well-being.

When we identify any life situation as a threat, a tiny structure in our brain called the amygdala rings a very loud alarm that initiates a cascade of events involving a great number of chemicals, neurotransmitters, and body systems. This cascade results in what we call stress.

Research shows that the conditioned way of thinking of failure, for example, has the same power to trigger our amygdala and cause a stress reaction as a physical threat, like being chased by a bear. What can we do about stress triggered by our thoughts?

Question and redefine the important elements of life

Take a peek at two different ways of defining some important life elements—the conditioned way and a way that is reframed and redefined in a more positive aspect. Notice your emotions and bodily responses to these two different ways of looking at these common elements.

     Happiness

  • Conditioned definition: Meeting and exceeding society’s status quo expectations, such as earning a six-figure income, getting married, having children, and possessing expensive material goods.
  • Redefinition: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” —Mahatma Ghandi

     Failure

  • Conditioned definition: The lack (or opposite) of success.
  • Redefinition: The valuable process of feedback about the changes we need to make to arrive at a successful outcome.

Power

  • Conditioned definition: Getting what we want through intimidation, control, and domination of others with whom a real or perceived power imbalance is present.
  • Redefinition: The ability to do something effectively.

Love (as in an adult primary relationship)

  • Conditioned definition: An experience that only some few of us are blessed to have in which we are connected to our perfect match who always knows what to say, how to treat us, appreciates all that we are, and makes us happy all the time.
  • Redefinition: A practice; the choice to relate to another human being in a way that helps each one bring to life their best selves.

 Health

  • Conditioned definition: The absence of disease.
  • Redefinition: “Complete physical, emotional, and social well-being.” (World Health Organization)

How do these different definitions feel to you?

Have you accepted conditioned definitions that limit you and cause you to engage your body systems in defense from perceived threats? What if you were to question and redefine terms in a way similar to the examples of “redefinitions” shown above that could calm your inner critic and free your body systems from being used up for defense?

We can choose to overcome limiting, conditioned beliefs and re-write our story with our own words and definitions. You have the power to write your own story and create a happier reality.

The most important lesson cancer research taught me about the antidote to stress is that the most potent antidote at our disposal is our mind, which we can use to influence our physical health.

If you would like guidance in how to use your mind to overcome limiting beliefs and improve your health and happiness, I would be honored to help. I invite you to begin by joining the Mynzden community.

http://bit.ly/JoinMyndZen

What to Do About Not Doing What We Say We Want to Do

self compassion

Last week I wrote about the reasons why sometimes our very own habitual responses become the biggest obstacles to getting what we really want!

I can think of so many examples of this, but the easiest one that comes to mind is giving in to junk food when stressed, even though we committed to shedding unwanted weight. Our nervous systems have developed to try to ease discomfort by activating our reward system during challenging moments and past responses, such as eating junk food, have become automatic and occur without our permission.

If you identify with this challenge in your own life, I have some great science-based tips you can use to activate the superpowers that I know you have to actually get what you want in life.

Research is clearly showing an untapped area that is extremely effective in helping to align our internal states and external actions to get exactly what we want in life: It is called Self-Compassion.

Compassion is defined as “concern and desire to alleviate the suffering of another.” The part we are missing, which is clearly below the realm of our awareness, is that we cannot alleviate anyone’s suffering until we alleviate our own!

As a toxicologist who understands the toxic effect of chemicals on our body, like the stress hormone cortisol, and as a human sufferer who did not really understand how to love myself until I became ill, here are some practical ways to become better at cultivating self-compassion.

  1. Choose to let your distress become your motivation.

Many of the emotional states that drive our actions occur below the realm of our awareness. One common, unhealthy manifestation of underlying, wounded self- worth is playing the martyr and the rescuer of others. Although it is important to be kind and loving to others, pay close attention to any relationships that take up a big chunk of your energy without providing an equal reciprocity of love and support.

The reason we are wiling to give so much of ourselves in exchange for so little is personal and different for every one of us but, regardless of the reason, it is extremely toxic for our health and can make us very sick in the long run.

It pains me to remember the part of my life when I chose to play the martyr. In hindsight and after scrupulous inner work, I can tell you that the reason I made that choice was to alleviate my deep, hidden fears of abandonment. Each and every one of us is equally worthy of love and belonging and we should not be taking care of others at the expense of our own health to feel loved and to belong.

The world-renowned medical intuitive and best-selling author Carolyn Myss has taught me much about this common trap and how sick one can get by negotiating away parts of our self in exchange for safety and security.

We can use the distress of emotional or physical malaise that results from playing the martyr to challenge ourselves to nip in the bud this very unhealthy, unconscious tendency. Ask yourself: Am I creating a deficit of time, effort, love, or something else for myself by playing the rescuer or martyr for another? Answering and addressing that question in one of the most profound ways to cultivate and put to work your superpowers to get all that you want and deserve in this life.

  1. Practice the power of reframing. – Transform triggers to breakthroughs.

When we fail to stick to our New Year’s resolutions, we often get critical and intolerant of ourselves. What if instead of calling those situations a “failure,” we call the fact that we noticed our self criticism a breakthrough? Every time a person or life situation triggers a state of anxiety within, and you catch yourself reaching out for an unhealthy way to self-soothe it is indeed a fabulous breakthrough, because this moment of awareness is the magic moment when you have the opportunity to do something different. By identifying the subtle opportunities for change, we can use every stressor as an opportunity for transformation. We can create a whole new narrative to our story by “choosing the lyrics to the song our heart sings.” So instead of punishing yourself for any slipups during stressful times, reframe them as mini-breakthroughs and ask yourself: What does being caring, kind, and supportive to myself look like right in this moment? What is it that I need right now? I promise you it is not a chocolate muffin!

  1. Instead of self-judgment, learn to embrace and own how powerful you are!

 Are you sometimes shocked at how hard you can be on yourself? Why do we have so much empathy for our friends when they make mistakes, yet are so unkind and harsh to ourselves? The answer to that question is hidden inside our physiology. The truth is that our conditioned way of being self-critical when we mess up is a result of the activation of our stress response, which is activated just as it would be if we were being chased by someone dangerous. The key to breaking through this limitation is to understand it better. You see, self-criticism does not actually present a physical threat like being chased by a criminal does. The threat a mistake or a failure presents to us is a threat to our self-concept. When we fail in some way or we hear news that challenges our perception of self we attack ourselves because, unbeknownst to us, our thoughts threaten our self-concept!

When our friend fails, we have plenty of encouraging words of affirmation because our friend’s failure does not threaten our self-worth. Dr. Brene Brown has done some amazing work that links shame with our fight or flight response. She has spent the best part of the last two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of four #1 New York Times bestsellers—The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, and Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. So, the next time you feel your harsh inner critic surfacing, place your hand on your heart and instead of being harsh think or say some encouraging words to yourself. For example, you can say: “I am just human; it’s okay if I make mistakes.” Then ask yourself: What is within my control about this situation that I can change to get a different result?

  1. Connect, touch, and be touched.

When we feel less than, get a bad diagnosis, or fail at a regimen of self-improvement, our fear circuitry in the brain’s amygdala gets triggered and we shift to an older, non-relational part of our brain, which leads to us operating from our fight, flight, or freeze state. However, we have another system available to us, our attachment system, which provides a different and very effective way of dealing with dangers in the environment—connection and human touch. Although our reptilian, conditioned, unrefined way of responding to stress is to withdraw and isolate to keep our feelings of “not being good enough” to ourselves, we can choose to do something different. We can choose to connect, share our stories and our stressors, hold someone’s hand, and enjoy the myriad benefits of the “feel good” hormone, oxytocin. Next time you feel threatened, ask yourself: How did I get so lucky that I have the love, kindness, and support of (name a person who loves you here) in my life? And instead of an unhealthy alternative, reach out to them instead!

  1. Embrace pain, and practice being comfortable with discomfort.

We are hard-wired to avoid pain and to look for anything that alleviates it, even if that something is killing us. We will even excuse and allow in our lives people who treat us unkindly, hurt, or betray us. This leads us to a tendency to numb our pain with a story we make up, like excuses for the reasons why we let people off the hook that hurt and betray us. Forgiveness is absolutely necessary and vital to our health and healing. But so is being able to set healthy boundaries and cut the cord from people that treat us unkindly and cause us continuous pain.

The truth is that the ultimate gift and act of love to ourselves is to train our brain to be okay with the undeniable part of life that involves a significant amount of suffering. What if instead of investing our energy in hurt people that hurt us, we choose to acknowledge and be with the pain of the situation without resistance? There is no need to cover up and perpetuate any source of pain in your life. We can instead befriend it and ask: What is this painful experience here to teach me? What can I choose to do differently because of the pearls of wisdom this painful experience has bestowed on me?

You are so incredibly complex, powerful, and beautiful!

It took me many years to see that one of the reasons we don’t do what we know will get us what we want is because we have not yet come to terms with just how amazing we are.

Science has come to the side of ancient, contemplative wisdom to form a beacon of light for our liberation.

And thankfully, we don’t have to study science to leverage its power to become the “master of our domain.”

We can accept not just the undeniable beauty but also the pain of human existence.

We can choose to cut the lifeline to excuses and live by the truth that we cannot love anyone any more than we love ourselves.

We can choose to see our human connectedness and how we all go through our fair share of ups and downs, often not so graciously.

You are powerful beyond comprehension, and you can cease playing small and let your light shine by learning how to truly love yourself.

After all, as our dear Dr. Brene Brown has uncovered through her research: “We can only love others as much as we love ourselves.”

Why Don’t We Do What We ‘re Supposed To Do?

Have you ever decided excitedly to embark upon a health improvement project, like going on a diet, shown great progress hour after hour of your first day, and then, at the eleventh hour, you slip after a difficult conversation with your teenager?

If you have, you are not alone! Everyone slips at some point when trying to change their habits.

What causes this great gap between what we want and know we should be doing and what we actually do? What causes us to slip up?

Our habitual responses may conceal our real wants and needs and sabotage our life.

What we don’t know is a major risk factor for our health. However, awareness holds real power!

I want to give you five guideposts that shed some light on why we don’t do what we are supposed to do. I hope they will help you understand why we slip up and motivate you to use any “slip-ups” as catalysts to launch your own revolution and fundamentally shift your power.

You can gain the ultimate power of freedom of choice and use it to purposely disconnect from habitual responses which hold you back!

1. Your mind-brain relationship holds the key to your happiness.

Our nervous system, with our brain as the master conductor, is the main hub of external information processing. Our mind regulates energy and information flow, but essentially, “where our mind goes, energy flows.” What we routinely focus on will determine if we are more or less happy. Neurobiology teaches us that the attention of our mind induces connections between our brain’s 100 billion cells to create pathways. The more we use a certain pathway, the more it becomes “the norm.” For example, if you routinely focus on what you are grateful for, you induce nerve cells to connect (known as synapse) and reinforce an automatic response of gratitude. Gratitude and meditation practices also release neurotransmitters in the brain that activate our feel good reward center. This brings me to the next point—why we focus so much more on the negative aspects of life than on the positive.

2. Your brain is not that good at being happy naturally.

As a matter of survival during harsh conditions over a period of 600 million years, our brains evolved with the tendency to assume the worst, which results in a whole lot of unnecessary worry, anxiety, and fear. Studies actually show that chronic stress changes the brain in ways that reinforce its negative bias. For example, the constant release of cortisol as a result of long-term exposure to stress causes shrinkage to both the executive functioning part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, as well as to our hippocampus, which is involved with creating new memories. This could be a great contributor to perpetuating our slip-ups. Luckily, we can provide a counter to this effect. By our mindful attention to looking at the positive things in our life, we can grow our left prefrontal cortex, which will increase our capacity to control negative emotions.

  1. When we let our brain’s pessimism run our life, we are temporarily impaired.

Because of the tremendous amount of resources required for the operation of our amazing body and mind, our brain will shut down essential functions and structures when our mind sends the message to our brain that a situation is threatening. It does not matter if the threat is perceived, like the fear of rejection or shame, or if it is imminent, like a cougar racing toward us. The bottom line is that when we operate from our stress response, we are temporarily cognitively, perceptually, and emotionally-impaired, which puts us on a sure path to slipping and not doing what we intended to do initially.

4. Most of our responses are automatic and happen without our permission.

Our nervous system’s main job is to keep us safe from threats in the environment. For energy conservation, the assessment of the potential danger or threat posed by any experience is automated at the level of the nervous system. So as much as we pride ourselves on our high IQ or our Ivy League education, the truth is that most of the time the way we respond to what is happening happens without our permission. Consider that your brain, although it makes up a mere 2% of your body mass, uses 20% of your body’s oxygen and calories. And still, out of eleven million bits of information per second that reach our brain for processing, our conscious mind can process less than fifty. Therefore, “procedural memory” is driving our actions and our behavior. Procedural memory, a subset of implicit memory, means our reactions are automated based on experiences we had in the past, even when we do not remember what those specific experiences are.

If you are curious as to how much data our brain can store, are you ready for this? The human brain’s memory capacity is up to 1,000 terabytes! Just to put this in perspective, the nineteen million volumes in the US Library of Congress represent only about ten terabytes of data.

5. The thoughts and attention of our mind determine how we experience our reality.

How we have labeled a situation produces chemical and electrical activity that either activates our reward center, resulting in pleasure, or elicits our stress response, resulting in pain. For example, any addiction, whether to a chemical substance, food, or action is a behavior that we choose unconsciously to calm down internal dysregulation by inducing the release of feel good hormones. Our brain will respond to vicious cycles of being exposed to too much stress by turning us to anything that has helped us feel good in the past, so it can balance the discomfort between rewards and environmental demands. So if, for example, in the past when you got anxious, you turned to a muffin for relief and did this unknowingly several times, you have trained your brain to release the feel good hormone dopamine by turning to “hyper-palatable” foods. That means that in the face of a stressor, your brain will release insulin that will make that muffin irresistible. But every time you choose to challenge this old negative pattern and resist that muffin, you are making a breakthrough. You are training your brain to sculpt new pathways that will lead you to a happier, healthier, and more beautiful reality.

We make so many choices on any given day. Many drive us to a positive outcome, and many sabotage our efforts and cause us to behave against our wishes and best judgment. It is part of our human nature to slip up and not do what we are supposed to do at times. But we do have the power to change that.

The biggest gift given to us by mind-blowing neuroscience research is that we can use simple, mundane, everyday experiences to re-sculpt our brain.

Regardless of how many times we have slipped up in the past, we have the power to create a happier and calmer brain and life.

Join me next week for the second part of this blog, “Why Don’t We Do What We Are Supposed to Do?” that will arm you with science-based solutions on what you can do about this common human challenge.