We can learn so much by nourishing our mind-body connections. When we exercise, we're not simply reaping physical benefits, but we're also elevating ourselves mentally and learning life lessons in the process. Here are a few lessons that I have learned over the past few years that particularly stand out:
3. Practicing yoga has taught me that people really aren’t paying attention to you as much as you think they are. Even instructors with hundreds of hours of yoga under their belts occasionally fall out of poses. They have days when their bodies aren’t as flexible as they usually are, and they have days when they find it difficult to focus. My fellow yoga practitioners and I fall out of poses all the time. Through yoga, we have learned humility. We have learned how to not judge others when they fall, and we have learned how to not judge ourselves. We have also learned how to get back up again after we fall. These lessons in non-judgement and resilience extend to life outside of yoga as well; we judge less harshly the mistakes our peers make, recognizing that at any given moment, they are at a different place in life than we are. My favorite yoga instructor likes to remind us to “come from a place of power, not pride.” He emphasizes that we should not stretch into the full expressions of poses until we have their foundations fully developed. Even if everyone else is in full expression, we must have the power to release judgement and objectively assess where we are in our practice. Have the power to be confident in and satisfied with yourself, and do not stress over how people perceive you. 4. Find friends that challenge you, share your passions, and excite you. Before joining the Duke triathlon club in November, I didn’t have a group of athletic friends to hold me accountable, inspire me, and bond with me. When I began to train with them every day, laughter re-entered my life, and I felt like I had people who cared about me. My recovery from my eating disorder is 99% attributable to finding the tri club. We travelled together to Bariloche, Argentina, over spring break, where we competed in a half Ironman. I was astounded to learn how spontaneous the team was; I have met very few people in my life who would want to swim in a lake so cold that it takes your breath away for the fun of it, but lo and behold, that’s what six of us did the week after the race. As is natural for triathletes, we shared a common inflated ambition and drooled over cool races together. While we need to surround ourselves with a variety of personalities to ensure balance, it is integral to find a group with whom we can relate on a deep, spiritual level. This group doesn’t have to be athletic in nature, but it should be one that meets regularly and reliably, and it should be one that pushes you to your limits.
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I just finished a three-week stint as a cook/housekeeper at Sunnybank Inn Retreat Center and Hostel in Hot Springs, North Carolina. It’s a small, historic Victorian house that was originally built in 1840 and has passed through a few different families’ hands since. In the early 20th century, Jane Gentry, who is famous for providing scores of Appalachian ballads to collector Cecil Sharpe, owned the inn. The current owner and the man who now famously runs the establishment, Elmer Hall, bought Sunnybank from the Gentry family in 1978 and has been there ever since. The hostel is mostly for Appalachian Trail thru-hikers; my parents stayed here when they hiked in 1989, and they loved it so much that they have been coming back at least once a year, every year, for the past twenty-nine years. Elmer’s all-vegetarian cooking is what made them (and many others!) become vegetarian, and several of his habits (like religiously ringing a dinner bell) have seeped into our family dynamic. We have even modeled some of our furniture after the inn’s, including an old wood stove that heats our house in the winter. It’s a special place; my mom usually spends her birthday weekend here, and it is in prime location for autumn hikes, about 45 minutes away from Max Patch Bald. There are great porches for relaxing and reading, and my parents have also liked to give out “trail magic” (Rice Krispies, sodas, etc.) to AT hikers as they pass through the area. I’ve been grandfathered into the Sunnybank family, and I felt at home the three weeks I worked at the inn. It was wonderful to work in a place where I had to ask where the recycling was, not if there was recycling; where the compost was, not if there was compost. But it was more than home; it was a space for learning. Here are some of the lessons I took away:
1. For some people, a vegan diet can be too restricting. Not in the sense that there aren’t enough options for vegans (when I became vegan, my eyes were opened to more combinations than I ever thought possible!), but in the sense that it can be a conduit for perpetuating eating disorders. The first weekend at Elmer’s, I was not vegan. I had the best homemade tiramisu known to mankind. It had, like, eight layers. I ate a cheesy, buttery spanakopita. I snuck some feta into my salad. At this point in my life, after only being vegan for a little more than a year, not allowing myself flexibility would do more harm than good to my long-term vegan goals. I would resent the fact that I couldn’t taste Elmer’s famous cooking, for instance. Those few days of eating rich food that I did not prepare myself also forced me to kick the habit of calorie counting, at least for a little while. The other 99.9% of my life, when I am vegan, I have more of an ability to count, judge, and restrict. As I delve further and further into veganism, I have less of a desire to go back at all. For instance, I used to eat local eggs, and I still would, but I really just don’t crave them anymore! Someday, I probably will be full-time vegan, no strings attached. But right now, I’m flexible. And if you are too, that’s OK. 2. Put away the phone. We don’t allow phone use in the commons room, kitchen, or dining room. What a difference it makes. We were in tune to each other rather than the outside world. We didn’t have to listen to people shouting into their phones, we didn’t have to listen to a blaring TV, we didn’t have to wish that people would make eye contact with us rather than take Snapchat selfies. Most mornings, I left my phone upstairs and was away from it all day. So I had conversations with hikers about the trail, their aspirations after finishing, their passions. I connected particularly with a British couple (trail names Moo and Nugget), one of whom is vegan, who have been WOOFing and travelling together for three years. I had some of the most humorous and heartwarming conversations with my co-worker, Matt, as we washed mountains of dishes each night. Connect by disconnecting. 3. Be aware of what’s happening in the outside world by taking small steps each day. Elmer doesn’t use the internet to learn about current events. He reads the newspaper and listens to NPR in the morning as he cooks breakfast. If you’re addicted to your phone and reading online news is part of your problem, taking these two steps will help you get off your device while remaining competent about the world. And once you gain that competence, you can become a better voter and a more active citizen. 4. Come back frequently to the places and people you love. My first day was spent preparing for a huge birthday party for Sean, a former staff member who turned forty. He hiked the AT and worked at the inn about ten years ago, but still visits every few weeks (he lives in nearby Asheville). The same weekend, Rip, a pianist we met when we visited last fall, was also staying at the inn. He’s been coming back for twenty years or so. There’s a strong cohort of people who frequently visit, and it’s become a haven for people with similar values. 5. Slow down. I tend to think that people are always waiting on me. Waiting on me to work, waiting on me to engage with them, waiting on me to stop taking time for myself. So I’m always rushing. I even frantically rush to yoga because I’m so worried about disrupting class and bothering the instructors! But I slowed down at Sunnybank. I passed crosswords back and forth with Matt one day for over three hours. And it felt so good. It may not be the most immediately productive way of passing time, but slowing down allows us to appreciate life and rest for the busier moments. Just giving myself permission not to care about making other people wait sometimes (honestly, other people need to slow down too!) lifted a huge weight off my chest. So read that extra chapter. Take a little longer of a walk. The world can wait. My family lives in a large house, and whenever I had friends over as a child, they would never fail to comment on how lucky I am to live in such a big house with so many rooms and toys and gadgets. I never knew quite how to respond to these comments; I knew I should consider myself lucky, yet for me, an underlying current of discomfort accompanied all of the stuff we owned. While I was not always aware of the cause of this discomfort, I certainly felt the effects of it on a regular basis.
Until recently, my room was stuffed with memorabilia, awards, and clothes that had not been worn in years. Upon waking up each morning, my first sight was this mess of meaningless junk that had no other purpose than to fill up space...a sight that is extremely unfulfilling compared to, say, the sight of morning light filtering through the fabric of a tent or even the sight of a blank wall that demands me to look within and be aware of how I feel at the start of the day. I was always jealous of my friends’ rooms, which were quite bare and simple, and I often took refuge in my parents’ room, which is perhaps the most simplistic room in our house. Inspired by these living spaces, I began to organize and filter through all of my excessive belongings in middle school. This endeavor lasted until this past Monday, an ironic ten days prior to my last day at home before my final trips of the summer and college. Why did it take five years to finally be satisfied with my room? Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, also known as The Minimalists, posit that “organizing is well-planned hoarding.” How true. For the past several years, I have cleaned and organized my room in order to make room for more stuff. Each November and December, I would reconfigure my room to fit in the new birthday and Christmas presents. The amount of stuff in my room was oppressive, so I desperately tried to organize my room to make it seem like I had less junk. Items that obviously no longer had places in my room, like old stuffed animals and children’s toys, quickly filled keepsake boxes in our basement because I could not bring myself to say goodbye to them. I was emotionally attached to my possessions, and it felt terrible. Just a few weeks ago, I watched Minimalism, Millburn’s and Nicodemus’s documentary on simple living, and realized how attached most of us are to material possessions. In the modern day, it is difficult not to be. We are conditioned from an early age to want more; one haunting statistic given in the film stated that companies spent $100 million in 1983 marketing to children...in 2006, just 23 years later, that number had increased to $17 BILLION. But once we realize that it is not the items we want, but what we believe they will bring us (happiness and fulfillment), and once we come to terms with the fact that buying a shiny new car or expensive, new clothing does not enable sustainable happiness, we can escape the claws of the marketing industry. Similarly, we must question memorabilia in our homes before we allow them to take up precious space; the most important question to keep asking yourself is, “Is this adding value to my life?” Minimalism also expounded upon the concept that we configure our lives to fit our spaces rather than our spaces to fit our lives. In other words, we fill up the space and time we have with items and activities rather than appropriate reasonable amounts of space and time to what is essential to our lives’ purposes. I took this theory into account while cleaning my room Sunday afternoon. I realized that I had eliminated enough junk from my desk so that what remained fit in one drawer with room to spare. Looking at my waterbed, I realized how excessive it was; I have a bunk bed in my room as well that takes up far less space. My desk and waterbed were gone from my room within 24 hours. I now have a lovely space for reading and meditating. I ask my friends and family now to only give gifts that I would consider valuable enough to bring into my future tiny house. Better yet, gift experiences rather than objects (read the linked article; it is very, very short and valuable). I would much rather a special dinner, a surprise trip, a cooking session, tickets to see Billy Joel in concert, etc. than material items. If you are looking to simplify your life, I strongly encourage you to subscribe to The Minimalists’ blog. You can read past short essays here, and their books are also great investments. And yes, to answer the question that I know is going through many of your minds, Minimalism IS on Netflix. Now you have no excuse not to watch it ;) Good luck! Today, I picked two gallons of blueberries at our local patch, and man, do they taste good. This is the first of four posts on blueberries that I will be uploading over the next several days; today, we focus on mindfulness, tomorrow, on why and how you should pick your own berries, Friday, on the health benefits of blueberries, and Saturday, on how you should incorporate blueberries into your baking and cooking.
So, without further ado, an exercise in mindfulness: Have you ever taken the time to truly appreciate the blueberry, or do you just grab handfuls and pop them into your mouth? Next time you get the chance, follow these steps to become more mindful and appreciative of what you are eating. 1. Take one single blueberry and place it on a plain surface in front of you. 2. Look at the berry. Notice its texture. Appreciate its color gradient. How big is it? How many points are on its crown? Is it dry or is it wet? If it is wet, notice how the water is pooled on its spherical shape. Does it have any blemishes? 3. Place the berry in your hand and close your eyes. What does it feel like? Move the berry between your fingers and around the palm of your hand to sense its texture. Is it hard or soft? Does it feel fragile? Is it smooth? Does it have any wrinkles? Notice its weight. 4. Raise the berry to your nose. Do you smell anything? Does it smell sweet or sour? Does it smell fresh, or does it smell like chemicals? 5. Slice the berry cleanly in half with a sharp knife. Repeat steps 1-4. Additional questions to ask yourself include: How does the inside of the berry connect to the outside skin? What shapes do the color gradients form inside the berry? What new colors do you see? How are the seeds distributed? 6. Close your eyes, and place the berry in your mouth. Before you start chewing, appreciate its taste. Is it sweet or sour? Does the taste align with what you smelled earlier? Does the taste change over time from its initial state? Start to chew very slowly, appreciating how the textures and flavors change as you break down the berry. Notice how the juice might ooze or squirt from the berry. Listen to the sound of yourself chewing. 7. After about twenty seconds, mindfully swallow the berry. In the future, try to slow down when eating. Take the time to actually look at and taste your food. Among other things, mindful eating can help one overcome overeating, emotional eating, and stress eating. It forces us to slow down and give necessary attention and gratitude to food, a commodity that we often take for granted in first-world America because of its ubiquitousness. You can further appreciate the beauty and wonder of fresh produce when you eat slowly (honestly, do you not find yourself in awe every time you see the inside of okra?). I find eating with my fingers also helps me eat more mindfully. You can incorporate this practice into your life everyday with any kind of food, although it is easiest with simple foods. Enjoy. Over the past few weeks, I have become increasingly interested in the practice of eating without utensils, where your fingers form the bridge between your food and your mouth. My family ate at Taste of Ethiopia, an Ethiopian restaurant in Greensboro, last week, and this was my first experience eating sans utensils in a public setting. A few months ago, I cooked an African peanut soup for my family that was served with homemade ugali. We grabbed handfuls of ugali dough from a bowl in the center of the table, formed little dough cups, and then filled the cups with the peanut soup. This experience felt extremely intimate, and I appreciated the textures and warmth of my food so much more than I would have if I had used a spoon. Of course, like most people, I grew up being chastised for messy hands after meals, and I have been conditioned to keep my fingers far away from food morsels for about eighteen years. But in many cultures, most notably to Americans, Indian culture, eating with your fingers is standard practice. Here are five pros of setting aside the fork, knife, and spoon, and using what we are all naturally gifted with instead:
1. When you eat with your hands, you are often forced to eat more slowly. Thus, you become more mindful of how much you are eating and can avoid overeating more easily. 2. It is difficult to eat with your hands and play on your phone at the same time. This demand for your attention will help you focus more on eating mindfully and appreciatively. 3. It is good for your digestive health! When your fingers come in contact with food, sensors in your fingers receive information concerning the food’s temperature and texture. This information is passed along to your brain, which then instructs your body to begin releasing digestive enzymes. 4. By allowing the healthy flora (bacteria) on our fingers to enter our mouths and bodies, we pave the way for a healthy gut microbiome. A gut full of healthy bacteria is necessary to proper digestive health. 5. More fun. Less dishes. Enough said :) I challenge each of you to try eating a dish you would normally eat with a spoon or fork with your fingers this week instead! You can grab some naan or bread to help you out. Enjoy! The Oxford Dictionary defines greed as an “intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.” But did you know that greed can be an intense desire for experiences? Did you know that many wonderful and compassionate people struggle with greed every day? And how should we deal with greed once we know it lives within us?
I realized a few weeks ago that I house an intense greed for experiences; I say “yes” to more opportunities than I can sanely and healthily engage in. This tendency to overcommit was particularly noticeable last summer; I spent all of my school “break” organizing fundraisers and travelling (Vermont, Governor’s School, the beach, the mountains, New York City, and Washington, D.C.), and I slept in my own bed only thirteen nights. I lived out of my suitcase, and, as a result, my summer was full of stress. I found it difficult to live in the moment, and by the time August rolled around, I was breaking down in tears nearly every day, resenting the activities which I had been so excited about only three months prior. I immediately made a promise to myself to not agree to so many activities the next summer (a promise which, I admit, I may not have upheld…), but it would be several more months before I realized a root cause of my duhkha (human suffering and discomfort caused by desire and attachment) was greed. I am now finally in the process of treating that greed. A famous story from Buddhist teachings relates how the demon Mara tempted the Buddha with desire in the form of beautiful women (in addition to visions inviting anger and doubt) and how the Buddha responded to such visions: with honest observation and loving kindness. Observing Mara’s tempting antics, the Buddha would say, “I see you, Mara,” and invite him in for tea. After being served tea by the Buddha himself, Mara would leave his abode, unsuccessful in his quest to corrupt the great teacher. Likewise, we can calmly observe and act upon our human tendency to channel greed by identifying it, treating it with loving kindness and forgiveness, and waiting for it to pass. This process can be much more difficult than it initially seems. We live in a capitalistic society that espouses the notion that desire is pure; we are cultivated to be loyal consumers from a very early age and we indulge our impulses frequently and excessively (buying mass-produced clothing produced in sweatshops, overeating, etc.). It takes true self-awareness to realize the presence of our greed and its contribution to our duhkha, and it takes a considerable amount of humility and love to realize that greed is natural and can be kept in check if we are unashamed of its existence. When we invite greed in for tea, we come closer to loving ourselves and others with our whole hearts for their whole beings. When you recognize greed in your life, be honest, patient, and kind. Greed does not make you a bad person, nor does it indicate that you have poor morals; greed is a sign that you are human, and it is an opportunity for improvement. Life works in strange and wonderful ways that are far beyond humans’ capacity for comprehension. What we want is of little significance to the Universe, and what we get is often far more than we had imagined we wanted.
You might call me crazy, but I gain a sense of groundedness when I find signs in the world around me...signs that I believe the Universe has purposefully placed there for me. While this might sound off-the-wall at first, consider that people of all faiths have been seeing signs for years; many people believe that every time they hear, say, a chickadee whistling, it is their grandmother saying hello, or that a beautiful, sunny day is God’s way of saying “enjoy this day.” Many people, like myself, also believe that certain animals carry signs. Whenever I see a chicken or a walrus, I believe that there is a message I need to understand (don't ask me why it is a chicken and a walrus). Whether that sign was placed there by a divine being (a god) or the Universe, seeing a chicken or a walrus lets me know that I need to take a step back from my feelings and desires and chaotic life to understand my greater purpose in the larger picture. Two months ago, I received an email that notified me it was my “last chance to sign up for a Robertson Scholars Leadership Program semi-finalist interview.” I was taken aback. When was my first chance? I had not received the initial email, and I checked my spam folder to no avail. I emailed the team back, saying, Yes! I would love to schedule an interview, but I never received the initial invitation. What is even crazier is that their records showed that the email had been sent to me! So, anyways, I scheduled a semi-finalist interview for the next week, conducted it over Skype, and was delighted to later hear that I had advanced to the final round: Finalist Weekend. Between 70 and 80 potential Scholars attended the weekend from all over the country, and we knew that only 36 of us would ultimately become Robertson Scholars (and some of those spots were already taken by international students who did not attend the weekend). Finalist Weekend was a three-day event that introduced us to the Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill campuses (the Robertson program encompasses both universities), developed our understanding of different leadership styles, and challenged us to vie for our spots in the next class of Robertson Scholars. Saturday morning, I had a nail appointment and a hair appointment, but my nail appointment took so long that I could not even make my hair appointment across the street. I called my mom in tears, feeling that bad luck had set in, but she chose to look at the situation differently, saying, “Now you just have the bad juju out of the way.” I had a smoothie bowl from Village Juice Co. and everything began turning for the better. By the time I arrived at Duke, I was in good spirits and feeling confident. While I missed my high school prom that night, I had the wonderful opportunity to eat with a Duke professor and watch the first game of the Final Four with other Duke and UNC fans. And the very first restaurant at which I ate had the insignia of none other than a chicken. I took this to mean that no matter what happened, I would end up where I am meant to be and that I can thrive in any environment. Sunday was full of leadership activities and more good food, and Monday was interview day. My interviews went moderately well (in my opinion). I messed up a few times and froze, but who doesn’t? To celebrate the end of our interviews, a few friends I had made over the weekend and I hit up the West Union cafe to eat sushi and relax. There was a painting of a walrus in the last food court at which I ate. I left the weekend trusting the Universe to place me wherever I was needed most and wherever I would be happiest. The next week during school, I received a phone call from the director of the Robertson Program telling me I had been wait-listed. Mid-April, I was promised to be waiting for several more days, if not weeks, to know where I would be attending college (but, of course, I was honored and grateful to have even been wait-listed). I waited. I waited. I waited some more. Every day, I woke up knowing that I might get the phone call and have closure on my college decision process. I researched my second choice, NYU, extensively and became extremely excited about all of the internships, studies abroad, and mindfulness and food clubs of which I would take advantage. Wednesday morning, I took a phone call just before leaving to explore Disneyland. I had gotten off the wait list and received the scholarship. The lessons in this experience were many: I learned to be patient, to let go of my need to control everything in my life, to be confident in my abilities, to trust the Universe, to allow the Universe to talk to me through signs. When I initially applied for the Robertson, it was a “Hail Mary” shot. Whereas I had been very diligent about turning in my other applications early and reviewing my essays relentlessly, I was somewhat more relaxed with my Robertson application and even turned it in on the same day as the deadline. Whereas I stressed over my Morehead-Cain interviews and attempted wholeheartedly to control my fate and pigeonhole myself into that scholarship experience (I thought I KNEW it was my best choice, but in reality, I knew very little), I acknowledged that the Robertson Scholars were very intelligent and talented and it would be very difficult for me to gain a position in their ranks. I approached each interview with humility and faith that the Universe would place me where I needed to be. When I was wait-listed, I purposefully redirected my thoughts to focus on what I could control (my exercise, my diet, my meditation) and chose not to dwell on the college question. This is certainly not to say I was perfect. I did my fair share of overanalyzing. One night, I researched past recipients of the scholarship to find out that very few North Carolinians receive it (sometimes zero North Carolinians receive it!). This fact stayed with me through Finalist Weekend when I met another very talented North Carolinian Finalist who I convinced myself would beat me out for the position. I recognized my fault, my attempt to control my fate and my refusal to let it be, and I redirected my thoughts. So, now is my time to be thankful. I am thankful for my parents and family who have helped me grow into who I am, for taking us around the world, and for sharing love each and every day. I am thankful for my teachers for teaching me to be unapologetically thirsty for knowledge and different ways I can pursue my academic interests (and proofing 1000 essays and writing even more recommendations). I am thankful for my friends who inspire me to be a better human and humanitarian, a better student and activist. I thank myself for my perseverance and faith in the Universe, and I thank my counselor for teaching me how to be faithful. I thank the Robertson team for recognizing and supporting my potential. I thank the earth for existing and the Universe for being an unpredictable, limitless power. This August, I will move into my dorm room at Duke University, and my mom will officially disown me (not really, but check out that picture). I cannot wait to see what is in store for me, and I will be sure to meet my fate with faith...not expectations. When I trained for my first marathon three years ago, I listened to audiobooks to make the long training runs more enjoyable and (slightly) less painful. I appreciated not being stuck with my own voice inside my head alone, and listening to Tina Fey’s Bossypants had me laughing despite my exhaustion and extended solitude. Last summer, I discovered the joy of listening to podcasts while I run. For those of you who do not know what a podcast is, imagine a talk show without the visual component. Some of my favorites include, “Stuff You Should Know,” and NPR’s “Fresh Air,” two general and informative podcasts. Podcasts are great to listen to while exercising, driving, or falling asleep, and there is a podcast for pretty much any interest you may have, from dissections of terrible movies (“How Did This Get Made?”) to the future of flying (“Layovers”). What’s more- most podcasts are free!
A friend recently recommended the Rich Roll Podcast, and I loved it so much that I decided to share it with all of you. Having been a vegetarian all my life, and being a vegan for the past 1 ½ months, I have been on the receiving end of the question, “But where do you get your protein from?” more often than I care to remember. Indeed, the reason I put off becoming vegan for so long was that I was tricked by this myth that vegans are almost inevitably protein and nutrient deficient. I feared becoming vegan would interfere with my athletic abilities. I was wrong. My friends, if you ever wonder if veganism will hinder your physical capabilities, look no further than Rich Roll. A vegan elite athlete, Rich Roll has finished among the best in the world at multiple endurance races, most notably the Ultraman (a 320-mile, 3 day event) and the Epic5 Challenge (five Ironmans in under seven days). But Rich Roll is more than just a vegan athlete; in his podcast, he interviews everyone from Olympic swimmer Conor Dwyer to renowned minimalist Joshua Fields Millburn to explore the topics of dedication, simplification, mindfulness, fitness, nutrition, activism, and more. There is so much information packed into each of his podcasts (about two hours long apiece), and there is no better way to explain his message, brand, and impact than for you to listen to an episode or two yourself. So, check out his podcast. You can listen to it here online or on your mobile device. My boyfriend said it right: “If you’re going to get a girl flowers for Valentine’s Day, you might as well get her something she can keep alive and grow.” Pictured below is a flower from the orchid plant he gave me in February...and I am proud to have kept it alive for two months now! Granted, all I had to do was place it in moderate sunlight and add three ice cubes to the pot each Sunday, but hey, everyone starts somewhere, right?
In addition to the orchids, I have a little cactus named Alice (which I bought in September and water once each week), two tiny, sweet succulents (bought in February and watered once each week), and a sprawling aloe plant (which I have had since February-ish and watered once every two weeks). Keeping plants in my room has been a source of calmness, and the task of caring for them (as easy as it is) helps me remain mindful of the passage of time. Here are some proven benefits of growing house plants:
You can buy little succulents or flowers at most grocery stores, and you can also shop for them at gardening stores. I bought my succulents at Colony Urban Farm Store in Winston-Salem. Knock yourself out, and happy spring! A few weekends ago, I was talking to a high-achieving high school student my age who lightly admitted that he has been surviving on less than four hours of sleep each night for the past four years. Now, I certainly do not sleep as much as I should in order to be at my best every day, but I was astounded to hear that someone can survive on that little sleep.
7-9 hours is the recommended daily amount of sleep for adults, yet 35% of American adults get less than seven hours of sleep each night. The percentage of adults sleeping less than their recommended seven hours varies by state; in Hawaii, 43.9% of adults sleep less than seven hours each night, but in North Carolina, that percentage is 32.4%. Geographical locations sometimes have very clear connections to sleeping habits; in New York, which includes busy New York City, 38.4% of adults are sleep-deficient, but in South Dakota, a mostly rural state, only 28.4% of adults lack sufficient sleep. Sleep is not commonly viewed as a medicine, but it should be. Adequate sleep makes us less susceptible to depression, sharpens our perceptions and judgments, reduces our likelihood of having high blood pressure, and more. Want proof? Read this article from Harvard about all the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Perhaps the most difficult part about getting enough sleep is forcing ourselves to put up the book, shut down the laptop, and set aside our phones. Once we make these decisions, however, many of us encounter one further barrier. As soon as we shut our eyes, our minds start racing. What am I going to do tomorrow? What do I need to remember in the morning? What will I eat for breakfast? It goes on and on until we start asking ourselves the same questions and second-guessing our answers. If this sounds like you, make sure to read my past article on routines; routines help ground us and make the first and last moments of our days sacred. I also encourage you to meditate before sleeping. You can do so sitting up or lying down, but either way, you should objectively note your thoughts and feelings before letting your thoughts dissipate like clouds in the sky. Guided meditations work wonderfully here. If you enjoy listening to white noise, try the Nature Melody app, which boasts 31 different tracks, like "Crackling Fire" and "Countryside Waterways." You can set the noise to play for a certain amount of time (like fifteen minutes) so that it plays just long enough for you to fall asleep, or you can set an alarm to wake you up with peaceful nature sounds (although I have never risked this myself; I could quite possibly sleep right through it!)! All of this talk about sleep is making me absolutely exhausted myself! I hope you take this post into account and give your mind, body, and spirit the rest they deserve in the coming days! |
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