“I want you to know that I’m starting my own religion.” My 15-year-old daughter triumphed. Something inside was weighing on her and this declaration released a measure of heaviness. It was hot and humid, mid-July. We were visiting her up at camp in the Poconos for Visiting Day with the requisite goodies, replacement flip flops for those lost in the mud and bug repellant for me.
We halted our picnic lunch preparation and digested this new information. My daughter’s eyes shone with purpose. Her desire for unity and compassion for all people inspired internal unrest and she wanted to take action as a result. It was awesome. “I’m calling it Happy-ism and you have to be happy to be accepted. That’s the only way you can get in.”
A religion based on happiness. Interesting. Would I qualify as happy enough for her religion? Other than the fact that I’m her mom and teenagers have this magic radar that detects Mom as POS (parent over shoulder) with cosmic accuracy, would my happiness factor make me eligible?
My kids are my most profound teachers. From the moment I entered parenthood, my children began teaching me about patience and perspective, unconditional love, empathy and selflessness. They’ve shown me that when I can set aside frustration and embody stillness and calm, I can see and empathize with my own and other’s needs.
I looked at my daughter again and was grateful to her for serving as my guru in this moment. With a gentle exhale, I smiled and explored my daughter’s process for Happy-ism.
Could I be Happy-ish? What is happy anyway? Is it the absence of sadness or pain, or is it a sustained feeling of euphoria? Would my levels be tested periodically? From one moment to the next the amount of happiness I have is impacted by the context of my changing life, so I may be eligible now, but not necessarily in fifteen minutes from now.
I wondered if there had been any data collected recently that measured the happiness levels of my fellow Americans. I was curious whether I’d have many fellow Happy-ism colleagues. It turns out that according to the 2016 Happiness Index, the Harris Poll, American’s aren’t all that happy. Only 30% reported feeling happy, with women slightly more happy than men and married people slightly more happy than singles. It’s also notable that Americans were less happy in 2016 than they were in 2015.
This data struck me as strange because in the past few years we’ve seen a trend toward internal growth efforts, consciousness and awakening. People have been seeking practices that naturally relieve the aches of emotional and spiritual suffering. Consequently, wouldn’t you think we’d report higher levels of happiness?
Many of us have regular yoga and meditation practices. We eat healthy food and vision board for our goals, but on a day to day basis, we struggle to find a balanced state of happy. We are all authorities of “Joy” when things are going well, yet after a string of disappointments and frustrating circumstances, we may ask you to talk to the hand. We can’t always control our environment and certainly can’t control context, so where do we go to learn to be happy?
Karen came in to Tournesol the first Wednesday in August for her energy session on the Vibroacoustic table. Forlorn with shoulders hunched, she sighed a wistful exhale and plopped herself down in a heap on the water table. “Carey, can’t you just fix me? I want to feel happy.” The right edge of my mouth curled up ever so slightly and my eyes softened. I recognized that feeling of defeat. I walked a couple steps from the table to the vibroacoustic mixing board to choose the individual vibrational frequencies that would bring her body and mind into flow, into balance. We began her treatment and I opened my heart.
“Fix me,” is a common request in my practice and I hate to disappoint, I really really do. Ask anyone who knows me. But when I go into the Vibroacoustic Sound Therapy room and it’s just you, the furniture and me, I tell you something you don’t want to hear.
I’m not going to fix you.
I remember once in marriage counseling my ex husband and I asked the therapist how long it would take her to fix our marriage. There was an awkwardly lengthy pause after our question and in that space my pulse picked up speed. Why wasn’t she answering? Were we not fixable?
Our therapist shifted in her seat, uncrossed then re-crossed her legs. “Well, you see, these things take time,” she finally answered in her matter of fact way. My heart sank. I didn’t want to have to go home and sit with this heavy feeling any more. Her refusal to fix us in a timely manner made me question her and her practice entirely. Our 50 minutes with her had been a waste and I wondered if there was any hope for us. Looking back, it never occurred to me then to be open to and embrace the process of recovery. I didn’t see the value in a method that might take some time.
Eight years later I now understand where she was coming from. When I work with people now, I impart similar wisdom. However, you should know that while I won’t fix you, I will help you experience flow and balance and will serve as a guide to teach you how to grow and how to Happy.
Happy, the verb, is something you do. It is something you work at every day. Do you grow muscles by going to the gym once? No, you have to make it a regular practice to notice improvement. Growth happens over time.
As far as I can tell, 45 years into this life, the key to Happy-ing begins by soft-heartedly accepting life’s challenges, releasing the need to be right and releasing judgments and beliefs. When we resist the challenges life circumstances present, we increase the amount of suffering we feel. What was it my Aunt Carol said about visitors and fish? They both smell bad after three days. Same thing goes for the internal clutter that builds up when we resist challenging circumstances.
I’d bet twenty bucks you already know all this. You’ve probably experienced it countless times. I have too. So, why do we still resist? Our human nature leads us to tighten when challenged, but doing so causes us to suffer in the long run. I want to Happy, so why is the pull of inertia so strong? Even more confusing is that so many of us are waking up, are becoming conscious, but this awakening isn’t translating into sustainable clarity and happiness.
I think it’s because deep down inside we are hard wired to have to work for it – all the time, every single day in body, mind and spirit. You can’t meditate, detox and go to yoga class then cheat on your boyfriend and wonder why you’re still not a warrior of all things Zen.
In the end, I believe Happy-ish people practice stepping out of the ring of fire and into the heart centered space of empathy for themselves and for others. My guru, teacher, colleague and friend, the wise, wise Dr. Stephen Cowan taught me that Conflict multiplied by Resistance equals the amount of Suffering we feel. Reduce your suffering, increase your Happy-ing and always remember to forgive yourself for being human.
For many who started the year with great aspirations and goals of creating new habits … it’s coming to the time of year when lots of peopel start to falter on their new habits.
That’s completely normal, but we can do better.
We can figure out how to overcome the difficulties that often plague our habit-changing attempts:
We delay starting on the habit.
Our minds start to rebel from the tediousness of sticking to a plan.
We rationalize not doing the habit.
With those very common obstacles in mind, I’m going to share three powerful techniques for overcoming them. They take effort to implement, but you got this!
Here are the techniques:
Focus on just starting. Set a trigger when you’re going to do the habit each day — let’s say you’re going to meditate when you wake up, or work out when you get home, or read during your lunch break. When the time comes to do the habit (the trigger happens), just launch into doing the habit, without delay. Focus on getting good at this skill of starting. When the trigger happens, have a reminder note nearby that says, “Just start.” Lower the barrier to doing the habit by making it smaller (just meditate for a minute or two), create barriers to doing your usual distractions, and just take the smallest first step. You’re going to practice getting good at starting, every day. If you master this, you’ll also get a lot better at not procrastinating with other stuff!
Be completely with the habit. When you do start the habit, it’s very common to focus on getting through the habit, trying to complete the task. This is a mindset that most of us have all day long — we are just rushing through our tasks, trying to finish each one. But actually this is not helpful for habits. We want to be completely present with the habit, really feel the texture of the experience, and imagine there is no end, that this moment is all there is and ever will be. It can transform the habit, turning it into a mindfulness practice, and we can even find gratitude for being able to do it. We don’t have to do it, we get to do it. This is an act of love for ourselves, and we are doing it to not only be compassionate with ourselves, but to enable ourselves to be more present, compassionate and committed to serving others. This moment of doing the habit is an act of love for everyone we know. This is a wonderful cure for the tedium of sticking to a plan.
Pause when you start to rationalize. The problem with rationalizing not doing the habit is that we don’t often notice we’re doing it. We just start moving away from doing the habit. We just think, “It’s OK, I’ll do it later,” or “Screw it, I don’t really need to do this,” or “Just this one time won’t hurt.” These are not helpful thoughts. Instead, we should learn to pause. Sit still, take a breath, and remind yourself of why you’re committed to this habit. Who are you doing it for? Are you devoted to them, and if so, is your devotion larger than your momentary discomfort and rationalizations? Take this pause and remember your love, and pour yourself into this habit by just starting and being completely present with it.
I offer these three techniques to you, and I hope you’ll give them a full-hearted effort.
Mindfulness & Meditation Summit
This month, I’m going to be part of a free 10-day Mindfulness & Meditation Summit that will include me and more than 30 other renowned meditation teachers, visionary leaders, neuroscientists, researchers, writers, performers, activists, and educators.
The online summit is from Jan. 22-31, 2018 … and includes some incredible presenters: Alice Walker, Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Goleman, Jack Kornfield, Jewel, Kelly McGonigal, Alanis Morissette, and special sessions with Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Eckhart Tolle.
Whether you’re new to mindfulness practice or have been meditating for years, this gathering of over 30 leading spiritual teachers and visionaries will be sure to help you transform yourself, your community, and the world.
In a previous post, I spoke about movement in a general sense, and why we are healthier when we move more often in a variety of ways. As I mentioned, this takes awareness of how we relate to and use our bodies. This is a topic worth diving into further, and a prerequisite for all healthy movement. If you aren’t aware moving with awareness, you won’t notice when you are moving poorly, and you won’t be able to correct it. Oh, and the cat represents your body.
Be aware of how you move. It sounds simple, and it is on some level. But it is also a lifelong practice with infinite potential to transform the way you experience life in a human body. In this post I share three entryways to practice moving with awareness: getting into your body, moving gently and slowly with focused attention, and taking an inventory of the stuff that affects your movement. You can think of this as three levels of awareness: an internal awareness of your body, an external awareness of how you move in space and gravity, and a relational awareness of how your body is impacted by your physical environment.
1. Getting into your body
Shifting your awareness to the sensations in your body is profoundly helpful. We as a culture overemphasize our rational minds, so our attention tends to live there and our bodies can become an afterthought. The mind is often in the past or the future, but the body lives in the moment. Bringing your attention into your body allows you to notice discomfort and make a shift. There are many ways to do this! Maybe you already have ways that work well for you. Here are a few that I like to use, I encourage you to try them for yourself.
Shift your focus to your breath and pay attention to the sensations of your breath in your body. Notice the immediate changes you experience.
Drop your awareness down from your head into your belly.
Feel your feet on the ground. Notice where you are and what you are doing.
Feel the weight of gravity and let your body sink and rest with the support of the ground or surface you are on. If this is hard, first tense your muscles and pull away from the ground, then release and allow your weight to settle.
Wiggle your fingers and toes, then shift and stretch your body however it wants to move.
A few common experiences when you tune into your body
When we start paying attention, we often realize how little we employ our awareness. We may catch ourselves in contorted positions and wonder how we got there, or find ourselves reaching for something far away without taking a moment to reposition. When we return to awareness of our bodies again and again, we start to understand more of what we need to do to be happy and more comfortable.
This can be overwhelming at first. I personally know what it is like to feel uncomfortable in my body and how intense it can be to tune in. However, body awareness is a solution to overwhelm based in stress, chronic discomfort, or pain. As our body’s communication is listened to and honored, we gain an opportunity to take action in support of ourselves and and clarity in what to do. Many people start to experience relief from discomfort and newfound connection to and respect for their bodies.
Noticing habits that you don’t want to have can also be an easy way to judge yourself if you aren’t careful. The first thing out of most people’s mouths when they tune into their bodies is that they have bad posture. I’ve often heard people say that every time they noticed their body their shoulders were at their ears or they were slouching again. Implied is that it isn’t even worth paying attention because the task is too large or they are too broken. I have learned to reframe these beliefs by understanding why my body has these habits in the first place.
The myth of good posture: our bodies tell a story
The majority of us have been taught that if we just stopped slouching, stood up straight, and pulled our shoulders back, we’d feel good. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This view of posture implies that there is some static position that is correct for everyone. Holding your body a certain way is like fighting with yourself – it is unnecessary effort and not honoring of the intelligent reasons your body is a certain shape.
Your body is a certain shape and moves in certain patterns because it tells the story of your entire life – your body has adapted naturally to your environment, culture, and experiences. This means you are just as you are meant to be.
Sometimes your body is holding patterns that are no longer relevant or productive for you, and you wish to change them. Your body did the best it could do for you to respond to a given situation, but you are no longer in that situation. If you simply try to force another shape, eventually your muscles will get tired and you’ll go back to your old patterns. The good news is there is a lot we can do to change this, and here my second point is key.
2. Moving gently and slowly with focused attention
Once you’ve arrived in your body, you can begin to move with awareness and relate your internal sense of yourself to your external environment. The ability to sense where your body is in space is called proprioception. Strong proprioceptive ability is correlated with health and more complete recovery from injury. I shared how your brain maps your body in my last post and this is intimately connected with proprioception. The best way to define your map and increase your proprioception is by moving gently and slowly with focused attention.
As an example, say you want to walk from one end of the room to the other. For people with this ability, this is very easy to do. We learned to walk as young children and do it every day without thinking. But when we step back and pay attention, everyone walks a bit differently. As mentioned above, our movements display unconscious patterns based on our unique bodies and experiences. Maybe your dad had an issue with his hip that affected his walk, and when you learned to walk you imitated him. Maybe you wanted to fit in in high school and the cool kids walked with a little dip so you do too. Maybe you hurt your knee years ago and it still affects your walk. Moving slowly with focused attention works by making these unconscious patterns conscious so we have the ability to change what we no longer need.
I will guide you in an example in a moment, but first a few things to know if you wish to explore further. There are entire disciplines that use moving slowing with focused attention to support a lifetime of healthy aware movement. These disciplines, such as Somatics, Feldenkrais, and Alexander Technique, lay the foundation for healthy responsive movement and unravel old patterns. I love the book Better Movement, by Todd Hargrove, which explains all the science behind how this works and provides Feldenkrais inspired exercises to guide your experience. Many of the ideas in this post come from my personal exploration with the information I learned from Todd’s book, Hanna Somatics, and many of the experts on my favorite body nerd podcast by Brooke Thomas, The Liberated Body.
Try it! Let’s return to the walking example with an exercise to try, adapted from Mary Bond’s excellent book The New Rules of Posture. I use walking since it is a common full body activity with many unconscious subtleties.
Walk across the room as slowly as possible and see what you notice. Continue to walk back and forth across the room slowly and focus your attention on each of the following aspects of your walk.
First notice your left side. Then the right. You may notice one side moving more than the other. We are naturally asymmetrical, but if the difference is extreme you may want to investigate further.
Now focus on your feet. Which foot steps out first? Notice how it drives the movement.
Move even more slowly and notice how your heel first contacts the ground. Feel the shift of your weight over your foot, and feel your toes push off behind you.
As you push off your foot, feel your leg swing in front of you as you step again. Notice the difference in the movement of your left leg and right leg. Does one leg swing more freely?
Hips rotate as we walk – notice if you are holding any tension. If your hips are moving well, you can experience a slight rotation in the direction of your belly button back and forth about ten degrees.
Focus on your arms – are they swinging naturally? Are you holding your shoulders or arms stiff? Or are you allowing your body to twist?
Notice how your chest moves in the opposite direction to your hips. Walking is a cross body movement that propels you forward while giving a natural massage to your internal organs.
Where is your head? Are you looking down to focus on what is in front of you? Is your head jutting forward? Are you pulling your chin in? Play with moving your head and feel into the way it affects the rest of your spine.
Hope you enjoyed that exploration! You can apply similar focus and inquiry to any movement. It doesn’t need to be as complex as walking, and it will be beneficial however deep you chose to go.
A note on support. Since our bodies tell our story, engaging with unconscious patterns stored in our tissues can bring up intense experience or emotions. Professional support can be invaluable to guide you when you hold mental and emotional trauma, chronic pain, or old injuries that you wish to release. Even without a specific issue, if you begin this process on your own and it seems daunting, find a friend, partner, group, or professional to work with you. Bodywork modalities such as Rolfing or Craniosacral Therapy, or somatic psychotherapies such as Somatic Experiencing, can support you to shift patterns that could be overwhelming to tackle on your own.
Working with gravity Since we live on earth, developed proprioception also necessitates an acceptance of gravity. Sometimes we feel weighed down or compressed by gravity, but we can use it to our advantage! Our bodies are designed with tension and compression to support us with minimal effort. I love to play with resting my body into itself and into the ground, trusting my structure and the earth. When I allow my body and the earth to support me, I use gravity with awareness. Amazingly, this frees up energy, and I am able to elongate gently upwards. I can stand or sit longer with more ease, and stay active longer without getting tired. I even discover that my posture improves, in the sense that my body feels like it aligns with itself better and I am less likely to slouch.
Try this:
Stand with your feet hip distance apart placing your weight as comfortably balanced right to left as you can.
Move your hips forward and backward in space until you feel you are spreading your weight across your feet evenly. Keep your knees unlocked but not bent.
Now tuck your hips forward engaging your belly and tilt them back engaging your low back and sticking your butt out. Find balance between the two which uses the least muscular effort.
Let your feet sink into the ground, and allow your legs and hips to follow.
Move your attention up your spine to the point where your head meets your neck. As your body from the belly down rests and sinks with gravity, allow your upper body to float upwards as if pulled gently by a hook at the base of your head.
Breathe space in between each of your vertebrae as your body lengthens and settles.
Now try walking again with this new sense of sinking downwards and floating upwards simultaneously. No need to hold yourself stiff to keep a certain posture – more important is resting into gravity and rising up off your support. How does this change the way it feels to walk compared to the first exercise? Imagine how it would feel to use gravity to find ease in other movements throughout your day.
3. Taking an inventory So by now you’ve experienced internal and spatial body awareness through attention and slow gentle movement. You’ve explore how this can support you to make choices to shift your position, move in different ways, and begin to uncover unconscious patterns you no longer need. However, sometimes your body is holding a pattern for good reasons and to shift it you need to change your environment. The ways in which you interact with things on and around you affects the way you move.
In this exercise, I encourage you to enter into relational awareness by taking an inventory of items in your life one by one and questioning how they affect your movement and your body’s shape. You can pick a day or a week to explore specific categories of items, or note these questions and considerations each time you engage with the stuff around you as a practice.
Clothing. Clothing is a beautiful way to express yourself and relate to where you are and what you are doing. Our clothes conform to our bodies, but sometimes we use clothes that force our bodies to be another way. Tight, inelastic clothing can limit our ability to breathe and move in healthy ways. I know I am not supporting the healthy movement patterns I wish to create when my pants are so tight I can’t swing my leg over my bike or bend down easily. I also know that when I don’t wear warm enough clothing, my body stays tense and can hold onto stress or old patterns. Take an inventory of your clothing and ask yourself which clothes don’t allow your body to move freely or restrict your shape. Why not wear clothes that look and feel great.
Shoes. When looking for both style and comfort, our shoes options are seriously lacking. Many people tolerate uncomfortable shoes, but it is seriously not worth it in the long run. First, get rid of any shoes that you can’t wait to take off when you wear them. As you inventory your shoes, pay close attention to two aspects: heels and toe boxes. First, heels. And I don’t just mean high heels. Most boots, sneakers, and athletic shoes, even men’s shoes, have elevated heels. Heels shorten your calves and tilt your entire body forward so you must lean back to compensate. Start today by slowing transitioning to wearing and buying shoes with lower or no heels. Next, toe boxes. Many shoes get super narrow in the front squishing your toes together. Muscles atrophy, toes overlap, bunions develop, your shoes literally deform your feet. Find shoes that stay wide at the end so your feet can breathe and function like they are made to. When you purchase shoes in the store, take out the insole and stand on it. If your feet are wider than the insole, this shoe will squish your feet.
Bags. One of the most common complaints I see as a massage therapist is a tight neck and shoulder with knots around the shoulder blade. The majority of people who have this on one side come in carrying a heavy one shoulder bag or purse. I had a friend who had a knot on one side for years. He switched from a messenger bag to a backpack and it went away never to return. Seriously, make the switch and don’t wait. You will thank yourself. Two shoulder bags are wonderful, and if they get too heavy, getting one with a chest or waist strap can help distribute the weight more evenly. You can always use a rolling bag for style points.
Things that you sit on. Chairs, couches, cars, we spend a lot of time sitting. For each place you regularly sit, ask yourself, does this feel good now? How about later? How does this affect the position of my body? Play with using pillows or other props to make your seats more comfortable. Generally, you want something not so hard that you are sore and not so soft that you sink in and collapse. You want your hips to be in line with or higher than your knees so you sit on your sit bones and not on your low back. You want a back support that allows you to rest into yourself with little effort. If the back rest is overly curved or too far back, your head and neck protrude forward or tuck and stiffen.
Stuff you use. We interact daily with a variety of objects. When they are designed well and we use them in healthy ways, they make our lives easier. But our stuff often causes problems. Ask: is this the right tool for the right job? Is there a better option? How can I use this more comfortably? Does this knife need sharpening? Do I need to be so close to my computer? How can I hold my phone to make my neck feel better? Seriously – the more you are aware of how you engage with the many tools and technologies we use daily, the happier you will be.
Wow.
That was a lot of information. If you made it all the way here, thanks for diving into this ride of awareness with me – for one thing, it never gets boring. If you made it here without a chance to try to exercises, I recommend you try them and read it again. If you can experience anything I shared for yourself, you will be more likely to understand and incorporate moving with awareness into your life. I wish you revelation, fascination, and compassion on your journey of learning, unlearning, and relearning to move well with awareness. I, for one, have completely transformed my relationship to my body and the way I move, and I know you can too.
Herbal remedies for insomnia are abundant online—valerian, hops, and chamomile, among the most common. Tested against placebo, none has been found to be definitively effective for insomnia. Yet some medicinal herbs have a long history as traditional calming, sleep-promoting agents. Might one work for you?
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have proposed a method you can use yourself to test herbal remedies via personalized therapeutic trials. Here’s more about herbals and how the trials work:
Why Herbals for Sleep?
Interest in herbal and other alternative treatments for insomnia seems to be on the rise. About 5% of the participants in a national survey reported use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for insomnia in 2002. A recent analysis of the same national survey conducted in 2007 found that almost 50% of participants with insomnia symptoms used some form of CAM therapy.
Some insomniacs see alternative medicines as less risky than prescription sleeping pills, with fewer potentially harmful side effects. Because they are “natural,” they’re viewed as more appropriate for long-term use than many sleeping pills, which, if used nightly, tend eventually to degrade sleep quality.
Scant Testing, Mixed Results
Most herbal remedies for sleep have not undergone as much testing as prescription sleeping pills (one reason may be that there’s relatively little money to be made on them). But as with sleeping pills, tests that have been conducted on herbals often show subjective sleep improvements that exceed objective measures.
The perception that herbal supplements improve sleep could be due to a placebo effect. Or, say the Massachusetts researchers, it could be attributable to basic differences among trial participants, including different insomnia symptoms. It could be that, just as a particular sleeping pill works for some insomniacs and not others, a particular herb may relieve insomnia in some people and not others.
Herbals That May Relieve Insomnia
Since the overall efficacy of herbal preparations for insomnia is still unknown and may differ from person to person, the researchers opted to consult six authoritative resources in their search for herbal and supplement remedies of potential relevance for insomnia, including reference books such as the Physician’s Desk Reference for Herbal Medicines (PDR) and online sources such as Medline Plus. In all, they came up with a list of over 70 herbal agents of possible benefit to sleep.
These 15 medicinal herbs were listed by 4 or more resources as a remedy for insomnia or another condition indirectly related to sleep, such as anxiety or nervousness:
Natural substances are not necessarily safe for unrestricted use. The PDR for Herbal Medicines cautions against using several during pregnancy. Some herbs may be harmful to the liver. And, as herbal supplements are unregulated in the United States, the contents of a supplement do not necessarily reflect what appears on the label. In fact, a majority of herbal remedies evaluated in a recent study had contamination, substitution, or use of fillersnot listed on the label.
For safety concerns associated with herbs used for insomnia, see these sources:
Let’s say you’re a sleep maintenance insomniac, awakening at least twice a night to feelings of anxiety. You’ve heard that passion flower is good for sleep and anxiety, and you’d like to try it to see if it cuts down on your nighttime wake-ups. But how long should you try it? Two nights, three nights or more?
Many insomniacs experience quite a bit of night-to-night variability in their sleep. When you’re stressed out you might sleep poorly for 4 or 5 nights in a row before you get a decent night’s sleep. If you tried taking a passion flower supplement for just 2 or 3 nights during a time of stress, the results you obtained wouldn’t be reliable. You might obtain a different result if you tested the passion flower during a 3-day period when your life was moving along on an even keel.
I’ll skip the authors’ discussion of statistical power and cut to the chase: you need to test a substance for 10 nights in a row to have reasonable certainty that the result you obtain is repeatable and you’ve got enough data to answer the question of whether passion flower improves your sleep.
Self-Testing Flow Chart
Follow these 5 steps to determine whether an herbal insomnia remedy works for you:
Simplify sleep. For you, does “good sleep” mean falling asleep sooner, sleeping longer, waking up feeling more rested, or waking up less at night? Choose the one thing that for you would most improve your sleep.
Set a goal. Choose your target “good night” value and a percentage of nights for which this target value must occur. Let’s say you decide that a good night is a night when you awaken just 1 time or less (and on a bad night you awaken 2 times or more). Let’s say you set your goal at awakening 1 time or less on at least 70% (7 out of 10) of the nights.
Choose a therapy. Try one intervention at a time. Starting a passion flower supplement and a yoga class at the same time will muddle the results.
Do the 10-day test. Every day, record good nights and bad nights in a diary.
Calculate the outcome. Did you achieve your goal? If so, you can conclude that passion flower improves your sleep. If you didn’t achieve your goal, clearly the passion flower did not work. Choose another therapy, starting the process at #3. If your results are borderline, continue testing for another 10 days. Then recalculate to ascertain whether you’ve met your goal of awakening 1 time or less on 70% of all 20 nights.
Insomniacs are big experimenters, I learned as I was conducting research for my book, The Savvy Insomniac. Several expressed interest in herbal and other alternative treatments. If you’re going to experiment, you need a systematic way to assess whether the remedy you’re trying improves your sleep or not. These Massachusetts researchers have given us a goal-oriented algorithm for doing exactly that.
We are so tired. So tired that we can’t think when we want to, move how we want to, or get up and go the way we feel we need to. Our brains, bodies, and our willpower are all burnt out. This article explains how to tap into your life energy and overcome fatigue.
Jenny told me that, now that she is off of Wellbutrin, she doesn’t understand why she is still tired. She recalled that she has struggled with this fatigue her entire adult life. The thing is that Jenny is totally functional. She gets up, works at a high pressure finance job, takes care of her bills, and appears totally put together, but still this cloud envelops her.
Jenny’s fatigue doesn’t surprise me.
Why should she be feeling energized?
What is energy?
The Hindu term Shakti derives from the Sanskrit, “to be able”. It refers to the primal life force energy. It has, necessarily, a feminine essence.
Have you felt it?
Have you ever felt so enlivened by an experience that your heart was racing, your eyes wild, and tingles ran up your body?
Have you ever been so in your flow that you forgot to eat or pee?
Have you ever greeted your day with a small smile in the corner of your mouth as you felt the mystery of what might unfold?
Have you ever felt head over heels in love?
Have you ever felt so connected to and seen by others around you that you wanted to cry just from the feeling of it?
This is shakti.
And she’s always in there. All the time, waiting to be accessed.
We go to our jobs, we check off the to do list, we contribute our small but significant part to planetary death and destruction, we turn a blind eye to all that might provoke too much feeling.
And then we wonder why we are tired!
Why would you not be tired, Jenny?
What are you doing to connect to or to cultivate your shakti? What in your life really turns you on? If your answer is nothing, then perhaps your soul is saying no and you are calling that fatigue.
What is fatigue?
Fatigue lends itself perfectly to the multiple narrative model of medicine. Psychiatry views fatigue as a brain-based imbalance or deficiency likely responsive to a stimulant or noradgrenergic antidepressant.
Functional medicine views it as potentially stemming from hypothyroidism, B12 deficiency or poor methylation, adrenal fatigue, or general mitochondrial dysfunction where low nutrient supply and abundant toxicant exposure impairs our energy-making cellular centers.
While I believe passionately in healing the body first to clarify matters of spirit, I think it’s important to search for the meaning of fatigue rather than accepting it at face value.
I know that I have never once yawned in my NYC office. Literally never. But that you would think I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome the second I buckle in for the drive to Whole Foods. Well, I know that we are not meant to procure our food from a commercial space (particularly one that is increasingly greenwashed selling more and more conventional food). I also know that the domestic space challenges my ego and sense of identity. Then my disdain for the experience is compounded by the self-conscious guilt around my ingratitude for the fact that I even have the opportunity and wherewithal to even choose to patronize this establishment! In this bundle of neurosis and primal disconnection from Earth energy, it’s no wonder that my soul says no.
When I see that simple context, I cease to take on the pathology and to blame my body for the fatigue.
Context is everything.
How to tap your life force energy
So, how can we cultivate that life force energy in order to dissolve fatigue?
Dance
Plain and simple. Turn on some music, make it loud, and move. Even for 5 minutes a day. Get past the weirdness of it, the awkwardness, and just feel it in your body. In fact, I have one patient who continued to struggle with fatigue after medication taper, who also had a history of having had her thyroid removed for falsely perceiving it as a time bomb for death. Now, after many years of psychiatric medication and general toxicant exposure, she had plenty of reason to be struggling with mitochondrial dysfunction. After thyroid removal, the replacement of hormones can be an inexact and frustrating process, giving her another reason to have chronic fatigue. How do you explain a resurgence of found energy, like a geyser unlocked, after I pushed her to return to a tap class – a form of dance that she had loved but lost. Quite simply, dance class healed her because it gave her the keys to the shakti palace.
Kundalini
Kundalini yoga is a shakti practice. It is, by design, focused on the divine feminine within all of us. This practice is a hard as it is sweet. As powerful as it is subtle. The source of energy that we are looking to cultivate, comes from way down in the creative center – literally and figuratively – of the womb. Start with this 3 minute practice for raising the divine feminine from the dead. Or simply press your left nostril shut with your left pointer finger and then breath long and deep out of your right nostril for 5 minutes. See what happens.
Sensuality
Femininity is feeling. Have you ever lit a candle for absolutely no reason? It seems indulgent and silly. But once you get past that, it may give you a feeling of nurturance inside. Whether it’s baths, essential oils, dance, love making, or self-pleasuring, we need to reunite with our body’s built with desire compass and a deep need to be cared for and luxuriated over. We need to learn how to turn ourselves on, as Mama Gena maps out in her epic bestseller, Pussy: A Reclamation.
Giving
When you feel totally bereft, the last thing you want to do is give. It might break you right? You need every ounce and morsel of everything you’ve got simply to get by, right? Wrong. Our Vital Mind Reset Community Leader, Shauna, was on the verge of homelessness, struggling through every day of her recovery, and she would be the first to tell you that volunteering at a local food pantry may very well have saved her life. Giving fills us up with shakti because we were wired to love each other, to help each other, and to receive in return the energy we put out.
Connecting
Find community. It’s not optional. Isolation is killing us, literally. When we feel a part of a tribe, when we see reflected back to us the many eyes of our peers, we are lifted by their collective life force energy. Our sisters show us our best self, remind us what it is to feel unconditionally seen, and it helps us to fill our cracked places with gold.
Make room for radical, unexpected shifts in your energy. This is rarely a linear process of reclamation. Heal your body first (including a total elimination of addictive foods and drinks like wheat, dairy, processed sugar, alcohol, and yes, coffee, for one month), and then, when you feel tired, ask, what am I saying no to. And then give your mind, body, and spirit, something to say yesto. Watch the energy flow.
You may have been a couch potato for most of your life, but now, if you’re middle-aged and envisioning a healthy retirement, you’d better change your ways.
Moderate-to-vigorous exercise can mitigate some effects of aging, including poor sleep quality and cognitive decline. Research generally supports this claim, so especially if you’re prone to insomnia, you’ll want to check this out.
Age-Related Sleep Problems and Exercise
Sleep tends to be less robust as we age. Middle-aged and older adults get less deep sleep (the restorative stuff) than younger people. Our sleep is less efficient, too, peppered with wake-ups during the night. In the morning, we wake up feeling less rested, with fewer resources to meet the demands of the day.
Investigators are now looking at lifestyle factors that might alleviate aged-related sleep problems. A majority of studies suggest that both male and female exercisers tend to experience better sleep quality and fall asleep more quickly than people who don’t exercise.
Newer Data From Objective Tests
The majority of such studies are based on reports from participants rather than objective tests. In two more recent studies, investigators used objective measures to assess the relationship between participants’ level of physical activity and their sleep.
The SWAN Sleep Study was an observational study involving 339 middle-aged women. Over 6 years, investigators collected data on their activity level in three domains: (1) Active Living (activities like watching TV and walking to work), (2) Household/Caregiving (housework and childcare), and (3) Sports/Exercise (recreational activities and sports).
Toward the end of the 6-year period, the women underwent in-home polysomnography (a sleep study) every night during one entire menstrual cycle or 35 days, whichever was shorter. They also kept sleep diaries and filled out sleep-related questionnaires.
Altogether this made for a lot of data on a lot of women. The findings reported here are both significant and clinically important:
Activities in the Active Living and Household/Caregiving categories had little impact on women’s sleep. Women typically spend a lot of time doing these activities, yet they may not be vigorous enough to affect our sleep.
Women with high Sports/Exercise activity over the 6-year period experienced better sleep, especially on measures of sleep quality and sleep continuity.
Greater recent Sports/Exercise activity was associated with better sleep quality and better sleep continuity—and more deep sleep (insomnia sufferers, take note!).
What About Men?
Routine exercise has similar benefits for men, a small exercise intervention study showed. Via polysomnography, the sleep of 13 men aged 60 to 67 was assessed 3 nights before and 3 nights after they participated in a 16-week exercise program. The program consisted of regular 60-minute workouts on the treadmill. The workouts were fairly rigorous and the results, impressive. Compared with their sleep before starting the exercise program, by the end of the program the men’s sleep
had significantly greater continuity. Acute exercise reduced their nighttime wakefulness by 30%.
was significantly deeper. On nights following exercise, they experienced a 71% increase in slow-wave (deep) sleep. (That 71% is not a typo, by the way!)
Exercise Protects Mental Fitness
If the sleep benefits of exercise don’t move you to action, maybe the high cost of inactivity to your brain will. Regular exercise helps improve cognitive function and protects against cognitive decline. How it does so has yet to be worked out, but one theory holds that exercise has a beneficial effect on the brain due to its positive effect on cerebral blood flow. For optimal functioning the brain has to have adequate blood flow. Moderate-intensity exercise increases blood flow to the brain in healthy adults.
But blood vessels may lose their ability to respond normally in the brain and elsewhere, a situation called vascular dysfunction, which is associated with cardiovascular disease. Systemic vascular dysfunction will likely reduce blood flow to the brain and manifest as cognitive impairment.
“Vascular dysfunction and altered blood flow regulation may be a key link between cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline,” writes Jill N. Barnes in a paper titled Exercise, Cognitive Function, and Aging.
Protecting vascular health—which typically declines with age—may also protect against cognitive decline. Barnes cites a few studies that suggest that exercise is the key to protecting vascular functioning. A few other human studies show that both aerobic exercise and strength training help maintain cognitive fitness. In addition, animal studies have shown that sustained aerobic exercise promotes the growth of new nerve cells in the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with memory.
So particularly if you’re middle aged or older and prone to inactivity, check into starting an exercise program now. It will improve your physical and mental health and—perhaps more relevant if you’re looking for help with insomnia—it will likely improve your sleep.
STRETCHING AGAINST RESISTANCE
Why do you want to stretch? People often have the sensation that a muscle is “tight,” or that their mobility is limited. Static stretching (gradually lengthening a muscle to the point of discomfort and holding there) often feels good, and I encourage you to do things that feel good in your body!
But static stretching doesn’t usually change the length of a muscle quickly or satisfactorily, and recent research suggests it may even impair athletic performance. This is because muscle length and your perception of it is governed by your nervous system.
Your muscles may become stuck in a pattern based on how you use them. “Tight” muscles may be locked long (like your neck when you look at your phone all day) or locked short (like your hamstrings from sitting all the time). You may also feel tension if you didn’t warm up properly before an activity or you overused something. Think of these signals as clues for how to care best for your body.
How does stretching against resistance work? Stretching with resistance communicates to the nervous system directly, letting the body know that it is safe to reset or lengthen a muscle. According to the Ki-Hara method of resistance stretching, when “muscles are … contracted and lengthened at the same time” you are communicating to your nervous system that your “muscles are strong THROUGHOUT their ranges of motion.” By stretching muscles “only … as far as they [can] resist, [you] keep stretching safe and effective.” This helps ensure balance between strength and flexibility.
How do I do it? Depends on who you ask! Similar techniques (with more or less complexity) go by a variety of names like PNF – proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, contract-relax, and resistance stretching.
However, here are some simple principles that I have found to be immediately effective. As long as you identify what you want to stretch, you can do this technique!
Start with a static stretch of a muscle, gradually moving the muscle to a lengthened position until you feel a slight stretch.
Without moving, contract the muscle with about 10% of your strength against external resistance: the floor, the wall, a doorway, a resistance band, or your own hand or arm.
Hold the contraction for a few breaths.
Relax the muscle moving slightly out of the stretch on an exhale.
Inhale, then exhale and move gently into a stretch slightly further than the initial position. You will likely find the intensity of the stretch has lessened and you can move further.
Repeat steps 2-5 two to three more times.
A specific example for the hamstrings:
Lie on your back on the floor. The leg you aren’t working on can rest flat on the ground or with a slight bend.
Put a strap or band around your heel. Bring the leg you want to stretch straight up in the air and move your leg towards your head until you feel a slight stretch.
Without moving the leg, pull the band to bring the leg further towards your head while simultaneously contracting your hamstring by pushing your heel towards the ground.
Hold the contraction for a few breaths.
Relax your leg moving slightly back towards the floor.
Inhale, then exhale and bring your straight leg towards your head again for a slight stretch. It will likely move easily and a bit further than your initial stretch.
Repeat steps 3-6 two to three more times. Then move to the other leg.
Check out this video to see someone demonstrating a similar technique! He gets more precise about timing – I have found that the exact seconds matters less than getting the basics down.
Check out this video for an explanation of how to do the same technique against the wall.
And finally, if you already get the basics of stretching against resistance and want to go deeper into it, check out this video of Ki-Hara resisted stretching for the calf and hamstring. Ki-Hara is more complex and builds on the basic technique listed here.
Considerations on when to stretch You may wish to identify your overall tendency on the spectrum between strength and flexibility. When you are strong and flexible in all ranges of motion, you are considered highly mobile. Mobility allows you to engage in a variety of physical tasks and adapt to unexpected situations without injury.
Are you someone who is very flexible but not strong? You may want to strengthen and move lightly before and after activity to address tension rather than stretch. Overly flexible people or people who overstretch their muscles may put extra strain on joints leaving them prone to injury or degeneration. This is where I fall in the mix. I have found a ratio of about 5:2 strengthening exercise (like Pilates) to stretching exercise (like yoga) is best for my body. I also have had great success with stretching against resistance when I feel tension in parts of my body that have been working hard.
Are you someone who is strong and stiff? Strength without flexibility can leave you prone to muscle strain or sprain. Stretching against resistance is for you. Be aware, if you are stiff because you don’t move often, moving more often in a variety of ways will likely be even more important than stretching.
These principles can be applied to muscle groups within your body as well. Are your shoulders tight from sitting hunched over a lot and are weak? Exercises that strengthen your shoulders or changing your desk setup may be more effective than stretching. Or are your shoulders tight from lifting at the gym and not stretching? Time to do some stretching with resistance!
AN INTRODUCTION TO THIS SERIES ON INFORMATION I REGULARLY SHARE WITH CLIENTS
We are relational beings. Nothing replaces touch from another person – indeed touch is vital for survival and health. Professional massage provides skilled touch grounded in anatomical knowledge. Therapists gather information from history and context you share, observed feedback such as movement ability and range of motion, felt feedback such as tissue texture, temperature and color, and intuition. Using this information, therapists identify opportunities to facilitate balance in your muscular, connective tissue, and nervous systems.
However, you are ultimately responsible for caring for your body and your well-being. You know yourself better than anyone, and there are numerous easy things you can do to care for yourself in between massages.
There are various concepts and ideas that I regularly share with my clients, and apply to a lot of people. This is the first in a series of blog posts to share this information with everyone. I’m sure something in here will apply to you!
Brief disclaimer As a massage therapist, I do not diagnose, nor can I directly recommend exercises or lifestyle modifications for you. However, I can share information that has been effective for me personally and that I have observed help other clients. I also am operating in an additional capacity as a licensed Level 1 MovNat trainer and a health educator through the NHI Neuromuscular Therapy Program. It is your sole choice if you wish to pursue these ideas. I am not responsible for any effects, positive or negative, that you experience.
are healthier when we move more often in a variety of ways. As I mentioned, this takes awareness of how we relate to and use our bodies. This is a topic worth diving into further, and a prerequisite for all healthy movement. If you aren’t aware moving with awareness, you won’t notice when you are moving poorly, and you won’t be able to correct it. Oh, and the cat represents your body.
move with awareness and relate your internal sense of yourself to your external environment. The ability to sense where your body is in space is called proprioception. Strong proprioceptive ability is 
the difference in the movement of your left leg and right leg. Does one leg swing more freely?
I see as a massage therapist is a tight neck and shoulder with knots around the shoulder blade. The majority of people who have this on one side come in carrying a heavy one shoulder bag or purse. I had a friend who had a knot on one side for years. He switched from a messenger bag to a backpack and it went away never to return. Seriously, make the switch and don’t wait. You will thank yourself. Two shoulder bags are wonderful, and if they get too heavy, getting one with a chest or waist strap can help distribute the weight more evenly. You can always use a rolling bag for style points.
