6 Ways to Ground Yourself When You’re Feeling Anxious

On the outside, I appear to the be the same, perhaps with less of a sense of humor. On the inside, I want to cry and scream. Hello, anxiety.

I’m writing this as I’m waiting to hear back from the doctor about whether or not my son has Lyme Disease. I’d love to report that I’m one of those women who maintains a rational outlook on life in times like these. I’m not. My heart clenches, my mind races and I freak out. No one would know this to look at me — I’m amazing at internalizing. On the outside, I appear to the be the same, perhaps with less of a sense of humor. On the inside, I want to cry and scream. Hello, anxiety.

When anxiety surfaces, it’s tough for me to perform. I have a business, and I have clients that I care deeply about. I have children to show up for. For whatever reason, I’m built to “turtle.” I want to duck into my shell and protect myself from life. Thankfully, the more work I do on myself and the more I grow as a person, the more diminished my anxiety becomes.

But for the past three days, it’s been a real effort to keep my anxiety in check. My thoughts snowball into a flurry of “what-ifs.” This creates a lot of suffering. As you can imagine, I’ve been doing a lot of grounding work. These are the tricks I’ve been using to keep myself from careening into outer space:

1. Acknowledge the anxiety.

In order to help release the hold anxiety can have on you, you must first acknowledge that it’s there. Most of us walk around unaware that we’re caught in anxiety’s web. Anxiety is great at “tricking” you into believing something is real. So all these fear-based thoughts you are having are simply that: thoughts. Thoughts aren’t real. Thoughts aren’t happening. If I remind myself that my thoughts are “the anxiety” doing its work, it helps me detach from the fear. I know it’s not real.

2. Start with your breath.

Have you noticed that when you get anxious, your whole body tenses up and your breath moves from deep and calming, to shallow and light? This kind of shallow breathing keeps the anxiety alive in your body. If the body can’t relax, neither can the mind. Take deep, full breaths all the way down into your belly. Breathe in through your nose and as you exhale through your mouth, make your exhale longer than your inhale. This deep breathing signals the body to relax and helps calm your mind and spirit.

3. Connect to your body.

Movement is one of the most amazing ways to get into your body. When you’re stuck running in circles on the hamster wheel in your head, nothing grounds you more than moving your body. So get up and get moving. Yoga, running or walking — or my personal favorite, a one-minute dance party — all can you out of the fear of an uncertain future and put you directly in the present moment, the only place worth being.

Read the Full Article: 6 Ways to Ground Yourself When You Are Feeling Anxious

How People Learn To Become Resilient

Perception is key to resilience: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as a chance to learn and grow?

Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each day, he would arrive at school with the exact same sandwich: two slices of bread with nothing in between. At home, there was no other food available, and no one to make any. Even so, Garmezy would later recall, the boy wanted to make sure that “no one would feel pity for him and no one would know the ineptitude of his mother.” Each day, without fail, he would walk in with a smile on his face and a “bread sandwich” tucked into his bag.

The boy with the bread sandwich was part of a special group of children. He belonged to a cohort of kids—the first of many—whom Garmezy would go on to identify as succeeding, even excelling, despite incredibly difficult circumstances. These were the children who exhibited a trait Garmezy would later identify as “resilience.” (He is widely credited with being the first to study the concept in an experimental setting.) Over many years, Garmezy would visit schools across the country, focussing on those in economically depressed areas, and follow a standard protocol. He would set up meetings with the principal, along with a school social worker or nurse, and pose the same question: Were there any children whose backgrounds had initially raised red flags—kids who seemed likely to become problem kids—who had instead become, surprisingly, a source of pride? “What I was saying was, ‘Can you identify stressed children who are making it here in your school?’ “ Garmezy said, in a 1999 interview. “There would be a long pause after my inquiry before the answer came. If I had said, ‘Do you have kids in this school who seem to be troubled?,’ there wouldn’t have been a moment’s delay. But to be asked about children who were adaptive and good citizens in the school and making it even though they had come out of very disturbed backgrounds—that was a new sort of inquiry. That’s the way we began.”

Resilience presents a challenge for psychologists. Whether you can be said to have it or not largely depends not on any particular psychological test but on the way your life unfolds. If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?

Read the Full Article: How People Learn to Become Resilient

3 Hormones Your Emotions Rely On

Care for yourself from the inside out with these top tips to balance your hormones, boost your mood and create a more confident self.

HAVE YOU NOTICED the self-love vibe that’s in the air – this year, more than ever? The popularity of powerful new projects like Katie Horwitch’s Women Against Negative Talk and spiritual psychology writer Danielle Beinstein’s writing testifies: self-love is in and it’s contagious!

Integrative health and food therapy specialist, Christine Dionese, says there’s a whole lot of neurobiological activity that gives rise to our ongoing emotional wellness.

Wondering about your self-love hormonal status? Genetic data plays a significant role in how epigenetic variables affect hormonal health. Reliable functional medical tests to help determine neurohormone levels exist, but keep in mind that levels shift throughout our cycle and in response to environmental changes, causing results to shift accordingly. Obtaining personalized genetic information could offer greater depth and understanding into your personalized health concerns, uncovering why those shifts occur and how you can optimize your wellness plan.

There are a few special hormones our emotional status relies on. Because they are responsible for regulating mood, confidence levels and self-nurturing, I affectionately refer to them as self-love neurohormones. The truth is, you may meditate like a guru, but these neurotransmitters rely on us to feed them!

Stay in the self-care flow with my neuro-nurturing tips:

3 HORMONES OUR EMOTIONS RELY ON + HOW TO SUPPORT THEM

THE LOVE HORMONE: OXYTOCIN The awesome thing about oxytocin? It reduces fear!

Produced by the hypothalamus and stored in the pituitary, oxytocin is the love hormone – just looking deeply into your lover’s eyes can signal its release. Commonly recognized as a bonding hormone new mothers produce, we can thank oxytocin for helping usher in awesome orgasms. Not only has oxytocin been observed to play a role in sexual arousal for women and men, it has also been reported to play a significant role in wound healing by reducing the inflammatory response.

When oxytocin levels are in good shape, your self-confidence may be…

Read the Full Article: 3 Hormones Your Emotions Rely On

6 Stress-Free Habits of Women Who Look Better Longer

Looking good as we age has has to do with more than your night cream – practice these 6 daily habits to maintain that youthful glow.

WE’VE ALL NOTICED THAT woman who seems to maintain that youthful glow well into her 80s, who just seems radiate that love and passion for life. We aspire to one day also be so lucky to age so gracefully and maintain that inner light. Healthy living expert, Sophie Uliano, has studied up on these unique beings, and summed up their healthy habits that seem to lead to happier healthier and ageless lives – that glow and youthful appearance is just one of the welcome side effects.

Since this month is all about cleansing in all the various forms from meditation, juicing to simple stress relief and setting up all of those healthy habits – why not set intentions that we can adapt as daily rituals to fuel us for the rest of our lives? Here’s Sophie with 6 habits of women who look better longer…

MEDITATION:
Almost every woman I know who looks simply stunning after a certain age does some kind of meditation. Put simply, stress is aging. Take a look at yourself in the mirror when you are stressed out – you won’t like what you see. Even sitting down to meditate for 5 minutes a day can make a big difference. Meditation is way easier than you think and yoga breathing is the gateway in. Meditation is a practice, meaning the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Making it a daily habit is the best gift you can give yourself.

PURPOSE:
Every women I know who looks amazing well into her eighties, has a purpose in her life. This purpose is around something she loves to do…

6 Stress-Free Habits of Women Who Look Better Longer