5 Tips on Habit Stacking and Mindful Walking Mindful walking is a simple strategy that can be easily integrated into daily life through "habit stacking." A new research study has found that mindful walking in nature or an urban environment improves sleep quality and mood. Researchers asked 104 participants who were having sleep issues to take regular daily 35-minute walks for a week in either a park or a more urban area of the city. Walking in both settings improved sleep quality, mood, and mindfulness. This means that even if you live in an urban area, mindful walking is a …
The Secret to a Happy, Healthy Life
An 80-year study finds warm relationships lead to health and happiness. What makes a happy life? In some ways, this feels like one of the most important questions a person can ask. To look for answers, researchers from Harvard University have been following two very different groups of men for more than 80 years—268 Harvard graduates and 456 men who grew up in inner-city Boston. This is the longest-running study ever of human life. Researchers were particularly interested in the social and psychological factors that impact health and well-being in later in life. The biggest take-home …
Ideas for Reducing Anxiety
Feeling anxious is common. Feelings can range from a little bit of worry to excessive amounts that results in a debilitating disorder. Here are a few tools to help you reduce anxiety. Mindfulness Are you anxious about a test as you sit down to take it? That’s normal! But often we feel anxiety about an event in the future, frequently with an uncertain outcome. Mindfulness refers to being present in the moment. To be mindful of the now and remind yourself that you are safe, gently tap the palm of your hand or press a finger gently in the soft spot behind your ear. When you have …
Why do you wake at 3am and have difficulty falling back to sleep?
When you wake at 3am or so, do you find your mind is active? Are your thoughts sometimes distressing and circling. Do these concerns seem to diminish in the daylight, proving that the 3am thinking was irrational and unproductive? So, what’s going on? Here’s what research shows may be behind this common experience. What’s Happening in Your Body at 3am? In a normal night’s sleep, our neurobiology reaches a turning point around 3 or 4am. Core body temperature starts to rise, sleep drive is reducing (because we’ve had a chunk of sleep), secretion of melatonin (the sleep hormone) has peaked, …
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How to Reduce Anxiety and Depression
Anxiety and depression are both maintained by ways of thinking that magnify events and change how the brain works so that the longer one sits with the emotion, the less it takes to occur in the future. Studies show that up to 70 percent of people with depression also have an anxiety, and half of those suffering anxiety have symptoms of clinical depression. Overactivity of the stress response system sends areas of the brain into overdrive so that negative events make a disproportionate impact and hijack rational response systems. Basically you can't think straight. You continually think …
The basics of Meditation
Meditation is a mental exercise that trains attention and awareness. Its purpose is often to curb reactivity to one's negative thoughts and feelings, which, though they may be disturbing and upsetting and hijack attention from moment to moment, are invariably fleeting. It’s impossible for us to make our thoughts disappear; often, the more we try to suppress them, the louder they become. But practicing meditation can help clear away the mind’s chatter. Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. It can also help people recognize and accept negative …
