How to Stay Mindful in a Chaotic World

It feels like every five seconds something is vying for my attention. Even if I have "nothing to do" I can still break out my phone and find hours worth of content to read, fights to join on the internet, and influencer examples of how my life "should" look. 

The result of all this is, even though I'm mostly self-quarantined, it still feels like I have no time for mindfulness. 

Today I want to explore a little about why that is, and how to practice mindfulness in easy ways.

The opposite of mindful is mindless.

Think of the mindless things you do every day.

For me, it's grabbing food from a drive-through window and eating it in the car, scrolling through Instagram and Facebook posts at a mile a minute, and diving deep into Youtube or Netflix holes and just watching content for hours. 

How do I know they're mindless? 

Because I do them without thinking. 

I very seldom sit down and think "I want to go on Facebook and connect with my friends right now". Instead, I just look up from my phone at some point and realize that I've been scrolling for about 20 minutes and I don't even remember opening the app. 

Sometimes I'll fix myself a plate of food and the next thing I know I've been on my couch for three hours watching a new Netflix show. Sometimes, if I don't even really like the show, I will continue to sit there watching it AND open my phone and scroll through Facebook or Instagram. 

These activities start like reactions, like habits, and not intentionally. 

Partly, this is because these apps are specifically designed to be habit-forming. They make more money the more we use them. So they're designed to be addictive. 

But mindless behavior also happens as a result of me not wanting to deal with unpleasant emotions, like boredom, loneliness, or stress. Not in a helpful way that helps me actually deal with these emotions, of course, but in an anesthetic way that can take me out of my own mind for a while. 

When I'm in any way uncomfortable, I seek distractions. And distractions are the opposite of mindfulness. 

Finding mindfulness. 

Step 1. Minimize distractions. 

Put your phone away somewhere. Don't keep it with you. You are much less likely to find yourself mindlessly scrolling or mindlessly playing a game or diving into a research rabbit hole if your phone is even a short walk away in another room. You can also uninstall problematic apps, like Instagram or Youtube, from your phone if you find yourself using them without intending to. You can always reinstall them later once you've found new strategies to help manage your stress and emotions. 

Step 2. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is hard, especially when you're not used to it. It can feel boring or uncomfortable to be in the present moment because we're used to being constantly distracted by entertainment or our own thoughts. 

Start small and practice often, just like any new skill you're learning. Don't shoot for a 20-minute meditation session right off the bat. 

Instead, try doing a few tasks mindfully. 

Turn off your podcasts, your music, your audiobooks, and go for a walk with just the ambient noise around you. 

Wash your dishes mindfully, or play with your dogs mindfully. 

Choose one or two things and decide that, for the duration of that activity, you will choose to stay present and not add any extra stimulation. 

Step 3. Find Mindful Friends

It's more enjoyable to stay present when people you enjoy are there with you. While I don't recommend trying to push your significant other, friends, or family into a mindfulness practice (better to lead by example and avoid any fights!) I do recommend putting yourself in situations where you can be mindfully present with others. Maybe this is a book club or yoga class, where everyone is present in the moment and has their phones away. It might be a church group or a hiking club. Even virtual gatherings can be mindful if you manage them right. 

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Do you have your own go-to strategies for staying mindful when the world seems to be pulling you off track? I’d love to hear about them.

And, as always, if you need a little extra support getting your mindfulness practice going, click here to set up a free 30-minute intro call with me today!

Simple Tips To Lose Weight

Looking at the wellness industry right now, you might start to believe that the only way to actually lose weight and keep it off is to put a bike in your living room or go to boutique fitness studios every day. Or maybe do a juice fast?

Even if you’re not up for anything that extreme, there are lots of simple things you can do that cost almost no money to help you lose weight in a simple, sustainable way. Here are three of my favorites.

 Drink more water

Hunger and thirst can send the same signals to your body, so staying well-hydrated cuts down on cravings.

 I know you probably heard this one before. We all know that we should be drinking water, that water hydrates us and that it's better for us and sugary sodas, coffee beverages, or even bottled teas and juices with lots of sugar. But you may not know just how much water you should be drinking. In general, you should be aiming to drink about half of your body weight in ounces of water each day. so if you are about a hundred and eighty pounds, like me you would be looking to drink at least 90 oz of water each day. Then, you’ll want to take into consideration how much you're exercising how hot it is and how dry it is in your climate. in the summer in Florida, I will drink way more water than 90 ounces each day just to stay hydrated. To make sure that you are drinking the right amount of water it's easy to grab a refillable water bottle that holds a certain number of ounces. I use a 32 oz container for my water each day. I know that if I empty that water bottle three times I have more than that my water goals for the day.

Move every 20 minutes

 Many of us spend our days behind a desk or otherwise sitting down. Whether you are a student or a professional, or even if you are just job searching. I mean, I'm a health coach and I still spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer. Our bodies are built for movement much more than they are for sitting, and yet we spend most of our time sitting and almost none of our time moving around. Even if you are just standing up and doing a few stretches every 20 minutes or so while you're still working this is huge for your body. 

Here are a few things that you can try. You can do it simple stretches or yoga at your desk. You can stand up and walk to the bathroom. You get bonus points if you walk to the farthest away bathroom instead of the closest one. You can even take a short walk to say hi to a co-worker or friends. It doesn't have to be big or fancy. Just getting your body up out of your chair for a few minutes is enough.

And this doesn't end when your workday ends! Once you’re home, instead of parking on the couch for the whole night set an alarm to go off every 20 to 30 minutes to remind you to get up and move around. Now that we are watching all our shows on Netflix, we don't always have the luxury of commercials to remind us when it's time to get up and take a break, so using a timer can really help.

Eat your vegetables

 It is really hard to fit vegetables into our day. If you look at what sold at the convenience stores, gas stations, fast-food restaurants and even within the prepared food section of your grocery store, it’s either carbs or meats or some combination of the two. It can be a challenge to fit the right amount of vegetables into your day.

Generally, we should be eating more vegetables than almost anything else in our diet. Leafy greens, squash, tomatoes, onions, broccoli... all of the vegetables. All of them! Instead, even if you order a salad from a restaurant, that salad is normally some vegetables plus meat and cheese and croutons and a dressing that's probably not that great for you. Eating raw veggies is kind of gross sometimes too, and not that appetizing to most of us. But if you increase your intake of vegetables, that's going to do a ton for helping you manage your weight or lose weight and it’s going to increase your energy. So for an easy way to get more vegetables into your day, there are two things you can do one is make sure that you're a lunch has a lot of veggies or your dinner if you eat lunch out. 

Have at least one meal a day that is fully loaded with delicious vegetables. This can be a salad, a vegetarian dish, or maybe it's a veggie soup or stew. I'm a fan of warm vegetables versus raw, but you do what works best for you. Make sure that at least one meal a day is all loaded up with good veggies and this will help manage your appetite and your energy levels throughout the day by making sure your body is getting the nutrients you need. You can follow me on Instagram for more recipes that have tons of good veggies coming up soon!