Silver Linings: Hormones and your health

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might have seen that I occasionally share some of the work of Alisa Vitti, founder of FLOliving. Even though mostly aimed at women with PCOS and other hormonal issues, I think her work is valid and interesting for all women.

When she was a student at med school, Alisa was diagnosed with PCOS. Instead of going for a life of medication and more medication, she opted for going out in the wild and finding a way to a better health, by delving deeper into the science of food, genes and hormones.

The result of her studies is what she calls the "WomanCode" - a protocol that suggests which foods, skills, types of exercise and other elements of self-care you should emphasize depending on where in your cycle you are. The result is an organic form of time management, that feels more natural than other linear approaches to time management. Stop wondering why sometimes you feel outgoing and other times you want to stay on the couch with a book - you can fit both elements into a monthly planning.

Dealing with PCOS myself, I've been following Alisa's course over the past months, and I've been trying really hard to implement her recommendations into my schedule. Traveling to conferences and moving from one place to the other has been a challenge, but overall I noticed improvements in my energy levels. If you are interested in her work, but don't want to make the time and financial commitment to the course, you can check out her book WomanCode,

If you are interesting in her work, I recommend you to start by checking out her recent GoogleTalk here:

Silver Linings: Listening to your inner circadian rhythm

Too often in graduate school we are running around as sleep-deprived, stressed-out zombies that just can't juggle all the tasks we have to fulfill and drop a ball here and there.

What if I tell you that I have never worked after 10pm in my entire PhD career (provided that you don't count a conference dinner as "work")? I've been tired and sleep-deprived at times, but eventually I have learned to honor my circadian rhythm and give my body the rest it needs. By now, I wake up early in the morning without needing an alarm clock, and I feel rested and refreshed.

Once I understood that my body functions differently over the course of a day, my productivity increased so much that I could go home most days before dinner, having ticked off all my tasks for the day from my to-do-list.

It takes some experimenting.

It takes some time to learn to actually listen to your body. If you're a researcher, chances are that you live from your shoulders upwards. But baby, there's a whole lotta wisdom programmed inside the rest of you.

It takes some guts to go against the flow and decide you are not going to live on tall coffees and little sleep anymore.

It takes some major prioritizing as well.

But if you're willing to take the leap, then start to tune in with yourself by paying attention* to the following:

1. Alertness during the day

When do you feel sluggish? When are you performing at your best? How can you schedule your tasks around these moments of the day?

2. Sleeping and waking times

If you don't put an alarm clock, when do you wake up - how much sleep do you really need? If you are completely sleep-deprived, it might take some time before your sleeping and waking times regulate themselves. But try sleeping earlier for a while - larks and owls are pretty much half/half of the world's population, but in graduate school, it looks like everyone is an owl. There are too many larks trying to fit themselves into an owl schedule!

3. Response to stimulants

Once you're clean with possible caffeine, sugar and fatty junk food addictions, you can tune into yourself and see how you really react to these stimulants. Most likely, you'll experience the rush and the dip that come with the change in blood sugar levels.

4. Response to exercise

If you've been in the lab until 10pm, is it a good idea to go for a run and then crash down into your bed? Most people get too energized from exercise, so experiment and see when you get the best results: early morning, in the afternoon, in the early evening or late at night?

*If you want to learn something from your body, you'll need to take it very very easy on the caffeine and sugar. Otherwise, you'll only see/feel the results of those spikes and drops in your blood sugar levels.

Writing and Cravings

Guilty as charged!

When you are spending long hours behind your computer screen to write your dissertation or your next paper, chances are high that you start to get those cravings to snack on something.

Sugary and fatty snacks can wreak havoc on your energy levels and your overall health and well-being.

But what should you do about those cravings you get while writing? I mean, you really get hungry and everything.

The problem itself are not the cravings. They are a sign you've already passed a threshold. You are already so hungry that you need a quick fix.

To avoid this problem, you can do the following:

1. Take regular breaks

When your body is so hungry and exhausted that it starts begging for a quick shot of sugar, it typically means you have been working incessantly for the past few hours.

Schedule regular five minute breaks throughout your days - and I mean: real breaks, surfing the internet does not count! Get up from your chair, gaze out of the window, savor a cup of tea, do some stretches - you get the picture.

2. Honor your lunch

Processed carbs, like pasta and bread result in a peak in your blood sugar levels, then a crash.
You might think of lunch as a quick run to the food court. Even worse, you might just shove down whatever while you keep on working.

Try having a balanced lunch instead: lean protein, complex carbs and healthy fat. Chances are very high you'll avoid that dip in the afternoon and won't be craving for a sugary treat to bump your energy up again (and then crash again).

3. Track your cravings

Do you have a fixed time of the day when you get a craving? Somewhere around 3pm for example? Start tracking when your cravings occurs (just jot down a note in Evernote, for example), and analyze your cravings after tracking these for some time.

If your cravings happen at a fixed time during the day, have a break 30 minutes earlier and eat a fruit or a yoghurt in peace. Craving tackled!

4. Have alternatives ready

So if all else fails, and you still have the urge to shove something into your mouth while writing, then make sure you have snacks available in your office - healthy snacks. At least you don't need a run on the vending machine then. Good snacks for during writing are fruits (although you might end up spilling juice over your keyboard), dried fruits and nuts.

Do you get major cravings when writing for a long time? Do you take a break, or do you stuff something into your mouth?

Silver Linings: Meditation, your Brain and your Heart

Two months ago, I shared a podcast that shows the beneficial impact of meditation on the brain.

Along the same lines, I am glad to be able to share this GoogleTechTalk with you. It shows some very interesting research on the reaction of the brain and heart to compassion training.



You can sign up for a mindfulness course online here - I recommended it wholeheartedly. Thanks to this course, I now get up early in the morning to meditate.

Silver Linings: Your Daily Checklist

I recently came across The Daily Checklist on Zen Habits.

These are the most powerful ideas in the article:

A good tool for learning to trust yourself to do all the important stuff is to make a daily checklist. Put 5-7 things on there. Try to get almost all of them done each day, but know that it’s not always fated to happen. Often things that aren’t in your control come up and change your plans.

Notice that social media, reading news, watching TV, checking email, browsing my favorite sites, sharing photos … none of these are on the list. If I’m doing one of these things and not one of my daily checklist items, I’m probably not doing the right thing.

For the past years, I too have been writing a few things in my planner every day, and gradually these have evolved into My Daily Checklist, to use Zen Habits terms.

The following items are on my Daily Checklist:

1. Meditate
Meditation is simply every day in my planner. Whatever happens, I try to find at least 5 minutes to give my brain its necessary exercise.

2. Exercise
Going to the gym, biking to work, or simply squeezing in 10 minutes of yoga - after an entire day of thinking and researching, my body needs its share of attention too.

3. Write
So Important. At the office. I track my progress with the PhDometer, and I try to write at least 500 words each day. Even on days that are dedicated to research, meetings and other non-writing activities, I try to write a few lines in a report, paper or summary.

At home, I spend some time writing every day as well: poetry, blog posts or CD reviews.

4. Journal
After using 750 words consistently for some time, I switched back to journaling longhand - and I use an extended form of journaling that also incorporates gratitude lists, success lists and my dreams.

5. Fresh juice
I've had my juicer for almost a year and a half now, and I try to make fresh juice every day. Previously, I mostly used it to make fruit juices (or my beloved orange - carrot - ginger combination), but since the beginning of 2013, I've added green juice to my toolkit.

6. Reflect
Whether I work on my Life Handbook and check my progress towards my goals and purpose, or simply ask myself if I give the best of myself today, I try to make some time and space every day to reflect.

7. Learn something new
Every day, I try to learn something new, outside of my research. There's so much information freely available online. from this vast sea of knowledge, I try to learn something new. I watch TED Talks, Google Tech Talks, enroll in MOOCs, listen to podcasts and generally try to keep an open and curious attitude towards life.

What is on your daily checklist? You can share it in the comments, or reply with a post!

Silver Linings: Kickstart your health

Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body - we all know that to be at our very best, our bodies need to be healthy.

Kim Lyons makes it sound all so logical and easy in this presentation. It's long, but watch it.

Remember: you have full control over what you put into your body and how much you move your body.

So get away from your computer screen and do some exercise. Have some energizing healthy snacks in your office. Bring a warm meal for lunch, leave the salad for dinner.

Silver Linings: 10 minutes of Standing Yoga

Flickr image under CC license by Go Interactive Wellness

If you need a little pick-me-up, or you want to be nice to your body after sitting behind your computer for more than an entire day and get some stretching, this post is for you!

You can brighten up your afternoon dip, evening lull or morning/bedtime ritual with some simple standing yoga routines. 

As much as I like squeezing in a short yoga routine on the days when I don't work out, it is the standing yoga that I find the most powerful tool in my kit.

Ten minutes is almost nothing. It's the time you can spend on the internet, watching kitten pictures, or the time hanging around by the coffee machine and catching up with a colleague.

You can, for example, use these 10 minutes in between Pomodoro sessions.

Why precisely standing yoga?

Standing yoga has the following advantages:
- you don't need a yoga mat
- you don't need a clean floor (my alternative because I don't have a mat)
- you don't need much space
- you can do this in your regular clothes (heels not recommended)
- you can do this pretty much everywhere: in your office, in your room, outside...
- 10 minutes is enough to bring your awareness to your body
- 10 minutes is enough to refresh and reframe
- it's super easy
- you can simply watch YouTube tutorials on your computer or phone
- you need to focus on your breathing
- for the balancing poses: you need to concentrate very well not to fall over

Do you feel like trying it out?

Here's a few tutorials you can follow to get started:

Beat stress by breathing with your diaphragm

 

When you are stressed out, sometimes all it might take to get grip on the situation again is to halt yourself, and take a few, deep breaths.

Even though I wrote about breathing exercises previously, I did not touch upon how to breathe exactly for this purpose.

To calm your body's reaction to stress, you can use diaphragmatic breathing. I could describe it, but the video below shows you in 2 minutes how to find your deep breathing for yourself.

Do take 2 minutes to get the basic idea of breathing with your diaphragm:

Letting Go

Over the last few months, I have felt that I gradually started to slip my PhD down on my priority list.

While finishing is still one of my top priorities (don't get me wrong), I've finally managed to let more important things in my life be on top again.

Maybe I simply still am cherishing my honeymoon feeling, but somehow I have the impression that through the wedding preparations, the actual wedding and the honeymoon, I've gained a fresh perspective.


Maybe I am just getting older and finding it easier to put things into perspective.

Maybe it is a consequence of my actions to Simplify, and adopting a more minimalist view on the world.

Whatever caused this, I have recognized this newly gained ability of letting go of worries as one of the greatest tools in the final months of dissertation writing.

And while I cannot really pinpoint what caused this shift in mindset, I can recommend the following ways of letting go and getting a new and refreshed outlook on your PhD research:

1. Escape for a weekend

If your head starts to fill up and your thoughts can't move around anymore, you're already way beyond the point where you need a break. Grab your beloved, your parents, your friends or whoever is up for a little break and head out for a weekend.

2. Take a side project

Divert your thoughts by taking one of your hobbies (as part of forming your creative habit) to the next level. Turn it into an actual side project, and engage in this activity for a significant amount of time per week. Don't just run, but train for a race. Don't just play music, but sign up for an open podium and work towards a performance.

3. List your priorities

Time for a reality check. If you can't think of nothing else but your thesis, have nightmares of everything that can go wrong when printing, or all the possible negative feedback your committee could come up with, then it's time to see if you really wanted your thesis to be the most important thing in your life. No, right? So - grab a pen or open your Google Drive or Evernote, and make a list of what keeps you busy in life. Identify your priorities, and go and spend a little more time on your other interests.

4. Question your worries

For every panicky thought that crosses your mind, you can train yourself to actually question that thought. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What's the reason for this panicky thought?
- To avoid real panic, what should I do?
- If something really needs to be done, when can you do it?
- Schedule it, and tell yourself - see, we are going to do it, and all will be fine.

5. Use a guided meditation

If you can't sleep without the nightmares, try freeing some space in your mind by using a guided meditation,

Never Grow Up: Today, but also Tomorrow

Never grow up is our theme for today. Today is the day to eat from a Happy Meal lunchbox, to hop around and shake to the lunchbeats, to make some new friends, to play games, kick some balloons and forget about the reality of the world.

It’s a day in Neverland and you’re Peter or Tinkerbell today. Almost a year of preparations, brainstorming and having fun along the way have brought us to the Big Day. Your five sense are to be thrilled. Your imagination is about to take on a soaring flight. Sit back, but don’t relax – engage with everything and everyone around you.


But this evening you’ll be walking out of these doors again, and when you look back, Neverland might be gone forever.We don’t want the atmosphere to just dry out like that – we want to keep the flame for many more days to come.

So, how can we bring the spark of childhood into our lives? Here are a few ideas I have:

1. Stay curious
Keep asking questions – we already mentioned that. Keep wondering about why you do things, and which constraints these decisions place on your life.
Keep learning, evolving and improving yourself. Reinvent yourself from time to time. Nothing is written in stone.

2. Living light
Remember The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera? Let all that gravitas go, it will only weigh you down. A lost day is just that: a lost day.

3. Play
Play with children, play with pets, play with random objects – there’s no reason why you should give up playing because you’re a grown-up now.

4. Surround yourself with like-minded people
You’re already at a TEDx Event today, with people that love to learn and be inspired. But that shouldn’t end today – there are many opportunities to connect and learn with like-minded spirits.

5. Laugh and sing
Laugh out loud, sing in the shower and whistle while you work – Gretchen Rubin has some good ideas for you on that topic!

This post originally appeared on the TEDx Delft website. 

Mindfulness - an update

One of my resolutions for 2011 was to start meditating and practicing mindfulness. Soon, one quarter of 2011 will be gone already (time flies!) and so I thought it was time for an update on my trials.

Facts

The first 1,5 months of my trials, I was practicing roughly 4 evenings per week. I first followed some online guided meditations, then I started focusing on my breathing in silence for a set amount of time, and now recently I started to listen to guided meditations on my Ipod.

Results

As I've been trying out different styles, I think different styles of meditation have their pros and cons.

Guided meditation:
+ Help me to focus on the voice
+ Can guide me to very deep relaxation
- Less "active"
- I tend to fall asleep

Focusing on breathing:
+ More active, I cannot relax and follow a voice
+ Makes me feel very "aware"
- My mind wanders terribly
- I don't have a good timer, setting my cell phone stopwatch for 10 minutes is not the nicest way to have a meditation ended

Progress
The positive progress is that I've started to live more mindfully, or at least I'm trying to. I'm trying to point my focus on one thing at a time. I try to focus more on what I'm precisely doing when I'm eating or biking and I try to give my undivided attention when I"m talking to someone.
The negative progress is that I've been slacking off with the meditation practice for the past few weeks. These past weeks have been quite stressful and overly busy, so it would be great to clear my head with a short mindfulness exercise, regain focus and then get my work done. Unfortunately, old habits die hard and in my most stressful times I tend to slack off, procrastinate and panic.

Favorite links
Here's a collection of websites with guided meditations:
http://portlandpsychotherapyclinic.com/mindfulness_and_acceptance_exercises
http://quietmindcafe.com/sympathetic-breathing.html
http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/index.html
http://integraleric.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-learn-to-meditate.html (although I"m still not getting the point of their audio file at all)

Lack of sleep - Part two

I previously wrote about how lack of sleep can influence your creativity.

Since I've started to do some efforts to get more sleep, I've noticed additional benefits. Although I still struggle to set boundaries and end the day while I "still have so much things to do", I've been making progress. Here are 5 additional benefits of getting enough sleep.

1. More time during the weekends

I used to cut back on sleep during the week and then sleep in during the weekends, usually until noon. I'd end up unable to sleep on Sunday night, and start the week tired already. I now suddenly have the mornings of the weekend available as well, which I can use for work, or to go to the gym, or arrange some things in my house. It feels as if my weekend has become longer.

2. Performing better at work

I'm simply sharper, more able to focus and I have more power and energy to work in the lab. I'm not depending on coffee at all anymore - I've switched to an occasional cup of green tea and water for the rest of the day. Only when I'm having a snack with chocolate, I get coffee because I like the combination of the taste of chocolate and coffee. I don't need to fuel myself with caffeine to soldier through the day anymore.

3. Feeling less tempted to procrastinate

As a result of the previous, I can get through an entire afternoon of reading with only 2 or 3 random internet browsing sessions. That's quite an improvement for me!

4. Feeling more fit and healthy

Waking up after a decent night of sleep, helps me to feel fit from the start of the day. I've noticed that I have more energy since I am now biking faster uphill, performing better at the gym, carrying heavier objects in the lab and running up the stairs instead of taking the elevator.

5. Having the feeling of accomplishment

I'm still logging my bedtimes, and whenever I manage to log a time before 11pm (giving me 8 hours of sleep), I add a little smiley next to my time. In weeks during which I see 4 smileys, I feel I've made progress with my resolution. That gives me a sense of accomplishment, and boosts my self-esteem as I am taking myself and my resolution serious.