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Why You Don’t Need to Hustle to Have a Fulfilling Life + How to Quit the “Cult”of Hustle for Good

AHA Publisher — Fri, 13 May 2022 07:00:05 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #379) and blog, I talk to former Wall Street lawyer and top podcast host Jordan Harbinger about hustle culture, burnout, and so much more! In a recent blog, Jordan talked about “hustle culture” and how it affects our mental and physical wellbeing and quality of life. Hustle culture is a term used to refer to the “rise and grind” attitude of work, work, work. It is what Jordan calls the “the ethos of constantly working your butt off in the pursuit of some vague goal, no matter the cost”. Hustle culture puts work on a pedestal that towers over everything else in our lives. It “glorifies nonstop labor, brute-force drive….as well as the publicity of that effort, by constantly talking and posting about how damn hard you’re working” and what you are sacrificing, even if what you are giving up is friendship, sanity or joy. It may look like resilience, but it is what Jordan calls “blind resilience”. Hustle culture is underpinned by the assumption that it is always possible to break through and improve your situation, IF you are just motivated enough and work hard. Of course, in certain situations it is good to emphasize hard work and achieving your goals, but this should not consume your every waking moment or destroy the things which make your life worth living. In fact, it is unhealthy to think that you can excel at everything all the time IF you are motivated enough. It doesn’t take mere motivation to be good at something or succeed at something. Unfortunately, the purveyors of hustle culture tap into this desire to be “more than” that many of us have-the longing to have purpose and our fear of failure. They manipulate these feelings to sell us stuff that they promise will get us to where we want to be, IF we are motivated and work hard. Baked into this attitude is the assumption that “anyone who doesn’tdevote their life to rising and grinding is scared, lazy, defective, entitled and/or unworthy of success”. As Jordan points out, this is the unfortunately common idea that “work = good, work = success, work = the only way to live a fulfilling life”. It is a one-size-fits-all lie. Hustle culture often leads to burnout, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, shame and many other issues that affect our mental and physical health and quality of life. Say, for example, you work really hard but what you are trying to achieve doesn’t work out. According to hustle culture, it is because you are unworthy of success, lazy, bad and so on. The fault lies in you, and you alone, which is an incredibly toxic mindset to have. Hustle culture sells people a lie, that if they do x then y will happen, and then places the blame on the individual when things don’t work out. They sell the destination, not the journey, and blame the individual for not achieving the impossible. It is about entrapment, not empowerment. We need to remember that failure is part of life. Things often do not work out as planned, for a multiplicity of reasons, even if we have the best of intentions, are incredibly motivated and work really hard. Hustle culture sells the lie that this is not the case—it denies the nature of what it means to be human and to live in a world that is complex and multifaceted. Work is an important part of life, yes, but it is not the only way to have a fulfilling life. The simple idea that more work is always better is a recipe for misery. There is a lot more to life than just working! Most people who are high performers get meaning from their work, not the results of their work. For these people, it is not about the yachts, fancy cars or flying first class. It is about what they do—the journey, not the destination. They find meaning in their work, whereas hustle culture places emphasis on the destination and traffics in negative emotions to get there. Hustle culture wants you to feel like a failure so you keep trying to get ahead. It wants you to feel that if you don’t get these results, such as getting rich, driving a fancy car or flying first class, then you can’t be happy, which is simply not true. If you think that you have to work, work, work and get rich to be happy, then that’s a good sign that you are listening to toxic hustle culture. Even if you magically got all the results of working hard tomorrow, you wouldn’t necessarily be content, because you are not focused on fulfillment, which is what truly adds meaning and purpose to life. Work is about the journey, not just the destination. True creativity and learning often occurs in the moments when we are not just focusing on “work, work, work”—when we give ourselves time to let our minds wander. Thankfully, there are ways we can quit toxic hustle culture and start living a more fulfilled life: Keep track of your thoughts. If your thoughts are focused on new opportunities or approaches, this is good. But if your thoughts are only focused on what you have not done or what you need to do to get “ahead” or achieve what someone else has achieved, you are letting hustle culture shape your thinking. Focus on how and what you are thinking about—don’t let hustle culture shape your mind and choices! Embrace, don’t suppress, uncomfortable emotions. Negative feelings like anxiety and grief do not mean you are a failure. These are feelings you can learn from. Hustle culture preys on negative emotions to manipulate and commodify you—don’t give it this power over your life! Learn to get comfortable with uncomfortable emotions like disappointment and anxiety, and explore them; these feelings are signals telling you about what is going on in your life. Don’t look for quick fixes. Working on yourself and finding fulfillment takes time. This will look different for different people, so don’t compare your journey to other people, and be wary of anyone who offers you a one-size-fits-all approach to success. Study your patterns. Are you actually making progress? Is your fulfillment going up? Or do you feel like you are going backwards? What patterns do you observe in your life? Has hustling and grinding actually gotten you anywhere? When you become aware of your patterns, you will have a better grip not only on where your life is going, but also where you WANT your life to go—that is, what direction your life takes and why. Create your own values. Don’t just let hustle culture dictate what you value and seek after. What do you actually want? How do you want your life to play out? What do you value? What principles underscore the way you live your life? Family first? Health first? When you know your own values and principles, you will be less likely to be swayed by hustle culture’s empty promises. Watch what you consume. What kind of things are you exposed to? Are you “addicted” to hustle culture content? What can you change? Can you listen to things that are more helpful and fulfilling? Our brains merge with our environments—what is shaping your brain and thinking? Are you consuming a lot of hustle culture, rise and grind content? How can you change this? To read the original article click here.

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Restore Mental Clarity and Ease Digestive Discomfort with This Soothing “Superhero” Spice in Your Kitchen

AHA Publisher — Wed, 04 May 2022 07:00:31 +0000

Lori Alton via NaturalHealth365 – The clean, spicy taste of ginger root adds a lively, refreshing note to sauces, soups, and salads. But this versatile herb – botanically known as Zingiber officinale – has a lot more to offer than merely an intriguing flavor. A staple of the ancient Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese healing systems, ginger has been advised for centuries to address nausea, joint pain, and a host of other ailments. Now, scientists are getting “on board” with the beneficial effects of ginger. In a 2020 review study published in the scientific journal Nutrients, researchers credited constituents in ginger with anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and therapeutic properties. Let’s look at some of the ways in which soothing, refreshing ginger supports modern-day health and well-being. Calm Nausea and Promote Efficient Digestion With Ginger The queasy, dizzy “green-around-the-gills” sensation of being carsick or seasick can threaten to spoil even the most idyllic road trip or ocean cruise. Fortunately, some scientists believe that ginger can quell motion sickness even more effectively than pharmaceutical anti-nausea drugs – and achieve this without causing toxic side effects. What’s the secret? Ginger appears to quicken the speed at which the stomach empties, which may help decrease nausea, stomach discomfort, and bloating. Multiple reviews and studies have suggested that ginger may help with nausea resulting from chemotherapy (which affects up to 75 percent of all chemo patients). Ginger may help reduce nausea following surgical procedures, as well. Finally, a full 80 percent of pregnant women report experiencing morning sickness, especially in the first and second trimesters. Here, again, ginger may help. In one review involving over 1,200 pregnant volunteers and published in Nutrition Journal, dosages of one gram to one-and-a-half grams of ginger significantly reduced nausea. (Caution: pregnant women with vaginal bleeding and/or clotting disorders, who have had miscarriages, or who are close to giving birth should avoid ginger. Consult your obstetrician before using ginger for morning sickness). Ease Post-Workout Pain With Ginger The main bioactive components in ginger – gingerols, and shogaols – are “key players” in its anti-inflammatory properties. Both compounds have been shown to inhibit pro-inflammatory substances in the body, via the COX and LOX pathways. And, for good measure, ginger’s constituents also interfere with the action of xanthine oxidase, an enzyme involved in creating destructive free radicals. In plain English, this means that ginger can promote the health of body systems, such as the circulatory and musculoskeletal systems. Some scientists maintain that ginger may even help soothe occasional soreness caused by overwork or strenuous exercise. For example, in one older (but still influential) controlled study, volunteers performed eccentric actions of the elbow flexors to induce pain and inflammation. The researchers found that daily supplementation with two grams of ginger resulted in “moderate-to-large” reductions in muscle pain, leading the team to call ginger “effective” for this purpose. So, if you’ve ever overdone things in your fitness routine or day-to-day activities, it could help to reach for the ginger. By the way, ginger may also help soothe routine menstrual cramps. Neuroprotective Ginger Can Promote Mental Clarity and Support the Health of Brain Cells With the relentless demands on our time and attention exerted by the modern world, it’s no surprise that many of us experience occasional bouts of impaired concentration, sluggish thinking, and mental fatigue – a state commonly known as “brain fog.” Ginger could be just the thing to lift the “fog” and help restore clear thinking. It appears that ginger inhibits the production of acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine (a neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, crucial to learning and memory). Ginger also helps promote brain health by protecting glial cells, which remove inflammatory debris and toxins from the brain. While more research is needed, one clinical study showed that ginger enhanced attention and cognitive processing in middle-aged women. And, in an animal study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, scientists concluded that dried ginger improved novel objection recognition and enhanced memory. If you feel your concentration and attention are flagging, a revivifying cup of ginger tea could certainly be worth a try. Use Ginger Root Fresh or Dried Fresh ginger root (technically not the root, but the rhizome – or underground stem – of the ginger plant) can be washed, peeled, then chopped, sliced, or grated for use in recipes or beverages. You can make ginger tea by washing, peeling, and thinly slicing an inch or two of the fresh root, then steeping for ten minutes in hot water. Strain, allow to cool, and enjoy – taking small, slow sips. Natural healers advise drinking up to four cups a day. When eaten in the amounts usually found in food, ginger is generally considered safe. Consuming excessive amounts, however, could cause heartburn in some individuals. Dried, powdered ginger is available in convenient capsule form. Natural healers typically advise amounts ranging from 1,000 mg to 2,000 mg a day, taken in divided doses. Of course, we suggest you get the “go-ahead” from a trusted integrative healthcare provider before supplementing with ginger. Bottom line: whether you’re looking for a quick mental “re-set” from brain fog, a drug-free boost of energy or natural relief from upset stomach and nausea, versatile ginger just might be the herbal “superhero” you need. Sources for this article include: Healthline.com NIH.gov Healthline.com NIH.gov FiveStarSeniorLiving.com NIH.gov To read the original article click here.

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Gluten-Free Diet Offers INCREDIBLE Benefits to Celiac Sufferers, Way Beyond Intestinal Support

AHA Publisher — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 07:00:06 +0000

Karen Sanders via NaturalHealth365 – Are you having trouble with concentration? Does your brain feel clouded and confused? Or, maybe, you just feel like you’re losing your mental clarity and creativity. This frustrating collection of symptoms – medically known as cognitive impairment and informally known as “brain fog” – is unfortunately very familiar to many individuals with celiac disease, an autoimmune digestive disorder that affects roughly 3 million Americans. Research published in the July 2014 issue of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics shows that adhering to a strict gluten-free diet causes improvements in cognitive function, sharpening memory, and increasing concentration and comprehension – improvements directly correlated with the extent of the intestinal healing. Why Is This Study So Significant? Researchers had suspected that treating celiac disease with a strict gluten-free diet would relieve intestinal symptoms and other related problems. However, this concept had not been clinically tested until now. It is interesting to note that not only did improvement occur, but it seemed precisely linked with the amount of healing that had taken place in the small intestine. Gluten-free diet improves cognitive function. Here is how… In the year-long pilot study, which involved volunteers with newly diagnosed celiac disease, participants were given a battery of cognition tests before the study began, then re-tested at the 12th week and again at the 52nd week. The tests were designed to assess each participants’ attention span, information processing ability, memory, visuospatial ability, and motor function. The volunteers worked with sequences of letters and numbers – which tests processing speed and mental flexibility – generated random words – a test of verbal fluency that measures frontal lobe functioning – and memorized lists of words – a test that measures short-term memory and immediate recall. Did any other testing take place? Yes. At weeks 12 and 52, small bowel biopsies were also performed compared to baseline biopsies performed at the beginning of the study. Researchers also used Marsh scores, which measure damage to the intestinal mucosa and levels of tissue transglutaminase antibody concentrations. Study Reveals Amazing Results from a Gluten-Free Diet The gluten-free diet caused significant improvement, with a full quarter of the patients achieving mucosal remission by the study’s end; others experienced partial but substantial improvements. The participants achieved substantial cognitive improvements over baseline and directly related to the level of mucosal healing. Particularly dramatic was the improvement in quality of attention, verbal fluency, and motor function. Senior study author Dr. Greg Yelland remarked that the work showcases the importance of a gluten-free diet for those with celiac disease – and that the diet relieves the physical impact of the disease and the intellectual impairments. On the other hand, untreated celiac disease causes suboptimal levels of cognition that can interfere with the patient’s concentration and memory, thereby affecting their ability to perform everyday tasks. Celiac Disease Can Cause Serious Physical and Cognitive Issues The University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center estimates that of the 3 million Americans currently affected by celiac disease, a shocking 97 percent are undiagnosed. A lack of digestive symptoms causes many to be “in the dark” about the condition, which is caused when a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley causes the immune system to attack the small intestine, damaging its lining and the hair-like projections, or villi. This damage results in impaired absorption of nutrients, leading to osteoporosis and vitamin deficiencies. In severe cases, patients can suffer amnesia and personality changes; milder cases result in “brain fog.” While classic signs of celiac disease are diarrhea and weight loss, many people have no digestive symptoms. Earlier clinical research has shown cognitive impairments were present in many celiac disease patients This study was not the first to show that cognitive impairments can occur with celiac disease. In a 2001 study published in Brain, researchers discovered that celiac disease patients suffered cognitive impairments affecting immediate recall, verbal fluency, and executive function. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology showed that elderly patients with celiac disease had cognitive impairments so severe that some had been wrongly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When the patients were treated with a gluten-free diet, symptoms subsided. Going Gluten-Free Can Be a Challenge, But There’s Help With more than 2,000 gluten-free food items now available in the U.S. – and many commonly found in conventional supermarkets – gluten-free products are big business. Since 2006, The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act has dictated that all gluten products must be clearly listed on food labels. Although this makes it easier to go gluten-free, you should naturally first seek diagnosis and treatment with a knowledgeable doctor experienced with celiac disease. The Mayo Clinic advises that wheat, rye, and barley are not the only foods celiac patients should avoid: bulgur, durum, farina, graham flour, and semolina are also off-limits. Celiac disease can be a debilitating condition when untreated; however, a gluten-free diet can provide excellent results, improving not only intestinal health but also the counter-productive, frustrating mental condition so colorfully known as “brain fog.” Sources for this article include: ScienceDaily.com Wiley.com MayoClinic.org To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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The Neuroscience of Dreams & Nightmares + How to Have Better Dreams

AHA Publisher — Mon, 24 May 2021 07:00:57 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #278) and blog, I talk about dreaming and mental health. This topic was inspired by an email I recently received: “Since dreams come from our busy minds, can we slowly over time change our dreams in some way? I do not always remember dreams obviously but when I am awakened by dreams (often) or remember the next day, I do have a recurring pattern of always hurrying or being super frustrated, anxious! I cannot help but think this is part of why I get so tired some days as I do not rest peacefully at night. I’m just thinking dreams must be all part of the mental mind and I would love to have my dreams peaceful, pleasant, restful, whether I remember the dream or not, I feel like not having all the anxiety and frustration in the dreams would be very helpful to my awake hours.” This is a great question, and one I think applies to a lot of people (including myself!). Why? We need to remember that detoxing the mind and brain doesn’t just take place when we are awake. We also detox our thoughts when we are asleep; in fact, our dreams can help us sort out our thoughts and clean up our mental mess. They have a purpose—recurring dreams may even indicate an unresolved issue in our lives, so it is important that we try and pay attention to what we dream about. But how? Isn’t it hard to remember your dreams? People often tell me they can’t recall what they dreamt about or that they don’t dream. But the fact is that we all dream; it’s a neuroscientific process. Dreams are generally forgotten because either they have been processed or they are suppressed by the nonconscious mind because they are too hard or painful to deal with. Dreams occur during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. We start with non-REM sleep (NREM), where the mind and brain stop processing the outside world, which then progresses into REM sleep, where the mind and brain starts processing our inner thought life. Thoughts with their embedded memories are stored in three places: the mind, the brain and the body. The strong emotions that are tangled with the data of these thoughts can create an imbalance and disruption to homeostasis of the mind brain and body if they are toxic or undealt with. When we are asleep, the nonconscious mind steps to sort out these imbalances and tries to restore order and balance to your thinking. But the nonconscious can only fix things to a point; it requires the interaction of the consciousmind to resolve issues. To get the attention of the conscious mind, the information is released like “bubbles” and the content is expressed in your nonconscious mind as stories complete with a plot and characters in the language of your everyday awareness. This does not always appear in ways that allow you to immediately or easily understand things, which is why dreams can often be confusing. During the day, we process our experience with active and dynamic self-regulation. This means that the conscious and nonconscious mind work together, and we process from the concrete to the abstract. At night, on the other hand, we process the other way around, because just the nonconscious mind is involved, which operates outside of the space-time environment. This contributes to the strangeness of our dreams. Some dream experts even suggest that our perceptions are processed in dreams in a backward way – that is we don’t see things quite the same way as we do during the day, although the science regarding dreams is still in its infancy. Since all thoughts are made of data, feelings and choices, dreams can have a strong emotional impact, as I am sure you well know. I myself have woken up crying or in pain, and couldn’t even remember what I dreamt about! Dreams involve thinking about abstract ideas that are represented visually, which is another reason they can be so confusing mentally and emotionally. Neurochemically, when we are awake, the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine help us line up our thoughts, apply logic and process what we are experiencing; we only get burst of acetylcholine (another neurotransmitter) as something grabs our attention. At nighttime, acetylcholine is active, which helps us consolidate our thoughts with their embedded memories, while serotonin and norepinephrine shut down. The firing of acetylcholine without the “logic power” that serotonin and norepinephrine bring can also make our dreams feel strange or odd. As we fall into REM sleep, a host of signals fires up from the pons (part of the brain stem) into the cortex but not the frontal lobe, so the reasoning and rational explanations that happen when we are conscious don’t occur. This means we don’t have a rational explanation of the mix of thoughts that make up our dreams. The signals then move to the amygdala, where our emotional library of perceptions is woken up, creating a busy dream characterized by feelings that may not make much sense. But all this strangeness doesn’t mean that dreams are not important. When we are dreaming, different parts of the brain and body are exchanging information to clean up our memory networks and prepare us for the next day. The nonconscious mind sweeps through your “thought forests”, while the detail of the memories on these thought trees are being pulled out by the mind with the help of the glial cells (support cells in the brain), which are stimulated to get to work to prepare you for the next day. This process includes sorting out unresolved issues that threaten balance and coherence in the brain. Dreams are the result of all this intense “housework”. The poorly built, incompletely processed or toxic trauma thoughts with their embedded memories are a part of the process of cleaning up our mental mess. The other part of the equation that is equally important is our conscious involvement with our dreams, i.e. us thinking about and analyzing our dreams when we are awake. Dreams are also important in helping stabilize new information we have learned during the day. Thoughts with their embedded memories become physically stronger as we dream. If we learn something new during the day, after a good night’s sleep, we will have better understanding of what we learned, so “sleeping on a problem” can be a good thing! On a physiological level, the dream state allows the psychosomatic network to retune itself and get ready for the demands of our waking life. Shifts occur in our brain’s reaction chains, and chemicals and energy “spill” into the networks of the brain, binding to receptors on the thought trees and allowing for activities necessary for homeostasis. All these “readjustments” also enter the mind as we dream; essentially, the stories of our dreams are these readjustments trying to send our conscious mind information that something in our thought life needs attention. Brain scans show that the part of the brain that processes emotional perceptions, the amygdala (or “library”), becomes very active. However, the part of the brain that responds to balance the amygdala, the PFC, is less active. As a result, toxic blocks or suppressed thoughts/traumas may be hidden from the conscious mind and only come out when we are asleep, which is why responding to the patterns in our dreams as warning signals and messengers, or becoming what I call a “thought dream detective”, is so important. Dreams can have patterns that can tell us about ourselves and what we are going through. But it’s important to note that just as each of us are unique, so are our dreams. As the person above mentions in her question. “I do have a recurring pattern of always hurrying or being super frustrated, anxious! I cannot help but think this is part of why I get so tired some days as I do not rest peacefully at night.” These patterns are messages or clues that the dynamic regulation occurring in your nonconscious mind is trying to send you, often telling you to actively pay attention to and embrace, process and reconceptualize what you are experiencing. By doing this, you will help bring order and coherence back into your mind and improve your quality of sleep and mental wellbeing. For more on ways to do this though mind management, I recommend checking out my latest book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. There is, however, a difference between nightmares and night terrors. Nightmares are unpleasant or frightening dreams that can cause emotional distress, and usually occur during REM sleep. In most cases, these nightmares don’t involve physical or vocal behaviors. Night terrors, on the other hand, are caused by an over-arousal of the central nervous system (CNS) during sleep. Sleep happens in several stages. We have dreams, including nightmares, during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage, as mentioned above. Night terrors happen during deep NREM sleep, and are often associated with deep seated trauma and long-term, unmanaged toxic stress. When it comes to dealing with the mental and physical ramifications of night terrors, therapy is really important, along with lifestyle changes such as a regular relaxing routine before bedtime. When it comes to children and nightmares, it is important not to invalidate their experiences by telling them “it’s just a dream” or “it’s not so bad”. Remember, dreams are often messengers; their nightmares could be a sign of a trauma response to something that is going on in their lives. So, sit with them or let them sleep in your room—comfort them and listen to them. When they are ready, you can also help them process their dreams through drawing and pictures. It may even be a good idea to take them to therapy, especially if the nightmares are recurring. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Leaf click here.

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