On a daily basis, how often do you actually pay attention to your breath? The answer for most of us is, not very often. This is unfortunate considering, when you can control your breathing, you can tap directly into your nervous system to manage your stress.

We all want to develop healthy habits and patterns in our lives. We start our new habits with excitement and vigor. As we witness the positive changes our new habits create we become more inspired to stay the course.

This can also be where we start to get too rigid with our new habit. We can become obsessive about it and then the question becomes, is the new habit serving us in a positive way? Is our rigidity keeping us stuck or allowing for continued growth?

Mental health is a huge part of living a healthy and balanced life. It can impact how we feel, think, cope with stress, relate to others, and the decisions that we make.

Brain fog makes you feel mentally slow, fuzzy, or spaced out. I’ve had people describe it to me like their brain is walking through quicksand. It makes it hard to concentrate, focus, and remember things.

When I am struggling with brain fog I can find it hard to read a book, write, and often even talk to people because I struggle to come up with words. It is annoying but sometimes it even feels scary. I start to wonder if words and my memory will come back.

Why do we find it so hard to control our thoughts?

Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard University, did a study where he asked the participants to think about anything they wanted, except for a white bear. The participants all found it impossible to think of anything other than the white bear. One participant said, “I’m trying to think of a million things to make me think about everything but a white bear and I keep thinking of it over and over and over.”

We rarely pay attention to our food. We may take a nice picture for Instagram before we eat an amazing dish, but once we sit down to actually eat our attention is on everything except eating. We are distracted by work, our phone, a book, the tv, our thoughts and emotions, and even by conversations.

Has anyone ever asked you what your 5 year plan was? I can still remember the first time someone asked me that question. I was in my mid twenties, I was a bartender, and I was very much in a YOLO stage of my life. I wanted to have enough money to live in a nice house, go out with my friends, and go on vacation when I wanted to. I certainly wasn’t looking towards the future other than considering how much longer I wanted to be a bartender.

When the question was presented all I could think was, I have absolutely no idea. I remember walking away from the conversation thinking that I was doing life all wrong. That maybe I should try to come up with a plan.

Not feeling good enough is something that I see with my health coaching clients and with my yoga students. It could be a new habit they are working on that isn’t going as well as they would like or a yoga posture that hasn’t come together yet; they immediately think they can’t do it because something is wrong with them or they aren’t trying hard enough.

Most of us push ourselves as hard as we can, probably too hard, to be honest. Trying harder is not the solution to our problems. This only creates more frustration and misdirected energy.

So what is the answer?

I’m 6 weeks into working on my new habit of spending less time on social media. So how’s it going you may ask? To be perfectly honest, not as well as I was hoping.

When you are creating a new habit there will always be something that throws a wrench in the system. Willpower will only get you so far; eventually it will run out. Knowing why you want to make a particular change is a more powerful connection to make.

Creativity helps us to connect to ourselves in ways we have often forgotten or have pushed away because they feel too child-like. It helps us to be more curious about the world around us. And just in case you needed some scientific evidence, research shows that adults who engage in creative behaviors have improved brain function, mental and physical health, and increased happiness.

Part of my healing process has been to recognize that being creative and having creative outlets are essential to living a healthy life. It helps to give me some balance between responsibility and play and also gives me the opportunity to do things that fill my cup.

What do you do if you are trying to eat organic but you can’t make it work financially?

I am a big proponent of eating seasonally and locally. Buying fruits and veggies that are local and in season will help reduce your cost. It is also a great way to support your local farmer. Local farms are essential to our economy.

However, this option is not available for everyone. If you are not able to buy locally or seasonally then it is a good idea to know the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15.

Since I returned from my break I had set an intention to spend less time on social media. If I am being totally honest, I thought it would be an easy habit to break. During my trip, it was a no-brainer; I never even wanted to look at social media. I had the sound of the waves, long walks on the beach, and the company of good friends to distract me.

Fast forward two weeks, real life is kicking back in and I have gradually found myself spending more and more time on social media.

Hmmm, now what do I do?

We all have negative self talk and thoughts. Some of us are more aware of it than others. We berate, belittle, and demean ourselves constantly. We think we aren’t good enough or that we won’t be successful in our endeavors, or life for that matter.

Your brain can’t distinguish if what you are telling it is truth or fiction, and unfortunately, our minds will always lean towards the negative. If we could start to reframe our words so that they are more gentle and kind then we might be surprised at what we are able to do and accomplish.

We live in a world where we are so connected that we often forget what it’s like to disconnect. We are surrounded by distractions that keep us from being in the moment. Action and accomplishment are seen as better than rest, which is often considered lazy.

Being healthy includes not only what we eat or how we move our bodies but also having a sense of purpose, knowing when to rest, understanding how to make time for yourself, your mindset, and having a strong and loving support system .

Real change happens when we create habits that are sustainable. The quick fixes that may give quick results don’t last, or if they do it is rare. Creating small and simple changes to our daily life, that are easy to be successful with, begin to build on each other. They lay the foundation we need to have our habits become something we no longer have to think about but are something that we just do.

In the past two weeks I have had over 6 conversations about setting healthy boundaries with both clients and friends. It’s not just women with autoimmune disease who struggle with this. Setting healthy boundaries is something that everyone seems to need help with.

For me, setting healthy boundaries started with learning how to say no. For most of my life I have found myself trying to please those around me. I always felt that if I did what everyone asked of me or wanted of me then I was worthy of love.

When 2020 hit and we were confronted with the pandemic, my life came into better focus. The things that were truly important became really clear. I saw the ways I wanted my life to change so that I had the time to focus on what was most important and let all the other crap that wasn’t important fall away.

Fear suddenly had no place in my life anymore. I saw how often fear held me back from being the person I not only wanted to be but knew I could be. By not putting myself out there I was not only hurting myself but I was also hurting the people I was meant to help and serve.

One of the first doctors that helped me on my autoimmune journey told me that I needed to take 30 minutes every day just for me. I already took an hour and a half every day for my yoga practice so I thought I had it covered. While she said it was great that I took the time to do yoga, I was supposed to find another 30 minutes in the day to read a book, take a bath, paint my toes, take a nap, or anything else that was just for me and helped me to unwind and relax.

I left her office thinking she was crazy. It sounded so extravagant. I had a family to take care of, a job, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, after school activities and dog walking to fit into each day; where would I find an extra 30 minutes?!?