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What if it’s chronic anger, frustration, anxiety, sadness, or grief? Do those emotions also affect your health? And how can you let go of them?

The short answer is yes—positive or negative, your emotions do impact your health. The good news is that through positive psychology, you can retrain your brain to follow healthier, more beneficial emotional patterns and learn to let go of negative ways of thinking.

Here’s how you can use positive psychology to rewire your brain and improve your mood and your health.

Anger, sadness, frustration, or grief can, if left unchecked, wreak havoc on your health. That’s where positive psychology can help. Check out this article for more about positive psychology and get tips on how to change your thinking. #healthylifestyle #wellness #changeagent

What Positive Psychology Is and What It Can Do for Your Well-Being

Positive psychology is an evidence-based area of psychology famously championed by Martin Seligman. While president of the American Psychological Association, Seligman publicized positive psychology as a way of joining the more clinical, conventional side of psychology—the part that focuses on what’s “wrong” with a patient—with the people-oriented side of the discipline. (1) According to Seligman:

The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life. (2) [emphasis added]

Seligman—and followers of the positive psychology movement—build those qualities through character strengths. Character strengths are patterns of behaving, thinking, and feeling that we all have within us.

Why You Should Know Your Character Strengths

Seligman, together with psychologist Chris Peterson, described 24 different character strengths in their exhaustive work, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. While the unique combination of character strengths differs from person to person, they can include traits like:

• Creativity
• Bravery
• Fairness
• Kindness
• Humility
• Gratitude
• Hope
• Zest
• And many, many more

If you’re curious about your character strengths, I recommend taking this free survey from the VIA Institute on Character. If you need help, a health coach trained in positive psychology can assist as you identify your strengths and learn to embrace a more positive mindset.

Why It’s Worth It to Refocus Your Thoughts

Practicing positivity and embracing character strengths—even for a short period of time—have been shown to lessen feelings of depression and increase a sense of happiness. (3) Research also shows that happiness has a positive impact on your overall health and longevity. (4) Positivity has been linked to: (5)

• Immune system health
• Cardiovascular health
• Lower levels of cortisol and a healthy hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis
• Better wound healing
• Potentially protective effects on telomeres, the end caps on your DNA that prevent damage during replication

Positive emotions also appear to be connected with a person’s ability to bounce back from a stressful event. Experiencing positivity—even from watching a short, happy film clip, for example—can undo some of the cardiovascular effects associated with stress and anxiety, like increased heart rate and blood pressure. (6) Imagine what long-term positivity could do to improve your body’s resilience.

The Driver behind Positive Psychology: Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity is the ability our brains have to change based on stimuli like thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. The structure of your brain and the synaptic connections between your neurons can grow stronger or weaker based on your habitual patterns. In their book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain, Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., and Sharon Begley state that neuroplasticity explains why expert violinists show extra development in the brain regions that control dexterity, why cab drivers in London tend to have great spatial memory—and why your thought patterns and emotional habits can affect your health. (7, 8)

Three Small Steps to Rewire Your Brain for Positivity

Sometimes, just taking one small step toward positivity is enough to make a difference in your life. With that in mind, here are three easy techniques you can try out today to change your focus.

1. Choose Your Words Carefully

If you’ve been stuck in a pessimistic pattern for a while, it will start to come out in the way you think and speak. You may tend to frame everything negatively, or you instantly consider what could go wrong in any given situation.

Think about a recent challenge you encountered, remember how you thought and spoke about it, and take a look at the table below. Which column did you fall under? Can you try changing your internal dialogue to a more positive view?

Changing the way you think isn’t a simple endeavor—but it’s well worth the effort. Mindfulness can help you challenge negative thoughts as they occur to you.

Being mindful means you’re aware of your body, your sensations, your thoughts, and your feelings as they occur. Mindfulness can improve your positive emotions while lessening feelings of negativity or stress. (9) The practice also helps you feel more compassionate—toward others and yourself. (10)

For tips on how to start practicing mindfulness, check out my article “How to Avoid a Near-Life Experience.”

2. Remember Your Past Wins

Positive psychology is a success-focused movement. Instead of thinking about all of the things that could you wrong in your current situation, you focus on what could go right—and you develop a clear plan to help you reach that success.

One of the best ways to do this is by thinking about a past success you enjoyed. It could be a promotion you earned at work, a time you overcame a fear or apprehension, or the last time you felt healthy and fulfilled. With that memory in mind, ask yourself:

• What led to your success?
• What did you learn?
• Who helped you reach your goal?
• What resources did you use back then, and can you use them again?

Often times, the same strategies that worked for us in the past can work for us again. Even if your past success doesn’t directly apply to your current situation, giving yourself credit for a time when you overcame obstacles to reach your goal can motivate you to keep trying now.

3. Try a Happiness Intervention

A happiness intervention is a simple writing exercise that can be helpful if you’re struggling with something that’s particularly challenging. It’s a great way to stop negative thoughts from taking over and reorient yourself toward positivity. Here’s how to do it—and be sure to get a pen and paper ready, as you’ll be writing by hand for this.

Think about what your life looks like several years in the future. Imagine yourself as reasonably successful. You’ve accomplished some of your big goals, and your life has improved.

Set a timer for five minutes and write about your future life until your time is up. Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, or sloppy handwriting. Just get as many details down as possible in the given timeframe.

After you’re done, take a look at what you’ve written. How do you feel now? Did you learn anything about the challenges you’re currently facing? Do you feel motivated to take any small steps now to get to the future you wrote about?

If you enjoyed that happiness intervention, there’s no need to stop there. Try one of these techniques:

1. Write down three things that went well every day for one week. Be sure to note the reasons they went well too.
2. Determine your top five signature character strengths. Over the course of a week, try to use each strength in a new way every day. Record your results.
3. Write a thank-you letter. Take time to express gratitude to a friend or family member who helped you in the past.

The more often you complete a happiness intervention, the more effective it will be for you.

Need Help? Work with a Health Coach

If you’ve given these techniques a try to no avail or you’re fighting against years of negative habits, it may be time to work with a health coach.

A health coach can act as a guide as you learn how to reframe your thoughts and adopt a different mindset. And that mindframe switch can make a huge difference in your health and happiness. That’s why, in the ADAPT Health Coach Training Program, all of our health coach graduates are trained in positive psychology and character strengths.

Even if you’re facing serious negativity, a health coach trained in positive psychology can help reorient you toward a more success-focused conversation.

Now, I’d like to hear from you. Have you tried using positive psychology before? Do you plan on implementing any of these tips in your daily life? Leave a comment and let me know!

The post How to Use Positive Psychology to Improve Your Health appeared first on Chris Kresser.

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From morning to night, almost every day of the year, Cracker Barrel serves buttery skillet-fried apples scooped into cafeteria-style side dishes to weary travelers along America’s highways. The sweet and warmly spiced pie-style filling stands alone without the crutch of the crust.

But even if your highway exit doesn’t have the rocking chair-flanked brown barn and country-kitsch retail store, you can make a hot skillet of fried apples in less time than it takes to beat me in a round of checkers.

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Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.

Sun-dried tomatoes used to intimidate the heck out of me. My parents always had jars or bags of sun-dried tomatoes in their pantry, and as a child I thought they looked like something out of a horror movie or a science classroom. Later, they were a mystery. Just how were you supposed to cook with them? Did they get chopped up? Ground? Grated? Soaked? I had no idea how to cook with sun-dried tomatoes, but it turns out the secret method for cooking with sun-dried tomatoes is the easiest cooking technique in the world: Just put them in things.

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Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Kid friendly and fun to eat, the whole family will adore this side dish that is simple to make and easy to enjoy. Thinly sliced slivers of delicata squash provide a unique and healthy side dish. With a taste similar to a sweet potato, delicata squash is rich in fiber and immune boosting vitamin C. Unsweetened coconut flakes coat these squash slices with a delicious flavor that coordinates well with the natural nutty sweetness of this fall vegetable.

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http://www.thealternativedaily.com/

Just when you thought the nonstick pan controversy was a distant memory – here it is again – and this time it is really bad. Researchers from the University of  Padua, Italy, found incriminating evidence against the same chemicals found in nonstick pan coatings and many household and personal care items. This time, exposure to perfluorinated […]

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Julie wants to make the varsity basketball team. Fully motivated and unsure of where to begin, she decides that she will stay late after open gyms and shoot 200 free-throws every day. She finishes all her reps on day one, but it sure was annoying.

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https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/

Due to intuitive eating’s rise in popularity over the last few years, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of it before. Perhaps you’ve seen a personal trainer dismiss intuitive eating as an excuse to gorge on junk food and never exercise. Or maybe you’ve read a blog post from a nutrition coach heralding intuitive eating as an amazing weight-loss method.

No matter how the phrase came into your vocabulary, it’s likely that you’re confused about what exactly intuitive eating is and whether or not you should care.

Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach to eating and living that centers on eating in a way that makes you feel good (as opposed to eating to look a certain way).

Where a diet might say, “This diet is the answer to your problems,” intuitive eating would say, “You have all the answers you need inside of you already.” The practice of intuitive eating teaches you how to tune into your body’s innate wisdom around food and movement to figure out what and when you should be eating.

The idea of using your intuition to guide your eating may seem scary, confusing, or downright ridiculous. But remember, we were all born intuitive eaters. As children, we ate with curiosity and interest. We asked for food when we were hungry, and we refused to eat any more when we were full. We ate the foods we enjoyed while ignoring the ones we didn’t (much to our caregivers’ frustration).

It was only when we were indoctrinated into a culture of dieting and body obsession that we started to make decisions about our eating based on external factors instead of internal ones. So the basis of intuitive eating is more familiar than you think, and it’s something you can work your way back to with practice and patience.

Unlike diets with strict rules, intuitive eating has more wiggle room in its interpretation and execution. In fact, that’s what’s so wonderful about it. But as a result of that flexibility, it has been easy for some to reject intuitive eating as unhealthy or unrealistic, or to co-opt parts of intuitive eating without truly understanding the whole method.

I see some of the most common misconceptions about intuitive eating repeated frequently, so let’s set the record straight.

Myth: Intuitive Eating Has No Structure and Leaves People to Fend for Themselves

Reality: Intuitive eating has a flexible structure that allows people to tailor it to their individual needs.

While it’s true that intuitive eating is not based on hard and fast rules like diets are, the creators of intuitive eating, dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, based it on ten principles which act as guidelines [1].

The ten principles for eating intuitively include:

• Rejecting the diet mentality.
• Honoring your hunger.
• Making peace with food.
• Challenging the food police
• Respecting your fullness.
• Discovering the satisfaction factor.
• Honoring your feelings without using food.
• Respecting your body.
• Exercising to feel the difference.
• Honoring your health through gentle nutrition.

When first beginning to practice intuitive eating, the ten principles are especially helpful. As time goes on, the guidelines leave room for you to find what works best for you and adapt them to your own preferences.

Eating intuitively can be a challenging method to adopt at first if you have a history of dieting, disordered eating, or eating disorders. If that’s the case for you, I recommend working with a doctor, therapist, dietitian, or coach who specializes in intuitive eating to help provide guidance and support.

Myth: Intuitive Eating Is a Free-for-All Excuse to Eat Whatever You Want, Whenever You Want

Reality: While you could technically eat whatever you want, whenever you want as an intuitive eater, intuitive eating is about honoring what your body needs to feel its best.

When people first begin to loosen the diet reins and practice eating intuitively, they often overeat foods that they have been restricting. This makes complete sense psychologically, and it’s also the reason people get caught in the binge and restrict cycle.

We restrict foods until our willpower gives out, and then we binge on them until we feel so guilty and ashamed that we start the process all over again. The difference with intuitive eating is that you’re giving yourself unconditional permission to eat the foods that you have restricted in the past — for good.

At first you may overeat those foods because your body is waiting for the restriction that it believes will be coming. This can be a particularly precarious time if you’re just starting out with intuitive eating. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re addicted to certain foods, can’t be trusted, and would be better off dieting when you can’t seem to stop yourself from eating copious amounts of carbs.

But if you stay the course and continue to remind yourself that no foods are off limits to you and that you can have any food you want at any time, your brain will get the message and stop sending the “Eat all the carbs!” signal. Eventually you’ll get the, “I’m finally tired of carbs and would really like some veggies” signal, or your brain’s variation of that.

I know that it’s hard to believe your body is capable of balancing out your food intake without outside rules, but with faith and practice you will surprise yourself. There is a middle ground between restrictive dieting and eating a whole box of donuts.

Myth: I’ll Definitely Gain Weight If I Allow Myself to Eat Intuitively

Reality: While intuitive eating is not a weight-loss method, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll gain weight if you practice it.

If you’ve ever heard someone suggest using intuitive eating as a method for weight loss, understand that they are entirely missing the point. In fact, intuitive eating requires putting weight loss on the back burner. And that’s because it’s both difficult and confusing to pursue weight-loss goals while also trying to heal your relationship with food and learning to eat according to your body’s signals.

Changing the way you eat can lead to weight change, but there’s no way to know how that change will manifest in your unique body (if it does at all). Changes to your body’s weight are determined by many factors, including your natural set point weight range, genetics, hormones, movement, your individual history of dieting, and more.

Part of the intuitive eating process is letting go. Letting go of unrealistic expectations for your body. Letting go of unhealthy views of food and exercise. But letting go doesn’t mean you’re giving up on yourself; it means you’re learning to let yourself be.

Remember, the pursuit of weight loss isn’t going anywhere. You can always go back to it if you decide intuitive eating isn’t for you. But wouldn’t it be nice to not be chasing weight loss for once and to focus on how you feel instead?

Myth: Intuitive Eaters Don’t Care About Exercise and Nutrition and Are Setting a Bad Example

Reality: Exercise and nutrition are a part of the intuitive eating principles, but they come later in the process.

In traditional diet culture, exercise and nutrition are tools of punishment. They are used to achieve “goodness” and superiority. In intuitive eating, the goal is to move away from those dogmatic and obsessive portrayals of exercise and nutrition in favor of something that looks more like self-care than self-control. But it’s important to work on healing your relationship with food and your body first.

Once you’ve practiced intuitive eating long enough to feel more comfortable with it, then you can begin to think more about which foods make you feel your best, are the most satiating, and give you the most energy. At that point you can also start to shift your relationship with exercise to one that brings you joy and isn’t based on burning a certain amount of calories or losing a specific amount of weight.

This process does require caution so as not to get sucked back into diet culture. When done correctly, reintroducing nutrition and exercise into your life in a more sustainable and caring way can transform your relationship with your body and help you redefine what health means to you.

Myth: Listening to Your Body Means Ignoring Your Brain

Reality: Your brain and body must work together to eat intuitively and feel your best.

With so much emphasis on the importance of listening to hunger and fullness cues, I can understand why some people think that intuitive eating requires you to follow those cues without any other input. But our brains and bodies come as a pair, and consequently, they make decisions together.

For example, maybe it’s mid-afternoon and my body is telling me I am only hungry enough to have a small snack. I also know that I have a meeting for several hours in the evening that will keep me from having dinner when I typically get hungry for it. In that case, my brain would probably suggest that I ignore my current hunger level and eat a larger snack or small meal so that I won’t be too hungry during my meeting.

Or perhaps I’m stuck at the airport for several hours for a layover and I can’t find anything to eat that will truly satisfy me. I would most likely choose something subpar to eat until I could get to a location with better options, rather than eat nothing at all.

Just because intuitive eating helps you gain back the mental bandwidth you were previously using to think obsessively about food, exercise, and your body, doesn’t mean you completely shut off your brain. Eating according to more flexible guidelines requires you to make judgment calls and to learn from them.

Diets may be easier in the short term, but intuitive eating will bring you peace in the long run.

The concepts behind intuitive eating are simple enough to understand, but in a world caught up in dieting they can be tricky to execute. Intuitive eating goes against everything we’ve been taught to believe about food and our bodies, whereas diets give us clear cut rules to follow, which can be appealing.

However, between the two, intuitive eating is the only choice that will build sustainable habits to make eating more enjoyable throughout the rest of your life. The temporary discomfort of learning new concepts while unlearning harmful ones will be well worth it if you stick with it.

So where should you start if you want to give intuitive eating a try? The key is to begin the work of reconnecting with your body and its cues.

To do that, you’ll first have to leave the false promises and restrictive rules of dieting behind you. Instead, you can start to practice eating more mindfully. See if you can notice when you’re getting hungry. Before eating, ask yourself what kind of food you’re in the mood for, then try to match that with your selection. When you eat, slow down enough to notice the taste, texture, temperature, and smell of your food as you eat it and try to get a sense of when you’ve reached a comfortable fullness. Eat meals sitting down and without distractions when possible.

In general, start asking yourself what it is that your body needs, and try to meet those needs from a place of self-care and respect for your body. At first you may have no clue and feel silly even trying to figure out your body’s needs. But as you start to listen more closely and pay attention to how your body responds to things, it will get easier. Remember — there is no one right way to “do” intuitive eating. It looks a little different on everyone.

To practice intuitive eating is to go on a never-ending journey of self discovery to find out how best to care for yourself. It amounts to playing by your own rules and casting aside society’s expectations. And in a world where the current of dieting and restriction runs strong, swimming upstream and eating according to your own body’s wants and needs is a bold and beautiful act.

Reference

1. Intuitive Eating, 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating, http://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/

The post Intuitive Eating: Myths and Realities appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

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Welcome to Snapshot Cooking, the home of Kitchn’s easiest recipes. These mini recipes are so simple you can practically cook from the before-and-after snapshot itself.

When you think of shortcut cookies, do you find yourself staring at shelves of chilled cookie dough? While a log of dough is certainly tempting, there’s a better option just a few aisles away. Whether you need freshly-baked cookies for bake sales, cookie swaps, birthday parties, or after-school snacks, head to the baking aisle and grab a box of cake mix.

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After running out to purchase these cauliflower pancakes (aka latkes), heating them up in our kitchen convection oven, and wafting the scent of crispy Parmesan throughout the office, my coworkers were dying to know: Where did I get these?

“Cauliflower Joe’s,” I told them. “I mean Trader Joe’s!” My bad … but honestly, the more that I think about it, maybe Trader Joe’s should consider rebranding to Cauliflower Joe’s, as they’re swapping the crucifer in for just about everything these days. We’ve seen it all — pizza crust, gnocchi, rice, mashed potatoes, the works — so I guess it makes perfect sense that the latke would be next?

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The contrast between vibrant crimson cake and stark-white icing makes red velvet cake one of the most eye-catching desserts. And with the help of one of our favorite supermarket shortcuts, you can get the same effect with a lot less effort.

December is prime cookie season, so while you’re decking the halls in red and green (or, come February, baking treats for a Valentine’s celebration), don’t forget to include the festive hue with a bite-sized take on red velvet cake. Yes, you can make cookies with the signature velvety texture and mild cocoa flavor you’d expect from red velvet cake with a box of cake mix and three pantry staples!

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