Mysterious?

Hello. It's been a week. Did you miss me? Or were you too busy ruminating to even notice I was gone?

Here's the wiki definition of mental rumination:

Rumination is contemplation or reflection on a particular topic. If very persistent or repetitively focused on problems, it is thought to play a role in the development of clinical depression.

I've even seen journalists and researchers refer to the endless cycle of depressing problem obsessing that young girls do together as co-rumination. I wonder what those same journalists would call an endless cycle of depressing economic and political obsessing? Hmmmm? Maybe 'news'?


Research shows that people who spend a long time mulling over their thoughts may be more predisposed to PTSD than non-ruminators.

Are you a ruminator?

Ruminators share some common characteristics. They often:
• Believe they're gaining insight through it.
• Have a history of trauma.
• Perceive that they face chronic, uncontrollable stressors.
• Exhibit personality characteristics such as perfectionism, neuroticism and excessive relational focus--"a tendency to so overvalue your relationships with others that you will sacrifice yourself to maintain them, no matter what the costs," researcher Nolen-Hoeksema explains.

The thing is, this ruminating is rarely helpful and, unchecked, may actually lead to depression or inaction.

Does work make ruminating worse?

Many people can probably relate to the ruminator's saga on a good day, much less at a time when it seems every radio, TV station and newspaper are running full tilt shock and awe. Work stressors add to the mix as employees, even those with "secure" jobs pick up on the panic and spend time obsessing about the effect that market instability might have on their or their families' welfare.

My typical suggestion in this case would be to interrupt the madness by bringing a little emotionally and physically healthy bonding time into employees' days with on-site yoga. And I am going to extol the benefits of that in just a sec', but I am also going to give you some suggestions for how anyone, anytime, for free can stop rumination in its tracks.

The benefits of bringing a little slice of sanity into the office:

• Yoga at work is safe, convenient and doesn't have to be sweaty.
  
• Our bodies were not actually designed to sit in one position for 8 hours a day. Yoga reduces employees' neck and back pain.
  
• Doing yoga at work often makes people laugh together, unwind a bit and start to see each other as another human beings (rather than snapping impatiently at anonymous co-workers).

The kind of sanity you just can't buy.

Truly, though, remaining calm is a skill that can be practiced and improved just like any skill. Research regarding nueroplasticity shows us that our brains change and adapt. The problem is that most of us have been practicing the wrong habits (rumination, stress, impatience, anger) for a very long time.

Practicing new habits like staying calm during times of turmoil, relaxation, focus and patience mean that like any new skill that we will have to practice it with diligence and in the beginning it might feel pretty flimsy in comparison to things we are better and more skilled at doing (like worrying).

A little exercise that everyone can do is to count your breath. Count to 21 as you breath in and out. As thoughts arise just let them go without berating yourself and go back to the counting. Thoughts will crop up but don't indulge - even if it seems urgently important!!! Beware this trap. You are only counting to 21. Just 21. If the thought is so darned important that you can't make it to the count of 21 then it will be just as important when you are done counting. You won't forget it. I promise.

Try this little exercise when you are feeling annoyed, or when your mind is spinning with worry, or after you check your stock portfolio. Let me know how it works.

Can we make America the Healthiest Nation?

I just received a link from an organization that made the beautiful little film below. Their Web site mentions something I heard but had forgotten:

Our kids will be the first generation of Americans with a shorter life expectancy than ours.

Why doesn't this scare us and make us sad? Can America learn to dream big but make our footprint small? Does seeing something like this inspire you to want to do something about it? The problem might seem too big, but we can all play a part in solving it and the behaviors that drive a healthy world are usually also more environmentally friendly and socially just. So how about it, people, are you in? Who's with me?

Messing with my kids? Now it gets personal.

Okay, wait, when we said we wanted health care for everyone we didn't mean that we wanted everyone to desperately need health care.

A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children - NYTimes.com

Source: www.nytimes.com

Kidney stones, once considered a disorder of middle age, are now showing up in children as young as 5.

Child Obesity Seen as Warning of Heart Disease - NYTimes.com
A new study finds evidence that children who are obese or have high cholesterol show warning signs of heart disease.

In the second article the study finds, "artery walls of children and teenagers who are obese or have high cholesterol resembled the thickness of artery walls of an average 45-year-old." The kids in the study ranged in age from 6-19 years old! And it isn't as though this is a small portion of the United States we are talking about. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 16 percent of children ages 2 to 19 are overweight. This tracks well with what we know about the growing prevalence of Type II Diabetes, but now it also appears and though these young people may be at early risk for heart disease as well.

Prevailing data shows that as people age they become medically more costly, but when our 6 years olds have the arteries and cholesterol levels of 45 year olds it is anyone's guess how long the middle ages population will maintain its hegemony on medical costs.

These young people are the next generation of American citizens, employees and leaders. Don't we owe it to them to provide healthy environments conducive to their long, healthy lives and fulfillment of their dreams?

If Food Were Health Care

If food prices had risen at the same rates as medical inflation since the 1930’s, we would be paying an astronomical amount for common grocery items:

1 dozen eggs $ 80.20
1 pound apples $ 12.23
1 pound sugar $ 13.70
1 roll toilet tissue $ 24.20
1 dozen oranges $ 107.90
1 pound butter $ 102.07
1 pound bananas $ 16.04
1 pound bacon $ 122.48
1 pound beef shoulder $ 43.57
1 pound of coffee $ 64.17

10 item total $ 586.56

Source: American Institute for Preventive Medicine, 2007

And it's not like we are getting more for our money.

Why aren't we tackling this problem in the forum where Americans spend the majority of their waking hours? If corporate wellness programs help employees and employers then what is the hesitation? When some companies spend hundreds of dollars per employee per year on parties and other goofy events why is it such a stretch to offer programs on a regular basis that help employees reduce stress and live healthier lives?

So what do you feel is keeping your company from offering wellness? And if your company is offering a wellness program what impact, if any, has it had on you during these rough economic times?

Cracking a smile at work

A relatively new concept in the world of mainstream health is one of resilience. It looks a lot like Recess’ 6 steps (or, they look like it?). It's taking small steps to create a lifestyle that helps us through the inevitable peaks and valleys of life without giving up something central - our vitality and well being. Nowhere is the ability to laugh off tension or endure hardship with a sense of humor more important than at work during a freaky economy.

Not taking myself so seriously is something I was never very good at. A while back I took a Nia class with a group of folks going through Recess' Health Immersion Program. It brought up, for me, the importance of letting things go and learning to laugh at myself. I wrote this note to some of the participants in the class:

Being well certainly doesn't mean being happy all of the time. Neither does it mean being Debbie Downer and dead serious or cynical all of the time. Today's Nia class really made me laugh – for a lot of different reasons. In some moments I wondered what might have been going on for some of you. Let me share why.

4 years ago I would not have been caught dead chopping my hands and shouting "HAH!" on the exhale. I've always been kind of a spaz, but stuff like saying "ohm" in yoga, or shouting on an exhale in martial arts just seemed a little too wacky for me. I felt totally silly. Truth be told, though, I also noticed that a lot of my thoughts during the course of a day were spent silently criticizing others in subtle ways for acting against the grain of what I felt was normal, cool, or otherwise acceptable.

I usually never verbalized this stuff and I knew it was silly of me, but the hard part was that when I really started looking in to it I actually spent a lot of time criticizing myself that way, too.

Honestly, it was a pretty exhausting posture to maintain. You’ve probably noticed that I talk a lot. Well, during the course of any given day there were so many opportunities to criticize myself for something stupid I said, an embarrassing gaff I made, a mistake in my work, a goofy face I made during an inappropriate moment in the conversation, a time when I wasn’t keeping up with my friends or colleagues, a time when I was excelling and then I acted like an arrogant jerk. You know this list. It goes on and on and on and on. Even today I still marvel. I mean, seriously, it’s a wonder that I ever got anything done with the amount of effort I spent constantly analyzing my every move post-facto and then berating myself for it!

So then I started a business. That was fun. I mean I’d been someone else’s hotshot for years. Even with my non-stop list of flaws, I still thought I was pretty hot stuff. Now, every day of my life presented me with rather glaring examples of how I was a TOTAL nincompoop. If your ego EVER needs a beat down I suggest you start a business. It’s like the most expensive therapy you will ever buy and with no positive affirmations. The great part, though, was that I didn’t have even a shred of energy or time anymore to devote to that cynical, nasty voice in my head that was always on my case.

Every time it would start in “Oh my god, that was sooooo stupid,” I would just have to shrug my shoulders and say “Oh well. It’s done. I guess I just have to do better next time.” That conversation with myself happened over and over and over and still happens today. Now though, I find that the voice doesn’t try as hard to convince me of all the ways that I don’t measure up because usually I only listen for a second before getting back to the business of whatever is in front of me. Ok, so resilience, and Nia and screaming “hah.”

Look. I will be honest. Groovy dance/exercise stuff can still feel a little silly to me. But now I see it as just another opportunity to practice something that I need to survive in this world – cultivating a sense of humor about myself. Even if I feel completely weird and awkward, just shrugging my shoulders at it and letting it go is such good practice for the times I am really going to need it. You know, like when someone I like rejects me, or when I screw up at work. Instead of making matters worse by beating myself with that moment, spending a lot of time with it, identifying with it, I’m practicing the art of letting it go and moving on.

So I laughed a lot today because I would catch myself going into a mini-tailspin in my head about how I didn't want to do something. It was funny, I mean funny that I was making a commotion over a little arm swinging and shouting? So I would just laugh at myself and keep swinging my arms and shouting, or not, but either way I wasn't going to expend a lot of energy talking to myself about it.

Neurologically speaking, doing something that makes you feel silly in a safe place where people AREN’T judging you and all you have to do is wrestle with your own judgment is a great way to practice the pretty ambiguous, new agey sounding concept of “letting go.” I mean, the stakes are pretty low AND you are getting in good shape! Practicing any skill, means we’ll be better prepared to focus on what needs to get done when the next little (or big) bump in the road inevitably comes. Everything – even a health immersion program – gives us opportunities to practice skills we need to make it in life.

Sometimes our best teachers are the moments that feel a bit awkward. I encourage you to challenge yourself to come and to take home the one thing that can be helpful to you in your life. It might not even be physical, but many of the challenges we face in this modern world are not.

The Well Informed Wear Fresh Gear

Sometimes in the dark months of winter it takes a little extra motivation to just say no to the treadmill, get out the door and get moving. And we know that one of our favorite little motivators (after a canine or human companion) is comfortable and attractive workout gear! Recess will be giving away an attractive, high performance marathon half-zip top (worth $85!) from lucy to one lucky newsletter/blog reader.

All you have to do to win is:

Forward our newsletter to a friend, or, comment on our blog before December 12, 2008. One lucky person will be chosen at random and the winner will be announced on our blog.

Subscribe to our blog in order to stay on top of the latest news.

How are the proportions of your portions?

British health experts have issued a health warning pertaining to the "Super Size" phenomenon in hospitality establishments. Yes, it has finally reached the UK. The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) states that 'two-for-one' or 'meal deal' offers encourage people to eat too much. Even though this super size trend is "old news" in the US you can still do your part to watch what you eat.

When dining out, the pressure to finish everything on your plate can lead to overeating. Most restaurants will serve you more food than your body needs. Compare the difference in serving size (and calories) of some food and drinks 20 years ago versus today:



So, next time your dining out try this: ask for a box before your food comes out. When your meal comes you can put some of the food in the box before you start eating and set it aside (out of sight, out of mind). When you finish the food on your plate, if you're still hungry, open the box and go for it. If not then you have some delicious leftovers for tomorrow. Don't super size. Super cease!