The body-hack I wished I had learned earlier

For a long time now, I have resisted the idea that my body is anything other than the "carrier" for my brain. My credo was always "Mind over matter". Turns out that I was wrong. Our bodies are at the very least equal partners in this weird relationship!

Regarding my work, that means this: just addressing the thoughts and feelings is not always enough. Research for example has long pointed out how beneficial regular 20-30 minutes of walking (preferably in nature) is for our mental health. I hate that this is true (and I'm working on getting over myself)!

Recently I have discovered a much easier, quicker way to snap out of my head and its sometimes tornado-like thoughts. 

It's called box-breathing, and the simplicity of it makes it so efficient, because everyone can do this, even in the middle of the greatest (real or imagined) emergency, even whilst talking or listening.

Box breathing is an easy 4 steps (like the 4 sides of a square box):

1. Breathe in slowly whilst counting to 5.

2. Hold that breath in for a count of 5.

3. Slowly breathe out for a count of 5.

4. Keep your lungs empty for a count of 5.

And repeat.

What happens in that time is quite amazing. Our heart stops racing, our brain (by focusing on breathing) gets out of the looping thoughts, and our stress level goes down. 

Anger, sadness, frustration, all recede into the background.

It's like someone pressed the reset button. A wonderful calm descends. We actually get our thinking power back, the one that got high-jacked by our emotions.

This is too good to not share. Try it a few times and see and feel the big impact it has on your mood and thoughts.

And once the emotions rise again, faster than you can out-think them, do it again. A few boxes. And inner peace is within reach again.

It changed my life - let me know if it changes yours too.

Inflammation - a new theory about depression

The latest theory about depression links it to excessive inflammation in the body (which is also what happens in certain autoimmune diseases as explored here).

So what is going on? Why do we have those pesky exaggerated responses that at best give us allergies, at worst depression and psoriasis?

The role of inflammation is to allow our body to fight intruders because most bacteria and viruses don't survive a slight raise in temperature, hence fever and also to multiply our white blood cells faster. 

So far, so good. It's a useful system, that works pretty well. But why do some of us (yes, I am one of them) have too much of an inflammatory response, while other people seem to do ok with a normal/"good" level?

Well, there is a genetic component (yes, depression and autoimmune diseases run in families). And that's where it gets interesting and we have to go all the way back to the 14th century in Europe, to the Great Plague.

The pandemic of bubonic plague killed between 30 and 60% of all Europeans alive at the time. And guess who survived? the people with an overactive inflammatory system.

So what gives us depression, Hashimoto's, lupus, neurodermatitis (and the list diseases created or made worse by excessive inflammation is pretty endless) literally saved our ancestors' lives in the Middle Ages.

So now that we know why, let's focus on how we can harness that knowledge. 

I'm obviously not giving medical advice here, so ask your doctor, or naturopath, or grandmother (don't underestimate the wisdom of our closer ancestors) on how to lower the inflammatory response of your body. Hint: look at what you eat. 

I'm not suggesting that leafy greens (or any other particular food) will make your depression go away. But if the severity of it could be mitigated by reducing the inflammation in our bodies, isn't it a path worth exploring?

Time or money - which one do you prioritise?

In my experience, there are two types of people - the ones who prioritise time, and the ones who prioritise money - but what neither seem to realise, is that these are interchangeable.

So some people value time, and will do anything to save time - usually that means spending money to save time. You can save time by paying others to do chores, or by paying for tolls to avoid wasting time in traffic. But of course the money that is spent has usually been earned by working, which gets me to the other people:

The people who will spend time in order to make money: through work, or by saving money by spending their time - by cleaning themselves, or by taking the little roads that are free but take longer, or by driving further to find the cheaper petrol station - you get the gist.

What neither group seems to be aware of is that they are both doing the same thing - spending one in order to get the other.

Why is that important? Because you can only make conscious choices when you know that you are making a choice.

Mostly we will follow one road or the other unconsciously, following the "script" that our parents have followed. 

If our parents have grown up lacking money, their conscious or unconscious message will be about the importance of making, saving and having money.

And suddenly here we are, spending our life ensuring that we will "never" be poor - even if it means not having free time, not spending that time with our loved ones, always pursuing a hypothetical end-goal of financial freedom, at any cost.

Yet of the resources to pursue, it turns out that we can never have enough money to really feel free, and conversely, that time is always going to be limited - if we are lucky that means 80 or 90 years. 

I can't help but feel that though money is important to give us a minimum of independence, time is the one thing we can't multiply. The days we spend without our loved ones can never be made up for. 

So what is your priority? Do you put most days "in the bank" in order to spend a few privileged moments during weekends or holidays in the way you desire?

Or are you consciously choosing to use the time you have as much and as often as possible to be in the here and now with the people who really matter in your life?