When I lead workshops, I am always asked about the relationship between food and and stress.  I turned to a leader in her field for some helpful tips:

Brought to you by Dages Juvelier Keates of Delicious Dialogues

• Eat real foods as much as possible: vegetables, yams, beans, whole grain, good fats (yep- high quality olive oil, nuts, seeds), lean proteins.
• Eat breakfast. If you don’t know what to eat, experiment with some different kinds of meals and see what works for you.
• Have a plan- think about what you need for the week at you office and at home and make sure you are supplied.
• Keep snacks on hand: this is so important. People tell me that they don’t want to have foods around because they are afraid of overeating. If you starve yourself all day, you will overeat at night. Period. Your body wants you to survive.
• Stock up: keep clean fresh veggies in the fridge at work with a dip you enjoy (no fat free kinds; they are laden with sugar), keep tamari almonds or dried mango in your purse, some lara bars in the dashboard, organic canned soups at the office and pantry.
• Avoid excessive sweeteners, especially corn syrup; it is twice as sweet and addictive as sucrose.
• Don’t let yourself go into starvation mode. You will regret it. Your metabolism drops, your mood is negatively affected and your body will strive to defend itself against starvation. Your cravings for non-optimal foods that don’t actually nourish you will become unbearable. Don’t let this happen to you. There is an epidemic of mood disorders in this country; fight back with food!

• Green Naked or Odwalla juice- grab one in the morning and enjoy all day long.
• Lara bars- nothing but fruit and nuts!
• Bag of organic washed veggies and hummus
• All fruit smoothie from Whole Foods, Jamba Juice, or make your own by blending frozen berries, a banana, a bit of almond milk and pinch of salt
• Amy’s organic soups
• Grab a box of prewashed greens and a bottle of Annie’s Goddess Dressing- keep in the fridge at work for instant high energy salad snacks!

I was pain…  real pain.   My entire left side, from my hip to my toes, was stiff, throbbing and sore.  The more I stretched, the more intense my discomfort was.  I began to wonder if I would ever go to the gym again.  It went on for nearly six months before I sought help.  As a dancer and a western-minded yogi, I was used to working things out myself.  (Ah- healer- heal they self!).

Finally at the encouragement of loved ones, I looked for a place to go.  A friend handed me a card for the Brooklyn Acupuncture project.  When I was dancing full-time, acupuncture saved me several times.  But it is generally expensive and I knew I would need several treatments.

The Brooklyn Acupuncture project is literally a ‘god send’.  They charge on a sliding scale from $18-$40 a session.  They do not charge per needle or for the time you are there.  I received amazing care and was able to go twice a week for several weeks.  The pain began to shift and I was able walk, sit, live with out pain.

Truly serving the community, Brooklyn Acupuncture Project located at 530 3rd. Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11215, phone: 718-369-0123, website: http://brooklynacupunctureproject.com.

“Eat healthily, exercise and get enough rest”

Sound familiar? This is the common prescription given over the nightly news when faced with the topic of ‘stress’. In the last week I have heard this sound bite time and time again.

If you are like me the first question is HOW?

How do I focus on these things when I have so much to worry about? Just thinking of this may ADD MORE STRESS to your day.

This is exactly the situation that led me to practice and teach ‘sustainable stress reduction’. Whether it is the down turn in the economy or the daily life of a single mom, stress is a symptom, not a condition.

The ONE WAY to combat stress and take care of your self is forcing [yes forcing] yourself to be present in the moment. SHOW UP for yourself. Stop focusing on ‘what if’. Be proactive.

How do you ‘eat healthily, exercise and get enough rest’? Try this for starters: eat a light meal, one that will allow you to move around afterward. Go for a walk [or bike ride]. Take your family or friends with you if you must. Walk until you are tired, until your mind stops worrying because it’s tired, until you cannot wait to be home in bed. Then sleep, sleep like a baby because you are so exhausted.

Yes, it is THAT easy! Stop using your mind to spin scary stories and excuses. Your mind has better things to do and so do you. Next time you hear yourself say ‘I can’t’, ‘I don’t know how’ or ‘I don’t have enough time’. Turn to the above instruction and make a plan for yourself that is THAT easy. Live in the moment: right NOW. Give ‘your stress’ a rest; focus on you!

If you have heard about or read ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and said ‘wow I wish I could do that!’ You can! And you don’t have to leave for a year, or sell your possessions to do it.

In May, I traveled to Prema Agni Creacon Lodge Healing Center in New Ross Ireland. I arrived with NO expectations: I had been ‘called’ there. I needed some direction and just had a feeling that I would find some answers there, by myself. This was new. I had never traveled without my family for pleasure. I had traveled to work, and of course I justified this trip, at first, as ‘time to work on my book’. It seemed I was not completely ready to let go of the guilt around ‘leaving my family to fend for themselves’ for a week.

All feelings of trepidation left when I crossed the threshold of Creacon. A unique cross-breed of retreat center, ashram, spa and bed-and-breakfast, the healing center offers: gourmet meals (a vegetarian and omnivorous option is offered for every meal), a café for a mid-morning Café Latte, afternoon snack or evening Guinness, various healing and energetic modalities, spiritual classes, wellness classes and private sessions, opportunities to teach, opportunities to play, plant and weed in the garden, thought-provoking dialogue, WiFi through out the main house and in guest quarters, and shared or private rooms. This is a space to heal and grow in your own way, while being nurtured, inspired and cared for.

Nearby are beaches, horseback riding, walking paths through lush, bucolic countryside and historic sites.

I returned home, having found more questions answered then I knew I had. My time at Creacon Lodge provided clarity, serenity and an experience I will not forget.

“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind”.

In a recent New York Times article entitled, “Can You Become a Creature of New Habits,” the fact that building new patterns of behavior fuels individual creativity is brought to the fore.

This is incredibly important in reducing stress, in that creativity, or the ability to see many possibilities in every situation, stimulates activity and naturally ‘combats’ stress.

Read the article http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=can+you+become+a+creature+of+new+habits&st=nyt&oref=slogin”>here!

No personal peace has come through war with one’s self.

Take a moment to digest this and then think of all of the ways you make war with yourself over the course of a day. For those thinking: “wait a minute I thought this was supposed to help me to relax! This is a REALLY stressful thing to think about!”

I ask: Why?

Imagine for one minute how you can reduce much daily stress by making peace with yourself in just ONE aspect of your daily life. Perhaps you commit to leaving your home on time, so that you are not rushing to work each day. Maybe you decide to bring your coffee /tea, breakfast and/or lunch certain days so as not to cause financial strain.

A wonderful way to focus and ensure that you accomplish all that you need to in your day is to form a habit of making a new list each morning before starting your day (make SURE to include things like ‘take a walk’ or ‘chat with [a friend]’- not just things you HAVE to accomplish, things you WANT to do as well).

I could list many suggestions and we will come back to this over the month. Just take a moment now to survey your day. Find one aspect or area that is completely within your control, where you repeatedly feel stress. Begin brainstorming ways to bring peace to this area instead of friction.

Write it down!

The holidays are over! Perhaps you are sad, relieved, drained, rejuvenated, all of these. Now is the time to make a list for next year.

What was GREAT?
What was stressful?
What did you wish you were doing instead?
What do you wish you did more of?
What went over really well?
What ‘flopped’?
What things did you do to make others happy that made you stressed out and miserable?
What could you have delegated to someone else that you enjoy participating in, but not being responsible for?

Make your list from a realistic, non-emotional place. Try to be as practical as possible. If no one would say or think ANYTHING, what would you change?

Pick three things from your list and circle them. Now put your list in a place where you will remember it next year. Perhaps pack it away with tree ornaments, or decorations; slip it in with the menorah or holiday linens. Next year, choose one thing to change. Remove one stressor from your next winter holiday. If it is something that takes ‘prepping’ your loved ones, family and friends, start talking about it this summer. Wait until the holiday has sufficiently warn off.

Take a Break!

When building a practice of stress reduction, it is essential to give yourself permission to take a break from anything and everything every once in a while. The idea of taking a break works well for two distinct reasons:

1) Even the best [cake, vacation, sex, show, game, etc.] would grow boring and ‘not as much fun’ if you did nothing but experience it everyday! Taking a break, meaning shifting your focus for a while, allows the things you enjoy to remain fun and enjoyable. It also gives you the opportunity to approach work, fun and life from a different angle.

2) They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. In many cases this is true. Habits are best formed when you actually have the opportunity to miss the behavior. For example, let’s say you have made the commitment to go to the gym everyday. You work out everyday for a month. At the end of the month, you take two days off. During your time off, you miss something about this new habit that you have formed. It may be the way you feel physically or emotionally after a workout. It may be some of the friends that you have made at the gym. In this way you build lasting habits because you MISS them when you are not practicing and you build them in the nature of fun and want rather than ‘have to’.

Be Thankful!

We never know what lies around the corner. This is a beautiful part of living: the unknowing of what lies ahead. Life is truly a mystery. SO BE THANKFUL for EVERY day. Do not fear the unknown, revel in it!

Trust…
One of the most stressful aspects of being human is our ability to think. Our thinking minds help us in many ways and they CREATE continued patterns of fear, anticipation, jealousy and anger.

For today slip into active trusting of yourself, your life, your health, and your loved ones. Adopting a habit of trusting will greatly relieve the stress that forms with projecting ‘what if’ into your day. Try to replace ‘I hope’, ‘I think’ and ‘maybe’ with ‘I trust’. The outcome is irrelevant. The energy of trusting your self, body, mind and spirit is the focus.