mindfulness

How Simone De La Rue Conquered COVID Anxiety and Kept Her Fitness Empire Intact

Celebrity trainer Simone De La Rue knows a thing or two about surviving. Coming out of the pandemic with her fitness empire intact, De La Rue learned that transformation is essential–especially as the entire world continues to go through waves of shutdowns while the coronavirus morphs and evolves. De La Rue created her signature dance-based fitness method, Body By Simone, 10 years ago after retiring from a professional dance career that led her to the stages of Broadway, London’s West End and her native Australia. Her high-energy, cardio-based dance workouts have been a hit with celebrities (she counts Jennifer Garner, Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock among her clients) and non-celebs alike. De La Rue credits part of that success to the joy and empowerment that she and her staff have worked hard to cultivate. “Exercise is exercise,” says De La Rue. “Any trainer can tell you to do some jumping jacks, but I always wanted to sell a feeling, not a piece of equipment.” We caught up with De La Rue recently and talked about her winning recipe for fitness, surviving a pandemic through transformation and what appearing on “Revenge Body with Khloé Kardashian” taught her and more. Read on for an edited version of our chat. Simone De La Rue’s Secrets to Surviving in Fitness and Life Nutritious Life: How would you describe your unique brand of fitness? And what inspired you to begin your Body By Simone brand? Simone De La Rue: Ten years ago, I was a professional dancer on Broadway and had an aha! moment when I realized I wanted to take control of my destiny and be able to create something for myself. The seed was planted then. Suddenly I realized, why not teach anybody to dance? People get intimidated and frightened by dance. Dancing was always my joy, my passion, my love. It was a chance to express myself creatively. I wanted everyone to experience that. So I decided to take all of the forms of dance and strength training that were part of my life (yoga, pilates, cardio) and all the things that dancers do to keep their bodies in condition to perform eight shows a week, and share it with others. In the process, I found my clients became very strong. I found women started coming to this one-hour class to release the tensions of their lives. And in that process, they developed their own dancer’s body. Why do you think your workouts have become so popular that you’ve managed to create an empire around them? What is it about them that appeals to women? In my studios, I work hard at choosing the people on my team. We create a loving space where women can come in and feel supported. We work hard to make exercise fun and joyous. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. It’s a community that lifts one another up, and in the process of doing these workouts, you might drop a few pounds and gain some muscle. But it was always ultimately about creating a safe space for women to feel empowered. Since you were a Broadway dancer, the dance cardio part of Body By Simone makes sense. But what about the trampoline? What led you to incorporate that into your brand? With dance cardio, the impact can be hard on the body, especially after pregnancy. Hip and knee injuries can happen. With trampoline, people can still get their heart rate up while protecting their joints in the process. Arms, abs, lower body, everything gets a workout on the trampoline. It also forces you to engage your core while getting the blood flowing and draining the lymphatic glands. So there are many advantages to a trampoline workout. You have a new course out. Tell us about “Transformation From Within” and how and why you created it. Did the pandemic play into this at all? (Image: Simone de la Rue) A. I’ve evolved as a person and there were times throughout the pandemic where I thought I was going to lose my business. (All the studios were closed for 18 months and we still had to pay the rent.) I was suffering from depression, anxiety, and stress and I realized that everybody was going through this during the pandemic. Like I said, exercise has always been about the feeling. During the show “Revenge Body,” people wanted to lose 40, 50, 60 pounds, but it was never about the weight. Everyone knows you shouldn’t eat a whole pizza in one sitting, that you need to drink water, and move your body. But what was stopping people from doing healthy things? I realized there was always a reason, a past trauma, some kind of block. The weight loss wasn’t happening because they needed to do the inner work first. It’s about changing the patterns and behavior that you learned somewhere along the way, that stopped you from replacing them with good behaviors. It’s about looking yourself in the mirror, really loving what you see, stopping the negative self-talk and transforming it to positive. What advice do you have for countering the temptations of the holidays? Or countering weight gain this time of year? Life should be a balance. Health and wellness should be a lifestyle, not a quick fix or fad. People always obsess over the secrets to weight loss and always ask me what I eat. The emotional torture and punishment we inflict on ourselves for eating something sweet, for example, really creates an unhealthy attitude. The focus should be on fueling your body with delicious food so that you have the energy to run and play with your child or to go for a run. We should focus on being present during the holidays and enjoying the moment. As long as you have a healthy attitude towards food and exercise, it’s OK to allow yourself to indulge a little during the holidays At NL, we like to talk about “indulging consciously.” In other words, there’s no reason

How to Stay Focused and Present

Looking for a way to feel less stressed, less anxious, less tired, more focused, more present, and more calm? Yup, we are, too! Well, that is exactly how the founder of Evolve by Erika, Erika Polsinelli has devoted her life to fixing. Through her work, she teaches that breathwork and meditation bring us clarity to help with decision making and therefore, spend less time contemplating over the right decisions while having more of an inner knowing and guidance. Sounds kind of magical, right? “Everyone has the ability to live their healthiest and happiest life,” Polsinelli says. “We just need the tools to get out of our own way and allow ourselves to connect with our highest potential.” That is why she created Evolve by Erika…what she calls a one-stop high-vibrational health program. Through a mix of Kundalini Yoga, meditation, breathwork, movement, plant-based living, and mindset shifts, Polisinelli’s goal is to apply a holistic approach to elevate one’s life. “The work helps us not only to heal ourselves, but those around us,” she continues. “We are less reactive. We come from a grounded, centered place and become more aligned within; and, by doing this healing, we are creating a better life for ourselves.” We sat down with Polsinelli to discuss everything from how to create a high-vibe state every day (and what that means exactly) to easy ways of getting focused right now. How can we get into a high-vibe state every day? The #1 way to start elevating your vibration is through the food you eat and creating a morning practice. By establishing a morning practice, you’re giving yourself time to get ahead of the day. You’re taking time to calm the nervous system and clear your own thoughts before encountering anyone else’s energy and thoughts. What is your morning routine? How do you set your day up for success? I go to bed excited to wake up and tune into myself. As you begin to practice, you’re able to get to a deeply-connected state, feeling bliss and peace. I’ve created a space right beside my bed by windows where I can look out at the sky. I feel most connected to nature. I have my Evolve custom meditation pillow there because “easy pose” isn’t that easy for long periods of time. I tune in with the Adi Mantra – Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo – which means, “I bow to the divine wisdom within.” After tuning in, I begin to bring in a conscious stream of thoughts for which I am grateful. I then go into 11 minutes of breathwork. And, if I have time, I will go into 11 minutes of mantra. I conclude my morning practice by setting intentions for all that I want the day to bring me. By doing this each and every morning (early in the morning before sunrise is best), you’re able to clear and heal your subconscious. There are many days where I recognize a part of me I’ve outgrown, and evolved. It’s a beautiful process. If someone is new to yoga, what do you recommend to get started? The yoga I teach is different from what most visualize as yoga. Kundalini Yoga consists of breathwork, mantra, and meditation. A good place to start a practice of Kundalini is by beginning to play and listen to mantra while taking long deep breaths, or even while you’re cooking or cleaning. You’ll be surprised by the shift you feel just by listening to high-frequency music. Another place to begin is with 3 to 5 minutes of breathwork. Right now, we are all overwhelmed with endless “to do” lists and never enough time in the day. How are you prioritizing now? I truly feel that by making time for my practice, I’m creating time and space in my day. By starting our day with breathwork or meditation, we calm the chatter of our mind, we’re able to think more clearly, and bring ourselves into alignment. This helps us to act and respond from a centered place. We become more efficient and clear on what is best for us. How often do you exercise—and what’s your workout of choice? Every day! My body feels its best when I’m power walking, especially on the beach. The rebound effect is so good for the lymph system, and grounds my energy. I also love Vinyasa Yoga. Trying very challenging poses forces me to be present. In order to achieve an arm balance or inversion in Vinyasa, it requires every ounce of your attention. It’s such a beautiful way to connect to yourself. How do you motivate yourself to work out (especially when you really don’t want to)? The feeling afterwards. I absolutely love how I feel after, and that’s always my motivation. I know how I feel if I don’t move. I’ll have less energy, and negative thoughts may slip in. Endorphins are real! They always keep me coming back for more. If you had to name your healthy diet, what would you call it? Naturally nourished. I love that the earth can support all my needs. My entire diet comes from what the earth grows to fuel our bodies. I eat plant-based and have not had any animal products since 2017. My diet is what led me on this high-vibrational path. Eating this way helps me to elevate my vibration and be receptive to meditation, and so much more. What’s your go-to breakfast? I always start my day with warm water and lemon and a green juice. From there, it’s avocado toast! I love having it on Ezekiel bread and add any topping I’m feeling that day. Some days, it could be hummus, and some days it’s kraut, but it’s always topped with Everything But The Bagel Seasoning from Trader Joe’s! What is your evening routine to wind down at the end of the day? Spending time with my husband, and then going straight into my skin care routine. I bring all of my serums in

Should You Be Worried About Your Worrying?

We have good reason to feel a little more worried than ever before. It’s been over eight months since COVID-19 hit, and while researchers are working non-stop to find a vaccine, there isn’t a solution yet. Plus, with the weather turning cold and flu season rapidly approaching, people are worrying about spikes in the virus, schools closing, and more downsizing at work. A COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago found that Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years. Sigh. Only 14 percent claimed to feel very happy, and 50 percent said they feel extremely isolated. “Worry is an evolutionary adaptation to help us know when there is danger to avoid and problems to solve,” explains Gail Saltz, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill-Cornell School of Medicine, and host of the “Personology” podcast from iHeartRadio. “But, for many people, worry takes on a life of its own, our sympathetic system (flight or fight) goes into overdrive, and we are constantly pinged by danger signals.” Temporary anxiety can sometimes be a healthy response (like always putting on sunscreen, looking both ways before crossing the road, or making sure to do your self-breast exam each month), but persistent worrying can lead to harmful mental health and anxiety disorders. If you feel worry is bubbling up, Saltz says the key is to identify the danger/issue, problem solve around that danger, and then remind yourself that this is just a moment of anxiety and let it float away. “The ability to tell yourself that any continued anxiety is just that…pure anxiety, can be extremely helpful in the moment,” she says. However, some people can’t just let the worry float away. Instead, Saltz says that many clients continuously ask, “but what if…” much of the day, every day. Constant worrying can keep people up at night, make them feel jittery, and can even bring on nausea, sweating or shortness of breath. “If you feel physically nervous, can’t concentrate, have interrupted sleep, and basically find that your anxiety is disrupting your ability to function, then this most certainly sounds like an anxiety disorder,” Saltz continues. While this may bring on more anxious feelings, the good news is anxiety disorders are highly treatable with therapy (plus or minus medication, depending on your doctor’s recommendation). If you are feeling worried (about anything arising in your life), here are four things you can do to ease that tension. 4 Ways to Cope With Worrying Stay Connected Relationships are important for our mental wellbeing. Feelings of isolation can result in higher stress and research has shown that loneliness may have negative long-term effects on our health. Plan a (socially distant) meetup or a phone date with a friend. Or, stay connected by supporting others—help a neighbor, volunteer in your community or look in on an elderly relative that may also need some companionship at this time. Break a Sweat Our physical health is directly linked to how we feel. While experiencing sadness, worry, or stress, working out may be the last thing on our mind, but it has been proven to help ease depression and anxiety. Not only does it help you redirect your attention in that moment—you’re also boosting your endorphins and doing something great for your body. Take a walk, ride a bike, dance in your living room—even 10-minutes will make a big difference. Make a Worry List Journaling has been found to help people improve mental health and grasp emotions. Studies have shown that writing down your worries can help you track and identify triggers, combat negative self-talk and refocus your thoughts. Bonus! It helps to improve your memory…and who doesn’t want that? Tomorrow morning, write a list of all the things worrying you (big and small) to get them out. Free write as often as you need as a form of release. Seek Professional Help If you feel that your worrying may be a little more than usual or you are experiencing any of the symptoms above, it may be time for you to reach out to a professional. There is no shame in asking for help. There are many free resources online and hotlines to call like NAMI, Mental Health America, and SAMHSA.

5 Expert Tips to Manage Uncertainty During a Seriously Difficult Time

Remember when you used to have some idea of what your next few months would look like? Maybe you had a daily workout-work-home schedule that varied a little day-to-day but was mostly pretty consistent? Maybe you were looking forward to big things you had planned months or years in the future (vacations! weddings!) and also had financial and career goals that you felt like you could accurately chart over the next five years? And now, since the COVID-19 pandemic started, it’s become clear that the only thing any of us can be certain of is that we’re all going to be living with a lot of uncertainty for quite a while. We don’t know when cases will start to really decline, and when it seems like things are getting better, they get worse. We don’t know when a vaccine will be ready. Many people have been laid off and don’t know when—or even if—they’ll get their jobs back. Parents don’t know if their kids will be going back to school. Even the disease itself is unpredictable, which can make the fear of it even worse. And studies show that while more research is needed, the stress of uncertainty is associated with negative mental health outcomes. The good news is: While the amount of uncertainty we all have to deal with at the same time is new, the problem itself is embedded in the human condition. (Let’s be honest: We can’t ever really predict what’s going to happen minute to minute.) So, many psychologists and meditation and mindfulness experts have been thinking about the question of how to manage it for a very long time. To help you muddle through this stressful time, we pulled together some of their best advice on living with and managing uncertainty. And here’s something to look forward to: many experts believe that learning to do so will help you build resilience for a happier life long-term, no matter what in the world is happening. 5 Mindfulness Tips to Manage Uncertainty 1. “Say hello” to suffering Both COVID-19 and the movement for racial justice require constant interaction with suffering—whether you’re the one affected or are watching it all play out on CNN. And the uncertainty of when the suffering will ease or end is difficult to handle. Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most legendary Buddhist monks and global spiritual teachers. In his book, No Mud, No Lotus, he says that while the urge to ignore or distract ourselves from suffering is strong (i.e. swap CNN for Netflix?), doing so will only make it worse. Happiness is not about avoiding suffering, he says, it’s learning “the art of suffering well,” and that means facing it without letting it consume you. “The first step in the art of transforming suffering is to come home to our suffering and recognize it,” he writes. Mindfulness practices can help you do that. When you’re focused on building awareness of the present moment, you can recognize suffering, “tenderly embrace” it, and then transform it. That could be as simple as stopping to recognize tension or pain in your body, where you’ve been holding onto suffering and uncertainty. 2. Embrace the beauty of imperfection Wabi-sabi is an ancient Japanese design aesthetic and spiritual philosophy centered around imperfection and impermanence; it embraces characteristics and lessons found in nature, like roughness, simplicity, and the fact that “nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.” In Mike Sturm’s new book, The Wabi-Sabi Way, he presents those principles as an antidote to the anxiety of modern life. “Living wabi-sabi means becoming okay with things. It’s about trusting that however life may unfold, you can live in harmony with it. You don’t have to micromanage it,” he writes. “What’s more, you have the inner and outer resources for the moment at hand.” Finding that sense of “okayness” is about releasing expectations and a desire to control things and focusing on how things are, not how you wish they were. (That sounds almost impossible to do during this time, we know!) One practice Sturm recommends is called “earthing,” which is basically meditating outside and is perfect for the era of social distancing, as long as you have access to a tiny square of green space. Sit in a place where your bare feet and legs can be in contact with the grass and alternate between focusing on your breathing and the points of contact between your body and the earth. Take the time to recognize sensations like the sun or a breeze on your shoulders and the sounds and smells around you. The idea is to cultivate contentment in the present moment. In the end, Sturm writes, “We hold tight and yearn for certainty about the future, but the best we can hope for is merely to contribute rather than to control.” 3. Ask yourself: What matters most? So many aspects of regular life have been disrupted with no return to normalcy in sight. And it can be hard not to feel consumed by the uncertainty of all kinds of things—from the super serious to the mundane. What if you get sick? When will you get to travel again? When will you be able to save money again? How long until you can get back to your favorite workout class? In 10% Happier, Nightline anchor Dan Harris tells the story of his journey from having an on-air panic attack to discovering meditation as a tool for living just a little bit happier. At the end of the book, he explains how one of his guides suggested he ask himself, in difficult moments “What matters most?” At first he thought it sounded too generic to be useful, but he came to think of it as a helpful gut-check. Use it when caught up in worries about things that maybe don’t deserve the attention your brain decides to give them. “When worrying about the future, I learned to ask myself: What do I really want?” Harris says.

Could Allowing Yourself to Feel Good Help You Live Better?

An excerpt from Gabrielle Bernstein’s “Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams.”

How to Start a “Judgment Detox” to Live Happier

“I cannot overstate this: Judgment is the number one reason we feel blocked, sad, and alone,” says Gabrielle Bernstein.

Why Scientists and Spiritual Teachers Agree You Should Practice Cultivating Gratitude

And a simple meditation practice to get started.

I Tried It: Could Learning to Meditate Change How You Handle Stress?

Take it from a Harvard-trained doc, there is a case for the power of meditation. “The case for the use of the relaxation response by healthy but harassed individuals is straightforward,” says Herbert Benson, MD. “It can act as a built-in method of counteracting the stresses of everyday living, which bring forth the fight-or-flight response.” Dr. Benson published The Relaxation Response based on his research at Harvard in 1975, and the book was way ahead of its time. It made a detailed case for the many science-backed benefits of meditation long before Oprah hosted 30-day challenges with Deepak and trendy studios charged $30 per person for sitting in stillness. A few months ago, my doctor “prescribed” it to me after she searched desperately for an explanation as to how my blood pressure could possibly be high, given my knowledge of nutrition, 5-day-a-week exercise regimen, and overall good health. I’d been sort of “learning to meditate” for at least five years, dropping into classes, attending events, testing out new apps … but nothing ever stuck and I was never able to commit, even though I knew I should. RELATED: How to Create a Mindful Morning Routine A book written by a researcher in the 70s intrigued me, even if I already knew a lot of the science, and as soon as I dug into it, that quote struck me as genius. “Healthy but harassed,” I circled. What phrase could better explain the state of so many busy working people in the modern world? We prioritize waking up at 5 a.m. for spin class and adding 50 superfoods to every smoothie but the nonstop stress of long work hours and other responsibilities is something “normal” to take in stride. Until we have high blood pressure at age 31. I decided it was time to finally prioritize learning to meditate. Why Learning to Meditate Matters Since researchers like Dr. Benson started studying meditation decades ago, they’ve observed that the technique can reduce oxygen consumption, respiratory rate, and blood pressure. Essentially, it slows down all of the things that speed up when you’re stressed. This is important because scientists believe the pace and stressors of modern life cause the body to initiate the “fight-or-flight” response way too often, and that response leads to chronic stress, which sparks inflammation. Learning to meditate can help counteract that. RELATED: 3 Important Inflammation Triggers that Aren’t Foods Over the years, studies on whether meditation is effective at reducing stress have demonstrated mixed results, but many point towards real benefit. One meta-analysis found the evidence on Transcendental Meditation’s ability to reduce stress is particularly strong. (It’s the most studied form because its protocol is so established and has had a strong organization promoting it for a long time.) There are also many, many brain-health benefits, but we’re sticking to stress, here. I Tried It: Learning to Meditate The trouble is that as effective as meditation can be, it’s friggin’ hard, especially if you’re a high-strung, type-A person like me (which means you need it more, obviously) and sitting still just isn’t in your DNA. I decided to try meditating for 10 minutes a day for 30 days straight. First, I downloaded some apps with free guided meditations. I completed five over the course of about three weeks, each time noting how great I felt after…and then I fell off. RELATED: A 2-Minute Calming Meditation that Really Works Finally, I downloaded Headspace. So many people had been telling me how amazing it was, but I had initially resisted. Cartoons? A monthly fee? Once I started using it, everything shifted. I did a 10-minute meditation nearly every day for 30 days and it wasn’t even that difficult to keep it going. For me, Headspace works for two reasons. One, I like the structured programs. There are 10-day packs that teach you the basics and then 10- and 30-day programs on different themes (like acceptance, relationships, etc.). Having it laid out that way made me feel like I was committed to something I wanted to complete. Two, the technique taught by founder Andy Puddicombe is simple and tailored to modern life. His spiritual insights are smart and straight-forward and he speaks in terms that make me feel like he understands what’s in my head, not in tired, meaningless inspirational quotes (which is often how I feel about meditation teachers…). This isn’t an ad for Headspace, though. I know other people who swear by Insight Timer, Buddhify, and OMG I Can Meditate. I know people who love going to group classes, people who just set a timer and sit in silence by themselves, and people who like the bigger commitment styles, like Vedic or Transcendental Meditation. Just like a workout, it’s about finding the one that works for you. In the Relaxation Response, Dr. Benson identifies four elements he says should be present in order to “initiate the response,” AKA for meditation to work. They are: a quiet environment, an object to dwell upon (like your breath or a mantra), a passive attitude, and a comfortable position. Of the four, the “passive attitude” is the most important. When learning to meditate, you have to let go of the need to control what’s happening. You have to be able to observe distracting thoughts but not get weighed down by them, to accept your progress instead of trying succeed. For me, when I finally felt like I could do this, that’s when I started to feel meditation’s effects in my daily life. In my ability to deal with browser crashes and frustrating meetings and relationship challenges from just a slightly less frenzied place. A Headspace video illustrates the same phenomenon with a metaphor. You’re sitting on the side of the road and traffic is flying by. Instead of chasing every car, you watch them pass and then forget them. “The volume of the traffic isn’t important, how you relate to it is,” Puddicombe says. I haven’t had my blood pressure re-tested, yet …

If You’re Doing This to Fight Stress, You’re Making it Worse

There’s nothing wrong with a fancy cocktail or a glass of antioxidant-rich red wine to relax and unwind after a really long day at work. But regularly drinking alcohol for stress-relief may not be the best idea. (The amount and situation makes all the difference.) RELATED: A 2-Minute Calming Meditation to Manage Any Stressful Situation In this video from the A Little Bit Better series—which focuses on small yet meaningful habit changes—Keri explains why. A few hints for you: Alcohol, first of all, is a depressant. So if you’re feeling depressed or are faced with a real problem, it will very likely make it worse. Don’t freak out, though. There are of course many research-tested ways to deal with stress that are really effective. (Some are even as delicious, like eating dark chocolate.) RELATED: 9 Stress-Fighting Foods to Eat Daily Watch the video below to set yourself up for more calm, cool, and collected moments, without relying on alcohol for stress-relief. Why Drinking Alcohol for Stress-Relief Isn’t the Best Strategy

How Breathing Incorrectly Affects Your Body in Major Ways

You may think breathing correctly is human nature. Dr. Belisa Vranich has spent her career convincing people of the opposite. In fact, she says breathing incorrectly is widespread—and has major negative health consequences. Her book, Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve Your Mental and Physical Health makes that case and provides simple practices to transform your breathing. In this excerpt, she starts to explain why that process is so important. Oxygenate from the Inside Out Breathing: at first you might dismiss it as the stuff of pop songs, but once you realize that oxygen is body fuel at a cellular level—it’s how you nourish your brain and muscles—well, it starts making sense. A lot of sense. And you do know this: you consider buying that face cream that professes to “oxygenate,” you toy with the idea of taking supplements that promise increased oxygenation, and you drink alkaline water that promises to lower your acidity and oxygenate you better. So now consider something you could do just as quickly and more cheaply, merely by adjusting your inhale and exhale just a tad. After all, the goal of all the supplements you take, green juices you drink, and workouts you do is to oxygenate you better. So why not go to the source? How well you breathe is the best indicator of how healthy you are and how long you’ll live. “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip,” says Dr. Andrew Weil, “it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.” RELATED: 10 Surprising Healthy Habits Wellness Experts Swear By The opposite is true as well, and even more extreme than you may realize: “All chronic pain, suffering, and disease are caused by a lack of oxygen at the cell level . . . Proper breathing nourishes the cells of the body with oxygen, and optimizes the functioning of the body on all levels,” states the eminent Dr. Arthur C. Guyton. So why hasn’t this been evident to everyone? I’ll give you three reasons: You didn’t realize you felt so crummy. Succinctly put, until you feel better, you don’t realize how bad you were feeling before. Plus, you can’t really see the damage that’s taking place. For example: when your stomach doesn’t feel good, the upset is pretty obvious in your bowel movements (or lack thereof). With breathing and oxygen, the results are widespread throughout your entire body; however, lack of oxygen isn’t something that cries out for immediate attention or needs a visible bandage or crutch. The good news: the changes will be unquestionably evident after two weeks of doing the breathing exercises that I’m going to outline. You got used to Band-Aids (and pills). Medical care usually makes us feel better right away with a pill, a shot, or surgery—but it doesn’t go to the source of the problem. As a society, we’re neither accustomed to nor taught to search for the root of the problem and solve it from there. Take blood pressure, for example: medication is highly effective, whereas breathing exercises are just as effective for lowering it without side effects by going to the source (in this case, over-arousal of the sympathetic nervous system). (Nutritious Life Note: If you’re on blood pressure medication, discuss with your MD before stopping or changing any regimen.) RELATED: What Your Doctor’s Office Test Results Really Mean The change from the healthy breathing of a child to the dysfunctional breathing of an adult could creep in over the years. A bad fright in adolescence, for example, could change one’s breathing from full to shallow. And this Shallow Breathing, reinforced by a hunched posture that is the result of years of sitting at a desk or driving, could become ingrained. A stressful event, followed by a back injury as a young adult, could lead to dysfunctional breathing, which becomes a habit after a few years; then stress and a culture of “gut-sucking” leads to sipping air haltingly, not exhaling completely, and never getting as much oxygen as is needed in order to think clearly and sleep well. Ready to breathe correctly? Check out Dr. Vranich’s book, Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve Your Mental and Physical Health, or watch a tutorial, here. Copyright © 2016 by Dr. Belisa Vranich and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Griffin.

How Gratitude Transformed One Woman’s Relationship (and Could Do the Same for You)

Bestselling author Jo Piazza traveled to 20 countries on five continents during her first year of marriage to try to figure out how to craft a happier marriage with her new husband right from the start. The following is an adapted excerpt from her new book How to Be Married of what she learned from interviewing dozens of women during a month-long trip to India to discover how to maintain gratitude following her own terrifying health diagnosis. I was finding it really hard to be grateful for just about anything. I’d been married just six months when my doctors gave me a terrifying health diagnosis. They informed me I had the same gene that caused my dad’s muscular dystrophy, a disease that crippled him in his forties and led to his death in his early sixties. I was told I would show signs of the disease within a few years. I was only thirty five and I had just married a man who loved climbing mountains and skiing and hiking and doing anything at all with a pair of strong legs. We’d fallen in love on an adventurous trip in the Galápagos Islands, hiked a small mountain to get engaged and had plans to spend the rest of our lives chasing after one another through rugged terrain around the globe. As we shuttled in between doctors’ appointments and saw specialists who drew what felt like a pint of blood at a time, I had a hard time looking at the bright side of things and enjoying my year as a newlywed. Sometimes the universe has a better idea of what you need than you do. Just as I was at my lowest, I received an assignment to travel solo to northeastern India on a reporting trip—a voyage that would last almost three weeks. RELATED: How to Stick to Your Workout Routine While Traveling Did I need to go all the way to one of the least-traveled areas of India to find out how important gratitude is for my marriage? Did I have to travel thousands of miles from home, in cars, trains, planes, and boats to figure out that despite a shitty medical diagnosis my life was pretty goddamn sweet and that I should appreciate it? It turns out I did. Cultivating Gratitude The concept of gratitude weaves its ways into almost every facet of Indian culture and relationships. This doesn’t mean that Indians go around thanking everyone for everything all the time. Rather, the concept of gratitude in many Indian traditions is about giving earnest thanks, expressing humility towards someone and letting go of your own ego in order to cultivate more bliss and joy in our own life and in the lives of others. It’s about feeling grateful instead of talking about it. RELATED: These Simple Positivity Practices Are Linked to Better Health As soon as I landed, I immediately fell in love with India’s riot of colors and smells and her warm and welcoming people. Everything was brighter and more intense. It was hot and dirty and beautiful and exotic all at once. I was quickly welcomed into a traditional home of a woman who belonged to the Mishing tribe, an Assamese farming and fishing village where the houses stood on tall stilts to keep them safe from the frequent floods of the Brahmaputra River. I stumbled, trying to climb the narrow ladder that led into the raised hut, using a long bamboo rod for balance. The simple room was meticulously neat, sarees carefully folded on a shelf over the bed, pots and pans precisely stacked in the corner. Lae, a forty-five-year-old woman with small eyes and a broad face offered me tea. We began talking about life and the weather, politics and kids, and, husbands and marriage. “What does it mean to be happily married here?” I asked her. Lae squinted at me and laughed from her belly. “You westerners make marriage too complicated. Be happy for the things marriage gives you. We have our husbands. I trust my husband. We have our pigs and our goats. We have our children. We are happy. You want too much. Be thankful, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.” Strong words coming from a woman living on the banks of a river that regularly sweeps away entire villages in the blink of an eye. “How do I show I’m thankful?” I asked Lae. She looked at me as though she didn’t understand the question and I repeated it for the translator. Lae gave a small shake of her head. “You just feel it.” RELATED: How to Create a Mindful Morning Routine (No Meditation Required) Over and over the women I met in Assam kept telling me I had to seek a blessing for my new marriage and offer thanks for my husband at the Kamakhya Devi Temple in Guwahati, a sacred place of pilgrimage for India’s 830 million Hindus, particularly women. It was early in the morning when I began my walk to the temple, perched high on a hill. We passed women in brightly colored sarees walking to work, beggars laying prone and naked in the streets and boys play cricket in the gutter with a stick and a deflated tennis ball. Street dogs with peculiar poise and confidence pushed their way past us as if they had somewhere very important to be. Voices and sounds blended together in a frenetic jumble that echoed through the narrow streets. I asked one of the temple priests, a bald and spectacled man with a calming demeanor, what most women who came to the temple asked the goddess for. Were they very specific? “Most ask for a long and prosperous marriage and then give thanks for it,” he said with a wide smile. “That’s it?” He laughed. “What else do you need?” To make my blessing, I was given two small terra-cotta pots with candles in them and two sticks of incense. It was imperative, the priest told