#When the brain finally decides to hit the dopamine switch

[dna-d2]

Oh it's go time

(Fun fact, some ADHD meds take a few days to fully kick back in if you were off them for even a little while)

[how2fit]

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJqZLnSRdTY[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJqZLnSRdTY[/embed] “I just don’t feel motivated.” Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. Maybe it’s motivation to get to the gym or finally finish that school or work project. We wait for that motivation to hit. But it never comes. Then, we never make it to the gym, and we end up waiting until the last possible moment to complete that project. Not exactly what we intended. John C. Maxwell has stated, “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.” The truth is that motivation won’t always be there for us (as much as we wish it were!).  So, what does this mean? Well, we have to find other ways to stay motivated—which might not exactly mean waiting on motivation to hit us when the time is right. Rather, we might just benefit from developing our self-discipline muscle. So, let’s dig in. How can you get “motivated” with more discipline and other tricks?     What is the Fastest Way to Get Motivated? Mustering up that motivation comes down to having a little bit of discipline. While we might struggle with self-discipline, there are a few ways you can start to flex that muscle—without more stress or work. Here’s how!   1. Decide to take 5 minutes and just start. Being motivated usually means just forcing yourself to get started. This doesn’t mean you have to commit to an hour or more of work (or exercise or whatever it is you have your sights set on!). Instead, commit to five minutes.  Take those five minutes to start to get organized or dive into your workout, whatever it is, and you might just find that after five minutes, you’re in the right mindset to keep going.  It can further help to start with a small step, such as the outline for your big project or simply getting in your car to go to the gym, then continue from there. The key here is to start so that your brain triggers that dopamine release, which may foster a bit of motivation to keep going.   2. Alter the way you think about the task at hand.  According to psychologists, the tasks we are most motivated to do come from intrinsic factors (aka your internal dialogue!). In other words, tasks that need to get completed but you don’t feel motivated to do may require a slight change in thinking. This may mean making the task more fun or even switching your “I don’t want to do that” thoughts into reasons why you should do said task. For instance, you might not feel like exercising. However, you can dig deeper here. Why do you need to exercise? Do you want to live longer? Do you want to be able to chase your grandkids around as they play? Find those reasons for yourself, and the motivation will soon follow!   3. Break down your fears. Sometimes, we don’t begin a task due to deep fears and phobias. For instance, we may put off writing that speech because we know we aren’t good or well-practiced at public speaking.  However, breaking this down further, we can determine that we’re more scared of what others will think about us. Then, this gives us something to work with! Taking this a step further, we can challenge our thoughts about why it matters what others think about us.  Deconstructing your anxieties or fears can help you overcome them and muster up that motivation you need to get stuff done. Related Article: How to Overcome Fear: The Practice of Facing What You Are Afraid of   4. Go for a walk. Don’t feel like cleaning out your house and home for your weekend guests? Not in the mood to sit down and start that big work project? Try going for a walk. Movement enhances blood flow to the brain, fostering creativity and cognition. Plus, this can help energize you! While you walk, you can mentally prepare for the task that needs to get done, helping you get in the right state of mind before diving in headfirst. Related Article: Why You Should Walk Everyday   5. Give yourself rewards. Ah, how the brain loves rewards! While the feeling of accomplishment should be reward enough, it’s never the thing that truly gets us started on a task.

So, trick your mind by setting up a reward for when you complete the project or a section of it. This might mean a healthy and delicious lunch or even a coffee from your local cafe.  The key here is delayed gratification. You want to delay the reward until the task or part of it is complete.    6. Plan ahead. Okay, so this one might not work “in the moment.” Yet, creating commitments with yourself and sticking with them can help you develop self-discipline. Self-discipline refers to your ability to take action and get things done, despite how you feel or other hurdles present.  Adding your tasks to a calendar can not only help you manage your time, but it can also ensure you have a plan in place to complete what you need to complete. On top of this, you develop the ability to override your feelings and get things done, no matter whether the motivation is there or not.      Become That Person You’ve Always Wanted to Be! You might think “easier said than done,” but it’s entirely possible to become a regular gym-goer or a person who “gets stuff done” just by using a few simple strategies (like those above!). Plus, you’ll feel way less guilt or stress and be motivated to do even more. So, which strategy are you going to try the next time motivation isn’t there for you? Read Next: 5 Motivational Tips to Keep Your Momentum Up For a Fantastic Life Editor's note: This article was originally published Oct 30, 2022 and has been updated to improve reader experience. Photo by Binti Malu

[lovejustforaday]

2021 Year-end list - #1

Mercurial World - Magdalena Bay

Main genres: Synth Pop, Dance Pop

A decent sampling of: Indietronica, Chillwave, Synth Funk, House, Future Bass, Electro Pop, Nu-Disco

I’ll be honest: Magdalena Bay was a name I had never heard of until 2021 when they put out this debut record, but apparently these guys have been making singles and EPs for the past six years.

Matthew Lewin and Mica Tenenbaum were previously members of a prog rock band known as Tabula Rasa before they decided to switch gears and try their hand at pop music in 2016. Maybe it was fate, because this is easily the best damn pop record I’ve heard all year.

Mercurial World is a bold and eclectic amalgam of different pop tastes that all dissolve into one dazzling neon solution, melting every other part of the brain until all that remains is your serotonin and dopamine receptors. This record has just about everything in the category of electronic pop music - stylish synth funk, a e s t h e t i c  chillwave, poppy indietronica anthems, and blaring house beats. And what’s more, it does all of this stuff incredibly well.

Ten or eleven years into the revival of interest in 80s style synth pop that took over the independent music scene at the beginning of the 2010s, I can say that this is the best record the wave has produced. That is, if it still even counts, seeing as how this revival has been a thing for so many years now that it feels normal at this point and, barring “Dawning Of The Season” and “Hysterical Us”, this doesn’t actually sound that much like the 80s.

Also FUCK ME the transitions between songs on this album are god tier. Even on the few tracks I care less for, the flow between songs on this record is nothing short of impeccable. This is how you sequence an album.

After a tongue-in-cheek, mini-intro future bass track “The End”, the album really gets its start with “Mercurial World”. This truly is the perfect title track; a hyperactive microcosm of the record’s many pop colours displayed in a stunning supernova, like the big bang explosion that created the Mercurial World.

“You Lose!” is a killer pop song that perfectly encapsulates that feeling of when you’ve had such a shitty day, week, month (etc.) that you can’t help but laugh at your own stupid misery. This indietronica noise pop banger, with its gorgeous arcade machine sounds, stomping kick drum beat, and chorus that throws everything at you with full force, is the catchiest damn thing I’ve heard all year.

I really don’t listen to songs on repeat that often, but this is just short enough that on multiple occasions I’ve had to hit the replay button three or four times because it’s like pure crack cocaine. I want to listen to that last chorus so loud that my ears bleed while the rest of my body disintegrates. This track is absolutely up there competing with Brockhampton’s “BUZZCUT” and Spellling’s “Turning Wheel” for my song of the year.

A flashing drum machine beat leads into “Something for 2″, an oozy, emotional synth pop serenade about working to make a relationship work. Mica’s vocals are a perfect match for this ‘puppy dog eyes’ kind of a pop song. That pool of humming electro pop synths during the bridge is also just really satisfying.

A flickering synth line at the end of the previous track begins to oscillate faster as the hallucinatory house beats of “Chaeri” begin to kick in. This is 100% music for a rave in a cyberpunk city. But what really elevates this song to the next level is that frigging outro. The building wall of synthesized sound is bloody well done; it makes me think of neon holograms starting to fill up a darkened nightclub until the whole room is one blindingly white haze.

“Hysterical Us” is funky, bouncy dance pop with lovely retro sounding piano chords. The manic whimsy and confetti fanfare of the production really fits well with the playful lyrics about everyday anxieties and paranoia.

And finally, I have to talk about Mercurial World’s epilogue “The Beginning” (haha see what they did there with the opener and closer?). This lighthearted disco party track is one gigantic celebration, a wonderful parade of thousands of voices chanting in unison in the streets. Not many tricks on this one really, just one big musical ball of joy. Maybe it’s predictable, but I found it incredibly satisfying for an album full of so many chill tones to go out with one big hot summer jam.

Before I finish, I feel like I can’t talk about this record without mentioning that I’ve seen people make a LOT of comparisons to Grimes (Particularly Art Angels) for this record.

Yeah, I can definitely hear it, if mostly because they both make colourful synth pop, and because of the similarities between the giddy vocal styling of both Mica and Grimes. But even as a long time fan of Grimes (antics aside) since her Visions era, I find some of the reductive comparisons being made are simply absurd. Magdalena Bay are their own artists, a much funkier and poppier outfit to Grimes, who more often likes to get very freaky and ethereal.

Moreover, I could just as easily note the many parallels on this record to many of the other exciting electronic pop records to have come out in recent memory. “You Lose!” gives me some noisy Pixel Bath vibes, while “Something for 2″ has E•MO•TION era Carly written all over it, and “Dreamcatching” reminds me of that chilled out pajama pop sound on Kitty’s Rose Gold.

Whether any of these LPs are actual inspirations for this record is pure speculation, but Magdalena Bay has definitely done their homework. As former prog rockers just entering the world of pop, they’ve clearly already become well versed in a lot of the best sounds to have come out of pop in the past six or so years. But if anything, I feel like the band is paying homage to these sounds with creative infusions, brilliant executions, and sometimes even subversion.

Even while wearing their influences on their sleeves, this is still something really special. Mercurial World is a really impressive undertaking that manages to keep fresh and innovative with all of the pop sounds that it takes influence from.

Matthew and Mica have already left a bold mark on the world of electronic pop music, and yet somehow this is only their first full-length LP. Needless to say, I am beyond ecstatic to see what these two do next. A worthy album of the year for 2021.

9/10         (But don’t be surprised if I bump this to a 10 some day)

Highlights: “You Lose!”, “Chaeri”, “Something for 2″, “The Beginning”, “Dreamcatching”,  “Hysterical Us”, “Mercurial World”,  “Secrets (Your Fire)”, “The End”

[warofchanges]

Ophelia

It's within human nature to get attached to things that are not even alive - and we think it's wrong and devious, all considered true values shouldn't be influenced by the material world. But whether it's right or wrong, we should give up on judgment. Does the possession of a certain object bring us joy? Does its loss make you feel vulnerable, if not completely exposed to other people's judgment?

(Well, Light wouldn't certainly want to lose the Death Note and he wouldn't even imagine how just a simple black notebook made him feel so happy and alive.)

Last but not least, scientific studies have shown that possessing material needs and goods increases the biochemical substance in our brain called dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter and chemical receptor in our brain, responsible for emotions such as sadness, happiness, and anger. So, again, and given his own experience, Light wouldn't ever judge someone's attachment to a lifeless object.

But... there are exceptions.

“What are you doing?”

It's early in the morning when Light enters the bathroom for his skincare routine. You can't be taken as a serious God of the New World with microscopic teenage pimples and the skin color of a zombie after all.

He's not even surprised to find the bathroom already occupied by his roommate, he had given up on any common sense of privacy when Beyond started living in his apartment. And he's not even surprised to see the black polish nail and various makeup items scattered all over the sink, a sight that inevitably makes his brows furrowing in annoyance.

“Careful, careful of your crow's feet, baby God! It looks like a hoard of chicken ran all over your face!” Smudged black-rimmed eyes snicker at the exasperated reflection of Light in the mirror. Beyond goes on to brush his wild hair with what looks like a hairpin, ignoring Light's first question. Light really hopes he's still sleepy because it's absurd and surreal to see someone brushing their hair with a little hairpin that of course can't be a proper substitute for a comb.

“What are you doing?” He asks again, leaning closer just to reach for his skin toner and the moisturizer in the cabinet. As his arm lowers with the prized products in hand, the hairpin is inches away Light's eyes and Beyond's pointy nose is almost digging in his chin with a mysterious and dangerous aura.

“What the hell, Beyond?!”

Living with a sociopath murderer surely sharpens one's survival instincts and Light should somehow be grateful for that, though a more appreciated gift would be avoiding any futile shock at 8 in the morning with just four hours of sleep left behind and have five minutes alone in the damn bathroom. But oh no, Beyond Birthday doesn't look like sharing the same thought.

 A little scuffle occurs next, ending up with the noisy clattering of metallic bottles hitting the floor and black petals of polish nail blossoming in the sink while Light and Beyond's arms are tangled in a sort of deadly embrace; Light's fingers are painfully stretched in the effort to keep away the murderous weapon, shinning in faux innocence in the grasp of Beyond's claws.

“So rude of you, Yagami. I wanted to introduce you Ophelia.” Beyond shrugged in a rather melodramatic way, kissing the tip of the hairpin as he steps back. Light can finally take a breath when Beyond's whatever-new-weapon stops threatening his eyes and he raises a brow, perplexed. “Ophelia?” Then his glance turns from the hairpin to Beyond's pout several times before letting out a sigh. “It's a hairpin. And why were you using it to brush your hair?” Light's aware it's futile to keep up a conversation with a freak murderer, but Beyond's such a drama queen and he would complain despite all Light's effort to ignore him. So better let him speak and be done with whatever new idiocy the man came up with.

“It's not a simple hairpin! Don't insult her!”

Beyond's high-pitched yell pierces the wall of Light's patience, dangerously crumbling under his need to strangle the man once for all. What a pity the Death Note doesn't work with a half Shinigami...

“I'm stating facts.”

“Because you can't recognize a true genius. But...” The hairpin waltzes in the air, too close to Light's eyes again and the teen huffs in frustration, stepping back while applying the cream onto his face. “Ophelia is wonderful! I would be lost without her!” Beyond seems to be ignoring Light's horrified expression as he pirouettes on himself, bare feet kicking the makeup bottles everywhere nonchalantly and kissing the hairpin with the devotion of a true lover. “She's so good at cleaning knives! You should see it yourself how shiny they are now!”

“Beyond, really, do you-”

“And she's the ultimate toothbrush! I can give you a demonstration right away!”

“NO, THANKS.”

 Light exits the bathroom minutes later, followed by Beyond's mocking singing “You don't know love 'til it tears up your heart... And cuts it and leeeeaaaaves you with scars! You're still feeeeeling... You don't know love~”.

Ryuk snickers observing the psychopath singing and holding the hairpin like a microphone, somehow fascinated by human brilliance. “Neh Light-o.” He calls for the teen, twisting his body enough to get a glimpse of Light preparing his school bag. “Would that thing be helpful to scratch my feathers? I'm a little itchy right here...”

Light simply shakes his head and gets out as quickly as he can.

 Why am I surrounded by idiots?

 The apartment is too quiet when Light gets back home in the late afternoon. The roller shutters are closed and each room is wrapped in a comfortable dark blanket, any sound engulfed in a quiet bubble where you can lie down and rest for hours in a dreamless state. Light steps in on tiptoes carefully, it's the quiet before the storm he tells himself because his sixth sense knows something is off - yes, but what? Even Ryuk seems strangely alert, eyes gleaming with curiosity in the direction of the soft yellow light coming from the bathroom.

Light follows behind, but he stops in the middle of the corridor when a low whine echoes through the walls. 

"O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow! Yes child, you died, carried off by a river! It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway That spoke to you in low voices of better freedom."

Beyond's dramatic play is on stage, a black figure curled over the bathtub with trembling hands in his messy hair to enforce the desperation shaking his body and candles glowing in the darkness of the room.

Light inhales and exhales one, two, three times before he announces his presence with a slight tapping of fingers against the door. "What the hell is happening here?" His eyes squint to catch a sight of what is in the bathtub. The candles enlighten the frame of something small floating on the water, a paper boat perhaps?

Without even waiting for an answer, Light switches on the light, breaking the soothing magic of the darkness and the candles. 

"You monster! You ruined the funeral!" 

Beyond turns to yell at Light, black streams of makeup running down his cheeks. Light can't tell if he cried for real or if it's just for the theatrical scene. It doesn't matter anyway. 

"What are you talking about?!"

There's effectively a paper boat floating on the water and the residuals of… Ophelia the hairpin, yes, is lying inside. So...

"She died!"

The truth hits and sinks in with all the desperation of a broken heart, though Light isn't touched by the little show -most likely he wonders why he felt so benevolent to give Beyond a home, to accept his help, who cares if the Death Note can't kill him, there are always other methods… Ah, he really regrets his past choice now.

Ryuk pats on Beyond's shoulder as his tall figure looms over the bathtub to get a look at the broken hairpin. Too bad, he won't ever know if that thing is useful to scratch his feathers.

"My condolence. I can… uh… share an apple with you if ya want."

"Thanks, Ryuk."

Light stands in front of the tub, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Maybe, just maybe, if he closes his eyes for a while, everything will disappear. Beyond, the candles, Ryuk, the petals of rose drowning in the water, the paper boat, and that damn hairpin.

"Beyond."

"Yeah?"

"End this farce quickly, please."

"You heartless little piece of shit, you-" 

"Now."

Beyond sniffs loudly and mutters something unintelligible between gritted teeth before turning towards the dead hairpin. His eyes soften and are filled with pure love while he removes the drain stopper, letting the water running down along with the paper boat and the petals. The motion causes the paper to mash into the water, forming a conglomerate that inevitably blocks the drain. The broken pieces of the hairpin stick into the tube, as if clinging desperately to a life it's never had. 

"My queen! Evil till the end!" 

Beyond claps his hands with tears of joy running down his cheeks, while Light lets out an exasperated sigh and decides to leave the bathroom before his hands accidentally slip to strangle the sociopath murderer. 

"You have five minutes to clean this damn mess or I will throw away all your damn books."

It was a bad idea to give the man all those Shakespeare's books to read… A God should have foreseen the possible consequence of his choices.

[hopestretchandreiki]

Hope in Meditation

We’ve found ourselves, yet again, in lockdown, when most of us are only just beginning to breathe again after the first.

We find ourselves, once again, subject to burn out, stressors and mental overload.  

And, once again, most of us will be confused as to how to deal with this stress and emotion, and how we are supposed to move through it. 

Drs Emily and Amelia Nagoski stated recently on Brene Brown's' podcast ‘Unlocking Us’, that not fully moving through the process or ‘tunnel’ of emotional exhaustion can lead to burnout and breakdown. But most of the time we are not even aware that we are holding on to emotions, or not moving through them, because we do not take the time to sit in them and confront them. We often store the emotion for later, resulting in not completing the emotional ‘cycle.’  

And when do we sit in our bodies and just ‘do nothing’?In meditation.

It is actually an incredibly important place to be, because it forces us to speak to ourselves and listen to our bodies, tuning in to our intuition and understanding what we need as humans; rather than reaching for distractions that block us from speaking intuitively to ourselves and learning to understand our needs better.  

Different tools work for different humans, but a tool I have flirted with for the last few years has been meditation. A tool that is widely misunderstood and misinterpreted. As someone who really struggles to maintain a meditation practice myself, 

I decided to sit down with my sister Laura Hopes, who is a yoga and meditation teacher, over a Zoom chat, to better understand why so many of us struggle to meditate or find a sustainable practice.  I find It fascinating that we are mostly all aware of the proven benefits of meditation, either from experience or from those who have found solace there; but still so many of us do not stick with it, or even try it.

Why would we not lean in to something that we know will make us feel better?

Laura resides in Sydney Australia; she co-founded Lotus Recruitment Agency in Sydney and her own Recruitment Training Company- Hopes Consult, also in Sydney. Laura found herself balancing her love of teaching yoga with her passion for Recruitment and ultimately found over the years that she was looking for more balance and calm, amongst the frenetic world of business. So what better person to speak to? 

Laura has always been my go to human for all things yoga, meditation and finding a sense of calm and balance in my life. 

She was diagnosed with ADHD in 2019 and recently finally found a meditation practice for herself that became her bible, allowing her a better understanding of the ‘manic’ she finds her brain in and how to work alongside it, rather than against it. 

I find, more than ever, that it is important to have some sort of practice in our lives. You hear the term 'fight or flight' banded around a lot, but we do live our lives mostly in a form of heightened anxiety. The ways we normally use to switch ourselves off actually tend to heighten that anxiety- alcohol, smoking, phones, tv, social media etc.-rather than ease it. 

My sit down with Laura was actually a huge eye opener and taught me a lot about how to build a more sustainable practice and the real purpose of why we meditate. 

You can check her out at @laurahopes22 for yoga/ meditation and be sure to check out Josh Blau and Jonni Pollard if you're keen to get started!

Enjoy! x   

What introduced you to meditation and describe a little about your personal journey 

My yoga practice. It was like osmosis and became a natural progression – but it came much later in to my practice. Maybe a couple of years. Only the principles  of meditation had really been introduced during my Yoga Teacher Training– that was the beginning.It feels mad that it took this long, as it’s now my most prominent practice.  I feel like it should be incorporated more in yoga.

Most of the focus tends to be on the asana (the physical practice) and classes lean towards yoga as a form of exercise. There can be some pressure on teachers to make yoga that 'exercise experience' for their students and meditation features less. We tend not to focus on all the principles of yoga, maybe that’s why.

Having an ADHD brain for me has meant it’s harder for me to stick to it. My practice has been full on and then fully off- Every day for 2 weeks, then nothing.

 I got in to a good space of building it in to the work day, but then being busy always took priority, so I dipped in and out. I did my meditation teacher training a few years ago but didn’t resonate with the style and so it didn’t ultimately stick. 

Working with my current teacher, Josh Blau, in July this year finally helped me to start connecting with meditation as a practice in itself and now I haven’t missed a day in 4 months.  

They say it takes 60 days to build a habit – now I really notice the difference and wouldn’t be able to live without it.  

Josh’s style is simple- it’s based on the ‘Vedic’ mantra meditation by Jonni Pollard. Repeating ‘Aham’ ( ‘I am’) to yourself – that is all. The difference with working with Josh, was that it meant discipline and accountability, as it was one to one.

The style of using mantra meant bringing it back to word and I could actually drop in to meditation. Ego still gets involved and I still find it hard, but now it reminds me that that is exactly why I’m here. The longer you do it, you start to see the benefits and anything else would now be a disservice to myself.   

What do your surroundings have to be in order to meditate? 

Josh taught me not to be a ‘meditation tyrant.’ Otherwise, you get in to a habit of making excuses to not do it.  I usually sit with a pillow behind my back on the sofa and have a blanket on my lap. It’s okay if people are milling around, that way I cannot make excuses by having distractions.

Remove the excuses – stop waiting for the exact right set up. Make it a priority and give it weight. Otherwise you start to overcomplicate it.

Different things work for different people. When developing a practice, it’s okay to play around and for things not to work- always take some time to find what you need. It’s not something that only certain people can do, it’s completely open for everyone.  

What setbacks have you encountered through your meditation practice? 

We condition ourselves to receive rewards through instant gratification a lot of the time, rather than through long term work. We need to find a sustainable dopamine hit, but our ego wants to find the easiest route to happiness. 

 I now meditate because even when I feel like I don’t need it, or I am not in the mood, or I don’t think I have time, I know there will be a time when I am stressed, and the work I have put in leading to that point will be the reason I needed it; then I will be better equipped to deal with that situation, because I have a sustained meditation practice in place.   

What are you currently doing in this space to help others with their meditation journey? 

Combined with teaching again in itself, I now make sure I incorporate a short meditation in to the end of classes. I have started going back towards providing a more full experience. I have also started leaning towards the Jivamukti style of practice, which is a more traditional ‘whole’ practice. I also recently created a 4 week meditation course. 

Week 1 Starts by looking at stress and how we and the practice deal with stress. 

Week 2 Looks at how we find a comfortable seat when we meditate, which helps to set up for success. 

Week 3 Looks at techniques and mindfulness 

Week 4 Brings it all together.  

It’s accessible for everyone, but also for people who don’t know where to start or cannot currently sustain a practice. 

 What recommendations would you give to anyone looking to start exploring meditation? 

1. Download the 1 Giant Mind App – 10 day initial challenge

2. Less is more. Start small and then you can decide if you build a longer practice- it doesn’t have to be an hour, it can be just 2 minutes. 

3. Journal after – how did you feel? You will often find after a while that you make mini breakthroughs. It will always be doing something even though it might feel like some days it does nothing. 

4. List mentally or physically 5 things you’re grateful for a day. 

5. Learn by doing, not by reading, you’re only delaying the process otherwise! 

What does your current practice look like? 

I usually do 20 minutes in the morning and 20 in the evening, less on weekends, but that feels okay because I have my practice in place during the week.   

What helps you to meditate when you’re not in the mood or struggling for time in your day?

Now I know that it is tried and tested, it is easier. I now do it for the days when I know I am going to need it. Tell yourself you’ll just do a couple minutes because it then feels doable, but inevitably it grows anyway. 

Normally, it’s a battle with my ego, but now I know it’s okay whatever the outcome- if you don’t associate it with a positive outcome then you won’t put pressure on yourself to feel great every time you do it, and there is less pressure placed upon it.  

What made you want to teach meditation? 

I want to celebrate yoga as traditionally as I can and bring it back to a more whole practice. I feel like it has come away from its source in modern day practice, so it’s nice to bring it back to that.  I want to share it with others, having now seen the effect it has had for me.  

Why do you think it is more important than ever to meditate in the current climate? 

At the moment there is a lot of fear and uncertainty and meditation is an anchor in support and guidance. Meditation has improved my intuition and my ability to listen to my gut instincts, which is more important than ever now. I feel like I operate from a place of being more in tune with what I need. 

My reactions are slower, in that I am less quick to react. It has almost created a space between receiving stimulus (or a ‘trigger’) and dealing with it- I am able to be an observer more often and time slows down. Therefore I make more informed choices.

Meditation makes it easier to compute things and acts more as a blanket which helps to self-soothe in times of loneliness. 

 My ADHD will always be there, but I can now come from a calmer place in to situations and I need my usual vices less often once I have meditated.   

If you had to give any small tips of advice to anyone who is entering in to meditation to aid with mental health right now, what would that advice be? 

It cannot cure mental health issues on its own, in my opinion. From my experience, there are better equipped services elsewhere- but what it might do is become a beacon of light within that. A Sanctuary in your own mind. It is important that you’re not going in to it expecting everything to be cured and relying solely on it, as more often than not it will bring up more stuff initially. It gets harder before any breakthrough.   

Who are your biggest influences in yoga and meditation?   

Josh blau – the only person who has managed to imbed that practice and discipline in me.

Jivamukti for celebrating the tradition of yoga in its most traditional form.   

Final word 

Ultimately it comes from yourself.Build a habit of being your own inspiration  A lot of people think yoga as the ‘asana’ is just a stretch. It is proven to increase strength and blood circulation and helps your organs to work better. You can increase flexibility and open up your body.But there is also so much more – connecting breath to body, opening up energy pathways, the ability to sit in contemplation. The rest of it is the prep work, but the ultimate goal is to be able to sit and connect with something that is a bit higher, become more in tune with our body, work with our meridians and our chakras and to use our intuition more effectively- what serves you? What makes you feel good and what doesn’t? Ultimately we should be spending more time being in our bodies and meditation and yoga in it’s full practice, allows for that.  

Laura’s Meditation Guide can be found

here

[mywinestainedheart]

My Fault. His Fault. Our Fault.

If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.

I came across this quote on my Instagram timeline one morning. This statement could have pertained to anything depending on the personal experience of who was reading it, but because I’m trying to swim against the waves and whitecaps of depression, anxiety and a breakup, I associated it with that. If you’ve read my previous post about being a bitter ex-girlfriend, then you know that I’m not the most understanding of people until the anger subsides. While I still have my hurt and resentment over the end of this latest relationship, I am in the process of healing, which means I am now starting to consider quotes like this one from a different point of view. My antipathy and narcissism have me thinking: “Yes! He was nothing but a shackle on my ankle anyway, so good riddance to him”. My maturity remembers that it’s not always someone else who is the dead weight. Sometimes, it’s you.

It has taken me a while, but lately I’ve been trying to force myself to accept that our relationship isn’t the miracle recovery story, but rather the cadaver he got to practice and learn from so that he can perform better in his next relationship. For a whole year, I’d been giving CPR to a corpse. This is my biggest hindrance. Every person I date is meant to be my “forever”. I get so caught up in the potential of what we could be that I’m blinded to the reality of what we are: Dead. And I’m the only one in hysterics, screaming for a medic while trying to resuscitate an already decaying situation. With this latest death, I refused to acknowledge reality. I wasn’t blinded—I knew relationship rigor mortise had long set in—I simply didn’t want to believe it. I mean, this was the first time I’d ever said I love you to someone. I’d opened myself up—I was vulnerable and let someone else in—so didn’t God owe me that miracle recovery just this once?!

When someone decides they no longer want to be with you, letting go of that person is a whole-hearted individual effort. You have to want to let go in order to move forward because, if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. He’d eventually stopped fighting; recognising sooner than I did that maybe we’re not the right fit for each other. He’d surreptitiously been fondling the life support plug when I wasn’t looking until he’d managed to get a firm enough grip and yanked it. I don’t know what he did with his share of our remains. As for myself, I only buried our relationship about a month ago. We’d been dead for over a year so I feel that I shouldn’t give time for the emotional ground to settle and rather erect a headstone as soon as possible, but what would it even read?

“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t love me”?

“I know it’s over, but I still imagine what our kids would look like”?

“I don’t know if I’ll ever have the strength to be your friend after this”?

“Do you really believe you gave us a fair chance”?

For now, I’m walking (staggering) away from the grave to live my life crying in random spurts, wondering if he ever thinks of me when he’s had too much to drink, or when he’s putting himself to bed at night. I miss him to hell and back, and the urge to dial his number sometimes aches like arthritis in my fingers, but I know I’d only be speaking to his ghost. So, I choose to roll over and sleep the middle of my bed, reminding myself that there’s someone else these days who sleeps on my side of his. She gets the midnight forehead kisses now, and I can’t help but hate her for it.

I’ve buried us, but a piece of me deep, deep down still calls on God for a resurrection. I realise that this is insane, but I’m a nit-picker and a hopeless romantic by design, so I often entertain thoughts about what could happen five years from now. Maybe I’ll get my shit together, maybe after he’s done trying to find whatever was missing from us in someone else, he’ll realise that we actually are the right fit. Maybe he misses me too and he’ll call, maybe we just need time, maybe we’re the exception to the principle of finality… I’m a master at breaking my own heart; can you tell?

When I find myself running away with fantasies like that, I switch focus and try to remember the things I didn’t like about him. One of the big ones was that he used to skip night showers in favour of the morning. This bothered me because you accumulate the most dirt during the day and that’s what you’re taking into your bed? Ewe. It also bothered me that he rarely brushed his teeth (morning or night) unless he was meeting someone important that day. Weirdly, his breath never smelled, but… oral hygiene? I decide that this is something that must not have been enforced on him as a child the way it was with us growing up. If he and I ever got married and started a family (and we’d have made beautiful babies, by the way), he might think me militant because night showers and teeth brushing would have been non-negotiable; the same way it was under my mother’s roof. He also didn’t enjoy working out and eating healthy. I thrived on this lifestyle. I liked my toned physique and worked hard to maintain it because I liked knowing that I had the aesthetically appealing body type that most people want but are too lazy to achieve. It made me one step ahead of average, even if my looks were nothing to brag about. Looking good physically made me feel good internally. But he felt just as good eating fast food most days of the week and drinking coke for breakfast. What would he look like in five years when I would be pushing weights to look like sixty-something-year-old Angela Bassett? I also disliked his Mr-Know-It-All personality. I couldn’t vent to him without him giving me a solution or make a general statement without him sounding off on the topic as though to prove that he knew more about it than me. That said, he also talked a lot, and I sometimes worried about this because if I ever brought him around certain family members, he might rub them the wrong way.

Fuck, and after all that I was still in love with the man.

I suppose that would mean I’m not as superficial when it comes to my partners as I used to be. I had a vision of The Perfect Guy in my head with all the strapping trims and finishings, but then this idiot steered into my life in an old, beat up VW rather than a white horse, brown haired, blue-eyed and shaggy-bearded only to toss my checklist (and my bra) out the window. I now accept that there will always be things you don’t like about someone else (I’m sure he could write an encyclopedia detailing the things he doesn’t like about me), but those things are hardly deal breakers. His less favourable qualities didn’t negate the fact that he was, and is, an amazing human being. For the first two years that we were together (although I did display bouts of jealousy) I never questioned his fealty to me. I knew, deep down, that I was the be all and end all. Not all women get to experience that in their lifetime. He spoiled me with it.

I know I let him slip through my fingers, and I beat myself up about it almost every day. I also know that he abused my trust, but it’s no longer any of my business whether he beats himself up about that anymore. We both messed up in different ways in different magnitudes, and that’s why we died. Neither of us is solely to blame but, for me, that’s what makes the grieving process so difficult. I miss him to hell and back, but he’s probably done me a favour by giving up the fight first.

Had he not, I would have stayed in a country I hate, probably moved to a town I don’t like just to be with him, found yet another unfulfilling job and trained myself to be content with just him, his family, and maybe a dog (or a cat, which I would have hated). As much as I loved and love him, I questioned and question that ideal. He was buying family plots and making plans in his head about where his kids were going to grow up. I’m wading through a battle with depression and trying to regain wasted years of career inexperience. Until I win, I’m not thinking about marriage and kids. And I’ve always wanted more for my life than a husband and a humble home. Not that I’m quite sure what more is, but it would not be found in a small industrial town where I have no friends of my own and potential in-laws that might not take too kindly to our interracial relationship. He was also earning enough to have moved out of his parents house by age 25, but every job I was finding by age 27, as a woman, was not willing to pay me anything more than just enough to cover basic essentials. Moving out on what I was making would mean moving into desolation and isolation because after rent was paid, I’d be too broke to do anything. Not to mention I’d be unable to save, barely put fuel in my car and make room for little unexpected expenses. But, to him, it was like I wasn’t trying. He turned into Mr-Know-It-All with his solutions and I became resentful because it felt like he wasn’t aiming to understand my circumstances before sounding off. This also might have been when the depression started to creep in, but neither of us knew. We just knew that I wasn’t the same person. I was angry all the time and had a negative attitude towards everything. I also became desperate and needy and I would make him the sole focus of my days because, for a long time, he was the only thing that stimulated a little bit of dopamine in my brain. I smothered him with demands for his time and affection when he really didn’t want to be rationing it to me anymore. If he hadn’t chosen to give up the fight and walk away, what would have become of me? Of us as people? What if he hadn’t let me hit rock bottom?

All considerations route back to the inkling that, together, we probably were each other’s limitations.

However, knowing that I am likely destined for something greater than what he can offer me right now doesn’t stop that little piece of me from hoping. I’ve now trained that voice to hope in silence, though. It has championed far too loudly for some of the wrongest situations in the past, so I try my best to pay it no regard with the anticipation that one day it will go mute, like it did with all the others.

I miss him to hell and back, but maybe he’s just not man enough to handle my particular brand of crazy—and I can be crazy when it’s brought out of me. Maybe he needs someone soft. Someone with a handle on her mental stability. Someone endearing with a mouth that doesn’t spit venom when she feels threatened. Maybe that girl on my side of his bed is who he deserves. She may never love him as hard, but she will love him enough. Enough to transform him into the man he so desperately wants to be that might not be the man I could love in five years.

I miss him to hell and back, but that tombstone on our grave needs to be put up. What would it read? I’m still deciding.

“Maybe we’ll find our way back as friends cause, you know, stranger things have happened.”

“I hope your kids end up with her big nose.” (What? I told you I was a bitter ex-girlfriend)

or,

“I hate you right now, only because I still love you. I’m currently searching for the path to indifference. I’m sorry for my contributions to our chaos. I pray she never hurts you like that. Don’t let your arguments with your mum get to you too often. You’re more like her than you think. Be careful with your words when you’re angry. You can be more caustic than me during those moments. Even though your stressed face might be sexy it doesn’t need to be your permanent expression, so try to take more time for yourself and the things you enjoy. I hope your sister gives you a soccer team of nieces and nephews so you can relish the spoils that come with being an uncle. You’ll make a great one. Get back to that building-a-model-car idea with your dad so you can spend more time with him, like I know you said you wanted to. I pray that your whole family stays in good health and that you find whatever it was that was missing from us in your new relationship. I hope you still think about me and, selfishly, I hope the idea of me with someone else still bothers you a little too, because being happy for you is still hard for me, but I will try harder to learn. I don’t want to move on but I know it’s what needs to happen. I told you I cleared out everything of us, but I keep a single photo of you. Maybe one day I’ll delete it. I miss you to hell and back, but the pain is ebbing slowly every day. Please take care of yourself.”

[talabib]

How To Use Your Habits To Change Your Life For The Better

How many habits do you have? You might need a minute to think about that question, because habits are, by definition, behaviors that we perform automatically, with little or no thought. From making a coffee when we get up in the morning to brushing our teeth before bed at night, our habits subtly guide our daily lives.

As a result, you may not realize how much power there is in habits. If repeated every day, even the smallest actions, from saving a dollar to smoking a single cigarette, can accumulate force and have a huge effect. So understanding and embracing habits is a great way to take control of your life and achieve more.

Over the course of this post, you’ll learn precisely what habits are, how they are formed and how you can harness them to change your life for the better.

Small habits can have a surprisingly powerful impact on your life.

Imagine a plane taking off from Los Angeles en route to New York. If, during takeoff, the pilot decided to adjust course 3.5 degrees to the south, the plane’s nose would move just a few feet. Outside of the cockpit, no one on board would notice the small movement. But over the course of a journey across the country, the impact of the change would be considerable, and the confused passengers would alight from their plane in Washington, DC, not New York.

We don’t notice tiny changes, because their immediate impact is negligible. If you are out of shape today, and go for a 20-minute jog, you’ll still be out of shape tomorrow. Conversely, if you eat a family-size pizza for dinner, it won’t make you overweight overnight. But if we repeat small behaviors day after day, our choices compound into major results. Eat pizza every day, and it’s likely you will have gained considerable weight after a year. Go jogging for 20 minutes every day, and you’ll eventually be leaner and fitter, even though you won’t have noticed the change happening.  

If you want to make a positive change in your life, you should recognize that change requires patience, as well as confidence that your habits are keeping you on the right trajectory – even if you aren’t seeing immediate results.

So if you find that your behaviors and habits don’t seem to be paying off, try to focus on your current trajectory rather than your current results. If you have little money in the bank but you are saving something each month, then you can be confident that your trajectory is right. Your current results might not be great, but keep going in this direction and, in a few months or a few years, you will notice a major improvement. By contrast, a millionaire who outspends his earnings each month may not be worried about his bank statements from one month to the next, but, in the end, his trajectory will catch up with him.

The key to making big changes in your life doesn’t have to involve major upheaval; you don’t need to revolutionize your behavior or reinvent yourself. Rather, you can make tiny changes to your behavior, which, when repeated time and time again, will become habits that may lead to big results.

Habits are automated behaviors that we’ve learned from experience.

When you walk into a dark room, you don’t think about what to do next; you instinctively reach for a light switch. It’s a habit – a behavior that you’ve repeated so many times that it now happens automatically.

So how are habits formed? Well, our brain figures out how to respond to new situations through a process of trial and error. Nineteenth-century psychologist Edward Thorndike famously demonstrated this with an experiment where cats were placed in a black box. Unsurprisingly, each cat immediately tried to escape from the box, sniffing at its corners and clawing at its walls. Eventually, the cat would find a lever that, when pressed, would open a door, enabling escape.

Thorndike then took the cats that’d successfully escaped and repeated the experiment. His findings? Well, after being put in the box a few times, each cat learned the trick. Rather than scrambling around for a minute or more, the cats went straight for the lever. After 20 or 30 attempts, the average cat could escape in just six seconds. In other words, the process of getting out of the box had become habitual.

Thorndike had discovered that behaviors that give satisfying consequences – in this case, gaining freedom – tend to be repeated until they become automatic.

Like cats in the nineteenth century, we also stumble across satisfying solutions to life’s difficulties and predicaments. And, thankfully, we now understand a little more about how habits work.

Habits begin with a cue, or a trigger to act. Walking into a dark room cues you to perform an action that will enable sight. Next comes a craving for a change in state – in this case, to be able to see. Then comes our response, or action – flicking the light switch. The final step in the process, and the end goal of every habit, is the reward. Here, it’s the feeling of mild relief and comfort that comes from being able to see your surroundings.

Every habit is subject to the same process. Do you habitually drink coffee every morning? Waking up is your cue, triggering a craving to feel alert. Your response is to drag yourself out of bed and make a cup of joe. Your reward is feeling alert and ready to face the world.

But, of course, not all habits are good for us. Now that we understand how habits work, let’s look at building positive ones that improve our lives.

Building new habits requires hard-to-miss cues and a plan of action.

All of us have cues that trigger certain habits. The buzz of your phone, for example, is a cue to check your messages.

And once you understand that certain stimuli can prompt habitual behavior, you can use this knowledge to change your habits. How? Well, one way is to change your surroundings and general environment to encourage better habits.

Just take the work of Boston-based doctor Anne Thorndike. She wanted to improve her patients’ dietary habits without requiring them to make a conscious decision. How did she pull this off? She had the hospital cafeteria rearranged. Originally, the refrigerators next to the cash registers contained only soda. Thorndike introduced water, not only there, but at every other drink station. Over three months, soda sales dropped by 11 percent, while water sales shot up by 25 percent. People were making healthier choices, just because the cue to drink water rather than soda was more prominent.

So simple changes to our environment can make a big difference. Want to practice guitar? Leave the instrument out in the center of the room. Trying to eat healthier snacks? Leave them out on the counter, instead of in the salad drawer. Make your cues as obvious as possible, and you’ll be more likely to respond to them.

A second great way to strengthen cues is to use implementation intentions.

Most of us tend to be too vague about our intentions. We say, “I’m going to eat better,” and simply hope that we’ll follow through. An implementation intention introduces a clear plan of action, setting out when and where you’ll carry out the habit you’d like to cultivate. And research shows that it works.

A study of voters in the United States found that the citizens who were asked the questions “At what time will you vote?” and “How will you get to the voting station?” were more likely to actually turn out than those who were just asked if they would vote.  

So don’t just say, “I’ll run more often.” Say, “On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, when the alarm goes off, the first thing I’ll do is don my running gear and clock two miles.” Then leave your running shoes out where you’ll see them. You’ll be giving yourself both a clear plan and an obvious cue, and it may surprise you how much easier this will make it to actually build a positive running habit.

Humans are motivated by the anticipation of reward, so making habits attractive will help you stick to them.

In 1954, neuroscientists James Olds and Peter Milner ran an experiment to test the neurology of desire. Using electrodes, they blocked the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in rats. To their surprise, the rats simply lost the will to live. They had no desire to eat, drink, reproduce or do anything else. Mere days later, they all died of thirst.

The human brain releases dopamine, a hormone that makes us feel good, when we do pleasurable things such as eating or having sex. But we also get a hit of feel-good dopamine when we simply anticipate those pleasurable activities. It’s the brain’s way of driving us onward and encouraging us to actually do things. So, in the brain’s reward system, desiring something is on par with getting something, which goes a long way toward explaining why kids enjoy the anticipation of Christmas so much. It’s also why daydreaming about your upcoming hot date is so pleasurable.

We can also turn this knowledge to our advantage when trying to form habits. If we make a habit something we look forward to, we’ll be much more likely to follow through and actually do it.

A great technique for this is temptation bundling. That’s when you take a behavior that you think of as important but unappealing and link it to a behavior that you’re drawn to – one that will generate that motivating dopamine hit.

Ronan Byrne, an engineering student in Ireland, knew he should exercise more, but he got little enjoyment from working out. However, he did enjoy watching Netflix. So he hacked an exercise bike, connecting it to his laptop and writing code that would only allow Netflix to run if he was cycling at a certain speed. By linking exercise – literally – to a behavior that he was naturally drawn to, he transformed a distasteful activity into a pleasurable one.

You don’t need to be an engineer to apply this to your life. If you need to work out, but you want to catch up on the latest A-list gossip, you could commit to only reading magazines while at the gym. If you want to watch sports, but you need to make sales calls, promise yourself a half hour of ESPN after you talk to your tenth prospect. Soon enough, you may even find those unattractive tasks enjoyable, since you’ll be anticipating a pleasing reward while carrying them out.

If you want to build a new habit, make that habit as easy to adopt as possible.

We often spend a lot of time on behaviors that are easy. Scrolling through social media, for example, takes zero effort, so it’s easy for it to fill up lots of our time. Doing a hundred push-ups or studying Mandarin Chinese, in contrast, requires a lot of effort. Repeating those behaviors daily until they become habitual is tough.

So making behaviors as easy as possible is key to turning them into habits. Luckily, there are a few tricks we can embrace to make anything seem easier. The first is to focus on reducing friction.

Tony, for example has always been hopeless at sending greeting cards, while his wife never fails to do so. Why? Well, she keeps a box of greeting cards at home, pre-sorted by occasion, making it easier to send congratulations or condolences or whatever is called for. Since she doesn’t have to go out and buy a card when someone gets married or has an accident, there’s no friction involved in sending one.

You can also use this approach to increase friction for bad habits. If you want to waste less time in front of the TV, unplug it and take the batteries out of the remote. Doing so will introduce enough friction to ensure you only watch when you really want to.

The second trick for making a habit easier in the long term is the two-minute rule, a way to make any new activity feel manageable. The principle is that any activity can be distilled into a habit that is doable within two minutes. Want to read more? Don’t commit to reading one book every week – instead, make a habit of reading two pages per night. Want to run a marathon? Commit to simply putting on your running gear every day after work.

The two-minute rule is a way to build easily achievable habits, and those can lead you on to greater things. Once you’ve pulled on your running shoes, you’ll probably head out for a run. Once you’ve read two pages, you’ll likely continue. The rule recognizes that simply getting started is the first and most important step toward doing something.

Making your habits immediately satisfying is essential to effective behavior change.

In the 1990s, public health researcher Stephen Luby, working in the neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, achieved a huge 52-percent reduction in diarrhea among the local children. Pneumonia rates dropped by 48 percent, and skin infections by 35 percent. Luby’s secret? Nice soap.

Luby had known that handwashing and basic sanitation were essential to reducing illness. The locals understood this, too; they just weren’t turning their knowledge into a habit. Everything changed when Luby worked with Proctor and Gamble to introduce a premium soap into the neighborhood for free. Overnight, handwashing became a satisfying experience. The new soap lathered easily and smelled delightful. Suddenly, everyone was washing their hands, because it was now a pleasing activity.

The final and most important rule for behavioral change is to make habits satisfying.This can be difficult, for evolutionary reasons. Today, we live in what academics call a delayed-return environment. You turn up at the office today, but the return – a paycheck – doesn’t come until the end of the month. You go to the gym in the morning, but you don’t lose weight overnight.

Our brains, though, evolved to cope with the immediate-return environment of earlier humans, who weren’t thinking about long-term returns like saving for retirement or sticking to a diet. They were focused on immediate concerns like finding their next meal, seeking shelter and staying alert enough to escape any nearby lions.

Immediate returns can encourage bad habits, too. Smoking may give you lung cancer in 20 years, but, in the moment, it relieves your stress and the craving for nicotine, which means you may ignore the long-term effects and indulge in a cigarette.

So when you are pursuing habits with a delayed return, try to attach some immediate gratification to them.

For example, a couple wanted to eat out less, cook more, get healthier and save money. To do so, they opened a savings account called “Trip to Europe,” and every time they avoided a meal out, transferred $50 to it. The short-term satisfaction of seeing $50 land in that savings account provided the immediate gratification they needed to keep them on track for the ultimate, longer-term reward.  

However pleasurable and satisfying we make habits, we may still fail to maintain them. So let’s take a look at how we can stick to our good intentions.

Create a framework to keep your habits on track, using trackers and contracts.

Whether you’re trying to write your journal or give up smoking, managing your own behaviors can be hard. Thankfully, there are a few simple measures that can help.

Habit tracking is a simple but effective technique. Many people have kept a record of their habits; one of the most well known is founding father Benjamin Franklin. From the age of 20, Franklin kept a notebook in which he recorded adherence to 13 personal virtues, which included aims like avoiding frivolous conversation and to always be doing something useful. He noted his success every night.

You, too, can develop a habit tracker, using a simple calendar or diary, and crossing off every day that you stick with your chosen behaviors. You’ll find it effective, because habit tracking itself is an attractive, and satisfying, habit. The anticipation and action of crossing off each day will feel good and keep you motivated.

A second technique is to develop a habit contract that imposes negative consequences if you fail to stay on track.

Bryan Harris, an entrepreneur from Nashville, took his habit contract very seriously. In a contract signed by him, his wife and his personal trainer, he committed to get his weight down to 200 pounds. He identified specific habits that would help get him there, including tracking his food intake each day and weighing himself each week. Then he set up penalties for not doing those things. If he failed to track food intake, he would have to pay $100 to his trainer; if he failed to weigh himself, he would owe $500 to his wife. The strategy worked, driven not just by his fear of losing money but by his fear of losing face in front of two people who mattered to him. Humans are social animals. We care about the opinions of those around us, so simply knowing that someone is watching you can be a powerful motivator for success.

So why not set yourself a habit contract? Even if it isn’t as detailed as Harris’s, consider making a commitment to your partner, your best friend or one of your coworkers. If you agree upon a set of consequences for failing to follow through, you’ll be much more likely to stick to your habits. And as we’ve seen, sticking to a positive habit, however small, is a surefire way to achieve big things in life.

A tiny change in your behavior will not transform your life overnight. But turn that behavior into a habit that you perform every day and it absolutely can lead to big changes. Changing your life is not about making big breakthroughs or revolutionizing your entire life. Rather, it’s about building a positive system of habits that, when combined, deliver remarkable results.  

Action Plan: Use habit stacking to introduce new behaviors. If you want to build a new habit, you could try stacking it on top of an existing habit. Let’s say you want to start meditating, but you’re struggling to find the time. Try thinking about those things you do effortlessly each day, like drinking coffee in the morning. Then just stack the new habit on top. Commit to meditating each morning when you’ve finished your coffee, and build on the natural momentum that comes from a habit you already have.

[breazyvapors]

What Exactly Does Nicotine Do To Your Body?

What Exactly Does Nicotine Do To Your Body?   As vaping began to take off, one of several issues surrounding e-juice content was its nicotine concentration. Since it’s associated with cigarettes, nicotine has gained a bad reputation. From claims of how toxic it is to the body, to the myth that it causes cancer, it’s been viewed as a threat. Critics claim that nicotine is highly addictive, causes heart problems, and harms brains. Because of nicotine’s reputation, vaping has drawn suspicion and restrictive legal treatment. In some places around the world, vaping is allowed; but e-juices containing high levels of nicotine are banned - some countries like Australia ban nicotine completely. Nicotine’s heavy use in the tobacco industry has caused it to be vilified, but scientific fact doesn’t actually prove nicotine really is harmful - at least not at the doses consumed in tobacco or vapor products. Vaping is still new, but nicotine replacements have been around for a while. From gum to patches, various health institutions have used these products to help smokers quit. Instead of accepting its demonization, it’s better to base your opinion on evidence, rather than claims. So, let’s start with the basics of what nicotine actually is. Nicotine is one of the most well-known chemicals to the general population. It’s an alkaloid, which means it contains nitrogen and is chemically similar to caffeine. Besides tobacco plants, the chemical is also found in potatoes, tomatoes, and many other plants, though in smaller amounts. Statistically, there’s about 20 mg of nicotine in each 1 g of tobacco; in tomatoes, there’s 0.0000071 mg of nicotine per 1 g of tomato, making the consumption of about 20 pounds of tomatoes roughly around the smoking of one cigarette. Cigarettes usually contain about 10 mg of nicotine, which isn’t completely used when smoking. Between the burning of the tip, to being trapped in the filter, the entire 10 mg isn’t consumed. Plus, only about 1 mg of nicotine per cigarette is absorbed by the body. Once you consume the nicotine, it passes through your lungs’ membranes and into the bloodstream. Once in the blood, the nicotine reaches your heart, is transferred into your arteries, and travels up to the brain. Vaping’s a bit different, since the nicotine is absorbed mostly in your mouth and upper throat, instead of your lungs. It still reaches your blood, but notably slower than it does when smoking. This is one of the reasons why vaping is less addictive than tobacco. When you vape, the first thing you’ll notice are the short-term effects. Since nicotine is a stimulant, it’ll create a pleasurable feeling, as well as an increased heart rate and an improved ability to pay attention and remember things. Nicotine, though, also has a biphasic effect. This means that if you consume a little bit, it’s acts as a stimulant; but if you consume a greater amount, it’ll chill you out. For vaping, if you want a quick kick, take short, shallow hits. If you want to feel more relaxed, take longer, heavier hits. All of these effects occur when the nicotine chemical grabs onto neurotransmitters in your brain. These are like messengers, which, when activated by the binding, tell your brain to release certain compounds, mainly dopamine, which causes a release of several pleasure hormones. Dopamine is a natural compound that causes you to remember rewards, leading to the release of the pleasurable feelings. It also helps you remember negative experiences, keeping you away from performing the cause. This factor explains why nicotine can become addictive. When it regularly stimulants the receptors that cause the dopamine release, your body reacts by reducing the number of receptors, limiting its ability to make dopamine on its own. Because of this, the same amount of nicotine won’t have the same effect anymore. The inability to get the same effect from a certain amount of nicotine is called “tolerance,” which you’ve probably heard associated with other addictions. Once this happens, if you don’t consume more nicotine, you’ll begin to feel withdrawal due to your deficiency of dopamine, leading to anxiety, restlessness, and the inability to concentrate. Because of this withdrawal, nicotine replacement therapy through patches, gum, and especially e-cigarettes become extremely helpful. It lessens the symptoms of withdrawal, and rids your body of the tobacco risks. Critics, though, still claim that nicotine is harmful. Their association makes complete sense since nicotine is in tobacco, which is ultimately dangerous. To them, tobacco is harmful, and since nicotine is in tobacco, it’s harmful as well. Just because nicotine is the most well-known chemical in tobacco doesn’t mean it causes all the negative effects. But, is it responsible for any of them? There’s a myth that 60 mg of nicotine can kill you, but the researchers at E-Cigarette Direct have disproved this. The lethal dose is actually about 500 to 1,000 mg, which is nowhere near the amount used in e-liquid mixing or smoking. There’s one exception, which is associated with mixing your own juice. If you use a strong nicotine base (mixers start with a nicotine base with up to 100 or even 1000 mg/ml), you may be crossing the border into dangerous. Nicotine can be absorbed through your skin and these high levels can be risky. So, if you do mix your own juice, make sure you’re always wearing gloves. Another claim is that nicotine causes cancer, since nicotine is in tobacco, which does cause cancer. In truth, it’s the myriad other chemicals found in smoldering tobacco, not the nicotine, that causes the cancer. A study found that although cigarette smoking was linked to cancer, there was no connection between non-tobacco nicotine products like gum and e-cigarettes and cancer development. Although there have been reports of nicotine stimulating the growth of some tumors, there’s no proof that it solely causes cancer. Finally, perhaps the most important issue with nicotine is its impact on the heart. Since it’s a stimulant, it does have some immediate effects on your heart. The noradrenaline released when you consume nicotine will increase your heart rate. This reduces the amount of blood that reaches your heart and makes it work harder, but the effects remain mild and disappear rapidly. A serious issue is nicotine’s effect on the endothelium, which is a thin layer of cells that line the inside of your blood vessels. Because of their role in how the blood vessels function, if something damages them, it could lead to strokes, heart attacks, coronary artery disease, clogged arteries, and high blood pressure. Long-term nicotine use may impact these cells over time, but this is still just a theory, as nicotine use independent of tobacco use hasn’t been tested. Whether or this happens to common nicotine users is still unproven. Overall, it’s best to say that if consumption of nicotine through vaping does cause heart problems, it’s still a much smaller risk than smoking. Heart health should be a deciding factor when switching to vaping, and so far, it seems to be the better choice. Like caffeine, nicotine is a mild stimulant and has some short-term effects on your body. Most people who consume the chemicals do so without any issues.  It isn’t fair, though, to say nicotine is exactly like caffeine, but is more of a broad “cousin.” If you don’t smoke, you shouldn’t pick up vaping as casually as you pick up a cup of coffee. But if you do, you should consider vaping as an alternative. It’s a safer way to access the chemical that draws you to the the cigarette tip. The best thing to say is that if we aren’t worried about people drinking coffee, we shouldn’t be worried about people who consume clean sources of nicotine. https://breazy.com/blogs/updates/what-exactly-does-nicotine-do-to-your-body?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr #vape #vaping #breazy