Wellness Book Review: The Good Gut by Erica and Justin Sonnenburg

It’s hard to escape the emerging media excitement about the gut microbiomes impact on human health. While there is much excitement, it can be difficult to sort through what is pre-speculative hype and what is substantial science. Enter, the Sonnenburgs and their recent book, The Good Gut.

Justin Sonnenburg and Erica Sonnenburg are the preeminent scientists researching the gut microbiota. Together, they run the Sonnenburg Lab out of Stanford’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. As a direct result of their scientific discoveries on the gut microbiota, The Sonnenburgs found themselves making profound dietary and lifestyle changes. Yet, they realized that their friends and the general public were not yet aware of the importance of this “new organ” and its implications for human health.

To help the rest of us out, they wrote The Good Gut: Taking Control Of Your Weight, Your Mood, And Your Long-term Health. The Good Gut summarizes the current scientific understanding of the gut microbiota and the practical recommendations for cultivating healthy gut ecology. As someone who has been excitedly following the microbiome research for years, I can honestly say this is *THE BEST* book I’ve read on the topic to date.

But in case you don’t get around to reading it, here are some key takeaways:

FIRST, WHAT IS THE GUT MICROBIOTA?

The gut microbiota refers to the community of bacteria and other microorganisms living in the GI tract. The gut microbiome refers to the genetic material these microorganisms possess. This “second genome”, unlike our own genetic material, is rapidly malleable and altered by our lifestyle and dietary changes. For this reason, the community of gut flora serve as an extension of our own genome and have profound implications to our health.

HOW DOES IT IMPACT HEALTH?

In the book, the Sonnenburgs refer to the microbiota as our own internal drug factory. When the gut bacteria feed on dietary fiber, a fermentation process occurs, which produces an assortment of molecules that are released and absorbed into the circulatory system. It appears these molecules communicate with our brains and bodies to produce profound health effects.

Another way it impacts our health, is through the connection between the gut’s impact on the brain via the brain-gut axis. The brain-gut axis is a vast connection between the brain and the gut through neuronal and hormonal communication. In fact, there are so many neurons in the gut, that it has been referred to as the “the second brain”. Studies also show that stress and mood disorders can change the population of the microbiota. This is likely modulated by our autonomic nervous system (stress and relaxation responses) which control things like gut motility and mucus secretion. Thus, stressful states change the environment of the gut, which changes which populations of microbes are likely to thrive there. Inversely, bacteria in the gut also appear to impact mood, perception and potentially even behavior. In mouse models, scientists have shown that they can change mood disorder and personality states by transplanting microbes between mice. With more research, the mechanisms for exactly how the gut flora so profoundly impact mental and physical health will continue to get clearer.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR MODERN GUTS?

For most of our evolutionary history , we subsisted as hunter and gatherers, consuming mostly wild plants and lean meats. The advent of Agriculture 12,000 years ago drastically changed how we eat and live. Another radical change to our diets happened 400 years ago with the industrial revolution, which resulted in our current model of highly accessible, mass produced, highly sweetened, low-fiber processed foods. To investigate the climate in which our physiology (and our relationship with our internal population of microorganisms) evolved in, scientists have studied the last remaining full-time hunter and gatherer tribe, The Hadza people of Tanzania.In stark contrast to modern Americans who consume 10-15g fiber a day, the Hadza consume on average 100-150g a fiber/day. As a result of this dietary fiber diversity and outdoor lifestyle, their gut microbiota has much more diversity than the average American. Our modern lifestyle appears to have stripped our modern microbiotas of their rich diversity, which is thought to explain much of Western disease states. Currently, lack of dietary fiber and the subsequent lack of microbial diversity, is linked to weight gain, increased inflammation and risk of chronic illness.

WHAT TO DO?

Just like we focus on feeding ourselves, we’d be wise to also consider how to best feed our internal flora. The Sonnenburgs make it clear that the key to optimizing our microbiota is all about dietary fiber from complex carbohydrates. Complex carbs (unlike simple starches and sugars), survive the transit from mouth to colon, where they are accessible to the microorganisms living in the large intestine. The Sonnenburgs call these foods, Microbiota Accessible Carbs (MACs). Examples of of MACs include beans, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. If we do not consume enough dietary fiber (MACs) our gut bacteria resort to feeding on the mucosal lining of the gut, which serves as a backup carbohydrate source. Normally, the mucosal lining provides a barrier which protects our intestinal and immune cells from contacting the microbiota. When this barrier is compromised, our immune system is exposed to bacteria, which triggers a systemic inflammatory response. In summary, if you are not regularly consuming foods that feed your internal bacteria, they will resort to feeding on your gut wall. This diminishes the quality of your gut barrier, and leads to increased systemic inflammation.

If you’ve made it this far, I’m sure you’re wondering how to cultivate the health of your internal flora. Luckily, the Sonnenburg’s book focuses as much on illustrating the practical lifestyle recommendations as summarizing the research findings.

Below are some of the top action steps recommended for cultivating a healthy gut microbiota:

• Eat a wide diversity of dietary fiber from complex carbs ( MACs ) like beans, whole grains, vegetables and fruits.

• Reduce consumption of meat and saturated fats, which appear to favor a microbial population which is more inflammatory.

• Increase probiotic rich foods such as fermented dairy products, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut etc.

• Avoid unnecessary antibiotics

• Spend more time outside, on farms, and in the garden

• Have pet(s).

For more fascinating science and in-depth recommendations, check out the book!

What are you currently reading? Any health books you'd recommend for a future review? 

Wellness is Free

The wellness world seems confused about something. If I scroll through my Instagram account, I get the impression that to be healthy, I need to buy lots of things. In a world of brand ambassadors, luxe wellness events, and expensive functional medicine consults it appears that wellness is inaccessible to all but the ultra-rich.

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are still far too many folks struggling to meet their basic needs (access to food, shelter, healthcare, etc), the stress of which obviously does not allow for wellness to thrive. The gap between these two extremes seems increasingly large. Clearly, most of the world will never be able to participate in any of the wellness trends that abound. Does that mean that the masses simply cannot be well because they won’t ever be able to buy a $15 herbal adaptogenic smoothie? (That is a rhetorical question but I’ll answer it anyway...NO). After going through my own period of reduced income, I came to understand more experientially how “out of touch” a lot of wellness recommendations seem.

It’s seductive to look towards the latest supplement, workout fad, or expensive cream as the solution to what ails us. It’s an iteration of a pill for every ill. The desire to fix ourselves by purchasing something is alluring. It deepens our cultural narrative that something quick and external is the solution. Relatedly, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the confluence of fashion, wellness, and consumerism. These elements are converging at a time when it seems vitally important to rethink our rampant consumerism in order to combat climate change and environmental degradation, especially since a thriving planet is our ultimate “wellness” resource.

On this note, I recently came across a refreshingly different framework for approaching wellness. This new roadmap is laid out in a scientific paper that posits that modern society is experiencing “paleo deficiency”, or a lack of essential inputs derived from engaging with nature and as a result experiencing high levels of modern chronic disease. The authors offer solutions based on increasing nature-based inputs that create ecosystems leading to human well-being. This article is not discussing the shaky definition of paleo that is being touted as the latest diet trend, but rather the common natural elements that our physiology and genes expect to be in contact with because of years of coevolution. Things like appropriate exposure to cycles of light-dark that sets our internal circadian rhythms, natural sounds and environments (which appear to have a restorative effect on our brains and immune systems), exposure to a wide diversity of microbes which sets the stage for a healthy microbiota, etc. When we are removed from these inputs, due to modernization, urbanization, and increased technology-use, there are both mental and physical health consequences.

The paper provides an incredibly useful figure that illustrates the essential wellness ingredients that modernization reduces our exposure to. Surprisingly, (or not), not one thing listed needs to be purchased over Amazon. These missing elements were all nature-based and free.

In case you’re not up for reading an academic paper, here’s a recap of some of the factors that can lead to poor physical and psychological health:  

• Too much time indoors, not enough time outdoors ( Why it matters? negative ions, attention restoration effects, phytoncides -- aromatic chemicals secreted from trees, increased microbial diversity, light cues, more activity)

• Lack of movement

• Too much processed foods ( ie. not enough fiber and a lack of phytonutrients)

• Mismatched light cues (too much blue light at night, not enough bright natural light during the day)

• Not enough nourishing time in solitude (appropriately balanced by time in interconnected community and nourishing relationships).

Using this framework, there are indisputable, common ingredients that facilitate well-being but the individual expressions of how to build a lifestyle that includes these things is a creative act. This is a creative task wrought with much challenge and tension, particularly given that much of what’s built into modern society is in direct opposition to these things. The expression of what it means to create a life well-lived is never going to be able to be condensed into a one-size-fits all protocol or a product you can purchase. And contrary to what the wellness zeitgeist on the internet is telling you, rather than buying more stuff, it actually involves stripping away barriers that prevent you from accessing the essential, nature-based inputs.

Inspired by this paper and my increasing discomfort with a capitalistic approach to wellness, I brainstormed a list of ways to increase these vital “paleo inputs”. I made sure all my suggestions are low or no-cost and don’t require buying more stuff.

• Cultivate hobbies that connect you with the natural world and get you outside. Examples: gardening, foraging, hiking, camping, outdoor cooking.

• Walk or bike more for your transportation.

• Develop a habit of taking a morning walk first thing in the morning (this has the added benefit of aligning your circadian rhythm by signaling to your system that it’s daytime and thus to be alert).

• Learn a yoga sequence or a bodyweight sequence that you can do at home (here’s a link to a sun salutation demo and a beginner’s bodyweight circuit to get you started).

• Start to work for your food in some way -- walk to the farmers market or grocery store, forage, grow some of your own food and cook it! Bad things happen when we completely uncouple the need to move for our food--(I’m looking at you Seamless!)

• Eat more plants (aka increase disease-fighting phytonutrients). Come up with a list of your favorite plant-based recipes and include in your weekly rotation. For inspiration check out this post.

• Spend more time in silence. Seek out quiet (whether it’s a place in nature or your home, a meditation practice, or simply turning off the music and podcasts during parts of your day) and learn to disconnect from constant noise.  The Headspace app is a wonderful way to get started with a home meditation practice.

• Conversely, spend intentional time in community. Offer and seek support from your community. Plan weekly communal meals and join supportive networks. Feeling a sense of belonging is one of the best ways to reduce stress.

• Create an environment of total darkness at night to sleep in. Strip away the technologies that keep you seeing blue light into the night. Make your bedroom totally dark and create a habit of disconnecting from all screens and devices at least a half hour before bedtime. More on the importance of light cues for health here.

I’m very curious about creative, non-consumerist ways people have found to bring more of these elements into their daily lives. What does your unique, ecosystem of wellness look like?

*DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty about existing in a consumerist society. I’m as complicit as anyone! I’m just offering what I hope will be an empowering alternative perspective on wellness that reminds us we don’t need anything extra to access our innate sense of well-being.

References: 

Logan AC et al. Natural environments, ancestral diets, and microbial ecology: is there a modern "paleo-deficit disorder"? Part I. J Physiol Anthropol. 2015; 34(1): 9. 

Logan AC et al. Natural environments, ancestral diets, and microbial ecology: is there a modern “paleo-deficit disorder”? Part II. J Physiol Anthropol. 2015; 34(1): 9.

Why You Need A Health Coach

You can imagine my surprise when a prominent New York City physician told me that doctors don’t know a thing about health. He argued that yes, they were extensively trained to diagnose symptom patterns into disease names and to treat the symptoms through pharmacology, but that these disease-management skills are not the same skill set needed to cultivate health. This innovative doctor saw an obvious gap in healthcare and was calling for a new profession-- a profession that was similar to a primary care doctor but instead a generalist expert in health. Long story short, I asked him if he’d heard of health coaching and landed myself a job as a resident wellness expert at his healthcare company. But that’s another blog post. At that time, I had already spent a lot of time in clinical settings, trying to figure out if I wanted to pursue my passion for health by going to medical school. I had reached a similar conclusion as my doc friend. Even the more holistically-minded clinicians I had worked with faced frustrating limitations in their capacity to elicit health-behavior change due to time and insurance constraints. 

I now find myself in the unique but awesome position of working in a clinic where the doctors actually do know a heck of a lot about health. My doctor colleagues are naturopathic physicians, trained in primary care medicine from a natural-perspective. Unlike conventional doctors, their training focuses on food as medicine, botanicals, psychosocial wellness and root-cause resolution of disease. 

The obvious question in a setting like Wellness Minneapolis is why would someone see a health coach rather than a naturopathic physician? 

Here are some reasons it may make sense to begin your health journey with health coaching.

In most cases, the keys to creating health are shockingly simple and don’t require a medical degree to understand. They are so simple in fact, that you’d think everyone would be vibrantly well. But unfortunately, KNOWING what you should do, does not usually translate into doing it. I deeply wanted to become a daily meditator about 2 years before I actually did it. I currently know I’d be 10X happier if I spent less time each day on my phone and I have yet to solidify this behavior change. So many of my clients are focused on debating the tiniest minutiae of health (ex. which brand of supplement is best) and have yet to master the basics that would have the biggest impact (like consistent sleep and daily movement). What’s needed to create health behavior change is usually not more complex health knowledge and information. It’s usually two-fold approach: accountability and strategic support to create different daily habits +  breaking down psychological barriers and cultivating health supportive mindsets. This is where coaches excel. 

Alternatively, naturopaths are able to hone in on the root cause of chronic symptoms and disorders and creating a holistic treatment plan, accordingly. A naturopath’s treatment plan usually includes lifestyle changes, botanicals, and supplements. With some variation for specific issues, any plan your naturopathic doctor recommends will involve consistently getting quality nutrition, sleep, movement and managing the stress in your life. These are the four areas you need to build consistency in and a health coach is an expert at making that a reality. If you’ve already worked with a health coach, you’re likely a superstar at rocking the foundational habits of health. With these foundations in place, any targeted solutions offered in your clinical plan will yield faster, more efficacious results. Additionally, a coach can help you actually implement the lifestyle changes suggested by your naturopath.

Here’s why a health coach may be your most powerful tool for finally getting healthy:

Health Coaches Understand That The Key To Health Is Daily Habits: 
Health is created by your daily choices over time. In other words, health is simply a sum total of your habits. Often we have psychological barriers that limit our ability to create lasting change. For example, I bet you already know the basic things you need to do to be healthy. But unfortunately, knowledge does not necessarily lead to consistent action. We are not rational creatures but instead influenced by myriad factors including psychological barriers (limiting beliefs), and cues in our environment. This is why it’s so important to create systems and structures that automate your health behaviors rather than relying exclusively on willpower and good intention. 

Health Coaches Have A Truly Holistic Definition Of Health: 
A good health coach possesses a truly holistic model of wellness, understanding that often what’s needed to create vibrancy isn’t just kale smoothies but may involve things like expanding social supports or tapping into a sense of purpose beyond the humdrum of the mundane. A good coach has strong intuition and is able to break out of any cookie cutter treatment protocol and instead taps into their clients deeper needs and unique vision for what true wellness means for them. Signing up for a coaching program also gives you the time to address multiple layers that impact health beyond just the obvious physical ones. 

Health Coaches Know Health Is Simply A Series Of Learnable Skills: 
A coach is an educator who can help you fill in any skill gaps that may be limiting your success. Often times health is touted as a fixed state (for example a fixed body ideal or something gifted to you only if you’ve won the genetic lottery) that some people have and some people don’t. A more empowering view is that deep self-care and health consists of consistent habits and learned skills. There are a few essential skills that make healthy living accessible and easeful. For example, some essential skills of a healthy person include basic cooking techniques, knowing how to create routines and rituals the automate behavior change without relying on willpower and learning some basic breathing and mindfulness techniques that put you in control of the state of your nervous system. 

Health Coaches Help You Shift Your Mindset and Beliefs:
A coach doesn’t just focus on the externals but evokes paradigm altering mindset shifts that can change not just your behavior but how you view your sense of reality. A few key health mindsets involve adopting a growth mindset, a stress-is-enhancing mindset, and a self-compassionate mindset. A coach can also help you re-frame your limiting beliefs, expanding your sense of agency and possibility for your life. Often times these beliefs operate below our subconscious mind. A coach can help bring them into the light of awareness, where they can be questioned and changed. An example of this may be an old belief that you don’t have the right body type to attend a yoga class or that food equals love. 

Health Coaches Emphasize That You Are The Expert, and focus on helping you tap into YOUR intuition and body wisdom. A coaches magic involves consistently directing you towards your own deep wisdom and desires. In a world filled with health experts, many of whom disagree with each other, it’s easy to feel confused, overwhelmed and paralyzed about where to even begin. Our current medical paradigm often exacerbates this by asking us to hand our personal power over to clinicians. A good coach teaches you tools to consistently access your own inner wisdom to find out what would be most nourishing for your body and soul. This cuts through information overwhelm and the feeling that there are a million things you SHOULD be doing. Instead, you learn to write your own prescription for what’s going to lead you to your best life. 

Health Coaches Offer Accountability and Individualized Support: 
A coach is an accountability partner and having accountability towards a trusted other is often one of the missing keys to changing behavior. Since a coach gets to know you deeply and works with you over time, they can uncover your unique barriers that have prevented you from achieving your health goals in the past, and hold you accountable to intelligently crafted goals uniquely suited to you. This is how you finally get the outcomes you’re desiring. 

The essential ingredients that lead to health are not rocket science. In fact, the suggestions that can create profound changes in energy levels, vitality, and wellness are usually shockingly basic and simple. The reality is that most people don’t consistently do the things that lead to health. Yes, we all know getting sleep is vital for everything from weight management to optimal brain function but the tricky part is how YOU, with your unique psychology, lifestyle, and values are going to create a sleep habit that is realistic and effortless given the context of your daily life. It is at this juncture, between what you know you WANT to be doing and the REALITY of what you are doing, where a coach can be incredibly valuable in closing the gap. By working with a coach you’ll develop the key skills and habits needed to create a lifetime of health. 

If you’re intrigued and would like to see if coaching is right for you, you can get started by scheduling a free 20 minute intro coaching call.

We all know we should be eating more vegetables...Here’s how to actually do it.

There still remains a lot of debate in the nutrition world. Paleo or vegan? What ratio of macronutrients is optimal?  Couple this with the powerful lobby influence the food and agricultural industries have on government regulatory bodies like the USDA, and it’s no wonder we live in a society of confused eaters. Yet, there is one indisputable recommendation that ALL nutrition experts agree on, and that is the power of increasing vegetable intake. Despite this being the most unequivocal piece of nutrition advice out there, most of us consistently fail to meet the recommended daily dose.

There are many compelling reasons to eat your vegetables. For example, the gut microbiome ( the microbial population that lives in our GI tract) and its impact on human health is THE hot topic in the scientific and medical community. Every day there seems to be a new study linking the health of your microbiome to everything from mood disorders to obesity to cardiovascular disease. And what is the key to a healthy microbiome? Eating a diversity of plants. Plants provide the indigestible fiber which feeds the beneficial bacteria in your lower intestine, which leads to a healthy intestinal lining and encourages beneficial strains of bacteria. Additionally, plants offer a variety of polyphenols, vitamins and minerals, and antioxidants which have innumerable disease fighting properties.

While we all know we should be eating more vegetables, getting the recommended 6-10 servings a day often remains an elusive target. I’ve tried many different techniques to inspire myself and my clients to turn this recommendation into a daily habit and the following are the best methods I’ve encountered.

my top secrets For finally eating enough veggies.

1. Batch cook your vegetables. My vegetable guru and solver of veggie angst is the food writer, Tamar Adler. My favorite thing about Tamar Adler is that she is not motivated by health. Her writing rarely, if ever, talks about health benefits. Her eating and cooking philosophy is motivated by flavor, pleasure, frugality, and food traditions. A bi-product of this is that she cooks primarily with local, whole foods and lots of plants. She shows us that there are much more elegant ways to “eat your veggies” than a sad-looking salad next to your grilled chicken, which can quickly make you feel like you’re on a 1980s-style deprivation diet. Instead, while you prep your veggies, you can feel like you are Alice Water’s in your Berkeley kitchen or at least a vibrant Sicilian grandmother. She recommends batch cooking your vegetables all at once and eating them throughout the week in various dishes. It’s common in other cultures to eat cooked, room temperature, leftover vegetables but Americans don’t have this food tradition. The result is good intentions and a plethora of limp, rotting vegetables in crisper drawers. For full instructions on the batch cooking ritual, watch this enviable video series of Adler prepping her farmer’s market bounty. Written instructions here. The basic idea is to roast a few trays of veggies in your oven at once (try broccoli, cauliflower, beets, sweet potatoes, etc). While these cook, sautee some greens on the stove. Store everything in glass containers in your fridge and eat your way through the veggies throughout the week.

2. Eat a super salad once a day. My brilliant nutritionist colleague, Jesse Haas, has a salad formula that takes care of most of your veggie requirements in one sitting. Try to eat this once a day and you’re golden. Here’s the basic recipe (customize to your liking and to what veggies are in season) :  2-3 cups greens + 1-2 cups cut veggies + 3 oz. protein + 2 Tbsp dressing (here’s a nice basic salad dressing recipe) + 1/2 c cooked whole grains (optional) = 4-7 servings of vegetables and limitless possibilities.

3. Drink a Micronutrient Smoothie. This tip is from one of my favorite scientists, Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She is a cancer and aging researcher who has done extensive health studies on micronutrient deficiencies as one of the key factors in disease prevention. The secret to getting adequate micronutrients? Again, dietary plant quantity and diversity. Her health hack is a daily smoothie where you get your fiber + plant intake in one (slightly intense but worth it) veggie-smoothie. Here are two videos (smoothie recipe 1 and recipe 2) with the ingredients and overview of the benefits. If you’re not ready to go all-in you can start adding a handful of greens to your fruit smoothie and call it good!

4. Aim to fill half your plate with vegetables, especially at lunch and dinner. One Medical's blog offers a great infographic to demonstrate the distribution of a healthy plate. 

Pick one new veggie habit to try and notice how it affects your energy and overall health. As always, I would love to hear how it goes!  

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Emotions 101: The Healthiest Ways to Relate To Your Feelings May Surprise You

There is a persistent meme in our culture that we should feel happy all the time. Particularly in the spiritual world where the latest spin on the Law of Attraction meme can give the impression that if only you felt good all the time and just maintained “higher vibes” you’d attract everything you desire (gotta love when consumerism and pop spirituality converge). This can fuel the belief that feeling the whole range of emotions is somehow bad, unevolved, or unhealthy. The science of mindfulness and emotional regulation is showing that the opposite is true. A recent study showed that believing that certain emotions are “unacceptable” was associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and fatigue. The key to becoming an optimistic, happy person does NOT, in fact, lie in never experiencing unpleasant emotions, but rather becoming skilled in relating to the full spectrum of emotions that will inevitably arise. Since there seems to be a lot of conflicting ideas about the how to best manage emotions, I sought the most useful, well-researched techniques on how to best relate to  “all the feels”.

Before I dive into techniques though, you may be wondering how this relates to your physical health. The connection is through the stress response. For many of us in the Western world, our biggest stressors are no longer external threats such as wild animals, or imminent starvation but rather internal stressors, ie. our emotions and thoughts. When these “internal threats” are poorly managed our stress response is activated chronically. Chronic stress is implicated in nearly every disease and mood disorder, so in many ways learning how to healthily relate to your emotions is one of the most important healthy living skills to cultivate. What determines whether our emotions elicit unnecessary stress is how we relate to our emotional states as they arise. Here are the most practical, science-backed ways to develop a compassionate, healthy relationship with your emotional landscape.

 4 Ways To Befriend Your Emotions and Drastically Reduce Your Stress:

1. Don’t try to THINK your way out of emotions. Instead, change your breathing to create true emotional shifts. Rather than trying to force shifts in your thinking, your breath is the key to regulating your emotional state. In research studies, they’ve shown that there are distinct breathing patterns associated with different emotional states. The fascinating part is that this relationship is bidirectional, meaning state shifts can be created in two ways. When you feel a certain emotion you breathe in a specific, predictable way AND if you breathe in a specific way, you will change your emotional state. Slow, deep breathing is associated with more “positive” emotions like happiness. Shallow, rapid breathing was associated with emotions like fear, sadness and anger.  The next time you’re experiencing a distressing emotion, consciously take slow, deep breaths until you feel better.

2. Self-compassion is your best friend in emotional regulation. A common reaction to a distressing emotion is to beat yourself up for feeling bad, which makes you feel even worse. Kicking yourself while you’re down isn’t helpful and leads to rumination, depression, and re-triggers the initial unpleasant emotion. Use your unpleasant emotions as an opportunity to give yourself love and support, just as you would to a good friend who is suffering. Make a pledge to pile self-compassion on top of any emotion, particularly the “negative ones”.  A practical way to evoke self-compassion is mindfulness + kindness. This looks like bringing your awareness to the reality of what you’re feeling and if you recognize it as a moment of suffering use it as a cue to be kind and gentle towards yourself. You can solidify this kindness through a mantra, touching your hand to your heart, or anything else that feels compassionate in the moment.

3. Stay focused on the body sensations associated with the emotion, not your thoughts about what the emotion means. Emotions are inherently an embodied experience as the feelings are a result of a cascade of hormones and neurochemicals. This actual physiologic emotional reaction does not last long unless re-triggered by the mind replaying the story around the emotion. A simple practice is to drop the story (even if it’s really compelling--you can always come back to it) and non-judgmentally observe your body sensations as you experience the emotion. Feel free to label the sensations you’re feeling in your body and watch as they shift and change. This allows the physiological emotional response to dissipate without re-triggering the emotional reaction with our thoughts and narratives about what it means. Meditation teacher, Tara Brach, offers a mindfulness practice that encompasses this technique here.

4. Label the emotion you’re experiencing. There have been some studies showing that simply labeling your emotional experience (ex. I’m feeling sad/mad/anxious ect.) reduces the physiological signs of distress associated with the emotion. This may be due to the recruitment of the higher brain centers  (prefrontal cortex) required to label the emotion, which helps shift out of the more reactive, lower brain centers. Additionally, acknowledging the presence of an emotion brings mindfulness to your experience. Also, labeling offers some distance between you and the experience of the emotion allowing for more space to notice its transience and mindfully choose your response.

Feeling the entire range of human emotions is normal, and necessary. What determines whether our emotions elicit unnecessary stress is our relationship with our emotions as they arise. Embrace the whole range of human emotions and relate to them skillfully using labeling, self-compassion, breathing and awareness of body sensations. As always, I would love to hear about your experience using these techniques!

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Don't be afraid of the dark: It may be our most potent medicine!

If there were such a thing as a panacea in the wellness world, I’d place my bet on optimizing circadian rhythms by getting appropriate exposure to light and dark. In ancient forms of medicine (such as Greco-Roman Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine), there was a heavy emphasis on Nature as healer and physicians recommended aligning with nature as a disease cure. Within modern biomedicine, extolling the healing powers of nature has largely fallen out of fashion. But recently, this theme is beginning to crop up again in medical literature. This isn’t some outdated, sentimental notion after all, but rather an entire field of science known as chronobiology. Chronobiology is a branch of biology that studies how our body's natural cycles—mental, physical and emotional—are affected by solar and lunar rhythms. Our physiology has evolved to function optimally when aligned with natural rhythms of light-dark. Disrupted circadian rhythms are being correlated with a myriad of illnesses such as mood disorders, metabolic issues, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cancer, and menstrual disruptions. And unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be a part of our physiology we can override or “hack”. A lack of adequate bright light during the day or excessive exposure to light at night both have consequences. In an era when it’s increasingly more tempting to live out of sync with light-dark cycles, aligning with the rhythms of nature may be one of our most potent forms of preventive medicine.

SO, what exactly disrupts our “inner clocks”? Our circadian clock is primarily set by exposure to light and dark. For my science lovers out there, let me explain how this works physiologically. In our brains, the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) keeps track of light-dark signals from the optic nerve and triggers hormonal and behavioral outputs accordingly. The reduction of light at night is detected by our SCN and triggers the release of melatonin from our pineal glands, which causes sleepiness.

For most of our evolutionary history, as the sun went down we were no longer exposed to bright light (more specifically light in the blue spectrum) so the current problem lies in an evolutionary mismatch from what our bodies have evolved to expect versus recent technological developments. With the invention of the lightbulb in 1879 and the technological revolution, we have unprecedented inputs of light at night ( or LAN, as it is called in the scientific literature) that lead to circadian disruption. The use of artificial light and devices after dark disrupts the environmental cue and our levels of melatonin are abnormally suppressed which reduces both the quality of sleep and the ability to fall asleep. This is problematic for reasons beyond melatonin’s impact on sleep quality. It is less commonly known that beyond its influence on sleep, melatonin is also an incredibly potent anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immunomodulating and oncostatic hormone. It’s currently being widely researched because of its potential anti-cancer effects. So basically, every hour after dark that you are exposing yourself to blue light, you’re decreasing the levels of this powerfully health-promoting hormone you’re exposed to. Or in simpler terms, as far as our physiology is concerned, exposure to adequate darkness each day is a form of vital medicine. The official recommendation is maintaining a window of 9-10 hours of darkness each 24-hour cycle. For most of us this would mean an hour or two before bed we’d stop looking at screens (T.V., computers), devices (phones, Ipads) AND dim the lights or use lights in the red spectrum.

Secondary inputs that influence our circadian clock are eating patterns, exercise, social inputs, and levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. The most powerful secondary input is meal timing or more precisely, cycles of feeding and fasting. For optimal health, our meal timings would correspond with light/dark cycles (a.k.a no late night eating). Limiting feeding to daytime hours and increasing periods of fasting at night does the body good. This doesn’t need to be extreme. See my recommendations below for the details.

HOW TO RESET YOUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS FOR OPTIMAL HEALTH:

1. Expose yourself to natural light first thing in the morning. Circadian alignment starts as soon as you wake up. Exposure to natural light, ideally in the morning before 10:30 am, aligns your circadian rhythm and has been proven to result in better sleep at night. The best way to do this is to get outside in the morning, without sunglasses, for at least 10 minutes (cloudy days included). At the very least, open the shades and let natural light into your living space. If it is not possible to get outside, considering using a light box of at least 10,000 lux.

2. Exercise in the morning. By getting some gentle movement in the morning, even 5-10 minutes counts, you optimize your circadian rhythm by appropriately setting your cortisol curve. Exercise helps ensure a spike of cortisol in the morning which leads to lower levels at night, which improves sleep quality and melatonin levels.

3. Avoid screens AT LEAST 1 hour before bed. Again, think of darkness as medicine. Darkness leads to the release of melatonin and melatonin increases sleep quality and reduces chronic inflammation. The most powerful way to ensure optimal levels of melatonin is to set a digital sunset each night. This means no longer looking at your phone, screens, Kindle, etc. after a certain time each night. As a compromise, you can download f.lux on your computer and use Nightshift (if you have an iPhone 5 or higher) which limits the blue light emitted from your computer and phone. Another option is wearing really dorky blue light blocking orange sunglasses at night.

4. Make sure your bedroom is completely dark. Using an eye mask is a great start but it been discovered that your skin has photoreceptors which detect light and can disrupt your melatonin levels, so it's important that your room is completely dark. Invest in blackout curtains and get all devices out of the bedroom. For extra insurance, consider getting a nightlight in the red spectrum for your bathroom and hallway so you don’t have to turn on the blue-light emitting overhead light if you wake up in the middle of the night.

5. Stop eating or drinking alcohol at least 3 hours before bedtime. Late night alcohol or eating disrupt sleep architecture. A lot of great functional medicine practitioners recommend a 12-hour window between dinner and breakfast, or simply stopping eating 3 hours before bedtime. Alcohol may help you fall asleep but it disrupts sleep quality and depth so it is best avoided near bedtime.

6. Ritual and consistency are key. Going to bed and getting up at roughly the same time each day entrains your circadian clock. Ideally, go to bed between 10-11p and wake up around 7 am.  Create sleep rituals that help you wind down at night and do your best to stick to them.

7. Start Earthing. One of the best ways to reset our circadian rhythms is to get barefoot contact with the Earth aka Earthing or Grounding. This is a slightly unconventional recommendation that I’ve written off in the past as too hippy, even for me. But I’ve become convinced after reading some amazing journal articles on the benefits. According to Chevalier et al., “Mounting evidence suggests that the Earth's negative potential can create a stable internal bioelectrical environment for the normal functioning of all body systems. Moreover, oscillations of the intensity of the Earth's potential may be important for setting the biological clocks regulating diurnal body rhythms, such as cortisol secretion”. From a practical standpoint, the recommendation is “barefoot sessions” (weather-permitting) for as little as 30-40 minutes daily. There are also some emerging grounding technologies that give you the same benefits without the barefoot time. For more on Earthing, visit this website.

The full effects of aligning your circadian rhythm with natural rhythms of light and dark are just beginning to be understood. We’ll likely find out more details about the consequences of circadian misalignment as more of the population experiments with living out of sync with natural cycles. My bet is that it is a bit like how we’ve come to understand the importance of eating whole foods. We don’t fully understand all of the intricate biochemical components in the whole plant that positively interact with our physiology, but since we’ve co-evolved eating plants it has a net positive impact that processed food can’t match. Similarly, our bodies have evolved eating, sleeping, moving in rhythm with natural cycles or light and dark and thus following this evolutionary pattern impacts our health in ways we may never fully understand. Try optimizing your circadian rhythm yourself and see how you feel!!  As always, I’d love to hear how it goes.

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The Female Orgasm Gap Part 4: The Power of Owning Your Orgasm!

“Masturbation is a primary form of sexual expression. Not just for kids or those in-between lovers or for old people who end up alone. Masturbation is the ongoing love affair that each of us has with ourselves throughout our lifetime” - Betty Dodson, from her book Sex for One

I’m going to close out this series with my #1 DIY tip for closing the female orgasm gap.....masturbation. I intentionally saved this recommendation for last because I first wanted to highlight the broader sexual norms that contribute to the orgasm gap rather than placing the responsibility for solutions exclusively on individual women.

To set the context, it’s important to know that there is not only a female orgasm gap but there is also a female masturbation gap. Of men in their thirties, 93% report having masturbated at any point in their life whereas only 80 % of women report the same. Yet, multiple studies show that women are infinitely more likely to achieve orgasm during masturbation than in partner sex, making it a more accessible way for women to explore their orgasmic capacity. While I can’t prove this, I’m convinced the female masturbation gap has a lot to do with the orgasm gap.

In a culture that has historically sought dominion over female bodies, it isn’t surprising that female masturbation isn’t encouraged. Women who are tapped into their bodies amazing capacity for pleasure and can access it at will, without male assistance, are a huge threat to the status quo. In this way, taking ownership of your sexual energy through masturbation is revolutionary and flips the script on the sexual narrative women are fed. The female body and sexuality are traditionally valued through the lens of the male gaze, leading to an emphasis on appearance and sexual objectification. If internalized, this can lead to a sense of disembodiment and disconnection from felt experience. This can remove women from the glorious fact that we are all sovereign sexual beings whose sexuality is first and foremost an amazing gift for each individual to enjoy and cultivate for the sheer joy of it----rather than just of value for the pleasure it can endow on a partner. In this way, it is revolutionary for women to know their bodies’ pleasure potential deeply and to enjoy it for themselves frequently. The way to do this is through masturbation, or as I prefer to call it, self-pleasuring.

So why, is there a masturbation gap? Unfortunately, there is still a lot of shame and taboo surrounding female masturbation. Language reflects the culture it exists in and it’s telling that there are myriad common phrases for male masturbation but no equivalent for females (somehow “jilling off” never really caught on). It’s common to hear about young boys discovering masturbation but not as much for young girls, which frames it as a normal developmental process for males but not females. Also, from a young age women are force fed a narrative around love and sex where prince charming swoops in and offers security, happiness, and lots of orgasms. As a result, many women expect men to give them their first orgasm. Unfortunately, this is not realistic as most men are not prepared with accurate knowledge about female bodies. If women are faking orgasms, their sexual partners aren’t given the opportunity to learn, and the cycle persists. The tendency to “outsource our orgasm” can be seen when people talk about whether or not someone “gave them an orgasm”. It’s essential that we start owning our orgasm. We are all responsible for our own orgasm - for learning how we have them, and how to communicate what works best for us to our chosen sexual partners.

Another reason that many women may not masturbate is shame. Shame can be a result of a sex negative culture/parent/religion/trauma etc. It’s normal to feel some level of shame around your sexuality and consequently, masturbation can be a shame trigger. So, in order to combat shame and get comfortable with solo sex it’s imperative to surround yourself with sex positive content and information. If you still feel a bit awkward about masturbation, it can also be useful to get some specific instruction on how to begin a masturbation “practice” (top resources: Emily Nagoski’s nuts and bolts of masturbation article here and Betty Dodson's instructions for first-time orgasm here). The “Mother of Masturbation” is the feminist artist and sex educator, Betty Dodson, and I can’t recommend her work highly enough. She wrote a masterpiece book on the topic called Sex for One and has tons of resources on her website, including a masturbation technique that is designed to translate into easier orgasms during partner sex (if you’re interested click here). Dodson considers solo sex an act of meditation and extreme self-care and will make you feel all giddy, empowered, and feminist about being a ‘self-lover”. Shame thrives in isolation so hearing others talking openly and positively about masturbation helps dispel lingering shame.

If you need additional motivation to prioritize masturbation consider it an essential part of your wellness plan. Masturbation (orgasm) releases a cocktail of positive endorphins and hormones that create less stress and greater health. As a result, orgasms are associated with endless health benefits including stress reduction, increased mood, pain relief, improved sleep, and even increased body confidence (more on all of that here). Another benefit is that it stokes your sexual fire as sex energy begets more of the same. Since many women today suffer from low libido, this increase in desire can benefit your current sexual partnership or fulfill your sexual needs if you’re single. Also, masturbation offers a safe way to explore your fantasies and turn-ons, which helps you more intimately know your sexual desires and preferences. This knowledge empowers you to more clearly share your needs with your partner. And last but not least, masturbation is one the best way to increase your orgasmic capabilities whether you’re seeking a first-time orgasm or looking to deepen your repertoire. You can then bring your orgasmic virtuosity to any partners that are lucky enough to play with you.

I believe the orgasm gap will be closed by individual women who know their bodies and pleasure pathways and communicate that knowledge to their sexual partners. Self-pleasuring women, who take ownership of their orgasms, are less likely to settle for bad sex that exclusively prioritizes male pleasure. This will change sexual expectations in our culture and finally make reciprocity and mutual pleasure the norm.

*I want to be clear that my intention with these articles is not to imply that orgasm is the ultimate goal of sex or put any pressure on women to have orgasms. In my view, orgasm isn’t the goal of sex but rather mutual pleasure. Instead, my goal with this series is simply to encourage a context where female orgasm is more viable and accessible and placed in equal importance as male orgasm.

Sexy Wellness Fads: Inspiration or Distraction?

On a bitter cold night in rural Wisconsin, I experienced one of the most nourishing meals of my life. I had been taking a break from my whirlwind NYC lifestyle, living with my folks in hopes of regaining some vitality before moving back to one of the coasts. This respite meant spending more time with my parents than any healthy, self-reliant adult probably should. As such, I found myself sitting down for a meal with two of their close friends, a potter and a professional gardener whose lifestyles epitomized the most aspirational qualities of the “back to the land” movement of the ‘70s.  In their sprawling backyard was a brick oven, pottery kiln, and a remodeled 19th century schoolhouse that now functioned as a gathering for yoga, zen meditation, and community art events. Despite the frigid cold they had miraculously just harvested the last vegetables from their greenhouse which contributed to our dinner. This particular meal started with traditional Italian fermented eggplants, fatty olives, hard sourdough, aged cheeses, and grass fed butter. Wine was poured and conversation flowed as we caught up on each other’s lives. Soon the poached carrots with honey and ginger arrived, as well as a big green salad with shallot vinaigrette. Fillets of venison, hunted by their son earlier in the season, eventually arrived at my plate. I was struck by how nourished I felt by this simple meal. The experience of slowly enjoying whole foods cooked to their highest potential, eaten in a warm communal setting, left me feeling deeply healthy and alive.

When I came back to NYC, I was inspired to bring this culinary enthusiasm back with me. Growing up with hippy parents who emphasized macrobiotic health foods and massive amounts of vitamins left me with an insatiable appetite for the latest health trends. As a budding wellness entrepreneur in the New York City scene, I am inundated and often inspired by the flashy, pristine Instagram feeds of my fellow wellness warriors. While I’ve always loved to cook, I’ve tended to follow health trends rather than focus on culinary pleasures. Feeling inspired by my winter meal in Wisconsin, my boyfriend and I started cooking more in the Alice Waters and Tamar Adler vein. This style emphasizes whole foods-based, pleasure-oriented eating in which health is not the emphasis but rather a natural byproduct. Health arises from using local, fresh ingredients that lead to optimal sensory pleasure. The result is meals that intuitively contain the right combination of nutrients - without the often reductionist approval of movements in modern nutrition.

One night, we sat down for big bowls of homemade ribollita stew. We’d been saving the crusty, stale ends of our sourdough for weeks. We mixed the bread with big tomatoes, homemade chicken stock, bunches of kale, grated Parmesan, dollops of olive oil and cracked pepper. This meal felt indulgent, like a slight deviation from our usual emphasis on healthy eating. No this was not a vegetable curry, kale salad, or chia pudding. Yet, I looked down and realized that within this one bowl lived an amalgamation of health trends that were masked by the delicious full-bodied flavor. This bowl provided the much touted benefits of the fermentation movement with the sourdough bread and aged cheese. We also were inadvertently following the latest dietary trends emphasizing healthy fats with the spoonfuls of olive oil, bone broth and parmesan. It offered the healing power of herbs through the oregano and parsley and our phytonutrient content was maximized through the variety of veggies. It even featured the prom king of all vegetables kale. Yet, the meal felt like it wasn’t fit for a self-congratulatory wellness Instagram post, and I didn’t even register it as a meal that was a net positive contribution to my health. What was causing this disconnect?  

I have the same feeling toward the morning walk ritual I’ve started. Twice a week I meet a friend at an ungodly time and we walk together. Sometimes, we run errands or end up at the grocery store and carry our groceries homes. Despite our frequent jokes that we have officially become our mothers, this ritual of waking up, bathing our cells with sunlight while moving our bodies is already providing huge benefits. Yet, this walk is by no means glamorous in the glitzy world of wellness and pales in comparison to something hardcore and photogenic like the latest bootcamp class.

In a city that makes large profits by generating ever new “wellness status symbols,” simple tried-and-true healthy living seems passé and maybe even a little lazy. Novel, slightly inaccessible trends that make for sparkly Instagram feeds often require isolating one tiny aspect of well-being and repackaging it to seem special. With each new variation we wonder if this is the magic bullet we’re seeking. Think green juices, the latest fitness trend,be it Barre or SoulCycle, or meditating at a fancy loft space filled with dazzling crystals and fashion It girls. Admittedly I love and have participated in all of these things, but I invite us also to remember that health can exist in subtle ways that fit into our lives in more natural and less flashy ways.

I propose that cultivating true health might begin more simply and slowly then we’re often told. Maybe you begin cooking delicious recipes based on wisdom from old culinary traditions rather than from the latest health fads. And yes, maybe kale will even slip into the recipe without you noticing. Or, perhaps rather than trying the latest powder or potion to optimize your health, you could commit to something basic, profound, and unsexy like shutting off your iPhone and getting more sleep. Nonetheless, these fun, sexy wellness fads may have a place in it all; may they exist more like a dessert, something that’s inspiring and nice to have but not essential to the success of the nourishing meal.

What are some ways you cultivate health that you may have dismissed or undervalued in the current climate of flashy wellness trends?

Why Your Belly Needs Bacteria

Originally posted for the Freelancer's Union Blog. 

 

What if I told you that within the freelance population, a larger, unseen community exists?

While you can’t network with this community, they may play a vital role in supporting a healthy freelance lifestyle. I’m talking about the microbiome, made up of the trillions of microorganisms that coexist within us.

The concept of trillions of microorganisms living on and in us, contributing to things like metabolism, mood and GI health is fascinating if not a little creepy. These organisms reside on any surface of the body exposed to the outside world (think the GI and urogenital tract, nasal and lung passages and the skin). With our cellular composition coming in it at 10:1, microbial to human, it also makes you question the commonly held notion of “self” but I’ll save that for another, more esoteric post.

I’ve been following the research on the microbiome with growing excitement. Promising studies connecting a suboptimal microbiome to illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema and even anxiety continue to emerge. There’s even some pretty good evidence that antibiotics impact on our flora may be a key contributor to the obesity epidemic. While the research is fascinating, it’s still nascent and I’m waiting for a reputable scientific body to release practical guidelines on how to optimize my composition of bugs for glowing health and a calm, happy mood. While waiting for the research to unfold, I’m going to hedge my bets on the following as some low risk ways to cultivate a healthy microbial ecosystem:

• Avoid the standard American diet. It appears a high fat, high sugar and low fiber diets negatively impact your microbiome.
• Eat fiber and prebiotics. Prebiotics are basically the food (non-digestible carbs) that the good bacteria in your GI tract eat and need to thrive. Read: eat vegetables and foods like whole grains, banana, onions, garlic, honey, artichokes and asparagus which seem to be some of the best sources of prebiotics.
• Be delivered vaginally and breast-fed. OK OK, obviously out of your control and as someone who doesn’t find pre-deterministic notions regarding health outcomes particularly empowering, I wouldn’t fret much if you were delivered via C-section. But, if your mom had a vaginal birth it appears you might have a head start in the microbiome game. Same with breast milk, which has key microbes for immune development that you may miss out with just formula.
• Take a probiotic supplement or better yet incorporate fermented foods into your diet like sauerkraut, kimchi and live-culture dairy products like yogurt (no added sugar) and kefir. As the research on probiotics and supplementation in general is mixed and the supplement industry under-regulated, I like to lean towards food sources instead. Get your mason jars ready, folks! Fermentation may be your new best friend.
• Only take antibiotics when necessary and if you do, dose yourself with probiotics after. This is a nice chart on when to avoid antibiotics. Not all medical providers follow this yet so it’s good to information to have in order to know if you’re being prescribed something unnecessarily.
• Avoid the overuse of antibacterial soaps and cleansers. These can strip your skin of good bacteria. If you want to learn more about the burgeoning research on this and its implications for the future of the beauty industry , read this marathon of an article.

All this microbiome research has inspired me to combine my love of cooking, health and the microbiome, so I’m diving into my first fermentation project (failed attempts at making kombucha aside). Stay tuned for part 2: Adventures with sauerkraut. If you like Portlandia, I’m sure you’ll enjoy mocking this upcoming post….