Good Morning :)
Welcome to the wabi-sabi letter, the digital newsletter that promotes healthy living, wellness, mental health awareness, fitness, positive habits, and all around happiness. Clear your head and cleanse your inbox with a tiny space for wellness as you set your intentions for the day. Badabing badaboom.
Releasing By Being Decidedly Unself
The ego can be a powerful drug. According to this recent piece in MindBodyGreen, scientists from UC Berkeley asked people what was more important for feeling authentic in a romantic relationship—being your actual self, or being your ideal self.
The majority assumed that being your true self was the key to an authentic relationship. But research tells a different story. Authenticity in a relationship is the result of feeling you can be your best self, not your actual self.
Doing things that are “un-you” can free you from behaving in a way that may be comfortable but stifling. Disagreeable people feel better when they are more considerate. People who are careless feel better when they are conscientious. Shy people feel better when they act more outgoing.
Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky demonstrated that when introverts intentionally engage in extraverted behaviors, such as being assertive, talkative, and spontaneous, they can increase feelings of connectedness and gain an overall boost in well-being.
Sitting is The New Smoking
According to the CDC, prolonged sitting time has emerged as a risk factor for various negative health outcomes, including cancer, heart disease, and obesity, just to name a few. Recently, a study published in Sport Sciences for Health found that sitting for prolonged periods of time could also have adverse effects on your mental well-being, in addition to your physical health.
The bottom line is, spending full days sitting at a desk or on the couch can certainly take a toll on the human body. As if the daily grind isn't enough, the pandemic has also severely limited the ability to participate in physical and social activities outside of the home. As a result, staying active can be difficult for many people.
Action Item: Read the full piece in MindBodyGreen on tactics from a certified yoga and health coach on Tips & Tricks For Sitting Less During The Day To Protect Your Mental Health.
Getting Through The Pain of Grief
Katherine Shear, MD, founder and director of The Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia University School of Social Work, is a psychiatrist and internist. In her clinical work, she’s seen the physical symptoms of grief firsthand. “A lot of people have pain in their body,” she says. “It can be very intense and can be anywhere. [There’s also] the usual bodily stress responses meaning things like cardiovascular symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, and muscle tensions.”
In other words, grief hurts. Acute grief, which The Center for Complicated Grief defines as the early period following a significant loss, is an incredibly distressing time. Even though most of us emphasize the emotional weight, bodies react to the stress and pain as well. Dr. Shear says that altered sleep and weight fluctuations are common, too.
Understanding that our bodies react to loss helps correct the misconception that grief is limited to yearning for a loved one or what is gone. Dr. Shear’s work helps us to see grief as an embodied event, and it helps us treat it as such. Our response to loss connects to every single body part. Our bodies roar as we wrap ourselves around a newly-arrived reality.
Action Item: Read the full piece in Well + Good on dealing with the physical as well as mental side of grief.
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You're amazing. Enjoy the world today.
Love,
wabi-sabi team