​Deep abdominal breathing encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, it can slow the heartbeat and lower or stabilize blood pressure.

Breath focus helps you concentrate on slow, deep breathing and aids you in disengaging from distracting thoughts and sensations. It's especially helpful if you tend to hold in your stomach.
 
First steps. Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit or lie down. First, take a normal breath. Then try a deep breath: Breathe in slowly through your nose, allowing your chest and lower belly to rise as you fill your lungs. Let your abdomen expand fully. Now breathe out slowly through your mouth (or your nose, if that feels more natural).
 
Breath focus in practice. Once you've taken the steps above, you can move on to regular practice of controlled breathing. As you sit comfortably with your eyes closed, blend deep breathing with helpful imagery and perhaps a focus word or phrase that helps you relax.

In a recent Forbes article, Noma Nazish breaks down why self-care is so important for wellness, and includes a list of simple ways to introduce more into your life. 

Work with a Thrive Wellness Coach to develop your own custom formula for health and wellness. 

“No matter how indulgent or fancy the term may sound, self-care is crucial for our physical, emotional and mental well-being. You shouldn’t neglect self-care and here's why:

• Know your worth: Self-care is important to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself as it produces positive feelings and boosts your confidence and self-esteem. Also, self-care is necessary to remind yourself and others that you and your needs are important too.

 

• A healthy work-life balance: Contrary to common belief, workaholism is not a virtue. Overwork, and the accompanying stress and exhaustion can make you less productive, disorganized and emotionally depleted. It can also lead to all sorts of health problems, from anxiety and depression to insomnia and heart diseases. Professional self-care habits like taking intermittent breaks (for lunch, calling your mom, or taking a stroll), setting professional boundaries, avoiding overextending, etc. ensures that you stay sharp, motivated and healthy.

 

• Stress management: While a little dose of stress is a healthy way to give us a nudge that we need to meet the deadlines or finish that overdue task, constant stress and anxiety can have an adverse effect on your mental and physical health. Smart self-care habits like eating healthy, connecting with a loved one or, practicing meditation cuts down the toxic effects of stress by improving your mood and boosting your energy and confidence levels.

 

• Start living, stop existing: Life is a precious gift. So why waste it when we have the choice to have a more meaningful existence? Yes, you have a lot of responsibilities— fixing the dryer, mowing the lawn, paying bills. But it’s important to remember that taking care of yourself is also your responsibility. Little things like sipping tea while looking at the raindrops racing down the window glass, enjoying a bubble bath, or reading a book are essential for your daily happiness. While things like taking up a new hobby or learning a new language can make your life more purposeful by giving you a new reason to get up in the morning.

 

• Better physical health: Self-care is not just about your mental health. It’s also about caring for your physical self, by eating healthy, taking adequate sleep, caring about your hygiene, exercising regularly, etc.”

 
Click here to read the full article.

Every age.
Every race and ethnicity.
Every class and socioeconomic status.
Every gender identity and sexual orientation.
Every size, shape, height, weight & disability.

• Eat locally & sustainably 
• Eat seasonally
• Shop at farmers' markets
• Plant a garden
• Conserve, compost & recycle 
• Cook simply
• Cook together
• Eat together
• Remember food is precious

Alice Waters has been a champion of seasonal, local, sustainably produced foods, garnering widespread acclaim and showing the world that the true secret to good cooking is starting with the best-tasting ingredients. Read more from The Art of Simple Food.

Everyone needs time alone, without the expectations of others, to recharge.

When do you spend quality time with yourself? Hobbies or personal wellness goals are a great way to formally make this part of your life. 

Work with a wellness coach on your most important relationship: Me, Myself & I.

With everything most people are juggling these days, adult friendships sometimes fall low on the priority list. 

But according to the research of Carlin Flora, author of Friendfluence, our friendships are a very important part of overall wellness, as they positively influence our careers, physical health and even marriages. 

Check out a great overview of Flora’s work in this article: The Evolutionary Case for Friendship and on her book’s website.

The Trail Is Waiting
​
​The Appalachian Trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, ranging from Maine to Georgia.

​Explore the trail by state. 

We can add another benefit to exercise to our already long list. 

According to this great infographic from Fix.com, Your Brain on Exercise, “[regular exercise] can improve learning and mental performance, encourage the pituitary gland to release endorphins, and reduce sensitivity to stress, depression, and anxiety.”

Exercise is particularly important for children with developing brains, and regular doses often improves academic performance as, “a link has also been established between attention span and concentration and exercise.”

Learn more by viewing the full infographic: Your Brain on Exercise.

​

"The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing. But when we start to focus in on what our own mind is up to, for instance, it is not unusual to quickly go unconscious again, to fall back into an automatic-pilot mode of awareness. These lapses in awareness are frequently caused by an eddy of dissatisfaction with what we are seeing or feeling in that moment, out of which springs a desire for something to be different, for things to change. 

You can easily observe the mind's habit of escaping from the present moment for yourself. Just try to keep your attention focused on any object, for even a short period of time. You will find that to cultivate mindfulness, you may have to remember over and over again to be awake and aware. We do this by reminding ourselves to look, to feel, to be.

​It's that simple ... checking in from moment to moment, sustaining awareness across a stretch of timeless moments, being here, now." 

From Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

The long-term strength and resilience of our romantic relationships highly influences our individual sense of happiness and wellbeing. 

However, now that gender roles are less rigid, many people are unsure exactly how to build and sustain strong partnerships. 

As Hara Estroff Marano explains, “Most modern relationships no longer rely on roles cast by culture. Couples create their own roles, so that almost every act requires negotiation.”

Further complicating things, she asserts that, “because people's needs are fluid and change over time, and life's demands change too, good relationships are negotiated and renegotiated all the time.” 

Read Marano’s full piece, The New Rules of Relationships, for a list of helpful considerations to keep your connection and intimacy strong.

There is so much confusing and conflicting diet advice out there it can be hard to know who to trust. 

To address this problem, researchers conducted a study to compare popular diet plans such as low-carb, Paleo, etc. Their findings are refreshing as they advocate ditching the rigid plans and principles in favor of broader guidelines. They explain, "A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention."

Read the full article, Science Compared Every Diet, and the Winner Is Real Food, for more information on this practical approach. 

If your goal is to implement this advice but you don’t know where to start, learn more about how Wellness Coaching can help you with this and other change goals by requesting a free session.

The key is to take advantage of the 3-step neurological process that creates a habit. First, choose a cue, like leaving your running shoes by the door, then pick a reward — say, a piece of chocolate when you get home from the gym. 

Eventually, when you see the shoes, your brain will start craving the reward, which will make it easier to work out day after day.

View an infographic based on The Power of Habit to learn more.

Resolve to eat better and spend more time with loved ones by cooking more with friends and family in this winter.

Read four ways to cook more with family from ChopChop.

ChopChop is a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire and teach kids to cook real food with their families.

"You can compare a child’s body to a building under construction. A lot of different materials are needed to build it and to keep it in good repair. But a human being is also a kind of machine that’s running. It requires fuel for energy, and other substances to make it work properly, just as an automobile needs gasoline, oil, grease and water.

To do this, keep a balanced attitude. You don’t judge foods on calories alone, or on vitamins alone, or on minerals alone. Everybody in the long run needs a balance of low and high-calorie foods as well as a balance in other respects in the diet. Fortunately, there are a number of good books available and many of which include a variety of recipes. As important as consulting a book, however, is encouraging your child to eat a variety of vegetables at an early age."

Read the full article by Dr. Benjamin Spock, MD.