Tag Archives: self-care

Mindfulness

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Mindfulness is my own personal word-of-the-decade. Mindfulness is the polar opposite of multitasking, which is not at all what it sounds like. Despite popular opinion, multitasking does not enable you to get a whole bunch of different things done all at once. When you multitask, what you are actually doing is switching your attention incessantly from one focus to another, and giving none your full consideration. To multitask is to invest heavily in attention-switching at the expense of learning. A waste of your precious energy, multitasking frazzles your nerves and impairs your ability to focus. 

The antidote to multitasking is mindfulness. Continue reading →

Eating Well and Being Kind to Yourself (with recipe)

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I come from a family of knitters. Our family lore includes a story about my mother and maternal grandmother knitting at the movies, with my 10-year-old mom doing the “easy” parts, and passing it to her mother for the sleeves and shaping. And the fact that my grandmother volunteered to knit the less popular dark blue sweaters for the Navy instead of khaki sweaters for the Army. It didn’t matter to her because she could knit in the dark. 

So when I finally decided that it was time for me to learn to knit, it was a little overwhelming. I took some books out of the library, one of which said to make your projects with the best yarn you can afford because the results will be better, and you’ll be more pleased with the finished product. That resonated with me, because it’s exactly what I say about food. Continue reading →

Three Pillars of Wellness

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I’ve been writing a monthly column for the Cleveland Jewish News since last year, and today I’d like to share one of the posts I wrote early on.

Wellness is like a pyramid with three pillars: eating patterns, activity patterns, and rest & relaxation patterns.

There’s tremendous synergy among these three pillars. You go for a great walk; you sleep better that night. You get a lousy night’s sleep; you circle the vending machines (or the fridge) all day. You eat too much; you don’t feel like moving. Everything is connected, so we can make small changes feel like a million bucks.

You don’t need to train for the Olympics. You just need to move. How much? A little bit more than before. If that means a 5-minute walk after breakfast instead of hanging out on the couch, then 5 minutes it is. If it means adding 10 minutes of stretching before your daily 2-mile run, then give it a try. Small changes, beginning wherever you are today. Continue reading →

Words of Thich Nhat Hanh

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I have had a daily meditation practice for just over six years now. I started with one-minute meditation, which I have taught to many people over the years. I like to think of it as a good way to start. One minute is not very much time, and I have generally found that just about everyone is willing to dedicate a single minute to meditating. It’s really just a minute: you breathe in for 5 seconds, and then breathe out for 5 seconds. That’s your warmup; now do it 5 more times. That’s it. One minute. You’re done.

When I first started meditating, I did not really know the reason or the purpose. I just did it to see what would happen. I only knew that I liked listening to what people who meditated regularly said about their experience. So I thought I’d try it for myself. I don’t know what I expected. Next time I’ll talk more about how those first years went. This week I want to talk about the words of a man named Thich Nhat Hanh. Continue reading →

Remembering What You Want

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In the weeks prior to starting medical school, my brother-in-law gave me a small card with a calligraphied message: Discipline is remembering what you want. I soon affixed it to the wall of my new study carrel, where it remained for a long time until, years later, I passed it along to a friend who needed it more than I.

Continue reading →

Sometimes You’ve Gotta Go Slow

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A while back I learned that race car drivers have a saying: “Sometimes you’ve gotta go slow to go fast.” If you want to shave seconds off your time, in other words, you need to slow down as you head into the curve. If you want to keep up, sometimes you need to back off a little. It’s especially true right now. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re actually headed into the roughest part of the pandemic. I had no idea that this whole year was just a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Continue reading →

Set an Intention

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These are not easy days, to say the least. But one thing that really helps me is to start each day by setting an intention.

What does that mean? Well, I might say to myself, “Today, I will take a few deep breaths.” Or, “I will keep my eyes on the road.” Or, “I will be kind to myself.” Intentions can be abstract or concrete. They can help you study, close your eyes, or stretch your arms to the ceiling a couple of times a day. They can let you stay in bed, ask for a back rub, take a long bath. Intentions are multi-purpose, which is an essential part of their charm. I weave them into the fabric of my days, and they make my weeks more interesting, resilient, even productive. The possibilities are endless. Continue reading →

Everything You Need to Know About Your Cholesterol

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Every once in a while, a friend thrusts their latest cholesterol lab results in front of me and asks a barrage of questions:

“What do you think of these results, are they okay?”
“My doctor said the HDL is too low.”
“Why are my triglycerides so high?”
“What should the LDL be?”
“And why is the total so high if the individual numbers are good?”

This week we’re talking about what your cholesterol profile results mean, and how to make them better. Continue reading →