Year: 2020

January 14, 2020 at 03:00PM by CWC People may throw around the word “burnout” like it’s a fleeting feeling, but the truth is, it’s a legitimate medical condition that affects up to 44 percent of full-time workers in the U.S. Some signs you may be suffering from burnout: inability to focus, bouts of depression or anxiety, and feeling completely exhausted. According to wellness coach Samantha Acton—whose book Fuel Your Fire: 200 Ways to Instantly Beat Burnout and Reignite Your Passion ($11) is out now—one reason why burnout leads to exhaustion is because it traps energy inside the body. This is why, she says, maintaining proper energy flow is important and one way to do this is by opening up your ki passages. “Ki is the life-force or living energy that connects to all there is and sustains your life breath,” she says. “The Chinese refer to it as ‘chi’ and Hindus call it ‘prana.’” Acton says that excessive stress depletes energy—physically, mentally, and emotionally—which can make someone more vulnerable to illness. “To maintain long-term mental, physical, and emotional wellness you need the vital life-force energy to flow through you in a balanced way,” she says. Here, Acton, along with board-certified acupuncturist and oriental medicine expert Walda Laurenceau, L.Ac, explain more about what ki passages are and how they play a role in beating burnout. What are ki passages? Whether they’re referred to as ki passages, chi, or prana, Laurenceau explains that it refers to energy flow in the body. Maintaining proper

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January 14, 2020 at 02:00PM by CWC Right up there with the likes of public speaking, mortality, and rejection is another common anxiety-fueler: the fear of what others think. While it can show up in many forms—like, curbing us from speaking our truth, deciding what we do (and don’t) post on social media, and factoring into big-deal life decisions like which jobs to seek—it often holds us back from going after our most sincere goals. Or worse, it can prevent us from being our authentic selves. But before learning how to not care what people think, it’s key to first understand why so many of us do, and to a strong and enduring extent. Put simply, we are wired to crave a sense of belonging and safety. “In ancient history, we belonged to tribes that ensured our survival as a species,” says holistic career and mind-set coach Amina AlTai. “Belonging to a group made life less dangerous. Our primitive brain is still connected to that idea that we need to belong to a group and stay in their good graces in order to survive.” “Our primitive brain is still connected to that idea that we need to belong to a group and stay in their good graces in order to survive.” —mind-set coach Amina AlTai While this need to be liked and accepted may have served humans way back when, it now often robs us of our freedom to be ourselves. “When we are so focused on being liked or

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January 14, 2020 at 01:00PM by CWC When it comes to making sure your body is loose and limber, you can rely on all sorts of recovery methods to do the job, and one of the easiest, quite simply, involves hanging out. Because we sit all day, every day, our hips get overly tight, and continually need to be loosened up or “decompressed“. An easy way to do this on the reg is called “leg dangling”. “People live active lifestyles that consist of prolonged sitting, standing, walking, and working out, all of which can increase pressure on your hip joints,” says Jeremy Crow, PT, director of clinical services at Spear Physical Therapy. “If someone is experiencing any hip pain, you can find pain relief in decompressing, or ‘tractioning’ your hips.” This helps to neutralize the joint pressure and decrease the muscle guarding to boost recovery and help with your mobility (AKA: your ability to move more easily in life). So how do you dangle? Find a surface that’s about hip height and sit one leg on it, letting the other drop into space beneath you. “It’s important to relax and breathe through the exercise, allowing gravity to unload and decompress your hips,” says Spear, who recommends starting out with 30-second holds in an upright posture. “Afterward, take a break by assuming a normal standing position for about one minute, then repeat leg dangling three to five more times.” If you want to make the decompressing stretch more intense, he says

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January 14, 2020 at 10:00AM by CWC [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tF5DUo1GRc] Do you remember those PSA-like conversations your parents and teachers would have with you as a kid, repeating the importance of eating a well-rounded breakfast in order to have the best day possible? Now that you’re the one in charge of your morning eats, you have to ask yourself: Is breakfast important to how the rest of your day pans out? In the latest You Versus Food episode, Tracy Lockwood Beckerman investigates this age-old claim to reveal the truth. “All right call in the myth-busters, because I hate to break it to you, but no meal is the most important meal of the day,” Beckerman says. (Is your 12-year-old mind blown or what?) “Having well-rounded, nutritious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with healthy snacks in between is vital to our body’s well-being.” And to think we’ve been saving the spotlight for breakfast when lunch has been a superstar this whole time. “I hate to break it to you, but no meal is the most important meal of the day.” But that doesn’t mean you should quit avo toast any time soon. “Breakfast quite literally breaks the fast we had overnight, it replenishes your supply of glucose, provides essential nutrients to keep your energy levels up throughout the day, and also helps to jumpstart your metabolism,” Beckerman says. Anyone who’s skipped breakfast can attest to the brain fog that follows—and it’s no joke. On top of trying get in a proper

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January 14, 2020 at 02:00AM by CWC I’m a better person because I do CrossFit. It’s sounds like a sales pitch, and considering that I work at a CrossFit box a few times a week, sometimes it is. But it’s also the capital-T truth (and not just because of the endorphins boost). The way I approach, crush (sometimes get crushed), and endure functional fitness has become a microcosm for the way that I approach life at large.  One CrossFit concept that’s taught me this (perhaps beyond any other)? AMRAP or “as many reps as possible.” In brief, AMRAPs workouts pit you against the clock. Your goal is singular: Get as many reps as you safely can before that buzzer dings. “AMRAP workouts are about achieving your goals (big or small) through dedication, hard work, limited distraction and focus,” says Jason Khalipa, founder of NCFit and author of As Many Reps As Possible: Succeeding In Competition, Business, and Life By Making The Most Of Every Single Minute. In his book, Khalipa argues that the same can be said for life: Squeezing the most out of moments can take you far in your professional and personal life, too. “The AMRAP mentality is about taking each part of your life—work, family, fitness, and so on—and achieving the maximum benefit of each one in minimum time.” Often, setting big goals for life can feel daunting without structure; however, the AMRAP mentality helps to provide a framework that makes them feel more manageable. TLDR: Set

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January 14, 2020 at 12:00AM by CWC Editor’s note: This piece might be triggering for eating disorder survivors. Amelia Boone, 36, is an ambitious achiever used to coming out on top. In addition to being an accomplished corporate attorney, Boone is a competitive athlete who has won the World’s Toughest Mudder competition three times. Not familiar with Tough Mudder? Here’s the lowdown: competitors are faced with a miles-long circuit (from 3.1 miles to 10 miles, depending on the type of event) with up to 25 obstacles to clear, like crawling under wire fences or climbing up walls. This is a sport that works every part of the body: arms, abs, legs, muscles you didn’t even know you had… and it’s Boone’s idea of fun. In addition to winning World’s Toughest Mudder three times, she’s won over 30 other obstacle course racing events. But Boone says that experience pales in comparison to her most challenging obstacle yet—overcoming a 20-year battle with anorexia. “Food became this little game I would play with myself” Boone has always been an athlete; she played soccer, softball, and basketball throughout high school. But she says she has also long struggled with a difficult relationship with food. “I’m trying to think back to the first time I had a fear of food and believe it was when I was a sophomore in high school,” Boone says. She was at a sleepover, part of which involved staying up late and snacking on a big bowl of popcorn. “I

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January 13, 2020 at 10:07PM by CWC You know breakfast is an important meal. But it’s so easy to skip it when you need an extra 10 minutes of sleep. Only when your stomach starts rumbling during your first meeting of the day do you wish you’d taken a healthy breakfast on the go. (Coffee is not breakfast.) What you need is a breakfast that’s already made for you—something you can just grab and eat on your way out the door. Stock your kitchen with these easy breakfasts that require no cooking at all. 5 ideas for a healthy breakfast on the go 1. PURELY ELIZABETH SUPERFOOD OATMEAL “This is a great on-the-go option because it contains a good mix of fiber from the oats and healthy fats from the nuts and seeds,” says author of Thrive in 5 and registered dietitian Chelsey Amer, RD. It’s a little low in protein to keep you full until lunch, so she recommends pairing it with one of the other foods on this list, such as Greek yogurt or a hard boiled egg. 2. PECKISH EGGS & EVERYTHING Speaking of eggs, this breakfast box from Peckish contains two of ’em, plus the cult-favorite everything-but-the-bagel seasoning. “These convenient and flavorful hard boiled eggs are a great choice,” Amer says. Want to do your body one better? Add a piece of fruit or whole grain toast for extra fiber. Watch the video below to see why one registered dietitian says eggs are a nutritional goldmine:

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January 13, 2020 at 09:00PM by CWC While most advice gets lost as the years go by, certain wisdom proves timeless. First published in 1936, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People is widely considered one of, if not the best self-help books to date. According to the New York Public Library, it’s one of 10 most-borrowed titles in the storied institution’s history, and the only non-fiction book to make the list. For decades, readers have taken the sentiment of the book’s subhead to heart: “The only book you need to lead you to success.” The library’s records show that 284,524 readers have scanned their library cards to snatch up Carnegie’s recommendations—and we can certainly understand why. The author writes that his mission is to help the reader navigate a “mental rut,” make friends quickly, avoid arguments, and improve public speaking skills, among others. In other words, his insight spans multiple topics, including work, criticism, relationships, and more. In the realm of work, one of Carnegie’s most chattered about tips is to get the person you’re trying to influence to say “Yes” to you immediately. If you’re pitching a project at work, you can kick off a meeting on common ground so that your colleagues are already agreeing with you before you get to your actual idea. That way, says Carnegie, they’ll be saying “Yes! Yes! Yes!” before you’ve even divulged your idea. To be sure, even a tactic as smart as this one may not score you the go-ahead

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