Focus Your Mind
It has been said that we only spend about 10% of our time in the current moment, 50% on anticipating what’s ahead of us, and 40% reflecting on what’s behind us. This makes sense from a “caveman” perspective, as our survival-based focus prepares for the future and learns from the past. But when it really [...]
Nature Nurtures Our Health, Happiness, and Performance
Taking a walk in nature not only enhances our physical energy, it also nourishes our soul. Too often we get stuck inside our office walls, caught up in the daily grind of work and not even aware of the beauty that surrounds us. By spending time in our environment we can gain perspective on the [...]
Tips to Cultivate Creativity
Having a flexible brain enables us to think outside of the box. It allows us to break away from the rigid thinking of our automatic pilot mode that is too often triggered by unmanaged stress signals throughout the day. In today’s competitive economy we need creativity to show the uniqueness of our abilities and services [...]
Avoiding Multitasking Disasters
One of the key insights to come from cognitive science tells us that when we multitask we tend to drop out of high-level rational decision-making and slip into monkey-brain reactions in our various split activities. Because we have so many things going on, we operate mostly on automatic pilot, rather than reflecting upon our decisions [...]
Laughter Really Is the Best Medicine
SHARP Science – Laughter Really Is the Best Medicine. Laughter provides benefits across multiple dimensions: emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical. Research conducted at the University of Maryland School of Medicine showed that watching a funny movie or sitcom that produces laughter has a positive effect on vascular function (blood flow) — opposite to that observed [...]
Maximize Your NEAT
If you were to look at your total caloric expenditure over the course of the day you’d find that only a small amount comes from purposeful exercise. The vast majority comes from the energy required just for our body and brain to operate our system effectively — or what’s known as our resting metabolic rate [...]
Sleep – How Much is Enough?
The optimal amount of sleep is unique to each individual. To determine how much sleep you need, you have to find out how much time it takes for you to wake up feeling refreshed without needing an alarm clock. Studies show that humans need 6–10 hours of sleep each night, which is why you’ve most [...]
What Matters Most
As you’re putting new rituals into place to help you reach your goals and resolutions for the new year, I encourage you to spend a bit of time thinking about who you want to be as you accomplish those goals. It’s easy to become focused on the specific tasks that we want to check off [...]
What Is Meditation?
As many of you know, I recently participated in a weeklong meditation retreat at The Chopra Center located in Carlsbad, California. A few months ago while going through a difficult transition I realized I was in need of some self-reflection and self-healing time. I am grateful that I had the foresight at the time to [...]
Are You a Stress Addict?
Do you thrive on tight deadlines? Do you often leave things until the last minute? Do you have a difficult time doing nothing at all? Does it take you a few days off to feel like you’re on vacation? Do you spend much of your vacation time thinking about work? Do you constantly worry about [...]
The Best Day in Triathlon!
As a long-time fan of the Challenged Athletes Foundation it wasn’t surprising to find myself surrounded by phenomenal athletes who have overcome what most of us would consider debilitating limitations, especially on one of my favorite days of the year, the San Diego Triathlon Challenge – otherwise known as “The Best Day in Triathlon”. On [...]
Chocolate For Breakfast?
As many of you know I have recently become almost obsessed, or one could say “addicted”, to studying the benefits of dark chocolate. My clients have asked me about chocolate for years, but I have often dismissed the notion that chocolate could actually be healthy due to the fact that what most of us consume [...]
Listen Louder
You’ve heard me say this before – In business, as in life, the greatest asset you have to offer the people you care about is you. The fact is, most people outside of your business don’t have a clue about what it is you do, but what’s quite clear is how you make them feel. [...]
The Battle of the Smoothies
A few weeks ago I asked friends and colleagues for protein powder recommendations. I decided that as part of my own brain recharge process I was going to ramp up my phase two, restore, by getting more high quality nutrients into my diet. As part of my current routine to beat adrenal fatigue I have [...]
Recharge Step 1: Balance the Brain
It never ceases to amaze me that each time I set out on a professional journey to explore some aspect of human behavior, an uninvited personal challenge comes along with it. My favorite example: working on my dissertation on stress management and weight management I gained 10 pounds, without changing my diet or exercise. As [...]
Social Support is Life Support
One of the biggest threats to the survival of our system is loneliness. Although we are constantly connected and often surrounded by people, it’s easy to feel lonely when we are overwhelmed with the stress in our life or finding our days full of to-do lists and tasks. We all know relationships are important, but [...]
