Originally published in mindbodygreen

I prep for winter by getting sufficient vitamin D the old-fashioned way—sun exposure. Of course, I take reasonable precautions to prevent skin cancer, but overall I think, as a culture, we get things slightly wrong in how we balance skin cancer risk with the risks of vitamin D deficiency (which are numerous, including increased risk for autoimmune disease, osteoporosis, and even cancer). I think a sunburn is dangerous, but I often think a mild tan is a sign of a healthy amount of sun exposure. I’m letting my skin get a bit sun-kissed in preparation for the darker months ahead.

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Originally published in CleanPlates

My first line of defense against mental health issues like anxiety and depression is switching to real food — which means cooking food at home. This one switch often helps my patients avoid the need to take pharmaceutical drugs. And while that may seem like a rebellious idea today, what we eat does affect our mental health. Hopefully ten years from now it will seem like the most obvious thing in the world.⁠

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Originally published in mindbodygreen

Many of us default to watching TV in the evening. While we’re in an era of really brilliant TV, you want to take at least a few nights off per week to do something better with your time. Read a book, call a friend, exercise, have a candlelit floor picnic with your roommate. Get vulnerable and get into a serious conversation with your partner. Have a silent disco with your family. In general, bring consciousness to how you use your time, and do the activities that actually enrich your life.

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Last night, while tucking my daughter in for bed, we were doing our usual “highs and lows” where we talk about the high point and low point of our day. Her high point was eating pizza (Ellen Vora’s daughter eats pizza?! Sometimes. Rarely enough that it’s the highlight of her day). Her low point was having to leave the library. My highlight was this snuggle with my daughter, and my low point was that I was feeling sad. This gave me an opportunity to explore sadness with my daughter. I used to be a chronically sad person. And then some combination of community, yoga, and eating gluten-free broke me out of those shackles about 13 years ago. I haven’t identified as a sad or depressed person since then. But yesterday that old, familiar, pitted-out sad feeling descended over me as the sun set. Rather than jump to conclusions or tell myself stories that depression was coming back, I just allowed it and stayed curious. I told my daughter, “my low for today is that I’m feeling sad right now.” She asked why, so I told her, “I don’t know. Maybe because the days are getting shorter, maybe I’m hungry, maybe I ate something that doesn’t agree with me, maybe I’m worried about some things at work.” She said, “you can just ignore it and then you won’t be sad.” (Kiddo, you need to go back to therapist school 🙂 ). I responded, “no, I don’t want to ignore it. I’m going to let myself feel sad. I’m guessing that by the time I wake up in the morning, I’ll feel differently. But for now, I’m okay having this feeling.” It felt good to model for her that feeling sad is nothing to be afraid of. It’s not something we need to ignore. I was also able to model that sometimes sadness is blood sugar, gut inflammation, or a natural adjustment to the shorter days. And it’s not fixed. I can feel this way for a night, and who knows what tomorrow brings. In the end she said, “I could give you a hug to help you feel happy.” Last night ended in a transcendent embrace. And this morning I woke up, meditated, and feel a resurgence of gratitude and awe.

Photo by Peter van Agtmael

Originally published in Well + Good

Life requires a balance between yin and yang. Our culture is in a state of total yang imbalance — we’re go-go-go and “on” all the time. If you start setting boundaries—like not checking your work email after a certain time, or taking a few hours completely “off” to just walk in nature—you’ll be refreshed the next day and better able to be creative, intelligent, patient, kind, and productive. Sometimes rest is the best recipe for sustainable productivity. We’ll talk later about the fact that productivity isn’t even the goal anyway… 😉 

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Listen to the podcast here

I’m honored to be featured on today’s episode of the Happier & Healthier Podcast. I share diet and lifestyle tips to beat anxiety and depression, naturally. We discuss a wide range of topics including why millennials need organic food more than earlier generations and the link between gut health and mental health and even auto-immunity.

Listen to the podcast

Originally published in Well + Good

I would say the majority of the population has some degree of gut imbalance, due to a perfect storm of factors, such as excessive reliance on antibiotics, inflammatory foods in our diet, chronic stress, and the ubiquity of glyphosate (from the pesticide RoundUp) in our food and tap water.

The signs of gut imbalance are so common in modern life, a lot of us just assume it’s normal.

Without putting the pressure and guilt of ‘clean eating’ on yourself, it is worth recognizing that you can go a long way toward healing your gut by following your body’s intuition and shifting your food choices toward foods that agree with your body. It’s all an art of listening to your body and being gentle with it.

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Originally published in mindbodygreen

We love making something called “dirty rice”, which is rice cooked with chicken liver, bacon, carrots, celery, and five-spice seasoning. It’s a delicious, kid-pleasing way to get a ton of nutrition into a single convenient dish.

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My friend Gwen Dittmar recently brought up the question of whether podcasts, while wonderful, can contribute to our feeling overstimulated and oversaturated.  

Podcasts are obviously the best. You can get a free education and feel like you’re having an intimate conversation with the most inspiring thinkers of our day. I love listening to podcasts while I do dishes, fold laundry, and commute. When I pressure my husband to floss his teeth, that one time a month he actually does i, he gets through the 3-minute ordeal by listening to a podcast. It can make monotonous tasks enjoyable. And yet, it has been one more assault on the dwindling stillness and silence we experience as modern humans. 

Start to toggle between the two states: do the dishes while podcasting, and then occasionally do it in silence, mindfully aware of every aching moment. Notice the water and the soap. Notice the silence and the feeling of being alone with yourself and your thoughts. Invite and embrace whatever bubbles up. 

In the comments below, let me know your favorite podcasts, and let me know what pockets of your life (if any) you have carved out for total mindful silence.

Photo: from a silent disco Brooklyn Bridge Park