Fight Cold & Flu Season with Superfoods

I thought this article was helpful and contained some great tips on nutrition to help ward off cold & flu this season. It’s at Scholastic magazine and lists superfoods, including (my favorite) sweet potato, salmon, broccoli, milk, oatmeal, and more.

Photo by Mark Lund at http://www.Scholastic.com

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Time for Some R&R

We are going on vacation today to next Thursday, so I won’t be around for blogging. I’m not taking my computer and have decided to be (mostly) disconnected during our time away. It’s only sun and fun for me and my family. This time for rest and relaxation will also be a time of rejuvenation. As I’ve said before, it is important for us to remember to find time for downtime. Here’s some of my favorite posts on the benefits of rest, relaxation, and rejuvenation:

The Importance of Quieting Your Mind

Remember to Rest

The Importance of Sleep

Remember the Importance of Rest

Stillness is Important to Good Health

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Make Sure You Manage Your Time, Rather Than Your Time Managing You

So life is full of irony, right? And we must remember to laugh. Like last week. My blog editorial calendar has “time management post” for Monday, April 2. But, of course, I couldn’t find the time to write that post!

I always say that one of the best ways to manage a busy schedule is to delegate some of your tasks. That is what I’m doing here.  Here is my short post — with a link to Phillip Taylor’s longer and helpful article on time management. The article provides information on free online tools for time management as well as five really good tips for mastering your time.

I hope you find it helpful!

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The Importance of Quieting Your Mind

Here’s a great post by Jeff Gitterman on the importance of meditation. It is adapted from his book “Beyond Success: Redefining the Meaning of Prosperity” © 2009 Jeffrey L. Gitterman, published by AMACOM Books (www.amacombooks.org).

As you’ll see, he’s not necessarily talking about “sitting crossed-legged on a cushion” but rather he’s referring to any activity that allows us to stop listening to the endless chatter in our heads. Some people call it the “monkey mind”; I know my “monkey” is very chatty most of the time and meditation will help “get me out of my head” and out of my own way so that I can accomplish things.

Here’s an excerpt from his article:

“When I use the term meditation, I don’t necessarily mean sitting cross-legged on a cushion but rather participating in any deliberate activity that helps us to disengage from a compulsive relationship with our stream of thought. There are numerous books that have been written over the years on the subject of meditation and how to disengage from the thinking mind or, more simply put, how to stop listening to the voice inside our head. It’s important that each of us find our own method that works best.

The benefit of learning how to disengage our attention from the thought stream is that we can then apply our minds more readily toward more constructive things, such as accomplishing tasks and connecting with other people and our own true purpose. It creates space within us — an opening that allows more energy to flow into us. In this seemingly paradoxical way, having more space in our minds allows us to accomplish more and more things in the world.”

Read the full article here.

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No pain, plenty of gain, from water workouts

My toddler and I are returning to swim classes tomorrow. She loves the water and will be happy to be in swim lessons again. Which got me thinking about all the great benefits of swimming as a form of exercise.

According to Tay Stratton, head swim coach at the Little Rock Athletic Club, who was interviewed for a WebMD article, “Swimming recruits all the major muscle groups, including the shoulders, back, abdominals, legs, hips, and glutes, she says. And because water affords 12 times the resistance as air in every direction, it really helps to build strength.” In other words, swimming is unique because it is cardio and strength training simultaneously.

So how do you get started? The same as all new exercise routines: Start slowly. Try to swim for 10 minutes, then build up to a 30-minute workout, three to five times a week. And include a warm-up and a cool-down, just like you would on a treadmill or in another cardio workout. You can also join a swim club or work with a swim coach.

We’ll be in the pool tomorrow. How about you?

Source: WebMD article entitled “Fitness Basics: Swimming Is for Everyone“

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Take the Opportunity: Start a Good Habit

Over at AMSDaily, there is a great post entitled Take the Opportunity: Start a Good Habit, which explains that, after 21 days, you are well on your way to establishing whatever good habit that you choose. Check it out, and start that good habit today!

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Food Tip: Storing Herbs

When I served on a panel a few months ago for a program about healthy eating for lawyers, one of my fellow panelists was Alexis Coppedge, who has a great blog at Cooking After Work. One of her recent posts explains how you can keep fresh herbs in your refrigerator crisper for TWO WEEKS. This is great! Before spring arrives so I can plant my herbs, I can still have flavorful food made with fresh herbs without throwing away more than half of what I buy.

Here’s what Alexis writes:

Here’s what you do:  (1) lightly pat herbs dry with a paper towel; (2) place the herbs in a Ziploc (or other sealable plastic bag) and press excess air out of the bag; and (3) seal the bag and store in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator.  It’s as simple as that!

Read her full post to learn what to do to ensure the herbs last for as long as possible.

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Five Ways to Get (and Stay) Healthy Now

Here’s the intro to a blog post I wrote for Attorney at Work:

“Most people make a New Year’s resolution related to their health. But by the end of February, more than 75 percent of them have given up on it. If one of your resolutions was to get healthy in 2012, don’t despair. You can do it with these five ways to get healthy, starting now.”

While the intended audience is attorneys, the advice is useful to everyone. Read the rest of the post here.

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Perfection Is an Illusion

I planned to post about stress management today, but nothing inspirational was coming to me and I couldn’t find anything particularly interesting on the subject that I wanted to share with you. Fortunately, as I was looking for good information for a post about stress management, I visited An Associate’s Mind (on my blogroll) and saw a post entitled “Perfection is an Illusion, There is Only Process.” This caught my attention.

I tend toward perfectionism, and many of the people in my daily life are more perfectionistic (is that a word?) than I am. Since having a baby about a year and a half ago, my perfection attitude has slowly diminished as I realize — sometimes to my dismay and disappointment — that I cannot achieve the perfection that I once thought was possible. So I thought I would share this post with you. Keith Lee, the blogger at An Associate’s Mind, writes the following:

I noticed a post over at Bnet recently entitled “Perfectionism is a Disease.” It offers three tips to ward off Perfectionism:

1. Allow yourself to be wrong in front of others.

We learn by making mistakes. The only way we understand ourselves is to test our limits. If we don’t want anyone to know we make mistakes, which is how perfectionists tend to behave, we are actually hiding our true selves.

2. Be a hard worker rather than a perfectionist.

Smart people cut corners. The art of being a star performer is knowing which corners to cut. Focus on your goals, and be honest with yourself about whether your goals require perfectionism along the way. A lot of times perfectionism is a way to avoid focusing on goals. Real goals, after all, almost always require a little bit of luck and assistance along the way — factors the perfectionists tend to dismiss.

3. Spend your energy making yourself likable.

Tiziana Casciaro reports in the Harvard Business Review that people are not all that interested in you being super-good at your job. They care if they like you. And, Casciaro found that if someone does not like you, he or she will decide you’re incompetent whether you are or not.

Read the full post here.

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Happiness Tool Kit

Here’s an article written by Gretchen Rubin (of The Happiness Project fame) that I recently revisited. It is entitled Emergency Tool Kit for Happiness: Take a few measures now and you’ll save yourself stress later. I like it because it is simple and helpful:

When we are stressed out, we tend to become even more stressed out. Why? Because when we are rushing around putting out fires, we don’t take the time to do the little things that can end up saving enormous amounts of time and trouble.

Here’s a list of preventive measures to save yourself stress later. These tasks don’t seem particularly important, and they’re  easy to skip when you’re rushed, but if neglected, they can snowball into major stress. Remember: A little effort now means a lot less stress later.

• Keep stamps in the house.
• Keep extra cash in the house.
• Have a good book to read.
• Bring a hat and an umbrella.
• Don’t wear tight pants or uncomfortable shoes.
• Don’t let yourself get too hungry.
• Make a list.
• Always keep your passport in the same place.
• Always put your keys away in the same place―and keep an extra set of keys.
• Keep a Band-Aid and a small bottle of pain reliever in your purse.
• Make your bed.
• Never let your car’s gas level fall into the ”empty” zone.
• Have at least one friend who lives in your neighborhood.
• Go to bed 30 minutes earlier than usual.
• Get up 20 minutes earlier than usual.
• Laugh at yourself.

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