The Road to Gainful Self-Employment

A few years ago, Pew Research conducted a study to determine the size of America’s self-employed workforce. They found that 10% of the active workforce – or 14.6 million people – were self-employed. As these individuals employed another 29.4 million people, they accounted for roughly 30% of the workforce.

I’ve counted myself among their ranks for over a quarter century. I never set out to be self-employed. It just turned out that an active consulting practice afforded me some freedom alongside the opportunity to do interesting work with bright people. That freedom comes at a cost:

Work has never just fallen into my lap. I’ve always had to work at getting work.
I’ve had to wear a lot of hats to keep the business going above and beyond doing the actual work – e.g., business development (a.k.a. marketing and sales), client relations, billing, collections, accounting, and general administration.
I’ve needed to price my services to account for all of those roles as well as holidays, vacation, sick time, personal days, and saving for retirement.
I’ve had to purchase individual health insurance… which isn’t cheap!
I’ve had to learn to manage my time effectively from my home office to make sure household responsibilities do not spill too much into business and vice versa.
I’ve needed to learn how to cultivate community as part and parcel of my sole proprietorship to keep the extrovert within me satisfied.

Despite the challenges, I’d still opt for working for myself if I had it to do all over again. And as I plan for the next chapter of my life, I’m still thinking about ways in which I can work for myself.

I just finished reading Chris Guillebeau’s book Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days. It proceeds from the assumption that folks would like to make a little money on the side while they continue to work their day jobs. These ventures might exercise their creativity while adding a little cash to the household’s bottom line. They might be used to diversify income sources. And they might be the initial stepping stone to going “all in” as an entrepreneur.

Chris does a great job of breaking down the entrepreneurial process into discrete steps that pretty much anyone can follow. His 27-day process covers:

Building an arsenal of ideas
Selecting your best idea
Preparing for lift off
Launching your idea to the right people
Tracking progress and determining next steps

Even with my MBA and decades of business experience, I found some pointers in Chris’ book that I’ll put to use as I contemplate my next venture.

Another great resource if you’re considering this path is Jonathan Field’s Career Renegade: How To Make a Great Living Doing What You Love. Jonathan is the Founder of the Good Life Project and hosts a lively podcast by the same name. He endeavors to help his readers find work that makes them come alive while also paying the bills. He provides all kinds of suggestions for finding underserved markets in which one might establish a toehold and build a successful business. The book also comes with a gaggle of concrete suggestions and resources that help readers go from wishful thinking to reality.

Man’s Search for Meaning

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche

If you’ve never had the chance to read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, it’s time that this best-selling book finds its way onto your reading list. It may not change your life, but it will certainly give you a new lens through which to view it.

Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who was transported and processed at the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944 alongside his wife. He survived months of slave labor at a camp affiliated with Dachau before his liberation by American soldiers the following year. Sadly, his mother Elsa and brother Walter died in Auschwitz; his wife Tilly died in Bergen-Belsen.

How does someone find meaning in such dire circumstances?

Confinement in the camps bought harsh working conditions, insufficient nourishment, lack of sleep, and a host of psychological pressures. Yet through it all, there were prisoners who devoted their energies to comforting others and sharing their meager scraps of food. They’d lost everything, but they retained the ability to choose how they’d respond to their circumstances. They exercised control over their mental and spiritual well-being.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation,… we are challenged to change ourselves.”
– Viktor Frankel

Pain and suffering find a way into every person’s life. How we face these challenges determines the quality of our character. The extreme conditions in the camps forced the prisoners to adjust their core attitudes toward life. They stopped asking life what it would do for them; they started asking what life expected of them.

Each of us comes into this life with a purpose to be served. Our distinctiveness has a bearing on the work that we’ll do as well as the lives we’ll touch. If we accept these responsibilities, we can learn to bear almost any hardship. This awareness gives us a sense for the unfinished (or unrealized) work that awaits completion through our efforts. It helps us see the faces of loved ones whose happiness and well-being demand our presence and participation in their lives. No other person can walk in our footsteps; no one can be replaced. As Frankl says:

“Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets oneself – by giving himself a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.”

To that end, Frankl cautions against aiming at success. The more we set our sights on it, the less likely we’ll attain it. Success ensues as an unintended side effect of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. He asks us to listen to our conscience and carry out its directives to the best of our ability.

I’ve certainly never experienced any trauma or tragedy comparable to the Holocaust. Yet I draw comfort and inspiration from Frankl’s words at a time when our country seems to be in such turmoil and armed conflicts abound. Even Mother Nature seems to be lashing out in response to our questionable stewardship of her bounty. It’s easy enough to feel discouraged. Here again, Frankl cuts through all the noise with a clear and compelling message:

“For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become worse unless each of us does his best.”
– Viktor Frankel

Seriously – read the book!

21 Ways to Sustain Inner Peace

I’ve had an especially rough week. Too much to do, too much stress, and too little sleep alongside a substantive family emergency. I decided to revisit a set of practices that Mary Lynn Hendrix derived from The Work of Katie Byron.

Take responsibility for your beliefs and judgments. Avoid the temptation to judge others; focus on cleaning up your own stuff. Be compassionate and forgiving.
Notice when you’re minding other people’s business. Did they ask your advice? Could you apply that advice to your own life?
Hold lightly what you think you know about yourself. Challenge your beliefs. Consider the payoffs (and the costs) of hanging on to them.
Practice “detaching” from your body and your story. Experiment with a third person narrative of your life and events to see what new insights this practice yields.
Speak in the present tense. Experience life in the moment. Avoid the temptation to ruminate about the past or worry about the future.
Learn to love the work that’s right in front of you. Love doing dishes. Love the laundry. Love writing that 1-page memo on which you’ve been procrastinating all day.
Listen to your body. Practice stillness to give it space to speak. Explore what’s really going on when it twitches, tingles, aches, tenses up, etc.
Practice narrating events as if you were a roving reporter. Focus on the facts: What is happening right now? What’s drawing my attention? Where are my hands, feet, arms, legs, etc., and what are they doing? What do I see? Don’t get caught up in the interpretation of the facts or fear of what’s coming in the next moment.
Practice taking what others say at face value. Resist the temptation to assign deep meaning or hidden motivation. Let them finish uninterrupted while giving them your full attention. Once you’ve really listened, then you can consider how you might respond.
Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t fret excessively about what they’ll think. Don’t use words to manipulate others.
Watch life’s recurring dramas as if they’re theatrical plays. Take heart in knowing that you can leave your seat, exit the playhouse, and step outside at any time. The play will still be there later.
Rewrite the drama. Consider how it would play out through the mind and eyes other playwrights. Notice how your experience of it changes.
Exercise polarity. When ruminating on a negative thought, take yourself to the opposite pole to experience something positive. Come back to the positive pole every time you feel yourself slipping.
Awaken self-love. Make a list of everything you love about someone else and share it with them. Now look at the list and see how many of those things are also true of you.
Live your truth. Move, respond, and speak with genuine intention and interest. Don’t compromise your integrity with false excuses or explanations.
Ask for what you want. People don’t know what you want unless you tell them. If they are unwilling or unable to give it to you, find ways to give it to yourself.
Be open to life’s lessons. Recognize that the people and circumstances that come into your life are there to teach you about who you are.
Practice self-gratitude. Stop looking outside yourself for validation.
Use vanity mirrors sparingly. Don’t get caught up in a reflection that doesn’t tell the story of who you are.
Stop justifying yourself. Notice how often you provide explanations for yourself and your words, actions, decisions, etc. Who are you trying to convince? Practice right thoughts, decision-making, and action, and stand firm.
Be grateful for criticism. Say (or think) “thank you” to the slings and arrows, even though it hurts. That attitude enables you to hear the feedback and use the information in a way that serves you.

Does Meditation Really Change Lives?

As I noted in my last post, I’ve become increasingly curious about meditation and the benefits it confers to those who have cultivated the practice. So I ran across another book that sparked my interest – Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body, by Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson.

The authors met as graduate students in complementary fields – Goleman in psychology and Davidson in neuroscience. They both got into meditation as students and continued their practices for decades. Both saw a multitude of positive changes in their lives as a function of their deep commitment to the practice. This experience motivated them to collaborate on an exhaustive review of evidence-based research to unearth proven benefits of meditation.

Goleman and Davidson applied rigorous standards to the studies that they included in their review. They devoted a fair amount of time discussing the ways in which studies may be poorly designed and/or produce untrustworthy results. For example, self-reporting often produces biased or skewed results. Benefits ascribed to meditation could be a function of expectation (e.g., “Everyone says they feel more peaceful when they meditate, so I guess I do, too”), the experience of social bonding in a class, or the enthusiasm of the instructor.

Goleman and Davidson zeroed in on what happens in the individual’s brain in response to meditation. They found transformation in the neural pathways resulting in: (i) less reaction to disturbing events; (ii) elevated compassion and empathy; (iii) increased attention; and (v) improved sense of self. For example, highly experienced Zen masters bear more pain than the control subjects and display little activity in the executive, evaluative, and emotional areas of the brain, all of which typically “flare” when exposed to stressors. The Zen masters experience pain; they just didn’t react to it.

Experienced meditators also showed enlarged brain regions as follows:

Insula, which attunes us to our internal state and emotional self-awareness
Somatomotor areas, which are the cortical hubs for sensing touch and pain
Parts of the prefrontal cortex associated with paying attention
Regions of the cingulate cortex instrumental in self-regulation
Orbitofrontal cortex, also implicated in self-regulation

Of course, the authors acknowledge that such measurements may also be impacted by diet, exercise, sleep habits, stress, and other health factors. Long-time meditators may have healthier lifestyles that contribute to their brain function.

Long-term mindfulness training has also been associated with lower inflammation and a calming of immune response. It increases the enzyme telomerase which has been linked to a reduction in cellular aging. It has also been associated with a decrease in depression, anxiety, and pain.

One big caveat regarding all of the aforementioned benefits: It takes LOTS of practice to realize the systemic benefits. At 1,000 to 10,000 hours of accumulated practice, there are neural and hormonal indicators of lessened stress reactivity and strengthened emotional regulation. Moreover, it’s not just the number of logged hours; it’s how well the practitioner engages the practice. Intentional practice requires expert coaching tied to the needs of the individual. There’s also strong evidence that periodic retreats plays a role in boosting one’s realization of the benefits of practice.

The good news: Anyone can do it. And even if one doesn’t attain mastery, a consistent practice can promote loving kindness, improve attention span, and instill feelings of well-being. The trick is to find a practice that works for you and stick with it.

Open Wide and Say “Om”

Meditation keeps cropping up in the books I’m reading and the podcasts that fill the airwaves while I exercise. The advocates talk about the peacefulness, clarity, and energy-boost that they experience through regular practice. As I’m intrigued by their witness, I thought I’d see what the “experts” have to say about it.

For my first stop on this tour, I chose a book by Dr. Norman E Rosenthal, PhD, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University and 30-year veteran of clinical practice. He has also conducted research in behalf of the National Institute of Mental Health for 20 years. So he can reasonably claim to offer expert commentary in Transcendence: Healing Through Transcendental Meditation.

Dr. Rosenthal’s transcendental meditation (a.k.a. “TM”) is a specific form of meditative practice that makes use of individually-tailored mantras during two 20-minute sessions daily. A certified trainer provides instruction on the technique and works with each client to choose the right mantra and use it correctly. Follow-up sessions on consecutive days reinforce the training. (See www.tm.org.)

TM confers a state of calmness while helping organize the prefrontal cortex in a way that improves focus and decision making. It allows the practitioners to feel a connection to something beyond the self while setting aside consciousness of date, time, and place. In this state of transcendence, one experiences 4 gifts: (i) the gift of being (not doing), (ii) the gift of retreat from the cares and concerns of the world, (iii) the gift of stress-release (physically and/or psychologically), and (iv) the gift of insights.

These high-level benefits have been touted since I first learned about TM years ago. Yet they’ve never inspired me to get past the fidgetiness that I experience every time I try to sit still for a 20-minute session. So I read on to see what Dr. Rosenthal has witnessed through decades of clinical practice.

HEALING: TM has been shown to lower blood pressure, increase insulin sensitivity, and improve cardiac health. It calms the sympathetic nervous system, thereby lowering the stress response. Stress has a deleterious effect on the cardiovascular and immune systems. It also accelerates aging. (He notes that when it comes to cardiovascular disease, it may not be solely about what you eat; it’s also about what’s eating you!) Meditators have superior health profiles, though Dr. Rosenthal allows as how their lifestyles may be more health-promoting than non-mediators.

TRANSFORMATION: Anger and anxiety may serve us when directed toward specific circumstances of limited duration. They fail us when a chronic state of heightened arousal leads to stress-induced physical and psychological challenges, including depression. While cognitive therapy works to change surface behaviors relative to anger, anxiety, and depression, TM works toward a ground of being that is more peaceful. By calming the mind, it helps patients respond to stressors in a clear-headed way. They’re less prone to acting on impulse or being overcome by their emotions. It trains the mind to let disquieting thoughts pass, rather than ruminate on them endlessly. It also has a positive impact on personal organization, effectiveness, and quality of thinking.

HARMONY: TM helps thoughts become more orderly and priorities easier to perceive and pursue. Practitioners focus on what’s important or urgent, not the “noise” that clamors for their attention. The uncluttered mind also has the freedom to explore new directions, to innovate, and to see things with fresh eyes. Most long-time meditators are relaxed in body, alert in mind, and open in spirit. They feel a sense of harmony within their minds, between their minds and bodies, and between themselves and others. Prisons and schools have been transformed by meditation. When practiced consistently by a group of teens, they were shown to have less absenteeism, suspensions, and school violations.

Dr. Rosenthal stressed the importance of working with a certified trainer when adopting this practice. I found a local provider that supports the technique available through Maharishi Foundation USA, a federally recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization. The fees are not for the faint of heart (or budget), although they offer lower rates for students and financially challenged individuals.

The Progress Principle

I’ve come across a number of studies in the past few years that link employee satisfaction with their productivity and tenure on the job. Not surprisingly, when people are happy, they do better work, they enjoy the work they do, and they feel good about the company and co-workers. So the $64,000 question becomes: How do you create an environment that fosters these sensibilities? Dr. Teresa Amabile, PhD and Dr. Steven Kramer, PhD share their insights in The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work.

Talented employees look for their employers to provide meaningful work, clear goals, and appropriate measures of autonomy, resources, and help. The degree to which the company delivers on these key elements of their work life affects their creativity, productivity, commitment, and collegiality. Moreover, companies add “booster rockets” to performance by creating opportunities for employees to realize small “wins” on a consistent basis. Progress stokes motivation.

Most managers aren’t clued into the importance of progress. They rest too easily on compensation packages, longer term performance incentives, high-level goal-setting, and recognition. Yet progress confers confidence and a sense of empowerment. It creates and sustains momentum. Amabile and Kramer would argue that work plans with many small milestones prove more effective than those with a handful of big ones.

Beyond architecting projects with progress in mind, the following factors contribute to an atmosphere of positivity:

Due consideration for people and their ideas
Adequate time to complete the work (but not too much!)
Clear, honest, respectful, free-flowing communication
Encouragement to overcome stumbling blocks and forge ahead
Post mortems on problems and setbacks that foster learning in a context of psychological safety

Attentive managers stay in touch with their teams to be mindful of their progress and needs. They “check in” without making folks feel as though they’re “checking up.”

As a former corporate employee, I certainly resonated with the core messages in this book and valued the research used to back it up. Yet as one who has been self-employed for many, many years, I needed to adapt the findings to account for wearing the employer and employee hats simultaneously. The obvious adjustments will surround my weekly “to do” lists, as follows:

Build each week’s “to do” list with enough work to keep me occupied without overloading the plate (and, therefore, making me feel discouraged or put upon)
Define tasks in greater detail to give more opportunities for victory celebrations
Reflect on what I’ve accomplished at week’s end rather than simply moving on to the next set of projects and chores
Enlist support and resources to help make progress faster!

Emotional Intelligence

In the original Star Trek television series, the emotionally attuned Dr. McCoy frequently locked horns with the uber-rational Mr. Spock. McCoy wanted to factor in the human side of the equation when making crucial decisions and found Spock’s computer-like judgments harsh. In turn, Spock feared that the good doctor’s emotional sensibilities would be his undoing.

Whether we deem them valuable or not, emotions are central to how we navigate circumstances that are too important to leave to intellect alone. They sound the alarm in the face of danger and prompt immediate action. They fuel our drive to set and pursue goals. They create powerful memory imprints that guide future decisions; they streamline options and highlight attractive choices. And they give us the means to bond with a mate, build a family, and live harmoniously in community.

At a time when the Mr. Spocks of this world were regarded in highest esteem, Daniel Goleman published his groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. He argued that one’s genetically-endowed intellect represented perhaps 20% of the factors that determine life success. Luck, breeding, and confidence add to the mix. But it’s the emotionally adept people who truly have the edge.

Psychologists Peter Salovey and John Meyer define emotional intelligence as:

Being in touch with one’s own emotions as they happen without being consumed by them or caught up in judgment about them
Exercising mastery over our emotions – not by controlling when we have them or what they’ll be, but by determining how long they will hold sway
Motivating oneself based on a belief in one’s ability to meet challenges and finding solutions as they arise; delaying gratification, as appropriate
Recognizing emotions in others and providing empathetic responses
Managing relationships effectively – e.g., putting others at ease, shaping encounters, wielding influence, mobilizing and inspiring others, forging intimacy

Emotional intelligence gives us the capacity to take full advantage of our cognitive abilities, powers of concentration, and other talents. We lose ourselves in the moment without the burden of self-consciousness or emotional static. In fact, this ability to enter “flow” is a prerequisite for mastery in one’s craft.

Anger, anxiety, and depression diminish our capacity to learn and sabotage academic performance. Anger is a seductive emotion given its penchant toward self-righteousness and revenge. Venting amps up the brain’s arousal; successive anger-provoking thoughts add fuel to the fire. Chronic worry – i.e., rehearsing what might go wrong – creates a low level of anxiety that becomes impervious to reason. It’s not conducive to generating novel solutions or fresh ideas. Grief and bereavement for losses is healthy; they go awry when morphed into chronic depression. Options to address these unhelpful emotions:

Cognitive reframing – i.e., intentionally narrating circumstances in a positive light
Distracting oneself with a pleasurable, non-addictive activity
Exercising to release endorphins
Engineering a success (self-confidence booster), no matter how small
Laughing, which makes folks think broadly and associate freely.
(Note: Good moods bias thinking in a positive direction and help lay down congenial memories.)

Empathy is a key social ability. It equips the individual to understand other people’s feelings, to view the world from their vantage-point, and to respect differences in opinions and sensibilities. Strong relationship skills also include:

Being a good listener and asking relevant questions to draw others out
Distinguishing between what someone says and does from one’s own judgments and reactions about them
Being appropriately assertive rather than angry or passive
Mastering the arts of cooperation, conflict resolution, and compromise
Organizing groups into effective teams; exercising leadership

Organizational superstars ply their social skills to establish dense networks of relationships on multiple fronts. The quantity and quality of relationships help them buffer stress. Emotional support confers healing power in times of trouble. Strong social connections tend to be associated with high functioning immune response.

Family life is our first school for emotional learning. Parents who possess a solid understanding of emotional intelligence have an advantage in shaping their children’s future. Seven key ingredients impact a child’s capacity to learn: confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, relatedness, capacity to communicate, and cooperativeness.

For those whose childhoods fell short of textbook grooming in emotional intelligence, there are evidenced-based programs to cultivate emotional intelligence. They cover emotional skills (e.g., identifying, assessing, and managing feelings), cognitive skills (e.g., reading and interpreting social cues), and behavioral skills (e.g., sending relationship-forwarding signals to others via verbal and non-verbal cues).

Ayurveda: A Holistic Model of Health

“Ayurveda is not about adding years to your life, it’s about adding life to your years.”
– Deepak Chopra, MD

For thousands of years, medical practitioners in India have counseled their patients to make choices that bring forth well-being from the inside out. They’ve empowered people to take charge of their health through diet, lifestyle, seasonal and daily routines, herbal medicine, touch therapy, detoxification, energy work, and spiritual practice. Numerous Western physicians and health counsellors leverage this ancient wisdom in their practices.

Michelle S. Fondin offers an introduction to Ayurvedic medicine in her book, The Wheel of Healing with Ayurveda: An Easy Guide to a Healthy Lifestyle. Her work centers on balance – i.e., a healthy integration of life purpose, body, spirit, emotions, memories, relationships, vocations, finances, and environment. If any one element is out of balance, all elements are out of balance.

Life Purpose: Our dharma (i.e., righteous duty or virtuous path) creates an inner drive that prompts us to live a full life. When living in harmony with our dharma, we feel a glowing sensation upon awakening and experience lightness in our bodies and live in harmony with the cosmos. We revel in the present moment doing what we’re meant to do while faithfully dispatching our duties and obligations. If we lack clarity on our purpose, we owe it to ourselves and others to launch the journey of discovery.

Physical Health: Ayurveda deems 95% of diseases preventable when individuals adhere to healthy diets, daily routines, and exercise programs. Eat freshly prepared, organic, locally grown produce and grains whenever possible. The fresher the ingredients, the more nutrients they offer. Eliminate processed foods, sugars, sweeteners, and unhealthy oils; minimize frozen and canned foods. Eat only when hungry in a calm and pleasant environment. Establish routines that allow for optimal rest and sleep. Combine 30 minutes of daily cardio exercise with strength and flexibility training.

Spiritual Health: Practice right action to facilitate a sense of wonder, connectedness, compassion, trust, surrender, gratitude, and flow. Establish a daily meditation practice to calm the mind, separate useful from useless thoughts, and promote a more peaceful and harmonious life. Meditation lowers blood pressure, normalizes heart rate, increases immune capacity, decreases stress hormones, and improves sleep.

Emotional Health: Toxic emotions give rise to diseased bodies. We must heal our emotional wounds to generate optimal health. Through a daily practice of meditation, we can learn to treat emotions like thoughts – a series of sensations that come and go. We recognize what we feel, take responsibility for our feelings, and choose what we do about them.

Healing the Past: Our experiences shape the people we become. We can choose the stories that we tell about our histories in such a way that they are empowering. Some of the questions that Ms. Fondin suggests we consider are:

What are these relationships (or situations) trying to teach me?
What do I need to learn about my patterns of behavior that I attract these individuals (or situations)?
What do I need to assert verbally or nonverbally to become stronger?
How do I step out of the victim role and into an empowered role?
Where am I “stuck,” and what do I need to do to get “un-stuck”?
(Note: Doing energy work with the seven chakras can help.)

Relationship Health: Relationship starts with the self – with awareness, knowledge, love, and acceptance. As social beings, we are meant to be in relationship with others; we are not in balance without them. That being said, we need to focus on relationships that are mutually nourishing and minimize contact with those who carry negative energy.

Occupational Health: Do what you love, and love what you do. Re-write the narrative regarding work to make it more meaningful. If it does not reflect dharma (i.e., God-given purpose), then find ways to pursue dharma outside of paid employment.

Financial Health: Money problems create stress which releases stress hormones which manifests in health problems. Adjust your circumstances to live comfortably within your means, taking proper account of future needs. Establish a healthy relationship with money. (“You can have little money but feel rich, and an abundance and feel poor.”)

Environmental Health: Reduce your carbon footprint and live sustainably. Surround yourself with pleasing sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and tactile sensations.

Timeless Strategies for Creating Health

For the past quarter century, Dr. Deepak Chopra, MD has been one of the leading voices in alternative medicine. In addition to authoring numerous best-selling books, he offers professional training, coaching, retreats, and various products and services through the aegis of The Chopra Center.

For my latest foray into Dr. Chopra’s work, I read Creating Health: How To Wake Up the Body’s Intelligence. Its basic premise is that our bodies know what’s good for them. All we need do is cultivate the proper habits (and eliminate the wrong ones) to maximize our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

The mind-body connection is a cornerstone of the alternative medicine movement. For every state of consciousness, there is a corresponding state of physiology. For example, happiness induces biochemical changes that usher in a host of beneficial effects on the body. By contrast, anger and hostility elevates heart rate and blood pressure, upsets the digestive track, brings on a cold sweat, and weakens immune function. Even the mere absence of a definitive life purpose can result in higher levels of fatigue.

Because our minds and bodies work together to create health, Dr. Chopra offers the following strategies to maximize well-being:

Self-Awareness: That to which we pay attention grows. Focus on life-giving, other-centered goals. Maintain a serene inner emotional landscape that does not get pushed around by the crisis of the day. Let life be a partner in delivering on goals.
Living in the Present: We cannot change the past nor control the future. In fact, if we fixate on something that we don’t want to happen, our attention may give it the power to happen. Rather, stay in the moment and allow the present to grow into its fullness.
Ego Gratification: Find healthy ways to fulfill our basic human need for love, appreciation, praise, and meaning.
Job Satisfaction: We all spend a large part of our lives at work. Those who find ways to grow and prosper – either in their paid employment or their off hours – tend to live longer, healthier lives. Mature individuals find creative solutions to make meaning of even routine work and direct their attention toward the positive aspects of their professional lives.
Channeling the Unconscious Mind: Acquire good habits through repetition, guided by a positive frame of mind. The force of habit becomes a tidal wave on which the conscious mind surfs.
Diet and Destiny: Respect the body’s intelligence by delivering the proper nutrients within a framework of gratitude. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says: “First, be a good animal.” Dr. Chopra promotes a predominantly vegetarian diet.
Rhythms, Rest, and Activity: The body functions best when our cycles of activity and rest align with nature’s rhythms. Ideally, we’d rise with the sun and retire shortly after it sets. At a minimum, we should avoid exposure to stimuli prior to bedtime to allow for the onset of restful sleep.
Having an Open Mind: Chopra tells us that intelligence is like water; it needs to keep flowing freely to stay pure.
Wonder and Belief: All of life is open to adventure. Stay open to the possibilities and hold fast to a belief in what could yet be accomplished.
The Way of Compassion: Express kindness to all living organisms. It restores and refreshes the giver as well as the receiver. Compassionate souls are among the healthiest and happiest people in the world.

“Once you feel that you are part of the whole, that you belong to the whole, and the world belongs to you, that very feeling makes you love, and that very love brings forth healing.”
– Swami Satchidananda

Dr. Chopra defines the “soul” as the thinker of thoughts which finds expression through the body and mind. Meditation can connect us to that ground of being. As he says:

“Meditation ushers in a silent self-awareness in which brain activity is fully coherent and effortlessly coordinated with the body to produce a flow of pure intelligence… It brings about the higher plane of consciousness and physiology. It coordinates body and mind to the utmost.”

Dr. Axe Says: “Eat Dirt”

In an earlier post, I discussed the importance of maintaining a healthy microbiome – i.e., the population of microscopic organisms that live symbiotically in our small intestines and colons. They aid in digestion, help regulate metabolism and hormone levels, support immune function, protect the gut lining, and ward off harmful microorganisms. Diversity is the hallmark of a healthy microbiome with no more than 15% of its residents deemed potentially harmful.

When our microbiome is out of balance, we are far more susceptible to chronic illness and disease. According to Dr. Josh Axe, author of Eat Dirt: Why Leaky Gut May Be the Root Cause of Your Health Problems, a number of factors compromise our microbiome:

A poor diet characterized by excess sugar and nutritionally bankrupt processed food
(Note: A test subject’s biodiversity dropped by 40% after eating a diet based wholly on fast food for 10 days!)
Dietary gluten that triggers production of zonulin, a hormone that causes the tight junctions of our gut lining to loosen up
Overuse of antibiotics and antimicrobial sanitizers which kill off good bacteria with the bad
Environmental toxins
Stress

Microbes die off and must be replenished. To nourish the good microbial population, we need regular exposure to the soil-based microbes found in dirt and other plant life. While it isn’t necessary to serve ourselves daily spoonfuls of dirt, it certainly doesn’t hurt to leave a little bit of dirt on the fruits and vegetables we consume. Microexposures reinforce good bacteria and help our bodies respond appropriately to pathogens. Those of us who own dogs and cats get a little dose of dirt every time we handle their dirty paws!

As an aside: I’ve always noshed on baby carrots at parties to keep me away from higher calorie snack foods. Until reading this book, it never occurred to me that packaged carrots tend to be bathed in chlorine to increase their shelf life. Chlorine kills bacteria in the gut!

Other than becoming a pet owner, what dietary and lifestyle practices support the cultivation of a healthy microbiome?

Dr. Axe favors getting back to nature. A few simple lifestyle adjustments might include: (i) walking barefoot on the ground daily; (ii) working in the garden; (iii) showering with water and no soap a few days per week to help maintain beneficial microorganisms on the skin; (iv) washing hands with water and certified organic therapeutic oils (e.g., tea tree, orange, melaleuca, rosemary) or Dr. Bronnor’s Pure Castile Soap; and, (v) swimming in the ocean.

As for food, Dr. Axe offers the following recommendations:

Eat probiotic rich foods such as kefir, yogurt, and fermented vegetables.
(Note: Commercially prepared sauerkraut may or may not have been fermented; it could just be cabbage seasoned with vinegar.)
Drink raw, fermented, organic goat or sheep milk and cheese.
(Homogenization destroys essential enzymes and probiotics as well as oxidizes fats and creates free radicals.)
Substitute coconut flour or almond flour for wheat-based flour.
Use extra virgin coconut oil for cooking and ghee, olive oil, or flaxseed oil for dressings, et al.
Use bone broth and collagen powder to repair the gut’s mucosal lining and provide a rich source of minerals that the body can readily absorb.
Avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners.