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Why being kind to others is good for your health
When empathy doesn’t come naturally to you
A third of how empathetic we are is down to our genes. But it does not mean people born with low empathy are lost.
No matter where we start, we can all improve in empathy.
- Try to look at the world from another person's perspective for a moment each day.
- Practice mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation.
- During lockdown, take care of pets or read emotionally-charged books.
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Key Ideas
Structure in times of chaos
Human suffering is often about freedom and constraint. We rebel against too much containment (“I need space!”) or if we have too much freedom, we feel lost in space. Fearful. (“Where did you go?...
Move
Our bodies need to stretch, reach, twist, bend, step, and sweat. It's not about staying in shape. It's about your immune health and mental health.
Build movement in your structure. Try for at least 20 minutes per day.
Nourish
You don't have to ban small treats. However, it is essential to set up a daily structure that fills you with nourishing healthy foods.
Make a dietary change, learn to meal prep, or teach your kids to cook.
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Key Ideas
Your body needs dark too
While we are starting to pay attention to how important sleep is, the need for dark is still mostly ignored.
Being exposed to regular patterns of light and dark regulates our circadian ...
Our sleep and wake patterns
On its own, the circadian rhythm takes almost 24 hours. Our bodies rely on the Sun to reset this cycle and keep it at 24 hours, the length of our days. Light and the dark are important signals for the cycle.
During the night, body temperature drops, metabolism slows, and the hormone melatonin rises dramatically. When the Sun comes up in the morning, melatonin has already started falling, and you wake up.
Our bodies in the dark
During the dark, levels of the hormone leptin (hunger control), go up. This means we do not feel hungry while low levels make us hungry.
Ans research found that sleep disruption and turning on lights lowers leptin levels which makes people hungry in the middle of the night.
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Key Ideas
Our sleep-wake pattern
Our molecular clock inside our cells aims to keep us in sync with the sun.
When we disregard this circadian rhythm, we are at a greater risk for illnesses such as diabetes, heart...
The lifestyle imbalance
Thomas Edison said that sleep is "a bad habit." Like Edison, we seem to think of sleep as an adversary and try to fight it at every turn. The average American sleeps less than the recommended seven hours per night, mostly due to electric lights, television, computers, and smartphones.
However, we are ignoring the intricate journey we're designed to take when we sleep.
Stage One Sleep
When we fall asleep, the nearly 86 billion neurons in our brain starts to fire evenly and rhythmically. Our sensory receptors become muffled at the same time.
The first stage of shallow sleep lasts for about 5 minutes.