Too Busy for Your Own Good (51 page)

Monitor your alcohol intake, because it can suppress your appetite for the nutrition you actually
need
, and alcohol abuse, whether chronic or episodes of binge drinking, can suppress immune function.

Pets can help your mental state by making you laugh, distracting your negative thoughts, and giving you unconditional love. Petting a cat or dog actually helps you physiologically by lowering your heart rate and blood pressure. They also will get you out of the house. Many couples use the pet-walking time to wind down their day and reconnect with each other. Try it with your kids. I know they'll say it's lame, but make it more fun to go on a walk than sit in front of the tube: “Rex and I are walking downtown to get ice cream,” or “I'm taking Muffie to meet her new boyfriend at the dog park.”

Make sure you make decisions beforehand about who is in charge of caring for, feeding, and exercising the new addition
to the family. One of my hyper-stressed clients ferried her son to the pet store three times a week for the live crickets his “designer lizard” needed. I suggested she make him responsible for getting the live food for this creature. I challenged her to make her son solve the problem—get the crickets yourself or sell Godzilla. Guess what? He found them online, and they are now delivered directly to the door!

It used to be that only the New Age thinkers or “those crazy hippies” believed that your thoughts could actually influence your health. Medical research increasingly supports the mind-body connection. Evidence from the field of psychoneuroimmunology gives us positive proof of the connection between our thoughts and our health. The easiest way to get happy in a hurry is to remember not to take life so seriously. When stuff happens, you have to learn to let it roll off your back. Meticulous researchers Rick Foster and Greg Hicks recount in their book
Choosing Brilliant Health
how you can learn to create positive emotions by using positive words instead of negative ones (e.g., saying “I am calm” instead of “I will not be stressed”). Here are some other ways to improve your attitude at home:

Transcendental meditation
. This technique involves intense breathing exercises and repetitions of words. Dr. Robert Schneider, principal author of a research study conducted at five universities and medical centers, tracked 202 patients with high blood pressure for up to eighteen years. It was reported that those practicing transcendental meditation for twenty minutes twice daily had a 23 percent lower death rate from all causes and nearly a one-third lower death rate from heart disease than those not practicing meditation. Locate classes online or at a holistic health center.

Deep breathing or pranayama
.
Pranayama
is a technical term in yoga that means lengthening or controlling breath or
prana
. Inhale, relaxing your abdomen, pushing your belly forward and expanding it. Exhale, allowing your abdomen to shrink back in, tighten your belly muscles, and push the air out. Inhale the same length of time that you exhale. Breathing serves as the pump for your lymphatic system, carrying away the detritus of your immune system and toxins—a drainage system throughout the body.

Guided imagery
. This is a method of meditation and breathing where you use your mind to create images—like a vivid daydream—to communicate positive messages to your whole body or the parts you choose. First popularized by cancer patients, guided imagery classes can be found at most medical and wellness centers, or you can find instruction online, from a CD, or from a therapist.

The biochemicals your body generates throughout the day as you deal with your busy life can end up keeping you awake at night. Your habits and patterns directly impact your ability to get the necessary stress relief from a good night's sleep. It's normal to have occasional bouts of insomnia the nights before a big, important day. The problem comes when your insomnia-stress cycle becomes chronic. Here are some ways to avoid this fate:

Practice “sleep hygiene,”
a bedtime
routine
in which sleep is the last step. Your body will love the consistency and rhythm of a wind-down from your day. This routine may or may not include the following activities: setting out your morning clothes; showering;
applying body lotion; getting your jammies on; setting the alarm; getting into bed; five to ten minutes of positive, grateful thoughts or prayers; reading for fifteen minutes; putting earplugs in; and turning out the light.

Buy a new mattress
. Don't even try to get a bargain on a mattress; you can't comparison shop, because every store has a different line. You know it's the right mattress when you get a deep sleep and wake up without aches and pains. Choose one with your partner, buy it with a guarantee, have it delivered, and give it a test run for thirty days.

Check your cushions, pillows, and blankets
. When your body is responding to allergens, it produces histamines that interfere with restorative sleep, so look for offensive materials (feathers, wool, synthetics) and remove them from your sleep zone.

Eliminate your sleep disrupters
. Identify the culprit interrupting your sleep, whether it's noise or light or whatever, and find a buffer or solution. Use white-noise machines, eye masks, or earplugs. On hot summer nights, my squishy, foam earplugs allow me to get fresh breezes from open windows while blocking out our neighbors' noisy activities.

Human contact is a deep physical and emotional need. A good way to unwind at the end of the day or the end of the week is with some kind of touching activity with another person. Nothing melts stress away like a good rubdown!

Massage
. A licensed massage therapist can interrupt the neurohormones connected with stress. If the local spa is too pricey, try a massage school. Or draft your mate to be your personal masseuse.