Dr. Fritz Hershey: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Establish Trust — This is learned through gradual repetitive experience. Mean what you say. Say what you mean AND DO IT. Not something else. Don’t try to manipulate people which is completely demoralizing and undermining.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Fritz Hershey, LMFT

For over twenty years, Dr. Fritz Hershey has helped patients overcome anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. After struggling to overcome his own anxiety, Dr. Fritz knew that what we were doing was not working so he set out to find a different and more effective way to address mental health issues. Succeeding on his mission, he’s perfected the art of therapy combined with the latest in neuroscientific research so that patients can see results in days not years.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I got into this career so I could be for others what I didn’t have for myself growing up. I struggled with anxiety as a child. I went to a lot of therapists. All they did was nod at me. They never offered any skills, any techniques. They had no science. They just wanted to sit on the couch in their corduroys, drink chamomile tea and “visit.” So I went to school to find a better way to deal with anxiety. I knew there had to be more than just sitting on a couch talking to someone for years. I studied psychology in school, with a heavy science — neurobiology emphasis. I found real physiological substrates to conditions that could be addressed in the therapy room. I got into psychology to help people get better, more directly, and more quickly. I’m doing just that. We focus on less talk and more action so you can feel better faster.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

My boss brought me someone who had anxiety…would I talk to him in my boss’s office? As the patient walked down the hall to the office, I noticed he had an Oxygen tank on a cart. He had anxiety since he recently got a diagnosis for lung cancer which is not uncommon. I asked him if he had a history of anxiety. He said no.

As I had noticed the O2 earlier, and noted his skin was an odd tone. I told him I wanted to teach him some breathing exercises, and asked if he would be ok removing the oxygen. He then learned the breathing exercises and quickly his skin color changed back to a more normal, less flushed tone.

I asked how long he’d been anxious. He said never before. I asked if it came on with diagnosis, or later when he got the oxygen. He said later, close to the time he got the oxygen. I told him to go right back to his doc, or to the ER, and tell them what he told me, and have them check his oxygen, and to call later if he needed an appt. He left.

I called him a few hours later to ask him how he was doing, and if he still needed to make an appointment. He said he was feeling much better, and in fact was no longer acutely anxious. He had gone back to his doctor, where they found his O2 was mixed too high at 120%.

My NeuroBio background allowed me to know about blood gas ratios. My education in treatment had given me skills in clinical observation — asking the right questions — onset of symptoms, noticing what might be off — skin tone, oxygen.

The lesson here is that psychology IS PHYSIOLOGY as much as it is just visiting on the couch, no matter what kind of tea you drink. If you’re considering a career in psychology, in your training you need to get a good science background and develop good clinical skills including noticing, asking good questions, and learn to look beyond what might be suggested to see what’s right in front of you.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

Early in practice, I was telling my supervisor about a patient. They had PTSD from a flying accident. I said, “The patient was in a state of general good health until the plane he was flying ran out of gas and crashed.” That, of course, is what caused the PTSD.

To which my supervisor answered, quite composed, “Uhm, yes. Being in a plane crash will tend to impair one’s health.”

The lesson learned: Before you fly, check the gas tank.

Just kidding… The real lesson is that in treatment, clear communication and the thought put into it are key.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Someone who helped me was my therapist, who I refer to presently as my mentor. He gave me support. He believed in me, when I didn’t. He let me know I could always go to him for advice. I would get informal “Supervision” from him, during and after school.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Burnout is a form of despair. It’s a depressive low. It occurs when there is low “reward’ or higher ‘punishment’ (behaviorist terms) in your regular work experience. To avoid these, you must approach what Positive Psychology calls Subjective Well Being, or HAPPY!!!

This occurs at multiple levels. You must have good routine wellness and activity structure in your day. This means good sleep, nutrition, plans and activities such as work or school, regulating your body through targeted relaxation and meditation, having strong social connections in relationships with family and friends. Have a mentor, or a peer you can talk to, if needed.

Applying these behaviors daily results in long-term goal pursuit, growth, as well as personal and professional development. This is the ongoing evolution of the clinician.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

To create a great work culture you need to apply Organizational Psychology. With that in mind, here are six things you should do.

  1. Establish Trust — This is learned through gradual repetitive experience. Mean what you say. Say what you mean AND DO IT. Not something else. Don’t try to manipulate people which is completely demoralizing and undermining.
  2. Determine Your Culture and show it. Talk with employees. Ask them questions about their perceptions. Make adjustments according to what you hear.
  3. Engage — Including your employees in the above discussions and getting their takes on decision-making is crucial.
  4. Goal Setting — if appropriate. Are there large group changes or small individual changes to be made? Describe them in clear, specific, performance, or result-defined parameters.
  5. S.M.A.R.T. GOALS

Specific — Spell it out.

Measurable — Use criteria that can be observed and measured.

Achievable — It HAS to be attainable. If it’s NOT REALISTIC, it’s NOT A GOAL.

Realistic — The goal is valid for your group’s or individual’s values, purpose and mission.

Timely — Define a specific time frame or deadline to achieve the goal.

  1. Develop Employees. Notice, and provide opportunities and incentives for those who want to go faster, do more, rise above and stand out.
  2. Reward. I’m a behaviorist. This is a biggie! Provide recognition and rewards by privileges, tangible bonuses, and more opportunities.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Step One: Have A Bulletproof Routine That Supports Your Health, Mental Well Being & Goals.

This is what I like to call “walking through the forest.”

To increase your mental wellness, it’s important to have structure in your days, at least most days. Having a sense of going to and from projects, peoples, and activities will give you purpose and meaning.

First, a good day starts after 7–8 hours’ sleep so make sure you have a nighttime routine that allows you enough sleep. Then make sure to include good healthy nutrition including a breakfast that restores sugar balance throughout your day. Also, even if you’re staying home, get dressed and ready to go somewhere, meet someone, or do something. You’re much more likely to feel like going out if you already look the part.

Next, make time for three important factors related to your mental wellness: relaxation and meditation, people, and get in regular progress toward long term goals. This is what we call daily striving. We were made to engage in regular forms of activity. All these forms are related to old survival programs built into the brain that are still with us.

Your daily routine IS your daily story of yourself’, your day and your life — make it a good one with a happy ending because you like the good ROUTINE day you had.

Step Two: Make Relaxation A Priority.

This is what I like to call “cave nap.”

Making time to initially relax is huge when looking at your brain health. Relaxation refreshes your mind. It even boosts your immune system.

Acute focused forms of targeted breathing and/or muscle relaxation reset the body and the mind. Meditation — most days — increases stability and wellbeing, and lowers reactivity and impulsivity. It makes us more patient, serene, calm and relaxed in a both short and long-term way. It makes you safer from things like suicide. It creates physiological, system, and morphologic changes in brain chemistry, nerve communication, and brain volume. These changes help inoculate and buffer humans who are at risk of suicide.

Step Three: Focus On The Right Relationships.

This is what I like to call “the tribe.”

Connection, social connection, family connection, nurturing and bonding are vastly important to your mental wellbeing. Be with your “Git”, your kin, and your friends improves everything from your mood to your ability to deal with stress.

Being in a tribe back in early cave days drastically increased one’s life expectancy and probability of survival. That’s why we’re naturally drawn to others. We all want to be a part of a tribe. We want to find and know our people. We want them to know us. It’s part of our DNA.

Surrounding ourselves with people we like isn’t all that’s important about tribes. When we do good things in a giving, non-transactional way for others in the community, it increases our mental wellbeing. We feel a sense of purpose and belonging.

Engaging in these kinds of “kindness” activities will increase the activity in reward centers of the brain which will make you happy. Because it was important to get humans to do a lot of these things to increase the survival chances of the human race, being kind and nice — focusing on community — is something we’re wired to do. So, it makes you HAPPY!!! Happy to be alive, successful, and having fun doing it.

Step Four: Focus On Results.

This is what I like to call “getting down the road.”

Want to feel good and increase your mental wellbeing? Set a long term goal pursuit and acknowledge your wins along the way.

This is long term growth and change in chapters starting and ending, and new ones starting. Doing all the above things in a ROUTINE DAY, day after day, week after week, and months grow into years and decades will change your life.

It’s in the small, daily actions that we’re consistent with that is where and how human stories unfold. This is how people and their stories evolve from starting careers, job opportunities, adventures, and families. This is the story of those things, as chapters close, new ones around new interests, opportunities, and strengths and capabilities emerge on the horizon in front of us.

All that daily striving and Walking Through the Forest in time gets us to whole new exciting, rewarding and fulfilling places! This provides to humans what the cutting-edge brain science guys call Meaning and Purpose. Having this in our lives makes us HAPPY!!!

Step Five: Rinse & Repeat.

Do these things over and over, faithfully, regularly. Neurological change, which is learning, works by repetition. These behaviors make up a galaxy of survival promoting activities. The human that had the traits to practice them tended to be more successful and more likely to pass on the genes with these desirable traits. These traits are based on and driven by genes we’ve had for 100,00 years and are still with us. They not only create success; their program functions require activity in areas where reward centers are located to make us likely to do them. And it’s this that makes us HAPPY!!!

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

Retirement is what we call long-term striving. We have gotten here after all our life before. It’s then that we start asking ourselves important questions.

What do we want to do now? We are older, wiser, and probably have more time and more money to spend. Essentially, we are more powerful. What have we always wanted to do, but put off? What have we never thought of? Write a book. Do comedy. Start acting.

I went from an Assistant Cameraman and Stand Up Comic to a Clinical Psychologist and a Commercial Actor. And I’ve written two books; Camera Assisting: The Art, The Science, The Zen, and Happiness is For Cavemen.

Let’s take some time and DREAM!!! Now is the time to go beyond self or other imposed limitations on our capabilities. “Oh, you’ll never… Oh, you shouldn’t ever…” Why not??? If we don’t try, we ensure failure. Let’s reinvent, rewrite new and different versions of ourselves.

Above all DO NOT STOP! (Those are the guys that die!)

We’re made to walk through the forest every day. If we continue new versions of our ROUTINE DAY, we have daily striving which is good for us and it boosts immunity. Even better, we get to create new versions of ourselves! We have daily relaxation and social connection — sooooo good for the HAPPY AND immunity. Bodies work harder to maintain themselves if they need to because we are putting demands on them. Days turn into longtime goal realization. All these give MEANING AND PURPOSE — sooooo good for the HAPPY!!!

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF WITH OTHERS. Hah! Good luck with that with teens. I know that’s much easier said than done. As a teen, you are changing fast, so comparing to others is a way of getting feedback on yourself.

While it’s natural, it’s not often helpful.

The best advice I can give you is to be MINDFUL about focusing on yourself.

If you are doing well, there will be less negative comparison. Find things that interest you. Go with your strengths. Share them with others. Helping others is good for the HAPPY! ENGAGEMENT!!!

Also have friends — a few or a lot, whichever is you. Have structure in your day — activities, school, family gatherings, projects, sports.

Also, sports gets us exercise and builds a value of health, like nutrition, and good sleep — 8 to 10 hours for preteens and teens.

Have RELAXATION — down time counts, but LIMIT SOCIAL MEDIA. This creates undue comparison with people sharing only their best moments. Be realistic about it. Know that they have all the same ups and downs everybody else has, just like you.

Last, take your strengths and interest and make them into a long-term growth as in a goal — getting better at something. This builds positive self-esteem and also, all these things just make ANY human, adult or young person happy.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

Tales of Power by Carlos Castenada.

At the end of the book, Don Juan, a Brujo (sorcerer), who is passing on his mantle in the ways of power to his student (Castenada), brings Carlos to the top of a cliff and tells him to jump.

Another sorcerer, Don Juan’s friend; Don Genaro has brought his apprentice, Pablito, here. Genaro always would howl with laughter at Carlos’s seriousness and bewilderment at the things Genaro and Don Juan were showing Carlos.

Carlos and Pablito are both told to jump. Carlos is terrified and says, “What???!!! That’s crazy!” Don Genaro is rolling on the ground, holding his belly in a spasm of guffawing laughter.

This is about commitment, and doing, and trying. One, why would Don Juan tell you to do something that would destroy you, if he had spent all this time and effort into growing you into a powerful warrior, able to take on, and carry on with Don Juan’s knowledge?

To Don Juan, warriors do not give in, they act, (´A warrior doesn’t just let his death take him. Instead he goes down in a blaze of glory; fighting all the way”).

So here, at the top of the cliff (challenge metaphor) — ‘If you jump, you will not die!”

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Establish a culture if increased HAPPY! Please see above to the 5 Steps to Do to increase your mental health. In my practice I call it the 4 R’S — Routine, Relaxation, Relationships, and Results. This is a valuing of Whole Wellness. It is both physical and psychological. Positive Psychology is the newest emerging field in psychology.

The newest neuroscientific research coming from it points to Happiness, or Subjective Wellbeing as the optimization of mammalian species for greatest successful function and creature and species success. This is the gift I want to give to all of mankind.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My favorite came from my first mentor, David Shore, when I was an apprentice cameraman in a long past life. David was a distinguished cinematographer, and considered an outlaw by the Madison Avenue execs, but they put up with David for his brilliance. He said, “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing shitty.” He loved to call this out across the set with a grin and the execs would cringe.

He meant, don’t hang back from trying and starting new things. Don’t wait till you’re perfect. It’s not realistic. You likely WON’T be any good at first, but if you don’t start in, you’ll never get any better. At the top of the cliff JUMP! After some falling, you will begin to SOAR!!!

God bless him. I’m still in love with him. His spirit charms my soul even now…

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

The best way to reach me is on Facebook @DrFritzHershey or you can always find me on my website at www.fritzhershey.com.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!


Dr. Fritz Hershey: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Melissa Lapides: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Make sure you surround yourself with loving people — if family and friends aren’t supportive and drain your energy, set boundaries.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” I had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Lapides LMFT.

Melissa Lapides is an Integrative Psychotherapist and Trauma Specialist with over 15 years of experience.

She has devoted her life to support people to overcome emotional trauma and heal themselves.

Through her private practice, she has supported hundreds of clients to overcome trauma and she educates practitioners to do the same in her Certification program, SafeSpace.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

My own unresolved trauma and mental health issues brought me to this career path. I knew there had to be a way to achieve emotional freedom, and so I deeply immersed myself in every kind of mental health training available to me.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I once worked in a transitional home at the very beginning of my career and did art therapy with the residents. I had no idea what I was doing and was totally thrown in the with some severe mental health issues. I look back at it now and laugh thinking about how unprepared I was for that experience.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

I worked as a school counselor and I would give some of the kids my phone number because I felt like I wanted to provide a deeper level of support. I soon realized it was not okay to work outside of work. The kids were calling me all the time.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

One of my therapists, Patricia Meadows. I have seen many therapists in my life, and she was the one who introduced me to somatic work. It was the first time I saw the clouds part and the sun begin to shine through. I remember leaving sessions with her and really feeling so tapped into the possibility of happiness.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

The advice that I would give to my colleagues would be to make sure that you put the oxygen mask on yourself first. Self-care for mental health practitioners is not negotiable.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

For other leaders, I highly suggest that they work through their own mental health issues and trauma thoroughly. Their work culture is going to reflect any of their own relational issues that they have not processed.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

1) Acknowledge your struggles — “I am experiencing anxiety.”

2) Don’t judge yourself — “I am experiencing anxiety and that is okay. I am not broken.”

3) Seek support — Mental health practitioners, wellness providers, and coaches are great options.

4) Make sure you surround yourself with loving people — if family and friends aren’t supportive and drain your energy, set boundaries.

5) Make self-care a priority — allow yourself to rest, take a bath, have a massage, etc.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

After retirement it’s going to be important to still keep active mentally, physically, and spiritually. Join classes or groups that will feel nourishing, such as: book clubs, art classes, or personal development workshops.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

As far as teens and preteens go, it is so important for them to stay away from comparison. I notice when things on the Internet actually make them feel bad about themselves versus inspiring them. They also need to choose their friends wisely, and make sure they are around supportive and nurturing peers versus those who are competitive and judgmental.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

I absolutely loved “The Alchemist”. It is a beautiful story and portrayal of how to follow your purpose and passion. I believe that mental health issues stem from a lack of purpose and passion, as well as unhealed trauma.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would love to get trauma education into the masses. I believe the world is never going to change unless we heal, and eradicate, generational and systematic trauma.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi

For so long I thought that everything in my environment needed to change in order for me to find freedom and happiness. I went on a lifelong journey of healing to realize that I had the ruby slippers on the whole time, and that the change I was seeking had to come from within.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

instagram.com/safetraumahealing

facebook.com/melissa.lapides

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!


Melissa Lapides: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Dr. Bankole Johnson: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Mental wellness is not the absence of mental illness. We are all born with a set of psychological strengths and weaknesses. Unlike some authorities, I believe that some of our weaknesses keep us grounded and “normal” and only need to be understood not “worked out.” Mental wellness also cannot be achieved without a dedicated effort and cannot happen by accident. As an example, if as a psychiatrist I wrote a letter that went like this — “To whom it may concern. In my capacity as a psychiatrist, I am happy to inform you that Mr. Incredibly Capable (a fictitious name) has been certified as being completely mentally well and is peerless in terms of emotional balance, decisions making, and mental fortitude.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Dr. Bankole Johnson.

Professor Bankole A. Johnson (DSc., M.D.) is a licensed and board-certified physician and psychiatrist, and a leading neuroscientist with expertise in brain wellness and performance. He is a global authority in psychiatry, pharmacology, curbing addictions and personalized wellness. Dr. Johnson recently debuted his “Six Rings” book series (SixRingsBooks.com), which provides clues into the complexity of the brain, how perturbations to it can impair performance, and how it can be healed.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

My initial career path was not medicine. I had decided to study the arts and perhaps move on to be a scholar in history and literature. That would have allowed me to branch off and do a law degree. I had received a scholarship to study law and at the young age of 15 years, I was already doing languages at the Catholic University in Paris. My father however insisted I become a doctor. So, I was sent to rapidly study sciences to become a doctor. As I had no strong formal science background, I taught myself and my grades were good enough to have me start medical school at the age of 17 years. I graduated 5 years later and began a path in intensive care medicine. In my last year in University I lived under the bell tower (no joke — this was like something out of the hunchback of Notre Dame) for free so long as I looked after psychiatric patients before going to my classes. I had to do this because both my parents had died suddenly and I was left with no money having previously had a privileged life. The time working with psychiatric patients in the morning, before they saw the doctor, gave me insights into the secret life of people living in an asylum. I think that was my draw to Psychiatry. Along the way, I could not resist getting a Master of Philosophy degree from the University of London in neurological sciences and computational mathematics (I later got inducted into the Texas Hall of fame for Science and Mathematics). My foray into addiction was during my time at Oxford University doing research on brain science. My supervisor gave me the task of “curing” alcoholism for my doctoral degree. I have not succeeded in doing that to this day, but that work has formed the basis of over 80 global patents. Nevertheless, I did get my doctorate, and that was followed some years later by another doctoral degree in general neuroscience. My approach to understanding brain wellness has, therefore, been based on a rigorous scientific understanding of how the brain works in both health and disease. During the course of my career, I have been board certified in addiction medicine, psychiatry, and forensic medicine, the latter having given me the mind of a medical detective to reconstruct how and why some unfortunate act happened. In my new book, “Six Rings,” through the allegorical character, Bastian, I relay some of my interesting life experiences and lessons to inform the reader. The book, although written in a fictional style, is heavily researched for scientific accuracy. In “Six Rings,” Bastian displays his love of music and art (from his original inspiration and training) and brings them to bear to understand the core and individualism of his patients, and how best to assist them with what they might be afflicted with. Bastian believes that the brain needs to be trained to be kept in optimum shape through the right mindset, foods, and interventions.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

There are many interesting stories and some of them are displayed in “Six Rings,” and it is hard to make a choice as to what is the most interesting. One of the stories that stands out was on my trip to South Africa on behalf of the USA government just after apartheid, and with Nelson Mandela as its first black President. During that visit, I traveled to Transkei and experienced a community village of African women who through making beverages for their men folk — who had been sent away to work in the mines during apartheid — had developed high rates of alcohol use disorder. Their children also often had fetal alcohol syndrome. To the untrained eye, these children simply looked a little different, but to an expert it was all obvious. What was truly unique was how inspiring the women were. They had organized themselves into support groups and had built a remarkable community. Alas, with all our technology, we had little to teach them. That visit did however result in an ongoing research project funded by NIH which was twinned with Washington D.C., also which had high rates of fetal alcohol syndrome for entirely different reasons. Clinically, one of my intriguing cases, told in “Six Rings” so I will not spoil it here, is of a patient who states taking a herbal medicine, with dramatic consequences on his behavior and relationships. Working out what that key herbal intoxicant was I believe saved his life and future prosperity.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

Medicine is not often imbued with humorous events and most mistakes do not have a good outcome. One of the most humorous was that I had not studied about how to do a particular neurological test in which the patient tracks your finger across the visual field. It’s part of what is called a past-pointing test. Having failed to do my homework and being asked to demonstrate this test in front of class, I improvised, and asked the patient to follow my own nose. Not only did I fall over trying to administer this test but so did the patient, who came to no harm, and everyone burst out laughing. At the time, I felt rather silly and embarrassed. But it was a good teaching moment for me. It taught me to always ask a question if I did not know rather than guess.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

So many people have contributed to my success that it is tough to single some of them out. Perhaps, however, my strongest influence was Professor Philip Cowen whilst I was at Oxford University. Even though I knew I was intellectually fortunate, he pushed and encouraged me. He recognized my loneliness at that stage of my career and was a friend. I remember working with him to get a scholarship to do my doctoral studies. Everything counted on this for my career as I could not fund my own research career. I remember we worked on it on a Sunday just before the submission on Monday. I drafted the project with him. He told me to describe it whilst he typed. We did it once, and as he read it over he turned to me and said, “This is like ‘Mozart’ in science,” and made no correction. We submitted it on that Monday, and later it was announced that I had got the scholarship. After that time, I gained the confidence to write or do anything just once. Even “Six Rings,” like my scientific papers and grant filings, was written just once. Phil Cowen gave me great confidence in myself and my abilities. Of course, like everyone there can be minor mistakes in what I do, but my belief is that the overall message is usually clearly stated and executed.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

There is a well worn adage that you need to do what you love to avoid burnout but I think this is a cliché. My belief is that you need to develop your mind to be a source of constant curiosity, and to get joy from uncovering simple facts. It is through assembling simplicity that complexity develops but at the root, it is important to have a mind that can entertain itself, and grow naturally. In every hour, I religiously take a break after 50 min and use the remaining 10 min to simply let my mind wonder, dream, and create. I think it is also important to have interests outside of medicine, and make a conscious and determined effort to develop those skills. In “Six Rings,” the allegorical character Bastian reveals his love for music and the arts, and indeed, in December, a music compilation of “Six Rings” will be released. Contrary to some people, I do not believe that a holiday away avoids burnout. I believe that the avoidance of burnout is based on balance and that must be strived for in every moment and time. One of my favorite sayings to myself is to ask if my response is “proportional” and I teach my students the art of “proportionality” to negotiate work and personal relationships.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Many authorities talk or write about how they create an environment that is idealized from some other theory or book. I believe that the best environment is one that is developed through a culture of always seeking to improve in every way. A culture that learns from its mistakes, and that champions the people who work in it. A culture where even the leader would wish to work as an employee because it is rich with opportunity. To achieve that means taking great pains to assemble the “right” people and give them an opportunity to share their own vulnerabilities. This is a continuous task that must be continued, especially when things are going well, as that is the emotional reserve that the team has to draw upon to negotiate any troubled waters.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Mental wellness is not the absence of mental illness. We are all born with a set of psychological strengths and weaknesses. Unlike some authorities, I believe that some of our weaknesses keep us grounded and “normal” and only need to be understood not “worked out.” Mental wellness also cannot be achieved without a dedicated effort and cannot happen by accident. As an example, if as a psychiatrist I wrote a letter that went like this — “To whom it may concern. In my capacity as a psychiatrist, I am happy to inform you that Mr. Incredibly Capable (a fictitious name) has been certified as being completely mentally well and is peerless in terms of emotional balance, decisions making, and mental fortitude. Mr. Capable would make an outstanding candidate for your new colony, and will be able to withstand whatever challenges are placed in front of him. Yours faithfully, Professor Bankole Johnson.” At first glance, this letter might itself seem ridiculous and I would argue no one would take it seriously. Yet, the very same people who would find it ridiculous might harbor a desire to be like “Mr. Capable” or be thought of as such. Hence, a state of complete mental wellness is a goal to strive for, and it is the journey towards it that will bring greater health, understanding, and comfort. There are five practical ways to increase your mental wellness: A) Proper Nutrition — the right brain foods are not only important for wellness but can enhance mood and decisional balance; B) Emotional resilience — this can be achieved through appropriate life coaching, exposure to learning, and striving to achieve; C) Restoration — this is needed to ensure physical balance in the sensory world (e.g sleep, touch, relationships, feel, etc.) as well as optimized physical health; D) Specialized techniques to improve emotional balance which might range from holistic tasks such as yoga and mediation but also can include special equipment like magnetic stimulation and hyperbaric oxygen (as appropriate) and E) Proportionality and balance with the right “stimulation” — which can be achieved through the combination of all these factors, which is described in “Six Rings” as the “Prepare Method.”

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

I am presuming that by retirement you mean individuals over the age of 65 years, and the question is about how to maintain mental wellness in succeeding years. For most people, retirement comes as a shock because it is a sudden cessation. It is important that retirement be planned several years in advance with a change in activities to match. An important connection is family. Whilst the best family life is enriching, one full of strife and consternation is not helpful to mental or any kind of health. It is important to reinforce the key relationships you wish to have continuously, and some might even be new ones, and the key being to determine which ones enrich your life. It is not important to keep every relationship you have ever had. We all change, and with that there is a shift in the friendship or relationship. Most of our relationships need to be re-orientated in retirement, especially to cope with greater interaction and need for support. Diet needs to be optimized for brain health in retirement to prevent mental deterioration from disease. Specific foods are helpful, like nuts, fish, green plants, and a change to a more ketotic diet. Mental stimulation combined with light aerobic exercise prevents brain deterioration. Compartmentalizing stress — this can sometimes be difficult to do with “go getters” but it is important to remind oneself that he or she has been successful and can overcome any of these life issues. For a further elaboration, please follow the “Six Rings” books series.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

In teen years, the brain is still developing. It takes to the age of about 25 years for the brain to be in the “right place” and work as a mature brain. Alcohol and drugs of abuse are well documented to slow or arrest brain development. The later you wait before you take alcohol, the better it is for your brain. In teens and emerging adults, there is evidence that increased oxygenation to the brain stimulates brain development. Not only is it important to eat the “right foods” but the emphasis here is also on appropriate exercise and physical wellness. For preteens and children diet and mental strum;ation are exceedingly important. The brain needs to be provided with the right amounts of omega-3 and other essential fatty acids and vitamins. It is difficult to get this right just by food alone and dietary supplements are very useful in children. Trace elements like zinc, chromium, and magnesium that optimize brain help are critical to provide to children as nutritional supplements. Mental stimulation for children is not simply school work but abstract and associative learning from tasks, puzzles, adventures, excursions, exposure to the arts, and the importance of music is often forgotten. There really is evidence that some types of classical, especially Mozart, seems to be particularly good for the brain; however, research continues to find other musical forms that also would be enriching mentally.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

The book with the greatest impact on me is Milton’s Paradise Lost. It is an allegorical take of the importance of making the “right choices.” I read this book earlier in my life but it was not until my 40s that I fully understood the message. I have used this in my own life and teachings to explain that the opposite of free will is not having any will at all, but that free will brings about far more responsibilities. Additionally, it has taught me that change is natural and should not be avoided. Embracing change reduces stress, and increases the chances of fulfillment.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Thank you for being so kind. I suppose that I have been on a “mission” for most of my adult life. That “mission” is to enrich how we feel about the uniqueness of one another, to create a mind that is balanced and proportional, and to strive for the mental resilience of all humans. If it were a movement, it would be a philosophy that merges individualizing humanistic elements into a force that focuses on the “right balance,” and that treats the brain/mind as a gift to provide everyone with the fullest experience of happiness and belonging.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“Never give up and stay focused on your dream.” I was fortunate to see a wonderful woman who worked for me overcome a terrifying cancer in the middle of her chest by the strength of her commitment to be there for her teenage daughters. Perhaps she was lucky and had a spontaneous remission but her faith, spirit, and overall positivity even in the face of likely death was awe inspiring. Her lesson teaches me each and every day to dream and wish for what you are striving for as the natural forces of the earth are “listening” to that “energy.”

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

Readers can follow me on Instagram, @sixringsbooks. The best way to understand my ethos is to read the “Six Rings” books series. Every month, I also write an article for Haute Living magazine as well as other scientific texts and materials. Typically, my social media platforms inform on my endeavors, and I hope that some of you will take an interest.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Thanks!!!


Author Dr. Bankole Johnson: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Adrian Sullivan of Rockstaws Incorporated: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Be proactive with planning your future. Short-term and long-term goal setting has personally helped me relieve anxiety. Taking accountability for my structure has led to me greatly improving my mental health.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Adrian Sullivan.

Adrian Sullivan is a former D1 athlete who played football for Temple University, and is now a driven mental health advocate, focusing on mental wellness, nourishment and growth. He is also the co-founder and president of Rockstaws Incorporated (RSI), a black-owned media agency based in Philadelphia. RSI’s mission is to share their stories as successful black men to inspire and empower other young black men and women.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I am from Long Island, New York. My mother’s side of the family is from Babylon and my father’s side of the family resides in Hempstead and Queens, New York. At four years old, my father passed away and as a result, I grew up in a single-parent household. My mom is my rock and always did everything she could to make sure I had everything I could ever need. She instilled belief and confidence in me from a young age. I was also very close with my grandparents and uncle as well. An interesting part of my upbringing was having adopted siblings. I have two adopted brothers and an adopted sister. They are all special needs and have taught me how to have love, compassion and understanding. With a strong family unit, I always felt empowered to be successful. I grew up playing basketball and football. Sports were an integral part of my life and I was determined to be the best student athlete I could be. I loved working hard, competing and proving myself. That sparked me to be a Division 1 athlete at Temple University and take that same work ethic into business.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The most interesting story of my career was being interview by NBC10 in Philadelphia. I felt that it was great to be able to talk about mental health in the black community and broadcast some of the great things my media company, Rockstaws Incorporated, has been able to do as far as giving back to the community.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

The most humorous mistake I made, years ago, was thinking I could keep an accurate book of business in my head. That worked for about a week. I would encourage all business owners to keep a systematic filing system for all of your business contacts. It’s okay to rely on technology and admit that our digital spreadsheets have a much better memory than we do. I have grown to be realistic and to not overestimate myself. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is key to running a successful business.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My mom has offered me the most encouragement to be who I am today. I remember my mom being really hard on me when I would get B’s in school and being disappointed. She always believed in me and knew that I was a high-level achiever and expected my best. Not settling for mediocrity or anything but my best effort was a great standard my mom helped set for me.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

I encourage my colleagues in my industry to have a constant focus on learning. When things do not go as planned, do not panic or get frustrated. Instead, be solution-oriented and try to move the needle forward each day. Some days will be better than others and that’s a major part of the game. Dealing with the adversity positively is key.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

In order to create a great work culture, you need to know your company goals and vision first. Once you know who you are, you can bring people on board who share that vision and work as a team. The best work is done when it is done in the spirit of togetherness following a plan. When work has a purpose, the culture is fun and energetic.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Be proactive with planning your future. Short-term and long-term goal setting has personally helped me relieve anxiety. Taking accountability for my structure has led to me greatly improving my mental health.

Asking for help and knowing your resources. When I was leaving Temple University, I was unsure of whether I would go into pursuing the NFL or start my career. I was able to seek the advice of one of my college professors and she helped me land a job with University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center program as a strength and conditioning coach. That helped me on my path to becoming a mental health advocate.

Control the controllable. Right now, we cannot control the pandemic but we can control wearing our mask, being compassionate, showing gratitude and having a positive attitude. We can achieve great things by focusing on what we can control.

Journaling. I have experienced a great change in my self-awareness by keeping a gratitude journal. It has helped me to be aware of all the blessings in my life and not to harp on the things that are not going well. I have been able to maximize good things happening for me just by focusing my attention in that direction.

Do things you enjoy. Right now, there has been restrictions in many aspects of our lives due to the pandemic. However, we need to find ways to spend time doing what we love to do. An example for me has been checking in with my family and friend via text message, letters or FaceTime. I am a person that likes to go out with my friends and spend quality time. During this time, I have focused on sending appreciation messages to my family and friends. Not only have I felt great in finding new ways to connect, it has also positively impacted my relationships.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

I would encourage that planning for retirement be an entire lifestyle transition plan. It is easy to focus on just the financial aspect, but envisioning retirement by looking at the entire picture is important. For example, one of my closest friends’ fathers just retired. He is now mentoring and consulting so that he transitions out of a rigorous work schedule smoothly. Maintaining life balance is paramount to mental health. Finding the most optimal way to work and play during retirement can optimize mental health.

How about teens and pre-teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre-teens to optimize their mental wellness?

Advice I would give to pre-teens and teens is to make themselves aware of mental health. The earlier you realize that health consists of many different components, you will be able to take care of yourself better. I would also encourage pre-teens and teens to have a positive outlook. You experience a lot of change at that age and it’s important to know that everything will work out. Lastly, I would let them know to keep good company. The friends you have are the people you will be most similar too — choose wisely as you can.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

A particular book that made an impact on me was The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. In reading this book, I have learned the power of combining incremental efforts every day to see major results in my life. At the beginning of last year I set out to lose some weight to feel better and be healthier. Using principles from the book, I was able to lose 30 pounds. That weight loss and achievement also helped my mental and spiritual well-being too. I would absolutely recommend the book to any entrepreneurs and people looking to achieve big results.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would want my influence to start a revolution of people trying to understand and love each other. As humans, we do not always need to agree with each other. However, I would love to start dialogue where people learn to have empathy for one another. Doing your best to fully see from someone’s point of view is one of the most powerful things you can do.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“Comfort is the enemy of growth.” We all need to step out of what we are comfortable with in order to be our best selves. Adopting better ways to live is the best way we can see positive changes in our lives.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

You can follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or check out my company at www.rockstawsinc.com.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!


Adrian Sullivan of Rockstaws Incorporated: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tracee Stanley of ‘Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School’: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their…

Tracee Stanley of ‘Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School’: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Self-inquiry- Don’t be afraid to question your beliefs, especially the ones that you hold dear. Ask yourself: How do I know this to be true? Is this belief moving me towards healing and wholeness or away from it? What am I willing to commit to in order to gain more self-knowledge?

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tracee Stanley.

Tracee Stanley is the co-founder of Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School, Author of Radiant Rest and Empowered Life Self-Inquiry Oracle Deck. As a radiance advocate, Tracee is on a mission to help people explore their birthright to deep rest and awakened clarity that comes from the spiritual practice of Yoga Nidra.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I was lucky enough to discover yoga at the same time that I started a career in the film industry over 20 years ago. I quickly realized that I was able to stay calm in the midst of chaos and remain energized and focused even during long days of filming. The more I studied yoga, the more I recognized its healing potential and decided to become a yoga teacher.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I’ve never really looked at yoga as a career, but more of a path. The most interesting thing that I have realized along the way is that no matter who we are- A list movie star or a grocery clerk, we all have the same fears and desires for happiness, safety, and the ability to thrive.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

True Story: I was working in the film business and we were all a buzz because we were going to go a movie with the great Marlon Brando. I was standing in the reception area talking to a co-worker and the phone was ringing and ringing. The receptionists weren’t at the desk. I was busy and feeling rushed but I couldn’t’ let the phone just keep ringing so I answered it. A man was on the other end, and I couldn’t really hear him, so very annoyed I was saying hello, hello? Finally, he spoke up and asked my name. I said” Tracee. He said: Patience? Me: No, Tracee Him: Patience? Then he paused. “it’s Marlon Brando’. My take away — cultivate more patience!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The greatest mentor in my life has been my father. It was by his example of hard work and creativity as an entrepreneur that I have always been inspired. He always told me that I could achieve anything I put my mind to. When he first opened his own insurance agency in the late early 80’s it was unheard of for a Black insurance salesman to open his own agency. Many people at the company he worked for told him he would fail. He believed in his capacity for success and was not willing to let others limiting beliefs dictate what was possible for him. He envisioned his success and he created a path towards it. This is the lesson I carry with me and share it with others in my coaching and teaching.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Rest. Rest. Rest! This applies to everyone. We have to reclaim our birthright to deeply rest. Not just on vacation, but on a daily basis. Whether it is 15 minutes or longer, giving ourselves permission to get still, letting the full weight of our body be supported and close our eyes for a period of time is important. During the time of lockdown many people realized just how exhausted they were when they were forced to be still. Hopefully, we have all realized the power of rest and that we can actually be more efficient when we are rested. Practicing yogi techniques like Deep Relaxation or yoga nidra are very effective at providing deep rest in 15–20-minute sessions.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

To have a mission statement that includes diversity, inclusivity, and a safe work environment for all. Leaders should hold themselves accountable to live up to the goals and intentions that they have set and encourage others to speak up when they see things slipping without fear of being punished. To create a workplace that fosters collaboration as opposed to competition. Acknowledging those who work with you and letting them know that you see their value and potential. Being honest and kind.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

  1. Improve your sleep hygiene. Set a consistent time to go to bed each night and stick to it.
  2. Daily Mini-Reset Practice. Set three alarms morning, afternoon and evening. When the alarm goes off take 3 minutes to focus on your breath. Watch the navel rise and fall. Feel the breath becoming smooth and even. Do this 3 times per day to reset the nervous system and clear the mind.
  3. Morning Gratitude. Remembering what you have to be grateful for is a powerful way to begin your day. Upon waking, spend 3 minutes writing list of what you have to be grateful for.
  4. Compassion- Developing a practice of compassion first for yourself and then for others will help you to heal and to become a source of healing for others.
  5. Self-inquiry- Don’t be afraid to question your beliefs, especially the ones that you hold dear. Ask yourself: How do I know this to be true? Is this belief moving me towards healing and wholeness or away from it? What am I willing to commit to in order to gain more self-knowledge?

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

Many people that I have worked with who are in retirement either know exactly what they want to do with their time and are excited or they are fearful of the unknown. The most important part of retirement is planning. Not just for finances but how you will use your energy and time which are our most valuable resources. What I have noticed most is when people feel rudderless ( at any age) they seem to be more prone to anxiety and depression. As we get older there may be a sense of running out of time to do all the things that we want to do. If we have been overly identified with our job it may be hard to let go because we feel that we have lost a part of ourselves. I believe that we all have a life’s purpose that is most times different from your career. If we can gain clarity around our purpose then that will inform how we can spend our time and energy in retirement with things and people that are nurturing, bring us joy, and allow us to be of service in some way. When live a life of purpose it doesn’t matter if we are a CEO or retired, we are fulfilled, and that allows us to thrive.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

Teens have such busy schedules and social lives. There is a lot of busyness and not a lot of time for self-reflection. I feel that this pace of life with social media and constant distraction sets a pace for our nervous system that is unhealthy. Teens need time and space for stillness and quiet, to be able to process difficult emotions and experiences. Time in nature is important. Having a way to release built-up energy through yoga, exercise, dancing or hiking is great. Keeping a journal has also been an invaluable resource for many teens I have worked with. Learning to meditate or practice deep relaxation techniques is very helpful as it can teach kids how to self-regulate and bring themselves into a place of balance when they are feeling anxious and stressed.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman was a life-changing book for me in my early twenties. It shifted my perspective on how I saw life and my birthright to be joyful independent of circumstances. Shortly after reading the book, I found myself in a foreign country where I had been living for months. Everything that I owned had been stolen including everything that I had been tirelessly working on for months. But instead of being devastated, I knew that the loss of everything had no bearing on my intrinsic value. I had an inner wealth that no one could steal. And in fact the experience was a gift that changed the course of my life and lead me to yoga and a career in Hollywood as a filmmaker.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I feel like I am already part of the movement of Rest as a practice. I teach these practices of Deep Relaxation and yoga nidra to people all over the world and they share them with their friends and family. There are many others out there teaching about the need for Rest and doing less. That is the movement, it’s happening now.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My favorites are not quotes but questions, because inquiry into our own truth is powerful.

What three lessons are you tires of learning?

Once I answered that question I created a plan to remind how not to keep learning them and dug deep to figure out why I had to keep learning them.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

Follow me at @tracee_stanley on instagram or traceeyoga.com

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Thank you!!!


Tracee Stanley of ‘Empowered Wisdom Yoga Nidra School’: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lee Braun of Perspire Sauna Studio: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Taking the time to connect with close friends and family is essential for not only mental health, but research says close connections are the number one factor in determining life longevity — even more important than genetic factors, lifestyle considerations like smoking and drinking, or dietary considerations.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” I had the pleasure of interviewing Lee Braun, CEO, President and Co-Founder of Perspire Sauna Studio.

Lee Braun has served as the CEO, President, and Co-Founder since the franchising company was formed in 2017. Along with those roles, he’s the Managing Partner of the three Corporate Perspire Sauna Studios located in Southern California. Braun earned his BA from Michigan State University at the Eli Broad School of Business and prior to Perspire, he has an eight-year background in commercial construction and development. He has served as project manager for large-scale projects for various Las Vegas Casinos, UCLA, University of Michigan, and LAUSD. He’s an avid infrared sauna user and spends his free time traveling and making wood furniture.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I’ve always been a fan of different wellness options like saunas, massages, beauty care — really anything that allows me to set aside some intentional time for myself. When the opportunity came along in 2010 to join my now business partner, Ken Arsenian, in growing this completely new type of business — I jumped at the chance. Infrared saunas as a standalone business was unheard 10 years ago. But in my gut, I knew it was the right move; even despite the odds being stacked against us. In 2010 the we had the US recession, hardly anybody knew what infrared saunas were, I didn’t have the experience for the job, etc. Even knowing all of that, I still quit my job in Michigan at the age of 24 and drove out across the country to begin a new journey. When I arrived I quickly began running our first studio in Costa Mesa, CA. Going from construction management of multi-billion dollar properties, to customer service and small team management was an adjustment but I quickly fell in love with my new path — it afforded me the opportunity to apply hospitality and care into my daily life. I remember a Guest named Jennifer who thanked me for having a business like this for people. We faced many challenges early on, but it’s compliments like those, from the early adopters, that assured us and kept us going.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

My partner, Ken, and I have always dreamed of growing Perspire. But we were unsure how and what was the best way to do so.

One summer we were hanging out on the beach. I remember it was a beautiful sunny day in July 2017, on the Newport Peninsula. It was on this day we decided to franchise Perspire. We drew it up on a piece of graph paper (I always use graph paper notebooks — I have hundreds of them). And we outlined how we were going to get started and take the next big step in growing our business. For years Perspire members and friends asked how they could get involved and we knew franchising was the answer. I’m pretty sure we didn’t know then how big of a moment it truly was — but that day in the California sun will always be remembered.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?

When we first started franchising and decided to go to our first trade show for franchising. The Perspire Team all flew out to Las Vegas, our Franchisee Tiffany flew out from Atlanta and we had a nice new booth setup with electronics and visuals. We were so excited but apparently we didn’t include the word “infrared sauna” anywhere on our displays. To make matters worse we didn’t have any photos of what our studios actually looked like. Everyone thought we were selling infrared saunas. It was a humbling experience to say the least but we learned to refine our message to be as clear as possible and really help describe our business to the possible franchisees who had not heard of Perspire.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you’re grateful too for helping get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My inspiration on how to navigate life comes from my 82-year-old grandfather, Barry. He has truly been such a source of support for me in my journey and has taught me so many lessons about just being himself. My brothers and I strive to be as kind and generous as he is to his community. He is always friendly and there to provide a helping hand. My grandfather is relentless in his pursuit of helping others and often has to be restrained from helping his neighbors shingle their roof, trim their trees, or remove a 500lb cast iron stove from their basement.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

One of the decisions that helped me avoid burnout, during COVID, was immediately making the decision with our Team to talk as a group — daily. In fact, it was so effective that we continue to do it to this day. I am fortunate to have a Team where we could all be there for each other not only professionally but personally. During March, April and May months, when the COVID outbreak began, we really experienced true teamwork and for that I’m truly grateful. We adopted similar, daily communication outlets with our Franchisees during this time too. To give them a space to connect, voice their needs, concerns, ideas or just to say hello. All of our Studios closed due to the government mandate but we as a Team we’re not disconnected, we were intentional with our Team and truly prospered in communication together. I’m really proud of how the entire brand and all the stakeholders rallied around each other during this uncertain time. It’s probably what I’m most proud of when I think of Perspire.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

We have a few practices in place that are conducive to a healthy lifestyle. For one, our team has access to incredible infrared sauna sessions and we encourage our teams to use infrared frequently. We’ve also set up partnerships with other local health and wellness based companies and studios where our staff can drop-in to any class such as spin, boxing, H.I.I.T., floats and/or yoga as we believe it’s important that everyone has access to a variety of ways to make themselves healthier both physically and mentally.

We also have semi-flexible work hours at our headquarters, allowing our employees to feel empowered in managing their time and in taking care of themselves. This leads to a greater feeling of autonomy and an overall better quality of life.

It’s really important to be mindful about what we are putting in our bodies as it greatly affects our gut and brain health and therefore how we are experiencing the world throughout the day, performing at work and engaging with others. Whenever we are doing our weekly group lunches, whether they be out at a local restaurant or catered in, we choose establishments that offer organic, vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options to accommodate everyone’s individual dietary needs and so they can make choices that will positively impact their wellness and make them feel their best.

At corporate, in our weekly Monday all-hands meeting, we each go around and share something we are grateful for and something we are anxious or stressed about, allowing each other to open up and center ourselves in gratitude. This leads to more empathy and compassion for another. It sets a really good tone for the week.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have a mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness? Can you please share a story or example for each.

I love that mental wellness has become a more open topic than it has been in recent years. Especially during these trying times, taking the time to focus on mental wellness is so important. Meditation is one of the most universal ways to clear your mind and calm the proverbial noise around us.

Taking the time to connect with close friends and family is essential for not only mental health, but research says close connections are the number one factor in determining life longevity — even more important than genetic factors, lifestyle considerations like smoking and drinking, or dietary considerations.

It’s been challenging or impossible to go to a gym during the pandemic, but a few times a week I make sure to go for a run or do a circuit workout outside. Sometimes it’s hard to get started but I never regret a good workout after the fact.

Of course an infrared sauna is the perfect sanctuary for mental relaxation. Similar to going for a run, a Perspire sauna session always helps to clear my mind. Lately, I’ve been using the Calm App inside the sauna for some extra guidance on clearing my head and getting into that positive mindset.

Gratitude Journaling has been a new COVID pastime for me to help me stay sane. Taking stock of all the great people in my life, the gifts I’ve been given, and hope for the future helps me reset my mindset in just ten minutes. Everyone has something they can be grateful for no matter how difficult things currently are and this is a great way to constantly remind yourself of things.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

Staying engaged in hobbies and physical activities, continuing to learn, and regular infrared sessions are great things to optimize mental wellness after retirement. We have a lot of older retirees, particularly at our Orange County studios that come in multiple times a week, as it not only gets them out of the house, but is keeping their heart healthy, metabolism active, improving the appearance of their skin, and easing muscle soreness and joint stiffness.

How about teens and pre-teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre-teens to optimize their mental wellness?

Now more than ever, amid the pandemic, it’s critical that young adults engage in community-based activities and sports that fill them with joy. The connection you share with others and in-person, face to face socialization is becoming more and more important as the use of social media increases. I encourage those to start early with a meditation practice to further help cultimate greater self-esteem and build internal confidence going into those often challenging teenage years of being the subject of external pressures and stress.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

We have a library at our office of all our favorite books but my favorite business book is, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. The title prevented me from reading it for a long time but it’s a classic book that I heavily subscribe to it’s messaging on how to treat people — I read it every year. My favorite story from that book is how Abraham Lincoln learned there is always a better way to get your point across than to use criticism.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I feel incredibly grateful to be offering infrared sauna therapy in a more accessible way. In growing, we’re really incubating a moment toward alternative wellness solutions here at Perspire, making infrared sauna and color light therapy available to diverse communities across the country and globe. It’s been a very rewarding journey already and I’m so excited to see our dreams come to fruition. I love being a part of the inner healing that alternative wellness can provide people, especially those who are looking for something more than mainstream practices. Essentially, anyone can benefit from infrared saunas and because it’s effortless, there’s no reason not to try it and see how your body benefits.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“The People Are the Plan” is a mantra I repeat often to help myself adjust my focus. Taking care of your people — your team, your customers, your family — is the entire point. If I ever feel lost I ask myself “Who can I help” and that generally helps me set my priorities straight.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

You can follow the Perspire Sauna Studio brand on Instagram and Facebook. @perpsiresaunastudio

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!


Lee Braun of Perspire Sauna Studio: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Gabrielle Czaja: “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”

Movement — Create a regular movement ritual or routine. That’s crucial for mental well-being. It does not have to be rigorous fitness. Walking, cycling to work, dancing, yoga, gentle stretching — anything that increases your heart rate and enhances your turn-over of breath will clear your mind and energize you. A movement or fitness ritual anchors your body and mind, anchors your day, and regulates your vital systems. It is something that you’ll look forward to, that your body will look forward to and want to count on.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” I had the pleasure of interviewing Gabrielle Czaja, PT.

Gabrielle Czaja, PT is an award-winning physical therapy and healing practitioner in Washington, D.C. skilled at combining the art and science of physical therapy with the Alexander Technique, a body-learning method that enables her clients to work in partnership with their bodies. Gabrielle’s practice is based on her fundamental belief that the body is a vehicle for full enjoyment in each and every moment, while also being a powerful anchor and refuge that offers support and grounding during times of stress. She earned a BA in Biology from Bucknell University, an MPT in Physical Therapy from Hahnemann University, is a certified teacher in the Alexander Technique, and has over 30 years of experience. You can visit her website at GabrielleCzaja.com.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I really feel like being a physical therapist and an Alexander Technique teacher is a calling. It certainly is for me.

I grew up surrounded by the values of education and service. My parents valued education for education’s sake, my father with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and my mother with an M.S.W. in psychiatric social work. I always knew I would go to graduate school and practice in a profession that required my intellect and my passion.

My parents, as Boy Scout leader and Girl Scout leader, modeled community service. They consistently volunteered in other capacities too, as did I. Our experiences in service to others taught me to value the uniqueness of each individual. I developed a particular desire to help people who were in pain.

In high school I found a library book called So You Want To Be a Physical Therapist. This one book in a series on many professions stood out to me. I just liked the sound of it because it was about helping people solve problems with their bodies. From that point on, that profession was always in the back of my mind.

I spent my college years studying science and tuning my body for high performance as a competitive long-distance runner. Biology and chemistry gave me the scientific book learning of the human body, and being an athlete gave me the in-body experience of how the human body moves and functions. In fact, I was awarded the best senior female athlete, and many years later I was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame at Bucknell University, my alma mater.

Graduate school for physical therapy (PT) was a dream come true for me. In the 1980s it was exceptionally competitive to get into PT school. There were less than 10 graduate programs in the country. I’d been accepted into Hahnemann University, which has since become part of Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Then early in my career as a physical therapist, I sustained an injury and became a patient like those I was trained to treat. I was lucky enough to have access to excellent medical care, and yet I still struggled to heal. At this same time, I saw the same problem in some of my patients. I was trying to help them recover from complex pain issues and return to their full lives, restored and whole. Perhaps I was idealistic as a new professional, but I was frustrated with the emphasis in the 1990s on teaching people how to live with pain rather than recover and move beyond pain. A colleague suggested I try the Alexander Technique to help me address my own injury. On the first day of an introductory workshop, I committed to train as an Alexander teacher. I understood immediately it was a missing link for both myself and my patients. Alexander Technique is body-mind education that is unique in how it helps us enjoy improved postural support, recover from injuries, improve our breathing, and promote a level of self-efficacy applicable in all areas of our lives.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I consider my PT degree program the beginning of my career. A few specific experiences with professors have stuck with me all these years and have profoundly shaped how I work with my patients.

Two particular experiences with Dr. Mary Watkins, Professor of PT, served as bookends to my graduate school experience. She took an interest in learning about me as a person from my first interview for the program and never lost sight of the whole me through graduation. In the interview she looked beyond the transcripts and recommendations and asked me questions that drew out my story and revealed my character. She sensed something in me that was worth taking a chance on. By my final examination review, she knew me and was confident in her assessment. She affirmed my worth as a professional and sent me out into the world with my graduate degree in hand.

Somewhere in the middle between those bookends I had an epiphany when another professor taught the crucial lesson that Dr. Watkins obviously knew. His name was Dr. Zarro from the medical school who taught us PT students some basic medicine and doctoring content. He made a profound and lasting impression on me when he said: “If you let the person tell their story, they will tell you what’s wrong with them.” You have to hear someone’s story to help them heal.

Those moments were in the late 1980s. In recalling those moments now, I’m reliving them as though they were yesterday. Those moments inspired and enlightened me. They affirmed my core values. I’ve always held the stories of those moments in my heart. Their impact on me expresses itself continuously as I work with my clients. I listen to their stories. I learn about them as people, beyond their symptoms and pains. I believe I was always that kind of a person even before I got to school. That’s why I was attracted to the profession of physical therapy. That’s why Dr. Watkins and Hahnemann University wanted me. Until telling you this story now, I didn’t fully appreciate the arc of how all these experiences have come full circle to embrace me and affirm my life’s work.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

This question kind of stumps me because of the field I’m in. If I make a mistake with a patient, it’s not funny. Patients seeking physical therapy are in pain.

People are often attracted to my practice because when they’ve gone to other practitioners, either their physical ailments haven’t gotten better or they even felt worse. That’s not to say their other therapist made a mistake. Not every exercise or program works for every person. The key is for the physical therapist to customize the treatment for the patient, which can only be done if the therapist hears about what the patient feels.

When I ask these patients, “Well, did you talk to your PT about it?” they typically they say “no.” They sense they can talk with me and that I’ll listen. I ask questions that go beyond the obvious symptoms. As I learned in PT school, I listen for their stories. I’ve learned to end every session by asking my patients, “Was this helpful? If something doesn’t feel right, please tell me. We can create a different path to your wellness.” That openness is essential.

Sometimes the perceived mistakes of a PT are simply the limitations of PT itself. I saw those limitations in the early years of my career, and so I pursued certification in the Alexander Technique (AT). The pairing of PT and AT provides the opportunity for optimum recovery from injury in order to return to one’s best life. Physical therapy treatment tends to focus on the point of pain. Alexander Technique is movement re-education for the best functioning of our whole self. With both, we learn that what is happening in the injured area fits in to how we move as a whole person. These two disciplines together offer a complete approach to human development, human movement, and human function.

Everyone’s body has different strengths and vulnerabilities. In medicine, the approach is to fix something that’s broken. I have never come from that place. With the Alexander Technique, we start on the foundation of the strengths. One of my Gabrielle-isms is “Our job is to set up the conditions so your body can do what it knows how to do, which is heal.”

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

John O’Neill, at the time the primary physical therapist for Penn State and all its athletic teams, was probably the most important person in my life to get me started in my profession.

During my years between college and graduate PT school, I volunteered as a physical therapy aide for John. When beginning to build his private practice he discovered that his administrative assistant was stealing from him. She had control of the checkbook and was writing checks to herself. He immediately fired her and made me the office manager. So there I was, running the office, handling all the administrative work, putting people in whirlpools, demonstrating exercises. I was doing everything except the clinical physical therapy work. John was an extraordinary role-model in how he connected with his patients and helped them achieve their goals. It was an amazing experience for me, learning how to start and run a private practice even before I got to PT school.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Volunteer. It’s my pure and simple advice.

I’ve discovered when I volunteer, I learn about people in ways I can bring back into my clinical practice. Volunteering helps me appreciate the privileges that I have. It teaches me humility. In a deeply spiritual sense, volunteering is like the foot washing service in the Episcopal and other Christian churches. It strengthens my commitment to an attitude of service.

Volunteering helps you avoid burnout because it gets you moving into the greater sphere of the community. You’ll feel more connected. You’ll find that for all the giving you do, you actually receive a lot in return. The saying is so true that when you give back to your community, you feel better.

If you can, volunteer outside your PT specialty. Whether it’s a food kitchen, a senior center, or within a faith community, getting out of your normal day-to-day activities switches your brain to a new track. You’ll learn something new and get a fresh perspective. For example, I’ve been an active member of my church for many years and I have also volunteered with a non-profit organization that mentors youth and builds community through cycling.

If you’re not ready to do something totally different, consider volunteering your PT services in a different setting. When I was in physical therapy school, I spent my summer break as a PT aide on the White River Indian reservation in Arizona. The adventure of the new place and people with different customs was not only educational but also rejuvenating.

Volunteering offers us the opportunity to live the mandate to love one another. It’s a powerful reminder of what really matters in life. I think no matter how committed we are to our craft, no matter how good we are at our craft, we can never go wrong by returning to the basics of why we started our practice in the first place. Every physical therapist went to PT school because they want to help people. Being connected to that purpose is the best way I know of to thrive and avoid burnout.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

To be a good leader, first and foremost create the foundation of a psychologically and emotionally safe place. People will organically be inspired to excel and be good team players. When they feel supported and safe — safe to learn, safe to take risks and offer new ideas, safe to make mistakes, safe to concentrate, workers maximize their potential. This is the bedrock of a successful organization.

A safe environment requires boundaries — not just mental and emotional ones, but also physical boundaries.

Looking at physical boundaries, consider how in the 1990s open workspaces were thought to facilitate collaboration and communication. Imagine yourself in one of those low-walled cubicles, or even no cubicle at all. You don’t necessarily feel at ease. You don’t have the opportunity to concentrate. You don’t have the opportunity to learn and work at your pace and in your style. You’re feeling “on” all the time. That’s not the way to foster communication. It’s superficial. As a good leader, foster communication by creating a space where people feel comfortable.

I’m concerned about the shift to telework right now and what the pandemic is doing to expectations about the workplace. I’m concerned not only about the isolation, but also about the burden that people have now, working from home in rooms that are also their bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms, and dining rooms. They don’t have the right ergonomic set up. In many homes, individual family members don’t have a dedicated work/school space in which to concentrate, they don’t have the privacy to perform their best. There’s no marked beginning and end to the workday. In the early days of the pandemic, one of my clients shared with me what her daughter said to her: “You’re not working from home, Mom. You’re at home, trying to work.”

Some people enjoy telework and have always worked from home or have often exercised the option to do so. Right now, and in the foreseeable future, working and schooling from home are the only options for many people. I don’t think we really know yet what the long term impact will be on our health and well-being. Certainly, after more than 6 months, people are feeling the stress of being isolated from co-workers and attached to screens all day in less than ideal working and learning conditions. Currently we have to accommodate this unusual situation in order to stay sane and get through the day.

Unfortunately, we are burying the chaos in our bodies. The lack of boundaries can increase people’s stress levels and even precipitate anxiety and depression. It affects their relationships with their families, their friends, and themselves. And of course, it affects their work performance.

If you want to be a good leader and inspire people to excel at their craft, create an atmosphere with good boundaries. Set boundaries for yourself to lead by example. Encourage and insist upon boundaries for others. Give people permission to turn their phones off and their computers off at the end of a workday and when they’re on vacation. It’s an idealistic vision of leadership, but I think it’s more possible than what people may think.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

I believe that mental wellness has its source in feeling at home in one’s body, being fit and healthy, and enjoying movement. This takes practice.

We have busy schedules, families to tend to, projects to complete, and limits to our energy. We need to choose to care for ourselves. I suggest you create wellness rituals in your lives so you can function at your best through these daily demands. Even more important, these rituals build a reservoir of health that you can draw on when extra stressful situations and even emergencies arise. Here are the 5 things you should include in your wellness rituals:

Movement — Create a regular movement ritual or routine. That’s crucial for mental well-being. It does not have to be rigorous fitness. Walking, cycling to work, dancing, yoga, gentle stretching — anything that increases your heart rate and enhances your turn-over of breath will clear your mind and energize you. A movement or fitness ritual anchors your body and mind, anchors your day, and regulates your vital systems. It is something that you’ll look forward to, that your body will look forward to and want to count on.

Develop a habit of embodied movement. That’s when you are aware of yourself as you move through space, not only when performing fitness or recreational activities, but more importantly in everyday movements.

The Alexander Technique is an excellent means for learning how to be simultaneously engaged in the world and in touch with your body, whether walking, standing, or even sitting to eat, work and learn. We learn to marry what we’re thinking and what we’re sensing with what’s happening in our bodies. With Alexander Technique, you learn how to improve your postural awareness, breathe better, and enjoy a sense of ease, coordination, and power.

Water — Don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink water. By then, you’re already dehydrated. We perform at our best when we are properly hydrated. We move better, we think better. While the amount you need varies by your weight, age, and activity levels, a good starting point is to drink half your body weight in ounces of water daily.

Sleep — You’ll find you sleep better when you are well hydrated and move your body on a regular basis. Good sleep creates a positive cycle. You want to get up after a good night’s sleep and start your day. You have the energy to move. You have a positive outlook on life.

Time outdoors — You don’t have to go on arduous outdoor adventures like wilderness hiking or mountain climbing. Simply take time to be in nature and notice the beauty around you. Sense yourself as part of something greater. The article in Greater Good Magazine “How Being in Nature Can Spur Personal Growth” speaks of three different studies that report on the positive impacts of being out of doors, even briefly! In one study, adults aged 60–90 who went for brief walks weekly with special instructions to be aware of their experience of awe demonstrated a higher sense of social connection and positive emotions than the control group who walked the same amount but with no instructions about awe.

Community engagement — I come back to the value of volunteering. Give it a try. It gets you out of your routine and stimulates different parts of your brain, which is needed to be mentally healthy. One of my favorite memories is working at my church’s rummage sale. The first time I did this, someone came to me at the check-out counter to purchase a dress I had donated. I still recall, more than 25 years later, how thrilled I was because it had been a favorite dress of mine, and here I got to meet the person who wanted it. Even today, this experience still provides joy and energy; I get a bit of a brain boost remembering this satisfying experience.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

One gentleman who has been an Alexander Technique student of mine for many years recently retired. He is now healthier and more in touch with his body than he was when he was younger. He’s as mentally agile running a nonprofit now as he was during his career in high-powered institutions. What is really wonderful is that when I first met him, he had a difficult time learning how to do a simple stretch or exercise. With Alexander Technique lessons, he is aware of his body, is more adept at having good postural control and learns exercises more easily. He’s my poster child for retirees: moving, volunteering, and enjoying life.

If you’re just starting retirement, consider taking a series of Alexander Technique lessons. It is an easy, safe way to get connected with your body, especially if fitness and movement have not been part of your life. A lesson is a joyful experience; you’ll feel lighter and more at ease with yourself. My students, especially those who are retired, speak of how good it feels to experience a sense of wholeness from within themselves. When you feel that deep connection with your physical self, your mind clears and it becomes easier to discern the path to the next chapter in your life!

How about teens and pre-teens? Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre-teens to optimize their mental wellness?

Pre-teens and teens often don’t feel like they have much control over their lives. It’s a tumultuous time, easily stirring up physical, mental, and emotional distress and confusion. Here are my recommendations:

Provide them with Alexander Technique lessons.

  • Alexander Technique is a bridge between well-being and learning how to learn. (Judith Kleinman, Alexander in Education pioneer). It helps pre-teens and teens understand that how they sit, stand, walk, and think has an impact on their long-term fitness and ability to manage stress. It equips them to be more effective and successful in academics, athletics, and the performing arts. Learning how to not be distracted by body/mind tension in a learning environment is invaluable. In her book, “Alexander in Secondary and Tertiary Schools” Judith explains that Alexander principles invite the opportunity to experience “…full stature and a confident approach to life and learning”, and that a teen learns how to “cope more easily with their fears and the ups and downs that life throws at all of us.”
  • Teenagers have always struggled with posture, and the increase in sitting in front of a computer all day without the normal movement afforded in a school building makes life radically more challenging now. AT private lessons or in a classroom or online class is the most effective means for learning good postural awareness. This is key to mental functioning. If they’re sitting hunched over, their breathing is compromised and their brains aren’t getting optimal oxygen. When they learn to be embodied, they can check themselves: “Do I have the best possible postural support to read, write, think, and perform to the best of my ability?” Pre-teens and teens are also on their phones constantly with their heads and shoulders bent over their devices. This is an important activity for them (even more so now that they have less contact with their friends), and so they need a method for using their devices without harming themselves. An added benefit of Alexander principles is that because kids are developing their skill set with an Alexander teacher, the tension between parents and their children about posture disappears.
  • Embodied movement provides all youth and young adults with a sense of agency and helps them maximize their full potential as happy, mature individuals. What could be more important in human development? The principles of Alexander Technique teach us how to manage ourselves in the moment. During the time when brain development is humming along and the self-awareness part of the brain is not yet fully developed, learning Alexander principles as a young person offers an invaluable life-skill: self-awareness of the whole self, not just a cognitive strategy that is only brain-based. This means they can manage stress more easily, enjoy a sense of agency and confidence in complex social situations, and handle test and performance anxiety. This skillset is especially helpful for kids who are not athletically inclined.

Get the kids outside!

  • As detailed in Greater Good Magazine article “Six Ways Nature Helps Children Learn,” there are many benefits from spending time in the great outdoors: improved attention, stress relief, enhanced self-discipline, increased engagement, creativity and social connections. Their physical fitness may improve, even if they’re not running round, playing sports, or going for long hikes. Think about what happens in your body when you go outside after being in the office or house all day. A spontaneous release of your breath happens, especially on a beautiful spring or autumn day. This is your respiratory system letting go of stale air that builds up from long-term sitting and focusing. Getting the kids outside is especially important now with virtual schooling from home and no designated recess time. While they’re focusing in a smaller physical space than a classroom and spending more time on a small computer screen, their bodies and minds are trying to function with a narrow field of attention. This smaller field increases tension in their bodies and impairs their breathing and thinking. Going outside expands their field of attention and releases stress.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

I go back to So, You Want To Be a Physical Therapist that I studied for my high school book report. One of the things that impressed me about that book was the problem solving aspect of physical therapy. The symptoms for back pain or a shoulder injury can be consistent, however the art of healing has its source in how those symptoms occur in each unique individual. My job is to apply my understanding of the person and scientific expertise to craft a strategy for helping this unique person recover. My innate sense of this was exciting to me, even as a teenager. Physical therapy seemed to have the perfect balance of science and people. I also liked that this profession is a hands-on practice. I’d always loved to tinker with my bicycle. In high school I liked shop class. I like building things and using my hands. This book showed me how PT is a blend of helping people, thinking on my feet, using my hands, and being challenged to solve complex puzzles in the human body.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I want every child in America to have Alexander Technique lessons from the moment they begin their formal schooling. For the first five years of our lives, we learn and grow with our bodies. As infants, we explore our world by putting things in our mouths and crawling around. As we continue to develop, we like running around and being at the playground on swings and slides. I still recall my amazement watching my niece and nephew in their early lives; they played for 12–14 hours a day! They were learning. When formal schooling begins, there is classroom time and recess time. This metacommunicates that our bodies are separate from academics. Alexander Technique teaches us how to learn, and that embodied learning is the basis for success in all spheres of life.

Why am I so passionate about this? Our bodies are the containers for our souls, and we need to take care of them. I think if we learn from an early age how to be embodied, we enjoy a greater sense of agency in our lives. This goes back to what I was saying earlier. When we feel at home in our bodies, we feel safe to learn, grow and mature into our fullest selves. We know how to handle difficulties. We can take in joy and participate in the joyful things around us with our whole selves.

Several pioneers in the UK have successfully established Alexander Technique as a key component in the basic curricula of primary, secondary and university and graduate-level education. While there are a few schools with Alexander principles integrated in primary and secondary curricula, the US more typically teaches Alexander Technique only at the university level, and only in the performing arts departments.

If every child has an opportunity to learn the principles of the Alexander Technique, that would be such a profound change in every single person’s wellbeing. It would make personal development and growing up so much easier. Regardless of raging hormones, the pandemic, divisive politics, or other difficulties, everyone would have a way of taking a few moments any time of day to pause and say, “Okay, here I am. There’s my breathing. There are my feet on the floor. Here I am in my body. I don’t like what’s going on, but I have a means whereby I can manage myself in this moment. And that’s good. I’m anchored.”

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking, 1963.)

For me, this statement speaks to celebrating the uniqueness of each individual. I believe the body is the story of a person’s life. I teach my clients to become embodied — aware of and respectful of their bodies. I listen to their stories. That’s how I help them heal and maximize their potential. A body is as unique and unquantifiable as the whole person it contains. The person’s individual story and potential is what counts.

What is the best way for our readers can follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielleczaja/

https://www.facebook.com/GabrielleCzajaPT/

https://twitter.com/GabrielleCzaja


Gabrielle Czaja: “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Blake D Bauer: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Author Blake D. Bauer: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Express Your Emotions Honestly and Kindly

Our mental wellness is intimately connected to our emotional health. And our relationship to our emotions directly impacts our mind and thought processes far more than we realize. A significant amount of our unhealthy or negative thoughts are in fact symptoms of repressed emotions. These overwhelming or imbalanced thoughts are alerting us to the deeper feelings, needs, and desires that we’re ignoring or internalizing.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” I had the pleasure of interviewing Blake D. Bauer.

Blake is the author of the international bestselling book You Were Not Born To Suffer. Each year he helps thousands of people who cannot find effective support from conventional psychology, medicine, or religion. Blake is a world-renowned teacher and speaker with an extensive background in psychology, alternative medicine, nutrition, traditional healing, and mindfulness meditation. Based on both his personal experience overcoming deep suffering, addiction, and adversity, as well as his professional success with over 100,000 people worldwide, Blake’s pioneering work integrates what he’s found to be the most effective approaches to optimal mental, emotional, and physical health.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

As a teenager and young adult I struggled very deeply mentally and emotionally. In my teens, I abused alcohol and drugs to the point that I was arrested a number of times for drug possession. I also played football in high school and was co-captain of the varsity team senior year, along with my two best friends. When I was 17, during the summer before senior year, I got a very bad DUI after a night of excessive cannabis, alcohol, and pharmaceutical pill use. My football coach found out half way through my senior year season and decided to kick me off the team. From there I spiraled down hill and fell into a very dark depression. I had destroyed and sabotaged everything I cared about and identified with. At the age of 18 I found myself very lost and confused, tortured by anxiety, negative thinking, and suicidal thoughts. My ego, or who I believed myself to be, completely shattered. At the same time, I was facing a major life decision and juncture about what path to take in life. Do I go to work, do I study, what do I study? Is success and happiness about making money? I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to do with my life, which only added to my suffering, shame, and anxiety.

It’s a much longer story but at 18 years old I began asking two questions every day. ‘How do I heal myself, or free myself from my suffering?’ And, ‘What is the purpose of my life?’ I moved forward each day solely wanting to answer and understand the keys to being healthy, happy and fulfilled. This quest led me to 5 different universities, to working for a seventh generation Chinese herbalist and oncology M.D., to reading 100’s of books on health, happiness, healing, alternative medicine, personal development, religion, and spirituality, and to studying with masters in practices like meditation, yoga, tai chi and qi gong. After years of extensive study, work, and personal practice in all these areas, the only thing I grew to care about was sharing what I had learned with other people who were also struggling with their health, happiness, purpose, and relationships. Personally I was so desperate to understand how to feel well mentally, emotionally, and physically, and also to understand the purpose of my life, that when I found the clarity I was seeking, I simply wanted to share it with as many people as I could. This calling led first to private work with individuals, then to seminars, workshops, and retreats with larger groups, and then to the publication of my first book, which is now translated in 10 languages and thankfully helping people all over the world.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I was 24 years old when I had the idea for my first book. I started looking for an agent and pitching to publishers but no one took me seriously. I was rejected by over 100 agents and publishers because they looked at me as though ‘what could this kid know.’ Eventually, through a writing competition, I won a contract with one of the largest personal development publishers in the world, which at the time was a dream come true. The book series I was contracted to be a part of was not doing well and the budget was cut. I was first to go because I was a ‘nobody’ in their eyes. I was so heart broken and confused at first, but then I decided that I would self-publish my book and not wait for anyone to say that my experiences were valid or that what I had learned was valuable. I had a very strong drive and calling, and so at the age of 27 I self-published the first edition of my book. During this time, I reached out to the office of the Dalai Lama many times asking for his endorsement. As a young man finding my way in the world I felt misunderstood in Western/American society because my priorities were not about money or material success, but rather about peace and genuinely helping people. I never got his office to agree but I proceeded to print, distribute, market and travel to speak in Australia, the UK and the US, and my book eventually became a bestseller. A number of the publishers and agents who rejected me years prior later approached me and wanted to buy my book or represent my next work. I share this because I think it’s interesting how life unfolds, but more importantly, I want to convey that if you do not give up on your dream and calling, life will move things in your favor in ways you cannot imagine. If you value yourself and believe in your vision, life will begin to value and support it as well.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

The lesson that stands out the most was believing that my vision could come to fruition ‘overnight’. I often felt very clear about what I wanted to achieve and what I would create, and I thought it could happen as soon as I wanted it to. I naively ‘just wanted to get there.’ What I later realized was that even though my impatience was coming from a very genuine place, it was also reflective of the lessons and growth I had to go through to actually be ready for the life I wanted to create. The time between the idea and its actualization is life’s way of testing the depth of our calling, preparing us for what we’ve asked for, and making sure it’s an ideal path or choice for us over time.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’d have to say both my mother and step-father. Neither of them ever understood my choices or my path in life but they never completely gave up on me either. As I mentioned I was very self-destructive and out of control as a teenager. I had a number of people in my family who struggled with drug addiction and similar unhealthy habits, so it was not a surprise that I followed in their footsteps. My step-father, however, was a very old school, straight, and disciplined guy. He didn’t use drugs nor did he drink much. He was very hard on me when he came into my life at the age of 11 and I resented him for it for many years. But as I got older and found my calling in life, I grew to appreciate and respect his influence on me. I always felt misunderstood by both my parents, but they challenged me to think critically and to analyze every move I was making. I never conformed to what they thought I should do with my life, nor did I let their harsh criticism break me when it came my way. As a young man trying to understand myself and life, I used it as fuel and grew stronger in my resolve to prove them wrong. My step-father’s presence always challenged me to have clear logical answers, even if those answers were not what he or my mom wanted to hear. We butted heads often, but he helped me get very clear for myself at a young age, which was in fact what I needed and proved to be very supportive

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

This is a loaded question. Firstly, I’d say it’s critical to walk your talk in terms of cultivating the mental, emotional and physical health that you’re encouraging in your clients or students. Integral to this is making sure you have space daily for your own self-care practices so your energy and health reserves remain full. Secondly, it’s imperative to clean house and ensure you’re attending to your own unhealed wounds and unconscious drives.

A very common theme for helping professionals is giving so much time and attention to other people and not taking care of oneself enough. Underneath this habit are typically unconscious patterns that need to be addressed in order to be both effective and well. Many helping professionals seek validation and self-worth through their work, which is why many people get caught in the loop of never feeling like they’re doing enough. Often our sense of value is tied up in the results we see in clients or students, when in reality the choices a person makes surrounding their health and happiness are really not up to us in any way. Another way of saying this is that we can never save or fix anyone, but in the beginning of our professional career we often try to. We unknowingly derive our sense of self-worth from the unpredictable decisions of other people, which is not a healthy approach.

Rather than seek validation externally, run ourselves into the ground, or try to play the role of a pleasing helping professional, I have found it much more effective to simply be completely honest, real and even blunt with clients. Ironically, when you can share genuinely and directly from what you know has worked for you and for your clients, without seeking a client’s approval or being attached to the outcome, your efficacy will increase many times over. In simple terms, take very good care of yourself, embody an example of a healthy, happy, fulfilled individual, and then just be as real and kind as you can be.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

A few key approaches come to mind.

First, I believe that anything or anyone we take for granted we will eventually lose or push away. For this reason, I think it’s important to find ways to show gratitude for each person, their effort, and their presence, regardless of their role in the organization.

Second, as a leader I think you need to be completely open and honest so you create an environment of healthy, effective communication. This openness encourages the free flow of ideas and emotions, which is critical to staying solution-minded and resolving any personal, relational, or project centered issues that arise. Rather than creating a culture where your colleagues fear you, you can create an atmosphere of trust and safety, where people respect you and simply want to be their best for you and the team.

Third, which goes hand and hand with the first point, is recognizing the importance of simple kindness and respect. Words are more powerful than we realize and as a leader the way in which you communicate and express yourself in every situation is shaping the culture of your organization. If you’re unkind, derogatory, or critical in an insensitive way, your team will feel defensive, unsafe, and resent you, even if they never say so. Their thoughts and feelings toward you will undermine any genuine drive to do and give their best.

Fourth, I would identify what the purpose of your organization is. If you can communicate this mission statement clearly, along with the values that support the realization of this ‘reason for being’, you can offer your team inspiration and a deeper sense of meaning when they come to work each day. Rather than allowing staff to wake up and feel as though they are just coming to a job to pay the bills, I think an effective leader can awaken a sense of purpose in their team so that each person feels that they matter and are part of something greater.

Lastly, I would encourage self-care time and space during the workday. Your team will be healthier and happier if they can take some time every hour or two during a long work day to do something that nourishes them. This can be a break for coffee, exercise, meditation, a chair massage, or to get some fresh air. Actively encouraging this will lead to improved mental, emotional, and physical health, which in turn will result in a team that appreciates their leadership and wants to demonstrate optimal performance.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Express Your Emotions Honestly and Kindly

Our mental wellness is intimately connected to our emotional health. And our relationship to our emotions directly impacts our mind and thought processes far more than we realize. A significant amount of our unhealthy or negative thoughts are in fact symptoms of repressed emotions. These overwhelming or imbalanced thoughts are alerting us to the deeper feelings, needs, and desires that we’re ignoring or internalizing.

Throughout a given day we’re either aware of what we’re feeling and then expressing it honestly and kindly, or we’re not. When we internalize our emotions regularly, we literally create a build up of inner tension, which then causes physical stress and an increase in cortisol levels. This leads to further psychological stress, negative thinking, a lack of tolerance, limited patience, and the kind of unhealthy reactions that hurt both ourselves and the people around us. Over time, internalizing what we feel very literally causes depression and leads to further struggle in all life areas.

Every time you internalize your emotions, you’re not only rejecting your true self and hurting yourself, but you’re literally causing stagnation in the flow of energy and blood in your body, which always translates into depressed, agitated and frustrated thinking. This process becomes a vicious cycle that actually weakens our immune system and keeps unhealthy lifestyle habits in place. If we feel we do not matter — that our feelings, needs and goals do not matter to ourselves or to the people around us — this form of self-harm grows into resentment, pessimism and eventually physical illness. Maintaining the healthy flow of blood, energy, and emotion is critical to keeping our mental and physical immune system strong. The only practical way to do this is to honor what you truly feel, need and want on a daily basis, and share it with whomever you’re in relationship with.

Simply expressing yourself is however not quite enough. There is one more vital step. The key to expressing ourselves effectively is understanding the importance of expressing what we feel as kindly and mindfully as possible. Most of us learned very aggressive forms of communication that hurt and push people away. And these habits leave us reacting mentally in ways that create shameful, guilty and self-critical thoughts. For example, if you think about a situation where you’ve been upset, deep down you likely felt hurt, frustrated, angry or misunderstood. But rather than knowing how to say ‘I feel hurt…’ or ‘I feel angry…’ we tend to point the finger, blame, curse, raise our voice, and say mean things that push people away. This then causes further distance, misunderstanding, and regret because deep down we really don’t want to speak in hurtful ways, even when we’re hurting. In simple terms, we cannot maintain mental wellness unless we learn to be kind and mindful with our words in every situation.

Act In Integrity

We often feel one way, and then say or do the opposite. Following on from the above step, it is a critical to our mental wellbeing to act in alignment with what we truly feel, need and want. Each time you allow fear, guilt, shame, or self-doubt to stop you from moving in the direction you genuinely feel is right or best, you literally hurt yourself and stop your blood, energy, emotion and immune system from flowing properly. The result of this dynamic is always negative thinking, inner conflict, and a weakness in our mental health.

If you reflect on your life today, you’ll most likely recognize a situation where you feel something you’re not expressing, or where you want to take an action that you’re not taking. If you ask yourself why you’re not 100% in integrity in these situations, you’ll discover that you hold a belief that if you express yourself honestly or you act in alignment with your true feelings, things will not work out. In other words, you’ll see that you do not trust life fully because if you did, you would have faith that you can be 100% true to yourself and everything will be ok.

We don’t realize that our self-doubt is actually a symptom of all the times in the past that we have betrayed our true feelings, mistreated ourselves, and not acted in integrity. So when you say you do not trust life, what you’re really saying is you do not trust yourself. If you think about how you’ve probably treated yourself over the course of your life, and how many times you’ve betrayed, hurt, or been cruel to yourself, it becomes easy to see why you dis-trust both yourself and Life. Paradoxically, the only way to heal your self-doubt and low self-esteem is to act on what you truly feel, need and want, even though you may be scared or uncertain. Over time, this vulnerable honesty with yourself and with others builds into deep self-confidence, self-respect, and belief in yourself.

Take Time and Space for Yourself

Time alone, to be with your thoughts and feelings, to move at your natural pace, to care for your body, and to do things that make you feel alive and well, is another critical key to mental wellness. We all need space each day to breathe, reflect, relax, move, or do things that bring us joy and make us feel well. Without this personal time, there can be no health, happiness or clarity. It’s life changing to seriously consider how you might create more space in your schedule, so you’re not always over committed, rushed and stressed. This might entail waking up a bit earlier, saying no to plans with friends or family, or not scheduling every hour of your day in the name of productivity. Even in terms of self-care, it’s ironic when you hear people rushing and stressed to get to a yoga class. This approach becomes counter productive when you’re always pushing yourself, or trying to please everyone around you. Try to slow down, stop running, and listen to your deeper feelings and needs. Our mind needs time to unwind and relax if we want to function and live at our best.

Take Care of Your Mind

What you think about and what you give your attention to throughout the day literally shapes your life. If your thoughts are scattered or negative, then your whole day is going to feel the same. For this reason, it is critical that you develop a healthy and deeply intimate relationship with your mind. Practically speaking, the morning offers the greatest opportunity to consciously create a day that feels good to you and is supportive of your mental health. The thoughts you think when you first wake literally set the tone for the type of day you’re going to have. If you wake feeling anxious or stressed, and you don’t do anything to shift it, your day is going to be full of anxiety and tension. However, if you intentionally take 10–15 minutes in the morning to take care of your mind, you can prevent yourself from feeling spread thin and then go about your day feeling more present, clear and centered. When you break it down, your habits of thought in the morning basically govern your entire life. So understanding how to work with your thoughts in the healthiest way upon waking is essential to taking care of yourself, creating what you want in life, and simply feeling well.

Simple Deep Breathing Meditation

Wherever you are, take a few slow, deep breaths into your belly or lower abdomen. After you read this section, you can close your eyes if you’d like to. I recommend closing your mouth and breathing through your nose. Feel your whole body, starting at your feet, moving up your legs to your hips against the chair you’re sitting on. Then move your attention upward to the top of your head, and then down to your arms to your fingertips. Please breath deep into any tension you feel and just let yourself be. Using each inhalation to expand and open your body from the inside out, you can literally create more space within to welcome everything you’re thinking, feeling and experiencing here in this moment. Simply focus on your body and your breathing, and when your mind begins to wander just notice it, and then intentionally bring your attention back to your body and your breathing. It’s very helpful to say the word ‘thinking’ to yourself each time you notice you are lost in thought. It is an objective prompt for you to make a choice to bring your awareness back to your body and your breathing when you notice you were carried away by your thinking habits. Practicing this daily, starting fist things in the morning, will help you to 1) stop feeling powerless over negative and overwhelming thoughts, and 2) it will help you feel more centered and clear mentally.

Practice choosing and guiding your thoughts.

Most of us don’t know that we have the power to choose thoughts and guide our thinking towards things that make us feel well. Just like driving a car, when your mind starts to drift toward negative thoughts that cause you stress, you can ‘turn the wheel’ and guide your mind back in a healthier direction. The main reasons we’re not aware of our innate ability to do this is because one, we simply never learned how to and two, because most people just allow their thoughts to run wild and unchecked, which is very damaging and directly undermines our mental wellbeing. Many people also believe they are their thoughts, or the voice in their head, which is not true. Our thoughts are only a part of us, but they are a very powerful part. If we don’t develop a healthy understanding of them they will sabotage our mental health and happiness.

Here are three very simple yet effective ways to guide your thinking. Please note that each step is defined by you exercising your innate capacity to choose what you think about and to guide the direction of your thoughts.

  1. Choose right now to think about 3 things you are truly thankful for. When you have time, try making a list of every little thing you can think of, that you’re grateful for. Notice how you can shift how you feel by intentionally choosing what you think about.
  2. Choose right now to think about 3 things that you really want in your life, such as; to be happy, to travel somewhere, to take a class, to create an amazing relationship, etc. Here again, it’s helpful to make a list of everything you want, when you have space. Notice how you can shift how you feel by intentionally choosing what you think about.
  3. Send prayers or well wishes to the people you care about most. Think about the most important people in your life and intentionally wish them the best in health, happiness, love, finances, and whatever additional needs they have.
  4. For optimal results, I recommend doing at least 10 minutes of meditation in the morning to set the tone for your day, and then immediately after, intentionally take these three steps in choosing and guiding your thoughts. This practice first thing in the morning, before doing anything, is a key to breaking through wherever you’re stuck and creating your day in a way that supports your mental wellness.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

Dive Into the 5 Steps Above

The busyness of life and the demands of attending to our responsibilities often limits the time we’ve devoted to truly caring for our mind, our emotional life, and to the critical subtleties of healthy self-care. It’s crucial to address the 5 steps above because with more time on your hands you will reflect on your life and the choices you’ve made, and everyone wants to look back and both respect themselves and feel good.

Start ticking off your bucket list.

No one wants to leave this world with significant regret, so I think it’s important to start doing all the things you’ve wanted to experience throughout your life, but never made time for or gave yourself permission to. For example, taking a domestic or international trip that you’ve always been interested in can unlock deep joy and enrich your sense of life satisfaction. Returning from these experiences often leaves us feeling fulfilled and well, especially in the midst of our ‘normal’ routines and habits.

Spend time with friends and family

It’s common to neglect personal relationships while building and raising a family. Many people allow their world to become very small because there’s only so much time and energy to attend to our major responsibilities. As a result, it’s easy to lose touch with friends and family members who you do care about and who’s company you enjoy. This can lead to feeling isolated and not talking to anyone about your feelings. The sad irony is that the people you’ve lost touch with are likely going through similar experiences. But many people never risk reaching out. I encourage you to be the one to reach out and attempt to make a plan to reconnect and catch up.

Try new things until you find activities or hobbies that bring you joy

I find many people don’t know what makes them happy or brings them joy. If you’ve worked hard your entire life to provide for a family or to raise your family and maintain your home, there often was not a lot of time to just explore hobbies or subjects that were not practical in some way. It’s very supportive of your mental wellbeing to just go try new activities without being attached to their outcome or their practicality. For example, take a painting class, or a writing class, or a cooking class, or a dance class. Or all of them. If there’s any subject that peeks your curiosity or that you feel an instinctual positive energy about, just go book in and allow yourself to explore it. The parts of us that we often abandon or neglect in the name of hard work or practicality, typically hold the keys to long term mental and emotional health.

Exercise Daily

Mental wellness is directly linked with physical wellness, which is why it’s important to make sure you find a form of movement and exercise that you can do daily. Even simply walking will keep your circulation strong, your immune system functioning more effectively, and your thoughts and emotions flowing in healthy ways. There are many forms of exercise that you may not be familiar with but which are very effective, enjoyable, and gentle on the body. Yoga, tai chi, qi gong, dance, and swimming are all wonderful forms of movement for your body which will keep your mind sharp and well.

Say What You Haven’t Said

It’s common to live for years with important things unsaid. Both expressing love and resolving old wounds are very important in terms of mental wellness after retirement. With more time to think, unaddressed conflicts will surface and there will be a choice to say it either matters or it does not. In my experience many people will leave this life with significant regret because they did not tell the people they loved how much they love them while alive, or they allowed old wounds, mistakes, or pride to justify never finding peace in an important relationship. With these dynamics in mind, it’s very important to tell the people you love how much you love them before it’s too late. It’s important to apologize for any harm you caused another person when you were less mature and unaware. And it’s also important to be honest with anyone who has truly hurt or betrayed you.

Just because you might be the older person in the situation does not mean something can’t happen to your children or to the people around you before your final days. People get ill, people get in bad accidents, unexpected things happen. For all these reasons, I encourage you to write a letter to these important people telling them how you feel. You can also pick up the phone, or find a way to make plans to talk. We tend to lose whatever or whomever we take for granted and this is true for our health as well as for our most valuable relationships. In the name of leaving this world with peace in your heart, be fully transparent and tell the people you love how you feel. It will make every situation better and healthier over time.

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

  1. Once again, the 5 steps above for mental wellness are key for younger people to learn and practice. It will help them avoid a great deal of struggle and heartache in their adult lives. If they learned the 5 steps outlined above, they would develop a very strong and healthy sense of self, and they would also be empowered to create a very authentic and fulfilling life.
  2. With the prevalence of technology and social media in our world today, many young people don’t have a strong sense of self, or who they are, independent of the identity they’ve created in the virtual world online. This is a major problem because one’s identity must come from a deep connection to oneself apart from any association with their image on social media or the internet. I have spoken to therapists who specifically work with teenagers and they have shared how a client often cannot or will not engage in conversation until you ask them about their life and identity online in the virtual world. There are dangerous symptoms arising now where a young person will sit face to face with another human being and there is a very real lack of engagement and presence. But when this same person is spoken to in terms of who they are in a virtual world, they then come to life and have something to talk about. I see this as a growing and serious problem.
  3. With this in mind, I think it’s important for children and teens to have time away from their phones, computers and video games, so they can develop a connection with themselves — with their thoughts, their feelings, their physical body, and their surroundings. Time in nature and time with other human beings, free of technology, is a simple and critical solution to help balance living in today’s world, which is only becoming more and more consumed with technology and the virtual world online.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

I first read The Power of Now when I was 18 years old and suffering very deeply psychologically and emotionally. I was tortured by my thoughts and this book was the first time I’d heard the idea that I was not just my thoughts. Reading about this, helped me to stop identifying solely with my mind and to stop believing everything I was thinking. It helped me access a deeper part of myself where there was health, self-compassion, and also old emotional pain that I needed to heal.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

There are three movements I would like to start.

The first would be an initiative to teach children from very early on how to practice the 5 steps to mental wellness outlined above. These are the most effective keys and habits for staying well throughout one’s life mentally, emotionally and physically. They represent precisely how to love, value, care for, accept and believe in oneself, and we would all be better off learning this from the moment we enter the school system — at the latest. That said, this could come to fruition as a new form of education with these principles representing the foundational philosophy. Additionally, this can be integrated into existing models and school systems as a learning module that’s taught to educators and/or brought into schools via specially trained mental health/emotional intelligence consultants.

The second one is a follow on from this first movement and actually came to mind because of this interview. To help children learn the 5 critical skills listed above as early as possible, I would love to develop a training that all new parents and/or pregnant women could take through the hospital, in relation to their primary care doctor, or their OB/GYN. This could educate expecting and new parents on the 5 core habits that support optimal mental, emotional and physical health both in their children and in themselves. A movement like this would help shift the early childhood home environment for everyone involved, which would lead to healthier parents and significantly healthier children.

The third movement would focus on supporting teenagers, young adults and adults who never learned these necessary skills and thus have put themselves in a negative position in life. This would be a network of homes and rehabilitation centers for people struggling with addiction, depression, suicidal tendencies, mental illness, or living on the streets. I hold a view that many people who have children should not have had children, because they are either not ready yet to be responsible for another life or they are very unhealthy in themselves. Often children born into this kind of environment have trouble growing into a functional healthy person, because they never have any form of constructive support at home. Life is very challenging as it is, even when you have functional parents or guardians, and many people are set up for a life of suffering because their parents are not functional or well. With enough resources I’d like to oversee rehabilitation centers that serve as bridges to living in the world with the healthiest habits I believe a human being can learn, adopt and embody.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

I have many favorites. And my book is full of these from other writers and thinkers. The quote below is one of the most meaningful to me. From a young age I instinctually knew that love and understanding love was very much connected to the purpose of life. This led to many heartbreaks and challenging life lessons with family, friends, intimate partners and in my professional life. I worked very hard and have been very lucky to now have a life that centers on healthy love for oneself and healthy love for other people, both personally and professionally.

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself
in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way — an honorable way — in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.’ “

Viktor Frankl,

Nazi concentration camp survivor,

Man’s Search for Meaning

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

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Author Blake D Bauer: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Lisa Novick Goldberg: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

FEAR OF LOSING YOUR IDENTITY: Ending your work life does not mean that you are losing you. Instead, it means that you need to redirect the energies that for so long occupied such a large part of your life. This transition is by no means easy; it can be painful and disorienting but also enormously exciting and liberating. Friends and family will help remind you that there is so much more to you than just “the lawyer”, “the teacher” or “the realtor.” They are the constant when you are surrounded by change. All the qualities that made you successful at your career are just waiting to be channeled into new arenas!

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Novick Goldberg.

Author of The Apple and the Shady Tree — The Mafia, My Family and Me, Lisa was born in Brooklyn and grew up in the Five Towns on Long Island. She received her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and her master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. She now lives in Coconut Grove, Florida, with her husband, Stan Blake.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I am new to my career as an author. In 2015 when I was 57- years old I began to write my memoir, The Apple and The Shady Tree, The Mafia, My Family and Me. Encouraged by friends and my therapist to share the story of how I successfully emerged from a dysfunctional family life, I hit the computer keys. My writing ultimately served to kill two big birds with one stone; I confronted the demons from my past that were causing me such debilitating emotional stress, and I quelled my nagging unhappiness that I was an underachiever who had sadly never reached my potential. With the publication of my book and its subsequent distinguished reviews, I now consider myself to be an AUTHOR!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

As I am in the fledgling stage of my career, my journey has yet to face the peaks and valleys, triumphs and disappointments of more seasoned writers. For me, the most interesting stories involve the process of getting my book into the public eye. I knew that I had a good story that deals with topics such as: the mafia, mental illness, murder, a nostalgic look at growing up in the 1960s and 70s on Long Island, vintage Las Vegas and Atlantic City and my identification with my Judaism. Even though I could cast a wide net over my subjects and audience, I still needed to get my book to YOU! This was virgin territory to me; the more I read about the publication and public relations processes, the more I felt overwhelmed.

I was fortunate to be introduced to an old friend of my husband’s, Roy Sekoff, the founding editor of The Huffington Post, and a seasoned author who took me under his wing. He explained the pros and cons of going with a traditional publisher or self-publishing. He ultimately put me in touch with a production company that did everything from editing to a final product. If I was decades younger with a longer attention span, I might have been able to produce my book by myself with the help of tutorials on You Tube or books on publishing, etc. but being aware of my limitations and confident enough in my manuscript, I decided to make the investment to farm out the job!

Once the book was published, I needed to promote it. I was at dinner with a new friend at a restaurant in Coconut Grove, Florida where I live, just prior to the Covid lockdown. My friend invited her friend who is in the entertainment business in Los Angeles and we got to talking. The next thing I knew, I was on the phone with her public relations agent. I was signed-up before coffee and dessert were served!

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

I made the mistake of telling a beloved, well-meaning family member too much about my book plans! With the utmost goodness in her heart, she decided to promote my book with whomever she came in contact. Sounds fabulous except she was not always great with the facts. One evening over dinner, just weeks prior to my first book signing, we had a conversation that unfolded like this:

HER: “Lisa, I am telling everyone about your book, The Shady Tree and the Apple.”

ME: “The book is called the Apple and The Shady Tree.”

HER: “Tree, Apple, Shady, Sunny…. does it really matter? They now know about your book!”

ME: “I certainly appreciate your help, but yes, it matters! TITLES MATTER! It’s not called To Kill a Hummingbird! It’s To Kill a Mockingbird! And it’s not called The Wrath of Grapes! It’s The Grapes of Wrath!”

Her public relations career was over as far as I was concerned! So, what did I learn from this? Make sure your parents, friends, and others have their facts straight before they brag. Once you set them on the right track, then you can let’em loose!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My therapist! Bless her heart! After a lifetime of suffering from generational and situational anxiety, I decided at age 56 that it was time to seriously address my issues rather than deal with them on a crisis-by-crisis basis as I had always done. I was living with the man who became my husband and I wanted to ensure that I was giving not only myself, but our relationship, the best odds for success.

I wrote The Apple and The Shady Tree over a 4-year period beginning in 2015. The long stretches of stop and start writing were due to fears that consumed me:

“would I be putting myself or anyone mentioned in the book in harm’s way by writing about my father’s involvement in the mafia?”

“what did I hope to accomplish in writing my book?”

“was I throwing my family “under the bus” with my openness about our mental health issues?”

“would readers perceive me as a vindictive victim?”

“how would my father who is no longer alive and my mother who is, feel about how they are depicted?”

“if the book is successful, how will I feel about being in the public eye?”

My doubts about finishing the book often shut down production for months, but my skilled therapist and I worked through the issues. I wrote my story with this list of fears in mind and realized that I would never be “free” unless I faced and came to terms with the facts about my role in my family’s dysfunctional relationship.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

The key to avoiding the dreaded writer’s block is to enjoy what you do! Unless you are on a strict production schedule, go easy on yourself! You may not be able to write every day; the ideas may get stuck and need additional time to grow. Discipline is surely important, however; forcing yourself to produce daily is stress that doesn’t necessarily translate into good writing.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

According to MentalHealth.gov, “mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.”

From my experiences, I believe the average person’s view of mental health is grossly simplified; you are either well-adjusted, happy and medication-free or you have serious “issues” rendering you mal-adjusted and in need of therapeutic care and perhaps medication. The fact is, mental health covers a vast spectrum of fluid in-betweens; where you are at one point in your life is no indication of where you were in the past or will be in the future. It is based on both our genetic and situational reality and it can ebb and flow with hormones, the challenges of our jobs, relationships with our partners and other family members and the life transitions that we plan for and those which hit us unexpectedly. Since these challenges are part of the human condition, are there any steps we can take to improve or optimize our mental health?

While I am not a therapist, I have spent most of my life struggling with anxiety and depression resulting from generational mental illness on both sides of my family as well as a chaotic and highly dysfunctional family life made worse by my father’s role as the moneyman for the Genovese crime family. I credit my strength and resilience to a variety of factors that I share in my book. Beginning as a young child, I adopted coping mechanisms to deal with the traumatic situations to which I was consistently exposed. Many of these tools were instinctive and allowed me to survive emotionally; others I created and adapted throughout my life to optimize my mental health. As my therapist explained to me, they made the difference between being successful v. being broken.

Most of my tips for maintaining mental wellness can be applied to any age group, be it pre/teens, retirement years and everything in the middle! What differs is how these tips can be applied to address the specific needs of each period in our lives.

  1. LOOK FORWARD TO SOMETHING EVERY SINGLE DAY, NO MATTER HOW SMALL. I found I needed something to elevate each day, no matter how small. A meal or phone call with a good friend was/is often enough to do the trick, even in the most difficult times. The demands of living in a Covid world have created a new set of challenges, but you can still look forward to a Zoom meeting with family, a relaxing meal or even an awaited television show! Contentment comes a lot easier if you go day by day; try to allow the average, readily accessible pleasures to take their rightful place next to the larger, seemingly more significant ones.
  2. QUIET, ALONE TIME IS A MUST. We are all busy. The demands of our work, family and social lives often take a toll on our mental health. Most people I know, are surprised that this year of Covid quarantining has not been as restful as they would have imagined. Many work from home and are doing their job while still taking care of children, cooking 3 meals a day and handling the myriad of stresses that this virus has spawned. As a result, we are sometimes so busy that we choose to ignore the red flags of psychological and physical maladies that threaten our well-being. I am guilty of perpetuating this craziness; I tend to get very grouchy when I take on too much for ME. The bright side is that I have learned to demand from myself and from others the down-time that my mind and body desperately tell me I must have. We need to think of alone time as a pleasurable, regenerative, vital part of maintaining our emotional health rather than as an undesirable situation. Read, watch a movie, listen to music, have a meal by yourself, lie on your couch and think… or don’t think…. your choice. Just stop the proverbial “running.”
  3. COMMUNICATE: For many reasons (mostly fear I think), people refuse to convey their needs and wants, which can lead to debilitating resentment, anger, feelings of helplessness, anxiety and depression. We tell our young children to use their words but as adults we often forget that communication gives us power, which gives us a sense of control in our lives, which can go a long way towards protecting our mental health. Upset with a friend or partner? You don’t have to be confrontational or nasty to smooth things over… use your words to determine what’s going on… talk. Nervous about a work project? A physical check-up? Your child’s behavioral issues? Don’t hold it all in and make yourself crazy. When possible, talk to your boss, call your doctor, have a conversation with your child. Communication should be an important tool in everyone’s life-skills toolbox. Communication can let us know where we stand with others, which is crucially important in lessening stress and helping us to maintain our mental equilibrium.
  4. HAVE FRIENDS AND MENTORS…. BEST YET, FRIENDS WHO ARE ALSO MENTORS! People need people; we are made that way. We thrive on the comfort and support that having someone physically and emotionally close provides. Having the option to share the good times and the bad with others anchors us; we are not alone. I like to think that we pick our friends because they bring out the best in us. With millions of people to choose from, we align ourselves with the ones share our goals and values. I was aware at a young age that for the most part, I did not want to lead the negative life that my parents had chosen for themselves and for my sister and me. Instead, I surrounded myself with the types of people whose lives I wanted to make mine. I identified those who had qualities that I wished to have, such as kindness, patience intelligence, civility and empathy and I learned from them. Whether it was my loving maternal grandparents, concerned teachers who recognized that I came from a home with troubles, camp counselors who pushed me to explore talents that I did not know I had, and even parents of my friends who unknowingly showed me about healthy family relationships.
  5. BE GOOD TO YOURSELF: An important part of maintaining a healthy mental attitude is to have a realistic perspective of ourselves. We need to accept that most of us operate on an ever-changing, complex mix of positives and negatives. It seems that many of us focus only on our shortcomings at the expense of our strengths. An acknowledgement of what is positive in our lives gives us a firm foundation on which to change that which needs work. When my daughter, who also struggles with anxiety and depression, beats herself up for a variety of in-the-moment-issues, I remind her to try her best to recognize and celebrate the wonderful characteristics that are uniquely hers and those that make her family, friends and colleagues love and respect her. A healthy attitude thrives when we are kind to ourselves.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

All the mental health coping skills I discussed are useful at any stage in our lives, from adolescents to senior citizens and everything in between. But now let’s look at how these skills can be tailored to the specific mental health issues that challenge those at both ends of the life spectrum.

For decades as I commuted from my home to various offices, raised my daughter as a single-mom and attempted a social life, I fantasied about how wonderful it would be to reach retirement age and make friends with the clock rather than continually racing against it. I pictured myself in good health and with a comfortable bank account ticking-off the entries on the bucket list that I had carefully curated. I envisioned not only the high-priced, major entries such as exotic travel and a vacation home, but also the more simple delights of not being tied to an office, enjoying that 2nd cup of coffee while still in my bathrobe and slippers and listening to Dr. Phil proffer advice from the TV.

I am now 62 years old now and what you might call “semi-retired.” Although I work daily from our home managing my husband’s mediation business and doing my writing, I am free to make my own schedule. In the pre-Covid world, I made a point of taking myself out to lunch every day. When alone, it was my sacred time to read the newspaper and relax; when a friend joined me, it was a time to catch-up on gossip and relax (the two are not mutually exclusive!) My work is vital to my daily mental equilibrium; I thrive on the structure, challenges, and accomplishments that it provides.

Many of my friends who are just beginning full-retirement, are grappling with unprecedented issues despite the endless books and articles on how to live one’s best life during these “golden years.” The obvious and more well-known recommendations center on the physical, such as eating healthfully, exercising, and being in tune to the changing needs of our bodies. The many mental health challenges such as boredom, loneliness, fear of getting old and loss of identity that are often more subtle to identify and remedy. Let’s look at some ways to help confront these very legitimate concerns.

1.) FEELING OVERWHELMED BY ALL THE NEW-FOUND FREEDOM: After retirement, the positive stimuli of a work environment (social interaction, structure, accountability, predictability) are no longer available and the retiree may find that filling-in this gap requires a pro-active and self-motivated approach. They may feel overwhelmed by the choices available to them or their family and friends pressuring them to “get out there”, and wholly embrace everything the world has to offer! Having the opportunity does not mean one has to feel obligated to dive into another form of commitment or structure. YOU determine what your next steps will be.

Two years ago my husband and I bought a country house in the mountains of North Carolina in a community where many of our Miami friends were situated. We were warmly embraced by various groups eager to involve us in their hobbies:

“So Lisa, what are you looking forward to doing now that you’re here in “camp for adults?”

“Do you play canasta?”

“No, but I would love to learn.

“Mahjong?

“No, but I love the sound of fingernails against the tiles.”

“Pickleball? Tennis? Pilates? Biking?”

“No, No, No, and are you kidding me? Biking on these mountains? NO!”

“Do you hike?

“I like to hike with a destination in mind, like to a coffee shop”

“Golf?”

“Yes I golf, sometimes, when it’s not too hot, or too cold.”

I found myself getting exhausted just listening to their list of activities! I was a tad ashamed of my responses to all their well-meaning queries, but I wanted to be honest and I certainly did not want to get signed-up for something that I really did not want to do.

“So what is it that you like to do?” I was repeatedly asked.

“I’m not really a joiner. I feel like I’ve been on a schedule my whole life; right now, I kinda just want to read, do my needlepoint, watch Netflix movies and do my writing. I also really enjoy eating.”

The fact is, I do want to participate in many of the activities that I have available to me… I just want to do them when I am ready, at my own pace.

By communicating your needs to other, you are being kind to yourself.

2.) FEAR OF GROWING OLD: The first whiff of concern about aging begins weeks before your 50th birthday when AARP sends you a barrage of mail encouraging you to join their organization. You hesitantly look through their magazine that is filled with ads for medicines, compression socks, flip phones and articles on how to avoid getting scammed. You begin to think, “Is this me? Could shuffleboard be in my near future along with capri pants and sensible shoes? OMG! I’m still getting my period, what the hell is going on here?” Before you know it, you are imagining seeing sagging jowls and drooping everything else! “Could my nose be getting bigger?” A nightmare! A slippery slide down your memory’s lane.

Joking aside, for many, the perception that the clock is ticking is terrifying and can lead to a relentless quest to preserve one’s youth or a resignation that it’s time to purchase a comfy rocking chair. Both extremes will drive you crazy and prevent you from living your best life. How to avoid this trap? To start, try not to play into stereotypes of old age; they are notions that are just… old! Furthermore, aim to be the best you can for your age. Be kind to yourself.

3.) FEAR OF RUNNING OUT OF TIME: Hand in the hand with the fear of getting old may come the concern that there is so much left to do and so little time! This is what is called a “mishegoss” in Yiddish or craziness, a waste of time. It is never too late to see the world, learn a language, get a degree, learn a skill and so on and so on. Your imagination or lack of, is the only thing holding you back from plowing through your bucket list.

I am in awe of the things that I have accomplished in the last 10 years. I met a wonderful man when I was 53 years old and got married, moved from New York to Miami, started a new business with my husband, and wrote a memoir. All this came despite my “can’t do” upbringing, which filled me with lots of self-doubt. I accomplished all this thanks to luck and divine intervention, therapy and sheer determination. I envisioned it, believed in it, and made it happen.

4.) FEAR OF LOSING YOUR IDENTITY: Ending your work life does not mean that you are losing you. Instead, it means that you need to redirect the energies that for so long occupied such a large part of your life. This transition is by no means easy; it can be painful and disorienting but also enormously exciting and liberating. Friends and family will help remind you that there is so much more to you than just “the lawyer”, “the teacher” or “the realtor.” They are the constant when you are surrounded by change. All the qualities that made you successful at your career are just waiting to be channeled into new arenas!

How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?

The pre-teen and teen years can be a mental roller coaster for children (not to mention for their parents!) As they cautiously navigate the period between their childhood and adulthood, they face the challenges of learning to fit in with their peers, get along well with their siblings and parents, discover their sexuality and try-on a variety of different personas. As they run the gauntlet, they test and are tested. These pressures would be monumental at any age but are particularly daunting to this age group with their developing brains and mercurial mental health. So how do we help pre/teens to healthfully deal with all this stuff?

In my book, I describe the trauma that I experienced at this age due to the genetic encumbrances that I carry, and the ramifications of my parents’ poor life-choices, which included my Jewish father being the moneyman for the Genovese crime family. According to my psychoanalyst, who did not enter my life until 6 years ago, everything pointed to me ending up on drugs, homeless, in jail or a mixture of the three. I am often asked how I was able to overcome so shaky a start in life. The following are some of the factors that helped me to cope in those critical growth years.

  1. HAVE FRIENDS: Everyone at every age needs a friend (s), but for pre/teens, having the “right” friends, can make all the difference in what their future will hold. Good friends, are not only Saturday afternoon companions at the mall; they are powerful influencers who affirm and reinforce behaviors and shape the dreams and goals that will launch these young adults on their road to maturity. A good friend will listen when it seems that parents are not. A good friend teaches about sharing and trust and love, characteristics that are necessary in all types of relationships. Remember, you need not have a posse… you just need a good pal.
  2. HAVE MENTORS: Because preteens are practically at ground zero when it comes to figuring out who and what they want to be, having mentors offers living examples of what is possible for them to become. Even the most wonderful parents cannot be everything; mentors broaden the learning field beyond the family and show pre/teens that they have choices in their lives.
  3. HAVE A VOICE: Though easier said than done, I would encourage young adults to reach out for help when they feel in need. These adults-in-training frequently know, way before their parents are aware, that something is “off” in their lives. Perhaps they are being bullied in school, or unable to keep up with the demands of their schoolwork, or for no clearly identifiable reason, they are anxious or experience the blues. Their discomfort may appear to be temporary or minor, but if they are asking for help, they should get it. How much less complicated is it if a child is sophisticated or sensitive enough to know they require support? As a pre/teen, I told my mother I wanted to see a therapist but she was dead set against it, explaining, “you’ll get over what’s bothering you. Everything passes.” Much of her thinking was typical of that in the 1960s. Sadly, I could have greatly benefitted from outside help when I was young. Not everything passes, in some cases issues get compounded and scream out for attention but by then it may be too late. As a pre/teen, try to seek out the help that you need; if you are unable to see a private therapist, try to make use of the community services offered or school counselors who are there to guide you through the challenges. Your voice might be young and inexperienced, but when it comes to your mental health and the quality of your life….. ROAR! Someone will hear you.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

When I was 10 -years old I found a 1930s copy of the Nancy Drew book The Quest of The Missing Map at my grandparents’ house. The yellowed pages, the vintage illustrations and the outdated expressions drew me in. I felt as if I was making a strong connection to the child reader from decades prior, my mother. I savored reading that book and then went on to read every book in the series. I loved that the young sleuth never aged though she did become more modernized in her fashion and colloquialisms. She was pretty and kind, independent and very sensible. She had good friends and a wonderful relationship with her widower father and Hannah Gruen, the trusted family housekeeper. Nancy was everything that I would have liked to be. When I joined her on adventures to exotic countries or America’s small towns and stood next to her holding a flashlight to guide our way in some dark tunnel, field or castle, I was free from the stresses of my childhood. Testimony to the power of her impact on me is that on occasion I reread the books and still feel our connection. Nancy Drew is my hero.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My favorite quote since childhood continues to be “march to the beat of your own drum.” My mother introduced me to these powerful words and I have been faithful to them to this day.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

https://lisanovickgoldberg.com/

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!


Author Lisa Novick Goldberg: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tara Stiles of Strala Yoga: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness

Make your goal the process over a pose — This of course works for yoga and life, but the comparison is so easy to make once you try it out in practice. Like a wave, your inhale lifts you up. Your exhale brings you in the next direction. If your goal is the pose, it’s so easy to get in this mode of “just make it happen.” You can end up forcing yourself into a physical place that has no value. The value is in connection with yourself. The reward is when you make that good connection with yourself in the form, you’ll be able to do much more easily.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness” I had the pleasure of interviewing Tara Stiles of Strala Yoga.

Tara Stiles, a wellness expert, bestselling author, and the founder of Strala Yoga. Tara’s bestselling books, which have been translated and published in multiple languages, include Strala Yoga, Make Your Own Rules Diet, Yoga Cures, and Slim Calm Sexy Yoga, and she has been featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, Esquire, and Shape. Her newest book, Clean Mind, Clean Body: A 28 Day Plan for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Self-Care (Dey Street Books), will be released this December.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I danced since I was a little girl but was always interested in lots of things that brought me together with other people. I was in a computer club in high school, loved to collect garbage and recycle, and I mainly wanted to figure out how to use my energy and gifts to the best of my ability. I grew up in rural Illinois and was very excited to meet people from all around the world. I knew I would do something using all my interests a bit but had no idea it would bring me to where I am now.

I was introduced to yoga while studying dance and was so excited there were people and practices around these ideas about feeling more connected to yourself. I went to any workshop I could find and started learning as much as I could about this world of wellbeing. Back then, even in the mid 90s there was no wellness industry. It was more like you heard about something from someone, there was maybe a flyer and a group of people getting together to meditate. I knew this was a practice I would have for myself for my life, but the more I got involved, the more I was upset that these practices weren’t easy, accessible and something everyone could do. The bug to share these practices hit me slowly and then took over how I spent my time. I decided I wanted to share yoga and wellbeing in a way that was easy, allowed you to feel like you, and as something that is useful and fits into your life. I saw a lot of examples of dogma and rigidity and practice as something that took you further away from your life and I knew I wanted to be part of a change. For me these practices felt held hostage in a way to this dogmatic way and that felt not ok. I wanted my friends and family to feel better and to feel like these practices are meant for them, not for other people so different from them.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I feel like I have so many, but maybe one to share is the moment I decided to share yoga and wellbeing in this easy, accessible way, it felt like the entire world and the greatest people in it to help me rushed in to lift me up and guide me in this direction. I think that is something so helpful and encouraging to share. I’m literally a girl from rural Illinois and when I started talking about yoga in this “new way”, writing about it in this “new way” and making videos in this “new way” everyone from Deepak Chopra, Jane Fonda, the New York Times entered my life. I feel very fortunate, but I know it really has little to do with me, and a lot to do with that process of doing something useful and folks much further along and fabulous seeing that and wanting to help that. I get to go along for the ride.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

Hmm, nothing hilarious comes to mind but I am also not afraid to do lots of things with the same passion. I suppose my background in dance led me to theme and variation in my life. My schedule might look a little funny I suppose. When I first started teaching yoga regularly, I led a free yoga class in Central Park. I sewed a flag with orange fabric I bought from the art store that designers go to called Mood. I rode to the park on my bike carrying the flag. I suppose that must have looked strange, but I am always interested in each moment of the process and how it feels to me just as much as how I can help others. I like to talk with a lot of people and end up asking about their problems and showing how some simple yoga can help. I suppose I ended up with a pretty full schedule teaching yoga one-on-one like that, not really by trying, just by being pretty curious about how people feel. So, I would be riding around on my bike a lot from house to house, delivering the yoga. Eventually we started Strala the studio which allowed me to hang in one place and save some time.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I need 10,000 words for that and it’s hard to begin. Being grateful and reflecting on the help, guidance and gifts I’ve been given by so many people is necessary to keep me headed in the right direction. Mike, my husband has supported me so much. Sam Berlind, our shiatsu faculty member of Strala has taught me so much about teaching through watching him and countless hours of patience and feedback. Jane Fonda selected me for a project and was super kind to me and gave me a big confidence boost. She also said beautiful things about me for a New York Times feature on my work. Deepak Chopra asked me to do a project with him when I was starting out writing books. His support, friendship and generosity in introducing me to others is massive to me. Our Strala community is so beautiful in how we support each other. This feels like a big acceptance speech, but the list really does go on forever. Life is a together project and I’m so grateful to be able to participate in this way and use my gifts.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

Wu Wei. Do what you are doing with only the energy you need. This is the basis for what we teach with Strala and how I try to live. Yoga teachers and healers burn out so easily. They often feel like they give so much of their energy and get tired and injured. There is magic in looking at how you move and how you are and dropping the extra effort. It’s so hard because we are trained to show our stress as a sign of success, when it’s really just wearing us out.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Be a good person. Listen to others. Create space that makes yourself and everyone feel good. Create good habits so you are productive and calm. People learn from how you are more than what you say.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.

Slow down. Soften. Feel. Respond.

We are so programmed to rush through things that we end up breaking ourselves and not being very effective. My little formula is slow down, soften, feel and respond. We can’t feel when we are tense and rigid and we need to feel if we want to be well. Finally we can respond to how we feel, instead of running on autopilot until a breakdown happens.

Make Self Care Time All the Time

How you move is how you are. This is a little mantra I love to remind myself to practice taking care of myself all the time, not just when there is 5 minutes of 30 minutes of self-care luxury time. Crawling up and down from the ground in the easiest way possible, sitting and standing without rushing, bending my knees and softening my body when I’m in conversation with myself or something are all simple practices to make self-care time all the time.

Get to know yourself

It’s so easy to sign up for someone else’s prescription and get disappointed when it doesn’t work for us. I love recruiting the ancient practices instead of a recent fad. When you have a grab bag like yoga, meditation, tai chi and ayurveda to dive into, you can experiment and find what works for you in this current phase of your life. Getting to know what you need is a superpower.

Soften your practice

Your practice won’t work unless it feels like you. It’s wild to understand this because most of us spend so much time trying to get good at yoga and meditation and it becomes a rigid practice to us. You don’t need to “double do” things. For example, you can place your body in a warrior 2 form and then really “fire it up” which simply creates tension in your whole self, or you can be in the form and soften yourself so your breath can move you, which puts yourself in the flow. Try it out and you’ll feel very different with each version.

Make your goal the process over a pose

This of course works for yoga and life, but the comparison is so easy to make once you try it out in practice. Like a wave, your inhale lifts you up. Your exhale brings you in the next direction. If your goal is the pose, it’s so easy to get in this mode of “just make it happen.” You can end up forcing yourself into a physical place that has no value. The value is in connection with yourself. The reward is when you make that good connection with yourself in the form, you’ll be able to do much more easily.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

That’s amazing you help people at such an important time of life. Seeing my parents and other relatives and friends living retired or semi-retired, I’m looking forward to this stage as well, mainly because I’ve learned that you can make your own way and continue to do what you love. This is so important for wellbeing. Staying active doing something you enjoy seems critical for retired people. Whether it’s yoga, boxing, gardening, or biking, now is the time to fill the space with adventure and self-discovery. Creating a routine that gives freedom and structure seems essential to a healthy balance. My uncle runs our family farm and will never “retire” in the traditional sense, but he structures his time in a beautiful way. He’s taught himself photography and practices yoga. It’s so great to find new things that draw your interests. I have a lot of examples of this around me and it’s inspirational.

How about teens and pre-teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre-teens to optimize their mental wellness?

Teenage and pre-teen years seem like the ideal time to begin yoga. I learned yoga around 17 and I remember thinking, wow, I could have really used this even more a few years earlier. I love sharing yoga with people this age. Connecting feelings to physicality, building confidence, healthy boundaries, self-identity, and a desire to learn about the self is a massive universe and this age group is ready for this vast world. What a tool use for life.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

My ballet teacher Rory Foster gave me a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi. It was the first book I read about yoga and this time in my life was a big turning point of self-discovery. For me, it’s more than the pages in the book, it’s the moment I remember Rory noticed I was interested in yoga, when he gave me the book, and how I felt reading it. I still have the copy and will always cherish it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I love this. Soften the movement. If we all softened many times a day, literally took softness breaks to slow down and connect with ourselves, I really would love to see the results of that.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

I’m not sure if it’s a quote but I learned about synchronicity from Deepak Chopra. I used to teach yoga to him and his wife Rita at his home most mornings when he was in NYC. A time I’m so grateful for. He was always so generous to me after our class. He would take a selfie of us, tweet it and ask me to retweet it. He believed in me and wanted others to also. Deepak would constantly introduce me to people for projects that he thought would be a good fit and he would casually throw in the word synchronicity. It really educated me to put a real life word and reality around this otherwise raw feeling of immense luck. It’s simply meant to be when it’s synchronistic. I love that.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

Tarastiles.com

Stralayoga.com

Instagram or Twitter for @tarastiles


Tara Stiles of Strala Yoga: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.