Category Archives: Health

Topics dealing with health

Fall health maintenance

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The first wealth is health.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century

Fall weather attire just before the temperatures dropped recently.

Fall weather attire just before the temperatures dropped recently.

Every fall I make appointments to keep up with my overall health maintenance. Because I had a couple of abnormal mammograms, the last one resulting in a biopsy two Halloweens ago, I’ve been recommended to get a mammogram every year. I don’t like the procedure and I ignored the letters that I got over the summer reminding me to make my appointment. Although I procrastinate, I understand the potential risks for me, which outweighs the discomfort, and so I dutifully have the procedure done every fall.

I also get a Pap smear every year. My nurse practitioner (NP) is quick to remind me that I only need to have it done every three years, per the 2012 guidelines released by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the American Cancer Society for women aged 21 to 65, which are based on current, available scientific evidence. (The guidelines recommend that women under 21 and over 65 need not take the test at all.) That may be the case, but here’s a cautionary tale: several years ago, the results of a Pap smear for Fiona, one of the moms in my mom’s group, revealed that she had cervical cancer. She went through chemotherapy, and I’m happy to say that she is in remission and looks great. At the time of Fiona’s diagnosis, I told her what my NP advised. And she responded, “Patty, if I had followed the guidelines and her advice, I’d be dead.”

A colorful bold "tribal" necklace serves as the centerpiece to pull the rest of the outfit together.

A colorful bold “tribal” necklace serves as the centerpiece to pull the rest of the outfit together.

Now, if I were told that I didn’t have to get a mammogram every year, I would run with it because not only would I be spared the extreme discomfort (given my lack of tissue) under the scanning machine but I would be spared the unnecessary radiation. While the sight of stirrups and speculum for the Pap smear procedure still makes me twitch, a quick swab doesn’t expose me to any harm. I suspect the issues in this case are the scarcity of resources, which is tied to lack of access to healthcare services, and spiraling costs. These issues are what I see every day in my profession, so the importance is not lost on me. Maybe this will be my last Pap smear until 2017. It’s a conversation I’ll have with my NP next month, although honestly I can’t think about the procedure without thinking about my friend Fiona.

Bold jewelry for a colorful fall: Anthropologie necklace, Lava 9 wooden earrings (Berkeley, CA), fan ring (Eskell, Chicago), and Angela Cummings sterling silver ring (Urbanity, Berkeley).

Bold jewelry for a colorful fall: Anthropologie necklace, Lava 9 wooden earrings (Berkeley, CA), fan ring (Eskell, Chicago), and Angela Cummings sterling silver ring (Urbanity, Berkeley).

I had my eye examination a couple of weeks ago after getting a notice that my last exam was two years ago. At that time, two years ago, I had racked up years of staring at my computer screen for hours at a stretch. My once 20-20 vision had succumbed to blurry vision at any distance long after I had shut down my laptop. I was especially worried when my vision was blurry while I was behind the wheel. In addition to the vagaries of technology, I thought age was another reason for my failing eyes. Two years ago, my new optometrist surprised me by assuring me that age was not a factor. The culprit was my computer screen and the remedy was taking frequent breaks to exercise my eye muscles, which were locked in to one position. I can’t say that I took frequent breaks, as the adage applies – habits are hard to break.

Since I shifted from writing most of the white papers and case studies on my job to overseeing a cadre of freelance writers, my eyesight has improved markedly because I’m not staring at the computer screen for long periods of time. My other tasks require me to be on the phone a lot for conference calls and meetings, so I can look away. What a difference that makes! I still require reading glasses while on the computer or reading, but the power – .125 – hasn’t changed at all. Bottom line is that I don’t have the blurry eyesight anymore at longer distances. At my most recent appointment, my younger optometrist pooh-poohed age as the reason for degrading eye sight – ah, how casual youth can be! And yet, after reading the eye charts and enduring sticky eye drops and the light-piercing tests, I was deemed to have 20-20 vision, which was refreshing news. So I offer this: If you have to be in front of a computer screen, it really does pay to look away often and to stand up and walk around (this is for relief for your back and legs), if moving around I the only way to stop staring at your screen.

Time to say goodbye to lightweight cotton separates, but we'll keep the jeans and throw on booties and boots as winter approaches.

Time to say goodbye to lightweight cotton separates, but we’ll keep the jeans and throw on booties and boots as winter approaches.

My next examination is for my teeth, my poor abused teeth. In my introduction to my dentist to the history of my teeth, I’ll quickly rush through, out of embarrassment, the pounds of sour Jelly Bellies I consumed during the four-month crunch of conference projects that went on for about five or so years. The sugar falsely kept me up for those all-nighters I pulled, and popping them into my mouth gave my twitching arm something to do while the rest of my body stressed out. I have learned my lesson when my gums started to bleed and stopped consuming them cold turkey, but I’m still dealing with the effects on my teeth.

We may have abused our bodies through the years in the name of work, family, and other demands, but we can stop the abuse and reverse – even if it’s just a fraction – the damage that we’ve wrought. They key is to recognize the destructive behavior and change it for the better with good habits. And the other key is to schedule regular check-ups to ensure that you’re staying on track with living a healthful life.

Portia Lee: compassionate acupuncturist

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Take care of yourself – you never know when the world will need you.
– Rabbi Hillel, Jewish religious leader, associated with the development of the Mishnah and the Talmud

I first came to Portia Lee (6931 Stockton Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530, 510.799.8788) in May of 2012, seeking relief from sciatica, which I had been suffering from since my first pregnancy 15 years ago. I was drawn to her focus on women’s health, including menstrual disorders, menopause, infertility, and prenatal and postnatal care. My sciatica has been under control ever since my visit, and I continue to see Portia for a number of physical ailments, which she has successfully treated or kept in check. More importantly, her compassion for her patients is the main reason I remain an enthusiastic patient.

Portia Lee, acupuncturist extraordinaire.

Portia Lee, acupuncturist extraordinaire.

Compassion and working with people
That deep compassion, nurtured when she was young, led her to where she is now. While her parents – her mother is a 4th generation Chinese and her father grew up in the Philippines – were not traditional, as a child Portia adopted her maternal grandmother’s use of herbs and herb-infused soups to treat illness and soon began creating concoctions with herbs and other plants. Although interested in acupuncture, having been treated as a teenager, she instead earned her degree in English literature and settled in Paris, working with students and professors as the cultural program director at the American University of Paris. “I knew I wanted to work with people,” she recalled.

After six years, however, Portia began researching acupuncture programs. When she returned to the States and began coursework toward her graduate degree at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco, she said, “I knew this was it – it was really resonating with me.” She received her MS in traditional Chinese Medicine and apprenticed for many years under Dr. Robert Johns, whom she credits for having enriched her practice.

Portia has been practicing acupuncture for 14 years, starting out in a chiropractor’s office after earning her license and then working with homeless people at drug rehabilitation clinics in San Francisco. She began her private practice on the side until she established her business in El Cerrito nine years ago. “What impassions me about my work is the people,” Portia said. “I feel that my work has very little to do with me and everything to do with my patients. I can be there, be open and listen, and somehow reflect in a positive way.”

Portia at her office.

Portia at her office.

Seeking self-awareness
and balance
Many of Portia’s clients deal with infertility or pain, each requiring different processes and treatments. Regardless of the case, Portia said, “What I hope to do is to bring about more self-awareness in a person. It’s something I’m constantly cultivating in myself as best as I can.” While we often don’t have control over many aspects of our lives, she countered, sometimes we can be empowered to believe that change is possible and thus shift things in a positive way. “Acupuncture needles are, perhaps, one way to do that,” Portia explained. “I think of them as a medium for creating positive energy, positive change in a small way that has a ripple effect.”

With acupuncture and the philosophy of Chinese medicine predicated on yin and yang, Portia hopes to help shift that state of being for patients who are dealing with imbalance in their lives or are in a state of discomfort. “I observe how events in life balance themselves out and everything is relative to each other – with varying degrees,” she said. “Understanding the philosophy has been very helpful to me because I work with balancing yin and yang and recognize it more in everyday events.”

Portia shared with me a Zen tale about a farmer and his son whose horse has run off. When a neighbor says to the farmer, “I’m so sorry, that’s awful,” the farmer responds, “”Well, maybe. We’ll see.” When the horse returns with a herd of horses, the neighbor exclaims how lucky the farmer is, but the farmer responds, “We’ll see. It could be good or bad.” The next day the farmer’s son breaks his leg while riding one of the horses. The neighbor gives his condolences to the farmer, and the farmer responds, “Well, we’ll see. It could be good or bad.” The following day the army comes to the farmer’s house to enlist his son, but his son’s broken leg prevents him from being conscripted. “Things ebb and flow,” Portia concluded. “You can never tell whether an event, which may at first seem awful, may lead to an opportunity that might have never arisen.”

A familiar figure at Portia's office - Merlin, the family dog.

A familiar figure at Portia’s office – Merlin, the family dog.

Finding balance in her own life
When she was in her twenties, Portia was a human version of the Eveready Bunny – she was always in motion. Before she left for Paris, her co-workers at the local public broadcasting station KQED wrote in her going-away card such sentiments as “I hope you slow down enough to actually be able to see some things,” Portia related and laughed. Her first acupuncturist warned her against pushing herself to the point of exhaustion. “I was the type of person who worked really hard, pushed really hard,” she recalled. Studying and becoming a practitioner of Chinese medicine changed Portia’s life and her outlook on her life. “Chinese medicine has made me a healthier person,” she said. “It has – hopefully – given me longevity because I’ve had to slow down to become more self-aware.”

Portia pointed out that our society is very yang – we are too focused on achieving and how much we can get done. “But you can’t do that without rest and recovery,” she insisted. In the past 14 years, she has learned to literally lie down and recuperate and reenergize, and just as important, not feel guilty about it. “In my work, I can’t be exhausted,” she said. “I need to rest and eat to replenish and refuel in order to be present and aware for people.”

For relaxation, Portia practices chi gong, which literally means life energy cultivation and is a form of standing meditation that helps harness “the infinite energy on this earth” to rebuild and restore oneself. Chi is the yang aspect of blood and gives the blood the ability to circulate through the body. “It’s often translated as energy, although that’s not its direct translation,” she explained. She and her husband also exercise together and check in with one another.

Empowering ourselves
I asked Portia for advice on how we can take care of ourselves outside of acupuncture visits. She advocates self-care in the form of a healthful diet, exercise, rest – both nighttime sleep and daytime nap – and time for oneself and family and friends. Portia counsels her patients to practice moderation, which all comes back to seeking self-awareness and balance. With dieting, for example, she points out that what we want and what we can’t have is merely an illusion. “If we can strip that illusion, we can advance from a state of deprivation to a state of empowerment,” she asserted. “The majority of people know what’s good for us and what’s not good for us. In a healthy state, we should be able to tolerate a little bit of everything. Being too restrictive can be just as unhealthy as allowing yourself anything you want. Again, it’s a matter of balance.”

Taking a break with Merlin.

Taking a break with Merlin.

Portia also entreats us to not take things too seriously. “Don’t worry about the past or the future – be in the moment,” she advised. “If you’re in the moment, everything is actually okay at this time.”

Portia’s optimism is uplifting. “As I age, I really feel like almost anything we want is really possible,” she said. “Not that we always have control over everything, but we do have more power over how our lives manifest and present than we give ourselves credit for.” Thus, an attitude of believing that anything’s possible opens the door for changes to any condition or situation. “It’s important to have that possibility,” Portia declared. “When you come to see somebody [for treatment], it’s possible to feel better. For prognoses, it can be true or it cannot be true; it can never be 100 percent.” Therefore, one must always foster hope.

In the end, it’s Portia’s heart – her compassion – that helps her patients to heal. She is an admirer of Gabor Maté, MD, a Hungarian-born Canadian physician whose body of work supports his belief in the connection between mind and body health. Maté, who specializes in the study and treatment of addiction, has shed light on patterns seen in certain diseases and painful conditions. He has noted that our culture is very addictive. “We’re all so similar in that way,” Portia pointed out, having come to that conclusion while working at the drug rehabilitation clinics. “Our society tends to think that if you’re a workaholic that’s a good trait, whereas if you’re a drug addict, that’s really bad,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re all human,” Portia said simply. “There’s very little difference when it really comes down to it. We need the compassion, understanding, and humanity in all of us.” Amen to that.

Overcoming overwhelmed

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To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.
– Leonard Bernstein, American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer, and pianist

A comfortable outfit to ward off feeling overwhelmed: cropped sweater over a high-low flowing blouse, dark-rinse jeans, and platform sandals.

A comfortable outfit to ward off feeling overwhelmed: cropped sweater over a high-low flowing blouse, dark-rinse jeans, and platform sandals.

The other day I was reading an online article on the financial planning site LearnVest. I stopped dead in my tracks upon reaching this quote: “I kept waking up in a panic at 4 A.M. worrying – not only about all of the stuff on my to-do list that I hadn’t done that day and how much more there was to do, but also whether I was missing my life even as I was living it.” Wait! Did LearnVest interview me? That was me to a T, I told myself. Maybe I wasn’t waking up in a panic, but for the past month, as I have attempted to go to bed earlier in the evening, I have been waking up earlier. It’s as if my internal clock cannot program more than six hours of sleep. I open my eyes and am wide awake anywhere between 4 and 5 in the morning. And I’m conscious of what I need to do, what deadline is before me that day. Some mornings I wake up with a mental check list of what is going to happen that day; other mornings, I am filled with panic about a deadline.

The person being interviewed was, in fact, Brigid Schulte, The Washington Post journalist and mother of two, who wrote what she calls an “accidental” book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has Time, because she wanted to research why she and many of us are running ourselves ragged. In her interview with LearnVest, Schulte said the rise in overworking ourselves began in the 1980s. She referenced Katrina Alcorn, author of Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink, who said that society expects us to work as if we have no children and to have families as if we have no work. I won’t go into the health consequences of being stressed out; we intuitively know the correlation between stress, overwork, and lack of sleep to chronic illness – we don’t need our fears to be validated with research and studies.

Abacus earrings (Portland, ME), Luxe Revival reclaimed vintage necklace (Uncommon Objects, Austin, TX), Kate Peterson Designs stack of rings (El Cerrito, CA), and beaded bracelets.

Abacus earrings (Portland, ME), Luxe Revival reclaimed vintage necklace (Uncommon Objects, Austin, TX), Kate Peterson Designs stack of rings (El Cerrito, CA), and beaded bracelets.

Schulte pointed out that in our rat-race society, we look down on the pursuit of leisure, which she says we equate to being lazy. “We clearly have lost all sense of its value as we’ve gotten wrapped up in busyness and the feeling that we always have to be ‘productive’ and ‘doing’ something,” she lamented. I slunk in my office chair, guilt warming over me. I’m one of those people touting always being productive. In my defense, I don’t believe in always doing something for the sake of being in motion, for the sake of not being at rest (on the couch, that is). After all, motion is only worth it if it enables you to check something off of your to-do list. Insert self-conscious laughter here. I’ll admit that for the longest stretch I could not sit down and read because there was way too much to do and I couldn’t bear for the world to keep moving on without me. As I have gotten older, the notion that I have less time to do what I need to do, which results in me going into overdrive, has interfered with what I actually need and want to do. Reading is an activity that makes me a better writer and enriches my mind on so many levels, but the act of sitting down and not producing something, not having something tangible to show for being at rest, if you will, was unacceptable to me. Thankfully, I have overcome that silliness, but it points to the affliction that we can’t seem to find a cure for.

Play with lengths, height, and color. You can venture into cropped top territory with sheer blouses.

Play with lengths, height, and color. You can venture into cropped top territory with sheer blouses.

Defining leisure
Schultze makes the case for embracing leisure, which is connected to creativity, problem solving, and the birth of civilization – the creation of art, philosophy, science, history, and so on. She wants us to recapture the value of play and break the bonds of stress and overwork. That to-do list? Don’t do it. In fact, don’t make a to-do list. That’s what I got from the interview. I’m sure the book has other tangible best practices. But I don’t have time to read it. I already know why I’m overwhelmed. I understand what I can and can’t change, even if that understanding doesn’t bring full-blown serenity. I have to work full-time for the time being, but I don’t have to let job demands kill me. If sleep deprivation negatively impacts my productivity and quality of my day job, then I make the decision to get more hours of sleep. It took a while to come to that realization and it took failing health to get to that point, but I learned my lesson. Telling me to chuck my to-do list is not an option. Now that I’m well rested most of the time, I get a lot more done. When I see all those check marks on my to-do list, I am buoyed and the sense of being overwhelmed is greatly mitigated. And I end up having “free” time, otherwise known as leisure time.

But let’s define leisure. If you had free time, defined as time in which you are not doing work for your day job, whatever that may be, what would you do with it? Some people may not think weeding is leisure, but when I am in my side yard weeding and pruning, I enter a Zen-like existence that actually insulates me from the worries that are waiting for me in my home office. It’s just me and the garden, which offers me both singular focus and an openness that allows my mind to wander. I welcome physical activity, and I feel a sense of accomplishment when I stand up and survey my tidy yard.

Tie colors together with splashy platform sandals and bring in vintage touches (reclaimed vintage matchbox necklace and my own early 1990s vintage Talbots equestrian-style crossbody bag.

Tie colors together with splashy platform sandals and bring in vintage touches (reclaimed vintage matchbox necklace and my own early 1990s vintage Talbots equestrian-style crossbody bag.

If I didn’t have my blog and my fiction writing, I would have more time to garden and to organize my disorganized home. I’d go to more of my kids’ sporting events. I’d be able to watch television – these days mostly just Major League Baseball games – but without multi-tasking – ironing, paying bills and reconciling check registers, responding to e-mails. I would just sit and watch. Am I sad that I can’t do that? I sneak in singularly focused activities every once in a while. But as Robert Frost, one of my favorite poets, wrote in his famous poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, “But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep.” So long as they are the things I really want to do, I am okay with staying up a little longer than I should, multi-tasking to get them done. So long as what is overwhelming me is about what I want to do – in my current case it is feeling overwhelmed at starting a new novel – and I take it as a call to action, I can live with that. By all means, mitigate being overwhelmed at work, but  make sure that what you are doing with the rest of your day, your life, is what you want to do and what brings you joy.

When in Vegas: Get happy, Part 1

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Happiness is a choice.
– Shawn Achor, social psychologist and author

My room with a view at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

My room with a view at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

One of the perks of covering industry conferences for my work is getting to listen to the keynote speakers. In the past nine years, I’ve been fortunate to have a chance to hear Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Freakonomics author and rogue economist Steven Levitt, journalist and New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande, surgeon and New Yorker medical writer. I was in Las Vegas the past three days for a supply-chain management conference, and I had the serendipitous pleasure of listening to and writing about opening keynote speaker Shawn Achor.

Why serendipitous? Early last week I was feeling a bit down about having to endure the long and drawn-out process of sending out queries and waiting to hear back from literary agents. And even though I had just come off of a week devoted to working on my second novel (but with liberal interruptions from work), I was bemoaning how overwhelmed I felt about the amount of research the second novel requires and my lack of big chunks of time – well, time, period – to read, research, sketch and plan, and start writing. Meanwhile at work, I had to draft conference session summaries ahead of the actual conference. One of my assignments was to summarize Shawn Achor’s opening keynote based on a long bio that I was given. At the time, I had no idea who he was.

Shawn Achor's opening keynote.

Shawn Achor’s opening keynote.

For those who have never heard of him, Shawn Achor is a social psychologist and author of the New York Times best-selling books The Happiness Advantage (2010) and Before Happiness (2013) and host of the PBS special The Happiness Advantage with Shawn Achor. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness and success, and his positive psychology lecture is the most popular class at Harvard University, where he teaches. He founded GoodThinkInc. in 2007 to share his research on happiness, which has earned him numerous accolades, including gracing the cover of Harvard Business Review.

Achor presented a TED talk that garnered four million views and his PBS-aired lecture was seen by millions. He has lectured or researched in more than 50 countries, with his audiences including Chinese CEOs and South African school children. He worked with the U.S. Department of Health to promote happiness and the National MS Society and Genzyme in 2012 on their Everyday Matters campaign to show how happiness is a choice for chronically ill patients. He earned his master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist ethics, conducts psychology research on happiness and organizational achievement in collaboration with Yale University and the Institute for Applied Positive Research, and teaches in the Advanced Management Program at Wharton Business School. I’ve added him as another multi-talented person to admire, next to John Halamka.

My hotel floor hallway, reminiscent of The Shining....

My hotel floor hallway, reminiscent of The Shining….

Choosing happiness
This is Achor’s second appearance at this conference. Two years ago, he shared his research on the connection between happiness and success, which was the topic of his first book. In his opening keynote this year, Achor discussed the precursors to happiness and success, which he chronicles in Before Happiness, and highlighted what we need to change in our reality in order for us to have long-term, sustainable happiness, success, creativity, and higher levels of performance.

While humans have genetic predispositions, Achor emphasizes that “happiness can be a choice.” According to Achor, we need to get the human brain to change and recharge through activities such as activating our “mirror neurons” that in turn increase our levels of dopamine, which raises our level of happiness and joy. For example, when someone smiles at you, mirror neurons in the brain are activated, causing you to smile. Achor worked with New Orleans hospitals post-Katrina to reverse the view of hospitals as places of sickness and disease. Other industry business models were reviewed, in particular, the five-star hotel experience for customer service – called the 10-5 way – developed by the Ritz-Carlton. When patrons are within 10 feet, staff members offer them a smile. When they are within five feet, staff members say hello.

The Bellagio Gardens, near Michael Mina's restaurant, where me and my team dined on "innovative seafood."

The Bellagio Gardens, near Michael Mina’s restaurant, where my team and I dined on “innovative seafood.”

Within six months of implementing the 10-5 way, a group of hospitals reported a significant rise in the number of unique patient visits, a spike in the likelihood of patients to refer the facility based on the quality of care they received, and high levels of physician engagement. A one-second behavioral change created multiple quantitative benefits, but the intangible and qualitative benefit – happier patients and staff – is arguably the most important one. “We are socialized for reciprocation,” Achor explained. Despite our individuality, human brains are wirelessly connected and through continuous loops of creating positive experiences, humans can experience “neuroplasticity,” which allows us to change our behavior.

On the flip side, being around stress and negativity is comparable to inhaling second-hand smoke, according to Achor. Studies have been conducted, for example, in which a researcher stood among 15 strangers in an airport or train station. The researcher began nervously bouncing in place, tapping his foot and constantly looking at his watch. Within two minutes, between seven to 12 people on average began to unconsciously mimic his behavior. Achor encouraged the audience to try out the experiment at the Vegas airport on our way home, joking that we would be spreading stress and negativity.

The positive, engaged brain
The Harvard Business Journal article, in which Achor was profiled, concluded that “the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy is a positive, engaged brain.” Gallop found that only 25 percent of our job successes is based on our intelligence and technical skills. Three other elements comprise the remaining 75 percent – your optimism or the belief that your behavior matters; the breadth, depth, and meaning of your social support network and relationships; and lastly, the way you perceive stress. Today, at a time when many industries, including healthcare, are undergoing significant changes and transformations, how do we remain resilient, especially when change is often perceived as a threat, which in turn creates stress?

A strapless H&M dress and chunky heels worthy of Vegas.

A strapless H&M dress and chunky heels worthy of Vegas.

While stress creates havoc mentally, emotionally, and physically, moderate to high levels of stress have also been known to induce the body to release growth hormones that actually rebuild cells, create a robust immune system, deepen our memory, speed up cognitive processes, and deepen our social bonds. The military, Achor pointed out, uses the boot camp to “onboard” its recruits to prepare for combat. The situational stress creates “a shared meaningful narrative” that bonds the recruits. “That’s the message we don’t get amid massive change,” Achor said. Stress can be a “growth-producing opportunity” and the “glue that keeps people and organizations together for decades.”

While, obviously, people respond to stress differently, Achor contends that we can learn how to view stress in a positive way. During the banking crisis, UBS employees taking an online course saw YouTube videos that offered two different paths to handling stress – fight or flee from threats or understand the effects of stress on the human body and leverage that knowledge to treat stress as an enhancement. Six weeks later, employee stress levels remained the same. According to a self-reported survey, however, 23 percent of the employees reported a drop in health-related symptoms usually related to stress and 30 percent of them experienced an increase in their productivity. Stress is inevitable, but negative effects on the human body are not, Achor stressed. (This reminds me of the Buddhist adage, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”) We can view changes that are occurring in the world as challenges and not threats.

Carmela Rose necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA), Sundance stack of rings, Personal Pizazz earrings (Berkeley, CA), sterling silver cuff (Portland, ME), and my 50th birthday present from David, Tiffany ring (Las Vegas).

Carmela Rose necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA), Sundance stack of rings, Personal Pizazz earrings (Berkeley, CA), Se Vende Hill Tribe sterling silver cuff (Portland, ME), and one of my 50th birthday presents from David, Tiffany ring (Las Vegas).

Trumping nature and nurture
Many people assume we are hardwired by nature and molded by our early years, and therefore, the average person doesn’t fight their genes, which studies have shown. A researcher who was part of a well-known study of identical twins found that 80 percent of long-term happiness is predicted by one’s genes (he has since recanted that finding, according to Achor). While the researcher was only half-right, Achor contends that he is wholly wrong. One woman who was an identical twin told Achor that while both she and her twin had grown up very negative she was more optimistic than her twin. She had been involved in a terrible car accident as a teenager. She thought she was going to die but didn’t, which instilled in her a new outlook on life. What’s incredible, Achor notes, is that it wasn’t a positive change but post-traumatic growth that caused her to deviate from her genetic set point. “If we can change for the better with trauma, how much so can we change with something positive?” he offered to us.

“People think happiness is complacency, so we stop,” Achor noted. “Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; happiness is the realization that we actually can.” He defines happiness in terms of positive psychology, based on the ancient Greeks, and informed by Christian and Buddhist ethics, which he studied at Harvard’s Divinity School: “Happiness is the joy that we feel striving toward our potential.” If happiness is just pleasure, it’s short lived and it dies almost immediately, Achor said. If “happiness” doesn’t have a meaning component, it can’t be sustained. “But joy is something you can experience in the midst of the ups and downs of life,” he declared. “It’s on the way toward potential, so it’s growth-producing. It’s not stagnating, which is what complacency actually is.”

Change your mind set, look at the world differently
Achor is on a mission to get people to stop looking at happiness in terms of optimism and pessimism and instead to look at the world differently. Rather than see a glass as half-empty or half-full, for example, be creative in how we view our world and envision a pitcher full of water next to the glass. Expand your world. As you face the changes in your life, positive or negative, expend energy looking for ways to fill up the glass, which Achor calls an act of positive genius.

Silver and onyx accessories for black and cream.

Sterling silver and onyx accessories against black and cream.

Positive genius can be applied to multiple situations and groups of people, which can lead to widespread positive changes in, for example, education and the military. Studies were conducted in which students were given articles to read before having to complete a cognitive task. Half the class read an article about how intelligence is fixed. The other half read an article that stated that intelligence is malleable – people can change their intelligence all the time and can have different intelligence from one year over the previous year. After the students who read the latter article took the test, the studies found that, in aggregate, even the students with higher IQs did better on their cognitive tasks. They had the same IQs and genes going into the experiment, but they experienced a dramatic deviation based on the belief that change is possible.

Another study was conducted with soldiers who had to scale steep hills with heavy backpacks. One group of soldiers was primed to believe that change was possible and they became more positive about the task ahead of them. Once they scaled the hills and were asked to rate their experience, they deemed the hills as being lower and the weight of the backpacks as being lighter than they had anticipated. “What’s amazing is that the optimists were actually realists,” Achor said. “They were pretty accurate in terms of the approximation of the weight and the hills to be.” The other set of soldiers who were primed for a negative experience perceived the hills to be steeper and their backpacks heavier. According to the study, these soldiers’ brains “showed” them pictures of larger hills and heavier backpacks, which caused them to believe that behavior matters less and, as a result, they were more fatigued.

Lastly, Achor presented the findings by Harvard University social psychologist Ellen Langer, who conducted a study in 1979 of 75-year-old men on a week-long retreat. They were “transported” back to the year 1959; the only reading material at the retreat were magazines and newspapers from that year, they wore ID badges with their photos as 55-year-olds, and they could only talk about their lives up to that year. A separate group of 75-year-olds participated in a retreat for the current year of 1979. Langer wanted to prove a revolutionary hypothesis – that the aging process can be reversed if the mindset is changed. She measured all the things we think about that are unchangeable about aging – including strength, posture, and flexibility – at the beginning and conclusion of the retreat for both groups.

Next time I'm in Vegas, I'll pack this splashy dress.

Next time I’m in Vegas, I’ll pack this splashy dress.

In the aggregate, the 1959 group recorded a 10 percent improvement in eyesight and a 50 percent in improvement in memory. Recruited “naïve readers” were asked to examine photos taken before and after the retreat. They rated the 1959 group as looking three years younger in their after-retreat photos. Langer’s research revealed that the aging process is mediated by the way we perceive the world. “If we think about the world in terms of threats, if we think that we can’t change our intelligence, creativity, or the obstacles in front of us, or even the aging process, we start to see those patterns start to bear out,” Achor said.

But what if we approached stressful events as opportunities for growth and we believe that we can change and we can look at the world differently to our advantage? Achor entreats us to do so. Game on.

Stay tuned for Part II of choosing happiness on Friday.

Earth Day: honor your mother

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You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. – Dame Jane Goodall, British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace

H&M duster from their Conscious Collection and an antique Edwardian handbag from the Brooklyn Flea Market.

Being green with fashion: H&M duster from their Conscious Collection and an antique Edwardian handbag from the Brooklyn Flea Market.

Our household has always been good about not being wasteful. Well, we preach that way of life to our kids, scolding them when they take long showers or reminding them to compost the scraps of food left on their plates. But I can’t say for certain that they are mindful when we’re not around. One hopes that growing up with this philosophy carries over into their adult lives. I developed this habit because my parents made sure we weren’t wasteful – not because they were environmentalists but because they came from a country in which you didn’t have much so you didn’t waste much. I remember when we visited the Philippines for my second and last trip, when I was an undergraduate in December 1985. Toilet paper was in short supply and you were given one napkin at restaurants, which were tiny, thin squares, and none at all at mealtimes in the home. This made a lasting impression on me. (At our home, we use cloth napkins, and when the kids were babies, we used cloth diapers.)

Adornments: Double-strand bracelet by Anja Hakoshima, Sundance stack of rings, Eskell fan ring (Chicago), Carmela Rose earrings and short necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA), Kate Peterson necklace (El Cerrito, CA), and Lava 9 sterling silver cicada long necklace (Berkeley, CA).

Adornments: Delicate double-strand bracelet by Anja Hakoshima, Sundance stack of rings, Eskell Art Deco fan ring (Chicago), Carmela Rose earrings and short necklace (Jenny K, El Cerrito, CA), Kate Peterson long necklace with labradorite stones (El Cerrito, CA), and Lava 9 sterling silver cicada long necklace (Berkeley, CA).

Although we reduce, reuse, and recycle as much as we can, I always believe there’s more that we can do. For instance, instead of bringing store-bought bottled water to the ballparks and soccer fields, we bring our BPA-free water bottles. Though it’s convenient to reach for bottled water in airports and stores, especially when I’m lazy or in a rush, I make a conscious decision to forego bottled water. The less plastic, the better.

I joke with Isabella that she will not have to buy any clothes or jewelry because she will inherit everything from me, and until then she can always borrow mostly anything from me. She doesn’t fully realize what this means, but to me, it means not having to buy a lot of “fast fashion” that won’t last long or stay in style. And it will save both of us a lot of money. She’ll have vintage clothing and jewelry at her fingertips, and I’m discovering how green it is to buy vintage or reclaimed vintage pieces, which cuts down on buying clothing that had to be manufactured.

Pleated duster made elegant by lace and metallic pointy pumps.

Pleated duster made elegant by lace and metallic pointy pumps.

I was reading an article last month, though I can’t seem to find it for reference, about how the biggest negative impact on the environment that clothes create is the laundering of them. I was surprised by this fact, as I assumed that the manufacturing process expended a lot of resources and was therefore the most harmful aspect of clothes, as far as the environment was concerned. The author advised readers to forego washing items after one use, especially for dry cleaning. I engage in this practice more so because I’m lazy about laundering and hate expensive dry cleaning, but it’s nice to add that it’s better for the environment, too.

We are lucky to live in an urban/suburban area, near various modes of public transportation, the Bay Area Rapid Transit or BART, casual carpool, and AC transit buses. I work at home, so my carbon footprint is even smaller. We are also lucky to be within walking distance of our elementary, middle, and high schools, so the kids walk to school, with me walking Isabella to school, unless it’s raining or we are running very late. Hence, we don’t care that much about our cars, which are both Toyotas and by society’s standards, ancient ones at that. Our older car is 20 years old. We’ve been receiving letters from some agency, offering us a thousand dollars to get our polluting car off the road. I told the mechanic who was running a smog test on the Corolla a few months ago. He scoffed; the car was fine, passed the smog test with flying colors, and would last for a long time. It was better to keep it going than to have it rust in some junkyard, he told me. Point taken.

Textures: pleats, lace, and ribbed knit.

Textures: delicate rivulets of pleats, lace, and ribbed knit.

We try to find more ways to be better conservationists, but I think the most important thing we can do is to keep inspiring our kids, the next generation, to honor Mother Earth. The kids are old enough now that they don’t buy my threat that wasting energy is melting the ice in the North Pole and therefore shrinking the polar bears’ habitat. It used to work. It’s not hard to show them things like the dirty air in the Central Valley when we visit my hometown, how you can’t see the foothills anymore because of the smog from Los Angeles that has been trapped in the valley and building up for decades. I tell them that the Central Valley region has the highest rate of asthma for children in the state and probably one of the highest in the country. Those facts hit closer to home. They make a bigger impact.

The biggest impact we can make is to spread the word of protecting our world and its resources. It starts in the home, in our neighborhood and community, and on and on. Happy Earth Day! How will you celebrate today?

Antique, reclaimed vintage, and contemporary adornments.

Antique, reclaimed vintage, and contemporary adornments.

Sleep experiment: in bed by 10PM

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Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.
– Mahatma Gandhi

Pajama-style outfits are still trending. Regal navy with cream piping is a more subdued and classical version.

Pajama-style outfits are still trending. Regal navy with cream piping is a more subdued and classical version.

I’ve been writing about healthcare information technology since 2003, and in that time I’ve had the honor of learning and writing about (and meeting thrice fleetingly) an industry icon who to me is today’s version of the Renaissance Man. John Halamka, MD, has more titles than a dozen people put together. He’s chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network, co-chair of the HIT (Healthcare Information Technology) Standards Committee, professor at Harvard Medical School, practicing emergency physician, author, blogger (Life as a Healthcare CIO), board member of a nonprofit established by the Veterans Affairs Department, mushroom and poisonous plant expert to the Regional Center for Poison Control and Prevention, and farmer, who recently finished building a bridge and pier on his farm.

I have to catch my breath now. I have seen Dr. Halamka in action at conferences. He’s texting and reading e-mails while waiting his turn to speak at panel presentations, and completely smashing what one physician told me years ago that men’s brains are not built to be able to multi-task like women’s brains apparently are. When he breezed into our news room at our annual conference some years back, and everyone was in awe of everything that he does in so little time, he announced that he gets by on average on four hours of sleep. Ah-hah! I told myself. That’s his secret. He must possess that rare genetic mutation that was discovered in 2009. Sleep researchers found two DNA samples from two sleep study participants that had abnormal copies of the DEC2 gene, which affects circadian rhythms. These two women sleep study participants got by on six hours of sleep, going to be between 10PM and 10:30PM and getting up refreshed around 4AM to 4:30AM, ready to start their day.

Comfortable, easy styling with glittery jewels, clutch, and metallic pumps.

Comfortable, easy styling with glittery jewels, clutch, and metallic pumps.

For the longest time, I have been getting by on less than the suggested eight hours of sleep. Sleep deprivation was my middle name among my friends. It was the only way I could do everything I needed to do – get my work done for my day job, raise kids, housekeeping, get to my novel, do the volunteering for my kids’ schools, and more recently blog. I routinely went to bed around two and got up at six. During the busy season at work, I would routinely pull all-nighters and sometimes 48-hour work days and not show any signs of wear and tear the following day. And since that rare genetic mutation was discovered, I thought I, too, was in possession of that abnormal gene.

And then I got older and in the last two years I started feeling fatigued all the time. I would wake up exhausted. I thought to myself that it must be I was carrying my stress into my sleep. If only my four to six hours of sleep were restful and uninterrupted, I would be fine. I thought older people needed less sleep, so what was my problem? I thought I must be “going through the changes” and once that was over I would be fine. But I didn’t have years to endure to get back to my normal pattern. In addition to not getting restful sleep, it must be the food I’m eating, I deduced. My body must be changing and reacting to foods I have been eating for years. A couple of Christmases ago, I thumbed through a book that my brother-in-law had gotten for David’s parents called Wheat Belly. That’s it! I told myself. Gluten must be the source of my fatigue! I need to start doing food elimination to discover the culprit, if it’s not indeed gluten.

Dramatic Ben-Amun drop earrings (Personal Pizazz, Berkeley, CA) and my mom's ring.

Dramatic Ben-Amun drop earrings (Personal Pizazz, Berkeley, CA) and my mom’s ring.

A few months ago, I was telling my friend and mom’s group member, Mimi, about my fatigue and tracing it to food, and she didn’t bat an eyelash as she told me in her usual frank tone of voice, “How about getting enough sleep?” I tried to brush her off. I’m used to getting by on less sleep than most people. But I’m realizing it’s not true. And if a study published in December 2013 by Duke University researchers is any indication, I need to change my dangerous ways. The study revealed that women need more sleep than men and that the amount of sleep is more closely tied to health issues for women than it is for men. I know that sleep deprivation, especially long-term, damages the brain to the point that it resembles a football player’s brain that has suffered several concussions. Heart disease, blood clots, stroke, depression – stop! I didn’t want to hear any more of what I was doing to my body! I couldn’t ignore it any longer.

In the last few weeks, especially, I have been feeling exhausted upon waking up every morning – not just every other morning, as has been the case for several months. I’d been told that women should go to bed around 10PM because the two hours between 10PM and midnight were critical for women to get sleep. But, I sputtered upon hearing that fact, those two hours are when I’m full-bore doing multiple things – blogging, writing, folding laundry, catching up. But in recent weeks I have noticed how it is taking me twice as long to do anything. Those Duke University researchers discussed how women, who are natural multi-taskers, need their brains, particularly the cortex, which is the seat of memory, language, thought, and so on, to go into recovery mode so they could function properly the next day. What good was I if I had to take twice as long to work on my novel or blog? Pushing through was simply not going to work anymore.

Simple, easy, and comfortable - yet elegant.

Simple, easy, and comfortable – yet elegant.

So I began my sleep experiment earlier this week. Get to bed by 10PM and see what happens. I have to admit that I have not felt exhausted every morning. I didn’t manage to be in bed by 10PM two nights this week. I got to bed at 10:30PM one night and 11PM another night. The onset of fatigue on some of those days didn’t hit until midday. I was greatly encouraged by these early results. Some nights my body was ready to drop off to sleep that early. Other nights I tossed around, understanding that my body was not used to going to bed so early.

But I’m more alert and more productive during the day. I’m heartened by that immediate change. I tell myself that I’ll be able to get more done when rested than I would if I stick to my old ways. I have always prided myself on being healthful. Eat healthfully. Check. Exercise regularly. Check. I have never been good about sleep; sometimes, wrongly, wearing sleep deprivation like a badge of honor. I’ve thrown the badge away. While I wish I could be my version of Dr. Halamka, I realize I need to take care of my health first. The rest will come later.

Close-up: Only a few sparkling touches needed to complete this outfit.

Close-up: Only a few sparkling touches needed to complete this outfit.