We all know that living under stressful conditions has serious emotional, even physical, consequences. So why do we have so much trouble taking action to reduce our stress levels and improve our lives?

Researchers at Yale University finally have the answer. They found that stress reduces the volume of grey matter in the areas of the brain responsible for self-control.

So experiencing stress actually makes it more difficult to deal with future stress because it diminishes your ability to take control of the situation, manage your stress and keep things from getting out of control.

A vicious cycle if there ever was one.

But don’t be disheartened. It’s not impossible to reduce your stress levels; you just need to make managing stress a higher priority if you want to reverse this effect. The sooner you start managing your stress effectively, the easier it will be to keep unexpected stress from causing damage in the future.

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” –William James

Luckily, the plasticity of the brain allows it to mold, change, and rebuild damaged areas as you practice new behaviors. So implementing healthy stress-relieving techniques can train your brain to handle stress more effectively and decrease the likelihood of ill effects from stress in the future.

Here are seven strategies to help you fix your brain and keep your stress under control:

1. Say No

Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major challenge for many people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.

2. Disconnect

Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment.

Taking regular time off the grid helps you to keep your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that something as simple as a weekend email break can lower stress levels.

If detaching yourself from work-related communication on weekday evenings is too big a challenge, then how about the weekend? Choose blocks of time where you will cut the cord and go offline. You’ll be amazed by how refreshing these breaks are and how they reduce stress by putting a mental recharge into your weekly schedule.

If you are worried about the negative repercussions of taking this step, try first doing it at times you are unlikely to be contacted—maybe Sunday morning. As you grow more comfortable with this, and as your coworkers begin to accept the time you spend offline, gradually expand the amount of time you spend away from technology.

3. Neutralize Toxic People

Dealing with difficult people is frustrating, exhausting, and highly stressful for most. You can control your interactions with toxic people by keeping your feelings in check. When you need to confront a toxic person, approach the situation rationally. Identify your own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. Also, consider the difficult person’s standpoint and perspective so that you can find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, you can take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring you down.

4. Don’t Hold Grudges

The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but can also improve your health.

5. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a simple, research-supported form of meditation that is an effective way to gain control of unruly thoughts and behaviors. People who practice mindfulness regularly are more focused, even when they are not meditating. It is an excellent technique to help reduce stress because it allows you to reduce the feeling of being out of control. Essentially, mindfulness helps you stop jumping from one thought to the next, which keeps you from ruminating on negative thoughts. Overall, it’s a great way to make it through your busy day in a calm and productive manner.

 6. Put Things In Perspective

Our worries often come from our own skewed perception of events. So before you spend too much time dwelling on what your boss said during the last staff meeting, take a minute to put the situation in perspective. If you aren’t sure when you need to do this, try looking for clues that your anxiety may not be proportional to the stressor. If you are thinking in broad sweeping statements like “Everything is going wrong” or “Nothing will work out” then you need to reframe the situation. A great way to correct this unproductive thought pattern is to list the specific things that actually are going wrong or not working out. Most likely you will come up with just one or two things—not everything. The key to keeping your cool is to remember that your feelings are exaggerating the situation and the scope of the stressor is much more limited than it might appear.

7. Use Your Support System

It’s tempting, yet entirely ineffective, to attempt tackling everything by yourself. To be calm and productive you need to recognize your weaknesses and ask for help when you need it. This means tapping into your support system when a situation is challenging enough for you to feel overwhelmed.

What’s so bad about carbs?

By now we’re all well aware of the low-carb diet craze, and many have tried to skip the bread from time to time, often with mixed results. Most of us are still left asking:

What exactly is all the fuss about?

When you munch on a muffin, here’s what happens to the carbs that you just put in your mouth: they’re converted into glucose, which is essentially the body’s energy. The problem is that there’s only so much glucose that you actually need. The rest is converted into glycogen and stored in the liver and in your muscles. When glycogen storage reaches full capacity, all the extra carbs are converted into fat.

 How Much is Too Much?

When it comes to carbs, there’s a range, depending on several factors. First and most importantly, how much time you’re putting in on a treadmill or at the gym is crucial. An elite athlete needs more carbs to fuel her lifestyle than someone who spends most of her day sitting at a computer.

Here’s a ballpark range of what’s appropriate, safe and effective, depending on your level of activity:

0-50g Carbs Per Day: Accelerated Fat Burning Zone

If you’re trying to lose a lot of water weight in a couple days, cut your carbs below 50/day. This isn’t easy to do, and very restrictive, but any professional model or bodybuilder knows it’s the fastest way to lean out in a short amount of time.

This is when your body goes into ketosis, a metabolic state where you’re burning your own fat as a main source of energy. But ketosis doesn’t come without its risks – so talk to your doctor before making any major changes in your diet.

50-100g Carbs Per Day: Weight Loss Zone

If you’re staying in this range, chances are good that you’ll achieve healthy weight loss.

I like the way my friend Mark Cisson (creator of the popular blog Mark’s Daily Apple) describes this range: “The primal sweet spot for effortless weight loss.”

100-150g Carbs Per Day: Weight Maintenance Zone

This supports healthy weight maintenance, because it allows optimal fat-burning and muscle development based on body weight and activity. Here, you get to enjoy ample amounts of vegetables and fruits while avoiding grains and sugars.

150-300g Carbs Per Day: Weight Gain Zone

Even though this is represents the low end of a typical American’s daily carb intake, the truth is that this number can lead to gradual weight gain (depending on the types of carbs you’re eating, and your activity level).

Over 300g Carbs Per Day: DANGER Zone!

If you’re eating in this range, you’re almost guaranteed to experience continuous weight gain. Mark aptly describes this as “The Danger Zone.”

How to Read Your Carb Label:

The carbohydrate count of the food you eat is usually right there in plain black lettering. If it contains over 30 grams in a small serving, with little to no fiber content, you might want to try a healthier option. Remember, the higher that fiber count is within those carbs, the better. (I could go on about the benefits of fiber, but that’s for another newsletter. For now, just know: Carbs with a high fiber content are generally considered the “good carbs.”)

A Carb Cutter’s Cheat Sheet

Here are a few carb-count examples of some typical foods:

1 Slice of whole wheat bread: 13-16 g/slice
1 can of soda: 35.6 g
1 slice of chocolate cake: 35 g
Mocha Frappucino: 44 g
Cinnamon Raisin Bagel: 65.1 g
1/2 cup of All Bran Cereal: 23.5 g
8 oz. Low-fat Blueberry Yogurt: 48 g

For comparison, here are some carbs that are combined with a little more fiber, which helps you digest them more slowly, and doesn’t create that unfavorable blood sugar spike (which leads to weight gain) caused by other carbs:

1/2 cup of Oatmeal: 12 g (2g of fiber)
1 small Banana: 23.1 g (2.6g of fiber)
1 medium Apple: 19 g (1.7g of fiber)
8 Asparagus Spears: 5.2 g (2.4g of fiber)
1/2 cup of Steamed Kale: 3.6 g (1.3g of fiber)

Take The Next Step:

Due to years of consuming a diet full of processed carbs, most people have grown quite insensitive to one of the most important hormones in our body—a hormone that can either be a huge asset to your body transformation goals, or a total fat loss and health-derailing nightmare.

Its name is insulin.

And insulin’s function is to help your body keep blood sugar at bay, clear it quickly from your bloodstream after a carbohydrate meal, and (hopefully) shuttle that blood sugar to muscle tissue for energy instead of fat.

I say “hopefully” because that’s actually the exact opposite of what occurs when most people eat carbs. Going back to insulin sensitivity and carbohydrate tolerance, due to a diet full of processed, insulin–and blood–sugar-spiking carbohydrates, most folks are suffering from some level of insulin resistance, a state in which insulin is no longer able to efficiently remove blood sugar from the blood stream.

The result? Dramatically reduced fat burning and increased fat storage.

Break out your blender and grab some ice! This lemonade-inspired smoothie is decadent, and is the perfect chilling concoction to bring to a pool on a warm, summer day.

The ruby red raspberries in this shake are packed with Vitamin C, quercetin and gallic acid that fight against cancer, heart and circulatory disease and age-related decline.

Ready for a sweet treat?

Ingredients:
1 serving vanilla protein powder
1/4 c. unsweetened coconut water
3/4 c. water
1 freshly-squeezed lemon
1 cup frozen raspberries
1 tsp chia seeds

IT’S TIME TO U-TURN YOUR WORKOUT with this 15-min density circuit to tone every inch of your body.

What’s a “density circuit?” It means that you include just a few moves in your circuit, so you can pack a lot of movement into your 15 minutes!

Doing this lets your body train longer with less fatigue and more movement quality. And you know what that means…the more moves you can fit in during a 15-minute pre-shower workout, the better your metabolism-boosting results.

What makes the workout a U-Turn?

You start the workout off by doing 5 moves in sequential order. For the next round, you reverse the order, or in other words, you U-Turn.

Here’s how it works..

1. Complete 15 reps of each move
2. Do two rounds. Here’s where the U-Turn comes in…For the 1st round, complete moves #1-5. For the second round, do the sequence backwards and complete moves #5-1
3. Repeat for 15 minutes!

1. Start in plank position, but this time, rest on your elbows instead of your hands. Be sure to keep the shoulders depressed back and down and the neck nice and long throughout the movement.
2. Keeping your abs engaged, slowly swivel the hips underneath you to the right. Feel your obliques driving this motion as you swivel to the other side with a slow, controlled motion.

1. Holding a dumbbell in each hand, step your left foot directly behind you, taking a wide stance, and bend your legs, lowering your torso down into a lunge. Be sure and maintain that core stability to prevent injury.
2. While in lunge position, keep your shoulders over your hips, back knee slightly bent, front knee in alignment with your front toes, shoulders back and down.
3. Feel your weight in your right (front) heel as you push yourself to standing.
4. As you return to standing, do a tricep kickback: Reach your arms back behind you and extend, feeling a squeeze in the tricep.

1. Stand with dumbbells in each hand in hammerhead position, with palms facing each other.
2. Step out to the right side, with a wide stance. Bend the right leg and lower your hips down as you keep the left leg straight out to the side, feeling a slight stretch in the left inner thigh.
3. Pressing off the right foot, keeping your core engaged, push yourself back up to standing.
4. As you return to standing, curl the weights up toward your shoulders, squeezing the muscles on the front of the arms for a bicep curl.

1. Rest dumbbells on your hips as you place your left foot behind you. Instead of stepping directly back, the left foot should move diagonally back, with the back knee bending down directly outside the right foot
2. Fire up the core muscles as you squat down with the right leg, feeling the emphasis on your right glute (weight placed firmly in the right heel) as the left foot lightly supports you.
3. As you return to standing, bring the left foot forward, landing with a wide stance.
4. Punch the right hand across your body, toward the left wall, allowing your right foot to rotate as your torso twists to the left, engaging your right glute.

1. Squat down to rest both hands on the floor, similar to the Mountain Climber move. But instead of lunging one leg back behind you, jump both legs at the same time into a plank position.
2. Return to standing, and reach up to the sky.

This week in the Washington Post, my daughter Kate Grace spoke about how over the past six months while preparing for the Olympic trials, doubt would unexpectedly pass through her mind….doubt that she couldn’t qualify for the Olympics.

Each time she met with this thought, she greeted it with the same three words….

“I’m an Olympian.” She would repeat it aloud to herself.

And here she is, an Olympian, through years of hard work and practicing techniques to break free from negative thought patterns.

As Kate has experienced, shifting your mind-set is a powerful choice. And because it doesn’t always look like a choice, people often miss it.

To be successful, it’s important to adopt the proper attitude to react to ever-changing circumstances. Knowing how and what you picture in your mind will create the mood you’re in and the kind of behaviors that follow.

Remember, the quality of life is determined NOT by what happens to you, but rather by what you do about what happens.

My attitude has always been that you need to pay attention to the chatter in your mind, and when it starts bad-mouthing the world, respond accordingly.

(To learn more about how to shift from negative to positive thoughts, listen to my podcast with Dr. Patrick Porter!)

I also like to use affirmations to shift my mindset and keep me on track.

Here’s the affirmation from Destination Satori that I’ve been saying lately. Sometimes I just recite “I am impactful” out loud, and sometimes I’ll rehears the whole affirmation.

I Am Impactful
I carve a path that impacts the vibration of others
and makes a difference in the world.
As I move through time and space,
I am influencing the course of everything
in front and behind me. By going forward,
I leave behind a changed environment
that ripples out in all directions.
I choose to make a positive impact on the world
with my thoughts, words and actions.

Sometimes, it’s easy to allow habits to control the day. There’s no doubt about it….Habits are powerful.

There’s a degree of internal discipline that’s needed in order to break out of the shell of habits in order to discover the wonderment and peace that surrounds you.

But that discipline can be as simple as a 3-breath practice.

So next time you’re feeling stuck or chaotic, there’s a simple but transformational practice that only takes 10 seconds, but will put you in-tune with the magic of the stillness of the present moment.

Here’s what to do…

1. Close your eyes, and relax your mind.

2. Let go of the chaotic story you’re telling yourself

3. Pause, and take three breaths. Take enough time in-between each breath to reconnect with where you are.

The beauty of this practice is that it creates a sacred space in your mind where you find yourself.

You drop the struggle.

You find a calm energy.

Before you begin the day, and you’re still curled up in bed, look through the window and begin your morning with this 3-breath practice. Drop the anxiety of the day ahead, and lay there…being exactly where you are.

And, whenever you find yourself making a gap in your mind and feel the stress seeping in, try the 3-breath practice.

Let fear, stress, and anxiety be like blowing a bubble….in an instant, you can pop it, and make room for serenity.