3 Apps for Beginner Meditation

I'll be honest, meditation freaks me out a little bit. It sort of makes me think of foreign movies with monks chanting and whatnot. And I'll admit, I am not a huge meditating person. I meditate maybe three times a week, if that. So it would seem like I am not the person to be telling you about meditation, but I've started practicing it and I think it's worth a try, even if it feels totally weird at firest. I just want to show you that meditation is easy + doesn't need to be something that only woo-woo hippies and monks and life coaches do. 

I could do a quick google search and I'm sure find many benefits of meditation on all parts of your life, but I'll just tell you my experience. Meditation helps me chill the heck out. I'm not a huge worrier but I do get anxious sometimes (which is actually very different). Meditation is great for calming down if you are a worrier or if you're like me, just a better way of maintaining your peace.

I like to meditate when I get up in the morning, before bed and in the middle of a busy day. It doesn't have to be a long time--I usually only take 5-10 minutes. I really like apps that offer guided meditation because let's be honest, meditation is a really weird concept and it's always helpful to have someone tell you what to do. Here are my favorites:

Stop, Breathe and Think / I especially love this app because before you start, the app asks you to take a moment and assess your emotions--are you concerned, content, distracted? Then it offers meditation tracks based on what you report. The only con of this app is there aren't many different tracks to choose from (maybe 10-15). But it's totally free, so it's still a great option.

Buddhify 2 / This is the only paid app on this list and at $3, I think it's worth it. The cool thing about buddhify is it aims to have you practicing mindfulness throughout your day. You choose from activities like traveling, walking in the city, in nature, and for when you can't sleep (and a bunch more). There are lots of options in this app + it always helps me connect with my day.

Deep Relax / This is not exactly a meditation app because it doesn't offer any sort of voiceover telling you what to do. Instead, it's just natural sounds and white noise that can be used as a background for your meditation. I have a saved mix of crackling fire, rain, waves, quiet frog croaking and a quiet buzz in the background that I use for meditation. This is also great for yoga and falling asleep! I swear I sleep better with rain noise in the background.

Do you meditate?! Do you have any tools that help you incorporate meditation in your daily life?

A Better Way to Respond to Stress

Wow, what a week. Right after I posted on Tuesday, I came down with a gross flu sort of thing that has had me in bed way more than I'd like for the last few days. Luckily, this is really the only couple day stretch where my schedule isn't jam-packed. After this weekend, I start my finals. So I'm just glad that I should be on the up and up before then!

Since I know a lot of you are students and the next two weeks are probably the most stressful time of the year, I thought I'd share this TEDTalk about stress and a healthy way to manage it. H showed me this a few weeks ago when I was stressed out of my mind and I loved it! 

What do you think of this video? Do you have any other methods for tackling stress?

Tips on Starting a Journaling Habit

At the beginning of February, I decided that I wanted to start a regular journaling habit. I've said it time and again: journaling is not for me. My brain thinks faster than I can write and I get impatient that I can't get on paper my true thoughts on things. But I've read over and over and over again how good journaling is for you, both mentally and (surprisingly) physically. And so I keep giving it another try. 

Over the last six weeks, I've miraculously found a habit for myself in journaling. For the first time ever, I actually enjoy journaling. I don't journal every day--maybe only 2-3 times a week. But now I see why it's such a valuable habit to invest in. Journaling helps me review my day and forgive my mistakes and celebrate my victories.

01. Don't reread your entries.

I used to write journal entries with the intention of 'sounding cool' in case I ever went back and read them later. I would pretend like I hadn't really messed up or that I didn't get embarrassed or like I had it all together. But I didn't (duh). Journaling should be a place where you can let out the feelings that you hide all day, not another place where you have to pretend to be someone you're not. If you find this is hard for you, try journaling on a scrap piece of paper and then ripping it up. Eventually, I learned that I can write anything.

02. Skip what you don't want to talk about.

On that same note, I felt like I had to mention every part of my day. Journaling is for documenting life, but it's more a cathartic experience. Don't try to make a scrapbook for your kids out of your journal. If something was boring, stressful, sad or uncomfortable about your day, you can choose to journal your feelings out or you can choose to ignore it. It's your choice.

03. Have a prompt.

Sometimes on less busy days, it was tempting to skip journaling because I felt I didn't have any 'news' to record. Turns out, those are the days I enjoyed journaling the most. When you don't have a lot to say, choose a prompt to center your entry around. I'll do a post on sample journal prompts soon, but some simple ideas are to talk about two good things and two bad things about your day, a mistake you made, or something that made you smile. For more ideas, I wrote a post a few weeks ago with 10 prompts for gratitude journaling.

04. Set a timer.

Journaling can be tiring; that's just a fact of the matter. Especially when it's a new activity, it can be easy to journal too much and get burnt out. If you find that happening, set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 minutes. Remember: you can stop whenever you want--even if you've only written one sentence or you're mid-story.

05. Set a time. 

If you're trying to set any habit, it's incredibly valuable to set a time every day or every week to do it. I journal right before I get in bed. I'll brush my teeth/floss/etc and hop in bed with my journal and my pen. Eventually, my mind starts to remind me when I hop in bed that it's time to journal. If you're just starting out, an alarm or a phone ping can be especially helpful!

Do you journal? What are your tips for starting a habit of journaling?

Six Weeks of Wellbeing: Week Two Recap

Some days, rules just need to be broken, even if you made them yourself. I promised to recap my second week in the Six Weeks of Wellbeing project today, but that's just not happening. It's been a really stressful week. I had a big research paper, not to mention exams coming up. Sometimes, despite our best intentions, our own wellbeing becomes overlooked.

But I'm not going to get mad at myself or let it bother me because that would go against the whole point of this project. I want to be good to myself, no matter the circumstances. So on that note, I want to start the next week fresh. 

I've actually pulled out a notebook (like it's actually physically sitting next to me right now) that I will use to document my self-good-doingness (totally a word) (okay, I lied, not a word). I've decided that my "theme" for the week is forgiving myself for my mistakes + learning from them, starting today. That's kind of hard for me to handle. I'm not sure how to differentiate the ideas of forgiving myself and learning from my mistakes. 

So just for starters, today I realized that I can be really rude to H when I'm stressed. It just happens. I say things to him that I don't mean unkindly but in my own preoccupation, I say things that I wouldn't say to anyone else. And part of that inevitable comes from a comfortable relationship, so that's great. But if I'm honest, I subconciously assume that I'm "more stressed" than he is or that my work is more important, even though I know neither of those are always true. And as equals in a relationship, I need to practice more respect for him because I love him. 

In the spirit of being good to myself, I'm publicly saying that I forgive myself. But that doesn't mean I'll forget about it, nor does it mean I'll act the same way (on purpose). 

How do you learn from your mistakes even if you've forgiven yourself? What can you forgive yourself for in the name of being good to yourself?

The corn on the left shows the damage that a Lepidoptera (corn pest) can have on corn. The corn on the right is the genetically modified corn that is resistant to the Lepidoptera larvae.

Bt corn is an example of how biotechnologists can manufacture genetically modified organisms (GMOs or GM foods) that aid mankind's survival. In this case, a gene from a soil bacterium (called Bacillus thuringiensis if you want to impress anyone at a dinner party) was found to produce a protein that can kill Lepidoptera larvae, a type of corn borer that likes to nom on corn. Scientists isolated this gene and inserted it into corn DNA, so then when the larvae try to eat the corn, they get poisoned (poor larvae). Farmers can use this new kind of corn as an alternative to using pesticides that target the corn borer. And less pesticides = less chemical pollutants in our water. Yay! There are risks, of course, but Bt corn is on the safer side of genetically modified organisms. 

And if the idea of eating genetically modified organisms weirds you out, just know that if you've had corn, soybeans or beets (random) today and live in the United States, you've most likely had genetically modified food. 

Introducing: Six Weeks of Wellbeing

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Hello lovelies! How is your Thanksgiving break going? I'm in Florida with my family and I've been cooking all day which makes me super proud of myself haha. This girl cannot cook at all. I even took a picture of my potatoes to send H's mother since she's always trying to get me to cook. Y'all should be proud of me.

I want to tell y'all about a sort of project I'm doing for myself and invite you to join in. If you recall, one of my goals for the rest of the year was to do something good for myself everyday for the rest of the year and write it down. And I'm really excited about this. I'm putting more thought into building health into my life: healthy relationships, healthy eating + exercise, and healthy attitudes. 

If you'd like to join me, you're more than welcome to! At the end of each week (ending on Wednesdays), I'll be sharing some of the things I did during the week to improve my wellbeing. I'd love if you commented and shared what you did!

This project will be going on for six weeks--five weeks until the end of the year and one more week to start off 2014 on a good foot (can you believe it's almost 2014?! I feel like 2002 was yesterday).

So how about you? Are you in? Let's dedicate some time to our own wellbeing! 

Your turn: I plan to do things like call my grandmother, write thank you notes, and exercise. What ideas do you have for improving your wellbeing?