Back On My Bullsh*t: March's Living A Better Life Resources
How to find alignment during chaos.
I’ve been on it for the past month. I’m getting up at 6 A.M. again. I’m journaling. I’m meditating. I’m lifting and running in the mornings. I’m consistent with my creatine and supplements. My diet is finally back to being mostly nutritious, whole foods. My screen time has dropped dramatically. I’m spending more time with my friends. I’m laser-focused on work. I’m also saving more money by monitoring my spending and being more thoughtful about where I spend my dollars and what I spend them on.
Essentially, I’m back.
Was this all inspired by things going entirely off the rails in my personal life? Of course it was! I’m just a girl! I wish I was joking, but last month was crazy, ngl.
It can feel good to dig your heels into healthy routines and rituals in moments of personal turmoil. Moving in a way that feels good, reading, writing, and mindful moments of pause are all ways to boost ourselves up when things are sticky.
I consciously decided to do this for myself at the beginning of February. I’ve spent way too much time worrying about things outside of myself when stress and its ramifications were harming my physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being. I centered March’s Living A Better Life Resources around the journey back into alignment with oneself. Things are sticky right now, and I want us all to do what we can to strike balance within our lives.
Before We Get Into The Other Resources, I Wanna Talk About Vaccines
Don’t you dare scroll!! Right now, there is a measles outbreak in Texas that, as of March 2, has claimed the life of a small child and caused more than 140 people to fall ill. There is a highly effective vaccine for measles, and it could have prevented this outbreak. I understand vaccine hesitancy—and I’ve written about it at length. But vaccines are safe and effective, and they save lives. Many of you reading probably have your MMR vaccine already. If you haven’t gotten it for your children, if another loved one is on the fence, or if you or someone you know is hesitant about a different vaccine, take this excellent advice I got from a few physicians during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and apply it to your life:
“Start by just listening and acknowledging what’s going on,” said Dr. David Malebranche, an internal medicine doctor. … If the patient is a bit worried about a vaccine, explain how vaccines work in basic terms, demystify the side effects, and explain the risks of not getting the vaccine. Doctors could also point the patient to reputable individual resources, or share if they’d recommend the shot to one of their family members. If a patient lets their doctor know that they aren’t generally against vaccinations, get granular and ask about their specific concerns about this one, and reassure them that they probably aren’t the only one who feels this way. … And always make it clear that hesitance based on prior bad experiences with medicine is valid.
Listening to the patient’s concerns—and acknowledging the reasons why they aren’t trusting of medicine—is paramount, the doctors said. Establishing a personal connection helps as well, since research won’t be enough to convince each patient. Cooper tells patients if she’s received a vaccine herself, in order to establish an open line of communication. Research has shown that these trust-building methods not only make patients more open to receiving treatment but result in more patients staying in care afterward.
Okay, now back to our regularly scheduled resources.
Working Through “Purpose Anxiety”
This episode of The Psychology of Your 20s resonated with me deeply at my big age of 32. As someone who constantly struggles with big existential questions about my purpose in life, Elizabeth Gilbert's comments about the connection between purpose and capitalism helped me see things from a different angle. I didn’t agree with everything she said, but her pushback on the idea that to be fulfilled in life, we must have a purpose, identify it at a young age, and then align our career and life work with it is a farce making us miserable? Yeah, she ate that.
This month, I’m spending less time focusing on purpose and more on thinking about what I want.
You’re Stressed Out Because You Always On That Phone
That’s a bit of an overstatement. Plenty of things are causing Americans to experience higher rates of stress and anxiety than in previous years. But it’s also kinda true.
Reducing your smartphone use can make you feel better: A month-long study where people blocked internet access on their smartphones for two weeks found that 91 percent of the 467 participants reported better mental health, well-being, and attention spans after the break. There was also a decrease in depressive symptoms.
For many of us, forgoing smartphone usage altogether isn’t possible. We need our phones to work and connect with others. Stopping internet and/or smartphone use also isn’t a magic antidote to stress and feeling shitty. It does, the study found, free up time for healthy behaviors like spending more time outside, hanging out with friends, or engaging in hobbies.
I feel happier and less overstimulated when using my phone as little as possible. This past month, I’ve redirected the time gifted back to me into daily walks and getting in bed a bit earlier. I’m also a realist, and I need the phone to work. I also like TikTok a lot. So I set aside an hour a day to scroll and another hour to catch up on the news and things I share with y’all here. Balance!
NPR, which covered the study, shared some solid tips for reducing smartphone use:
Take short breaks. Since most of us can't turn off the internet and still function, Joseph recommends taking little breaks, beginning with baby steps. "If you can start with 30 minutes here or 20 minutes there, try to see if you can increase these increments on a weekly basis," she says
Consider a digital detox. Choose one day a week where you and your family power down, except what's needed for communication. Or set a time, either at mealtime or in the evenings when work is over, to connect face to face with family or friends, making a commitment to be "present" and in the moment.
Manage notification and add "friction." Experts also advise turning off notifications and using apps to limit your time on certain social media. Some tools can help you reduce screen time by adding friction, i.e., making it just a little harder to start using whatever app you're hooked to.
Try a dumb phone. If you're really fed up and want to try something new, consider switching to a "boring" phone, like the old flip phones many of us used to rely on. That way, you still have calling and texting (and some other tools, depending on the phone) but scrolling is a lot less compelling.
Pick up a new phone-free activity. It's worth setting new habits in your offline life. Pick up a new hobby or make a regular date with a friend for a phone call. Like to take an evening stroll? Try leaving your phone at home and see how you feel. The more we give ourselves permission to disconnect, the more likely those around us will follow.
You Do Not Need All Them Damn Supplements
Supplements can have space within a healthy, well-rounded diet. If you’re pregnant, for instance, you’ll benefit from taking folic acid. If you have gut issues like IBS, a probiotic is likely to be your bestie. Creatine is an omega-level supplement that will improve cognition, muscle gain, sleep, and mood. But many people take megadoses of supplements, which can be potentially harmful to their health.
From National Geographic:
As the supplement industry has grown to meteoric heights, so have the downstream side effects: 20 percent of drug-induced liver injury in the United States is now related to herbal and dietary supplements, with some analyses putting the number as high as 43 percent. Meanwhile, the number of people on the U.S. transplant list with drug-induced liver failure related to supplements rose from one to 7 percent between 1995 and 2020. This is a massive uptick—a seven-fold increase—over 25 years.
Recent media reports spotlight patients ending up in the emergency room with yellow eyes, abdominal pain, fatigue—symptoms of liver failure linked to supplement intake, even from reportedly “clinically-validated” brands.
Certain supplements have been linked to these effects, including green tea extract, often found in weight-loss supplements or metabolism “boosters;” bodybuilding supplements sometimes tainted with anabolic steroids; and multi-ingredient nutritional supplements used for a range of purposes from hair growth to mental health.
Despite this, I’m not dense enough to believe anyone will give up their supplements. I’m not giving up mine. I like them. I think they work. So, let me walk you through how to make smart, informed choices about what you put in your body.
Research the vitamins or supplements you’re considering to see if those options will cover any gaps in your diet or help with a specific medical issue. If they won’t or don’t, you shouldn’t spend money on them. For example, I take magnesium and zinc at the request of my neurologist and dermatologist, respectively. Magnesium is believed to help prevent migraines. But if you don’t have chronic migraines and eat plenty of magnesium-rich foods, this supplement isn’t necessary for you. Zinc, very likely, plays a role in skin health. My dermatologist advised me to take it since she’d seen it help other patients who deal with the same skin conditions as me. (For what it’s worth, my only supplements are magnesium, zinc, and a probiotic.)
Before you start taking anything, have a conversation with your primary care physician—if you have one. This is the best way to avoid any supplements interacting with other medications you might be taking. You can also ask them if they have any suggestions for supplements. If you don’t have a primary care physician, but you take an over-the-counter medication like Claritin, or you get a Spironolactone prescription through a service like Nurx, where the responses from doctors are limited (in my experience). In that case, you can check interactions using a DNI checker. I like this one from Drugs.com. It’s straightforward and comprehensive.
Pick a trustworthy brand. The Food and Drug Administration regulates supplements as food products, not drugs or biologics (a drug derived from a natural source). This less rigorous process isn’t standardized and doesn’t require the agency to verify what’s in the supplement.
However, several third-party groups—ConsumerLab.com, NSF International, and U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP)—regulate dietary supplements. The latter two list products confirmed to have what they say they have in them on their websites for free. Consumer Lab requires a subscription. If a brand isn’t willing to acquire one of those certifications, I would think twice about choosing it. (I like Nature Made, tbh. Not all of their products are certified, but the fact that they allow regulators into their factories enables me to trust the brand’s overall manufacturing process.)
Buy from a trusted source. Don’t get them pills off Amazon!
Know that you don’t need a vitamin subscription service. Several NSF or USP-certified brands are sold in-store and online for much cheaper. But if you are interested in some bougie Instagram-worthy brands that are certified—hey, we’re human— those would be Ritual, Vital Proteins, Dream Water, and Athletic Greens. (AG is pricey and unnecessary, but I get the appeal. The onslaught of advertisements don’t help.)
Realize that you won’t know if you have any deficiencies without complete blood work. This includes the following: a complete blood panel, a basic metabolic panel, a comprehensive metabolic panel, a lipid panel, a thyroid panel, cardiac biomarkers, a coagulation panel, etc. I get complete blood work once a year during my annual physical because my doctor and I like to make sure everything is good.
That Lady Is Going On Tour, And You Know You Wanna Go
SHE COMING!
Okay, this isn’t about Beyoncé and how her hand has been out a lot lately.1 It is about making sure that you’re straight before you go out and have fun. I don’t have explicit advice on how to do that because finances are entirely outside my wheelhouse. But here’s a link to a set of stories in Vox that I found helpful: The Even Better Personal Finance Starter Pack.
Real stans get the joke. If you didn't… well, hey!
