What is deep sleep?

In order to understand deep sleep, you must first acknowledge the phases of the sleep cycle, as well as the stages of sleep. According to Sleepless in NOLA sleep consultant Nilong Vyas, MD, medical review expert at Sleep Foundation, the sleep cycle consists of two phases: REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement). “The NREM phase is further divided into three stages of sleep,” she explains. The three sleep stages are N1 (light sleep), N2 (medium sleep), and N3 (deep sleep). “The human body cycles through four to five stages of sleep every 90 minutes overnight,” Dr. Vyas says. “N1 is the lightest sleep, N2 is deeper and plays the most significant role in memory consolidation, and N3 is the deepest of the NREM phase.”

Why is deep sleep so important?

While every stage of sleep plays a role in overall health and wellness, deep sleep is the most important because it’s responsible for strengthening the immune system, repairing tissue, and releasing growth hormone. All in all, it’s when the body heals itself, Dr. Vyas says.

So perhaps you’ve been feeling under the weather and can’t seem to muster up any energy—deep sleep will help; maybe you had a super long day that started with a killer workout and felt absolutely wiped by the end of it—deep sleep will help; perhaps you’re navigating a breakup or other stressful life event—deep sleep will help.

But here’s the thing: It doesn’t only have an immediate impact on a person’s well-being—it’s cumulative, meaning that it can offer benefits that last a lifetime, or at the very least, extend your lifetime.

“During deep sleep, the brain’s ‘waste management system’ comes in and removes certain proteins that if not removed are thought to lead to Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline,” says sleep expert and clinical psychologist Michael Breus, PhD, aka The Sleep Doctor.

Which is better: REM or deep sleep?

While REM sleep is a different phase of the sleep cycle, it’s considered the fourth and final stage of it. Since rapid eye movement is tied to dreaming, many people mistakenly assume that it must be a very deep form of sleep in which the subconscious has the uninterrupted ability to soar. In reality, Dr. Vyas says that REM sleep is actually considered to be less restful.

That doesn’t mean that REM sleep isn’t important, though. “REM and deep sleep are completely different and both necessary for different reasons,” Dr. Breus says. “As an example, during REM sleep is when you move information from your short term memory to your long term memory, and when you process emotions; deep sleep is needed for more physical areas.” Though, it plays a role in long term memory, too.

How much deep sleep do you need each night?

TL;DR: It depends. How much sleep you need depends on your age, gender, medical condition, fitness level, and environment, Dr. Breus says. “As a general guideline, we recommend seven to nine hours of good quality sleep, but this can vary widely,” he adds. (Not sure where you stand? Check out our story on sleep calculators.)

If you’re over the age of 65, Abhinav Singh, MD, FAASM, medical director of the Indiana Sleep Center and a medical review expert at Sleep Foundation, says that seven to eight hours will typically suffice.

No matter your age, if we’re breaking it down by stage, Dr. Singh says that 20 to 25 percent of your total sleep should be deep sleep, while another 20 to 25 percent should be REM.

What happens if you don’t get enough deep sleep?

Considering the vital role it plays in our overall well-being, Dr. Breus reveals that not getting enough deep sleep is what’s officially considered sleep deprivation. “Sleep deprivation affects every organ system and every disease state—literally everything you do, you do better with a good night’s sleep,” he says.

More specifically, Dr. Breus points out that a lack of deep sleep can lend to a notable physical and cognitive decline, including slower reaction time, lower testosterone, memory issues, riskier decisions, trouble focusing, and more. And then there’s the emotional impact of sleep deprivation. When you don’t get enough of it, you’ll become more anxious and could experience deeper depression. Together, all of these side effects make one thing very clear: Deep sleep should be your priority—each and every night.

When does deep sleep take place?

While a full sleep cycle is roughly 90 minutes long and is comprised of all four sleep stages (N1, N2, deep sleep, and REM sleep), the amount of time you spend in each stage changes throughout the night. According to The Sleep Foundation, you typically get the most deep sleep during the first half of the night. Then, by the later sleep cycles, you spend less time in the N1, N2, and N3 stages, and more time in REM sleep.

What happens if you wake up during deep sleep?

Since the N3 stage is the deepest sleep stage, it makes sense that it’s the hardest to snap out of. According to Dr. Breus, the deep sleep stage is the hardest to awaken from. If someone does wake up during this stage, he says it’s not uncommon to feel especially groggy. “This experience is what’s known as sleep inertia,” he reveals on his website. He compares it to Isaac Newton’s Law of Inertia and points out that unless a pressing force is at play to entice someone to wake up, it’s totally normal to wish you were still asleep—or even fall back asleep in the process. This is a sign that you’re within a deep sleep stage and need it to feel rested.

If you continually wake up each morning wishing you could just sleep a little longer, however, it might be time to re-evaluate your sleep hygiene and routine, as certain habits can make falling and staying asleep much easier. For example, eating a snack comprised of foods that help sleep, taking OTC sleep aids (like the Olly Sleep Gummies, $13), wearing breathable cotton PJs (like the Printfresh Bagheera Sleep Shirt, $118), sleeping on soft, moisture-wicking sheets (like the Purple SoftStretch Sheet Set, $189), and waking up with a sunrise alarm clock (like the Hatch Restore 2, $200) can all make a big difference in the quality of your sleep.

If after adjusting your sleep routine you still find that falling and staying asleep is a challenge, or that you’re experiencing poor sleep quality overall, you may want to consult a doctor to discuss the possibility of prescription sleeping pills and best next steps overall.

With all of this news, you may be worrying about your own brain health, or that of your loved ones. After all, given over six million Americans have Alzheimer’s, it’s more common than any of us would like to imagine.

I mean, struggling to remember words and details can be scary. When is it normal for your age versus a sign of Alzheimer’s? Knowing where the line is between the two is tricky, and it’s a question no one wants to ask themselves.

Only an expert like a neurologist or geriatrician can make a diagnosis, but there are red flags that might signal that it’s time to book an appointment for some testing. To help you know what you’re working with, a neurologist shares how some early signs of the disease differ from the normal effects of aging.

1. Forgetting recently learned information

Forgetting about an appointment or what a person’s name is—and being able to recall it later—is a typical change you’ll see in older folks, according to Anjali N. Patel, DO, a memory and cognitive neurologist of the Atlantic Neuroscience Institute and Overlook Medical Center. An early sign of Alzheimer’s, on the other hand, is “forgetting recently learned information [or] repeating the same question,” she explains. In fact, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, that’s the most common sign in the early stages.

Dr. Patel gives an example. “If someone has a doctor’s appointment coming up, they may ask multiple times regarding the date and time of the appointment,” she says. “The person may repeat the question right away, after a few minutes, or the following day. This can vary.”

2. Feeling confused, suspicious, anxious/fearful, or depressed

Some emotional ups and downs are normal for all of us. Particularly once our days start to follow a predictable pattern, we “can become irritated when the routine is changed or disrupted,” Dr. Patel says. That’s typical with age (and is pretty understandable across the board!).

However, if you notice someone lose control over how they express their emotions, overreact, or have rapid mood changes due to not understanding a situation, it’s more likely an early sign of Alzheimer’s, she continues. One example of a confusing event is traveling to a new location, which can lead to intense reactions in an Alzheimer’s patient.

3. Consistently making poor judgments

Many of us have made mistakes here and there by falling for spam or struggling with a budget. But a red flag is if it’s consistent. Dr. Patel says, “Individuals might miss a payment once, make a mistake once in a while,” and that’s typical. It could signal Alzheimer’s, though, if “patients cannot manage a budget [or have] poor judgment, [such as] giving away personal information to strangers.”

4. Hiding items and/or accusing others of stealing items they can’t find

Being unable to find something—whether it’s the remote or a nice pair of earrings—can be stressful and confusing. Even the most organized people probably know the struggle. According to Dr. Patel, it’s a-okay if the person is able to retrace their steps to find the item.

But when “patients place objects in unusual places, cannot find the object again, and may accuse others of taking items,” she says, it’s possibly an early sign of Alzheimer’s. She explains how this happens, saying patients often lose or misplace items, assume someone must be taking their things, then hide those items in unexpected places for “safekeeping.”

5. Struggling to keep up in conversation

Having trouble thinking of the right word (and it eventually coming to mind) is a typical age-related change people may experience, Dr. Patel says. However, when patients have trouble following a conversation, consistently call things by the wrong name, or regularly lose their train of thought, you might be seeing early signs of Alzheimer’s.

6. Noticing a significantly decreased understanding of visual images

As we age, our vision may change due to cataracts. Buying a new pair of glasses can be a normal item on the to-do list. However, Alzheimer’s may be a concern if safety issues are popping up, like “having difficulty judging distance, leading to car accidents, [or] episodes of getting lost,” she says.

7. Losing track of time and events

If your loved one isn’t sure about the exact date or day of the week, there’s no need to be concerned, according to Dr. Patel. She warns more about patients “having difficulty understanding when events took place [and] losing track of the month/year/season” since that could be a potential sign of Alzheimer’s.

This could look several different ways. “They may forget recent events, such as visiting family or going on a trip,” she adds. “The person may recall events from the past in greater detail, and may believe those prior events took place more recently.”

What to do next

If you think you or a loved one might be exhibiting possible early signs of Alzheimer’s, book an appointment with a neurologist. They will be able to use imaging, cognitive or blood tests, and other neurological exams and assessments to figure out if that’s what’s going on.

And if it is, know that all hope is not lost. An Alzheimer’s medication was approved by the FDA in 2021, and prevention research is underway, from AI technology to a study about the benefits of folate to predictive blood tests. You aren’t alone in this.

These statements seemed to strike a nerve with many mental health professionals, myself included. Having just spent the past three years earning my master of social work (MSW) degree, I have a profound new understanding of just how much not only goes into diagnosing a client, but their individual treatment as well.

Over the past few years, young people in particular have been turning to social media, namely TikTok, to try to get a better grasp on their mental health. Gen Z-ers have become increasingly aware of the importance of mental health care and have made it a big part of our collective dialogue. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of self-diagnosing and all-around misunderstandings of very complex issues and terms. (Heck, here at Well+Good we realized pretty quickly that the widespread use and misuse of the term “gaslighting” was going to be downright damaging.)

I don’t point this out to shame or belittle anyone who has turned to the internet to try to figure out their health issues. After all, who among us hasn’t turned to WebMD in a moment of crisis (ahem, the common cold) and incorrectly concluded that our symptoms were something far graver?

This is especially pertinent when you consider that, as of 2020, during the COVID-19 crisis, a reported 31.6 million individuals in the United States had no health insurance. Even for those who are covered, finding the ever-elusive plans that cover mental health services, let alone being able to get an appointment with a provider you want to see, is its own hurdle. In 2019, NPR reported that “an office visit with a therapist is five times as likely to be out-of-network, and thus more expensive, than a primary care appointment.” It’s extremely tempting to turn to a free app that’s easy to get lost in for hours. But using it as a tool for something that requires deeper insights is a slippery slope.

I recognize this issue not only as someone who works in the mental health field, but as a person with my own complex mental health history. Before I found the right therapist and right kind of therapy for me, I was absolutely guilty of not only self-diagnosing myself, but perhaps even more damagingly, other people.

In the wake of back-to-back unhealthy relationships, I was desperate to find closure and clarity. It wasn’t just that there was something inherently wrong or unlovable about myself, right? I read every book and blog there was and came to the conclusion, on my own, that I had dated sociopaths or narcissists or a combination of both. Giving them these titles not only made me feel better about my pain, but it took some of their power away. It was the first thing to give me some sense of relief.

It wasn’t until I found my amazing therapist (whom I’ve been working with for over five years now) and going through the rigors of grad school to become an MSW that I discovered I hadn’t been properly equipped to actually get to the root of my partners’ problems. The people that I dated had their own complex backgrounds and traumas and genetics and risks and environments, and while I knew about some of it, it was not my place to diagnose them or even myself. My own initial diagnoses might have given me a sense of relief, but having a clear insight was what actually brought me lasting peace in the end.

For instance, look at narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which the DSM-5-TR defines as a “pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.” Okay, so that certainly fits the bill for my exes. But for a person to be diagnosed with NPD, they have to fit five or more of the diagnostic criteria, which have their own set of culture-related diagnostic issues, sex-and-gender related diagnostic issues, as well as comorbidities, including depressive disorders and substance use disorders.

It can be easy to look at a person’s behavior and see the broad strokes as their defining characteristic, but any mental health professional can tell you it’s far more complex than that. Moreover, when you misdiagnose someone else or yourself, you’re making the healing process ultimately more difficult for yourself. For instance, it wasn’t until my therapist clarified for me that I was actually dealing with someone with borderline personality disorder (BPD) that I could better understand them and really start to understand the dynamic of our relationship. When dealing with a narcissist, you let them know what you need from them and let them make that decision, but with someone with BPD, it’s better to set clear boundaries.

When you misdiagnose someone else or yourself, you’re making the healing process ultimately more difficult for yourself.

The urge to self-diagnose was something I saw time and time again as I worked with individuals and families in recovery during my social work internships. I didn’t judge these clients when they were adamant that they behaved a certain way for a certain reason, or their loved one was estranged because they believed they had an undiagnosed disorder. In fact, I understood that instinct all too well. We want to have more control over situations and feelings and thoughts that feel thoroughly out of control. Putting a name to the pain you face can take away so much confusion.

However, until you get an accurate diagnosis from a mental health professional, you may just wind up lost on a misguided path. You can spend all your energy on TikTik “hacks” that don’t truly get at the root of whatever issue you’re actually struggling with.

While I think it’s great that the internet and social media can be a place to feel less alone and bring more awareness to mental health overall, it’s imperative that people get the proper care they not only need, but deserve. You can definitely get some great insights on social media to open your horizons about mental health, but it’s best to make a therapist your main resource on the subject at hand.

Trust me when I tell you, your pain is very real and there are so many amazing mental health experts out there who want to help get you on the right track towards diagnosis and treatment. They’re just not in between reels of Bill Hader dancing. 

Indeed, according to therapists, processing a breakup can come with a whirlwind of emotions—and the road to healing is often a winding one. For instance, you might feel sad and then feel mad, and then come back to feeling sad, says therapist Melissa Divaris Thompson, LMFT: “Sometimes, there’s a mishmash of feelings all around.” Almost like the loss of a loved one, the loss of a relationship—and a person in your life—can trigger grief and all the complex emotions that come with it.

A breakup is a form of loss, and the emotional aftermath can chart a similar path as grief

It’s completely normal to feel a soup of emotions after a breakup. After all, breakups are emotionally complex territory because while they involve losing a partner, there’s also the knowledge that this person is still somewhere in the world living their life—just a life of which you’re no longer a part.

“Breakup grief [is a unique kind of grief] because you will love again, and you will be in a relationship again, so it’s not an ending that’s forever,” says trauma-informed therapist and grief counselor Gina Moffa, LCSW, author of the forthcoming book Moving On Doesn’t Mean Letting Go: A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss.

Figuring out how to leave a relationship in the past can also be particularly difficult when the person is still alive and well, and perhaps, you can’t help but wonder what could have been if things had unfolded differently. “People tend to go back and think about the good [parts of the relationship], and then analyze everything, even more so with relationship loss than with death,” says Moffa. That mindset makes it easier to blame yourself for the dissolution of a relationship, she adds. But even if you played a role (it certainly takes two to tango), adding blame into the picture can make it even tougher to manage the emotional stages of a breakup and the loss that the end of a relationship entails.

“People tend to go back and think about the good [parts of the relationship], and then analyze everything, even more so with relationship loss than with death.” —Gina Moffa, LCSW, grief counselor

Just as is true with any type of grief, there’s no set sequence or order of emotional phases you’re bound to experience after a breakup. As unique, layered, and nuanced as breakups can be, so goes healing and recovery.

Even so, there are some hallmark emotional stages of a breakup that you can expect to encounter, says Thompson, including sadness, resentment, and anger. And you could feel them all in the course of a day, or even an hour… or perhaps much, much longer; some days, you might be caught in a rumination spiral, and others might find you overcome with sadness. And maybe on other days, you could feel remarkably complacent and accepting of the relationship being over.

In any case, grieving is a process. And according to both Thompson and Moffa, fully feeling and embracing your emotions—and being patient and kind to yourself as you oscillate between them—is all part of it. “This cycle is what leads to more compassion, more self-love, and changes within us that allow us to progress to the point where we can search for love again,” says Moffa. The important thing to remember? You’re not on any specific timetable for getting to that point.

The 5 emotional stages of processing and healing from a breakup

1. Rumination

According to Moffa, ruminating after a breakup is typically about trying to make sense of what happened, and it consists of analyzing (and re-analyzing) the ups, downs, and in-betweens of your ex-partnership. “Before they do anything else, people tend to spend a lot of time going over all the details from start to finish,” says Moffa. One common reason why? To assess whether the breakup was “their fault or yours,” says Thompson, adding that the answer is almost always that each person played a part.

Aside from searching for someone to blame, you might find yourself thinking about all the good times you shared with your ex, which is what Moffa calls “positive recall.” While it’s helpful to recognize the upsides of the relationship, harping on these positive memories can also make you feel worse about the relationship ending. In that realm, you might also “ruminate about how you could get them back or make them feel bad about why they [broke up with you],” she says.

2. Resentment and anger

You may harbor resentment toward your former partner if you feel they wasted your time or that you wasted your efforts with this person, says Thompson. And depending on how and why the relationship ended—whether they wronged you or hurt you in any way—you may naturally feel some anger toward this person for their misgivings.

3. Sadness

At the heart of the grieving process is sadness, which can be for any number of different reasons: sadness that the person is no longer in your life, that the relationship didn’t work out as planned, that the life you envisioned with this person will not come to fruition. It’s also possible that you find yourself mourning the loss of future plans and companionship, and the fact that you’re single more than the actual departure of this specific person from your life, adds Thompson.

In any case, the sadness can also show up in plenty of different ways, says Moffa. You might find that you withdraw from activities or isolate from your friends to take some time to heal, or that you have issues sleeping. “Sometimes, our self-esteem also drops during this phase, and we question our worth, even if momentarily,” she adds.

4. Reflection

As you heal from the breakup, you might gain access to some introspection. “This is where people start to look at their choices and question their patterns,” says Moffa. Perhaps you might realize, with enough distance from the sadness and/or anger of the breakup, that you have a history of choosing partners who are emotionally unavailable, or you begin to reflect on the ways in which you tend to violate your own boundaries to accommodate significant others.

This phase represents a turning point in the journey to healing your heart and mind, says Moffa. Examining your own choices, she says, can ease you into the next step of recovery. “Whether that step is to get outside help or support, to commit to changing certain patterns, or even to go take classes in Krav Maga and get your fierceness back, that self-reflection cycle slides into the state of acceptance and growth,” she says. And some forward momentum typically follows.

5. Acceptance

Acceptance is a state of mind in which you’re “no longer resisting what’s happened,” says Moffa. This isn’t to say you will no longer feel pain, or sadness, or anger—you still might. It’s just that when you hit this emotional stage of a breakup, you’re ready to think about and actively pursue your life beyond the former relationship, says Thompson.

This will feel and look different for everyone; perhaps, you decide you’re ready to download a dating app, or you commit to staying single for a while and practicing self-love and self-compassion. There’s no one right way to embrace this phase, nor is there a timeline for arriving at it. The only requirement is that it opens a door to life beyond your ex.

You’re not alone. Reddit is full of posts where users are asking how to cope with their regret when they don’t exercise. One pre-COVID study even found that 78 percent of participants felt less accomplished when they missed a workout.

One source to blame is fitness culture. You’ve probably seen it: the pressure in magazines, advertisements, and other media to take “no days off” and “crush your workouts.”

But those messages largely benefit companies wanting to make money, not you or your health. Even some personal trainers aren’t fans of this kind of rhetoric.

“Our fitness culture puts an enormous (and unnecessary) emphasis on following a specific program or maintaining a ‘streak,’” says Rachel Trotta, a NASM-certified personal trainer. “This puts pressure on people to have a high level of workout adherence, which can trigger anxiety if you struggle with perfectionism.”

She adds that the anxiety—and even shame—that may result can lead us to procrastinate future workouts, too. Exercise can become a big “to-do” in our minds, and instead of just putting on our shoes and heading out for a walk, we wait until we feel up for a high intensity interval session, but that starts to feel harder and harder to do. It’s an awful cycle of guilt, then skipping another workout, then more guilt, and so on.

Does this sound a bit too relatable? Check out the following tips that can help you handle the discomfort and get your stride back.

1. Identify distortions in your thought patterns

Self-talk makes a significant impact on our thoughts, mood, and actions. Evan Lawrence, LMHC, a therapist with Choosing Therapy, explains that emotional distress comes in when we take a fact—such as “I didn’t go to the gym today”—and tell ourselves something about that fact, such as “I am not a responsible person.”

When you notice this pattern, he recommends reminding yourself of evidence that disputes the idea. “For example, if you realize you are telling yourself ‘I am not a responsible person,’ you can remind yourself of other times or aspects where you are/were responsible,” he suggests.

2. Remind yourself of how important rest is

Even though rest may not feel productive or “healthy,” it is. More than that, it’s necessary. “The truth is that it is easier to meet fitness goals when we allow our bodies to rest,” says Kerry Heath, LPC-S, NCC, a counselor with Choosing Therapy. She encourages listening to your body. “Working out when we need to honor our bodies through rest or recovery actually keeps us farther from our health goals.” In fact, rest and recovery can boost performance, repair muscles, reduce injury risk, and more.

Additionally, Heath encourages reminding yourself that a few workouts aren’t a “make or break” situation that affects your overall progress toward your long-term goals—and this truth goes for everyone. “Even professional athletes miss workouts due to travel, illness, or holidays,” she says. “It’s a matter of overall consistency versus perfection.”

Trotta points out that cardiovascular endurance only starts to drop after about a week of no training, and for strength training, that time frame is more like two to three weeks. “A day or two of rest has no effect—or could possibly have a positive impact—on your performance,” she says.

3. Remember the reasons behind your decision

Lawrence talks about making an active choice. In other words, “take time to think about your decision, then choose what to do based on the data available,” he explains.

For example, as non-diet, Health at Every Size-aligned, certified personal trainer Barb Puzanovova discussed in an article for Well+Good on “half-assed wellness,” it’s important to consider other factors from the day that affect how you feel and what you need. “If…you’re tired, kind of hungry, drank mostly coffee, and [are] super stressed, then it’s time to half-ass,” she says. “And if you’re somewhere in between—stressed but slept okay—then experiment with what’s planned and give yourself permission to back off [or] change the game plan.”

What does that look like in practice, though? For one, maybe reminding yourself after a sleepless night and busy day that your body needs rest most, and reading a book in bed. Or maybe after a stressful day, you’re more in the mood for a yoga class than weightlifting. Or maybe you want the energy boost of a bootcamp workout. Any of these options are totally valid!

The reasoning behind your choices is what you have to fall back on. “When you feel the cloud of guilt overhead you, remind yourself why you chose to do this today,” Lawrence says. “You can still remind yourself of the reasons you were debating, but I have found that it is a lot stronger when we make purposeful decisions that we can mentally support.”

4. Let yourself simply move on

One of Trotta’s big tips for clients is to avoid “making up” missed workouts. “The pile-up that ensues can be even more depressing than missing one or two workouts,” she says. “An incredibly important part of habit formation is enjoying exercise, and we tend not to enjoy things that we feel we’re failing at.” Instead, she encourages clients to “simply move on to the next one when the time is right.”

Along these lines, aiming for perfection actually isn’t helpful, according to Trotta. “Perfectionism procrastinates, waiting for the ideal time to ‘do it right,’” she says. “Sometimes, workouts are consistently skipped because they are too ambitious for your schedule, lifestyle, or energy.” Habits that are genuinely healthy are flexible, she says, promoting consistency over intensity.

TL;DR: Try to not feel bad about hitting the couch instead of the gym when that’s what you’re feeling. After all, exercise is just one of many ways we take care of our minds and bodies.

Experts say there is evidence that regularly taking certain herbal extracts that fall under the adaptogen umbrella can reduce stress over time. However, the likelihood that picking up an adaptogenic soda or tea will immediately induce a sense of calm, as so much of the marketing of these beverages imply, is slim to none.

The appeal of these promises is totally understandable. Something to relax you that won’t get you drunk or high? A dream! But fast-acting, short-term change is simply not how these herbs work.

That doesn’t mean adaptogens can’t add value to your life. You just have to be discerning about the products you go for, and somewhat disciplined about regularly taking them, in order to potentially see a meaningful effect.

What are adaptogens?

Adaptogens are a class of herbs that affect your response to stress. They’re grouped together by what they do, rather than what they are.

“There are probably hundreds upon hundreds [of adaptogens], they just haven’t been studied or identified yet,” Joseph Mather, MD, a physician and functional medicine practitioner, says. “They’re generally a class of herbal medications that have stress-balancing effects.”

Some well known adaptogens are ashwagandha, rhodiola, reishi mushrooms, ginseng, cordyceps, and others. They have roots in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine. You can see a comprehensive list compiled by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs’ Whole Health Library here.

What do adaptogens do?

Experts say adaptogens bring balance to a person’s stress response. For example, if a person is highly anxious, they might respond more strongly to stressors. So adaptogens purportedly can make their stress responses more measured.

“We use cortisol as the main marker for stress hormones, [and] if the main stress hormone is too low, the herbal medicine can bring it up,” Dr. Mather says. “And if it’s too high, it can bring it down.”

Judith Pentz, MD, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, who practices integrative and holistic psychiatry, explains that these herbs act upon the the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis), affecting the amount of cortisol we secrete, and subsequently, other factors like blood pressure.

“It helps to stabilize the HPA axis and reset the system so that the body can manage the stress according to its need,” Dr. Pentz says.

How do adaptogens work?

Unlike pharmaceuticals that have a very targeted mechanism, Dr. Mather says that herbs work on a systemic level, with multiple active ingredients affecting our bodies as a whole. This is why adaptogens can also act upon the immune system—a system which incidentally has a symbiotic relationship with stress.

Additionally, different herbal extracts may have different active ingredients causing these effects. However, some researchers posit that molecules called glycosides, which can impact heart rate, may come into play.

That said, taking an adaptogenic herb once probably won’t do anything. To work, you have to take a consistent amount of a high enough dose at regular intervals, consistently over time.

“Any of these herbs can be beneficial, but there’s a dose dependence in connection with it,” Dr. Pentz says. “Many of these actually need to be taken daily for the benefit to be noticed over time.”

What is the scientific evidence that adaptogens can reduce stress?

While varieties of adaptogens abound, when it comes to actual evidence for the efficacy of adaptogens, not all adaptogens are created equal. That’s partially because the class of herbs is so broad that they’re difficult to study as a whole.

“These are whole herbs we’re talking about,” Dr. Pentz says. “They have many, many ways that they interface with the body and the brain. And each one is very specific as to what they do. So it’s really hard to create a global perspective, because each one has its strengths.”

When assessing whether to recommend an adaptogen to patients, Dr. Mather looks for “randomized, placebo-controlled trials and better yet, you want to be using adaptogens that have a meta-analysis where they grouped many randomized, placebo-controlled trials.” (He also looks to make sure they were not funded by supplement makers.)

Dr. Mather is confident in the efficacy of ashwagandha in particular. He says two gold-standard meta-analyses—one from 2022, and the other from 2014—demonstrate that taking ashwagandha changes biomarkers related to stress (including cortisol levels) and inflammation, and has an impact on several different methods of measuring mood, and mental health over time.

“When clinicians are looking to give herbal medications to patients, we really want to see that there is really robust evidence showing that it helps, and that’s what we have for ashwagandha,” Dr. Mather says. “We know it works.”

Rhodiola is another fairly well-studied herb, says Dr. Pentz.

“There is still a need for larger clinical studies, but [rhodiola] has been shown to be safe and effective to treat mild to moderate depression,” Dr. Pentz says. “It also was shown to have a slightly faster onset than pharmaceutical [medicine].”

What to look for in an adaptogen

If you want to get any sort of benefit from an adaptogenic beverage or supplement other than tasting good or making you feel good about yourself, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Select the right adaptogen for your needs, and take enough of it

The dosage should be significant—which probably isn’t actually the case in most adaptogenic beverages.

“One needs to be careful about using herbs, but the dose that’s probably present in these drinks is at a non-risk level,” Dr. Pentz says. “For an impact to happen you need a minimum amount of milligrams for the benefit to be seen. And for the beverage to be labeled ‘non-medical,’ they have to be careful with how much they put in there.”

When determining the right dosage—as well as the right adaptogen or adaptogen blend—you’ll probably want to work with a medical professional to assess, as you go along, whether the herbs are having any effect.

“Each of these really needs to be offered to the person according to their age and health and wellbeing as opposed to a panacea for everybody,” Dr. Pentz says.

There’s no one ideal adaptogen dose for all people. However, studies of rhodiola and adaptogens have administered doses between 150 and 350 milligrams, one or two times a day.

Buy from reputable sources

For supplements, you’ll want to make sure a third party body has validated that what the product says is in the supplement is actually in there. Since the supplement industry lacks oversight, labels aren’t always reliable. But if you want something to work for you, make sure, ya know, you’re actually taking the herb you think you’re taking.

Be wary of adaptogenic beverage marketing claims (or implications)

Avoid products that imply fast-acting results, because this is a fundamentally misleading claim.

“Herbs really work more in terms of the long run as opposed to short term,” Dr. Pentz says. “It’s a total body response for herbs, and it takes a while because it actually helps to create adjustments in the nervous system, in the hormonal system, for the overall benefit to manifest. So it’s working at a molecular level to instill change in the human body and brain, and that takes time.”

“Herbs really work more in terms of the long run as opposed to short term.” —Judith Pentz, MD

So no, sipping on a drink with adaptogens won’t cause you to feel less stressed in the moment.

Know it’s a tool, not a fix

Finally, know that adaptogens are just one way to address your mental health, and that addressing underlying stressors in your life is important to do in addition to finding a way to modulate your response to stress with adapatogens.

“It’s a tool, not the solution to the problem,” Dr. Mather says. “It’s really important to use tools like adaptogens or antidepressants or therapy to feel better, so that you can then do the work.”

Walker completed her first Ironman in 2007, and was instantly hooked. “I just, you know, enjoyed being out there all day,” she says. “What better way to spend a day than swimming, biking, and running?”

Which is why, over the past 16 years, she’s completed 68 of these extreme endurance triathlons. That math works out to more than four Ironmans per year. For comparison, the average athlete takes about five or six months to train for this kind of race, and then another two to four weeks to recover afterwards.

Walker doesn’t exactly do average, though. Earlier this year, she and her husband, Dougin, completed six Ironman races on six continents in six weeks as part of their quest to join “the club” of people who’ve done every Ironman in the world (a club of which there are currently only five members). Last year, they completed two Ironmans in one weekend—one in Kalmar, Sweden, on Saturday followed by another in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Sunday. The Tampa, Florida–based couple even got married on the bike course during the 2022 Ironman in Cozumel before finishing the rest of the race. Casual.

Walker’s number-one key to recovering well enough to compete so often

This begs the question: How in the world does someone keep their body not only healthy, but recovered enough to compete in major endurance events so close together? (And Walker is competitive—during her six-in-six-weeks challenge, Walker won her age group in the Philippines and took second in Brazil.)

“Sleep is my superpower,” admits Walker. “I get, on average, nine to 10 hours a night.” Even in foreign hotels, or on planes during travel days, she sleeps well, she says. “I can just lay down anywhere and go to sleep. Once my head hits the pillow, it’s like I go into a coma,” she jokes.

This ability to sleep helps explain how Walker can manage such high volume. As experts will tell you, sleep is the most powerful muscle recovery tool we have. “Non-REM sleep is associated with the highest levels of growth hormone release during a day, allowing muscles to heal and grow,” Ben Smarr, professor at University of California San Diego in bioengineering and data science, previously told Well+Good. That human growth hormone helps repair the microscopic muscle tears that happen during exercise, helping your body bounce back and grow stronger.

And for endurance athletes like Walker, the muscle repair process that happens during sleep also helps improve your body’s stamina, according to Jeff Monaco, Gold’s Gym director of education. “If an individual is engaged in endurance training, the body will respond by increasing the oxidative capacity of those muscle fibers through increases in mitochondrial density and size,” he previously told Well+Good, adding that sleep also helps to keep your endocrine, immune, and nervous systems functioning properly so that your body can operate at full strength. (FYI: mitochondria are your cell’s battery packs aka energy sources.)

The effects of all this physiology are something Walker has long relied on. “I know there are a lot of people that are like, ‘I can sleep six hours and be fine,’ ” she says. “I’m just not one of those people.”

Her other recovery tools

Sleep may be the primary recovery technique Walker uses to get her to start line after start line, but it’s not the only one. Here are a few of her other non-negotiables:

1. Chocolate milk

“We have chocolate milk after any kind of workout, any kind of race,” Walker says. Research has shown this tasty childhood treat has an optimal ratio of carbs to protein for post-workout recovery.

2. Consistent body work

Walker and Dougin go to a chiropractor and also get a 90-minute massage every week. “It’s not a relaxing massage,” Walker clarifies, with a laugh. “Our massage guy beats us up, but it’s what we need.”

3. Normatec boots

Hyperice’s Normatec 3 Legs use a rhythmic series of compression from your feet up to your hips to encourage blood flow for faster recovery. “They also get me to sit still,” Walker admits.

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4. Massage guns

Walker regularly uses portable massage guns, which have been proven to increase muscle strength and power, and to reduce muscle pain. In fact, having one is such a “must,” that when the couple forgot to bring their Theragun to a race, they ended up buying a Hypervolt while they were there. They also own the Theragun mini for easy packing. “It helps refresh, and make you feel better,” says Walker.

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While people who are interested in exploring non-monogamy may be able to rev up their sex lives through the novelty of additional partners, those in a monogamous relationship (who aren’t interested in opening it up) may find that the extreme familiarity they have with their partner can become a breeding ground for boring sex. And boring sex likely isn’t pleasurable or satisfying sex, either—which can just make the people involved less likely to seek it out in the first place.

According to relationship expert Esther Perel, it’s common for couples to experience dissonance as they negotiate between their values and their desires; on the one hand, they might value closeness and intimacy, but on the other hand, they might desire wildness, mystery, and intrigue.

Desire dies at the hands of routine and familiarity because, by nature, it thrives off the unknown.

Desire dies at the hands of routine and familiarity because, by nature, it thrives off the unknown. In order to feel desire, defined as hunger and craving, you have to want something you don’t currently have. And yet, to build an intimate and sustainable relationship, you need to have a person in your life (and in your bed) about whom you know a great deal.

Still, it’s certainly possible to infuse a long-term monogamous relationship with some excitement if you avoid falling into the trap of monotony. Below, find seven easy tactics for how to spice up your relationship and crank the volume on your sex life, even if it’s the same partner every time.

How to spice up your relationship and take the monotony out of monogamy

1. Approach everyday interactions with your partner more mindfully

Research shows that we listen to those we love the least closely because we believe we can predict what they are going to say. When we get used to something or someone, we tend to tune out, rather than tune in. Take, for example, brushing your teeth; do you really pay attention while you’re doing it?

In much the same way, you might realize that you tend to ask your partner how their day was without really listening to the answer, or automatically assume the same sex position or choose to have sex after dinner or with the lights out every time you have it. While there is nothing wrong with any of these practices, in theory, they all present opportunities to numb out rather than really feel—which is necessary to experiencing pleasure.

Choosing to tune into these interactions with a partner rather than allowing them to become passive programming can help you to feel more present and thus more satisfied in your relationship (and in bed).

2. Consider how your sexual desires have evolved since you started dating your partner

In all relationships, we develop patterns of interactions or ways of being together that become familiar. We often forget that when we commit to a person, we aren’t committing to being the same with that person forever. As our circumstances change—we age, have new experiences, grow, experience loss—our needs change, too.

The fact that we transform is not the problem; it’s that many times, we don’t reorient ourselves to our new needs, and therefore don’t alert our partner of these changing needs, either. What you liked when you first met your partner may be very different now, and yet you might still be relying on old patterns of interaction that no longer fit.

Human sexuality expert and sex educator Emily Nagoski, PhD, recommends asking yourself: “What is it that I want when I want sex?” and “What is it that I like when I like sex?” I recommend adding in questions like: “What prevents me from feeling good in my body?” and “What enables me to feel good in my body?” Then, ask your partner the same questions.

It’s important to normalize that desires shift over time, just like our appetites for food.

Don’t be afraid to get detailed in your investigation. It’s important to normalize that desires shift over time, just like our appetites for food, and that consistent inquiry into what you and your partner like will be necessary throughout your relationship to keep sex, well, sexy.

3. Get to know your non-sexual pleasures

If you find that you struggle to answer the questions about sexual desire above, it may be because pleasure isn’t something you feel comfortable owning or experiencing—and probably for very good reason. Your body might not have always felt safe in scenarios where pleasure was involved, or you may have been taught to prioritize what others want from you versus what you want. After all, we live in a world where many bodies are under attack and in a culture that has long privileged men’s pleasure over women’s (hello, orgasm gap).

All of the above could mean you need some personal space to heal your relationship to pleasure. From an emotional perspective, when we are unable to feel pleasure, it’s not because we can’t access it; it’s because our bodies are protecting us from feeling anything at all so as to shield us from pain.

Before approaching more pleasurable sex, it might be helpful to explore what feels good, what you like, and what you want outside of sex, and report back to your partner. Sensual Self: Prompts and Practices for Getting in Touch with Your Body, by Ev’Yan Whitney, provides accessible journal prompts to get you started on your pleasure journey.

4. Create a transitional pre-sex practice for when the day’s obligations are done

One of the common complaints I hear is that people aren’t “in the mood” or are “too exhausted” at the end of the day for sex and deep connection. I do not doubt the truth of these statements; there are so many demands on our time and energy at this cultural moment.

But what may also be contributing to these feelings is the fact that, when we’re overwhelmed, the part of our brain that can connect is not readily available to us. If we attempt to go from a busy workday, an evening workout, or preparing dinner to pressing “go” on sexual connection, we are setting unrealistic expectations for ourselves.

Instead, create a transitional practice that enables your body to enter a window where connection feels possible. If you typically run anxious, ask yourself, “What sounds, sights, tastes, textures, and/or scents soothe me?” and see how you can incorporate one or more of these sensory items into a pre-sex ritual. Or, if you tend to feel low on energy or fatigued when the time for sex rolls around, do the same thing for the sensations or sensory items that typically energize you.

Integrating, for example, a few songs, movements, or fragrances that bring you back home to your body might give you just what you need to be able to shift into a connection space with your partner and make sex feel more exciting.

5. Get curious about your sex life

When we experience dissatisfaction in our sex life, we typically create a problem-focused narrative. It might sound something like, “My partner is lazy,” or “We aren’t compatible anymore.” The issue with this type of story is that it prevents further investigation. And it’s often just a strategy for avoiding feeling hurt, jealousy, or anger while steering clear of what’s really happening below the surface.

Instead, get curious about what’s happening or what’s changed in the dynamic with your partner. For example, instead of saying, “My partner doesn’t have energy for sex,” ask yourself, “What might be taking up all his energy?” Or, instead of saying, “I just don’t find sex pleasurable with my partner anymore,” ask yourself, “What has shifted for me when it comes to sex, and what may have shifted for her?” These open-ended questions offer up new pathways for connection, rather than shutting them down.

6. Discuss the sensitive or tough stuff

Sometimes, a boring or unsexy sex life is actually covering up disconnection in a relationship, which never feels good. Because our brains like to focus on what is familiar and predictable, many of us avoid asking questions about things that we fear, or to which the answers could vary widely. But when we aren’t talking about what’s really coming up for us, silence or physical disengagement accrues around these tough topics and creates thick layers of distance between us. And sex tends to fall away (or become less satisfying) in the resulting chasm.

When we aren’t talking about what’s really coming up for us, silence or physical disengagement accrues around these tough topics and creates thick layers of distance between us.

Ask yourself: What are you wondering about your partner, but are afraid to know the answer to? Some ideas are: “What sexual fantasies do you have that exist outside of us, and how would you want to share them with me?”, “What do you wish were different about our relationship?”, “What do you feel insecure about in our relationship?”, “What makes it hard for you to connect with me?”, and “What ideas do you have about bringing more fire into our connection?” Anything that invites newness into a relationship has the potential to enliven it.

7. Spend time doing fun things outside of your relationship

This sounds counterintuitive, but in actuality, finding joy outside of a relationship can help you thrive within the relationship. Sometimes, we depend too heavily on our partners to meet our every need, and this puts too much weight on the relationship for it to thrive. The route to closeness might actually be differentiation and spending more time on your own.

How are you nurturing your own garden? What is your sexual relationship with yourself like? Do you still do things that bring you playfulness and joy that have nothing to do with your partner? Accessing the sensual, sexual, and curious parts of you that you may have left behind when you coupled up won’t just leave you feeling more fulfilled; it could also help you do your part in reigniting a spark between you and your partner.

How hydration affects mood and cognition

Given that about 55–60 percent of the human body is comprised of water, it makes sense that drinking enough H2O is a key part of overall health and wellness. Being adequately hydrated is necessary for the body to perform important functions, like flushing out waste through peeing and pooping, regulating body temperature, lubricating joints, and protecting sensitive tissues like the spinal cord. Research has shown that even mild dehydration can negatively affect mood and the ability to think clearly.

Water makes up 75 percent of the brain’s mass, so being hydrated enough is important to help it carry out all its functions, and that includes the faculties you need to engage in conversation, like thinking clearly. Dehydration causes a host of negative effects, such as headaches, dizziness, and fatigue. “Any processes in the brain need water, so essentially nothing will function without having appropriate hydration levels, and so dehydration in general has a wide array of negative impacts,” says Margaret Morrissey, PhD, president of the National Heat Safety Coalition at the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut. Being dehydrated can also elevate your cortisol, the hormone associated with stress—not the ideal state to be in for an important conversation.

A 2018 review of 33 studies published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that dehydration impairs cognitive performance, especially for tasks that require attention, motor coordination, and executive functioning. As you go about your day, you lose water through a host of activities, says Dr. Morrissey—sweating, peeing, crying, even breathing. If you don’t replenish those lost fluids by drinking enough water each day, you run the risk of dehydration. Feeling thirsty is one way to tell you need to drink more water, but there’s a more precise measurement: Dehydration is measured by comparing body mass loss (BML) to someone’s baseline weight, says Dr. Morrissey; mild dehydration is about one percent away from someone’s standard body weight, while two percent or more is “when we start to see more wide-ranging differences in performance and other metrics,” she says.

It’s for all these reasons that it’s a really good idea to stay adequately hydrated before going into an important conversation.

Why it’s a good idea to drink water before an important conversation

Given the effect hydration has on cognition and mood, it makes sense that drinking a glass of water before an important conversation that requires you to process your own emotions, plus that of another person, is a good idea.

Hydrating pre convo can help put you in the best mental state possible for the talk. “I always tell people it’s important to ‘do your own work,’ and what I mean is getting yourself in the right mental and physical state so you have the ability to hear and process what the other person is saying,” says relationship therapist Kimberly Panganiban, LMFT. This includes picking a time to talk when you’re not stressed or distracted, tired, hungry—or thirsty.

Sipping water during the conversation isn’t a bad idea, either; Panganiban says taking a beat during a conversation gives you some time to process and gather your thoughts, and can be a useful tool to de-escalate if things are getting a little emotional or intense. Bottoms up!

But when irrational beliefs and thought patterns take hold and obscure this, they can disrupt your life and hold you back from happiness. But by challengingthe irrational beliefs disrupting your life and creating action steps to minimize them, you can defang them, which is the principle behind rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that operates from the idea that you’re in control of your actions.

What is rational emotive behavior therapy?

REBT was invented by psychologist Albert Ellis, PhD, in the 1950s. “The idea is that you’re trying to get somebody to walk away from an irrational belief and replace it with a less inflammatory belief,” says REBT trained-therapist Antoinette Bonafede, LMSW.

“The idea is that you’re trying to get somebody to walk away from an irrational belief and replace it with a less inflammatory belief.”—Antoinette Bonafede, LMSW

The REBT approach accounts for the fact you don’t know what’s going to happen to you, but is based on the premise that you can control how you respond and how you choose to reason and work through what happens. “The goal is not to never feel angry, or anxious, or sad—it’s to be able to correctly place that feeling so you can respond in a way that best represents how you’re feeling and make it as clear as possible so you can be better understood,” Bonafede says.

How irrational beliefs hinder happiness

Irrational beliefs can hold you back from happiness by not allowing you to see the reality and nuance of a situation. Irrational beliefs also fuel the idea that you don’t play a role in what happens to you—that fear of the unknown and perceived lack of control can be deeply unsettling. According to Bonafede, irrational beliefs can make someone feel as if their emotion is happening outside of them, and that they have no say in the outcome.

In turn, these irrational beliefs can fuel more irrational beliefs. When irrational beliefs turn into obsessive thoughts and rumination, they can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. When not properly contextualized, these beliefs can eventually overshadow your goals and keep you from doing what you need to do to live your life in the way you want.

How REBT helps manage irrational beliefs and thoughts

To help clients reorient their irrational beliefs into actions supportive of their goals, therapists who practice REBT follow the ABCDE model of treatment. When she helps clients with irrational thoughts, Bonafede approaches their concerns using this model, which is a step-by-step process to defang the irrational thought. Here are the steps that Bonafede takes when she sees someone about an irrational belief:

A (activating event): Some event, person, or thing triggers an irrational belief. At this step in the process, Bonafede says she works to uncover what exactly caused the irrational belief in the first place. For example, maybe it was a poor review at work from a manager, or a major fight with a loved one.

B (belief forms): At this stage, Bonafede works to decipher which type of common irrational thought pattern (outlined below) the activating event triggers. In the example of a poor review at work, this person may slip into self-deprecating behavior, and think everything they’ve done up to this point in their career has been inconsequential or that they’re not intelligent enough to be good at their job.

C (consequences): This phase is about unpacking the consequences, whether positive or negative, associated with the belief. In this phase, Bonafede says she also examines “what those beliefs then drive them to do.” For example, the recipient of the poor review may think that they will be fired and unable to find another job in their field; because of this, perhaps they’ve decided to stop trying at work entirely, or to lash out at their manager or coworkers in retaliation.

D (dispute idea with evidence): At this point in the process, Bonafede says she disputes the belief to help clients understand why it’s irrational. For example, she says she may ask what evidence they have for the consequence, or ask them how this belief serves them or helps them achieve their goals. During this stage, she says she also works to explore whether the facts that form the belief are accurate.

Back to the poor work review example: A therapist could ask if this person has received critical feedback from their manager before, or if they have been disciplined at work. They may also help their client to see that one less than stellar review doesn’t necessarily mean they’re horrible at their job, or destined to fail in their field.

E (effective behavior): This last stage of the model is about finding a way to turn this irrational belief into a more proportional one. “This is where we work to replace extreme, polarizing, or absolute ideas and statements with more situationally appropriate feelings,” says Bonafede. One way of framing the poor work review could be that person deciding to learn from the feedback they received, and then changing their work habits to be more in line with their manager’s expectations of them.

4 types of irrational beliefs, and how REBT addresses them

Both Bonafede and family and relationship therapist Beth Lewis, LPC, whose approach is deeply rooted in REBT, encounter all sorts of situations in their practices, but these four types of irrational beliefs are particularly common, they say. Read on for what they are, and how a therapist practicing REBT would potentially address each.

1. Demandingness

This irrational belief is when someone believes they have to do something to achieve the outcome they want. Associated with the words “must” and “should,” demandingness is signified by rigid absolutes and may involve someone setting strict rules for themselves.

This can also manifest as a perceived lack of choice. In this case, “our behaviors become a function of pleasing somebody else as opposed of how we’re feeling in these moments,” says Bonafede. For example, an irrational thought rooted in demandingness can go something like this: “I want to be a parent, so I must find a partner by the time I turn 30.” Or, “I’ve been invited to five parties this week, and if I don’t go to them I’ll be a bad friend.”

How REBT helps: Lewis says this is often rooted in some sort of defensive need, often for safety and security provided by something or someone external, so she’d unpack this by helping someone see that they can impact their ability to feel safe and in command. “We have to shift it to look within instead of looking outside of ourselves to seek comfort and safety,” she says.

2. Awfulizing/Catastrophizing

According to Bonafede, awfulizing is all about the worst case scenario. “This is something we cannot imagine getting past, and it really keeps us stuck,” she says. Think: “My partner broke up with me, and now I won’t have an opportunity to be a parent ever and my life is over.”

How REBT helps: Bonafede points out that people are pretty resilient, and that this resiliency helps overcome adversity. To help someone experiencing awfulizing, she says it’s key to provide perspective.

3. Self-deprecating

This type of irrational belief involves tearing yourself down. “This is taking one adverse situation and having it become an overall failure,” says Bonafede. For example: Your partner breaks up with you, and now whenever anyone asks about your love life, you respond by saying you’re just not good at relationships or aren’t “dating material.” 

How REBT helps: Perspective really helps here, too, says Bonafede. To help someone who is dealing with self-deprecating beliefs, it’s key to help them realize that one action is likely not the overall story.

4. Low frustration tolerance

This irrational belief, says Bonafede, is characterized by someone being unable to put up with stressful, upsetting, or frustrating situations. This often involves an outsized reaction to something that you can’t stand or get over, and it may result in thinking you can’t get over the specific adversity you face at all, or that you can’t overcome it without some negative outcome.

According to Lewis, this particular irrational belief pattern often has a lot to do with projecting the traits and aspects you don’t like about yourself onto others. For example: You become extremely angry and throw a tantrum when their computer crashes and they are unable to complete a task.

How REBT helps: The goal here, says Bonafede, is to help someone increase their ability to deal with what’s frustrating them. This can be done by helping someone gain some perspective and by working on coping techniques. To defang this particular kind of irrational belief, Lewis says she would also emphasize turning the focus away from this external force and back to the person experiencing low frustration tolerance.

“I would circle back to what that person believes about themselves to be true, and does the person, behavior, or action they are seeing and ranking as frustrating or intolerable, mirror something they know about themself that they don’t like?” says Lewis. For example, maybe the object of someone’s frustrations is deeply stubborn, and the frustration with them is actually a reflection of the person’s inner feelings about their own stubbornness (perhaps an aspect of their shadow self, parts of their personality they don’t like).

Recognizing and addressing the four irrational beliefs that can hinder happiness is crucial for personal growth and well-being. By applying rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), individuals can challenge and replace these beliefs with rational and empowering thoughts, leading to healthier emotional responses and improved overall happiness. REBT provides practical techniques and strategies to dispute irrational beliefs, cultivate self-acceptance, and develop resilience, ultimately enabling individuals to lead more fulfilling and content lives.

Properties of the July birthstone: the energetic and exuberant ruby

• Birthstone color: Red
• Element: Fire
• Planet: Mars
• Chakra: Heart and root chakra
• Origin: Varied

Rubies are made of the mineral corundum, and they are a close relative of September’s birthstone, the sapphire. Both are formed under high pressures and temperatures deep below the earth’s surface, but the ruby’s red hue, which they get from the mineral chromium, sets it apart from sapphire, which comes in all but the color red. Given their dazzling beauty, rubies are among the most sought-after gemstones, alongside sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. Not only are they beautiful, they are also hardy, with a Mohs hardness score just a point below the diamond, which tops the charts. Rubies are found in various parts of the world, including Vietnam, Thailand, Africa, and the United States, and “the best rubies are from India and Burma [or Myanmar],” says integrative medicine and crystal expert Elizabeth Trattner, AP, DOM, the owner of wellness center The Helia House.

Birthstone meaning and symbolism of ruby

Rubies have long been associated with protection and prosperity. In ancient China and Burma, warriors wore it as a means of protection, says crystal expert and Reiki master Laura Ellis, while in Hindu culture, it is regarded as the “king of gemstones” and it was thought that those who offered rubies to the god Krishna would be born as emperors in their next life. Rubies have also been linked to passion and vitality, in part because of its supposed color resemblance to our blood and beating hearts.

“The red color signifies life force, and so [ruby] helps people tune into their own spaces of creation—be that creative projects or new ways of being in the world,” says Reiki master and crystal healer Mariah K. Lyons, founder of ASTARA. “It also activates the life force within to help you move forward.” Ellis echoes this sentiment, and calls ruby a “revitalizing stone.” When you’re feeling uninspired and lack motivation, it can help you move forward with a renewed sense of perspective or follow through on your actions. And, if you’re experiencing an energy lull, rubies can help you reignite passion and drive. They are useful for escaping a rut too, helping to release stagnant energy so you can think up new solutions to get yourself unstuck.

In astrology, ruby relates to July-born Cancers and Leos, making it particularly useful for the zodiac signs, albeit in different ways. Rubies can encourage Cancerians to lean into their “queen essence,” says Lyons, allowing the mother of the zodiac to hone their maternal instincts that are key among Cancer traits. The stone can also serve as a grounding reminder for Cancer to take care of themselves, because while they are naturally giving, compassionate, and nurturing to others, they have an inclination to give too much at times. “As for the lion, [ruby] brings a very creative and passionate energy,” says Lyon, helping channel their inner fire purposefully, allow for the full expression of their truth, and enhance their shine. In other words, ruby will help bring out the very best Leo traits. All that said, anyone can harness the energizing powers of the July birthstone regardless of their zodiac and the month they were born.

Lyons, Ellis, and Dr. Trattner also mention that ruby is connected with the root chakra, which is associated with stability and security, and the heart chakra, which, as its name implies, is linked to matters of the heart. The ruby can activate the root chakra to help one feel grounded in the energy and simultaneously remove energetic blocks. When it comes to the heart chakra, it helps wake up and inspire one’s passion, while also removing any blockages that may cause stagnation.

Does July have more than one birthstone?

Rubies might be considered as the primary birthstone for July, but traditionally, the stone onyx was associated with the month. According to Ellis, onyx is a grounding stone, helping one to stay present in their body and senses and hone their focus. She also says that it can also safeguard against negative energy and help one create or maintain healthy boundaries.

What are birthstones?

Birthstones are gemstones that represent a person’s birth month or zodiac sign. Their origins are believed to trace back to biblical times, and the first-century historian Flavius Josephus associated the 12 gemstones on Aaron’s breastplate in the Book of Exodus with the months of the year and the 12 zodiac signs. However, the custom of wearing an individual gem per month didn’t begin until around the 15th or 16th century in Germany or Poland. Birthstones are also found to have origins in Eastern Culture. The Ratna Pariksha, a fifth-century Hindu text, linked specific gems to deities, celestial bodies, and days of the week, while Vedic astrologers recommend certain gems to individuals based on their astrological birth chart.

In 1912, the American Council Association of Jewelers (which is currently known as the Jewelers of America) created a standardized list of birthstones in the United States. This list was updated by the Jewelry Industry Council of America and later by The American Gem Trade Association to include new types of birthstones for certain months of the year.

An overview of the birthstones for every month of the year

Want to pick a crystal that corresponds to your birth month? Here’s a quick overview of the birthstones for every month of the year:

• January Birthstone: Garnet
• February Birthstone: Amethyst
• March Birthstone: Aquamarine and Bloodstone
• April Birthstone: Diamond
• May Birthstone: Emerald
• June Birthstone: Pearl, Alexandrite, and Moonstone
• July Birthstone: Ruby
• August Birthstone: Peridot, Spinel, and Sardonyx
• September Birthstone: Sapphire
• October Birthstone: Opal and Tourmaline
• November Birthstone: Topaz and Citrine
• December Birthstone: Tanzanite, Turquoise, and Zircon

Frequently asked questions about the July birthstone

What is July’s birthstone and flower?

July’s birthstone is the red ruby or, traditionally, onyx, and the birth flower of July is the larkspur, or delphinium, which is thought to symbolize positivity.

What are the two birthstones for July?

The red ruby is currently the “primary” July birthstone, but the traditional birthstone of the month is the black onyx.

What are the characteristics of the birthstone of July?

The red ruby is an energetic stone that is thought to inspire energy, action, and passion, while the traditional July birthstone—the onyx—is a grounding stone that can also help safeguard against negative energy.

Previously, endorphins have been the star of the show for the connection between exercise and mood: A good sweat session will cause a release of endorphins, which are neurochemicals produced in the pituitary gland that react with opiate receptors, meaning they make you feel really good. Working out also stimulates the production of serotonin and norphenylephrine, which are other happiness, wellbeing, and pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters.

These mood-boosting stimulations would probably be enough to give you that post-yoga glow. But there’s something even more going on.

Researchers have come to understand that when our muscles contract, they produce substances that get dispersed throughout the body. Some of these are chains of amino acids called myokines, and they are able to cross the blood-brain barrier—which means they can act on your brain. And when they get there, they improve brain function.

“Several myokines—irisin, hydroxybutyrate, etc.—have been shown to stimulate neuronal function and facilitate synapses, which are the way neurons communicate with each other,” Mychael Vinicius Lourenco, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, who co-authored a recent review of research around myokines and brain function, previously told Well+Good.

That includes potentially “mediating the beneficial actions of physical exercise in the brain,” Lourenco and his co-authors write in the review. As a potential example, assisting with neuron communication could mean that myokines are helping those feel-good messages being sent by endorphins, serotonin, and norphenylephrine be heard.

Beyond just helping your brain do its job better, researchers also think that myokines could actually be a bulwark against depression. This has led to the substances garnering the name “hope molecules.”

In 2016, physical therapy and psychiatry researchers writing in the journal Physical Therapy were reviewing research on the connection between exercise and depression. They referenced a 2014 study on mice in which mice with lower levels of a certain type of myokine exhibit less resilience under stress than those mice with higher levels of the myokine.

“After a significant amount of stress, the mice appeared to ‘lose hope,’ as evidenced by their decreased survival efforts during forced swimming (an indicator of depression),” the authors write. “Altogether, these results suggest that the release of ‘hope molecules’ from the skeletal muscles of rodents influence mood disorder symptoms.”

While we can’t necessarily extrapolate the findings from studies on mice to humans, both species share some underlying biology that might cause myokines to work in a similar way. Namely, these myokines could inhibit a neurotransmitter pathway that, when it’s overactive, is linked with depression.

This was compelling enough for Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal, the author of The Joy of Movement, to take notice of the study, and popularize the term. “Hope molecules,” McGonigal previously said on the Rich Roll podcast, could be like “an intravenous dose of hope.”

“It’s not just an endorphin rush,” McGonigal says on the podcast. “You go for a walk or a run or you lift weights and your muscles contract and they secrete these proteins into your bloodstream. They travel to your brain, they cross the blood-brain barrier. And in your brain, they can act as an antidepressant. Like irisin [a myokine] can make your brain more resilient to stress. They increase motivation. They help you learn from experience. And the only way you get these chemicals is by using your muscles.”

Even if research is still developing for how exactly exercise boosts mood and mental health, the link between exercise and wellbeing has never been clearer. Two recent meta-analyses on the effects of exercise in adults and exercise in kids have found it to be an effective bulwark against depression.

What with our emerging understanding of myokines, and the undeniable benefits of exercise, there’s never been a more compelling reason to take your medicine: A dose of movement.

Citrus scents are “refreshing, bring energy, and have an uplifting, cleansing effect,” says certified aromatherapist Caroline Schroeder. “Lemon is cool and joyful while orange is warm and pampers. And grapefruit boosts energy in an entirely different way.”

To fill my bedroom with energizing citrus scents before I wake, I started using the Pura Smart Fragrance Diffuser ($45). It’s an app-controlled wall plug-in that allows me to turn the diffuser on and off, set scent schedules, select a scent, determine scent intensity, and change the color of the light emitting from the device. You can also use the to order new fragrances and subscribe to your favorites so you never run out. It has two scent wells (which you can fill with different scent pods), so you can easily switch between scents. The brand has partnered with several luxury perfume brands—like LAFCO, Capri Blue, and NEST—so the scents the diffuser emits are similar in quality and smell to what you’d spritz on your skin.

By scheduling my Pura Diffuser to go off in the morning instead of having it emit scents all day, I’m able to appreciate its fragrances instead of being nose-blind to them (AKA getting so used to them that I can no longer smell them at all). Plus, I’m not wasting scent by running it when I’m not in my room. I tend to wake up between 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., so every morning from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., my bedroom is flooded with either Brooklyn Candle Studio’s Maui (a blend of bergamot, ylang-ylang, sea salt, sea moss, and driftwood) or Antica Farmacista’s Orange Blossom (a combination of mandarin, Sicilian lemon, grapefruit, jasmine, lily of the valley, white lilac, orange blossom, Madagascar vanilla, white musk, and rosewood).

“The typical fresh and uplifting smell of citruses comes from their main chemical component, d-limonene,” says Schroeder. “Extracted from the fresh fruit rind and usually pressed, citrus essential oils contain up to 97 percent of d-limonene, and studies suggest this component supports the part of the nervous system responsible for relaxation. In other words, it can decrease stress.”

What it’s like waking up with the Pura Smart Fragrance Diffuser

Waking up in a room that smells like a citrus grove is divine. When I open my eyes and turn off my alarm in a cloud of confusion, the scent helps ground me into reality. Of course, if I didn’t get enough sleep the night before, the smell of oranges doesn’t change the fact that I’ll wake up tired. However, it helps to pull me out of that groggy state and into a pleasant wake-up routine.

When my alarm goes off, I tend to stay in bed daydreaming for 10 to 20 minutes until I feel more alive. Filling my space with energizing scents has elevated this quiet time and made it feel special. And because I have smell going until 10, I get to continue enjoying it while I make my bed, tidy my room, do my morning skin-care routine, and get dressed for the day. Whether you also have a difficult time waking up, or just want to take your daily rituals to the next level, the Pura Smart Fragrance Diffuser is an excellent investment.

Whatever your reason for picking up a paperback (and we seriously love that new book smell) or borrowing from the library (we love Libby, which is a virtual library app that can send copies or audio files to your Kindle or phone) , we’ve simplified the process by gathering the latest must-reads. Go ahead and put your phone on Do Not Disturb. We won’t tell. Without further ado, here are our five favorite book releases that hit shelves in June.

5 June book releases you need to add to your reading list immediately

"The Glow" by Jessie Gaynor — $19.00

This tongue-in-cheek exploration of wellness culture is très up our alley. Here’s what you need to know: a down-on-her-luck publicist named Jane decides to take the cult-ish leader of a retreat center and make her the buzziest new face of self care. Essentially, this satirical novel takes a sharp look at the culture knitted into beauty and health influencers—and the people who help them get there, no matter the cost. Jessie Gaynor is absolutely hilarious and smart, and isn’t afraid to call out a community that leans toward unattainable exclusivity as its main selling point. If you’ve ever complained that “self care” looks a lot like a synonym for “money,” this one’s for you.

Also purchase from Bookshop.

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"Adult Drama: And Other Essays" by Natalie Beach — $24.00

Ever heard of Caroline Calloway? While we don’t have time to get into *all that*, here’s the quick rundown: a few years ago, a friendship turned sour rather publicly between a long-time scammer (she’s literally written a book called Scammer) and her best friend who claimed to have ghostwritten much of her previous work. Needless to say, the results were juicy, and digital footprints imply that this dynamic is still very much culturally relevant. In layman’s terms, this backstory might satisfy your next Reddit deep-dive or reality TV craving. Anyhow, the ghostwriter in question, Natalie Beach, just released a collection of come-of-age essays that are equally page-turning. Did we fully know what the plot was before picking it up? No. Did it matter? Of course not. This feels like one of those books you proudly flash on the subway or let peek out of your tote bag—cue the conversation starter. Adult drama, indeed.

Also purchase from Bookshop.

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"Girlfriend on Mars" by Deborah Willis — $24.00

In light of some tragic recent events, this novel set in space may or may not tap into your latent curiosity about billionaire-funded trips to extreme frontiers. The book itself follows a twenty-something reality TV show contestant competing for a seat on an exploratory mission to Mars, set against the backdrop of a maybe-failing relationship, climate concerns making our *existing* planet inhospitable, and compelling coming-of-age-ish existential crises.

Also purchase from Bookshop.

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"Pageboy: A Memoir" by Elliot Page — $19.00

You’ve probably heard of Juno—and more recently, it’s the star’s queer awakening. What better way to finish off Pride month than with Elliot Page’s trans coming of age, both individually and in the limelight? If you’ve savored celeb memoirs as of late—and there are some worthy contenders—you’ll appreciate this intimate peek.

Also purchase from Bookshop.

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"Love, Theoretically" by Ali Hazelwood — $24.00

Women in STEM, this one’s for you. Ali Hazelwood won over hearts with her debut romance The Love Hypothesis, featuring a stubborn female scientist and her academic rival. Ummm, say less. While this pick has been trending in the top five at Book of the Month for what feels like forever, her third release follows the same lovable structure as her first two (beloved) stories. Consider: a theoretical physicist, Elsie, and her favorite client’s arrogant older brother who’s standing in the way of her dream job. TL;DR: sparks fly.

Also purchase from Bookshop.

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Still, you can thank the good ol’ American protestant work ethic for the “early to bed, early to rise” standard that’s been ingrained in our psyches as the ideal way to structure our days. And because getting up and getting started on a work day is a necessity for a lot of people, being able to tackle the morning in a way that launches you into a productive mindset is aspirational—whether or not you naturally wake up before your alarm.

Hence, the popularity of “morning habit” hacks. Here at Well+Good and elsewhere, you’ll find advice from neuroscientists, blue zone residents, registered dietitians—and yes, morning people—offering to let you in on the secrets of how they rev their engines first thing.

Our fascination with this idea comes from the drive to optimize our days. With work, family, health, community, and so many other concerns vying for our attention, the idea that we can somehow do it all if we only maximize the potential of our mornings is a tantalizing one. It’s also somewhat misleading and potentially unattainable in a society where the responsibility for health and wellbeing falls to the individual, and not the community as a whole.

In reality, mornings don’t generally conform to the soothing smoothie-making, latte-stirring, journal-writing routines that go viral on TikTok. Nope, not even for us wellness editors at Well+Good—a group that knows a lot about the food, workouts, mental exercises, and other habits that are theoretically good for us. Just like you, we’re all doing what we can to show up—and maybe, occasionally, present as our most energized selves when the stars do align—for the job of employee, mom, partner, and human being every day.

So it’s time to pull back the curtain on morning habits. Whatever you’re doing that’s working, keep on keepin’ on. No aesthetically-pleasing smoothie required.

Here are the real morning habits of 5 wellness editors

1. Taking medication

Every morning I take an SSRI pill. I have a form of clinical anxiety that flares at bedtime, and can prevent me from falling asleep in a timely manner. The SSRI I take first thing when I wake up helps me manage my evening so that I get a good night’s sleep. That’s the best thing I can do for a smooth morning and productive day, period. – Rachel Kraus, senior health & fitness writer

2. Making the bed

I personally have to make my bed every morning (fluff up my throw pillows, tuck in the corners of my fitted sheet—really make my bed feel hotel-like) in order to set myself up for success for the day. It’s like I’m accomplishing something straight off the bat first thing. Plus, the less clutter, the more calm I feel in my living and work space. – Gina Vaynshteyn, editorial commerce director

3. Working out in P.J.s

I can be caught occasionally doing my morning pilates class in my pajamas. Half the work is showing up! – Betty Gold, senior food editor

4. Tidying up

A few of my morning habits are vacuuming my floors, wiping down my counters, and cleaning out my cat’s litter box before starting my day. My mood is influenced a lot by my space, so when my surroundings look clean, my mind feels clear, too. – Danielle Calma, SEO writer

5. Going on a walk with my daughter

Around 8 a.m., I strap my one-year-old in her baby carrier to go for a walk. If we have time, we’ll go the long way to daycare so we can say hello to the crossing guard and the old man who sits outside the laundromat. On days she doesn’t go to daycare, I’ll walk along the river with her, stopping to check out cool plants or to make faces at ourselves in empty store windows. Since I work at home, this little ritual makes me feel like so much more of a real person in the real world. I love that we’re not doing anything “important,” but just taking some time to hang out together and enjoy the neighborhood. – Jenny Heimlich, senior health & fitness editor

When you grow up “different,” which is how I often felt as a young queer person in Florida, you may feel out of place in your family of origin. You may feel like you have nothing in common with the people you are pushed to spend time with at school, and that you can only find refuge in certain spaces. For me, refuge looked like sneaking into the guest room at my parents’ house to watch But I’m a Cheerleader with my other not-yet-out queer friends, sitting at an LGBTQ+ coffee shop for hours, and sitting with the Diversity Awareness Club at lunch on Wednesdays. My Florida high school technically didn’t allow us to have a Gay-Straight Alliance club (GSA), so we were a club by another name—but everybody knew. The Diversity Awareness Club included me and my merry band of not-yet-fully-out bisexual friends, a couple allies who practiced Wicca, and a theater kid or two.

We were diverse enough. More importantly? We chose each other.

When I got to college, I was able to really spread my wings as a young LGBTQ+ person and create a chosen family. I went to queer bars that held weekly college nights for those of us who were underage, and I got involved in GSA.

This is where I met Drew. The first day of the first meeting of our GSA at the University of Central Florida, he and his roommate walked up to me, introduced themselves, and then just said, “We should be friends.” It was a suggestion, not a request.

Yes, we should be.

To know Drew was to know joy. Drew introduced me to pop-cultural tidbits I had never known about before—Dance Dance Revolution, the annual Eurovision Song Contest, obscure YouTube videos that I still watch today. He included me in his diverse collection of friends that he picked up in different phases of his life, but never discarded.

He would walk with a bounce in his step. He would hum “mmm” while hugging you, as if he were using extra senses to express his love. He would dance like a maniac without caring how he looked to anybody else. He would hype up his friends because to him, friendship was romantic. To know Drew was to know authenticity and love in the greatest capacity.

Unfortunately, I lost Drew, along with 48 others the night of June 12, 2016 at the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Reclaiming queer joy after tragedy

Pulse had been a safe space for so many of us. It was a true offshoot of our education, with drag show performances including the likes of Detox, Ginger Minj, and Roxxxy Andrews—all before RuPaul’s Drag Race was a mainstream hit.

But in a few moments, a crazed man with enough ammo to take down an army squadron entered the club and fired off round after round after round. Drew’s boyfriend Juan made it to the hospital only because Drew shielded him on the dance floor and took nine bullets himself. We lost both of them that night, nonetheless.

The days following this news left me bereft. In shock. Like a piece of me had been taken away. I didn’t know who I would be in the inevitable next phase of my life. I felt as though my queer joy was snuffed out and couldn’t come back.

I was wrong, though.

If not for pushing my pain into positive change, I may still be in bed mourning the loss of my friend.

Shortly after returning home from Drew’s funeral, I joined forces with several friends of his in Orlando and launched The Dru Project—an organization to honor him, named after his online moniker. So far, we’ve given out almost $200,000 in college scholarships for queer youth, and given $15,000 in grants to help people form Gay-Straight Alliances—work that was near and dear to Drew’s heart. We’ve also helped distribute the most comprehensive Gay-Straight Alliance guide in the world (co-written by Drew himself, thanks to some notes he had kept filed away on his computer) to help schools set up their own groups.

In many ways, this work has saved my life. If not for pushing my pain into positive change, I may still be in bed mourning the loss of my friend. I’ve found purpose from this work, starting with The Dru Project, to my volunteering with Everytown for Gun Safety to help the new crops of gun violence survivors tell their stories, to the work I was privileged to do for the Matthew Shepard Foundation for three years, to working with queer artists. And leaning into my identity, in spite of the violence and hate that people like me face every day, has been its own form of joy.

In a lot of ways, this work has also expanded my chosen family. I am proud to call some of The Dru Project’s scholars my friends. In fact, I just helped one of them move to Colorado (where I now live) from Florida to escape transphobic the state has recently passed. I stay up-to-date on the work our other scholars are doing with their own advocacy and can proudly say that they are changing the discourse of politics in this country. And who do I have to thank for bringing all of these incredible people into my life? Drew. That is the lens through which I choose to see my life. Just as he did while he was alive, he continues connecting people.

Centering queer joy during pride (and beyond)

During this month, in addition to honoring my friend and those we lost at Pulse, I make sure to center joy, because that’s what Drew would have done. I always celebrate a little extra by uplifting my chosen family of talented friends—all the incredible LGBTQ+ people making society better through their activism, work, and art.

I put on “Glistening” by Grace DeVine—a song I helped write about the nonbinary experience and being joyfully queer. I tell people to read my friend Brandon Wolf’s book, A Place for Us, which is about his experience learning to love himself at all intersections of his persona, thanks to our mutual friend Drew. (I only met Brandon after Drew’s passing, and I treasure how we can keep pieces of him alive together.)

In a world where there are hundreds of laws seeking to push our community back into the shadows, I find that our queer joy is resistance. It’s light.

I support local drag performers, like my friend Jessica L’Whor, someone who has been doing drag for a decade now and continues to shine in the face of adversity while supporting community initiatives. And I try to amplify the voices of people like Sarah Todd, who is creating a space for queer musicians to place their music commercially, and who recently placed a song with Apple during Pride Month (and was announced by the company’s openly-gay CEO). 

This chosen family of mine continues to uplift the voices of the marginalized while making splashes of their own. Our successes are shared as a community, and I am proud to be able to revel in the accomplishments I see these wonderful humans achieve.

In a world where there are hundreds of laws seeking to push our community back into the shadows, I find that our queer joy is resistance. It’s light. I find that our community is brave and strong and resilient. The space we create for each other is safe and sacred. I welcome the friends I have had since I was young and those I met this weekend at Denver’s Pridefest alike with open arms, just like Drew welcomed me into his all of those years ago. I cherish that you are a part of my journey and I can’t wait to cheer yours on, as well.

The arc of justice is long. I know that we, as a community, are in the thick of our fight, but in this case, I see the arc as a rainbow. How could I not?

This kind of goal is a target that’s not necessarily for your health or geared toward a major event like a race. Instead, it prioritizes fun movement styles that just feel good to you, and that you decide to do… just because. These goals give you something simple and satisfying to check off your to-do list on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Just ask Alison Mead, an ultramarathoner who’s on a four-year-long streak of running at least one continuous mile per day. She’s someone who loves writing weekly goals and habit-setting checklists to help her celebrate small wins. In addition to running daily, she adds in other small fitness pursuits, like 10 burpees, a 30-second plank, or walks with co-workers.

“Each month, I like to pick something where I can focus on variety,” she says. “[Goal-setting] gives me purpose for when I go to work out. I know what I want to accomplish, and I know when I’m done.” Plus, it gives her a sense of achievement at the end: “Looking back at everything I accomplished [is] very rewarding.”

The benefits of ‘just because’ fitness goals

SLT instructor Jess Paris, NASM-CPT, agrees that not every moment of your fitness regimen needs to have a capital “P” purpose. “I think there may be people who refrain from setting goals because the idea of a goal is too intense or scary for them. But a goal does not need to have a finish line or finite measure of anything. It instead could be translated as intentions, routines, or lifestyle changes,” she says.

For example, a just-for-fun fitness goal could be something like: I’m going to power walk in at least two parks in my neighborhood by the end of the week. Or, I’m going to go on a bike ride until I see at least three cute dogs.

While it won’t be a huge bummer if you miss this kind of goal, checking it off your to-dos will give you that wonderful “I did it!” feeling if you do make it happen. In the long run, sticking with these mini-wins can teach you how to stay consistent for when bigger opportunities (think: triathlons or incredible hikes) come knocking.

“They teach consistency and routine, which is a lot of what keeping a fitness regimen is about and how you’ll see and feel progress,” says Paris. “If you get used to setting time aside every day to do the dumb goal, then you’re more likely to keep that mindset when looking to create a fitness routine.”

This feeling of “I did it!” benefits you from a psychological standpoint, too, according to positive psychiatrist Samantha Boardman, MD. When you create a goal that adds something to your life—say, a little pickleball-induced serotonin—checking it off can highlight your strengths and make you feel good about yourself.

“We constantly focus on what’s wrong. For example, if somebody were to ask a person that question, it’s easy for them to come up with 20 things [they need to improve], and fixate on that,” said Dr. Boardman in a recent episode of The Well+Good Podcast. “But less available to us is, ‘What are our strengths?’ and ‘What are we good at?’ And from there, ‘How can we put our strengths to good use in order to navigate toward a goal?’”

Along the way of chasing seemingly inconsequential goals, you’ll learn just how much you can accomplish physically in a month. “I love fitness because it’s easily measurable,” Jade Morning, a yoga instructor with Alo Moves. She might have a new client who, at the beginning of the month, can’t do any push-ups, for instance. “But after setting a goal, creating a plan, and following it for a month or so, now my client can do five,” she explains. In other words, a silly fitness goal may amount to something that’s far from silly. And that’s why they’re worth doing.

“Goals spice up your fitness routine,” says Morning. “I currently have a goal to get the splits, not because it’s necessary for my training or coaching but because it’s a small thing I can work towards weekly. There’s so much power in the journey.” Along the way, you may even find that you have a “serious” fitness goal—like a deadlift PR or learning how to rock climb—in your future.

How to make the most of silly fitness goals

Silly goals are the fitness equivalent of a blank canvas—so you can’t really go wrong. Pledge to dance to your favorite song every day at exactly 1 p.m. Decide that you’re going to cover every under-five-mile hike in your city. Make up your mind to swim every weekend this summer.

Remember: These goals are additive. Meaning, you’re not subtracting anything from your life. Instead, you’re adding a joy-promoting behavior. “When we plan for joy, when we schedule joy, and when we think about it in advance, it allows us to make sure that those good things actually happen,” joy expert Ingrid Fetell Lee previously told Well+Good.

However, Paris does note that any target that relies on a daily commitment requires a mindful approach. Ask yourself: Am I taking care of myself? Am I resting enough? Am I enjoying my goals? “There’s the chance you get a little too obsessed with the goal, and you don’t rest when you should. Or, on the flip side, you stick to the mile a day without thinking of how to progress and improve your fitness beyond the mile,” she says.

Make sure you’re programming time into your monthly goal-setting to reflect on what you’re getting out of your movement. And what’s, well, no longer fun. The beauty of just-for-fun fitness goals is that if they’re lifting you up, that’s great; if they’re not, there’s no harm in letting them go.

How about committing to learning a new dance style each month? 

The main lifestyle difference the researchers were interested in was the fact that these monks meditated for over two hours a day. They wondered if meditation might have an impact on the microbiome (which is the types and amounts of bacteria found in the gut, as analyzed from a person’s stool).

The resulting study, published in the British Medical Journal’s General Psychiatry, found that the monks had higher quantities of certain bacteria that are associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and cardiovascular disease. The exciting findings caught the attention of outlets like The Guardian, Healthline, and others. So, does the study show that meditation is good for the gut, and subsequently good for your overall health?

Unfortunately, it’s not so clear cut.

“I’m not sure how much I would really take home from that study,” Emeran Mayer, MD, a gastroenterologist, UCLA medical school professor, Seed Health board member, and the author of the book The Mind-Gut Connection, says. “There’s more limitations than positives.”

Dr. Mayer says the technical methods the researchers used to analyze the samples were outdated. The study size as a whole was small, and the control group (just 19 people) was not robust enough to draw conclusions of difference from. He’s skeptical that samples could maintain their integrity even in a refrigerated box for a trip down a mountain and on a plane; most studies, he says, require very controlled sample collection that happens in a lab. And he also points out that diet and the sedentary lifestyle of monks was not taken into account.

Speaking with Prevention, Martin J. Blaser, MD, professor and Henry Rutgers chair of the human microbiome at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, thought the study was “well conducted,” but didn’t think meditation could be pinpointed as the defining factor that accounted for potential differences in the microbiomes of the monks versus the control group.

So, essentially, even if the findings sound exciting, experts aren’t confident that this is the study for meditation x gut health enthusiasts to hang their hats on.

What’s the big deal with “gut health” anyway?

“Gut health” has been an exciting concept (and buzzword) for years, with proponents claiming that the population of diverse, robust bacteria inside of us can influence everything from chronic disease to mental health. Our stomachs produce a lot of the substances we need to fight disease, manage inflammation, and regulate our mood (for example, most of the body’s serotonin comes from the gut). So the “mind-gut axis” is an exploding field for research.

“It turns out that microorganisms can actually counteract the harmful effects of food, drugs, hormones in our bodies, either introduced from the outside or produced inside our bodies,” Ian Smith, MD, best-selling author and chief medical advisor for the probiotics brand Jetson, previously told Well+Good. “The sheer number of conditions that have been found to link back to gut health is in itself an exciting advancement: things like obesity, diabetes, liver diseases, cancer, and even neurodegenerative diseases.”

Still, some researchers caution that many of the claims are overblown, and Dr. Mayer gives the caveat that “the majority of really revolutionary findings in the brain-gut microbiome space has come from animal models,” which he says can’t necessarily be extrapolated to humans. Furthermore, what constitutes a “healthy gut” isn’t so clearly defined, and could vary from person to person.

“We don’t know what a ‘normal’ microbiome looks like,” Ali Rezaie, MD, a gastroenterologist and co-author of The Microbiome Connection, previously told Well+Good. “Your microbiome is unique to you, and there’s no known magic mix of bacteria.”

Okay, but could meditation positively impact your gut microbiome?

Dr. Mayer’s skepticism for the Tibetan monk study in particular does not mean he thinks the theory itself doesn’t hold water. A long-time meditation practitioner (Dr. Mayer and his wife even got married at a Tibetan monastery in Kathmandu), and an expert in studying the connection between the gut, body, and brain, Dr. Mayer says it makes sense that meditation could impact the microbiome in a positive way. That’s all down to the growing (but still not-definitive) body of research showing that meditation can possibly reduce stress, and evidence is amassing that stress can wreak havoc on the gut.

When we’re stressed, our sympathetic nervous system gets activated. That activation “changes the environment in which the microbes live, their habitat,” Dr. Mayer says, including blood flow, contractions, mucus production, and more. Certain neurotransmitters, like norepinephrine, can make their way into the gut, which “modifies gene expression of the microbes,” he says. A meta-analysis of studies found that more research is needed to further understand how stress affects the gut (much of the research has been done on mice), “but emerging human evidence has begun to corroborate preclinical findings” that stress can impact gut health.

“If relaxation and stress reduction and meditation decrease sympathetic nervous system tone and reactivity, then I think that will be the most possible explanation for changes in microbiome,” Dr. Mayer says.

Other studies have shown some promise for this hypothesis. One small study that looked at meditation practitioners who ate a vegan diet found a higher prevalence of beneficial bacteria versus a control group. A meta-analysis of studies that looked at topics including stress, the microbiome, epigenetics, and meditation concluded that “during stress, an altered gut microbial population affects the regulation of neurotransmitters mediated by the microbiome and gut barrier function. Meditation helps regulate the stress response, thereby suppressing chronic inflammation states and maintaining a healthy gut-barrier function.” While other papers suggest that these statements are not so clearly established as scientific fact, the stress-gut connection—and meditation’s ability to modulate it—are not so theoretically far-fetched.

So should you be making like a Buddhist monk and meditating for two hours every day for the sake of your microbiome? There’s probably no need to divest of all your worldly belongings just yet—but don’t ignore the potential power of a meditation practice to contribute to your overall health and wellbeing (and subsequently, your gut).

“The ultimate thing is really to have a microbiome-friendly diet, plus the contemplative component, you know, the half hour meditation,” Dr. Mayer says. “A healthy lifestyle should have both.”

While we know that working out three to five times a week is ideal for maintaining health and achieving optimal physical benefits, we started to wonder just how long or how hard you have to work out in order to notably improve your mood. Knowing we aren’t alone in this query, we chatted with two sports psychologists to shed a little light on the intersection of fitness and mental health.

Why does working out boost your mood?

Research shows that exercise has an immense effect on mood, particularly because it directly correlates to a boost in dopamine (aka “the happy hormone”). According to a 2021 systematic review of studies on this effect published in Brain Sciences, researchers concluded that, like prescriptions, physical activity should be a recommended measure for improving mental health. That’s how strong of an effect it can have.

Exercise doesn’t only boost levels of dopamine, though. According to sport and performance psychologist Isaac Zur, PhD, CMPC, MHC, of Mental Performance Consulting of NY, working out also promotes increased levels of mood-enhancing neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin.

In addition to boosting some brain chemicals, Dr. Zur points out that some low-key forms of exercise can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, as well. (Think: yoga, gentle hikes.) Though, it’s important to note that some research suggests that vigorous physical activity, in which a person uses more than 60 percent of their max heart rate, can temporarily boost cortisol levels, as it goes hand in hand with adrenaline, the chemical known for making us feel ready to take on any physical feat. This is why some therapists recommend patients with a history of anxiety approach high-intensity exercise cautiously.

Beyond the physiological effects of exercise, Dr. Zur says that physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, which in turn can boost cognitive function. It also simply improves self-esteem “due to the higher sense of self-accomplishment,” he says.

All of these things, together, make for a near-instant mood boost post-exercise.

How long do you have to exercise to improve your mood?

Since not everyone has the same physiological makeup, fitness level, or preferred workout type, Dr. Zur says that it’s difficult to give a universal prescription for how much exercise you need to get that mood enhancement. But you’ll likely want to get in half an hour or more to see a difference. “In general, a moderate-intensity workout that lasts for at least 30 minutes can effectively increase endorphins and improve your mood,” he says.

4 ways to get the maximum mood boost from your workout

Opt for workouts that prioritize bursts of energy

Remember: The key to a mood-boosting workout is to opt for moderate intensity, at least. That could mean jogging, a dance cardio class, or casual bike ride.

“Alternating high-intensity exercise with short rest time or lower intensity exercise (such as in a HIIT class) is also another great booster,” says sport psychology and performance consultant Brenley Shapiro, MSW, RSW, RP, who is the founder and president of Heads Up High Performance. “Hockey is another great example of this for a team sport—players have a strong boost of energy and intensity for their shift, lasting about 35 to 40 seconds, followed by rest time on the bench… until their next shift.”

According to Shapiro, when you alternate through exercise intensities, you’re able to adequately increase your heart rate while sustaining longer performance time, which in turn lets you experience all of the mood benefits.

If ice hockey isn’t your style, a bootcamp-style class like Barry’s will have you covered.

Work out with other people

“Exercising with friends or in a group setting is a great mood booster, whether it’s in a group exercise class, team sports, exercising with a friend, or even just going for a walk with someone,” Shapiro says. “We know that human/social connection is a basis for human motivation, so right there, that provides a great boost.”

As an added bonus, Shapiro points out that working out with friends also helps with accountability and social support, which can make crushing your health and wellness goals feel more attainable. If you don’t already have fitness-focused friends, join a local running club or book a group workout class like Orangetheory.

Pick a stellar playlist and turn up the volume

Music has a known mood-boosting benefit. “Creating a playlist of your favorite pump-up songs can be a great mood-booster,” Shapiro says. “We know that music on its own activates the pleasure centers of the brain (in fact, the same pleasure centers that sex activates)—so what a great boost to combine it with the existing [neurotransmitter boost] of exercise on its own.”

Make time for more mindful exercises

If you’re hoping to use your workout as a decompressing retreat away from your high-stress daily life, make time for more calming workouts. “Mindfulness-based exercises can help to maximize those feel-good chemicals and sustain them for longer periods of time,” Shapiro says, noting that examples include yoga, tai chi, and even meditation. “These types of exercises help to calm the body and clear the mind, thus reducing cortisol—the stress chemical—in the body. This helps to deepen relaxation and can help to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.”

There’s no reason you should have to toss out the wellness practices you’ve established throughout the year once the temps start to rise, and there’s no need to dread the season’s frenzied pace and packed calendars. You can maintain your daily self-care routines while you enjoy fun summer travel—and (bonus) you can accomplish both sustainably.

Sustainability expert and content creator Jhánneu Roberts believes that self care is an essential part of a sustainable lifestyle. “It’s all connected,” she says. “When we take care of ourselves, we’re better equipped to take care of the planet and inspire others to do the same.” To maintain that commitment to herself and to the environment while she’s on the go, she relies on a mindfulness practice and a simplified packing list.

A few things that always make the list? A small collection of multipurpose cotton goods. Whether it’s a lightweight Turkish towel for morning meditation or a canvas makeup pouch for her summer beauty routine, Roberts loves naturally grown cotton because it’s biodegradable, recyclable, and durable—as in, it can keep up with all her adventuring.

Check out the simple ways she recommends taking your self-care routine on the road, stock up on a few cotton packing essentials, and get ready to travel sustainably, all summer long.

1. Food

Hydrating and feeding her body with plenty of fluids and nourishing foods is key to Roberts’ daily self-care practice. Taking that routine on the go can be challenging, she says, but it’s made easier with reusable items like a large water bottle, food-storage containers, a canvas tote, and cotton napkins.

When she finds herself in a new place, she makes an effort to check out any local farmer’s market she can find. It’s an easy way to travel sustainably and, for Roberts, the experience of connecting with locals and stocking up on gorgeous fruits and veggies is a total self-care win. “Farmers’ markets offer locally grown produce, often with fewer packaging materials and a smaller carbon footprint compared to supermarket goods,” she says. “Supporting local farmers not only promotes sustainable agriculture but also connects you to the community.”

Speaking of family farms, while you might not find a booth filled with cotton plants at the market, choosing naturally farmed cotton over other kinds of fabric is another way to support farmers. So fill your tote with bursting berries, meet a new friend or two, and get to know the place you’re visiting, all in one fell swoop. That’s a healthy serving of self care.

2. Sun

With UV indexes at an all-time high, Roberts considers sunscreen a key step in her summer self-care routine. Take her lead and keep a stash in your bag—but be sure it’s the high-quality stuff. “Look for [reef-safe] and mineral-based sunscreens that are free from harmful chemicals like oxybenzone and octinoxate,” she says. “These formulations are better for your skin and the ocean ecosystems you may encounter during your travels.”

Add an additional layer of sun protection with comfy clothes you can wear and re-wear. A bright, easy-to-pack cotton crusher hat will keep your face shaded all day, and a dreamy, crinkly, cotton caftan will keep you cool whether you’re at the beach, enjoying dinner outside, or snuggling up for a summer sleep.

3. Beauty

If a fun skin-care and makeup routine is your definition of self care, well, same. Once you’ve lathered up with planet-friendly sunscreen, swipe on a bit of waterproof mascara and a bright pop of SPF lipstick and get to exploring.

Transport your makeup must-haves in a cotton cosmetic case—extra credit if it doubles as a clutch you can carry for an evening on the town—and be sure to travel with reusable, easy-to-wash makeup towels. “[They’re] not only cost-effective, but they also reduce the amount of waste we generate,” Roberts says. “By making the switch to reusable options, we’re helping to cut down on single-use items and making a positive impact on the planet.”

4. Movement

Roberts tries to minimize car time when she’s traveling, in an effort to reduce her carbon footprint and find meditation in movement. “Whenever possible, choose walking or cycling for shorter distances [and] public transportation for longer trips,” she says. “Carpooling with friends or colleagues is another great option for reducing emissions and sharing the journey.”

With walks and bike rides on the itinerary, comfortable clothes are critical. Consider investing in a pair of neutral and soft wide-leg cotton pants you can dress up or down, and breathable cotton canvas slip-ons that easily transition from day to night.

5. Meditation

Amidst your adventuring, challenge yourself to carve out a daily moment for stillness—because tuning into your mind and body is especially important when you break from your normal routine. That mindfulness is at the core of both self care and sustainable living, Roberts says.

To keep up the habit while you’re on the go, tuck a handmade cotton notebook and a breezy Turkish towel in your suitcase—for gratitude journaling, a morning sit, a farmers’ market list, an afternoon nap, or all of the above. Happy adventuring.

Shop Cotton Travel Essentials

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No matter which version of self care you envisioned, odds are things like recycling, waste reduction, and resource conservation weren’t high on the list—but sustainability expert Jhánneu Roberts wants to change that, because self care and planet care are more connected than you might think.

“The overlap between self care and living sustainably lies in the recognition that both practices prioritize the well-being of individuals and the planet,” Roberts says. “Self care involves taking intentional actions to nurture one’s physical, mental, and emotional health. Similarly, living sustainably entails making choices that support the long-term health and balance of the Earth’s ecosystems.”

By making a few tweaks to your personal self-care routine (which can be as simple as prioritizing biodegradable fabrics like cotton), you can make it more beneficial to the environment, which in turn makes it more beneficial to you. “It’s all connected,” Roberts says. “When we take care of ourselves, we’re better equipped to take care of the planet and to inspire others to do the same.” Follow her lead with the planet-friendly self-care practices below.

1. Try activewear made with plant-based fabric

You don’t want your activewear to just be stylish—you want it to be functional, too. And if it can be earth-friendly? Well, that’s even better. Lucky for you, there’s a fabric that athletes swear by for its quality, breathability, and durability: cotton. Not to mention that it’s super easy to care for, and will last for a long time—even after loads of wash cycles.

You’ll love it because even during your most intense workouts, it’ll absorb sweat and won’t lose its shape over time. The planet will love it because when you eventually retire your old cotton workout gear, it’ll biodegrade instead of contributing to micro-plastic pollution. And since cotton fibers are made up of more than 40 percent carbon, simply wearing cotton clothing will help keep carbon out of the environment until it biodegrades.

Shop Planet-Friendly Activewear

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2. Opt for a more plant-based diet

With so many tasty plant-based replacements for meat, dairy, and eggs, it’s easier than ever to swap your usual meals for a vegetarian or vegan version. No, this doesn’t mean you have to stop eating burgers or burrata entirely (unless you want to, of course), but rather that you occasionally make a conscious effort to substitute a meat-based dish at dinner with your fave fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

How can going plant-based benefit the environment? “Consuming less meat and dairy can significantly reduce your carbon footprint and contribute to a more sustainable food system,” Roberts says. One simple way to get started is by picking one day a week to refrain from eating meat. Stick to it for a whole year, and you’ll prevent a whopping 100 kilograms of CO₂ from being released into the atmosphere.

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3. Incorporate cotton into your skin-care routine

The refreshing feeling of a cleansed face can only be made better by drying it off with a soft towel. And when it comes to your towel’s fabric, you’ll want to go for 100 percent hypoallergenic cotton so you never have to worry about skin irritation.

Beyond towels and washcloths, you can feature cotton in your skin-care lineup via cottonseed oil. The powerhouse ingredient helps protect your skin from environmental aggressors like UV exposure, keeps your skin hydrated, and can help calm skin inflammation (goodbye, redness). Add it to your rotation in the form of a cleanser or a moisturizer and see for yourself the planet-friendly difference it can make.

Shop Cotton Skin Care

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4. Clean out your closet

There’s no sense of accomplishment quite like cleaning your space. But, sometimes it’s easy to just close your closet door, despite the chaos inside because, well… out of sight, out of mind. Organizing your closet will make it easier to find your fave pieces of clothing faster, and will help keep your wardrobe feeling fresh so you aren’t as tempted to continually add new buys.

As for the pile of clothes you’re ready to part with, you can handle those with a sustainable mindset, too. Since authentic denim is made from sustainable cotton, the Blue Jeans Go Green program makes it easy for you to send in your denim to be repurposed into new products. This way, your old jeans don’t end up contributing to the approximately 16 million tons of textile waste discarded each year.

5. BYOC (bring your own cup)

Sometimes, simply buying yourself a cup of iced coffee can be the self-care moment you need—that is until you start to feel a little guilty about the plastic cup-and-straw combo the barista hands you.

Make your coffee break a totally feel-good moment by bringing an insulated, reusable cup to fill instead. “Many coffee shops are happy to fill it up instead of using a disposable cup,” Roberts says. “By doing so, you prevent single-use cup waste from piling up in landfills and contribute to the reduction of plastic pollution.” Some chains even offer a discount for customers who bring their own cup. Saving money, the planet, and your peace of mind at the same time? Now that’s real self care.

Shop Reusable Coffee Mugs

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Let’s learn why detox diets are diet culture at its worst—and tactics to resist their toxic lure.

4 detox diet myths to cut back on, stat

Myth: There are special foods that magically detox your body

The truth is, detoxing is an incredibly complex system of physiological processes that our body utilizes to remove harmful substances. According to Deepti Agarwal, MD, director of interventional and integrative pain management, longevity medicine at Case Integrative Health, “there is no single food that will detoxify an individual’s body. Detoxification can be seen as a ‘package’ of physiological and psychological processes through which the body eliminates toxic substances.”

Caroline Young, MS, RD, RYT of Whole Self Nutrition confirms that detox diets are neither healthy for our bodies nor our mental health. “Detox diets typically require some level of restriction and a high level of rigidity—both of which stress the body and the mind by increasing cortisol, our stress hormone, and causing food preoccupation. Detoxes can cause other mental and physical issues, like isolation, fatigue, and brain fog,” Young says.

“Detox diets typically require some level of restriction and a high level of rigidity—both of which stress the body and the mind by increasing cortisol, our stress hormone, and causing food preoccupation. Detoxes can cause other mental and physical issues, like isolation, fatigue, and brain fog,”—Caroline Young, MS, RD, RYT

The verdict is in: Detox diets are just not worth the physical or mental stress.

Myth: Detoxing jumpstarts weight loss

Detox diets are often promoted as a fast track to weight loss; an “overnight” fix. It makes sense: When you eat very little, drink a lot of water, and take pills and potions that may make you go to the bathroom, you will end up a few pounds lighter.

However, this weight loss is often short-lived. As soon as you begin eating again, you’ll find that you regain any weight that you initially lost. Sheri Berger, RDN, CDCES helps us clear up this myth. “The myth that detox diets jump-start weight loss needs to go. You may feel super psyched when you are a few pounds down after days of drinking only liquids, but that is all water weight and not fat loss. The moment you start eating food again, the water weight will come back. Our bodies naturally store a couple of grams of water with every gram of carbohydrates we eat. Carbohydrates are in pretty much everything we eat as they are our main fuel source,” Berger says.

According to Kim Yawitz, RD, a dietitian based in St. Louis, “Cutting back on sugar, alcohol, and other foods commonly eliminated on detox diets will certainly help you lose weight, but enjoying these foods in moderation can help you achieve results that last.”

Myth: Detox plans are scientifically proven to work

Dr. Agarwal fact-checked this one for us: “Many detox products we see online, or even pushed by our favorite influencers, are not regulated by the FDA and may not be properly tested for what they are claiming to do for your body.”

Much of the research around detox supplements is lacking. Instead, the research supports living a healthy lifestyle to reduce your overall toxic load and improve your body‘s natural ability to detox itself. Focusing on consuming a variety of high fiber foods, lots of colorful fruit and vegetables, regular exercise, and getting good sleep are all the building blocks of living a healthy lifestyle. Before we focus on the minutia, let’s make sure that you are consistently taking care of yourself with these habits first.

Myth: Your body isn’t capable of detoxing on its own

In fact, you already have a built-in detoxification organ: your liver! “Our bodies do not need a detox program, because it is naturally taking place. We have an entire system in place to fight off the endotoxins—the toxins we produce—and the exotoxins, or toxins from the environment, that we are exposed to throughout our life,” explains Molly Snyder, RDN a Pittsburgh, PA based dietitian.

“Our bodies are well-equipped to detox on their own via the liver and kidneys. Plus the digestive system, skin, and lymphatic system. Supporting these systems is far more beneficial than any detoxification program, pill, or supplement,’ says Taylor Grasso, MPPD, RD.

“Our bodies are well-equipped to detox on their own via the liver and kidneys. Plus the digestive system, skin, and lymphatic system. Supporting these systems is far more beneficial than any detoxification program, pill, or supplement.”
—Taylor Grasso, MPPD, RD

With this said, Casey Kelley, MD, founder and medical director of Case Integrative Health suggests that there is more nuance to this discussion. “While it is true that our body has a natural detoxification system, the influx of toxins to our system can overload the detox pathways, and we aren’t able to detox as optimally. We are dealing with more toxins in our life than our forefathers. Think of it as a sink that is overflowing—the more we can help widen the outgoing pipe, the better,” says Dr. Kelley.

Still, Dr. Kelley does not recommend falling prey to the detox diet you heard about on TikTok. Instead, she recommends focusing on specific habits that increase your body’s natural ability to detox. Follow these science-backed tips from Dr. Kelley that will support your body’s built-in detox pathway without harming your health.

• Eat foods that naturally support your body’s detoxification system, including cruciferous veggies, garlic, onions, eggs, and high-fiber foods
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day
• Exercise regularly, because sweat removes toxins through the skin
• Hold a regular sleep schedule by aiming for seven hours of sleep per night
• Reduce your toxic burden: Consider non-toxic beauty products and non-toxic cleaning products. Clean the air in your home: pollutants like mold can increase your toxic burden. If you are able, consider high-quality water or air filters

But in many cases, the physical symptoms you’ve been taught to associate with falling in love (quickened heart rate, butterflies, etc.) aren’t actually side effects of love. On the contrary, psychologists say those sensations may be warning signs from your sympathetic nervous system (SNS)—or more specifically, your body’s fight-or-flight response going into overdrive.

The fight-or-flight response is designed to activate when our body senses danger in order to help us survive life-threatening situations, explains clinical psychologist Allison Chase, PhD, regional clinical director with Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center. This response is controlled by your sympathetic nervous system, which also manages your heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, and other key functions.

When activated, the SNS pumps the body full of hormones (like adrenaline and cortisol), spikes your heart rate, boosts blood flow to muscles, dilates pupils, and impacts stomach function, she says. Ten thousand years ago, this response gave us the energy and ability required to run away from hungry lions or other imminent, life-threatening dangers, Dr. Chase says.

“When we’re in true danger, this [fight-or-flight] system is still very helpful, often life-saving.” —Allison Chase, PhD, regional clinical director, Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center

These days, the vast majority of threats do not come in the form of large, dangerous animals. Instead, they tend to be more subtle, manifesting in the form of terse emails from your boss or meeting your Tinder date for the first time IRL. But Dr. Chase says the body responds to these stressors the same way it would if there was a carnivorous creature standing a few feet away. Why? Put simply, because the nervous system has not yet adapted to deal with all the everyday stressors of life, says Dr. Chase.

“We still have the same basic body and biological functions we had 10,000 years ago,” she says. “Some people’s autonomic nervous system falsely activates when they are not in real danger, and they end up experiencing all the same physiological symptoms as if they were.” (These false activations are especially likely, she notes, for people with sexual or relational trauma).

Whether rightly or wrongly triggered, the physical chain of reactions that follows the nervous system activation is the same, says certified sex therapist Casey Tanner, LCPC, CST, founder and CEO at The Expansive Group, a queer sex therapy practice, and sex expert at pleasure-product company LELO. “When triggered, the sympathetic nervous system quickly shifts blood flow away from activities like digestion and towards the muscles,” they explain, so you can fight off or escape the perceived threat.

Fact is, sometimes you get belly butterflies and sweaty palms just by texting your love—and usually that’s simply because your nervous system is maladapted. “When we’re in true danger, this [fight-or-flight] system is still very helpful, often life-saving,” says Dr. Chase. But when you’re not, it can obviously be incredibly confusing.

So how can you tell if your fight-or-flight is a false alarm or red flag when you’re dating? We asked mental health experts to provide some more insight.

The fight-or-flight response, love, and dating

As mentioned, it is possible that your SNS may be triggered by dating things that are not actually dangerous (but might be new, exciting, or stressful), says Dr. Chase. For instance: Seeing your cell phone light up with your new boo’s name, hearing your partner open the garage door, or even feeling your love’s hand on your lower back.

However, sometimes the fight-or-flight mode goes into action because we’ve landed ourselves in a potentially unsafe situation, says Dr. Chase. Stumble on your partner’s secret knife collection? Math ain’t mathing about where your partner was the other night? These are all instances where the body going into fight-or-flight mode makes sense, as they suggest potentially troubling info or behavior.

“It can be challenging to differentiate whether or not the butterflies are mere signs of excitement, or signs of dangerous and protective anxiety,” Tanner says. Still, it’s not impossible.

So… how can you tell when it’s a warranted response or not?

In short, by tuning into your environment, turning on your mind, and leaning on your friends. While the more primitive part of your body may not be able to assess whether something is actually dangerous, “your prefrontal cortex is equipped to suss that out,” says Tanner.

If you’re experiencing shaky hands, butterflies, or other stress response symptoms, or notice a strong gut feeling that something is off, Tanner recommends giving yourself a few minutes to quickly reflect on the situation. Start by asking yourself: Beyond the symptoms I’m currently experiencing, is there any evidence that I am physically and/or emotionally unsafe—or could be soon? If the answer is yes, get out of dodge quickly.

If the answer is no, Tanner suggests asking: Is this situation triggering something that was painful in the past? It is common for people to feel unsafe — and for their body to tell them they’re unsafe—when actually what they feel is nervous about potential and/or repeated heartbreak or rejection. If the answer is no, then you may be feeling unsafe because, well, you actually are. Meanwhile if the answer is yes, Tanner suggests validating for yourself that relationships can, indeed, feel scary, but leaning into the potential connection.

If you’re in an ongoing relationship, and can’t discern why your body is reacting the way it is, Tanner suggests leaning on your community. “Ask a trusted friend or therapist what they think about the situation,” they say. “Because they aren’t looking at it through the lens of emotional intensity, they may have insight to offer that’s hard for you to access early in a relationship.”

Developing an overall awareness can help, too

Given that the physical symptoms are the same, it is not easy to differentiate between overactive fight-or-flight response and an accurate one. But “it can be particularly challenging for people with a history of relational or sexual trauma in relationships to distinguish the two,” says Tanner. After trauma, people are more likely to misinterpret and misunderstand their body chatter, they say.

But traumatic relationship history or not, it can be helpful to work with a trauma-informed therapist, somatic sex expert, or other mental health professional. “Someone who uses a somatic lens, or one that values understanding the mind-body connection, will be equipped to help you develop awareness around your stress responses,” says Tanner.

The more familiar you become with your body’s reaction to stress, the more able you’ll be able to recognize the signs that the fight-or-flight has rightfully or wrongfully been activated, so you can respond accordingly.

What to do when there’s a false alarm

In instances where you think the response has been triggered because you are in danger, you should do what you can to protect yourself. Depending on where you are, who you’re with, and what tipped you off to danger, that may entail calling 9-1-1, ringing the National Domestic Violence Hotline (800-799-7233), texting a friend to pick you up, or working with a therapist and/or case worker to develop a longer-term exit plan. (You can read more about getting out of an intimate partner violence situation here and here).

In instances where you think the response has been wrongly activated, Tanner recommends taking a moment to pause and actively deepen your breathing, which communicates to your nervous system that you’re okay. You can also try doing 10 jumping jacks, pushups, or other challenging workout moves in you’re in a space where you can easily do so. “Brief, intense bouts of exercise can move your body through the stress response cycle,” says Tanner. “You could also take a cold bath or shower, which can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes feelings of safety and relaxation.”

If the response (wrongly) pops up when you’re on a date or with a lover, Tanner recommends leaning into the golden rule of dating: communication. “Never underestimate the power of telling someone that you’re starting to fall for that you’re nervous,” says Tanner. “This isn’t a confession, it’s a conversation starter, and it demonstrates that you are building an emotional investment in your date.” Plus, it creates an opening for your date to comfort and reassure you.

If you’re diligent about recycling your empties, kudos to you! But according to the Environmental Protection Agency, almost 70 percent of the 14.5 million tons of plastic packaging that were generated in 2018 ended up in a landfill. Of that 14.5 million tons, approximately 120 billion units of plastic are attributed to the cosmetic and personal-care industry. TL;DR: That’s a lot of moisturizer containers piling up at the dump.

But before you start to feel discouraged, take some advice from sustainability expert Jhánneu Roberts: Simple, sustainable beauty swaps can make a big difference to the planet, with minimal impact on your regimen.

“We can choose products with less packaging and ones that are made with renewable materials,” Roberts says. “When we make sustainable choices, we’re showing businesses that we want them to do better, and that can lead to positive changes in the market.”

One simple place to start? Opt for more sustainable materials. Avoiding (or recycling) plastic is an obvious one, but choosing natural, biodegradable fabrics like cotton in your towels and other self-care products can also have a big impact on your beauty routine’s sustainability footprint. (FYI: Most synthetic fibers are made from forms of plastic.) Keep reading for more of Roberts’ planet-loving advice, plus a few suggestions for sustainable beauty swaps you can easily adopt.

1. Swap your disposable beauty staples with reusable ones

Take a second and think about how much trash your beauty routine generates. From taking off makeup and nail polish to putting on toner, it’s probably a lot. Although you might be thinking, “aren’t those things biodegradable?” many cheap staples like makeup remover wipes are actually made with synthetic fibers, meaning you’re basically just tossing more plastic into the trash.

Roberts suggestion? Switch to reusable cotton rounds. “By opting for reusable cotton rounds instead of disposable pads, you reduce waste and lessen the environmental impact associated with single-use products,” Roberts says.

If you’re still partial to disposable cotton rounds, no worries: Just check the label to ensure they’re made of 100 percent biodegradable cotton instead of synthetic fibers. And while you’re at it, you might as well get a reusable cotton makeup towel to replace your usual makeup wipes. Added bonus? There’s no need to worry about skin irritation with cotton products since they’re hypoallergenic.

Shop Reusable Cotton Rounds

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2. Try bar soaps in the shower

Your shower is another place that houses a lot of plastic packaging. Although this one might seem unavoidable, there is a way around it: Try bar shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. “Using a solid bar soap eliminates the need for plastic packaging found in many liquid body washes, reducing plastic waste and promoting a more sustainable option for cleansing,” Roberts says.

The three options listed below (which all smell delicious, btw) are made by companies that take their commitment to environmental stewardship seriously. The limited packaging they do use is plastic-free, and the bars also last longer than typical plastic-packaged shampoo, conditioner, and body wash—they’re all around two to three bottles worth—while still costing essentially the same. Saving money and the planet is a win-win.

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3. Choose beauty products that come in refillable containers

A few of your favorite beauty brands have a sustainable secret: Some of their popular products are refillable. “Choosing beauty products that come in refillable containers or have minimal packaging helps reduce unnecessary waste,” Roberts says. Plus, it’ll (once again) save you money, since re-purchasing just the refill is usually less expensive.

And it’s not just indie beauty brands offering refillable containers—big names such as Dior, Charlotte Tilbury, Drunk Elephant, and Glossier do too.

Shop Refillable Makeup

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Rouge Dior Refillable Lipstick

$45

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Brow Cheat

$26

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Monochromes Essential Eyeshadow Trio

$22

4. Opt for deodorant in non-plastic packaging

Another easy switch you can make in your beauty routine is replacing your plastic-packaged deodorant with ones packaged in paper or reusable containers. Roberts recommends Native’s paper-packaged deodorant, and all three of the brands below are vegan, aluminum-free, and well-loved by their users (and did we mention planet-friendly?).

Making these sustainable beauty swaps may seem like a small way of making an impact, but with 4.9 billion metric tons of plastic already in landfills, every little bit helps. “Sustainable living requires mindfulness about the impact of our actions on the environment and future generations,” Roberts says. “It involves being aware of our consumption patterns, reducing waste, conserving resources, and choosing eco-friendly alternatives.” Here’s to a less plastic-filled future.

Shop Plastic-Free Deodorant

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Santal Refillable Deodorant

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Citrus & Herbal Musk Plastic Free Deodorant

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Dom's Calm Lavender-Rosemary Natural Deodorant

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For the fellow sheet-flingers out there, the problem isn’t just that it’s warmer outside—it’s also that your bedding isn’t always breathable. While some fabrics trap heat, others are lightweight enough that you can still burrow in without worrying about waking up in a puddle. And by others, we mean cotton.

According to Heather Taylor, the founder and creative director of Heather Taylor Home, the best way to stay cool this summer is to lean into breathable cotton bedding, which will get comfier after each wash. “Along with getting softer over time, cotton is an incredible quality [fabric] that you know what to expect from,” Taylor says. “Our cotton textiles last for years when taken care of properly.”

If you’re ready to get some major zzz’s time in this summer, here are five cotton bedding essentials that’ll have you sleeping like a (temperature-controlled) baby.

All-Season Comforter — $279.00

A comforter is to your bed what a cleanser is to your skin-care regimen: It’s a foundational essential. Invest in one made with a comfy cotton shell that’ll make you want to stay in bed all day long. This all-season one from Brooklinen is not only made with 100 percent cotton, but it’s the perfect weight to use for restful sleep year-round.

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Percale Sheet Set — $140.00

If your quilt is up for best actor of the year, then your sheets are best supporting actor. “Cotton sheets are breathable and easy to care for,” Taylor says. This crisp set from Lands’ End is no exception with a percale weave that will keep you cool enough to sleep soundly. Bonus: Cotton is ​​hypoallergenic so you don’t have to worry about any irritation.

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Mini Gingham Red Quilt — $355.00

Bedding is all about the layers—and you can still make it happen in summer with an airy quilt. This adorable, reversible cotton one is handwoven by artisans in Mexico and will look great on any bed (or couch during a movie marathon). Plus, it’s designed to last a lifetime, thanks to it being made with 100 percent durable cotton.

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Mini Gingham Cream Duvet Cover — $275.00

Everyone knows the best bedding is functional and stylish—and this cotton duvet cover can do it all. “A Heather Taylor Home gingham duvet cover is my go-to for creating a beautiful bedroom,” Taylor says. Not only will this brighten up your bedroom, but it will also get softer over time—aka you’ll cuddle with it for years to come.

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Milos Peony Pillow — $125.00

Lastly, don’t forget the throw pillows. You can get adventurous here by picking unique shapes and patterns to mix and match on top of your bed—just make sure the pillowcase is made with cotton (the most used textile in the home for a reason, btw). Time to make the bed.

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But before you try to squeeze in a pricey beach week or an upstate wellness retreat, consider this: You can turn your bathroom into a swoon-worthy summer spa with minimal effort (and maximal Zen). According to Heather Taylor, design expert and founder of Heather Taylor Home, the at-home spa of your dreams is just a few simple essentials away.

Her three-step formula for achieving this state of oasis? First, declutter your space as much as you can. “Keeping clutter to a minimum is the first step to creating a spa-like bathroom environment,” she says. “I’m constantly sorting through my products and trying to recycle empty bottles to keep [a minimalist space].” Next, focus on the ambiance. “Lighting is really important [when it comes to] creating a relaxing vibe. I have dimmers, [but] I also keep some of my favorite candles on hand.”

Last but definitely not least, Taylor relies on soft, breathable cotton (from her beloved robe and a plush rug to a collection of the coziest bath towels) to give her space the ultimate soothe factor. She sticks to the natural fabric whenever she can because it’s high-quality, durable, and absorbent. Not to mention, its sustainable benefits are a very welcome bonus: Because the fiber is plant-based, it doesn’t contribute to microplastic pollution in waterways when you wash it.

Carve out just a few minutes to put Taylor’s three-step guide into practice. Aim for minimalism, strike a match or two, and then snag one of these cotton mats or a couple bath towels to turn your bathroom into a summertime sanctuary.

Peacock Alley Diamond Towel Set in Sage — $110.00

If you’re following Taylor’s recommendation to keep things minimalist in the bathroom, start by refreshing—and neutralizing—your towel collection. Stick to subtle tones (can you name a more soothing shade than sage?) in fluffy, super-absorbent cotton, and lean into the vibe by pouring yourself a glass of icy cucumber water as you dry off.

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Joss & Main Peachy Blush Cotton Towel Set — $59.00

If summertime has you dreaming of farmers’ market peaches and bouquets of peonies, opt for this blush-toned, mid-weight set. Wrap up in a large bath towel and set your timer for 10 minutes—plenty long enough to dip your feet into a salt soak and slather on a simple DIY facial. Complete the routine with a few deep breaths and a eucalyptus-spritzed cotton washcloth for your face.

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The Company Store Quick Dry Bath Rug — $42.00

To keep things cozy in the bathroom—and avoid any bathtub drips—roll out a plush and absorbent bath rug, made with moisture-wicking cotton. From cozy white to moody sea, choose a color palette that makes you (and your toes) feel the most at ease.

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Weezie Towel Wrap in Navy — $88.00

Whether you’re all about a late-night spa moment or more into early-morning self care, you can stay cool on the hottest days of the season in a wrap-up, snap-in towel. With a secure elastic back and a roomy pocket to hold your phone, your gua sha stones, or both, you might be tempted to enjoy a never-getting-dressed summer day at home.

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Garnet Hill Striped Fouta Towels

Picture this: You’re spending a summer weekend at an indoor-outdoor spa, complete with a warm breeze and all the Mediterranean blues. Now recreate it under your own roof with lightweight, cotton towels that are perfect for any post-shower lounging or simple salt-sprayed hair routine.

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Serena & Lily Sydney Bath Rug in Coastal Blue — $128.00

Keep the Mediterranean mode going with a textured, tasseled rug that gives your bathroom an equal dose of function and comfort. If ever this woven mat gets dirty (it is barefoot season, after all), no stress—it’s machine-washable and easily releases stains because it’s made with 100-percent cotton.

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Anthropologie Merida Towel Collection in Ochre

Nothing says summer quite like boho print and pops of pastels. This colorful towel set is a welcome complement to a monochrome and minimalist bathroom aesthetic—and it might just bring on the kind of endorphins you feel from a deep-tissue massage and a pair of spa slippers.

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Quiet Town Arco High Bath Rug — $78.00

This lightweight, quick-dry mat was designed with the sun-baked Arizona desert (as in, the promised land of summer spas) in mind. The modern shapes are meant to inspire humans to coexist with nature in a low-impact and sustainable way. Feel it under your feet and breathe deeply knowing that, just by choosing cotton, you’re headed in that direction.

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“You need to have a seat.”

A therapeutic assistant at the residential eating disorder treatment center where I was then a patient stood nearby, glaring at me.

I had been standing while talking on the phone with my mom, when the staff member interrupted. I was only allowed a few minutes for the call, so I decided it wasn’t worth the fight and sat down.

Standing wasn’t the only forbidden activity at the facility. Motion of any kind was so frowned upon that providers even coined a term for it: “excessive body movement.”

“Any kind of movement in [eating disorder] treatment—from fidgeting to formal exercise—is closely surveilled, monitored, structured, and overall limited,” says Stacie Fanelli, LCSW, of Revolutionary Eating Disorder Psychotherapy and Consulting.

As someone with anorexia recovery, I can attest to this: At all five treatment centers where I have been a patient, movement was forbidden.

During my first inpatient visit, an assistant sat in my room with me until I fell asleep, which I believe was meant to ensure that I didn’t exercise. At another treatment center, I once was sitting on the floor during a group therapy session, rocking back and forth. I didn’t even realize I was doing it; the motion just felt soothing. Almost immediately, a therapist rushed over, signaling for me to stop. It didn’t matter that I had been self-soothing—my coping skill wasn’t allowed.

“Even for those for whom over-exercise and under-fueling has been the primary behavior at play, how are they supposed to repair their relationship with [exercise] when we’re sending an abstinence-only message?” Fanelli says. “When my clients are told they have to drink a supplement when they’re ‘excessively standing’ or engaging in joyful movement like hanging upside down off a couch, they’re getting validation that movement is in fact a form of currency that you use to earn food, which is exactly what many eating disorders are telling them.”

For me, not being able to move during treatment only took away a key tool that I’ve used to heal.

Why eating disorder treatment centers restrict movement

What’s behind providers’ insistence on not allowing patients to move? Psychiatrist Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, MD, FAED, CEDS, founder of several eating disorder treatment centers, including Within Health, explains that for some patients, a period of rest may be needed if their body needs time to heal from disordered behaviors. Those with restrictive eating disorders may truly not be fueling their bodies enough to allow for anything strenuous. Some patients may also need time off from movement for psychological reasons, if they feel like they need to exercise to burn calories.

Fanelli adds that another major concern for centers is liability. Providers don’t want to be responsible for a patient passing out or injuring themselves, for instance, so they ban movement to reduce the chances of this happening.

But instead of being upfront about these fears, she says centers sometimes shift blame onto the patient. “Providers often couch their fears that come with the perceived physical fragility of all eating disorder clients in a catch-all ‘that’s your eating disorder talking’ accusation so that they don’t have to take accountability for what’s actually their own anxiety,” Fanelli says.

As a patient, I can’t help but feel like this kind of policy is created for providers’ own self-preservation. Rather than treating patients as individuals with different needs and choosing what’s best for each person at each step of their recovery, a blanket ban against movement seems to serve the center itself most of all.

The effects of not being allowed to move during recovery

Personally, having the choice to move my body completely removed from my coping skills toolbox left me feeling powerless. And it instilled an intense need to feel in control of my body—which ironically is the reason many patients wind up in treatment.

Compounding the frustration of not being able to move was a lack of any timeline for when I might be able to do so. “When the person has no indication of when they’re going to be able to move again or it’s contingent on their compliance with a protocol of some sort, that lack of agency can activate emotions that have nowhere to go,” Fanelli says.

I found that this rigidity around movement actually reinforced a harmful myth that many patients already believe: that food and exercise are directly correlated. Fanelli notes that patients who begin treatment with rigid rules about food can end up with a new set of rules, this time about movement. “It just becomes another control mechanism,” she says. “Is that really recovery?”

In contrast, when I’m not in treatment, joyful movement has been a key part of my recovery. Instead of restricting or purging away my anxious thoughts, I’ll go for a quick walk down the street, enjoying not only the benefits of stretching my legs, but also fresh air and nature.

A better way forward

It’s a natural human impulse to desire some kind of physical activity. And I honestly believe that not being allowed to move my body the way it craved removed my autonomy in a way that was not only not helpful, but actually harmful.

Fortunately, not all eating disorder treatment centers follow this policy. There are some centers that actively embrace the benefits of movement through dance or movement therapy to help patients reconnect with their bodies. “We can get back to the basics of feeling safe in moving our body,” says Erica Hornthal, a dance therapist in Chicago. Hornthal says this process isn’t about body positivity and how the body looks, but focuses on how it feels to be in the body, something eating disorder survivors often struggle with.

“Allowing ourselves to take up space and notice how our body moves helps us reclaim ourselves on the road to recovery,” says Hornthal, who helps clients do this through practices like guided imagery, movement meditation, and creative techniques like mirroring (where the therapist will mirror the client’s movements to externalize what they’re feeling in their body). “It’s like rebuilding a friendship with someone who has hurt us, and working to repair that connection.”

Fanelli adds that yoga can also be a helpful transition exercise. Not only does the practice encourage a mindful connection to the body, it takes the focus off reaching numerical goals, which patients often struggle with in more intense workouts, like running or high-intensity interval training.

Dr. Oliver-Pyatt says the key is to create a “paradigm shift” so that patients see exercise as self-care instead of something they have to do to burn calories. “You want to do it not out of fear, but because you want to move your body,” Dr. Oliver-Pyatt says.

At Within Health, Dr. Oliver-Pyatt says patients begin to move gradually and with support of a provider. And if they’re not quite ready yet, providers will determine when to incorporate it into a patient’s recovery plan and let clients know that even if they can’t exercise at the moment, they will be able to eventually.

With any steps in the recovery process, I strongly believe—and Dr. Oliver-Pyatt agrees—that the client should be included in the process. “If you don’t have that relationship, they won’t share with you what’s actually going on,” she says. When it comes to movement, having someone listen to my concerns around not being able to move while in treatment would have been instrumental in learning to trust not only my body, but also my voice.

“Patients may not have ever learned how to trust their body, and that you can eat without compensatory activity,” Dr. Oliver-Pyatt says. “But if people don’t learn that while in treatment, they may never learn it all their life.”

What is the Neurocycle?

The five-step Neurocycle is a method of “mind management,” that uses the brain’s ability to change to reorient your thinking and thought patterns. It can be used to identify and diminish chaotic thought patterns that can contribute to stress, anxiety, and depression. “The Neurocycle takes you through the process of seeing how you show up, finding the thoughts those [behaviors or patterns] are attached to, deconstructing that thought to find the roots of the experience, and then reconciling, reconceptualizing, and reconstructing it without trying to change or eliminate anything,” says Dr. Leaf, who is the author of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and the forthcoming book How To Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mess. “You can’t change your story, but you can change what it looks like inside of you,” she adds.

So how does this actually work? The Neurocycle is rooted in the concept of neuroplasticity, or the idea that the brain isn’t hardwired and can adapt and change throughout our lifetimes. This principle has largely been used to help people recover from certain types of traumatic brain injuries and more than 40 years of research has shown that the brain can form new neural connections and change existing ones based on new information it receives, for example through our life experiences. By harnessing the brain’s power to form new neural connections, the 5-step Neurocycle is a method to reorient the chaotic thoughts that come with stress and anxiety so they’re more manageable. “It’s a system that is creating mind-brain-body [connection] that turns things into habits,” says Dr. Leaf.

How the 5-step Neurocycle works

The goal here isn’t to eliminate chaotic or spiraling thoughts, because a certain degree of anxiety is healthy and necessary to keep us safe. However, anxiety and stress become detrimental when they’re chronic and preclude someone from living their life in the way they want, says Dr. Leaf. “By focusing on the good, healthy thoughts, as well as detoxing, you create stronger networks inside your mind-brain-body connection that help you get the toxic stuff under control quicker,” she says.

“By focusing on the good, healthy thoughts, as well as detoxing, you create stronger networks inside your mind-brain-body connection that help you get the toxic stuff under control quicker.”—cognitive neuroscientist Caroline Leaf, PhD

The brain is shaped by a combination of genes and our life experiences. “Every life experience we have is converted by the mind into a physical, structural thought inside the brain, mind, and body,” says Dr. Leaf. “Basically, as humans, we are accumulations of every experience we’ve ever had, and each experience is there in its original form, but our life experiences change how we view them,” she says. Dr. Leaf’s Neurocycle takes advantage of the brain’s adaptability to intentionally redirect thought patterns about these experiences into new ones that contribute to a more calm mind. “Our brain constantly changes and is never the same from moment to moment, and it’s empowering to know that you can direct that change,” she says. But these changes don’t happen automatically, and they need to be specifically repeated to really establish and bolster those new connections.

As such, each step of the Neurocycle is designed to form a helpful and supportive pattern that you can engage when you most need it. Read on for how to actually use Dr. Leaf’s five-step Neurocycle to manage chaotic thoughts.

Calm and ready yourself before the Neurocycle

Because the five-step Neurocycle involves what Dr. Leaf calls “deep work,” it’s important to be in the right frame of mind before you start. To get there, she advises doing a stress-reducing activity, like a quick meditation or calming breathwork exercises. This could even be as simple as visualizing happy or pleasant thoughts. Any method of regulating your nervous system will do, she says.

It’s paramount to not skip this process and to not start the Neurocycle until you’re in a calm, ready place because you need to be prepared for what you may uncover. “Think of how the engineer checks everything before flying a plane—they only take off once they know everything is okay,” says Dr. Leaf. You’re doing the same thing here to get yourself in the right space for introspection.

The 5 step Neurocycle, and how to use each step to combat chaotic thoughts

Once you’re in the right headspace, you’re ready to undergo the Neurocycle process. Here are the five steps, and how they each go together to help calm chaotic thoughts:

1. Gather: The first step in the process, says Dr. Leaf, is evidence-gathering. These are the signals you’re stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious. Look at four realms: your emotions, your thoughts, your bodily behavior, and your perspective. For each of these four elements, form one sentence (either out loud or in your head) that describes what’s happening. For example, for the bodily behavior phase, consider any physical sensations you’re experiencing. Maybe it’s: “My chest feels tight.” Or for the perspective realm, it may be: “I feel out of control.”
2. Reflect: After you’ve gathered evidence from the physical, mental, and emotional warning signals, it’s time to reflect on your first-step findings. “This is where you try to make sense of how this is showing up in your life because we are going through the deconstruction process of the thought,” says Dr. Leaf. Ask yourself “what,” “why,” and “how” questions: What was I doing right before I felt this way? Your aim here is a broad overview that sheds light on the patterns when these thoughts occur, and what signals them.
3. Write: After you’ve gathered evidence and reflected on it, the next step in the Neurocycle is writing down these discoveries. The goal here is to produce a “brain dump” of your thoughts and feelings, says Dr. Leaf. Draw, write outside the lines, make lists—just get everything out on the page, whether that’s a physical page or one you visualize in your head (if you’re not able to physically write, Dr. Leaf recommends visualizing).
4. Recheck: This step is an even deeper examination of the previous steps. In the recheck phase, look at what you produced in step three and check in with yourself—have your feelings changed in any way? Think about what you can actually do about what you’ve written about. Consider: Can you re-conceptualize this thought?
5. Active reach: In the final part of the Neurocycle, you build on all the previous work you did. At this stage, Dr. Leaf says you’re creating a final statement to anchor where you are in that moment and that you can use to prevent your anxious thoughts from taking over when they creep up. Come up with a statement or visualization that can be your safe harbor by asking yourself: “What do I need right now to help me get through the day/moment/this conversation?” This shouldn’t be complicated, and can be as simple as visualizing a specific image that conjures a feeling of calm, or even a personal mantra you can repeat. This is the closure step that helps establish your new thought pattern and weaken the old, unhelpful one.

Once you’ve completed all these steps, you’re on your way to more effective mind management. According to Dr. Leaf, it takes 63 days to rewire the brain, so she advises repeating this process daily for at least that long of time to make your work stick.

These benefits compound, so keep adding books to your summer TBR (to be read) pile, and read on for seven of the benefits of reading books, whether enjoyed in a beach chair, or not.

7 benefits of reading books, according to experts

1. Keeps brain systems working and sharp

While the benefits of reading extend to the whole body, it’s a cerebral process. One key benefit of reading books is that it strengthens your brain by engaging various systems to process what’s on the page. “Reading is an interesting activity in that it really does recruit all of these areas and requires you to coordinate them in ways that are interesting and presumably good for you,” says Brenda Rapp, PhD, cognitive neuroscientist and chair of the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Repeating these processes has been linked with overall brain health, and reading is an activity recommended by the National Institute on Aging for good cognitive health.

How the brain processes words from books

When your brain encounters written words, the four lobes of the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the brain that plays a crucial role in higher cognitive functions such as thinking, perception, and voluntary movement) cooperate to turn the words on the page into the stories you envision, says Dr. Rapp: The occipital lobe, the part of the brain responsible for processing visual information that houses the visual cortex, works to scan the actual words on the page; the parietal lobe, which is about spatial representation, also processes the input of the words and letters on a sentence-level by helping you understand that certain letters form specific words; the temporal lobe, which has to do with language recognition and memory, draws on your memory of the spellings and meanings of words, and draws on your bank of knowledge to figure out what unfamiliar words mean; and the frontal lobe, which governs executive functioning, corresponds to comprehension and understanding.

And don’t worry if reading books on the page isn’t necessarily your thing because there are benefits to consuming audiobooks too, says Dr. Rapp. The brain processes reading vs. listening much the same WAY, except the auditory cortex is involved to process speech and sounds.

The benefits of ‘keeping your brain sharp’

Every time you read, you strengthen the neural connections in your brain, which makes them happen more easily and efficiently. Dr. Rapp explains that while the brain isn’t a muscle, “in some sort of basic way, it works a lot like your muscles in the sense that it benefits from repetition.”

2. Increased longevity

Continuously exercising these systems to keep them in good working order has major longevity benefits, too, bookworms—there’s some research that says reading helps you live longer. These benefits come from the association of reading with stress relief and preserving and increasing cognitive function.

One of these benefits is less or slower cognitive decline. A study published in 2016 in Social Science & Medicine found that book readers had a 20-percent reduction in mortality compared to those who didn’t read books at all. Using data from the annual Health and Retirement Study, researchers analyzed 3,635 participants over age 50. Although the study didn’t examine the difference between print and audio books, it did find that fiction books conferred more of a benefit than reading magazines and newspapers.

Another longitudinal study published online in 2020 by the Cambridge University Press found that reading protected cognitive function among 1,962 Taiwanese adults over age 64, who were examined over a period of 14 years. They found that among people of all education levels, reading often was associated with less cognitive decline.

3. Lowers stress

One other key advantage of reading books is the utility reading provides as a stress-relieving activity, experts say. Because reading is an immersive activity, it requires your full focus and attention, which is useful in relieving stress. Chronic stress confers a host of physical and mental health issues, says Lorenzo Norris, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington School of Medicine & Health Sciences, and reading can play a role in alleviating it. “Reading really requires a certain level of focus and mindfulness, and that level of engagement and focus is a way for us to take a step away from the difficulties of the world,” he says.

“Reading really requires a certain level of focus and mindfulness, and that level of engagement and focus is a way for us to take a step away from the difficulties of the world.”—Lorenzo Norris, MD

The escapism of reading helps with this, too. According to Viktoriya Karakcheyeva, MD, director of behavioral health at the Resiliency and Well-Being Center at George Washington University’s School of Medicine & Health Sciences, reading can help lower stress because of its immersive quality. “It works fast because your mind pretty much immediately escapes into a place that is freed from the stressors of your own daily life,” she says.

4. Develops and strengthens social connections

There’s a reason the oral tradition of storytelling has persisted among humans for so long—bonding over stories, whether fictional or real, connects us. If you’ve ever told a friend or loved one about a book you enjoyed, or even gone online to post about it on Goodreads or to find other fans, you’ve felt this.

Reading can facilitate opportunities to connect with others in an authentic way that contributes to more and stronger social relationships. Tight and healthy relationships, which are essential for good physical and mental health, are formed by genuine, authentic connection and conversation, says Dr. Norris, and bonding over shared interests like reading provides a built-in conversation topic and reason to connect.

What’s more: “Reading is fun, and it allows you to form connections in a very practical way because it gives you something to talk about that you feel passionate about,” says Dr. Norris. “Anything that allows for authentic connection is helpful.” This exchange of interests forms the basis for deeper relationships. He mentions that he regularly talks with his daughter about the Star Wars books she enjoys, and these discussions about the characters and plots strengthen their bond.

Even if you’re shy or introverted, sharing a common interest with someone else may make it a bit easier to strike up a conversation, whether in-person or online. Think about why there are so many active online forums for book lovers to connect to one another, for example there are Reddit communities dedicated to specific book series and BookTok, a hashtag where TikTok users categorize all their book recommendations and discuss their favorites in videos. Virtual and IRL book clubs have long been means to foster connections, too—unpacking and discussing stories that made you think or feel something with others feels good and is good for us, too.

Fostering social connections in any possible way is important for overall well-being and longevity. Loneliness is a major issue in American society that negatively impacts health and well-being, says Dr. Norris, especially since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, and he says that finding easier ways to connect with others, for example through discussing books, can help counteract the negative effects of loneliness.

5. More active imagination

Readers of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series may be familiar with a much-pinned quotation from A Dance With Dragons, where he writes that “a reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.” It’s true—another benefit of reading is its ability to activate the imagination.

When you read, it’s up to you to use an author’s words to bring characters, settings, and conversations to life, and this process engages various parts of the brain. “When you’re imagining doing something, you’re actually engaging the same neural networks that you would be if you were experiencing it—it’s activating things, and you’re immersing yourself,” says Dr. Norris. This is the key principle behind exposure therapy, he says—imagining a scenario makes it possible to grasp what it’s like to actually experience it. “When you are reading, all of your neural networks are firing to recreate that person and those thoughts,” Dr. Norris adds.

6. More empathy for others

Part of why reading is beneficial is because it allows us to look beyond ourselves and appreciate the experiences of others, say both Dr. Norris and Dr. Karakcheyeva. Because reading fiction especially requires us to use our imaginations to envision characters and settings, we are better able to understand the feelings and motivations of others. This act of transportation can be beneficial because it helps you get outside yourself and experience realities far different from your own, which can build empathy. “We cannot possibly live all of these scenarios [we encounter in books] ourselves, so [reading] does provide that ability for us, which is great,” says Dr. Karakcheyeva.

Cultivating empathy and having appreciation for others’ experiences and feelings helps develop and strengthen many beneficial prosocial behaviors, actions that benefit others or society as a whole, such as demonstrating kindness, cooperation, and concern for the well-being of others.

Research has found, in turn, that reading fiction specifically may make people more empathetic. A 2013 study conducted by Dutch researchers and published in the PLOS One journal found that reading fiction books specifically influenced the level of empathy readers felt, but only if they emotionally identified with the story.

Because reading is a great way to gain information and experience others’ lives, Dr. Karakcheyeva adds that it can also be an opportunity to find and strengthen your own voice and build your own belief systems, which develops your sense of self.

7. Better (and quicker) sleep

If you’ve ever been told to not stay up late reading, you can also rest assured that being a bookworm will help ease you into that much needed shut-eye (as long as you actually do get enough hours of sleep). Reading before bed has long been connected to good sleep because it’s a proven method of relaxation and stress relief, and can be a helpful part of a pre-bedtime routine that facilitates winding down and readying for sleep.

“An important part of your bedtime routine is to switch gears from doing to being, getting away from the goal-oriented connectivity we do all day long—reading is a nice bookend to that,” says sleep psychologist Jade Wu, PhD, sleep advisor at Mattress Firm and author of Hello Sleep. “It makes you more of a receiver of information rather than an agent in doing some something, so it tells your body to switch gears and that it’s time to simply ‘be.’” A calm and focused mind is key to ease into sleep, and the concentration and focused attention of absorbing a story on a page facilitates that.

Besides easing you to sleep faster, studies have shown that reading can improve the quality of your sleep itself—an online randomized trial conducted in 2021 found that participants who read before bed self-reported experiencing better sleep than those who didn’t.

It’s not just IRL social interactions that have people feeling exhausted, either. This trend extends to the realm of social media as well, where platforms offer constant connectivity but can also contribute to feelings of social fatigue. Numerous studies have explored the relationship between social media use and mental well-being. For example, a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health in the United Kingdom found that social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, can have both positive and negative effects on users’ mental health.

In terms of the negative effects, the survey revealed that 70 percent of young adults surveyed reported feelings of social fatigue and being overwhelmed by social media pressures.

Suffice it to say, while socializing is key for our overall health and well-being, there can be too much of a good thing: Social burnout can set in when you overextend and overstimulate yourself interacting with other people. That said, it can be helped and prevented with some preparation and self-care, experts say. Read on for how to identify, prevent, and recover from social burnout.

What is social burnout?

According to Viktoriya Karakcheyeva, MD, director of behavioral health at the Resiliency and Well-Being Center at George Washington University’s School of Medicine & Health Sciences, social burnout, which is often used interchangeably with social exhaustion, is when you feel run down, tired, and exhausted by socializing. Social burnout symptoms include feeling drained emotionally and physically, and even irritable. “Part of that exhaustion is related to overstimulation by other people wanting a piece of you, so your natural inclination is to shut down,” says Dr. Karakcheyeva. When you feel this way, it can impact the way you behave, as well as your mood. “When we’re overstimulated, we try to protect ourselves, so you may want to isolate, or you may feel irritable or short-tempered,” adds Dr. Karakcheyeva.

Every person has an individual threshold for when socializing goes from nourishing and fun to tiring and exhausting, so there isn’t an exact amount or limit before social burnout symptoms set in. Depending on your preferences and personality, some activities and interactions may be more or less draining than others—maybe a walk with your bestie is nourishing, while attending a larger birthday party makes you want to hide under the bed, or vice versa. Your level of introversion or extraversion plays a role here.

How to avoid social burnout

1. Set reasonable limits and boundaries

The best way to avoid social burnout is to actively limit the possibility of it occurring. One key way to do this, says Dr. Karakcheyeva, is to set reasonable limits and boundaries around your socializing to preserve your social battery. She suggests building this into your routine: At the beginning of each week, look through your planner or calendar if you keep one, or even just your messages and social media if that’s where you track invitations, and intentionally set some limits for yourself, Dr. Karakcheyeva advises.

In addition to the social engagements you’re entertaining, think about what else you have to take care of during this week, such as at work and home chores and factor in your total schedule when making decisions. You’ll also want to consider where you’re going, who you’ll be with, and how much energy and effort each takes.

Use your insights to plan your week and decide what’s possible to make sure the interactions are nourishing without becoming draining. You may have more bandwidth to handle more energetically taxing social events some weeks than others—that’s okay, as long as you are aware and adjust. “Really be realistic with what it takes out of you to interact and be open to adjusting,” says Dr. Karakcheyeva. Remember that part of having boundaries involves protecting them, too.

2. Change how and when you socialize

Adjusting the length, format, and time of hangouts can help make them more manageable. According to therapist Melissa Divaris Thompson, LMFT, these efforts can make events more doable and stave off social burnout. For example, instead of feeling pressured to stay for the entirety of a party, “stopping by and having a dessert or a drink and not necessarily committing to the whole evening is another way to get some of your energy back,” she says.

You can also try to adjust your existing plans to make them more feasible, too. For example, if you have a standing dinner with friends every Friday night but find yourself needing time to recoup from a busy work week, tap out, try to reschedule for Saturday, or skip that week. Maybe an in-person coffee date is too much one week, so you could suggest a FaceTime or phone call to catch up with a friend instead.

“In your communication with people when they’re asking you out or want you to attend this event, you can say: ‘I’ve been pretty tired lately, so right now I’m focusing my energy on doing some self-care.’”—Victoriya Karakcheyeva, MD

3. Communicate your needs clearly and honestly

If you notice social burnout symptoms and feel social exhaustion setting in, let your circle know you need a break. To staunch the flow of invitations, communicate kindly and honestly about what’s feasible for you in the moment as you recover. “In your communication with people when they’re asking you out or want you to attend this event, you can say: ‘I’ve been pretty tired lately, so right now I’m focusing my energy on doing some self-care,'” suggests Dr. Karakcheyeva.

You can also lay out a timeline for when you may be ready to hang out again—but don’t feel pressure to make this too early. If after an honest assessment you find that you want to be part of some plans and not others, for example maybe smaller gatherings instead of large ones, say so. Boundary setting and expressing ourselves is an ever-evolving process that gets easier with practice, so keep trying even if it feels hard.

How to get over social burnout

Preventing social burnout is easier and more preferable than recovering from it, but you can still bounce back if you find you’ve overextended yourself. According to Dr. Karakcheyeva and Divaris Thompson, once you’re socially exhausted the real solution is to slow down.

When you notice social burnout symptoms and you’ve hit the point of social exhaustion, both experts say it’s time to hit the pause button in a major way. Re-arrange your calendar and schedule to incorporate some “me time,” and include activities that are restful and restorative to you. Be sure you’re getting enough good quality sleep, drinking water, spending time outside, moving in a way you enjoy, and making time for activities that’ll ease your stress and add fun to your life. You may even block these times out in your schedule

The takeaway

Remember that you can’t pour from an empty cup, so the best way to deal with social burnout is to prevent it before it sets in. Like many things in life, moderation is key here—aim for a balance between me and we time. And if you find yourself running on empty, don’t be afraid to take a step back, (politely) decline some invites, and double down on your self-care routine.