Earlier this month, we hosted a Zoom Class focused on health and wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were joined by Health and Lifestyle Change Coach Hadlee Garrison – she had a ton of helpful information to share.

Here are some of Hadlee’s suggestions that we found to be most helpful during this difficult time.

Michigan Mortgage: Thanks for joining us (again)! For those that missed our Zoom Class, can you tell us about the importance of health and wellness during this difficult time?

H: It’s so important right now to implement healthy routines each day in order to feel purposeful and have the structure to feel less stressed and more grounded. Otherwise our days seem to blur together and it can feel like we’re just trying to keep our heads above water. And that doesn’t even include all the other ways healthy routines can positively impact our physical and mental health during this time!

So many emotions are likely to arise right now. There are things we can do in the moment to cope with difficult emotions, and there are things we can do preemptively to build resilience so we can cope with future emotions in a healthy and fulfilling way.

MM: During our class, you mentioned the “RAIN” technique. Can you explain that a little bit?

H: In the moment, we can practice acknowledging and working through our emotions through a concept called RAIN, which stands for Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Non-Identification.

• Recognize: Turn toward your emotions with acceptance. Identify the emotion arising and acknowledge the physical sensation that accompanies it.
• Allow: Allow the experience to be there just as it is. Accept that the emotion is there without denying it. Recognize that emotions are impermanent, and that even if it feels overwhelming in the moment, it will soon pass.
• Investigate: Get compassionately curious with your emotions. You can ask yourself: ‘What triggered this emotion? Why do I feel this way right now?’
• Non-identification: Practice non-identification, remembering that you’re not your thoughts, feelings, or emotions. You might be having a thought, feeling, or emotion, but you are not it. You are the observer of whatever is going on in your brain. Allow that to provide some relief.

MM: Thank you! I really think people can benefit from using that technique.

You are a wealth of knowledge, and I know we could go on for hours about this, but before we go, can you share a few health habits people can establish right now?

H: For being more mentally and physically resilient to stressors and viruses right now, we can practice tangible health habits. I suggest only choosing a few so as to not overwhelm yourself during this potentially stressful time, and sticking to those things consistently.

• Pay attention to how your body feels: If you’re not aware of how your body feels, it’s hard to give it what it needs. Take time to feel your physical sensations: hunger, satiation, thirst, temperature, emotions, etc.
• Sleep: Get enough high-quality sleep. You can’t make optimal decisions when you’re sleep deprived, and your brain will always work better when you’re well-rested. This is the most beneficial thing you can do for anxiety AND immunity!
• Move: Being intentional about moving your body is now more important than ever, as we might be doing a lot less of it by default. Intermittent movement throughout your day helps improve both physical and mental health, as addressed below.
• Nourish your body: Stick to foods that nourish your physical and mental health: namely vegetables, fruit, and other whole, unprocessed foods. Decrease consumption of processed and refined foods, alcohol, caffeine, etc., and drink enough water! Food can be a challenge during Shelter in Place. While it’s helpful to have nutrition knowledge and guidelines around how our bodies use food optimally, listen to your own body. Tap into hunger/ satiation cues to feed yourself well, and notice how different foods make you feel to empower future decision-making.
• Breathe: Breathing seems like a given, but did you know that you can use your breath to actually alleviate anxiety? Try extending your exhale longer than your inhale for an immediate decrease in cortisol, the stress hormone.
• Ground down with nature: Connecting with nature is medicine against anxiety and fear. Try walking in the woods or exploring your backyard. If you can’t leave your house, look outside your window or grow a potted plant.
• Schedule screen time: Put away the devices for designated periods of time each day, including consuming the news. You can still set aside time to get informed each day, but being constantly inundated with information about coronavirus isn’t helpful for your mental, physical, or emotional health.
• Connect: Just because we’re physically distant doesn’t mean we have to be socially distant too! It’s important to be intentional about our social interactions right now. Video chatting, phone calls, and good old-fashioned letter writing can be incredibly refreshing and invigorating.
• Help: The fastest path to feeling a sense of purpose? Helping another person!
• Leave some space: Give yourself enough space in your day/schedule. Even in quarantine, we need down time to do something simply for the sake of enjoyment.
• Be kind to yourself: Cut yourself a little bit of slack: this is collectively a stressful and uncertain time, so allow yourself to not get everything done, to fall apart, to use kind words when talking to yourself.

MM: We can’t thank you enough! Stay well, Hadlee!

Stay tuned – we will share more from Hadlee in the coming weeks.

My kids and I are obsessed with the new Animal Crossing game.

All my waking hours outside of work have been dedicated to fishing, selling turnips and hunting tarantula. I’m not proud to admit the amount of time we’ve collectively spent building up our new island home.

It has struck me how quickly I became reliant on the game for entertainment, a sense of accomplishment, and even something to bond with my kids over. I’ve wondered why it’s felt so important in my life, and clearly, it’s all about escapism.

We look for answers outside of ourselves and our homes, external ways to feel better. Some are healthy outlets (gym memberships, meditation classes), and others aren’t always healthy (Animal Crossing, retail therapy, going to the bar).

Now we’re suddenly stuck at home for weeks on end with restrictions and pressures that most adults have never had to face. We’re adapting to working outside of the office, or not working at all. Many of us have school-aged children that suddenly require us to oversee school work, or maybe elderly family members that are now isolated and without our help.

So, what happens when we combine the added stress while our sources of outside relief disappear?

Where do we find peace in the face of uncertainty?

For a culture that is so ingrained in believing our emotions are controlled by the situations and circumstances around us, this pandemic is perhaps the reset button we need.

Because peace and relief don’t come from the places we go, the things we buy, or what’s being reported on the evening news.

It comes from within.

But it’s so often drowned out with the external sources that many of us are now left in silence, struggling to reconnect with that inner voice, the source of emotional power within each of us that is out of shape and needs to be exercised.

While it’s tempting to just say that these are unprecedented times, and that a little escapism is ok, think about how you want your life to look at the end of this pandemic.

Do you want to have a beautiful home built in an imaginary video game world, or do you want to declutter your actual home?

Do you want to literally stay huddled in your home for weeks, or instead maybe get outside and walk, ride bikes, and try your hand at gardening?

Do you want to come out of the other side of this as the same person and society that went into it, or do you want to double down and come out more resilient and stronger?

Neither answer is right. I’m definitely not saying that I’m giving up Animal Crossing. But there is a choice to be made, and I encourage you to make that choice consciously.

I had a salad for dinner last night…and I’ll tell you why that matters in just a bit.

I was recently introduced to the idea of compound effect, and although it’s a simple idea, it really blew my mind. You’ve probably heard of compound interest when it comes to your money — the more money you save, the more interest you earn.

Until recently I had always thought my goals had to be monumentally planned out. I envisioned setting aside 90 days for each goal, spending days planning out each step, laying it out on the calendar, and executing every day for three months. And while that’s a completely valid, brilliant way to see progress in your life, I was getting hung up on how many 90-day goals I had. If I have 10 major areas of my work and life I want to improve on, it’d take me nearly three years to get through it all!

Enter the compound effect. It’s a little like Baby Steps by Dr. Leo Marvin from What About Bob.

The concept of the compound effect is this — that taking even small steps toward a goal adds up to something greater.

A diet, for example. If I’d have chosen to have a couple slices of pizza last night instead of that salad, would it have really mattered? Probably not. One individual meal doesn’t tend to move the scale. How about if I chose pizza again tonight? And tomorrow, and every day for the next six months? Ah, now we’re seeing how the compound effect moves the scale!

On the flip side, if I choose a salad every night for dinner for six months, imagine how much the scale would move in the other direction.

So, while I was getting hung up on spending significant amounts of time to focus on each of my life goals, I started applying the compound effect instead. If I do even five minutes each day on each of my 10 goals, I’ll be taking baby steps toward my goals.

Five minutes a day toward decluttering my home.
Five minutes a day spending more one-on-one time with my kids.
Five minutes a day building my website.

After six months, those little steps will have compounded into something significant and concrete. Much more so than spending my time and mental energy on being overwhelmed or spinning my wheels in planning mode. And I’ll have the changes I’ve made to build momentum to fuel further change.

Use the compound effect to achieve anything in your life or work. Baby steps are better than no steps at all!

This morning when I got to the office, a co-worker asked me how my morning was going. Most of us respond to this with a knee-jerk “good, you?” or “Ugh, terrible!” Have you ever stopped to think about how subjective those responses are?

For instance, let me show you two possible stories about my morning:

“I woke up late and had to rush to get ready. I dropped everything I touched, couldn’t find anything to wear and my hair looks terrible. Then I go to leave the driveway and the Shipt shopper pulls in behind me, blocking my car so I can’t get out. On the drive to work some jerk cut me off and of course I hit every red light too. What a terrible start to the day!”

(My blood pressure was totally spiking as I typed that!)

Or I could tell the story like this:

“I got a little extra and much-needed sleep this morning. I connected with my husband for a few minutes — it’s always nice when I get to talk to him for even just a short time. I even got groceries delivered already. How productive! On the drive in to work I tuned into my favorite podcast; I’m always so excited when I get to hear new episodes!”

(This story puts me in so much better of a mental state!)

Both of these stories are 100 percent accurate. The events of the morning didn’t change at all. All of these things happened. But the story takes such a different shape depending on which events I focus on, and how I choose to interpret them.

Our brains are hardwired to revert to the familiar; which for most of us is negative. It’s so much easier and automatic to focus on the stresses in our life versus the blessings, or the long list of obligations for each day instead of the accomplishments achieved.

I know sometimes this talk of “positive thinking” invites skeptics to complain that thinking positively is just delusional. But guess what? All thinking is delusional! Look at my stories above — both are true.

So, if life is going to be delusional either way, it might as well be a good one!

Guest blogger Sarah Beahan has been a loan processor and executive team member of Michigan Mortgage since 2002. In addition to her work at Michigan Mortgage, she is a certified Life and Weight Loss Coach, and owns her own coaching practice called Weighed Down Coaching.