Coming off the heels of “Dry January” we have February – the month we all focus on heart health. While it’s a good thing to focus on in one particular month, the hope is that we continue on for longer than that, hopefully for life.  Because your life could depend on it!

One of garten’s speakers, Dr. Jeff Wessler (MD MPhil FACC) is a virtual cardiologist, the Founder of Heartbeat Health, and on clinical faculty at Northwell Health.  He was just published in Forbes with an article on “Five 2023 Heart Health Trends For Healthcare Organizations And Health Tech Entrepreneurs To Follow”.  He mentions the lipids of the future and how they are not your grandparents’ cholesterol.  AI technology is now being used to assess coronary plaque buildup in heart arteries, an amazing advancement in cardiovascular health. 

However, it’s important to emphasize that it all begins with you and your heartbeat. The Nutrition Dashboard is another technology based trend companies are keeping an eye on.  It is garten’s answer for companies looking to improve their employees’ heart health – giving you the tools to offer the best food choices within budget to sustain energy and improve well being while at work.  If you could only choose 5 foods to help your heart work as efficiently as possible, what would they be?

5 Foods You will want to Eat for Heart Health and Why

Oatmeal: 

Oatmeal is a great source of soluble fiber which helps to lower cholesterol levels. It is also low in salt and saturated fats, which are associated with high blood pressure and other heart conditions. Oatmeal is an easy and versatile breakfast choice, as you can add a variety of toppings such as nuts, berries, or dried fruits and sweeten it with a touch of honey or maple syrup.

Salmon: 

Salmon is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for maintaining good cardiovascular health. Omega-3s have been known to reduce inflammation, lower cholesterol levels, and prevent blood clots. You can prepare salmon in a variety of ways, such as baking, grilling, or even smoking.

Dark Leafy Greens: 

Dark leafy greens, such as spinach, kale, Swiss chard, and collard greens are packed with nutrients that are beneficial for cardiovascular health. These include potassium, fiber, and vitamins A, C, and K. You can incorporate dark leafy greens into salads, soups, and smoothies for an easy and delicious way to get your daily dose of these heart-healthy nutrients.

Nuts: 

Nuts are a great source of monounsaturated fats, which help to reduce bad cholesterol levels and lower the risk of heart disease. Nuts are also a great source of plant-based proteins, fiber, and other essential vitamins and minerals. Try adding a handful of almonds, walnuts, or cashews to your daily diet for a crunchy and nutritious snack.

Avocados: 

Avocados are packed with healthy fats and are high in antioxidants, which can help to reduce inflammation and protect your heart. They are also a great source of potassium, which can help to regulate blood pressure. Try adding a few slices of avocado to your toast, eggs, or tacos for a delicious way to get your daily dose of heart-healthy fats.

Our Gifts to You this February:

Try this Heart-Healthy Recipe on gartenTV: Peanut Butter Energy Balls

Request this handout for your employees on Tips for Reducing your Salt and Sodium Intake. 

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Stress eating is a common problem that affects many people, especially those who spend a significant amount of time at work. According to recent statistics, an estimated 70% of meals are consumed at work, which can have a significant impact on both mental and physical health, as well as productivity and overall well-being.  So, if you have a stressful job, and you have to eat while you are at work, how can you avoid stress eating?

Step One: Choose the Right Foods

Consuming high-calorie, high-fat foods in response to stress can lead to weight gain and an increased risk of chronic health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Additionally, consuming large amounts of sugar and unhealthy fats can disrupt the body’s natural hormone balance, leading to feelings of depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues.

How do you know what foods will support your mind and body during stressful work days?  It’s helpful to think of foods falling into 5 tiers, or levels of health.  Making the most of your meal times by choosing food mostly in the higher 4 & 5 tiers will be supportive, foods in the bottom tiers will cause you to crash and burn. 

Step Two: Give your Brain a Break

Stress eating can also negatively impact productivity at work. Consuming unhealthy foods can lead to feelings of fatigue, brain fog, and lack of focus, making it difficult to perform tasks effectively. Additionally, stress eating can lead to a lack of motivation and a general sense of apathy, which can impede productivity and make it difficult to meet deadlines and achieve goals.

When you are needing to refuel, step away from your desk.  Sit by a window, go outside, or to the break room if it is a comfortable, stress-free environment.  Eat with mindfulness, focusing on the taste, chewing slowly, and savoring the flavors. Take this time to do some gentle movement, deep breathing, or quiet meditation. 

Step Three: Take it to the Top

Not only does stress eating affect the individual, but it also affects the company’s bottom line. Poor health and productivity can lead to increased absenteeism, higher healthcare costs, and a decrease in overall productivity. This can have a significant impact on the company’s bottom line and its ability to meet its business objectives.  Giving your leadership honest feedback on how they can improve the work environment may just be the missing link. 

Here are some essentials:

Clean, bright, cheerful break rooms with nutritious foods attractively displayed.

Employee input on what foods they would like to have available in vending machines for quick grabs and around the coffee pot for energizing breaks.

Tools to make it easier to manage the budget and demand.

In conclusion, stress eating is a common problem that affects many people at work, and it can have a significant impact on both mental and physical health, as well as productivity and overall well-being. To combat the effects of stress eating, it is important to find healthy ways to manage stress, to have access to healthy food options in the workplace, and to take regular breaks throughout the day. This will not only improve the health and productivity of the individual but also the company’s bottom line.

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As the leaves begin to fall and we feel the call of cozy fires and warm smells from the kitchen, we turn our hearts and minds to reflect on the year and find the sparks of kindness and gratefulness that will keep us warm through the winter.  A time to appreciate family and celebrate the good things. 

FOR THE BODY

Heal Your Health: Relearn to Breathe Presented by Kali Patrick. 

We often take our breathing for granted, but paying more attention to our breathing is important for several reasons. These include:

• the affect our default breathing pattern has on our overall health & well-being
• the usefulness of the breath as a signal that warns us about unmet self-care needs
• our ability to use the breath intentionally, as a way to reduce acute symptoms (e.g. anxiety or depression)
• the breath as a portable, always available tool for increasing stress-resilience

In this interactive presentation, your attendees will learn: 

• Whether or not you’re breathing properly and the surprising implications of improper breathing
• A simple practice to correct disordered breathing patterns created from chronic stress 
• Specific breathing techniques designed to: build stress resilience, alleviate muscle tension/pain (including headaches), provide relief from anxiety/depression, increase energy, improve attention and focus, improve posture, restore healthy blood pressure & restore refreshing sleep

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month.  We have ways to help you & your team take a deep breath.

FOR THE MIND

In the month of November we uplift caregivers as well as bring light to the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease through Caring for Your Loved One Who has Alzheimer’s.  Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s is never easy. It takes time, transition, training and techniques. This presentation aims to help address and target those skill sets and to help caregivers successfully care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s to the best of their ability.  Presented by Maranda. 

November also brings to the forefront and awareness of stress and helpful ways to mitigate this in our lives.  Garten has a number of resources available to help you and your team find the balance. 

FOR YOUR ENVIRONMENT

Creating an environment of kindness and compassionate listening can be challenging.  Here to help is Amy with a talk specifically designed for World Kindness Day.  Kindness doesn’t just happen one day a year though… feel free to schedule this anytime!

CELEBRATE WITH GRATITUDE

Enveloping ourselves with kindness creates a space to be grateful.  Nurture this with The Gratitude Effect presented by Devin.  He demonstrates how gratitude, when given frequently and crowdsourced, changes not only the receiver, but also the giver. In this session, see how some of the most admired global companies in the world achieved eye-popping ROI through case studies supported by unique data science. Learn how to achieve an appreciation structure with the right level of investment to positively impact culture and performance.

Find this and more resources on building a culture of gratitude with garten Experiences. 

December

‘Tis the season to celebrate what is good and set our sights on the New Year to come.  Like fresh snow, deep starry nights and your breath becoming crystalized before your eyes, there is a refreshing tingle of new goals and the excitement of building on what we accomplished last year. 

FOR THE BODY

As winter approaches our bodies may need some extra help to keep healthy as we prepare for the cold and flu season. Julia can help your team learn the role that food, teas, herbs and supplements can play in boosting the immune system, especially when viruses are making the rounds at the workplace. She shares practical, evidence-based (and delicious!) ways to enhance the health of your employees all winter long in her talk on Winter Wellness. 

Would you like to Spice Up Your Vegan Holiday?  Jennifer will help your employees explore how to use spices that are especially useful during the fall and winter seasons to support a healthy lifestyle, including immunity and digestion, and provide unforgettable flavor and richness to classic holiday meals. Or, have Cathy show you how to prepare one or two vegan holiday recipes in her live cooking demo Easy, Healthy Recipes for the Holiday Season.

Did you know that December 13th is National Cocoa Day?  Did you also know that chocolate can be healthy? Learn all about cacao beans and their transformation into delicious chocolate as Cathy guides you to make your own chocolate treats with assorted tasty add-ins such as sea salt, cinnamon, coconut, ginger, chili powder, and more in her From Beans to Bar – Chocolate Crafting Workshop. Continue the fun by hosting a Rosé & Chocolate Essentials Social Hour where Danielle will awaken your senses with the gift of an essential oil to promote relaxation and mindfulness while you experience an interactive wine and chocolate tasting. 

FOR THE MIND

Did you know that doing a hands-on creative activity can help to relieve stress and clear the mind?  Wear your most atrocious attire to celebrate National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day AND host a fun meditative knitting party! In this workshop, participants will learn how to knit, practice pranayama breathing exercises and stretching techniques, providing them with a new skill that nourishes both mind and body.  You may love it so much you will want to make it a regular part of your workplace culture for the New Year!

Along with the fun of the holidays comes stress. Help your team through what may be a stressful & emotional time with Tom, a Licensed Psychologist and Life Coach, who speaks on Navigating Holiday Stress.  Browse through our providers’ offerings of ways to handle stress, from meditation to movement and breathwork. 

FOR YOUR ENVIRONMENT

From a place of gratitude comes generosity – giving of our time and resources to make this world a better place for all. Support your team to find ways to volunteer and serve the community around them: 

• How to Make Kindness Matter
• How to Find a Virtual Vibe – Opportunities to Give Right Now
• How to Be of Service
• How to Find Time to Do Good
• Volunteering is the New Normal
• Balancing Volunteerism

CELEBRATING THE HOLIDAYS

Finding ways to come together for end-of-year celebrations and creating room for building community during the holidays means fun, laughter, creativity and celebrating the wins.  We have a collection of holiday celebrations to choose from!  Here is just a taste: 

• Seasonal Wreath Workshop
• Santa’s Sake Tasting Social
• Merry Terrarium Workshop
• Festivus Foam Roll and Fizz
• Jolly Mixology

January

Don’t let your team’s motivation fizzle like last year’s champagne bubbles… keep up the momentum!  Support your team’s wellness goals with some added motivation and fun events:

BUILDING HEALTHY HABITS

Whether your workforce is remote or hybrid, we all need to re-asses those things we do routinely and maybe reboot those habits to serve us better going forward.  Here are some of our top picks for just this thing: 

Creating a Self-care Habit
Building a Sustainable Wellness Routine
You can Change: Making New Habits Stick
SMART Goals

The whole package: these events come in a weekly series that will set your course.  From food to fitness, this is the way to start off the new year!

2023 Food and Fitness Challenge
Food and Movement as Medicine

WEEKLY WELLNESS CLASSES

Establishing a weekly routine within the workplace can create the foundation for a well-rounded wellness program.  Here are some ideas to get you started: 

• Monday Meditation – start the week off with intention and a clear mind
• Training Tuesday – kick it in high gear, get the blood pumping, and get going on the most productive day with weekly fitness classes.  
• Fri-Yay Yoga! From beginners level to advanced, there is a yoga class for everyone.  Try a few styles to see what fits well, or stick with the same provider so you can build on skill sets.

January is MENTAL WELLNESS MONTH and we have experts in the field to encourage and educate your employees as we build awareness for this important topic, from maintaining mental wellbeing through mindfulness to addressing mental health issues both in the office and at home.

The post Curated Winter Experiences appeared first on garten.

Our new Snack-from-Home Vitality Box is curated with various items and snacks that help enhance energy and boost immunity, including protein-rich snacks, herbal tea, roll-on essential oils, and hand sanitizer.

Depending on your location, your Vitality Box can include:

Aura Cacia Hand Sanitizer – Tea Tree Citrus: Hand Sanitizers are an ideal choice for the moments you don’t have access to soap and water. Formulated in compliance with FDA standards and CDC recommendations, Aura Cacia Hand Sanitizers effectively kill 99.9% of common germs and do not contain methanol. Each hand sanitizer is made with 80% alcohol content to effectively disinfect hands, and glycerin to help prevent drying out skin.

Yogi Cold Season Tea: Yogi Cold Season tea is a soothing herbal tea blend that’s perfect for sipping during Cold Season. This delicious tea is purposefully blended with Ginger, Cardamom, Cinnamon, and Clove, known in Ayurveda as warming herbs. Licorice and Eucalyptus – herbs traditionally used to support respiratory function – combine with citrusy Orange Peel, invigorating Peppermint, and herbaceous Tulsi.

Aura Cacia Chill-Pill Essential Oil Roll-On: With a simple, roll-on application, these blends of essential oils and apricot kernel oil are perfect for safely applying to the skin for a variety of benefits—without leaving behind an oily feel. To inspire balance and calm, apply to temples, wrists and inner elbows.

Earth Therapeutics Anti-Stress Sinus Pillow: Filled with flax seed and a special stress-relieving aroma-therapeutic blend of herbal essences, this SINUS PILLOW is designed to calm and comfort both the body and the mind. Ergonomically designed with an adjustable head strap, the Anti-Stress Sinus Pillow enfolds you in its comforting embrace to relax and soothe. The balmy mind-calming blend of chamomile, lavender, and citrus completes and enhances these physical benefits by offering a totally relaxing, sensory experience. Use it Warm over the forehead to soothe and relieve sinuses and tension headaches, or use it Cool to soothe tired, strained, puffy eyes.

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This box is curated with various items and snacks that help to de-stress and calm the mind, including a variety of gluten-free snacks, herbal tea, roll-on essential oils, hand sanitizer, and a gift card for 2 Months Free of Welnys TV.

Depending on your location, your Zen Box can include:

Earth Therapeutics Anti-Stress Sinus Pillow: Filled with flax seed and a special stress-relieving aroma-therapeutic blend of herbal essences, this SINUS PILLOW is designed to calm and comfort both the body and the mind. Ergonomically designed with an adjustable head strap, the Anti-Stress Sinus Pillow enfolds you in its comforting embrace to relax and soothe. The balmy mind-calming blend of chamomile, lavender, and citrus completes and enhances these physical benefits by offering a totally relaxing, sensory experience. Use it Warm over the forehead to soothe and relieve sinuses and tension headaches, or use it Cool to soothe tired, strained, puffy eyes.

Aura Cacia Chill-Pill Essential Oil Roll-On: With a simple, roll-on application, these blends of essential oils and apricot kernel oil are perfect for safely applying to the skin for a variety of benefits—without leaving behind an oily feel. To inspire balance and calm, apply to temples, wrists and inner elbows.

Aura Cacia Hand Sanitizer – Unscented: Hand Sanitizers are an ideal choice for the moments you don’t have access to soap and water. Formulated in compliance with FDA standards and CDC recommendations, Aura Cacia Hand Sanitizers effectively kill 99.9% of common germs and do not contain methanol. Each hand sanitizer is made with 80% alcohol content to effectively disinfect hands, and glycerin to help prevent drying out skin.

Aura Cacia Mellow Mix: Featuring lavender and sandalwood essential oils, is expertly blended to inspire a sense of peace and calm. Wind down from a tough day by using this effective combination of oils in a diffusion, room spray or massage oil.

Tazo Chamomile Tea: A sip of blooming chamomile tea to help you unwind at the end of the day. This herbal tea blend is carefully presented in 20 individually wrapped tea bags that preserve its properties as a soothing, relaxing, and calming tea, making it ideal as a sleep tea.

2 Months Free of Welnys TV Virtual Programming: Wellness From Anywhere. Online classes taught by real people, for real people. Stream everything from meditation to Tai Chi on your phone or laptop.

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How to Use Arugula 

Arugula is predominantly used in fresh green salads. It has a peppery, mustard-like flavor, although the pale, younger leaves are often milder. It makes a tasty addition to other salad greens. The ancient Romans were said to combine it with romaine, chicory, mallow, lavender, and cheese. Consider combining it with fruits, such as pears, or cheeses like Gorgonzola. It goes well on sandwiches, in chicken and tuna salads, egg dishes, pasta and tomato dishes, and in sautéed vegetables. You can also sauté it with your choice of other herbs and spices—it can stand in as a side dish on its own. Arugula is commonly featured in Clean Monday meals at the beginning of the Lenten period.

Here are two delicious culinary recipes using some of the herbs, from garten’s chef Jonathan Tom:

Basil Tomato Bread Soup

Tomato bread soup is a classic rustic recipe that demonstrates our culinary resourcefulness. It’s traditionally made with stale bread and tomatoes so ripe they’re splitting. The day old bread absorbs the moisture while retaining some of it’s texture.

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Spanish onion, small diced
• 3 large garlic cloves
• 5 super ripe beefsteak tomatoes, crushed by hand
• 10 large basil leaves, half whole and half chiffonade
• 3 cups vegetable stock
• 2 ½ cup large cubes day old rustic bread (crust removed)
• Kosher salt as needed
• Freshly ground black pepper as needed
• ¼ cup olive oil for serving
• Fresh grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Heat a medium-heavy soup pot over medium heat. Pour in the olive oil, make sure it coats the whole pan heating the oil until it is shimmering and almost smoking. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon until the onions are softened but not brown, roughly 4 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, whole basil leaves and stock and bring to a light boil then immediately lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Stir the bread and raise the heat to return the soup to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper, lower the heat and simmer until the tomatoes are broken down and the soup is thick and porridge like, about 20 minutes. 

Stir in extra virgin olive oil and sliced basil and ladle into soup bowls. Drizzle with more extra virgin olive oil and (optional) parmesan.

Oregano Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

This is a classic recipe and one of my favorites as my mentor, Gary Boyer, taught me how to make it. He always took it upon himself to make soups for service and as I later found out he did it because he made the best soups and didn’t trust anyone. You can use poached chicken breasts or a shredded rotisserie chicken. Perfect early spring or fall/winter soup.

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 
• 3/4 cup finely small diced carrots
• 3/4  cup finely small diced celery
• 3/4  cup finely small diced onion
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 8 cups of chicken stock or low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup rice
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cooked boneless chicken breast pieces, shredded or cubed
• ½ cup freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped oregano

In a large Dutch oven or heavy pot, heat 1 tbsp olive oil on medium-high. Add the carrots, celery and onions and saute for two minutes, add garlic and continue cooking until vegetables are translucent but not browned, add b. 

Add the chicken stock then raise the heat to high. Once the liquid has come to a rolling boil, add the rice, salt and pepper. Turn the heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes or until the rice is tender. Now stir in the cooked chicken.

To prepare the egg-lemon sauce, in a medium bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and egg yolks. While whisking add 2 ladles-full of the broth from the cooking pot (this helps temper the eggs). Once fully combined, add the sauce to the chicken soup and stir. Remove from the heat immediately.

The post Culinary Fresh Herbs appeared first on garten.

We interviewed Nimai and asked him to share what his top tips for health, fitness, and wellbeing are heading into the new year. We’ve included our own top tips in our blog post below:

Nimai’s top tips for health, fitness & wellbeing in 2021:

Set a goal. You can’t work towards something if you don’t know what your goal is. Define that goal, be specific. Then give it a timeline. Be realistic. For example, set a reasonable goal like lose 10 lbs in 10 weeks. Break your goal down into bite size portions that work for you and track your progress.

Create an environment for success. For example, if you have a fitness goal, don’t buy junk food and expect not to eat it. Stock your fridge to support your goals—especially if you’re working from home. Hang up sticky notes to remind and inspire you. Create a vision board. Follow Instagram accounts that inspire and motivate you. Consume consciously.

Create an empowering routine. Even just a special hour of the day to empower your health, fitness, and wellbeing. The best time to do it is first thing in the morning. If you can’t do it in the morning, schedule it on your calendar. To take this even further, plan a second timeslot later in the day, such as after work, to get in another round of rejuvenation. An example of this would be meditating, reading, listening, or watching something inspirational and/or restorative, like going for a walk.

Eat more plants. Incorporate a more plant-centric diet. 80% of disease can be prevented through a plant-based diet & a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to go full vegan, just incorporate more plants. Many professional athletes are doing this to fuel their training, competition, and recovery (as seen in James Cameron’s Documentary “The Gamechangers“). You don’t have to become a professional athlete but you can learn from their empowering habits and integrate them into your daily life.

Check-in with your breath. Set a reminder/alarm in your phone for once or twice a day to check in with your breath and body. We often don’t realize that we’re holding a lot of tension in our body by either holding our breath or taking really short breaths, which leaves us feeling stressed and tensed up. Try this simple breath-practice: Close your eyes. Put your left hand on your belly and your right hand on your heart. Take three deep breaths, feeling your heartbeat and your breath with your hands. Then say hello to yourself (I.E. “Hello, Nimai”). As you do this, relax your eyebrows, let go of the tension in your face, relax your shoulders, and place your awareness inside of your body.

Curated by Vedge Nutrition’s Nimai Delgado

garten’s top work health, fitness & wellbeing tips for 2021:

Move your body before starting work. Stretch, yoga, go for a walk, do a full workout. Doesn’t matter if the movement is big or small, but make it a habit to move your body before you engage your mind with work. You will have more mental creative energy if you start with movement.

Walk & talk whenever possible: work phone calls, one-on-one meetings, or even just during a short break in between meetings. Make this a habit & you will easily hit 10K+ steps. Do this for a few months and you’ll be in better physical & mental shape without a doubt.

At the end of the workday, write out a list of everything you still need to do the next day and the rest of the week. This way your mind can stop thinking about work and rejuvenate so it’s fresh for the next workday. This is especially key when working from home, to create a mental barrier between work and home life.

Celebrate progress. When you set a specific goal of an observable behavior, you can track your progress. Mark the days that you walk on a calendar or write them down in a journal. If you miss meeting your goal, that’s okay, don’t sabotage your progress with negative self-talk. Be patient with your process, and give yourself grace and a little pep talk. Think of a baby taking her first steps, when she stumbles, we don’t scold her, we encourage her to keep at it. When you do meet or exceed your self-care goals, celebrate and lean into your positive results to keep your momentum going. 

Be kind to you. Think about one area of your life that you have been neglecting. There are perhaps a few, but be kind and start with one to focus on for a few weeks. Research tells us that small changes can yield big benefits and more lasting results. 

Once you have identified the area of self-care that you will focus on, next think about an activity that brings you joy. For example, if being more active is an area of self-care that you want to focus on, but exercising inside has not worked for you in the past, and you know that you love being active while outdoors, then choose an activity that brings you outdoors.

And remember, small changes yield lasting results; you don’t have to initiate a rigorous training program like running a half marathon to realize benefits. An enjoyable walk at lunch can help improve your focus as well as your blood sugar levels and leave you feeling better at the end of the day so you sleep well at night. If you make this a regular workday practice before you know it you’ll be feeling better and more fit than you ever have before. Tiny habits and consistency can truly change your life in profound ways.

Curated by garten’s Justin David Carl (Dragon)

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We at garten want to equip you with some simple ways to support the development of serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that supports mood regulation, memory, and healthy digestion. 90% of serotonin is produced in our intestines. With the seasons changing in an-everything-but-normal year, it’s likely we could use a little boost in things that make us feel good.

Here are 5 tips to boost your serotonin levels:

1. Exercise daily – outside is even better! We all know we should move more as part of our health. If you don’t have a regular exercise routine, start by taking a 30-minute walk daily. One trick that works is building rules like no coffee before your workout is done. Give it a try and see how you feel! 
   
2. Stay hydrated to support gut health. Drinking enough water is challenging when you’re in back to back zoom calls and juggling life, but just like plants need water to survive, we need water to function properly. Ideally, we should be drinking half of our body weight in ounces daily. If that’s too much, start by making sure you’re finishing one bottle a day, then move to two, and keep building up to your goal. 
   
3. Eat serotonin rich foods such as salmon, sweet potatoes, blueberries, and bananas. A diet rich in L-tryptophan is especially beneficial. Foods rich in nutrients such as magnesium, zinc, folic acid, fish oils, vitamins C and B6 help us use serotonin more effectively. 
   
4. Try a meditation practice. At garten, we take 20 minutes daily for a Purposeful Pause. Many of our teammates use this time to meditate and it helps keep us focused and productive. It’s also a great way to reduce stress and keep your serotonin levels up.
   
5. Take time to play. As adults, we often think we don’t have time to play or that it’s simply unproductive and useless. However, more and more research is coming out that proves play is vital to problem-solving, creativity, and relationship building. This week, take time to do something that brings you joy.

Our fall snack rotation includes snacks with ingredients that help support a good mood. Be on the lookout for those snacks and work to incorporate them into your regular diet. 

While you’re building your meal plan, add this recipe to your rotation. Snap a picture of your plated dish, tag us on social media, and use #gutgarten for a chance to win a free snack box!

The post Serotonin Supports Good Mood with Food appeared first on garten.

Listen to the podcast below:

Original content can be found on the Authentic Avenue page.

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Traditionally, September brings a breath of fresh air, as the intensity of summer’s heat gives way to chilly mornings, nature changes her attire, shedding the bright shades of spring growth to rich autumnal hues, and students begin a new school year, full of promise and opportunity for a fresh start. In these ways, September can feel more like the start of a new year than January.  

September is also Self-care Awareness month. Self-care is hard to come by these days, with the stresses of the global pandemic and the impact of its constant demands, the timing is right for a fresh start – starting with yourself. It seems counterintuitive, but the best time to relax and focus on your own self-care, is when you realize you don’t have time to, or you haven’t been making time to.

The practice of making a resolution at the start of the new year, to adopt healthier habits or stop unhealthy ones, is a tradition that has been going on for centuries. Eating healthier and getting more exercise are two of the most common resolutions. But studies show that by February 80% of new year resolutions have failed. 

Why do resolutions fail at such staggering rates? Negative self-talk will convince us it’s due to sabotage and a lack of self-discipline. Negativity and sabotage are in direct conflict with self-care. It’s no wonder we need a month, midway, to remind us to take care of ourselves.

This month, consider taking a fresh approach to self-care resolutions, after all, you only have one you, one life to experience, one life to share with others, so treat yourself like the worthy investment that you are. Instead of focusing on the negative, take a more caring and positive approach for lasting results. 

Be kind to yourself and start with small nurturing changes, focus on positive outcomes, be specific in what you will do and how it will benefit you, then track and celebrate your progress.

Be kind to you

Think about one area of your life that you have been neglecting. There are perhaps a few, but be kind and start with one to focus on for a few weeks. Research tells us that small changes can yield big benefits and more lasting results. 

Once you have identified the area of self-care that you will focus on, next think about an activity that brings you joy. For example if being more active is an area of self-care that you want to focus on, but exercising inside has not worked for you in the past, and you know that you love being active while outdoors, then choose an activity that brings you outdoors.

And remember, small changes yield lasting results; you don’t have to initiate a rigorous training program like running a half marathon to realize benefits. A brisk walk at lunch or after dinner can help improve your focus as well as your blood sugar levels, and leave you feeling better at the end of the day so you sleep well at night.  

Focus on positive outcomes

When adopting your self-care routine, focus on the positive outcome instead of what you’re giving up. For the example of being more active and adding a walk to your routine, instead of thinking about what you’re giving up, think about the way the positive results will make you feel. For example, “I want to feel less stiff throughout the day and wake up more refreshed.” While a daily walk will help you realize that goal, it’s far more motivating to focus on what you’ll gain from the activity, than the task of the activity.

Be specific

When incorporating a new self-care practice into your routine, be specific in what that behavior will be and how often you will perform it. Instead of “I need to be more active,” which is broad and difficult to commit to and track progress, set a specific goal, such as walking 30 minutes during lunch at least four days each week. 

Celebrate progress 

When you set a specific goal of an observable behavior, you can track your progress. Mark the days that you walk on a calendar or write them down in a journal. If you miss meeting your goal, that’s okay, don’t sabotage your progress with negative self-talk. Be patient with your process, and give yourself grace and a little pep talk. Think of a baby taking her first steps, when she stumbles, we don’t scold her, we encourage her to keep at it. 

When you do meet or exceed your self-care goals, celebrate and lean into your positive results to keep your momentum going. 

This September, adopt a fresh approach to self-care. Pick one small investment in yourself, something that you enjoy, then stick with it for a few weeks before committing to another change. New routines are easier to adopt and sustain one at a time. You may just discover that making a small change of investing in yourself in one area of your life, will also bring gains in other areas. 

Blog Post Written by Kathleen Donnelly

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