It’s been over 4 months since the lockdowns were imposed and like it or not, it’s made us all relook at our lives and rethink how we were getting through each day. BLD (Before Lock Down), most of us at some point have imagined a life where we-
< note to reader> before you read the next lines, play beautiful piano music in your mind, you may add a rainbow or two if you please
-where we..
Imagined getting up early in the morning, starting our day with some meditation and a workout of our choice, making an insanely healthy breakfast that pampered our taste buds and then having an really great work day, coming home, relaxing a bit with loved ones, having a healthy dinner and then falling asleep into deep restorative sleep and then another day like this and another day like this.
Sounds exactly what you’ve wanted to do for a long time but couldn’t ever get around to doing it because life was too busy and you never had the time to plan a day like this?
<piano piece can stop now if you want>
Well, now we all have more time than ever- no commuting to office, no wasted time in traffic so we’ve really been presented with a great opportunity to create a lifestyle around self care practices. Yet, this seems to have become an even more distant reality for most people in today’s challenging times. Work life and personal life seems to have gotten blurred further and everyone seems more burdened with work than ever before.
So how does one grow? How does one change past patterns to create one?
We’ve been talking to members of the Thrive Tribe to figure out how most of them have been able to actually use this time to work on themselves and create growth.
And here are some of their winning hacks.
- Develop a routine
Being locked down where time seems infinitely fluid, it is very important that you set in a routine for yourself. Make sure you have a schedule even if it’s a flexible one: wake up, meditate, exercise, get dressed and work (from home). Take it one day at a time and stick to the routine, One day at a time is an easier way to build habits than thinking of 21 days, 1 month, 2 months or 6 months.
- Eat right
Your brain is your biggest asset in these times. Your ability to think critically, do research and reject fear based narratives comes from here. Do ensure you are not loading it up with toxins, inflammatory foods and stimulants. Be aware of what you are putting in your mouth because of the old saying that goes- You are what you eat, digest and absorb. Most Thrive tribe members look at food as information, and not as entertainment- by that virtue they have become really conscious of every bite they eat. As one of them says, “eating clean, unprocessed, whole, non-GMO food has really helped in keeping my energy levels stable throughout the day’.
- Water for life
For most of us, it’s peak summer as we are in quarantine and summertime calls for better hydration. Water is a cleanser, a supplier of life. Drinking water is like washing out your insides and improving the function of all your tissues. Optimal hydration is extremely important. It helps regulate body temperature,boosts skin health and beauty, flushes out body waste, improves digestion and prevents random snacking (some of those hunger pangs are actually thirst signals). One lady from the tribe is really creative with her water- from lemon to cucumber to mint to pomegranate water, she makes the act of drinking water a fine art. The color of your urine is a good indicator of your hydration levels, as also as it’s clear, light yellow you are doing good.
- Beauty sleep
Most people want a break, a change of mood after a full day of work and netflix/ amazon prime seems like a savior, but both are designed in such a way that it’s easy to binge watch and lose track of time. The flip side of this is that you might push away sleep to watch one more episode and one more and one more and end up sleeping really late. The thing is changes in the patterns of sleep cause tremendous changes in our health too. Lack of sleep will make you groggy, unfocused and irritable the next day. One of our tribe members went the Netflix way in the first week of the lock-down and soon realized how it was impacting his mood and energy- he says tongue-in-cheek, “I’ve now set an alarm clock to shut down my electronic devices at 9 pm.. That way I actually fall asleep at 10 pm and surprisingly I don’t need an alarm clock to wake me up. It’s the best use of my alarm clock.”
- Use the ‘HALT’ technique
This tip is from Thrive’s founder Mugdha- She says, every time you feel low on energy or your mood changes, check if you are HALT- Hungry, Angry and Afraid, Lonely or Tired and take appropriate action for each of those. P.S. If you are hungry, make sure that you do not binge on junk food, that would eventually lead to even worse energy levels through the day. Stick to clean, unprocessed, whole food.
- Create a Gratitude Journal
As Cynthia Ozick has rightly said- “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude”. Creating a gratitude journal would make it easier for you to focus your attention on all the positive things around you and stay grateful for everything in your life.
- Learn something new
The only good thing that’s come out of this lock-down is it has allowed a growing number of people to question the life we led BLD. Use this time to learn skills that will be of value to self and others, no matter what happens in the world. Growing your mind is the number one personal growth hack in our books. If you don’t have any subjects you feel motivated to learn about, then dig deep into what’s going on our planet currently. Why is humanity under a collective pause mode. Who’s running the show? These are important questions to ask as well.
- Move
Not just experts but even our tribe members have now found that moving their bodies throughout the day as one of the best forms of physical activity without having to go to gyms. Most of them are incorporating functional fitness in their household chores (doing squats while mopping or balancing on one leg while doing the dishes/ cooking for example). For those of you sitting for long periods for work, make sure you do a couch stretch at least once every hour to keep those quads and glute muscles functional.
- Mind your media
We honestly think the media is the real virus. You don’t really need to know what the Nation wants to know. Mind what you are watching and avoid news that creates stress and panic within you. Mainstream media thrives on creating panic, confusion, anger and hatred. Do not hand over your mind to them. Look for alternative sources for information about the current scenario.
- Do the ‘My 5’ exercise
This is a personal growth hack that the founder of Lifeplugin Summit Gautam Khetrapal taught us and we really love it. As soon as you wake up and go to the bathroom, look at yourself in the mirror and say this to yourself
Dear <your name>
In the last 24 hours,
I feel proud of for these 5 things
I forgive you for these 5 things
And I commit towards doing these 5 things in the next 24 hours.
Try it out.. It’s pretty magical
- Breathe
Breathing is the first thing we do when we are born and the last thing we do before we die but how much importance do we give to breathing? We can stay alive for long periods without eating, drinking or sleeping, but if we can not breathe, we die within a few minutes. If our way of breathing is short and quick our minds will be nervous and agitated. If our breathing is irregular, the mind. Knowing how to breathe also helps us to control our emotions (anger included) and fears and keep a clear and sharp mind. If our breathing is deep, slow and regular then our mind will reach a state of tranquility and calm. When we are upset or stressed our breathing becomes quick and shallow. Breathing deeply and slowly instantly calms us down mentally as well as physically. is anxious and disturbed.
At Thrive we use a specific breathing technique that we share with all our tribe members. Contact us on the number below and we’ll share this with you too for free.
- Address your fears
What this lock-down has done for most of us is that it has made us come face to face with our fear of our death. We are mortal beings. Most of us have gone through our lives trying not to acknowledge this or forget this important piece of existence. We’ve never sat and ruminate over the fragility of our human existence. Until now. And this scares most of us. The fear could be about your own death or the death of your loved ones. How to address this? For starters, you could read our earlier article about this. If you fear losing your job like one of our tribe members did- have an honest talk with your employers and ask them what are the chances of that really happening and what would it take to prevent it from happening. She did that, and it turned out that her fear was unwarranted. One thing that we’ve learned from coaching so many people, hiding from your fear makes it worse- looking at it in the face and acting on it is really what resolves it. Like Thrive’s Founder Mugdha says,
True courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the ability to look at fear in the face, see where it came from and work on the triggers one by one until there is no fear left.
It is what the Thrive Tribe has done to stay sane and grow during the lock-down. We’ve now opened membership to Tribe to anyone who feels they deserve to be part of this beautiful collective. Here’s the link to our Facebook group
If you need help with your eating habits or anything else we’ve spoken about, reach out to us and we’d be happy to talk to you.
