Are You Addicted to Social Media?

Do you refresh Facebook fifteen times an hour to track the likes on your status? It’s likely the answer is yes. In some way or another, many of us have become slightly (or not so slightly) obsessed with the social media feedback loop. While it may seem like a sign of the times, it’s actually just another way we reinforce a desperate need to feel good enough. Social media has offered us a new way to anesthetize a deep-rooted feeling of lack: The more likes we get, the better we feel.

But what happens when the “like” button isn’t pushed or the retweets just don’t happen? Then what? A social media meltdown, maybe? Do you experience an unconscious sense of self-lack, uncertainty about your last post or, worst of all, do you spend the next hour refreshing your page for some semblance of positive reinforcement?

If this resonates with you, trust that you’re not alone. Remember that last scene of “The Social Network”? Even Mark Zuckerberg refreshes his page for feedback.

I too have struggled with the social media feedback loop. Early in my career as an author, speaker and dot-com entrepreneur, it became super clear to me that social media was the most powerful way to carry my message to the masses. I worked up an unhealthy obsession with it: My boyfriend would ban me from posting during dinner, and my mom could only get in touch by tweeting at me. At the time, I didn’t perceive it as an issue. Thousands of folks were liking my fan page and retweeting my posts — it was heaven for my ego.

Then, one afternoon, I noticed myself wasting an hour watching my Twitter feed and Facebook fan page for positive feedback. As a self-help book author and Spirit Junkie, I found this behavior quite alarming. I turned away from the screen and said out loud, “Uh-oh, I’m addicted to social media feedback.”

Rather than beat myself up or deny the reality of my obsession I chose to work toward creating a more balanced relationship with my online status. I’m a big fan of 30-day plans, so I put myself on a social media detox. No, I didn’t shut down my Twitter page or deny my fans. I did quite the opposite. I continued to post as frequently as before, but I made a 30-day commitment to ignore the retweets and seriously lay off the likes. I dedicated a half hour a day to respond to my fans and monitored my Twitter correspondence.

Remember, the issue was not social media. In fact, I love social media and am endlessly grateful for the service it provides. This was an issue of self-esteem and a deep-rooted need to feed my ego through other people’s positive reinforcement. The hours I spent seeking feedback from my fans were hours wasted on a false belief that some number of comments or retweets would make me feel any better than I already did. But when I backed off from this positive feedback loop, I cleared space for self-love and self-soothing. For a month, I meditated and affirmed my sense of self-worth instead of frantically checking my notifications. I deepened my connection to my own inner spirit by putting the kibosh on my social media feedback obsession.

This 30-day practice did me good. A month of daily repetition broke me of the obsessive pattern and enhanced my sense of self-worth. When I no longer cared about responses, I could spend more time focusing on sharing what I honestly felt rather than what I thought might get the most retweets. Ironically, this practice increased my social graph. Without even trying, I grew my fan page by 1,500 members in 30 days and got more impressions on Twitter than I’d ever had before.

Once I placed my social media strategy on sharing great content rather than wowing my audience, I shifted the energy behind my correspondence with my fans. When I was looking for feedback, the energy behind my tweets and posts was needy and manipulative. But when I started tweeting for Twitter’s sake, the energy was clear and released. Energy is in everything — even in your Twitter feed.

If you too are a social media feedback junkie, consider my 30-day practice. Get honest about your behavior, commit to lay off the “refresh” button, and clear space to share honest content rather than some canned comment that you think might get a ton of activity. Enhance your self-worth from the inside out and shine light on the Twittersphere.

For more information on how to optimize your life, visit: gabbyb.tv

Photo credit: Lee Hopkins

How To Kick Your Meat Addiction

Are you addicted to meat? I see it all the time – people who want to break the meat habit, but who just keep eating those nuggets, burgers and hot dogs. In fact, as I travel the country talking about veganism, meat addiction (acknowledged and not) may be the biggest barrier I see to a societal shift toward healthy, sustainable and kind eating patterns. So I decided I should reflect on what meat addiction looks like – and how you can break it. If you don’t have any urge to stop eating meat, this column really isn’t for you. But more and more Americans do want to cut back or cut out meat, and some of them find it difficult. If this is you, please keep reading.

First, let’s consider how we identify a meat addiction. You know you are addicted to something if, despite knowing that it’s bad for you or doesn’t jibe with your ethics, and despite wanting to drop it from your life, you keep consuming it. Addiction entails a craving that has more control over our behavior than our rational mind and desires. Of course, breaking an addiction can be extremely challenging — you don’t just snap your fingers and lose a craving. But in more than a few ways, those who struggle the most to break an addiction are, often, those who benefit the most.

In the case of being addicted to certain foods like meat or cheese, the addiction can manifest as obesity, disease, or loss of sex drive, energy or self-esteem. It can deaden our awareness of the impact of our actions and our capacity for empathy. When we fully understand and own the end results of poor food choices, we can challenge ourselves to break free, in the same way we might stop consuming other addictive substances. Nothing — no habit or food or substance – should ever own us.

Before beginning, it’s important to remember that, like any addiction, an addiction to animal products is both physiological and psychological. The culture and family traditions have held that indulging in meat and dairy and eggs is good and right. And omnipresent marketing and advertising campaigns constantly tell us that we should feel good about eating animals. So while it’s certainly critical that we take responsibility for our current state of health, we should also give ourselves a bit of a break.

Now, on to breaking the habit:

1. Recognize that you are addicted. By simply calling it out for what it is, you will no longer blindly and unconsciously keep indulging. You will be aware, alert to the denial that wants to repress any effort to change. When I first wanted to stop eating meat — for reasons of health and ethics — I did battle with my urges. I wanted to be a vegetarian, but I also wanted that taste of steak in my mouth. Or the tuna sandwich wolfed down with a root beer. I thought, “Wow, I can’t seem to stop myself from eating this stuff, even though I know it’s not right.” So I labeled it. I thought, “I must be addicted.” Which lead to, “I really don’t want to be held hostage by any addiction or attachment. I need to handle this. If I don’t handle this, I will not rise to my best potential.”

2. Be willing to do things differently. There is a magic quality to willingness; when you are willing to be different, you don’t have to know exactly what that looks like, but only remain open to change. When I was moving toward a plant-based diet, I said to myself, “I don’t know how I’m going to find foods that taste as good to me as the steak and tuna fish that I love, but I’m willing to believe there might be some other foods that are just as satisfying that don’t do that kind of harm. I’m willing to just try a few different menu choices when I go out, and I’ll at least pick up a few new items at the grocery store that would fit in to my new world view.”

3. Stay in the moment. Remember everything you’ve learned and seen. Every time you look at meat or cheese on your plate, even if you are still eating it, think about the process that went into making it. On my way to giving up animal products, I would try and see a quick visual of who the animal once was and what she went through before becoming the meal on my plate. That way, I was not in denial; I was aware. I did that enough times until it was just naturally distasteful to me, and the addiction no longer had a hold on me. I just didn’t want it anymore.

4. Replace the old habit. Do not deprive yourself so that you end up going back to your old habits. Find delicious food and enjoy the old traditions you always had with family and friends. Substitute hamburgers with veggie burgers, hot dogs with soy dogs, chicken enchiladas with bean and guacamole enchiladas. Have your familiar looking meals but make (or order) them with better ingredients.

5. Make yourself useful. This is the fun part, because you start feeling so empowered by the change you’ve undergone that you naturally want to give back. Cook some vegetarian meals and invite friends over; volunteer to bring cake or cookies that are made without eggs or milk to your kids’ schools; volunteer at an animal sanctuary so that you can feel even better about what you are not eating. This will make you feel good, even while it opens the eyes of people who might never even considered this way of eating.

6. Re-invigorate your path of healing. As I mentioned earlier, there is a huge sector of the economy that relies on people continuing to eat animal products; this means that there will be a constant onslaught of advertising that attempts to keep the business of animal agriculture and factory farming going strong. So it’s a good idea to stay on top of peer-reviewed nutritional reports, news about the environment and the economy, along with alerts from farm animal protection groups so that you remain informed and bolstered. I like Farm Sanctuary, the Humane Society of the United States, the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine and PETA.

7. Watch out for the little addictions. One thing I’ve found to be true: healthy practices support other healthy practices. And of course, unhealthy ones do the reverse. If you want to be healthy and steer away from animal products, you might also consider how you feel after eating junk food or sugar. When I eat sugar I get depressed, slothful and anxious. Those feelings weaken me — and could weaken my resolve to be healthy. Of course we don’t have to be perfect or give up every little thing we’ve ever indulged in, but it’s a good idea to note what makes us backslide and then curtail it. Getting sugar out of my system, for instance, made me feel so good that I just started considering myself a healthy person. Once I began to perceive myself as healthy, it was easier to remain that way.

One thing about breaking your animal product addiction (that is less true of some other addictions) is that it’s okay to lean into a vegan diet — you don’t have to beat yourself up over small backsliding, and you don’t have to go (ahem) cold turkey right away. Many people have success with Mark Bittman’s “Vegan until 6,” and then they progressively move to “Vegan 24/7.” Some start with Meatless Mondays, and then move to three days per week. Before they know it, they’re vegan all the time. I encourage people who can’t (or don’t want to) adopt a completely vegan diet all at once to “lean into it” in whatever way makes the most sense for you.

Happy Eating!

For more information on how to optimize your health, visit kathyfreston.com

Originally published on HuffingtonPost.com

Photo credit: brew127

Sugar Addiction: A Nation In Need Of Rehab

Imagine how American society would function if drug dealers pumped 150 to 175 pounds of heroin per person per year into the veins of the elderly, the middle-aged and the young alike. Legally.

Well, sugar, an addictive substance that speeds along the same brain pathways as heroin, enters the food supply in those quantities. The result of this sugar surge is that more than one in three adults now has either Type 2 diabetes or its harbinger, pre-diabetes. Include those under age 18, and 105 million Americans are harboring a life-threatening blood-sugar disorder.

As with any addiction, the sugar situation will only worsen barring drastic intervention and widespread lifestyle changes. Consuming too much sweet stuff is lighter fluid for Type 2 diabetes, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that by 2050, the disease, in its full form, will inhabit as many as one in three U.S. adults. Add in the far more numerous pre-diabetics, and you may be hard-pressed to find anyone with healthy glucose metabolism by the middle of the 21st century.

Many of these blood-sugar cripples won’t be capable societal contributors. They may be little more than sugar smack-heads. They’ll bankrupt our healthcare system with their chronic fatigue, dialysis treatments, amputations and the numerous other diabetic complications. A society with such an overwhelmingly diabetic population will no longer be viable economically, a much scarier prospect than that predicted in the dystopian novel, “Brave New World”, where addicts merely crave the comparatively less harmful Soma and then go do their assigned tasks.

Most Americans keep right on eating and drinking boatloads of sugar because, after all, they’re sugar junkies. I witnessed this phenomenon when I saw my father for the first time in 20 years in early 2008. He was lying in a hospital bed looking nearly cadaverous. His entire right leg had been amputated; his teeth had disintegrated amidst swollen gums. Despite this wretched condition, his mood brightened only when orderlies wheeled in a meal of mashed potatoes (along with chicken) and fruit, both of which quickly convert to glucose in the bloodstream. His fix had arrived. He was dying of diabetes, and yet his “caretakers” were still pumping him full of diabetes-friendly carbohydrates.

What’s more, my father openly longed for the bottle of root beer that was stashed away in a cabinet across the room, a scene I describe in “Sugar Nation”: He still indulged this diabetic’s poison even knowing that too much sugar cost him part of his body. This scene reminded me of a drug addict who has seen his life destroyed by the substance he can’t refuse. Only the worse off he becomes, the lousier he feels, the more he craves the very thing that sentenced him to this hell on earth.

How can the white stuff that kids and adults alike sprinkle on their cereal have this narcotizing power? Researchers at Princeton University have studied the effects of sugar on the brain chemistry of rats, and what they’ve found is that their subjects exhibit all the effects of heroin addiction. Sugar does this by triggering the release of the feel-good brain chemical dopamine in the section of the brain normally associated with addictive behaviors. The dopamine release produces a drug-like “high.” Yet the brain adapts. So it takes more of the substance—in this case, sugar—to produce the same effect.

According to lead researcher and Princeton psychologist, Bart Hoebel, PhD, “Our evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways very similar to drugs of abuse.”

Lessening the sugar stimulation only makes the body want more dopamine. Remove the substance altogether, and the sugar abuser experiences physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms. The body is addicted. Twinkies aren’t classified as a controlled substance, but for the glucose intolerant, perhaps they should be.

But there’s more to it in the case of my father and the rest of us who have reactive hypoglycemia, an underreported pre-diabetic condition in which blood sugar spikes in response to a heavy carb load. Then the pancreas overreacts by secreting too much insulin, too late, like an over-eager rookie cop coming across a crime scene after the fact. This insulin response drives blood sugar below 70 milligrams per deciliter, making your body crave quick-energy sugar not just for pleasure but also for survival. At this point, it’s not just your brain that’s craving glucose; cells throughout your body demand it, too.

I’d challenge anyone to find a drug whose effects are more powerful than a blood sugar drop from 160 to 50 in half an hour—the scale of my descent on a glucose tolerance test when I learned that I was pre-diabetic. Before I learned to avoid the sugar trigger, fatigue didn’t set in gradually; it hit with a whoosh. I felt as though I’d been shot by a tranquilizer capable of taking down an elephant in the wild. I’ve never taken narcotics recreationally, but I have used Vicodin after surgeries, and the feeling of that drug reminded me of a carb-induced blood-sugar crash. If that prescription pain med came in the form of a jelly doughnut, rather than a pill, you’d have some idea of the hold sugar had on me during childhood and throughout much of my adult life.

The good news is that there are simple rehab solutions to sugar addiction. I know, based on personal experience. Breaking the cycle means avoiding crashes. To do this, you need to eat protein, healthy fats, and fibrous vegetables for breakfast, a meal normally stocked with simple sugars and other fast-acting carbohydrates. Know the code names that are used to disguise sugar on food labels: dextrose/maltodextrin, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, honey, maple syrup, molasses, sucrose and xylose. Avoid the foods whose packages list them. Better yet, switch from packaged to whole foods. Exercise daily, which not only helps usher sugar out of your bloodstream, but also produces good-vibe brain chemicals of its own, called endorphins.

So, we can change our fate. We know what to do to prevent this epidemic that will cripple us as individuals and as a society. But the question is: Will we take action before it’s too late?

Jeff O’Connell is the editor-in-chief of Bodybuilding.com and the author of “Sugar Nation” (Hyperion, 2011).

Photo credit: Dave Hoffman

Summer Iced Coffee Detox

A sure sign that we’re in the sweltering dog days of summer is that the trash cans, park benches and sidewalks are suddenly littered with the ubiquitous clear plastic cups, plastic lids and straws from iced coffees – whether they’re black, flavored, or milk and sugar-filled. Just because they’re slightly watered down with ice cubes doesn’t mean they’re any less harsh on our bodies than a steaming paper cup full. And people are drinking hot coffee even on the very hottest days as well!

But here’s the thing about coffee, not only do those cups fill up the landfills, but they put toxins in our body too. Coffee is incredibly dehydrating (which is not something we want when the temperatures soar), and it’s also acidic to the body, while severely taxing the detox organs (liver and kidneys).

When you “need” it to get going in the morning, feel foggy and are unable to function or communicate without your first cup, or experience the crash later on in the day when it wears off, you are already addicted and doing damage to your adrenals while leaching calcium from your bones and causing a general state of dependency and acidity in the body.

So let’s try something that will rehydrate our bodies, give us a great boost of energy to power through all the fun summer activities and expand our drink palates.  Why not start a coffee cleanse while summer is in full swing, the days are long and sultry, and you really don’t want to be drinking a hot beverage anyway?

Here’s how:

First, keep in mind that withdrawing from caffeine can be a bit of a shock to the body. You may experience a few days of headaches and irritability, but it’s so worth it and magnesium can help with the headaches. The substitutes below not only help rebalance the body, but they taste very similar to the coffee you’re used to (with the exception of the green juice and lemon water of course!). They’re soothing to wrap your hands around and can be shared with others during your morning coffee break!

Second, drink more water – pretty easy.  Try adding mint, lemon, cucumber slices, fresh berries, even a pinch of stevia. Or make your own herbal sun tea, and then keep a pitcher of it in the fridge for refreshing hydration breaks.

Third, here are some great energizing coffee substitutions that will definitely help you forget all about coffee’s hypnotic hold on you:

1. Remineralize and hydrate the body with 8 to 16 ounces of fresh green vegetable juice instead of your morning cup of joe, either made at home or from your local juice bar – just make sure it’s fresh pressed and not pasteurized. A good combination is a base of cucumber and celery with a generous amount of leafy greens (kale, parsley, chard, romaine, etc.) with a little apple or carrot for sweetness, and some ginger and lemon. This is super energizing, hydrating, cleansing and tastes delicious.

2. Another amazingly detoxifying and refreshing way to ease into your day is with a glass of warm or cold water (depending on the season) with fresh squeezed lemon juice and a pinch of stevia.  It’s a delicious lemonade, but it’s also a great way to get the peristalsis action going in the intestines to cleanse and start your day off right with proper elimination.

3. Another way to get a healthy jump start is by using cacao powder (raw chocolate) in some warm water or nut milk, adding some stevia to taste and a dash of cinnamon or mint extract for some flavor. You’ll have an incredibly rich chocolate drink that’s loaded with minerals and antioxidants but without the sugar and dairy typically found in processed chocolate and without the crash that comes with coffee.

4. A great tasting herbal coffee is Teccino, made from roasted nuts, fruit and grains, full of probiotics and a delicious earthy flavor that goes well with some stevia or nut milk or just plain. We also like roasted dandelion root made into grounds and used the same way as the Teccino in a French press or regular coffeemaker.

5. A cup of green tea or yerba mate is another very low caffeine way to start your morning, both are full of other health benefits and are delicious iced during these hot summer days.

This powdered Yerba Mate dissolves instantly into hot or cold water and you can get it with stevia or without:

6.  Saving the best for last, here’s a delicious and energizing superfood-filled “coffee granita” that will beat anything you find at any chain coffee spot:

- 1/2  cup non dairy milk (rice, almond, hemp, coconut)

- 2 tablespoons raw cacao or carob powder

- 1 tablespoon maca powder (this is incredibly energizing and has a wonderful rich flavor)

- 1 teaspoon lucuma powder (slightly sweet taste)

- 1 teaspoon mesquite powder (optional but highly recommended)

- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

- a pinch of stevia (powder) or a few drops of liquid to taste

- 1 cup ice

Blend all ingredients together until you have a coffee-like “slushie.” Pour into a tall glass, kick back and enjoy the rest of your summer – energized and addiction free!

For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://www.cleanprogram.com/.

Photo credit: EJP Photo

Let’s Talk About Alcohol

Plenty of resources exist for those of us who identify as alcoholic (Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] is free and world-wide, for example, and there are countless books available on the subject of addiction), but this post isn’t about that. This post is for those of us who probably don’t qualify for a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence, but could stand to explore our relationship with what I like to call “Social K-Y.” Let’s face it: in this day and age, that’s most of us.

How many of you out there have made tons of Crazy Sexy changes (you’re juicing and meditating, and you’ve cut out meat and even gluten, for example), but you still drink alcohol, and sometimes you even drink … a lot of alcohol. Is this you? If so, listen up.

The definition of “binge drinking” (this is shocking for many people) is four drinks or more in a two-hour period for women, or five drinks or more in a two-hour period for men. The math on this isn’t random. The reasoning behind it is that it takes your body about an hour to process one alcoholic drink (12 ounces of beer, six ounces of wine, or one ounce of hard liquor) and drinking more than that at a faster pace creates toxicity. Do it once and you’re probably fine, but do it with regularity and you’re increasing the likelihood that you’ll suffer a variety of physical symptoms and repercussions, as well as a reduction in your general vitality and overall health.

Unfortunately, there are many of us who are not alcoholic who drink like this all the time. Even more unfortunate? Doing it is not only bad for your health, it increases the chances that you will become an alcoholic over the course of your lifetime.

What?! Yes, you heard me.

There are three primary pathways to addiction, two of which are commonly known (genetic heredity and environmental influence). The third is the least talked about and most underestimated, and it’s repeated exposure to toxic doses of an addictive substance. As we continually expose ourselves to high doses of alcohol, we increase our tolerance and habituate our bodies to ever increasing amounts. The more we drink, the more we crave, and that’s when that sneaky bitch we call dependency slips in the back door.

If you think what I’m describing could apply to you, then it’s important that you change this pattern, and doing so begins with reevaluating your relationship with alcohol. Here’s how to do that:

In addiction treatment, one of the things addicts learn to do is understand their personal triggers — the people, places, and things — that make an addict want to use, so they can avoid them or figure out how to handle them. Non-alcoholics have triggers, too — the most common ones being social occasions and stress — but if we sit with ourselves and are really honest, we may notice that we have other triggers as well.

For example, do you sometimes drink when you’re alone? What about when you’re angry or sad? If you only really drink during social occasions, but you find that you tend to drink too much at these times, mindless drinking may be the culprit. Regardless, the only way to really evaluate this is to give yourself a break from drinking entirely and see how it goes.

If you want to give yourself a huge gift (I’m talking potentially life-altering here), take a month off from drinking altogether, no cheating. Now, notice when you want to drink. When a craving arises, sit with it instead of acting on it. What are you feeling? What thoughts or emotions are coming up for you that you would prefer to avoid?

If taking a month off seems too hard, think about that. What are your fears? If you truly cannot handle the thought of it, try to take a week off at first and see how it goes. If that seems undoable, you may have to consider that your relationship with alcohol is more intense that you previously believed. This is very important information for you.

For those of you who go with the month-long challenge, this may curb your social life a bit, but keep in mind that it’s only temporary. You might find that you have to be a little bit more creative about how you spend your time, and if so, great — you’ll probably find yourself reengaging in old hobbies or picking up new ones. This is a great opportunity to find new and diverse ways to spend your time.

You may also find that you have to be more contemplative about how you handle stress, and meditation can be very useful.

Once the month is over and you start drinking again, try to do so mindfully, especially at first. Your tolerance will be lower than it was before, and this is a good time to recognize how much alcohol it actually takes for you to get buzzed, and to go from buzzed to drunk. If you continue to drink mindfully, you’ll notice that you don’t “need” nearly as much alcohol as you did before to relax or to have a good time.

It’s common when people try this exercise to notice that their tolerance level (and drinking level) creeps back up over time. This tends to happen mostly when people slip back into “mindless” drinking behavior. If you find this happening, try to take a little break again. It might not need to be a full month the second time around, but experiment with it a little bit and see how it goes. When it comes to “highly triggering events” (a wedding, for example, if you tend to drink too much at social occasions) it may be helpful to do a seated meditation before going out.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions, please put them in the comment section below. I’ll be here to respond throughout the day.

Photo credit: quinn.anya