How to Have a Happier Monday

Posted: 04/07/2014 8:13 am EDT Updated: 04/07/2014 8:59 am EDT

From Self Magazine posted on the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/self/happiness-tips_b_5077460.html?utm_content=4909792&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

By Annie Daly, SELF

Everyone struggles through weekday drudgery to reach their weekend fun. But what if you could reclaim every day of your life?

Take a minute to look in the mirror right now. Like what you see? Your answer could depend on the day of the week. According to a new survey by the global media agency PHD, we feel least attractive on Sundays and Mondays. This could be because our moods tend to be at their lowest point then. “People can come to feel that the weekends are their freedom time and the weekdays are their grind time,” explains Lisa Firestone, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and coauthor of Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice. The problem with this mind-set is that you start behaving as if you’ve handed over your life to work. “You can end up feeling like a victim during the week,” Firestone says.

But if we all wish our weekdays were more like our Saturdays, maybe that’s because they should be. “When your weekdays aren’t the polar opposite of your weekend, you feel more balanced and your quality of life improves,” explains David Watson, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame. The gap between the weekend and weekday mind-set is massive, but what you have to do to bridge that gap isn’t. Just make these four easy tweaks to your days.

Head off “social jet lag”:
The first step to reclaiming your Mondays is taking a good look at the weekend that comes before it. For starters, Saturdays and Sundays may seem like they’re built for sleeping in, but those endless hours under the covers come with a price. “When you push bedtime and wake-up time later, your body has to shift back from your ‘weekend time zone’ on Mondays,” explains Carl Bazil, M.D., director of the Division of Epilepsy and Sleep at Columbia University. Experts call this effect social jet lag, and it can make that dreaded Monday morning wake-up call (and possibly the ones that follow) tougher. This might help explain why 25 percent of Americans rarely or never get a good night’s sleep on weeknights, according to a 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation.

But you don’t have to cramp your weekend style just to save your sleep on weekdays. “Social jet lag really only occurs if you stay up more than two hours past your normal bedtime,” Dr. Bazil says. So if you normally go to bed at 11 p.m. on weeknights, it should be fine to go to bed at midnight or even 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday and push your usual wake-up time forward by an hour or two as well. For those occasional but epic all-nighters, Dr. Bazil advises not sleeping in more than two hours later than normal, even if that means clocking less than seven of shut-eye. “That way, you’ll be sleepy for your Sunday-night bedtime,” he says.

Pick two happy meals:
This means revamping another favorite indulgence: that Friday-to-Sunday all-you-can-eat buffet. For most, this is your main time to let loose — and that can translate into eating more and exercising less. “Many women are strict with their diets during the week and only allow themselves to splurge on the weekends,” explains Lisa Young, Ph.D., a nutritionist in New York City and author of The Portion Teller Plan. “This all-or-nothing attitude is an invitation to overeat, and you can go into Monday feeling bloated and dehydrated.” After the pleasures of the weekend, Monday feels like the time to make penance. Between diet remorse and work stress, you can feel doomed.

No human with passion can bear to give up the tasty rewards of the weekend — and you don’t have to. When the weekend arrives, choose a happy meal out a day — and keep eating your healthy go-to foods for the other meals. (So if you have Greek yogurt for breakfast at work, have it for breakfast on the weekend, too.) “Keeping some semblance of your daily routine makes it easier to stay on track,” Young says. Then, spread those indulgences out more. “I tell my clients to go out to dinner once or twice during the week,” Young says. “This way, you don’t feel so deprived by Friday that you end up housing everything in sight.” When your favorite pencil skirt zips up without a struggle on Monday morning, your day — and your week — become less of a struggle, too.

Kiss early wake-ups good-bye:
You’ll kick your week off right if you can avoid those Sunday blues that tend to set in around 5 p.m. They’re an example of what psychologists call anticipatory anxiety, a reaction that flares up when you start thinking about stressful or uncomfortable tasks you have to do in the near future — like dragging yourself out of bed at some godforsaken hour. “This type of anxiety can overwhelm your brain, making you less functional and less happy,” says Rachel Merson, Psy.D., a psychologist at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. To avoid getting to work already in a funk, set your alarm for a reasonable time.

While everyone wants to tackle the week like a superstar (“I’m waking up early and slaying my entire to-do list by noon!”), that mind-set can backfire, leaving you feeling disoriented. “On Mondays, your mind is still transitioning, and every task takes just a little longer to complete than it does on other days,” says Watson. “Go in guns blazing, and you set yourself up for failure.” Another way to make your Mondays a little easier (and more efficient)? Do a bit of prep work on Friday. Before you leave the office for the weekend, take 60 seconds to compile a list of simple to-dos, like emailing your client about a lunch or scheduling the conference room for your sales meeting. Leave the list on your keyboard so that when you come in on Monday, you can warm up from weekend mode with a few basic tasks and not become swamped trying to figure out how to start your day.

Line up a Wednes-date:
The PHD survey found that we feel our most attractive on Thursdays. Coincidentally, that’s when our weekday mood perks up. So what does Thursday have that Monday doesn’t? For one, you’ve gotten most of your stuff done, but it’s also the anticipation factor. “The proximity of the weekend can lead to a mood boost, along with a sense of accomplishment for having checked things off your to-do list all week,” explains Merson. So start building more anticipation into every day of your week, says Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., a psychologist in New York City specializing in anxiety and depression and author of Beat the Blues Before They Beat You. Doing little things for yourself helps you reclaim your week, too: It means you’re prioritizing yourself, not just your job. Map out little pit stops of fun — plan to venture outside of the office cafeteria on Tuesday, see a cheese-ball movie with your boyfriend on Wednesday, or schedule a blowout at your hair salon on Thursday. You might find that every day has something worth celebrating. Yes, even Monday.

Frey Freyday-Complain

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff..)

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If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.-Maya Angelou

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Complaining not only ruins everybody else’s day, it ruins the complainer’s day, too. The more we complain, the more unhappy we get.-Dennis Prager

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Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.-Benjamin Franklin

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Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.-Thomas Jefferson

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When my body gets to the point where I can no longer function or feel gratitude, then I’ll leave it and become grateful again. But until then, I will appreciate what I have and not whine about what I don’t have. I will feel blessed by life and the opportunity to help others see that they are blessed, too.-Bernie Siegel

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You can only whine for so long. Then you need to get your life back.-Marya Hornbacher

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You can’t please everyone. When you’re too focused on living up to other people’s standards, you aren’t spending enough time raising your own. Some people may whisper, complain and judge. But for the most part, it’s all in your head. People care less about your actions than you think. Why? They have their own problems!-Kris Carr

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Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.-Jim Rohn

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If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.-Anthony J. D’Angelo

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When you’re in a situation, you can complain about it, you can feel sorry for yourself, you can do a lot of things. But how are you gonna make the situation better? –Tony Dungy

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I can’t complain but when I was a kid my parents moved a lot, …..but I always found them.-Rodney Dangerfield

How to Deal with Disappointment

Good stuff from author Brendon Burchard

From: http://brendonburchard.tumblr.com/post/81790784579/how-to-deal-with-disappointment

 

— Begin Transcript —

I’m always asked by people, Brendon, how do you deal with disappointment?

I always wonder why they’re asking that. I’m like; do they think I’m disappointed a lot? I mean, have I failed so much in my life so publicly that it’s obvious that I must be disappointed with something? Maybe they just see my face and they must say, when he looks in the mirror he must be quite disappointed in the morning. I never really know why they ask that, I think it’s kind of a funny thing.

I think disappointment, that it’s unfortunate that so many people actually even think about it or struggle with it at all. I think when you reach another level of, sort of, the conscious plane, that you start to realize, that all disappointment is make believe.

There is nothing to be disappointed about, that everything that turned out today is as it should be by the universes edict.

When you learn to allow and accept reality as it is today, based on where you are and what has happened, it’s not a bad thing, and there’s nothing wrong or negative to feel about it.

Some people, here’s how they want to deal with it though. They’re going to tell you all the time, I know how to handle your disappointments. You know what you need to do? You need to set lower expectations. Your expectations young woman are too high for yourself. So, when you don’t do well you should feel disappointed and naturally you would feel disappointed, because you need to lower your standards. I’m like what? No!

Everything that has made humanity great was setting high standards and having high visions for ourselves. There is nothing wrong with expecting a lot of ourselves.

You should expect a lot of yourselves. I expect a lot from you. I expect a lot from myself. If we didn’t expect a lot from ourselves, we would all be outside humping furniture somewhere. We would be in jail, all of us would be doing blow and being crazy all the time, but that’s not life.

There’s nothing respectful or intelligent about that at all. Yes, have high standards. Yes, have high ideals. Absolutely, have high visions and big dreams for yourself. Go for the gold, why not? There’s nothing wrong with that.

But understand that it’s not going to be perfect or ever have any sense of perfection along the way.

To know that it’s going to be a sloppy, big ugly mess. To anticipate the struggle. To anticipate the hardship. To anticipate the learning, allows you to decouple from the negative emotions associated with “disappointment”.

If I know whatever I’m going to put out there is not exactly perfectly, cool. If I know whatever I put out there is going to be part of my learning journey. I’m going to study it. I’m going to be attentive to it. I know it’s never going to be my best yet. Perfect doesn’t happen ever!

We can always be perfecting things, but we’ll never reach perfection.

Knowing that now, if you realize you’ll never reach perfection, than you should never feel disappointment. Makes sense right?

There’s nothing in me that says it has to be perfect. It says I’m going to do my best. I’m going to put it out there. I’m going to iterate. I’m going to innovate. I’m going to get better and better and better and better and better, and along that learning journey things will be good. And I’ll accept that, you know what, as I do them and do my best that the universe will reward me as it should.

I think disappointment is just something that’s self-invented in your own mind. I feel bad for myself. Well, you know, I bet you feel bad about yourself in a million different ways. So, does that have to win today? Does it have to stop your progress?

There are a million reasons to be pessimistic, upset, angry, frustrated or regretful about life. Do any of those five things serve you in any way at all? No!

To realize that disappointment is a disservice to yourself, that’s what it is. It has nothing to do with your progress in life. It has nothing to do. Can we be dissatisfied? Sure, but why?

I’m satisfied with the day. I’m satisfied with this video. This shirt is ugly as hell, I’m satisfied with it, here I am talking to you and everything is fine. Everything is working out just great.

You have to allow the universe to be what it is. You have to allow yourself to feel satisfaction. That’s called being present. If I can be satisfied in accepting of this moment I can be present in it.

If I’m dissatisfied all the time, wondering around dissatisfied, disappointed, disrupted and upset, what’s going to happen for me? What’s my life going to be like?

You have to look at these emotions and these things and ask if they’re in any way negative and if they’re in any way recurring, that your consciousness, your ability to direct your own will can say, you know what; I’m going to decide today not to let that win.

I’m going to decide today to stop pouring so much energy into this belief that these things are disappointing and instead, I’m going to focus on, what have I learned here.

I’m going to be excited about the learning.

I’m never disappointed because I’m too damn excited about the mastery being gained. Makes sense right?

How weird is that? People are like, aren’t you disappointed? With what? I’m learning a lot. Are you disappointed that launch didn’t turn out well or you didn’t sell a million copies on the first thing? I’m like no, I did my best. Let’s see how it goes. Let’s learn and get better next time.

Having a learning mindset prevents you from being disappointed.

So, what did you learn today?

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For The Children’s Sake, Put Down That Smartphone

For The Children’s Sake, Put Down That Smartphone
by Patti Neighmond
April 21, 2014 3:41 AM ET
Morning Edition
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/21/304196338/for-the-childrens-sake-put-down-that-smartphone#

It’s not just kids who are overdoing screen time. Parents are often just as guilty of spending too much time checking smartphones and e-mail — and the consequences for their children can be troubling.

Dr. Jenny Radesky is a pediatrician specializing in child development.
When she worked at a clinic in a high tech savvy Seattle neighborhood she started noticing how often parents ignored their kids in favor of a mobile device. She remembers a mother placing her phone in the stroller between herself and the baby. “The baby was making faces and smiling at the mom,” Radesky says, and the mom wasn’t picking up any of it; she was just watching a YouTube video.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/16/303749247/when-parents-are-the-ones-too-distracted-by-devices
href=”http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/16/303749247/when-parents-are-the-ones-too-distracted-by-devices”>When Parents Are The Ones Too Distracted By Devices (
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/16/303749247/when-parents-are-the-ones-too-distracted-by-devices

Radesky was so concerned she decided to study the behavior. After relocating to the Boston Medical Center, she and two other researchers spent one summer observing 55 different groups of parents and young children eating at fast food restaurants. Many of the caregivers pulled out a mobile device right away, she says. “They looked at it, scrolled on it and typed for most of the meal, only putting it down intermittently.”

This was not a scientific study, Radesky is quick to point out. It was more like anthropological observation, complete with detailed field notes. Forty of the 55 parents used a mobile device during the meal and many, she says, were more absorbed in the device than in the kids.

Radesky says that’s a big mistake, because face-to-face interactions are the primary way children learn. “They learn language, they learn about their own emotions, they learn how to regulate them,” she says.

“They learn by watching us how to have a conversation, how to read other people’s facial expressions. And if that’s not happening, children are missing out on important development milestones.”

And, perhaps not surprisingly, when Radesky looked at the patterns in what she and the other researchers observed, she found that kids with
parents who were most absorbed in their devices were more likely to act
out, in an effort to get their parents attention. She recalls one group of three boys and their father: The father was on his cell phone and the boys were singing a song repetitively and acting silly. When the boys got too loud, the father looked up from his phone and shouted at them to stop. But that only made the boys sing louder and act sillier.

Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair (
http://catherinesteineradair.com/ ), has written a book about parenting, called “The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age” She sees lots of parents, teens and younger kids in her clinical practice in Massachusetts. The father’s reaction to his three silly boys might be expected, she says, because
“when you’re texting or answering email, the part of your brain that is engaged is the ‘to do’ part, where there’s also a sense of urgency to get the task accomplished, a sense of time pressure. So we’re much more irritable when interrupted.”

And when parents focus on their digital world first — ahead of their children — there can be deep emotional consequences for the child, Steiner-Adair says. “We are behaving in ways that certainly tell children they don’t matter, they’re not interesting to us, they’re not as compelling as anybody, anything, any PING that may interrupt our time with them,” she says.

In research for her book, Steiner-Adair interviewed 1,000 children between the ages of 4 and 18, asking them about their parents’ use of mobile devices. The language that came up over and over and over again, she says, was “sad, mad, angry and lonely.” One 4-year-old called his Dad’s smart phone a “stupid phone.” Others recalled joyfully throwing their parent’s phone into the toilet, putting it in the oven or hiding it. There was one girl who said, “I feel like I’m just boring. I’m boring my Dad because he will take any text, any call, anytime — even on the ski lift!”

Steiner-Adair says we don’t know exactly how much these mini-moments of disconnect between a parent and child affect the child in long term. But
based on the stories she hears, she suggests parents think twice before
they pick up their mobile device when they’re with their kids.

This email was sent by: NPR,1111 N. Capitol St. NE Washington, DC, 20002, United States.

Frey Freyday-Grit

(Frey Freyday is simply a bunch of inspirational, motivational and other quotes meant to make you think, reflect, smile, even laugh a bit. Hopefully helpful, useful stuff..)

It is very east to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. – Jessamyn West

– Heroes are never perfect, but they’re brave, they’re authentic, they’re courageous, determined, discreet, and they’ve got grit. – Wade Davis

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Sticking with a marriage. That’s true grit, man.-Jeff Bridges

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I can’t think of anyone I admire who isn’t fuelled by self-doubt. It’s an essential ingredient. It’s the grit in the oyster. –Richard Eyre

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It was proposed that individuals who possess a drive to tirelessly work through challenges, failures, and adversity to achieve set goals and are uniquely positioned to reach higher achievements than others who lack similar stamina. – Angela Duckworth

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We’re going to be OK because of the American people. They have more grit, determination and courage than you can imagine.-Jill Biden

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I like things that make you grit your teeth. I like tucking my chin in and sort of leading into the storm. I like that feeling. I like it a lot. – Daniel Day-Lewis

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Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.-John Ortberg

– BONUS VIDEO

TED TALK:

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn’t the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of “grit” as a predictor of success.

http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_to_success_grit

A really cool video

This is really worthwhile to watch for everyone, and I hope that you SHARE it after watching. The message in this video is extremely powerful. If only more people acted this way, the world would be a much better place.

Click here

http://blog.petflow.com/this-3-minute-video-made-me-cry-and-i-never-cry-must-see-for-everyone/?utm_content=4857310&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Healthy Menu

Here is a great suggestion for a healthy weekly menu

FYI

The fear destroyer

From Robbins Madanes center:

What’s the #1 factor holding people back from what they want? It’s FEAR.

In today’s short video, Tony’s going to demonstrate the 7 steps to destroy any fear. In this case, you’ll see how a young mother named Mandy overcame a serious case of panic in 16 minutes. I really think you’ll find it useful.

Check it out

Warning: this short video features a powerful breakthrough. You may get emotional 🙂

http://getrmt.com/www-tbt.html

Cheers
Mark Peysha
CEO and Cofounder
Robbins-Madanes Training

Meditation- successful people

This is from Joe Polish
I am a big fan of meditation but I don’t do it enough.
Learn Joe’s story and learn about Russell Simmons too
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For most of my adult life, I’ve had a lot of angst, anxiety, addiction, and so on – and I could never get rid of these things.

I’d read numerous books, went to tons of seminars, done a lot of deep personal work, and I tried everything to try and calm the noise in my brain.

It wasn’t until my good friend Janet Atwood introduced me to Transcendental Meditation (TM) that everything changed.

I went down to the city of Fairfield, Iowa, got trained in TM, and it has had a HUGE impact in my life. It’s a process that’s easily learned – so today I want to introduce you to a person that might give you a reason to consider it…and his name is Russell Simmons.

Russell is tremendously successful. He co-created Def Jam records with Rick Rubin, and signed artists like Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run-D.M.C. …and …he created the clothing line Phat Farm. He later sold his share of Def Jam for $100 million, and sold Phat Farm for $142 million.

Now he has a new book called “Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple”, and in my interview with Russell, you’re going to discover:

* A secret for more focus and happiness known by Elvis Presley, Howard Stern, supermodel Miranda Kerr, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul McCartney, Steve Jobs, and many more of the worlds most successful people

* The most important tool Russell shared with Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres and many more influential people that makes you happier, clearer, and more passionate

* How Russell became wildly successful (sold his share of Def Jam for $100 million, he sold Phat Farm for $140 million, and he’s been able to accomplish this and more in the midst of a crazy life…Listen as he shares how he did it…)

* Do THIS for just 20 minute, twice a day and improve your memory, increase your happiness, upgrade your nervous system and boost your immune system
CLICK HERE: My Interview With Russell Simmons

* The #1 thing you can do for your kids right now to help them improve their thinking, increase their imagination, and give them more happiness

* The surprising way Russell thinks about entrepreneurship and why being rich may not make you happy

* Why Russell thinks “celebrity is so f***ing valuable” and the amazing viral story of Russell, Kim Kardashian, and Justin Bieber

CLICK HERE: My Interview With Russell Simmons

What me and Russell talk about in this interview has had a HUGE impact in my life, and I think if you take what you learn and apply it in your life, it can have a huge impact in your life too.

Best,

JOE

http://www.geniusnetwork.com/RussellSimmons/

–

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Yes blame your parents

From tony robbins, fyi
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Do you know somebody who blames other people – to the point that it hurts them? Of course you do. We all know someone. Doesn’t it drive you crazy?

The person gets a list of resentments about things that were done to them… and then that list tends to grow out of control. It’s unfair to their family (the usual object of blame), and the person himself gets more and more miserable.

Here’s the problem. You can’t just FORCE someone to stop blaming people. Human beings don’t work that way. If you want someone to become more positive, you need to use your skill to turn that person around.

The truth is, some people in our lives – colleagues, friends, parents, family members – DID play an important part in our life story, right? They had an effect, and in some cases they hurt us. So what do you do when you still feel like blaming them?

In this video, Tony will show you a strategy called “Conscious Blaming.” He works with a woman who suffered from emotions of resentment and blame, and you’ll see her turn herself around within one hour.

Watch this video, then join our free webinar today. We are offering an introductory training to our new certification program called Working With Women. Join us for some free training, we’ll answer questions – and we’ll make a surprising announcement.

Here’s the video. Feel free to share it with a friend!

Live Training: Working With Women
Time: Thursday April 3 at 3pm California Time
Dial: 1.206.402.0100 then enter 168985#
Click here to attend online (and get the replay)