Search Results for: Samantha Brody

Dr. Samantha Brody: Overcoming Overwhelm

Dr. Samantha Brody is a licensed naturopathic physician, acupuncturist, and the founder of Evergreen Natural Health Center in Portland, Oregon. With Sounds True, she has published Overcoming Overwhelm: Dismantle Your Stress from the Inside Out. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Samantha about honoring intentions for the New Year rather than making easily broken “resolutions.” They discuss how to approach overwhelm with greater equanimity by identifying your “true north”—those priorities and values that truly define how you want to live your life. Dr. Samantha considers what it means to make healthy, nourishing choices in alignment with your true north. Finally, Tami and Dr. Samantha talk about the revitalizing power of a good night’s sleep and how to deal with the emotional overwhelm of a constantly changing world. (57 minutes)

Tami’s Takeaway: As a naturopathic physician, Dr. Samantha Brody has worked with over 30,000 clients to help them “overcome overwhelm” and make lifestyle changes that support greater health and vitality. I pushed hard in this conversation to find out what Dr. Samantha feels is the chief characteristic of people who actually follow through on their intentions to live with greater health and balance (whether that involves a new diet, fitness plan, or some other approach to reducing stress). Her answer is my takeaway: The most important factor in overcoming overwhelm is a willingness to take 100 percent responsibility for our choices and the results that follow.

Why the Summer is Surprisingly Busy—And What To Do A...

Why Summer is Busy & What to Do About It, Charlie Gilkey, Sounds True

 

Many people find themselves surprisingly busier in the summer than they expect to be. The chief reason we’re surprised is that the summer brings new projects that we often don’t count as projects and we have to weave those projects in with the projects we set in motion in the spring.

Why don’t we count the new projects that summer brings? Simple—many of us don’t count “life” activities as projects or prioritize “life” activities in the same way we do “work” projects. There’s an artificial divide between the work we do and the “life stuff” we do.

But here’s the thing: regardless of whether something falls into the “work” or “life” bucket, it’s going to take time, energy, and attention to get done. My definition of project in Start Finishing is anything that requires time, energy, and attention to complete. The upshot of looking at things this way is that it helps us see more clearly all the stuff we’re carrying and trying to do.

So, what are some “life” projects?

Summer trips are projects.

Transitioning kids from being at school all day to being at home all day for the summer is a project. (As is transitioning them back into school.)

Figuring out how to keep said kids fed every day is a project (that then turns into a new daily routine).

Maintaining yard care equipment is a project (that then turns into a new weekly routine of taking care of the lawn.)

Cleaning out the garage is a project.

Getting the motorcycle and/or bike ready for the season is a project.

I could go on, but you get the point. All of those are summer-specific projects that fall in our laps after the spring. But when we’re setting plans in spring, we’re often not thinking about them because they’re not in our face in the same way as a kid asking where the milk is (where it always is!) or the weeds that are peeking over the window to the backyard.

If it were just that new projects blossom in the summer, it would be one thing. But conjoined with new projects blossoming is that many of us often want to work less in the summer—and, for some of us, the desire to slow down isn’t just emotional, but something primal or spiritual. The long, hot days of summer changes some of us from hard-driving, high-energy, can-do folk into a walking Jimmy Buffet song.

Though we find ourselves in this position every year, it can be hard to see the pattern. Part of it is just the pace of life, but the other part is that we too often think of ourselves as invariant robots rather than the animals we are. Every other animal adapts to the changing world around it—artificial lights and air conditioning may allow us to alter the environment, but the changes still affect us more than we like to let on.

If you’re finding your summer busier and more compressed than you’d like it to be, here are three questions that will help you sink into the season:

  1. What new or recurring seasonal projects emerged that you hadn’t planned for or didn’t fully acknowledge as a project?
  2. Which of the projects you planned in the spring can be put on hold or dropped to make space for this summer’s projects?
  3. Are there any shifts to project timelines or your daily work schedule that would help you keep momentum on your projects while sinking into feeling of summer?

You might also check out Samantha Brody’s Overcoming Overwhelmit’s a fantastic book that explains how overwhelm shows up in our bodies, hearts, and heads and what to do about it.

Better to adjust now than spend the summer feeling like you’re behind and unable to enjoy the people, nature, and energy of the season.

 

Charlie Gilkey, Sounds True

 

Charlie Gilkey is the founder of Productive Flourishing, a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and changemakers take meaningful action on work that matters. He is the author of The Small Business Life Cycle, and is widely cited in outlets such as Inc., Time, Forbes, the Guardian, Lifehacker,and more. He’s also an Army veteran and near-PhD in philosophy. He lives in Portland, Oregon. For more, visit productiveflourishing.com .

 

 

 

Start Finishing, Charlie Gilkey, Sounds True

 

Pre-order your copy of Charlie’s forthcoming book,

Start Finishing: How to Go from Idea to Done from your favorite retailer below!

Sounds True | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound

 

Why Summer is Busy & What to Do About It, Charlie Gilkey, Sounds True

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3 Ways to Overcome Overwhelm This Holiday Season

The holiday season can be a joyous and fun time for many, and a sad or lonely time for others. But regardless of how this season sits, it is almost always a time of increased stress and overwhelm.

With these simple steps, you can cut down your own stress and find peace of mind.

Get crystal clear on what is MOST important to you

With clarity about your values, you will be able to decide what you are going to say ‘yes’ to and what you are going to say ‘no’ to with greater ease and grace. If you want to feel peaceful? Say no to the four parties on one day. If you want to feel energetic? Put your phone down and go to bed on time. If you want to keep your immune system healthy? Go easy on the sugar and alcohol and make healthy food choices.

Volunteer!

Studies show that volunteering is good for your own stress level—as long as your motivation is for the benefit of others and not yourself. Find an organization you think is doing great work and carve out some time to help.

Set clear boundaries

With the onslaught of parties and events, visitors and responsibilities, it’s easy to get into more than we can reasonably handle. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no.’ My favorite tip for this is to tell people, when they ask me for something, is to say that “I’m not 100% sure if that can work for me; I’ll send you an email by tomorrow end of day to let you know.” That gives you a chance to actually consider whether it is something you really want to do, and also makes it a little easier to let people down gently.

Dr. Samantha Brody, author of Overcoming Overwhelm, is a naturopathic physician and acupuncturist and founder of Evergreen Natural Health Center in Portland, Oregon. Licensed as a primary care provider with extensive training and experience in both complementary and Western medicine, she has worked with over 30,000 patients and clients in the past twenty years. Her mission is to empower people to address the stress in their lives and help them to make changes that are in alignment with their personal health goals and values. She holds a doctoral degree in naturopathic medicine and a master’s degree in oriental medicine from the National University of Natural Medicine. She is a sought-after international speaker who educates lay and professional audiences on the issues of stress and health. Dr. Samantha writes for a variety of publications and has been quoted extensively in books and media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, HuffPostand Shape. Learn more at drsamantha.com.

The community here at Sounds True wishes you a lovely holiday season! We are happy to collaborate with some of our Sounds True authors to offer you wisdom and practices as we move into this time together; please enjoy this blog series for your holiday season. 

To help encourage you and your loved ones to explore new possibilities this holiday season, we’re offering 40% off nearly all of our programs, books, and courses sitewide. May you find the wisdom to light your way.

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