Feeling Inspired...Earn 10 Extra Years On Your Life!

I am feeling inspired and ready to gain 10 extra years of life! Sometimes I have days where I need an extra boost to help guide me in the right direction. I think we all have days like this. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed, stressed, irritable, or anxious. Those feelings can't be good for our minds or our bodies. 

I highly recommend you take the 20 minutes to watch this incredible and inspiring TEDTalk video. Please find the link below. I will briefly summarize The Four Types of Resilience, which are tools we can use to extend our lives by 10 years. 

1. Physical Resilience - we can build this up simply by not sitting still. Stand up and walk around to physically help strengthen your heart, lungs and mind. 

Exercise Jane has you do: raise your hands above your head for 5 seconds. 

2. Mental Resilience - we can strengthen our brains and minds by focusing on a specific task. Don't quit and keep going until you finish your task!

Exercise Jane has you do: snap 50 consecutive times or count back from 100 by 7's. 

3. Emotional Resilience - we can strengthen our hearts by feeling love and happiness. Your goal is to feel 3 positive feelings of love and happiness for every 1 negative feeling. 

Exercise Jane has you do: look at pictures of your favourite baby animals. 

4. Social Resilience - we can strengthen our connections with others by increasing the hormone Oxytocin, the trust hormone, through gratitude and touch. 

Exercise Jane has you do: shake someone's hand for 6 seconds to raise the trust hormone.   

By completing tasks to build up these four types of resilience we are granting ourselves with a gift to live 10 years longer than the average person. I am so excited to start implementing this model into my daily life. I will act now to benefit my future self. I hope you join me! 

Enjoy this wonderful video and let yourself live 10 extra years...you deserve it :)! 

Always, 

Ally May 

Jane McGonigal TEDTalk Video

How Stress Affects The Body

We all do it. Most of the time we create it and force ourselves to live in. Stress. It's an overwhelming feeling that takes over our minds and our bodies and consumes our lives.  Typically we put ourselves into overdrive when we encounter situations we can't cope with, situations we don't feel happy about, or situations we are unprepared for. Sometimes we even have the best of intentions but stress ourselves out immensely. Sometimes we over promise and under execute; and sometimes we try to accommodate everyone else by making their lives easy that we find ourselves in a downward spiral.  

It's important to understand that stress has negative outcomes on our bodies and that we need to use our most powerful tool - our minds - to fight it. We must learn to accept the things we cannot change and change the things we cannot accept to keep our minds sane and our bodies healthy. Can you control the situation? If you can't you need to try your best to let it go. 

Immerse yourself in personal development by reading motivational books, watching informative documentaries, listening to empowering music, or by associating with successful and life-changing people. C'est la vie. Sometimes life gets in the way and just happens. Try to learn to roll with the punches. You won't regret it. 

Always,

Ally May