Note: This post was originally published in March 2020 and was updated in November 2020. It is not intended to provide medical advice. For up to date information on Covid-19, and what you can do to slow its spread, please visit cdc.gov.

Like many of you, the LifeBalance staff is currently practicing social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus here in the United States. This is an unprecedented time for us, presenting unexpected challenges and heightened emotions while we all try to adjust in this time of crisis. If you’re feeling stressed, anxious, scared, or just have cabin fever, here are some things you can do to support yourself – all of which are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Meditate

We can’t always control what’s happening in the world around us, but we can change how we react to it. Take 5-10 minutes just to be still, focus on your breath, and let go of thoughts as they pass through your mind. Try it alone, or with others. There are several apps that can help guide you through a meditation session. Our team are big fans of Calm, which offers a 7-day free trial and special savings to LifeBalance members. Calm even put together a number of meditations which you can access for free right now. We also love Headspace, which is offering a free collection of meditations, sleep, and movement exercises to everyone during this crisis.

Exercise

Regular exercise is a great way to relieve stress, and is important for maintaining good health. While many health clubs have announced temporary closures, you can continue making exercise a part of your day with at-home workouts. This can also be an opportunity to try out new workouts if you’ve been getting tired of your routine. Members of 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, and Anytime Fitness can access at-home workouts for free on their respective mobile apps at this time. Through LifeBalance, our members can access special savings on LesMills, Bulldog Yoga, and YogaDownload subscriptions, or save big on online personal training with iBodyFit. 

Eat Healthy

Grocery stores aren’t the most comfortable places to be right now. Keep your distance from the crowds while still eating healthy with grocery delivery and community-supported agriculture services. Farm Fresh To You, Full Circle Farms, and Imperfect Foods all offer savings to LifeBalance members. Take this as an opportunity to experiment in the kitchen with new ingredients these services may offer, or try a recipe that you’ve never cooked before.

If you’re working extra hours right now, or just don’t enjoy cooking, try out a health-conscious meal delivery service. LifeBalance members can save on subscriptions with HelloFresh, Trifecta Nutrition, Kettle & Bone, Splendid Spoon, and Diet Direct. We also have discounts with a number of more local services – check out our Eating Well category to see all currently-available offers.

It’s also important to note that many of your local restaurants may still be offering food for take-out and/or delivery. Support the small businesses in your community by continuing to order from them and tipping the same as you would for dining-in. If you’ve never tried Postmates for delivery before, their new offer for LifeBalance members can help you save big on delivery fees!

Email LifeBalance

If you have questions about an offer, need some social interaction, or are looking for ideas on how to make your life balance during these challenging times, shoot us an email! We’d love to hear from you, and we’re always happy to help. You can reach us at info@lifebalanceprogram.com.  

Getting rid of clutter is all the rage right now! While popular books maybe sweeping bestseller lists, reducing clutter is more than just a trendy topic — it can actually relieve stress and increase our feelings of well-being. Consider the following:

• A 2016 study showed that a cluttered home can lead to lower subjective well-being.
• Researchers at the USC and UCLA both found that clutter can increase our levels of the stress hormone cortisol throughout the day. 
• Princeton researchers found that clutter wears on us and negatively impacts our ability to focus. Clutter competes for our attention, making it hard to focus now, and eventually leaving us drained from the excess visual stimuli.
• Excess clutter can even damage our physical health. Dust and dander that build up in cluttered areas can contribute to respiratory issues, dirty dishes can invite pests, and clutter can sometimes even be a fire hazard.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, clutter can stress us out. If you’re not a neat freak, de-cluttering your space may feel daunting. But there are small steps that can lead to big gains in the way your home makes you feel. Here are some of our favorites that we found:

The Daily De-Clutter

• Many of us have a visible area in the house where daily items tend to accumulate (like that spot on the kitchen counter, or the table by the door). Try dedicating 5-10 minutes a day to tidying up that specific area.
• Take 10 to do a speedy “clutter control” sweep of your main living areas each day. Even just a few minutes of putting away shoes, hanging up keys and coats, and tossing out junk mail can change the way your space feels, and can keep clutter from getting overwhelming.
• Make it a family affair — designate others in the household to clean up one or two small, specific mess-prone areas each day. 
• Only have a few minutes? Prioritize cleaning or organizing your items for tomorrow morning so that clutter doesn’t make you late.
• Full hands in, full hands out! As you move from one room to another, try to remember to grab an item that should come with you. Snag your shoes from the hall on your way to the bedroom, or grab that glass off the coffee table as you head into the kitchen.

Getting the Big Stuff Under Control

• Try organizing one room at a time. If even that feels daunting, try picking a room or area and going through it one component at a time — first going through that box, then the night stand, then the closet, etc.
• Just say no. It’s easy to crowd your space with more and more things. When tempted to click “buy now”, look around you and remember that practicing restraint can mean a clean, relaxing home — and a happier pocketbook.
• Follow the one-year rule: If you haven’t used it or worn it in a year, there’s a real good chance it can go.
• Think “one in, one out”. As you accumulate new items that we replace over time — like clothing or toys or dishes — try to get rid of one item for every new one you get.
• Try semi-annual toy clean-outs. After birthdays and holidays, let the kids help determine which toys they’ve outgrown or won’t use that can be donated or given away.
• Prioritize functional home improvements, like adding shelves to your closets or backpack hangers in the entryway. They may not feel like glamorous projects, but organizational improvements can make for a relaxing, aesthetically-pleasing space.

Lastly, remember that de-cluttering is about clearing a little space so that your mind feels at ease — not about creating new stress by striving for domestic perfection. We all battle with clutter and messes, and few homes are perfectly tidy and organized all the time! So rather than worrying about keeping up with the Pinterest-perfect Joneses, concentrate on organizing or tidying up enough for you to feel at ease. Try a few tactics that seem realistic for your household, and see if they help you create a space that fuels your overall sense of peace and well-being.

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. 

Holiday shopping can be terrifying, yes. But research suggests it’s worth it: New studies attest to the benefits of giving—not just for the recipients, but for the givers’ health and happiness, and for the strength of entire communities.

Of course, you don’t have to shop to reap the benefits of giving. Research suggests the same benefits come from donating to charities or volunteering your time, like at a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. Here are some of the ways that giving is good for you and your community.

1. Giving makes us feel happy. A 2008 study by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton and colleagues found that giving money to someone else lifted participants’ happiness more that spending it on themselves (despite participants’ prediction that spending on themselves would make them happier). Happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, saw similar results when she asked people to perform five acts of kindness each week for six weeks.

These good feelings are reflected in our biology. In a 2006 study, Jorge Moll and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, creating a “warm glow” effect. Scientists also believe that altruistic behavior releases endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.”

2. Giving is good for our health. A wide range of research has linked different forms of generosity to better health, even among the sick and elderly. In his book Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Stephen Post, a professor of preventative medicine at Stony Brook University, reports that giving to others has been shown to increase health benefits in people with chronic illness, including HIV and multiple sclerosis.

A 1999 study led by Doug Oman of the University of California, Berkeley, found that elderly people who volunteered for two or more organizations were 44 percent less likely to die over a five-year period than were non-volunteers, even after controlling for their age, exercise habits, general health, and negative health habits like smoking. Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan saw similar results in a 2003 study on elderly couples. She and her colleagues found that those individuals who provided practical help to friends, relatives, or neighbors, or gave emotional support to their spouses, had a lower risk of dying over a five-year period than those who didn’t. Interestingly, receiving help wasn’t linked to a reduced death risk.

Researchers suggest that one reason giving may improve physical health and longevity is that it helps decrease stress, which is associated with a variety of health problems. In a 2006 study by Rachel Piferi of Johns Hopkins University and Kathleen Lawler of the University of Tennessee, people who provided social support to others had lower blood pressure than participants who didn’t, suggesting a direct physiological benefit to those who give of themselves.

3. Giving promotes cooperation and social connection. When you give, you’re more likely to get back: Several studies, including work by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer, have suggested that when you give to others, your generosity is likely to be rewarded by others down the line—sometimes by the person you gave to, sometimes by someone else.

These exchanges promote a sense of trust and cooperation that strengthens our ties to others—and research has shown that having positive social interactions is central to good mental and physical health. As researcher John Cacioppo writes in his book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, “The more extensive the reciprocal altruism born of social connection . . . the greater the advance toward health, wealth, and happiness.”

What’s more, when we give to others, we don’t only make them feel closer to us; we also feel closer to them. “Being kind and generous leads you to perceive others more positively and more charitably,” writes Lyubomirsky in her book The How of Happiness, and this “fosters a heightened sense of interdependence and cooperation in your social community.”

4. Giving evokes gratitude. Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a gift, that gift can elicit feelings of gratitude—it can be a way of expressing gratitude or instilling gratitude in the recipient. And research has found that gratitude is integral to happiness, health, and social bonds.

Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, co-directors of the Research Project on Gratitude and Thankfulness, found that teaching college students to “count their blessings” and cultivate gratitude caused them to exercise more, be more optimistic, and feel better about their lives overall. A recent study led by Nathaniel Lambert at Florida State University found that expressing gratitude to a close friend or romantic partner strengthens our sense of connection to that person.

Barbara Fredrickson, a pioneering happiness researcher, suggests that cultivating gratitude in everyday life is one of the keys to increasing personal happiness. “When you express your gratitude in words or actions, you not only boost your own positivity but [other people’s] as well,” she writes in her book Positivity. “And in the process you reinforce their kindness and strengthen your bond to one another.”

Giving is contagious. When we give, we don’t only help the immediate recipient of our gift. We also spur a ripple effect of generosity through our community.

A study by James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, shows that when one person behaves generously, it inspires observers to behave generously later, toward different people. In fact, the researchers found that altruism could spread by three degrees—from person to person to person to person. “As a result,” they write, “each person in a network can influence dozens or even hundreds of people, some of whom he or she does not know and has not met.”

Giving has also been linked to the release of oxytocin, a hormone (also released during sex and breast feeding) that induces feelings of warmth, euphoria, and connection to others. In laboratory studies, Paul Zak, the director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, has found that a dose of oxytocin will cause people to give more generously and to feel more empathy towards others, with “symptoms” lasting up to two hours. And those people on an “oxytocin high” can potentially jumpstart a “virtuous circle, where one person’s generous behavior triggers another’s,” says Zak.

So whether you buy gifts, volunteer your time, or donate money to charity this holiday season, your giving is much more than just a year-end chore. It may help you build stronger social connections and even jumpstart a cascade of generosity through your community. And don’t be surprised if you find yourself benefiting from a big dose of happiness in the process.

Special thanks to our friends at The Greater Good for allowing us to repost this piece! Click here to view the original article. To explore more of The Greater Good’s science-based insights for a meaningful life, visit https://greatergood.berkeley.edu. 

This month, we’re taking a closer look (or should we say listen?) at one of our favorite things: music. We all know the effect music has on how we feel. Of course, great music can open the door to the gamut of human emotions. But to put it simply, listening to music just makes us happy!

Interestingly, as the UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center points out, music helps us be healthier, too. The Greater Good was kind enough to let us share some of their fascinating findings about music’s health benefits. Here’s how the simple act of enjoying music can help us all improve our well-being: (If you’re interested in learning more, you can read the Greater Good’s full article here.)

Music Can Reduce Stress and Anxiety — Several studies revealed that listening to music reduced participants’ cortisol and systolic blood pressure, as well their reported feelings of anxiety and stress.

Music Can Reduce Pain –Along with stress, studies show that listening to music can be an analgesic! Patients recovering from surgery or dealing with painful conditions like fibromyalgia were prescribed a regular music-listening regimen, and reported feeling less pain those who weren’t given the music prescription.

Music May Boost Our Immune Systems — Greater Good notes that these findings are preliminary, but a few small studies showed that participants who listened to music had higher levels of antibodies and lower levels of harmful proteins in their systems than those who did not.

Music Might Play a Role In Memory — Studies on patients recovering from stroke or suffering from dementia showed that those who listened to music or sang regularly showed improvements in memory and attention.

Music Helps Us Work Out — Has a great playlist ever helped you through a tough workout? Then you probably won’t be surprised to read about a UK study that found that participants who listened to motivational music (defined as rock or pop music) worked out longer and harder than those who didn’t have tunes to accompany their exercise.

 

Mindful Listening

 

Music is often in the backgrounds of our lives, playing quietly on our computers or on our car stereos while our minds wander away. But when we’re really paying attention to it, enjoying music is a wonderful exercise in mindfulness. If you haven’t had the luxury of being able to delve into a piece of music lately, here’s how you can do so and make it a mindful experience:

• Set aside some time to listen attentively, even if it’s just enough for a song or two.
• Find a setting in which you can concentrate totally on listening to music — no TV, text messages, or other interruptions allowed.
• Hit play on some tracks that you love, or on a track or album that you’ve never experienced before.
• Focus on the sounds and where the music takes you. You can pay attention to the tempo, melodies, the role of different instruments; there’s so much to hear! We recommend reading 4 Ways to Hear More in Music from NPR for tips on actively listening to music.
• Music can stir up our emotions and memories, so your attention may wander. If you catch your mind drifting away, gently bring it back to the piece itself. (One trick for this — try to pick out a specific instrument and try to follow it through the piece).
• As the music ends, take time to think of how it made you feel, and enjoy a moment of gratitude for the glorious presence of music in our lives!

Give this a try with some of your favorite music! Or take a listen to one of the beautiful live recordings posted by Oregon Symphony on SoundCloud! There are plenty of options there, but if you’re not sure which to pick, we think this recording from Gustav Mahler’s 3rd Symphony is a lovely piece to start with:

Stress can be very tough on us mentally, physically, and emotionally. But what if we took a different view of stress? In this TED talk, psychologist Kelly McGonigal covers stress, perception, and how we can use our minds and social connections to change the way stress impacts us.

Special shout-out to TED.com for sharing amazing ideas that help us live well!