I’ve been thinking about creativity and production lately, which led to me thinking about how we are able to be creative and productive. I always find that I’m most productive during certain times of the days (morning for me!) and when I’m not sleep deprived, cranky, or hyped up on too much caffeine. This thought process led to ideas about not only what I’m getting out of my brain and body, but what I’m putting in as well. Remember the phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out”? Well, I know people do live on junk and minimal sleep, but I wonder if that’s part of why so many of us are hanging on by our fingernails everyday…

 

 

So, what do we consume? Food, of course, but there are other things too. I absolutely believe that the quality of what we eat matters, and the more chemical containing, highly processed, over salted and over sugared food we eat, the more the body has to work to clear out the mess we’ve put in. There may not be much good left behind to nourish us! And how do you produce something from nothing? So instead of peanut butter crackers in shrink wrap, how about a handful of grapes? Or a vegetable soup instead of takeout? Can you put an organic apple and almonds in your purse instead of a sugary “energy” bar? Real foods actually taste good too!

 

Eating apples and sweet red peppers. Yes, really!

 

Another thing we consume is sleep. Now stay with me, this is important. I know, how can you “consume” sleep? But if you think of sleep as a need, and recognize that we chronically deprive ourselves of sleep, you can start to think of it as something we can “put in” to our bodies.  Sleep is so much more than just resting our bodies. Sleep allows our brains to clear away the waste products that build up from all the functions the brain performs every day. When you don’t get enough sleep, you wake up with brain fog, right? It’s not all clean in there yet! Go back to sleep!

 

Snoozing on the couch 

 

 

The next thing we consume is light. What do I mean? Your body absorbs sunlight and makes vitamin D, a very important vitamin in our bodies. Seems like everyone today is vitamin D deficient, if you check their blood. It seems to go along with the fact that most of us spend the vast majority of our waking hours inside. We’ve gone from being an agrarian society, or at least one in which we spent a lot more time outdoors, into one where we spend almost all our time indoors. We sit under artificial fluorescent lights all day, and then burn up the electricity at home to power our computers, laptops and phones, flooding our retinas with blue light late into the night hours (that’s part of why we can’t sleep – but that’s another post!). We consume poor quality light day after day. When’s the last time you spent any time in the sun other than on a vacation? I like to go out of my office at lunch time and sit in a sunny spot and soak up some rays! I know it’s tempting to try to get a few more emails done at your desk during lunch, or make one more phone call, but even 5 or 10 minutes outside can make you feel good. Even your dermatologist won’t argue with up to 15 minutes of sun exposure, so even if you forgot to wear your sunscreen, go get out there! Sit and breathe deeply for a few minutes. Don’t look at your phone or work on anything. Just enjoy your moment in the sun!

 

 Enjoying the sun…

 

 

No post about consumption would be complete without at least a mention of media. We definitely consume media, either TV, news, Facebook, videos, advertisements, all kinds of media. Lots of it is entertaining, I’ll grant you that. But I’m not sure that much of it is all that beneficial either. I think we consume media the way one inhales a pint of ice cream in front of the TV and then can’t remember eating it. It’s not intentional. It’s just happened, and now it’s gone, just like our time consuming media. Personally, I have to be very careful about media – it affects my thinking, my feelings and my outlook. Remember, I’m working on a sunny disposition, and often media works against that. For example, this week I (along with the rest of the world) was paying attention to the U.S. presidential election. The more I watched, the more anxious I felt. Before AND after. I finally realized that watching or listening wasn’t going to change anything, but it would continue to increase my anxiety. And it’s not really about the election. This anxiety gets provoked for many of us around many different media topics. So, no, I’m not advocating for you to be an ostrich and ignore the world around you. I’m just saying that we probably should take our media exposure in doses. Like a prescription. Seriously…

 

(Ok, not actually prescription meds. My vitamins…)

 

The next step is to figure out how to put these good things into our lives, and crowd out the bad ones. We may not be able to cook every meal, but we can carry good snacks with us. We can sit outside for a few minutes at lunch. We can limit our screen time at night and stop wearing sleep deprivation as a badge of honor.  We can entertain ourselves with good media and reading and avoid the spiral down into the abyss of despair created by the media (can you hear the drain swirling?). How?! I’m working on that. I’m writing a series on how to get the good we need in our already very full lives, so keep coming back. We’ll get some good changes coming! In the meantime, keep breathing deeply into your belly, sit outside in the sun, and nourish yourself.

 

 

Are you finding ways to consume good things in your days? Share with us! What about things you want to avoid but haven’t figured out how yet?  Share in the comments section below!