Baby steps toward "self-efficacy"; Benefits of structured water.

Journaling your way to habit change.

My thinking about setting up a virtual clinic or trying to do other things towards earning an income, is a sign of better health. My backstory is that I kind of fell apart from burnout and health issues due to my odd genetics and my trying strategies that didn’t end up working well for me. It is a sign of improvement that I would like to do more or different work than I currently am doing.

A favorite line from a movie has been “Baby steps” from the movie “What about Bob?”. It was a psychologist’s tip for Bob, an annoying but friendly patient, to help him work towards change - taking tiny baby steps as needed. I could really relate to the strategy even if the movie was a little slapstick (Bill Murphy movie).

One of my Positive Psychology exercises is similar, called “Building Self-Efficacy by Taking Small Steps.” (pdf in my Dropbox) The link includes the counselor guidance, references, and the exercise handouts for the client. A Pathway to Change worksheet could also be a simple daily log of the steps you are taking towards building the new habit. The example they provide is one for increasing exercise and daily walks or jogging is logged in minutes spent doing the activity.

Habit change logs - journaling your way to behavior change.

Habit change logs are very helpful to keep you on track during the first three weeks to a couple months. If you can stick with a new activity for a month or more, usually it will become part of your routine - a new habit.

Systemizing your daily routine can help make it more doable. Even without the Mucinex, I still seem to be salicylate sensitive - blueberries are a significant source for example (so yummy though). My use of Dimethylglycine used to be a lot more consistent in past years, with my ‘Cheerful Juice’, but it was a simpler mix at that point. My motivation was having a better mood - being more cheerful and less moody or angry.

Tangent, Liver issues may increase anger.

I just learned yesterday in a liver health course that liver dysfunction can increase anger noticeable amounts - oh. I really have been overly stressed and not myself mood wise. I need the glycine to help my body remove salicylates which otherwise are damaging to my liver . . . and may add to an angry mood. Interesting course by a person who had liver problems and used emotional work in part to get better. Essential oils, crystals, affirmations, and digging into your own crud is part of her approach to restoring liver health.

See: Healing Your Liver E-Course, by Phoenix Rising Healing Centre. I accessed the course through a Holistic Health Bundle which contains over 100 ebooks and courses by a wide range of providers. Financially it is a good deal, $50, and you will likely be interested in a few or more of the many offerings. The Liver course is a basic overview on liver conditions and the unique info is the alternative emotional aspects that may be involved - suppressing emotions, wanting more external validation - holding in toxic emotions may be the gist of what might be adding to liver toxicity. It sounded a little too familiar - like reading the TCM pattern that goes “Ding, ding, ding - that is like me, we have ourselves a winner.”

Authoritarian upbringing and an external need for validation and direction/decision making.

Authoritarian style parents, and an authoritarian style school system and government can instill in children an external focus for seeking approval, rather than teaching kids internal self-validation. Internal focus leads to producing things and feeling pride about them on your own, while an external focus is seeking the Gold Star, or A+, or “Good Job!” said by someone else. It would be healthier to be able to produce good work and feel good about it because you wanted to do it, and you yourself think it is good work.

Baby steps towards change can build a new habit if you stick with it for 3 weeks to a few months.

Journaling or logging can help during early stages. Or link it to another routine habit.

Baby steps towards change or improved self-efficacy is as simple as making a plan and doing it. The more often you decide to do something and complete it, the more you are building your own habit of self-direction and self-approval for having successfully completed something, even if simple. Little successes help build an internal feeling of “I got this!” “I can handle this."

Baby steps - start as small as necessary with things like 1. get up and get dressed in the morning, 2. make the bed, 3. clear the kitchen sink and have breakfast, 4. start a load of laundry or advance the last load to the dryer or fold it. *A tip from Lisa Bronner, granddaughter of Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, in her recently published book Soap and Soul - A Practical Guide to Minding Your Home, Your Body, and Your Spirit with Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, (DrBronner.com). How do you wash a baby? Lisa gives us her how-to’s and her journey from being a college kid who didn’t know anything about her family’s healthy soap legacy to being part of the flourishing family business.

The Holistic Health Bundle seems like a good deal.

I would also recommend other courses that I have taken from the Holistic Health Bundle so far.

• Pantry Herbalism For Cold And Flu Support by Herbal Academy « (Herbal Academy is an awesome site and course);

• Taste of the Seasons, Chinese medicine guide for eating in tune with the seasons, by Dr. Liz, an acupuncturist, course linked in this blog about Winter within Chinese medicinal theory, Love Winter, Embrace Dark and Cold, (drlizcarter.com). Winter is a time for rest and regeneration and preparation for the rest of the year. Hot soups and cooked veg are recommended as warming foods during a cold time - easier for our digestive system. Salty taste of preserved foods is the taste of the season, but not to excess.

• Cellular Hydration by The 360 Upgrade, (the360upgrade.podia.com).

Cellular Hydration - Health Benefits of Structured Water

The Cellular Hydration course is about the health effects of structured water and deuterium depleted water and was a nice follow-up to my last post (on jenniferdepew.com) in which I said there wasn’t a lot of evidence-based research regarding health benefits of drinking structured water instead of tap water. This course has more info on that topic but I still need to check the references.

“The benefits of consuming EZ Water,” Cellular Hydration, The360Upgrade.com.

“How to make/expand EZ Water,” Cellular Hydration, The360Upgrade.com.

Cheerful Juice/Dimethylglycine drink recipe.

More recently I have been adding to my Cheerful Juice:

• a little lysine, taurine, NAC, and the DMG and methionine,

• potassium bicarbonate or sodium bicarbonate to offset the acidity,

• plus some sweetener (stevia),

• flavoring (cardamom and Gotu Kola powder - from the parsley family, a bit of a stimulant effect and adds flavor),

• and some pomegranate juice or herbal tea/suntea if I have some of that made up.

That is just really a complex recipe to make once a day or every other day (I started making 32 oz at once). My new plan is to make a big batch of the dry mix so that I only have to add the liquid ingredients to make a 32 oz bottle which I then drink in about 2 days. The problem is that my recipe is still imprecise. I need to weigh the tiny amounts and multiply up for a larger batch that will have the same ratios as my single bottle batch. And that means I have to make my own health a priority over housework, other writing projects, or random time-wasting online. If I ws better at charging money, I would standardize the recipe and then market it to other people with salicylate sensitivity.

Trying to mix the amino acid powders into food hasn’t worked well. It is very acidic and makes the food taste kind of icky. The beverage can be okay. It makes a tart fruity drink.

Another coaching tip is to do the hard thing first. Get it out of the way first thing in the morning when we tend to be at our best cognitively. That way you have a success at the beginning of the day instead of spending the day feeling like you are procrastinating (because you are) and then never getting to the hard thing yet another day.

Okay, so I got out my gram scale and made a prototype recipe for my Cheerful Juice. Since I had the gram scale out I added a few more ingredients that were recent, but still unopened, purchases.

Cheerful Juice - glycine and mitochondrial support

The bottle holds 36 oz of fluid, and makes about two days worth.

• 7 gr dimethylglycine powder

• 1.5 gr methionine

• 1.5 gr taurine

• 1 gr lysine

• 1 gr N-acetylcysteine (NAC)

• 1 gr potassium bicarbonate = 400 mg potassium

• 6.2 gr magnesium bisglycinate = 800 mg magnesium

• 1 gr PABA, vitamin B10 = 1000 mg B10

• 0.25 gr vitamin C buffered with calcium = 250 mg vitamin C

• 0.75 gr Gotu Kola

• 0.25 gr cardamom

• 1 gr Stevia in the Raw, a light fluffy brand

• 6-8 oz pomegranate juice

• structured water to fill the bottle

Directions

1. Measure all the dry ingredients into a tall glass. Mix the powders together and smash any lumps. Add about a half cup of structured water and mix until the powders are all dissolved, add a little more water as needed to dissolve it.

2. Add the juice and the dissolved powders into the large bottle/container and fill with more structured water or suntea.

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.