January 2023
Hi all,
My oldest son is at the age where he’s asking what terms like “ugly” mean. My wife and I looked at each other and then went back and forth debating the power of a toddler being armed with the knowledge of this word as it relates to bullying, body image, and shame.
Using about 10,000 words, we worked hard to scrape together components of some benign definitions that would suit a 3-year-old. Five minutes later, we finally have a good, toddler-appropriate description that lacks any disparaging terms.
We take a deep breath, begin to explain it to him and realize that he is solar systems away from being interested in the definition. He’s moved on to asking us where dragons live and if we give out presents on Valentine’s Day.
I took it as one of those life lessons that my kids often teach me. Today’s was: stop overthinking it and move on.
Have a great week.
Brian
New Blog Posts
Mind
Productivity Technology: Using Tech to Make the Most Out of Your Workday
Tuesdays with Morrie: 3 Takeaways
Body
Musculoskeletal Injury: Sprain, Strain, or Break (& What to Do About It)
How To Engineer The Perfect Day For A Good Night Sleep
Dad
Hunt, Gather, Parent: 3 Takeaways
Guest Posts I Was Featured In
The Fresh Mommy Blog:
Mind and Mantra
(And a mention from the The EveryMom in the article, “Is Occupational Therapy Right for Your Child? Here’s How It Can Help Families”)
The MBD Corner
Mind
“Your capacity for gratitude is inversely proportional to your sense of entitlement.”
—Mark Brooks
An interesting visual from Flowing Data on how people like you spend their time. Input your sex, age, unemployed/employed, and weekday/weekend to see the results (mine below).
Cory Muscara meditated for 15 hours a day for 6 months straight and came back with a thought-provoking list of 36 lessons. My favorites:
2. A sign of growth is having more tolerance for discomfort. But it’s also having less tolerance for bullshit.
12. If you don’t train your mind to appreciate what is good, you’ll continue to look for something better in the future, even when things are great.
27. There are 3 layers to a moment: Your experience, your awareness of the experience, and your story about the experience. Be mindful of the story.
35. Monks love to fart while they meditate. The wisdom of letting go expresses itself in many forms.
Body
More evidence that lifting is good from Stuart Phillips.
Protein-to-carb ratio is indicative of diet quality and all-cause mortality. Researchers analyzed the diet quality of 17,000+ adults over 7 years. They found that “a diet's quality can be determined by its protein-to-carbohydrate ratio.” This might not come as a huge surprise but the impact was surprising. There’s a 7-fold increased risk of death with low protein!
For the related graphic below, being under the dotted line = living longer.
A great article (with videos) on the 3 best exercises to grow your glutes from my friend, Pat Henigan.
“The most feared thing in sports….the yips, twisties, choking…” What exactly this is and what to do about it
Dad
Do moms or dads do more parenting work? Depends on which one of them you ask….
Do gas stoves actually cause asthma? Emily Oster breaks down the data.
Rick Hanson on teaching kids psychological skills. A couple of good takeaways:
“Say to herself phrases such as, Let it go, it’s alright, I can feel better now.”
“For example, you could ask a cautious child to imagine being accidentally bumped while standing in line at preschool, and see himself staying relaxed and calm, not worried about being hurt. Or you could ask a spirited child to imagine another child beating him in a board game, and then see himself shrugging it off, staying relaxed and calm, not getting mad or knocking the board over, and telling himself he’ll probably win next time. Then, have the child imagine the positive outcomes that would result and the good feelings he’d have.”
A reminder of the importance of empathy over anger. A blurb from a recent Love and Logic newsletter.
