one shell at a time 🐚
issue five // how i'm prioritizing fun in the sun
Last fall, Steve and I moved to the South Shore of Boston. This move was unplanned and occurred in one week from “we have rodents in our kitchen that are not mice!” to unpacking boxes in our new place. We were shocked! We were stressed! Our plan to stay in the city as long as possible and be cool city people that did cool city things ended in a blink.
And then we started to get to know our new neighborhood including the beach, beach yoga (!!!), lobster pounds, golf, and harborside coffee. We fell in love. Were rats the best thing that ever happened to us? We couldn’t wait for summer. ☀️
After a cold and windy winter and a dreary spring, summer finally came! In early June, I finished a day of Zoom, emails, Slack, texting, and phone calls and plopped on my couch exhausted from the day. I started watching Ted Lasso while the sun was shining brightly through our window and the beach was doing its thing a mere seven-minute drive away from me. My internal voice screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? For your entire life, you have paid money and invested time to travel to places that have all of the things that are now a short drive away. Go live your life doing things you love.”
Ok, noted. Going to the beach seven minutes away at the end of a work day shouldn't be hard, but it just is. I recognize that this is a small thing relative to life’s big things, and I’ve been deep in those big life things, too, but when you need to get toilet paper at Target, return stuff at UPS, get a birthday card in the mail, buy groceries, and be a good employee, wife, sister, daughter, friend, etc., it’s easy to run out of time or energy to go the beach! While I realized the challenge, I also knew that I overcame a much bigger challenge by working for years to rid myself of symptoms of Hashimoto’s so that I could live my life symptom-free and do things like….go to the beach. I was stuck. I called my health coach!
Her idea? Find a way to celebrate making it to the beach. “I hear that this is important to you,” she said, “what is going to get you there, even if it’s for 15 minutes, to live the life, every day, that you want?”I thought about this a lot. I could take pictures and make a picture book. I could block my calendar. I could go at the same time every day after I work out (this is a tactic that does work). The ideas kept coming and none of them felt authentic to me.
Then it hit me. Every time I make it to the beach, I pick up a seashell and drop it in a jar. When I accumulate a bunch, I’ll do something cool with them (I love crafts, double whammy) and every time I look at my creation, I’ll think about all of those trips to the beach that brought me joy. A seashell sticker chart!
It’s really fun to see the contents of the jar grow. The shells show how I’m prioritizing myself by staying accountable to my commitment to beach-time, making time for fun and joy. They also memorialize precious memories like:
one shell I grabbed at six in the morning in the rain alone on the beach (magic)
one that I grabbed on Martha’s Vineyard during an annual trip with a treasured friend and his wonderful family
one that was selected with my best friend from college after she spent an entire day with me and without her three-year-old so that we could have an all day heart to heart like we used to back in the day (thanks to her husband - I do love her kid a lot, for the record)
many shells picked up after one of those long Zoom, Slack, text days when Steve and I drove over to the beach for a dip after dinner
Our brains form new habits and stick with them when we celebrate them. BJ Fogg wrote about this in Tiny Habits, one of my favorite books from my Health Coach program, explained in a previous newsletter. It works. I have been at the beach at all hours of the day in all types of weather just to get my shell. I have treasured each trip. It has brought joy to my life!
What is the thing that you want to do more of in your precious time on earth and what will get you to do it? How will you celebrate?
Need some help brainstorming? Email me at millhouse.health@gmail.com. I’d love to help you find the thing that brings more joy to you every day, reducing cortisol and increasing the feel-good hormones, which is key to total wellness (remember the Wheel of Life?), vitality, and health. 💫
swap of the month | sunscreen
I used to go to tanning beds in high school (ew). Then I started wearing sunscreen so that I didn’t get skin cancer. Then I learned that a lot of sunscreen has benzene, which when absorbed through the skin (human skin is our largest organ) into the bloodstream, is a chemical that can cause cancer. Yeesh.
Since then, I have been on a mission to find a sunscreen that is protective and benzene-free. Most of the brands that I have tried make me look like a ghost. Here are my favorites that are the least ghostly:
The EWG has a great sunblock guide where you can search for any brand that you are using to learn if it is safe or to find new recommended brands. I love the EWG for everything - food, self-care products, and more!
Do you have a brand you love? Let me know at millhouse.health@gmail.com and I’ll share it with our community of readers!
one thing that blew my mind this month | rest to digest
I am learning a lot about nutrition, digestion, and assimilation in my program. One thing that blew my mind this month is that it is not just what you eat, but how you eat. 🤯
If you are eating on the go (while watching TV, in a meeting, or in the car), your body is focused on that task instead of the digestive process. Because of this, your body doesn’t break down the food as it should, impacting the nutrients that you are getting from each bite, and impacting the entire digestive process. It can also lead to anxiety, over eating, and weight gain.
Instead, try to “rest to digest.” This will activate the parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for all of the things that our amazing bodies do that we never think about - breathe, blink, digest, and much more. Some ways to eat more mindfully are:
Take a moment - either a prayer or a breath - before you eat. Steve and I love to say one thing that we are grateful for that day before dinner (gratefulness and mindful eating in one!). This will help to activate your saliva and digestive enzymes when the smell of and the visual of your food present
Chew your food until it is almost liquid to aid in digestion and assimilation
Think about where the food came from, how cool the earth is that it creates all of these yummy things that we eat, and how lucky you are to soon be enjoying a meal
The longer, slower days of summer are a great time to create this habit, then make it part of your life.
another thing that blew my mind this month | the science behind the beach
Once I got myself to the beach on the reg, I started to become curious about why it made me feel so awesome! I couldn’t wait to share this, so this month I’m sharing two things that blew my mind this month! 🤯 🤯
The sun lifts mood and energy levels, and especially increases vitamin D which is essential for metabolism, bone health, and immune function
Being barefoot on the sand creates a grounding and calming effect that boosts your mood
Listening to the sound of waves crashing has been shown to enhance relaxation more than any other sound
The minerals in ocean water help reduce pain for people with arthritis and aid in skin repair and elasticity (ocean water is also high in magnesium)
The salt in ocean air is healing for the respiratory system
ask me anything | questions from readers
Why do I fart a lot and why are they so smelly?
My mum does not allow me to say fart, so in my response, toot = fart.
This is a hard question to answer without knowing what you are eating and other symptoms, but as a general rule, what goes in, comes out. If you are eating foods that are tough for your body to digest, you are going to toot… and they may smell.
I’d also encourage you to assess your gut health. If you are tooting a lot and they are consistently smelly, it can be a sign of an unhealthy gut. Tooting a little bit is normal, but not smelly toots that are clearing a room. If that is the case, you could have:
To try to resolve your smelly toots, you could try the elimination diet. I always encourage adding a probiotic or probiotic rich foods and focusing on hydration. Bodies with a diverse gut flora and high hydration are always the happiest ones!
If you have a question that you would like to have answered in a future newsletter, email me at millhouse.health@gmail.com. I love receiving them and sharing them with our community. If you have a question that you’d prefer I keep out of the newsletter, let me know that, too!
💕 Elizabeth
Love this.
Your seashell ritual is beautiful. Thinking about how I can apply this to build and reinforce my writing habit... 🤔 thanks for creating a great newsletter!