INTERNAL JIU JITSU

“The best way to control your anger is to control your body.” — Jiu Jitsu Master Rickson Gracie to Edward Norton (as Dr. Bruce Banner) in the 2008 film, The Incredible Hulk.

Bill Bixby terrified me. He’s the actor who played Dr. David Bruce Banner on the 70’s tv show, The Incredible Hulk. Bixby was a harmless looking guy, but when he’d flash those white pupils — signaling the surge in hormones that were about to transform him — I’d shit myself. The transition from man to monster, the anticipation of the horror that awaited, the build up to the inevitable carnage and destruction scared me to death. When the mild mannered scientist changed into his green alter ego, his brow widened, skin turned bright green and clothes tore from the out of control growth of his freakish muscles (while his pants always ended up making the perfect pair of shorts). Frightening.

I’d hide behind the couch whenever someone pissed Dr. Banner off. My older brother and sister thought it was hilarious, but I dreaded that moment. It reminded me that we lived with our own version of the Hulk.

My father, a giant in my eyes, would go from doting dad to terror inducing tormentor in a flash. He was the scariest monster I knew — I’d hide under desks and fake Illnesses when I knew he was angry. Given the choice, I would have taken my chances with Dr. Banner or the devil himself over my dad’s fury.

I thought I had inherited my father’s anger. Certainly, genetics played a part, but rage had also been programmed into me — to deal with a loud voice with a louder one. To conquer violence with violence. To shout down dissent in my own defense.

I worked my entire life to overcome what I and those around me deemed an anger management issue. It wasn’t frequent, but it was more intense than anyone was used to seeing. Level ten anger for a level four problem. The kind of anger that makes people of all ages want to hide under desks or behind couches.

Was I just mimicking what I’d learned as a kid? Did the build up I felt that led to the eventual eruption signify a flaw in my makeup or morality? Was I just an angry, abusive asshole at heart? All the therapy, books and lectures hadn’t helped. I still didn’t have control!

I’ve spent three decades searching for the source and solution for the anxiety and depression that made so many of my days miserable. I never examined the anger itself. The intense, rage filled outbursts I experienced were how everyone expressed anger in our home. I just happened to be the most intense of us all. I thought level ten anger was normal.

But it never felt good afterwards — I’d be exhausted. Not the good kind of exhausted, like after a grueling workout or savage sex. More like when Banner was just waking up, clothes shredded but somehow still on him, despite the fact that he was several times larger in his agitated state — fearful that he may have done some irreparable damage. I’d be groggy, sometimes in tears, breathing hard, wondering how my temper had gotten away from me again.

I ruined more than one Thanksgiving, pooped on plenty of parties and played the role of Debbie Downer on more occasions than I care to remember. Sure, the triggers were there, but my reactions were so unbelievably over the top that I was too embarrassed to go back and apologize — even though I always wanted to. Worst of all, the people I lost it on were often the ones I loved the most.

In my fits of anger, I became the meanest version of my father. Eyes bulging from his skull (partially because of his chronic thyroid condition), neck and forehead veins threatening to burst, a primal snarl through clenched teeth. Then, a voice louder than the horn on a battleship — violent hatred punctuating every decibel.

I’d punch walls or bash my own head against the nearest hard surface when I got angry. I’ve broken furniture, thrown appliances and crushed wine glasses in my hand at restaurants. The rage would only last for about twenty minutes — three or four episodes a year. The rest of the time, I was a tree hugging hippy at heart who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

That’s why it killed me so much each time I lost control. I wanted to be kind, and I knew what it felt like to be around someone scary. It sucked. Being on edge, walking on eggshells to avoid the explosions. Constant tension.

Some of my jiu jitsu buddies once nicknamed me “Buddha” because I appeared to be meditating when I sparred. They said that it seemed like I could take a nap in the middle of a match. On the days when I felt at peace, I conquered my internal demons by being calm in the face of physical conflict. In real life, when anxiety would hit, the reverse was true. Facing no real threat, fear would grip my body, and I would either whither away or explode to defend myself from an imaginary adversary.

My reactions were over the top because I felt so vulnerable. It always seemed that my mom was afraid I’d get hurt as a kid. I remember stories about how my family almost lost me as a baby or how my aunt saved me from certain death somehow. I felt weak and fragile. Seeing violence break out nearly every day on the streets of my childhood neighborhood only made the fear more real. Whether in a classroom, on the bus or in the bedroom I shared with my volatile older brother, I always had to be on my toes.

It’s no accident that I became a champion bodybuilder and martial artist. Though I wanted to focus on academics, I knew I couldn’t just rely on my mind. I needed to look strong. I needed to be confident in a fight. I didn’t want to be bothered and I didn’t want to be scared anymore. Back then, I didn’t know that it’s normal to be afraid before a fight. I thought there was something wrong with me because of it, so I worked to make that feeling go away.

But the extreme, explosive anger I exhibited as a 113 pound thirteen year old boy was the same I expressed in my twenties. I had grown into a 250 pound ball of muscle by then, and my devastating bite could be even worse than my terrifying bark. On the inside I was the same fragile person I had always been. To anyone that saw me angry, I was a scary beast.

So, like Dr. Banner seeking out Rickson Gracie to calm his inner beast, I sought peace through activity and non-activity. I gained more control over the outbursts. But when I began having episodes on days that I stuck to my rituals and felt good, I knew there had to be more to my anger than self-control. Until then, I had only addressed the depression and anxiety that I experienced since childhood. I had never looked at the anger directly, or at how it made me feel about myself.

Uncontrollable anger was the source of a lot of my shame. Self-control was always what I was after — the freedom to not be a slave to emotion. The power to never instill the kind of fear in another person that my father instilled in me. When I failed to control my anger, it was as if I devolved into my genetic predecessor — morphing into my father despite my best efforts — as if I didn’t have a choice. All the hard work of a lifetime would be gone in a burst of rage.

The realization that this anger persists under the surface inspired me to examine it beyond my triggers, or the deeply personal meanings I’ve attached to them. Rather than only experiencing and then lamenting these explosive outbursts, I wanted to understand why they happened. To do so would take being honest with myself about the circumstances surrounding triggering episodes, as well as a firmer grasp of the general causes of anger. This process has helped me to step outside my anger for the first time, depersonalizing the rage and allowing me to observe it from a distance.

I could finally understand how incredibly out of proportion my reactions were once I reexamined the triggers with my rational mind. This was aided by the fact that my latest episode took place in a hotel room covered in mirrors. I was forced to watch myself go through the entire thing. I had never seen my face — my eyes — at level ten anger. I think I may have scared myself straight.

Observing yourself in an explosive anger episode will either drive you deep into a depressive hole or kick you in the ass to figure out why you can’t seem to keep yourself together. This time, I berated myself for a day before deciding to figure out what was going on in my head, so that I can fix it.

GETTING IN YOUR OWN HEAD

The shameful hangover that persists after an episode of explosive rage will only go away when failure to self-regulate isn’t simply labeled a lack of discipline. Subconsciously reprogramming limiting beliefs that have kept you stuck in negative patterns is critical for change, but so is identifying the physiological markers of anger that serve to prep you for confrontation. Knowing that there is more happening in your head than meets the eye gives you an enormous advantage in correcting emotional disregulation. Only then can you train yourself to recognize when you need to course adjust , shutting down your body’s irrational reaction before it gets out of hand.

While traditional therapy and behavioral modification may be key in recovery, ignoring the chemical component of explosive anger is discounting the twisted scaffolding on which the ego is built. Brain function is the invisible variable that turns some of us from Jekyll to Hyde — Banner to Hulk.

There are two parts of your noggin that are key in processing anger:

The Anterior Cingulate Cortex has connections to both the prefrontal cortex (reasoning) and the limbic system (emotion).

The Amygdala — made up of almond shaped clusters inside the temporal lobes — is also a part of the limbic system, which governs emotion.

An inactive Anterior Cingulate Cortex or an overactive Amygdala can both lead to poor decision making and antisocial behavior .

The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) regulates rational cognitive function. This area of the brain affects decision making, empathy, impulse control, and reward anticipation. It connects your emotions to your actions and intercedes by considering the repercussions when your lizard brain wants to impulsively lash out at someone or something.

According to leading ADHD researcher Dr. Russel Barkley, clinical professor of psychiatry at the VCU Medical Center, the ACC does nothing in ADHD brains. There is no stopping to self-regulate the emotional state — no holding you back from making decisions that could be detrimental to a future you’re incapable of imagining.

Because ADHD is a failure of the inhibition system, Barkley says it’s critical to decouple events from responses. This can only happen when you stop and engage the prefrontal cortex to devise rational responses to triggers. Acting on impulse can be disastrous.

What Barkley describes as a “nearsightedness in time” leaves those with ADHD blind to the future. Unable to anticipate the consequences of their actions and incapable of self-regulation, they often impulsively act out against their own long term self interest. This can sometimes have severe financial, social and legal consequences.

Barkley suggests designing “prosthetic environments” to elicit behavior modification and assist in self-regulation. By externalizing pieces of information with hand written or electronic notes and reminders, envisioning future events and the sequence in which they should take place becomes easier.

In their book, Nudge, Nobel prize winning economist Richard H. Thaler and Cass R Sunstein describe the vast number of ways our decisions can be influenced by subtle suggestions. Strategically placing reminders to curtail or reinforce behavior, building in immediate rewards and consequences, and manually problem solving whenever possible can prop up executive function and lead to better decision making and fewer outbursts.

While the ACC takes into account consequences, the amygdala is a group of structures in the brain that process strong emotions, particularly fear — provoking an automatic fight or flight response. Amygdala hijack (a term coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman) occurs when the amygdala disables the frontal lobes (which govern reason and higher level cognition) and limits some unessential functions in order to prepare the body for conflict. Stress hormones flood your system, pupils dilate, heart races, blood vessels constrict and pressure rises. While being on high alert is helpful when facing life or death situations, putting your body through the emotional ringer on a regular basis due to everyday stress will break you down mentally and physically.

Setting off this chemical dance are the triggers that sit atop the surface of your mind like land mines hastily planted by everyone you’ve ever known — buried under all the shit you only think you remember. The stories you tell yourself set off a tingling sensation when someone reminds you of what you don’t want to be. Your thoughts travel and the feeling in your body transports you to a different time and place. The explosions go off, cortisol and adrenaline flood your system and you react as if you are there again.

Individuals with Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) exhibit repeated, explosive, sudden episodes of rage that are drastically out of proportion to the trigger. These outbursts can manifest as verbal or physical abuse, destruction of property or personal harm. A study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology looked at brain scans of patients with IED. Researchers found that the white matter connecting the frontal lobe (decision making, emotion, understanding consequences) and the parietal lobe (language and sensory input) had less integrity and density than in healthy brains or those with other psychiatric disorders.

With what is essentially the wiring between these two regions of the brain damaged, communication becomes limited. Unable to take in all the information available, you only hear the things that confirm the irrational notions of your lizard brain. Everything becomes an attack. You are looking for the insult that will reinforce the shitty way you feel about yourself. Acting as if everyone is out to get you will miraculously make people want to stay away.

In her book, The Upside of Anger, Dr. Kelly McGonigal argues that it’s our own interpretation of stress that turns it negative. McGonigal says that if we view stress as our body’s way of preparing us for whatever comes next, a rapid pulse can mean excitement instead of fear. McGonigal’s research shows that this shift in perspective leads to physiological changes. Blood vessels no longer violently constrict when the heart pumps faster. However, the organ itself is still fed more nutrients, making it stronger. As in the physical stress put on your body when you exercise, as long as you do not overtrain, the increased demand over time creates greater capacity. According to Dr. McGonigal, a heart pumping vigorously while blood vessels stay relaxed, “looks like what happens in moments of joy, or courage.”

Meditation is an invaluable tool for transforming your reaction to stress. Dedicating time every day to practicing stillness is the best training for both recognizing the onset of symptoms (by learning to notice subtle changes in your internal state) and shutting down a reaction before any negative physiological effects take hold by instantly being still. Building my meditation muscles before figuring out what was wrong with my wiring helped me find the quiet space between trigger and reaction to perceive my anger differently.

If you see anger as an alarm signaling that some potentially nasty shit is being released into your body, you may pump the breaks when you feel yourself losing control. Doing otherwise is knowingly poisoning yourself. Once you realize what’s happening inside you when you are triggered, you’ll be able to direct the process through conscious attention. The feelings won’t trigger irrational action, but thoughtful consideration. Not only of the steps to take next, but of the source of your emotional response — thereby allowing you to choose to react differently.

I had lots of nicknames growing up. Bolita (little ball) when I was a toddler because I was round. Jun (short for Junior), because I share a name with my dad. But the monikers I heard most from my mom and extended family were Negro (black), Negrito (little black) or Negrolo (black something or other). Notice a pattern?

As the darkest person in my Puerto Rican family, that’s how my loved ones would address me. It’s a common practice in Latino cultures. Identifying someone by their color, frowned upon in politically correct, modern society, has morphed into a term of endearment among racially diverse Latinos. Or so it seems.

Despite the wide range of hues within Latino culture that would suggest an evolved view of skin color, these societies are just as racist as any dusty mid western town full of red cap wearing “Americans.”

When a black South African, Zonzibini Tunzi, beat out Ms. Puerto Rico for the ridiculous Ms. Universe crown, the supervisor for the Island’s Education Department called the winner, “La prima de Shaka Zulu.” It means Shaka Zulu’s cousin. You know, the legendary African military leader.

In case you were wondering, there is no relation.

In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo had forty thousand Hatitian migrants massacred to “whiten” the population of the Caribbean nation. Sixty years later, every Dominican in the world hailed the dark skinned Sammy Sosa as one of their own when he chased Babe Ruth’s legendary home run record.

And now — twenty years after that — Sammy Sosa is white.

In the eighties, my friends and family referred to African American people as “Morenos” (Dark Skinned) or “Cocolos” (a term originating with a dark skin group of people in The Dominican Republic.) We were all living in the same impoverished, dilapidated neighborhood together, but never felt the same. There was always an us against them attitude. We often felt as if we needed to fight for respect within our own neighborhood while buying into media perceptions of what it meant to be black and brown. And what we saw around us everyday did little to give us faith in ourselves or our darker brethren.

But I could blend in anywhere — while feeling comfortable nowhere. I belonged to a light skinned (except for me and my dad) Puerto Rican family growing up in a black neighborhood but I found myself relating more to white culture. While the Cosby Show was number one, I watched Family Ties. While kids were listening to Chuck D or KRS 1, I was head banging to Guns and Roses. I hated baggy clothes, preferring tight jeans and t-shirts. But I didn’t feel like I was rebelling - I just liked what I liked, and got plenty of shit for it.

To me, the Cosby show was bullshit. That’s not how it was for the black and brown people I knew. It was fantasy. Family Ties I had seen play out before my own eyes at white friends’ homes with cookie cutter lives that seemed perfect (spoiler alert: they weren’t). I wanted what they had so badly — peace of mind and enthusiasm for the future — and I wasn’t finding it where I lived.

I also hated my brother at the time (who I love to death) and wanted to be the opposite of him. He was a thug who always gave my parents headaches. He set a terrible example for his little brother while constantly asserting the fact that he was six years older and wiser. Once I stopped idolizing him, I detested everything he stood for. He has long since proven me and the old neighborhood wrong.

It took me years to become as secure as I am, but even now I get shit from people in my life. I’ve embraced my heritage and have ensured that my five year old daughter does the same. But when my parents hear my daughter speak proper Spanish without a Puerto Rican accent, they make fun of us. She’s been attending a Spanish speaking school since she was two. Her mother and I have attempted to be consistent with the dialect we use with her. That means she actually rolls her r’s and doesn’t sound like she’s gonna hock a loogie when she says “carro” or “perro.” My family thinks it’s fucking hilarious.

But it’s not just family. In a recent conversion with an old friend who had just retired from the police department, he called me an “Oreo.” Black on the outside and white on the inside. This guy is in his fifties. I chuckled when he said it, but haven’t returned his calls since.

The thing is, I know he was just fucking around. He himself is of mixed race and sounds like an Irish American with a Brooklyn accent, but looks Japanese. But there is something about police perception of dark skin people, how we are supposed to sound, that bugged me about what he said.

There’s too much chuckling that goes on. Too much nodding. A former close friend of mine, who is half Puerto Rican and married to a dark skinned Dominican woman, once complained that a guy he knew had “niggered up” his car ( because he added shiny rims, window tint and other bells and whistles). It wasn’t the first time I heard him use the word. Each time it turned my stomach. I didn’t get it — I was his friend. Both me and his wife would have been denied access to white bathrooms and water fountains. Just because we did not identify with black culture didn’t mean we wouldn’t be exposed to the same bigotry and hatred. What the fuck? It was too much for me to overlook. We haven’t spoken in years.

There was an ugly song I remember from the old neighborhood back in the day. There were two versions:

“A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white, the black don’t win, we all jump in.”

Or,

“A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white, the white don’t win, we all jump in.”

Which one you sang depended on who you were with. Which “us” against which “them?”

I remember, as a teenager, going to the Sunset Park pool in Brooklyn with a bunch of Latino boys. On the way home, there was a group of black kids walking ahead of us. The group I was with, only one of whom was my close friend, started taunting them. They hurled racial epitaphs and threats at the black kids for being in their neighborhood. I was silent and utterly confused.

As a kid, it was actually my one close white friend, Jesse, who was the least racist kid I knew. He might have been the most genuine friend I ever had. I stopped returning his calls because I didn’t trust his friendship. Not because of anything he did — My negative view of myself kept me from believing that he really wanted to be my friend. Why would he? He was from a great family that lived in a beautiful house and valued the things that mattered to me but weren’t for me.

When I hung out with Jesse’s friends, the chip on my shoulder was always ready to bash someone over the head. At a party in some kid’s basement, someone spilled a drink. The host, an Italian kid that I didn’t know, asked me to help clean it up. I told him to go fuck himself. Then he asked me, “What are you?”

The party ended when I dragged him down a staircase and started beating him down before being pulled off and barely escaping the awaiting mob. I am my brother’s brother, after all.

So even though I felt like a Martian in my own neighborhood and knew I wanted better, I didn’t think I belonged on the other side either. I was stuck in this bizarre place where the only role models I had were Roberto Clemente, Eric Estrada and Slater. I never knew anyone else successful that looked like me. At the same time it seemed everyone around me was determined to make sure I never forgot where I belonged.

When I was twelve years old, I refused to attend my zone school because it had a reputation for being the worst in the city. It wasn’t my parents that refused, it was me. I told my mom and dad I would not go to junior high unless they transferred me. What if I hadn’t done that?

As it turns out, the school I ended up going to (because my dad used a friend’s address) was in a good part of town and was the best public education I ever experienced. The work was so advanced that I went from being one of the smartest kids in class to struggling. I actually had to study — something I never had to do much of and found excruciatingly boring. At that new school, I felt like the bad boy. The outcast. The kid that didn’t quite belong and couldn’t keep up.

My grades suffered that year, and when I transferred to a another school, I wasn’t placed in the gifted program for the first time in my scholastic career. I petitioned the principal and pleaded my case, explaining the difficult circumstances of the previous year and promising that I would shine in his “7SP“ class, which got to skip the eight grade and go straight to “9SP” in the fall. Like when I refused to go to that war zone of a school, I once again stood up for my own education. I was thirteen years old.

The work that year was far easier than what I had learned at the other school. I breezed through. The kind of disparity that existed between the two public middle schools I attended is indicative of the subpar education that children of color receive within what is supposed to be one school system. Kids in bad schools aren’t exposed to the same world that their crosstown rivals are and are ill prepared for the reality that awaits — be it a college admissions exam or the job market. Those who do not take it upon themselves to find opportunities for advancement can’t rely on working parents with little time or education to advocate for them. They are left with shitty choices and no one to champion their cause.

The scourge of poverty and racism is further sullied by the structural hierarchy of “shade” in communities of color. In the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, the trailblazing abolitionist and former slave writes of the preferential treatment lighter slaves received, even among the others in bondage. Proximity to whiteness, then and now, is proximity to power and privilege.

In the late 1700’s, Spain instituted the process of gracias al sacar. Mixed race people could purchase a decree that converted them to white. One such royal decree granted to Cuban Manuel Baez in 1760 says that it erased “the defect that you suffer from birth and leave you able and capable as if you did not have it.” Ain’t that some shit.

Alice Walker coined the term “colorism” in her book, “In Search of Our Mother’s Garden”. She describes “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on color.” Research has shown that skin tone affects the outcome of job interviews, court cases and elections. This is not a secret among people of color. They grow up believing that the whiter they look, the easier they’ll have it.

How does that make a kid feel who wants so badly to get ahead in life but has the mirror, the media and the world outside his window saying he doesn’t stand a chance? As if even after you do all the work and get to the finish line, the tape will be pulled back another few feet each time you stretch to get across. The life you want will be just out of reach, no matter how long or how fast you run.

There has been a delusion among some that because we’ve had a black president, hip hope rules the world and the Rock is the world’s biggest movie star, racism doesn’t exist anymore. There are people of color in positions of power and prestige, but they are few and far between. There just hasn’t been enough time for all the seeds of opportunity that were only planted a generation or two or three ago to compete with those who have seemingly inherited an eternity of racial privilege. Just because so many people fought for and finally earned some basic human rights doesn’t mean the playing field has been leveled.

The destruction of the long standing racial hierarchy is a challenging ongoing project that the world must decide to address together. The perpetuation of negative stereotypes of black and brown people is not only meant to strike fear in every suburban household, but to reinforce in the mind of the oppressed their role in society. Centuries of subjugation have purposefully convinced young men and women of color that they are born with an inherent disadvantage. Then, once their will to fight was clear, the oppressors barked that those they once lorded over should be grateful to simply be out of their chains.

It is up to people of color, whether African American, Latino, West Indian, or any other subdivision of “black” that may exist, to burn down the old models. The carefully calculated lie that “whiteness” is more attractive, desirable or indicative of ability must be deleted from our main frame. We must believe we are just as capable, because we obviously are. We must know that we have the opportunities, even if we have to work harder for them. And we cannot fight among ourselves, to the delight of those that would sooner see us dead, in jail or all together erased from the annals of history.

I used to hate reading books. I did it anyway but couldn’t last more than five or ten minutes before dozing off or having my mind dart away to distant lands. Like the skinny kid with no appetite that had to force feed himself to pack on muscle, I shoved books into my brain because I hated the idea of not being well read more than I hated reading.

As a kid, I often left things undone. — or worn out to the nub. After beginning enthusiastically, I’d soon lose steam and beat myself from pillar to post for quitting. I’d always hang around through the torture just to avoid the sting of giving up again. Once the interest was gone, whatever I was doing became pure misery. This would inevitably lead to mental and physical breakdown, as every cell in my body rejected the reality my mind was accepting.

I got good grades and excelled athletically but always thought I could do better. There seemed to be a gear missing — the one that I just knew could take me to a place that felt right. If I were just better, more disciplined and able to focus more — but I didn’t think I had it in me.

Back then, I didn’t know I was working with a slight disadvantage. While medication has played a crucial role in managing my ADHD, and no doubt would have made a massive difference in my childhood, it’s been just as important to build coping and productivity skills. While ADHD makes it difficult to work for other people, it also challenges your ability to self-regulate. Your perception of time is thrown off, so keeping track of your own schedule can be tough without a system.

Before I ever tried medication, in my forties, I spent my life learning skills to make up for what I saw as inadequacies. I’m thankful that I built a technical foundation before supplementing with chemicals, but eternally grateful for what meds have done for me. Once I was properly diagnosed, I realized that the progress I was able to make on my own was astonishing. Giving myself credit for putting in the work motivated me further. The medication made it all click. It was the missing piece I’d been searching for after years of hard inner and outer training.

Here are my five keys for finally jumping off the ADHD treadmill. Once I inserted these into my belief system, I no longer felt hopeless. The limiting, negative self-talk stopped. It took a long time to finally put everything together, but the results have been life changing.

Meds Are Not Evil

Like a lot of other people, I didn’t believe ADHD was real. My perception was that it was a made up disorder designed by drug companies to pump kids full of personality stifling drugs — an excuse for parents to medicate energetic kids and abdicate responsibility.

Meanwhile, I lived every day in lonely terror, until my symptoms became so overwhelming that I became suicidal. At that point, medicine was my last hope. I read books, meditated, prayed, had countless therapy sessions, including EMDR, and took massive action to change my life — but I hit a healing wall. I needed a boost.

The wiring in my brain makes it so ADHD medication that would make the average person speedy simply makes me feel normal. I am no longer listless and suicidal, disappointed in myself because my aspirations outweigh my self-belief. Before meds, it felt as if I was receiving random radio signals from everywhere. The one that always caught my ear never had anything good to say. Still, my disciplined nature dragged me through my days.

The stigma against medication and the dangerous abuse of these drugs by the general public has left many people unnecessarily living in misery. Prisons and homeless shelters are purgatories for the mislabeled, ignored and discarded members of society unlucky enough to suffer from mental illness. How many of those fortunes could have been altered with the right diagnosis, treatment and protocol?

2. Medication + Discipline = Badass

As a person that uses discipline as therapy, I once thought I could muscle my way through pain. Becoming older in the martial arts world means you have to fight smarter. That’s the trade off — you are wiser and have a much better understanding of your art, but your body does not react the same. Nature seeks balance.

But fuck that. If you take care of yourself, you can whip on the youngins long after your head is covered in gray. Combining experience with conditioning makes you unstoppable. That’s how I see my mental health approach.

If you have no clarity, you won’t make the best choices. You simply can’t see what’s in front of you without a trained eye. The frantic nature of the ADHD mind is like a white belt thrown into what we call the “shark tank.” It’s a relentless onslaught of tough competitors coming in fresh at intervals to continuously beat your ass. No place for white belts. That’s what life feels like off my meds.

The passions that occupy my time have kept my brain buzzing enough to distract me from my buzzing brain. Now that the unwanted chatter is gone, I can feel the good kind of buzz — the warm, fuzzy feeling of loving what I do without feeling like I have to do it.

Would I have preferred avoiding all the pain I felt over the years and just been medicated all along? No. If life didn’t necessitate that I acquire the skills that I have, I wouldn’t have been driven to pursue them. I may have relied too much on the drug. I would not have changed. But I have a feeling the relief of the meds wouldn’t have been enough — It’s just not who I am. I know that now. Eventually, I would have gone searching. At times I almost feel like I have an unfair advantage now. Technical ability and practical experience. Strength and skill. Balance. I’m glad it happened the way it did.

3. You Feel How You Eat

While nutrition has always been important to me for physical fitness, I was more concerned with appearance. As I got older, my focus became increasing my energy levels and feeling better. It wasn’t until after being diagnosed and forming habits around optimizing my abilities that I realized the importance of nutrition for good mental health. Inflammation caused by certain foods is detrimental to brain function and a frequent culprit in ADHD.

Once you’ve gone down a suicidal rabbit whole, giving up gluten is a tiny price to pay for sanity. Not that you know what sanity is — you just know you don’t have it.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t give a second thought to the type of food they put in their mouths. Lifestyle is a gigantic factor in mental fitness. Eating foods that promote brain health (fatty fish, blueberries, avocados) and avoiding processed products and sugar will ensure you have the energy and mental clarity to face the day.

4. Your Phone Is A Tool

People love to complain about how their phones have taken over their lives, but we’ve got the most amazing tools ever invented in our pockets. You can read books, listen to podcasts, watch Ted Talks — non stop learning at your fingertips — all the time.

But, with great power comes great responsibility (Stan Lee will never steer you wrong). Just like television can range from “The Sopranos” to “Jersey Shore,” your cell phone can educate or anesthetize you. If you’re not disciplined, your time will be eaten up swiping left to right and “liking” shit you couldn’t care less about.

Take advantage of your calendar and alarm features to schedule everything. Don’t assume you’re gonna remember, because let’s be honest, you’re gonna forget. Use voice memos and notes to keep track of ideas and journal your feelings and thoughts. You know you have to keep yourself occupied, so download the Kindle app and have a book at the ready for down time. Listen to a guided meditation. Take an online course on the go. Learn a new language. It really is endless. Use it wisely, and your phone is the ultimate weapon. No utility belt required.

5. Less Sleep Isn’t Helping

Feeling lazy had me convinced I needed to force myself to do more. That meant getting up earlier so I could get shit done. With a schedule that had me winding down at ten o’clock at night after teaching martial arts classes, it was tough to go right to bed. If I wasn’t careful, I’d lose a half hour of sleep here and there because I wanted to stay up watching television (which miraculously has a way of leading to chips or ice cream). Arnold Schwarzzenegger famously said that you should learn to sleep faster if you can’t get by on six hours of sleep. After years of insisting on shutting down for a minimum of 7–8 hours to promote physical recovery from training, I tried getting by on just 5–6 hours. No dice.

My brain and body just don’t work the same. The sleep I was getting wasn’t all that restful either. I’d frequently wake up during the night feeling restless. It wasn’t until I developed sleep rituals that I began falling asleep quickly and getting a deeper rest. With repetition, my body and mind got used to the same sequence of events every night leading up to bed time. Once I trained my brain, my body knew what to do as soon as my head hit the pillow.

By now, I’ve learned that seven hours is my sweet spot. Eight clean hours can make me feel like superman (mental note: start sleeping eight hours a night).

Recent research suggests ADHD symptoms are often a result of insufficient restful sleep. Sleep deprivation also exacerbates symptoms in kids and adults with ADHD. Your physical and emotional state is undoubtedly better when you get sufficient rest. Staying up late into the night with unproductive bullshit is a mistake, but so is getting by on five hours because you want to prove you’re a tough grinder. You simply won’t be functioning as well. It’s self-sabotage.

There is no magic pill to fix you. If you think of meds that way, you’ll be putting scotch tape on a gunshot wound. You’ve gotta stop the bleeding. Dig the bullet out. Repair the internal damage — then stitch it up. You’ve gotta let it heal and start actively rehabilitating if you want to get stronger. It’s not going to happen by accident or by divine intervention — even though it may feel like that in the end.

Although I’ve developed a good arsenal of skills to maximize my mental wellbeing, I still want to continue growing. My next step will be scanning my brain to understand what areas are being over or under stimulated and adjusting my lifestyle accordingly. As Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the nation’s foremost psychiatrists and a leading expert on brain health says, “Did you know that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists that virtually never look at the organ they treat? Think about it. Cardiologists look, neurologists look, orthopedic doctors look, virtually every other medical specialist looks — psychiatrists guess.”

It seems so obvious now that I want to run out and get my brain scanned as I write this. I’m excited to discover what changes I can make to improve my performance and sense of well being. Brain imaging will provide a road map.

I lived in fear for forty years. It felt like weakness — as if there was something wrong with me that made me more scared than everyone else. My mother would always tell me about how sickly I was when I was born. How I stayed at the hospital for a month afterwards and how my aunt just barely saved me from dying once (so I guess I was kind of on borrowed time). I hated eating as a kid and was really skinny, adding to my weak mystique. In school, what I now know was anxiety would create psychosomatic illnesses. I’d feel sick, but it was all in my head. Stomach aches, dizziness, shortness of breath  —  It frustrated my dad — especially when he’d have to come pick me up from school again because I was freaking out on the inside.

We grew up watching the crack epidemic take over our neighborhood. The drug dealers did their business out of the fourth floor of our building. My brother and I would sweep up crack vials on the weekends to get our allowance from the superintendent — our dad. The tiny plastic cylinders with colorful caps filled the dustpan as we swept the roach infested vestibule leading down to the spooky, filthy basement.

Several young immigrants that had just arrived from Mexico were found dead over the years in the building next door, where Dad was also the super. Death from unnatural causes was a very real thing where we lived. Around age eight or nine, my alcoholic uncle, who lived in a storage room in the aforementioned basement (and would sometimes walk me to school), was killed when he fell while trying to climb a building to get to his ex girlfriend. I was about ten when our close family friend’s son, a squeaky clean kid visiting from the marine corp, was murdered defending a girl in the playground. At eleven or twelve, I watched my best friend’s dad kill a guy in an argument over a prostitute.

When I was fourteen, I was mugged at gunpoint around the corner from my family’s apartment. My big brother, wielding a large, rusty machete, took me around the entire neighborhood that night looking for the robber. The dude had worn a mask, so my brother put the blade to every thug’s neck that we passed on the street and asked me to look him deep in the eyes. They all knew my brother and respected him. They pleaded for mercy. Thankfully, we never found the guy.

That kind of shit was common in my old neighborhood. Baseball bats were swung in search of skulls and group rumbles were still a thing. I had family members snorting coke in front of me by the time I was in the fourth grade (and immediately making me promise I’d never do the same). Forty ounce bottles of beer were smashed over people’s heads in street fights. My crackhead cousin once robbed a dude using my favorite toy gun. He confessed to me when I found the gun broken and complained to him about it. Bullets fired from roof tops for fun whizzed through the ganja heavy air. It feels like we fought every day at school. That big yellow bus was like the fucking octogan.

We finally moved out of that neighborhood when I was sixteen after a gunfight forced our entire family to jump behind a parked car for cover. That shit was stressful. I was jumpy as hell. It didn’t help that Mom and Dad were very old school disciplinarians, if you know what I mean. There were fights outside and fights inside — all the time. I was always scared.

And that’s how I continued to grow up — I just didn’t show it, or let it stop me from fighting. When it was time to throw down in the street or at school, I always did. Partially because I knew my badass big brother would disown me if he heard I punked out. Backing down meant you were a victim. I once accidentally stepped on his buddy’s shoe and apologized. I’ll never forget what the guy said, “You never say sorry. It makes you look weak.” But a man’s sneakers were sacred in the hood, and I sure as hell never looked for a fight — unless I was channeling big brother.

He loved throwing the first punch and bragged about knocking guys out cold at night clubs — until a near death experience and one hundred and fifty stitches thanks to razor blade slashes made him reconsider his life choices. I’ll never forget when the call came in the middle of the night. I don’t remember why I answered the phone instead of my parents, but the voice on the other end is clear as day, “Your brother has been stabbed.” At that moment I thought the worst, and was relieved to see him gingerly walking through the door later that morning, battered, bruised and slashed to bits — but alive.

When I pretended to be my brother, I wasn’t above throwing a preemptive strike. We all had it in us. Hell, my dad was known to go into some destructive ass kicking rages when people pissed him off. I certainly tried my best not to get on his sizable bad side. Mom and sis aren’t exactly shrinking violets either.

My recurring nightmare as a child was of me walking down a beautiful tree lined street, the very one I always wanted to live on. It was only a few blocks from our shithole, but felt like a world away. In the dream, as I reluctantly step, there is the overwhelming feeling that someone is hiding in the shadows, waiting to attack. I’m petrified to move forward, but I keep going — slowly heading toward the inevitable. It was terrifying torture.

I don’t remember ever actually seeing the attacker. I’ve attached a bunch of meaning to that dream ever since, but at the root was my fear. For most of my life I moved forward, steadily but fearfully. I did things that made me want to shit my pants and forced my way through, hating every minute. In retrospect, these all helped build toughness and character, as did my old neighborhood, but the fear persisted. I became a bouncer, champion bodybuilder and an expert martial artist, but felt like a fraud for the unease that was my base level.

It wasn’t until I took these seven steps that terror’s grip on me loosened. Fear doesn’t have to be your enemy. If you learn how to use it, it will energize your actions and help you break past limitations. But first, you have to acknowledge that it’s there.

Accept that you and everyone you know will die. There’s no way around it. Yeah, it’s bleak, but if you wanna live in denial of death, you’re liable to swallow a bunch of bullshit to ease your mind. At its core, all fear is fear of death. When I was a kid, I hated when anyone brought up dying, especially my parents. The uncertainty was too overwhelming. There’s nothing more worthless than fear of the inevitable. It took me a couple of years of suicidal depression, meditation and time in sensory deprivation tanks to get comfortable with the idea of not existing. The tank feels like you’re floating in the womb. It’s pitch black, soundproof and the water is the same temperature as your body, so it feels lke there’s no separation. You and the enviornment become one. It’s blissfully peacful. Sure, I don’t want to die right now because I’m loving life, but I know it will happen one day — and I hope to enjoy that ride as much as I’m enjoying this one.

You’re not your personality. It’s easy to feel like a single, solitary soul drifting in a vast sea of faces. Valuing our individuality as we do, many of us strive to be unique while others do their best to blend into the collective. The way I see it, we’re all the current that powers these appliances we call our bodies. I feel like I’ve lived several separate lives filled with rich, distinct experiences and at the end of each, I mourned the death of an identity. While it feels like I was different people, the throughline was the same. The real me didn’t change. Our personalities are just things made up by our circumstances. They’re the features of the toaster. We’re the electricity that makes it work. I had to lose everything I had built to figure that one out. Once my marriage, home, business, students, money and identity were gone, it was just me — I had to be OK with that.

Your ego is not your life. Learning how to lose isn’t about being resound to failure. Losing is vital because it’s the only way to discover that life will go on when you do. The first time I lost something when I was sure I’d win was devastating. Everything I believed about myself was shattered. My invincibility was gone. Once I realized that defeat wasn’t death and the people that mattered would love me either way, I began to enjoy every aspect of competition instead of only focusing on the result. It wasn’t until I stopped giving a shit that things clicked. Being afraid of the embarrassment of failure is guaranteed to keep you from enjoying success.

Forgive your fear. Far worse than being afraid was my sense of shame. I hated that I wasn’t brave, like the thugs in my neighborhood. To me, being tough meant never being scared. As I became dedicated to martial arts and more interested in understanding fear, I realized that all those guys were probably just as scared as me. It would have been abnormal for me not to be afraid. The environment was so consistently charged with the potential for violence that I frequently lived in a survival state. Getting out unscaved would have taken a level of psychopathy I didn’t possess. When I forgave the little kid I was for being afraid, the shame melted away and the residual fear soon followed.

Whatever happens, everything always works out. You always know you’re in the right place because that’s where you are. No matter what, the world will keep moving on. It will do the same thing it’s doing now when you’re gone. You don’t need to worry quite so much about making the wrong choice when you accept that it doesn’t really matter what choice you make. Yes, of course you matter, your family will miss you and you’re a beautiful soul — all that jazz. But in the end, the world will continue to unfold, and the Earth will be incinirated by the sun — so fuck it. Embrace the experience but don’t cling to any result.

Step up. A sure fire way to kick fear’s ass is to look it in the eye and blow it a kiss. Fear is a bully. It’s all talk. It will try to shout you down until you grovel your way back to mediocrity. Pick something you’re afraid of and do it! Don’t try to not be afraid. Be afraid and do it anyway. But here’s the important part: Smile while you’re doing it. For me, it was roller coasters. I hated them as a kid. They terrified me, and each time I got on one, I regretted every click up to the top. The thought was always the same, “Why did I get talked into this? Let me off!” I never enjoyed the ride, closing my eyes tight and clenching my body until the hellish few seconds was over. One day, I decided that roller coasters represented the fear I wanted to conquer, so I got on the legendary Cyclone. It’s the old, rickety wooden monster at Coney Island in Brooklyn. The thing screeched a death knell and I loved it! I forced myself to smile from the moment I sat in the seat. I told myself that if that car came off the track, I was gonna soak in my final moments. I was sick and tired of being afraid of fear. My mindset shifted, and the click clack became excitement and anticipation instead of anxiety and fear. Funny how those can feel the same.

If you wanna take it a step further, start embracing pain. It may sound a little masochistic, but I like to stare at the needle when it goes in at the doctor. I like going to the dentist. They both used to scare the shit out of me. Even though I had always sought out the painful burn of a brutal workout, it was the pain I deemed unwanted that I sought to relabel. Smiling at the dentist or laughing after my knee was popped back into place in training were not ways to prove to myself that my body was tough, but that my mind was strong. The anticipation of pain is normally much worse than the physical sensation. Change the way you see pain and the way you interpret the sensation will transform

I lived alone last year. After divorcing, I got myself the nicest apartment I could and tried to make the most of my freedom. As it turns out, bachelor pads can be petri dishes for the type of depression that makes you want to jump from your thirteenth floor balcony. When my lease ended, I knew I shouldn’t be on my own — I needed to be around other people. I started splitting time between my girlfriend’s apartment and my sister’s house in Long Island. While sis was incredibly welcoming, it wasn’t an ideal situation. Gradually, the time I’d spend at my lady’s place in Forest Hills increased. Soon, I had pretty much moved in without really having a conversation about it.

By the start of the new year, we were officially shacking up. Our schedules meant we’d spend an hour or two together in the morning and then wouldn’t see each other again until nine or ten at night. We got along amazingly well. I think we both figured it had a lot to do with the limited face to face time.

Then came the quarantine. She was lucky enough to keep doing her job from home. Her workload actually increased. I could no longer teach jiu jitsu classes, but I had more time to write than before. After our morning pow wow, we’d split off to separate laptops and tap away all day. Breaks were for meals and working out. We had tightened up our eating habits before the quarantine and the changes stuck, so there wasn’t really any pigging out. We did our own thing, got together frequently for chats, hugs or gratuitous groping, then hunkered back down for some productivity. When 9pm rolled around, the time we’d normally be meeting back at home, we’d sit on the couch for some dumb TV.

It took a month for our first “fight.” I wouldn’t even call it that, because although the opportunity was there for it to escalate, it never did. Instead, we used it to analyze our own feelings and reactions. This would prove invaluable in the coming weeks, as her job became more stressful and I was exposed to a side of her I had never seen: Producer lady.

Producer lady can’t stand when people fuck up. She expects everyone to do their job and lets the world know when she thinks someone or something is dumb. She huffs and puffs a lot, and she sighs all day long. It makes for a pretty tense environment. If you let it.

There was a time not long ago that the tension would have been too much for me. I would have felt like I was being dragged out of my peaceful state by an enemy insistent on ruining my day. I’d begin to feel my partner’s anxiety, then resent her pulling me into it while hating myself for not being able to alleviate her pain. It would have lead to explosive anger and a compulsion to flee. Not so today. Disconnecting my own self image from her behavior helped me recognize her needs. The message would have gone over my head if I was bobbing and weaving the whole time.

But I also got tested in another way that I’m grateful for. When I offered ways to help relieve some of her stress, she bit back at me defensively. I was taken aback the first time it happened, then made a mental note the second time. But I didn’t react outwardly. Instead I examined the events surrounding the reaction and thought about each of our roles in the event as I perceived it, versus how she probably did. She did the same and apologized for her reaction. Then I realized she reminded me of someone. She was reacting exactly how I used to.

The pause I have learned to take before reacting to non emergencies gave me time to understand that she was being defensive when I offered advice because it made her feel inadequate or less in control. I knew because it was how I felt when I’d react the same in the past. I could recognize myself clearly.

At once, I felt regret for the way the old me had communicated and compassion for those at the receiving end. I thought about all the times I lost my temper and couldn’t really hear what was going on. Now, without being blinded by my own emotions, I could see that her behavior wasn’t about me at all — just as me offering to help her wasn’t because I didn’t think she could do it on her own, but because I wanted to make it easier on her. We were experiencing the same event differently, labeling each other the enemy in a preemptive strike to defend our own self-worth.

I the past, I felt so much pressure to do things on my own — to prove that I was self-sufficient — that someone reaching out to help became confirmation of my inadequacy. Despite countless hours of therapy, self exploration and couples counseling, my instant reaction time made it impossible to hear what past partners were saying beyond words — my preferred method of communication.

When you teach large groups of people, their are always a wide variety of learning styles that work best for specific students. The inability of a person to comprehend one interpretation of a technique does not ensure that they’ll never grasp the move. We don’t give up on a student. We retool our method of teaching so that we can reach each one of the students within our earshot.

Not acknowledging differences in personal styles of communication will sink relationships that seem perfect on paper. Two amazing people can keep missing each other as they misinterpret words and actions based on their own trauma and insecurity. The miscommunication leads to vitriolic exchanges that slowly trickle resentment into the mix. It builds up, hardening the arteries of your relationship. Things stop flowing. As my sensei used to say, “Stale water starts to stink.” Pretty soon, you’ve both gotta hold your nose to be in the same room.

We don’t get taught how to be in healthy relationships. Even if we do have a “successful” couple we can model ourselves after, often it seems as if the secret is compromise, indifference or loss of identity. Those who thrive and continue to grow, both as individuals and together, must be able to separate themselves from the reactions of their partners. The point of any relationship is to learn about yourself. You can only do that if you are reacting to what’s happening, and not what has already happened. Yes, loving someone feels great and there are tons of perks to being in a good relationship, but if you don’t discover truths about yourself in the process, it’s kind of meaningless.

Being together all the time during this global pandemic has been a sort of trial by fire. We knew we were gonna find out a lot about each other really fast. Did we really like each other? How long before we’re getting on each other’s nerves? Are we gonna have all these annoying habits that drive the other person nuts? It’s turned out to be a valuable and practical exercise to test all the theories I’ve learned, tools I’ve attained and skills I’ve cultivated over the last two decades. A passion for understanding myself has led to greater curiosity about the people I interact with and why they behave the way they do. With a captive audience of one to work with in the age of social distancing, my relationship has become a graduate level case study for me. In a good way.

There’s nothing sterile about my technical approach to coupling. It may seem as if it’s less emotionally driven, but it’s actually solely based on reading emotion for what it really is. In this way, it’s the most deep way in which one can affirm the feelings of the other person — allowing their expression while simultaneously avoiding the detrimental changes in one’s own physiology associated with elevated stress levels. You can’t think clearly when you’re angry. Trained fighters know this well. In order to understand the true intentions of the person across from you, you have to be relaxed enough to listen.

I can still remember the innocent optimism of childhood. Each day was a wondrous adventure as life playfully unfolded. I didn’t know about limitations and I could see a bright future ahead. It lasted until I was eight years old.

When you carry around deep unhappiness from an early age, you’re always trying to compensate. Accomplishing things to feed your need for validation becomes a way of staying out of the dumps. You feel worthless if you’re not getting a pat on the back, and when there’s no one around to tell you that you’re OK, you’re bound to listen to the voices in your head.

On May 7th, professional bodybuilder Luke Sandoe committed suicide. Sandoe, by all accounts, was among the most well liked athletes on the circuit. Funny, charismatic, ruggedly handsome yet self deprecating and with a career on the rise, the popular podcast host seemed to have it all. The thirty year old juggernaut succumbed to depression at the height of his fame while quarantined during a global pandemic.

Sandoe’s powerful outward appearance was used to sell supplements, clothing and the fitness lifestyle — But like so many successful people, Luke felt tragically unfulfilled.

Dualism poses that the mind and body are separate — we are not simply self-contained machines. Decartes’ assertion that the mind is non-physical while the body is material flies in the face of those that believe thoughts are simply a function of the brain. Neither group can argue against the powerful effect that our physical and mental wellbeing have on one another.

Outliers are idolized by the adoring public, but the reality is that outstanding achievement in a specialized area will require prioritization. Unless adequate overall balance is pursued, you will always feel off kilter. Something will forever be missing. Pursuing balance, you can strive to achieve more without feeling as if it is an effort to fill a hole. If you feel lack, you feel it everywhere. Like a leech, it sucks the life out of you whether it’s on your ass or your shoulder. Either way, it will bleed you dry — if you let it.

Feeling at ease is impossible when you know your flank is exposed. Shoring up the shaky parts of your life leaves you sturdy enough to confidently leap when opportunity presents itself. While there is always sacrifice for the dedicated, a neglected relationship, poor physical health or constant anxiety are unacceptable prices to pay for success. Ultimately, such infirmity will leave you unable to sustain whatever progress you do make. Something will have to give.

Starting on the road to balanced, overall wellbeing isn’t as hard as it sounds. You don’t need expensive trainers (though they’re great if you can afford one), fad diets or bullshit life hacks. You just need to decide that it’s worth 25 minutes of your time to gain a mental, physical, spiritual and emotional edge.

If you’re tired of feeling like you’re gonna tip over at any moment, here’s my five five minute drills to get you going and growing.

1. Give Thanks For Five Minutes.

In one of Luke Sandoe’s final interviews, he was asked what his first thought in the morning was. He wouldn’t answer because he felt it was too dark for the audience, though the host pressed on. I didn’t have to hear the answer. I had woken up many mornings wishing I hadn’t — thinking I couldn’t bear another day.

What you think about as you drift off to sleep and when you wake up is critical to programming yourself. While affirmations may seem hokey to most people, repeat something enough and you’ll believe it, even if you don’t at first. A started daily morning and evening thanksgiving rituals during the most difficult time in my life. In the beginning, I didn’t feel lucky or grateful — just depressed and hopeless. I gave thanks anyway.

Eventually, I began looking forward to sitting down to review all the good things in my life. You’re setting the table for your experience when your brain is in a theta state — the frequency between conscious and subconscious mind that allows for profound creativity. Manage your words and thoughts carefully during these critical times of the day.

I recommend splitting the five minutes into morning and evening sessions. At night, you can review what went well for that particular day. No win is too small to give yourself credit for before sleeping on it.

2. Shut Up For Five Minutes!

You’ve got a whole day ahead of you to try to get in as much productivity as possible. Everyone gets a piece of your time. But just as “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki says, “Pay yourself first.” He’s talking dollars, I’m talking time. Your first meeting of the day should be catching up with you. Check in — with no distractions. It’s amazing how observing your thoughts free from interference can clarify things for you.

Meditation is like setting the emotional pace for your day. You’re adjusting your internal thermostat. Your practice is about maintaining that same level of peace throughout your day, regardless of circumstances.

Five minutes of silence is a way to take control of your mindset from the beginning of the day. Don’t give anything or anyone else the chance to determine your state.

3. Get In Your Body For Five Minutes

The mind/body connection is an essential part of exercise. Focusing on the muscle being worked is a critical component of proper training. Unfortunately, too many people are strangers to their bodies until the moment it breaks down.

If you don’t already have a workout routine that you do in the morning, five minutes of light stretching, a few squats, push ups or jumping jacks can get the blood flowing nicely. It’s a good reminder of what we are physically capable of on a full tank, before getting worn out by daily chores. Your body will feel more awake, stronger and more capable of facing the day’s challenges.

4. Learn Something New For Five Minutes

I don’t mean news about the latest doom and gloom. Take at least five minutes to crack open a book, read an article, listen to a lecture or learn a new word. Get your neurons firing right away, and try to retain what you’ve learned by occasionally reviewing it in your head. Your mind doesn’t stay sharp by accident.

5. Be Creative For Five Minutes

Write, paint, sing or do a little dance — as long as you are expressing yourself freely and honestly for at least five minutes a day. Even if the rest of your life is having to bullshit your way through or pretending to be someone that you’re not, for these three hundred seconds, you are authentic and uncensored. If you don’t stay in touch with who you really are, you may forget all together. I firmly believe in regular therapy, but the honesty you can have with yourself when there is no one to disappoint or impress can’t be done with another person. We are all too judgmental.

I’ve always felt lazy, though I never looked the part. I started lifting weights religiously when I was twelve years old — so long ago that I don’t remember what it’s like not to work out. When you’re fit, people make assumptions about you just like they do when you’re fat. Fit people are like walking billboards for discipline. We get asked all the time how we can skip dessert or go to the gym instead of playing video games and eating pizza. The truth is, plenty of gym rats plop their asses on the couch for some Grand Theft Auto after training, but in at least one area of their lives, they’ve built beneficial long term habits.

Fit people may be disciplined enough to get to the gym because they have a passion for exercise, get a “high” from working out or are just vain — That doesn’t mean they are disciplined people. It means they’ve forged discipline in one part of their life. That’s not the same as a disciplined life in which your practice is reflected in everything you do.

I began competing as a bodybuilder when I was fourteen years old. My training and eating habits were very strict, particularly before a contest. I lived in the world of 6000 calories and twice a day workouts for nine years, but I didn’t give a damn about my health. I just wanted to be as big and freakish looking as possible. I was disciplined about lifting heavy weights and consuming 300 grams of protein a day because I had a singular goal. The other parts of my life were chaotic. I partied like a rock star when I wasn’t training for a show, used recreational drugs and would balloon up to fifty pounds over contest weight in the off season. A disciplined person, I was not, though I was building my affinity for discipline with each can of dry tuna I forced down my throat.

When I was done with competitive bodybuilding, I attacked martial arts with the same dedication pumping iron taught me. The difference was that I was older and had gone through such an intense period of being driven by superficiality and carnal desires that I was hungry for a better way of living. As I learned lessons in martial arts, I consciously applied them to everything. The more proficient I became at fighting, the more at ease I operated in my life.

At my most passionate, I only wanted to go to the gym or dojo 75% of the time. The rest of the workouts I downright hated it. I did it anyway. Why?

I don’t care for having a “boss” because I don’t like doing things just because someone told me to. Instead, I make myself do things I don’t want to do because I think they’re important. They may not appear to be needle movers from the outside, but internally these personal challenges form the scaffolding that allow me to keep reaching higher.

Doing tough tasks because they help me grow started out as me trying to prove myself. What I didn’t realize then was that managing ADHD and depression necessitates that I keep myself constantly engaged. Now, discipline has become a way of consciously exercising control of my mind and body. Starting out on a regimented path doesn’t always come easily. There’s a period of misery that must be endured before you break yourself. But once properly trained, you can get yourself to do just about anything.

Here are the seven steps that help me build lasting habits and make me seem like a disciplined person:

KNOW THE WHAT AND THE WHY

First off, figure out what you want. What do you want to change and why do you want to change it? What are you getting out of this new habit you want to form? If the reason isn’t significant enough, you won’t stick to it. That’s a guarantee.

I’d been wanting to cut gluten for a while with no success. I loved bread and pizza but I knew cutting them out would help me get leaner and feel better. But that wasn’t enough motivation for me. When I noticed my skin was dry and breaking out, and cutting gluten might help, I made the decision to stop instantly. When research into brain health showed me the effects of inflammation due to gluten consumption, the change became permanent. My brain is just too important to me.

2. KNOW WHAT’S BEEN STOPPING YOU

This doesn’t mean pointing figures at some bullshit excuse like not having enough time or loving cupcakes too much to avoid diabetes. There’s a deeper reason you haven’t already gotten started on the road to a fitter body, better job or more fulfilling relationship. Maybe you don’t think you deserve a better life. Maybe you don’t wanna outshine someone you care about. Is this stuff you are consciously aware of? Probably not, so it will take some digging to figure it out, and maybe a little professional help. Before you can reprogram your mind into making your new habit stick, you’ve gotta subconsciously believe you’re worth it.

3. ONCE YOU DECIDE, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT

The time to deliberate is before you’ve decided. Once your mind is made up, that’s it. There’s no more discussion to be had. Shutting the door to any possible objection means there’s no haggling. You do what you gotta do, no questions asked. That means no “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or “just this once.”

The moment you begin entertaining excuses, you are vulnerable to give in.

4. MAKE IT THROUGH THE MUD

It’s gonna be terrible. Don’t be surprised and don’t act like it’s supposed to be some other way. Make the most of the lessons you learn while you’re down in the dirt.

The longer you do it, the easier it will get. Not that the actual thing becomes easier, but you think less of the misery before doing it. It’s just the way it is, and until you’ve learned to love it, you’re gonna hate it.

5. IGNORE THE QUITTING VOICE

During the hating it phase, you will be telling yourself to quit. You’ll say it’s not worth it and it won’t matter if you stop. It is and it does. Keep going or you will absolutely regret it.

6. IT’S OK TO ENJOY IT

Once you’ve done it enough times on the days you didn’t want to, you’ll start to occasionally look forward to the torture. You’ll wonder why you’re not dreading it anymore. Don’t question it. You’re changing. Just go with it.

7. WHEN YOU WANNA DO EXTRA, GO FOR IT

There are days you’re barely gonna squeak by. You’re gonna just finish. Then there will be days, once you’ve gone through what author Seth Godin calls, “The Dip,” that long valley of drudgery enroute to self improvement, that you’ll have plenty left in the tank in the end. Do more! Go until you have that, “ok, I’m done,” feeling. Take advantage of your high energy days because you won’t always have them.

A little extra practice here and there will go a long way, but always make sure to stop short of burn out. Leave yourself wanting more while confident you gave your all at your maximum attention level. You should definitely push until the wheels fall off once in a while, but for the most part stop once you start drifting. Too many torture sessions will make you hate the thought of practice. You probably won’t enjoy or retain what you do from that point on and your progress will suffer.

8. DON’T GO FOR THE SHORT TERM

See what you’re doing as a life change. No matter the habit you are building, discipline is cumulative. As you challenge yourself to do difficult shit, conquering or mastering something and leaving it behind does not mean momentum has to stop. Moving on to learn something new, whether related to the first thing or not, will prevent a lull in your creative thinking and keep you building on your progress. With each difficult endeavor you stick to, you build the skills and systems to conquer the challenges ahead.

Change comes at a cost. Be it time, money, sweat equity, instant gratification or attention, there is a price for progress. To genuinely feel as if you’ve profited from your efforts, you have to have contributed at least a little piece of yourself — otherwise, being given things doesn’t feel the same. You’ll think you don’t deserve what you have. You’ve gotta deem yourself worthy to be insulated from self-sabotage.

As we strive to achieve our goals, we may valiantly attack our to do lists, eagerly anticipating the day that our hard work pays off. The big things — life’s macro chores — treating people kindly, helping those in need or caring for the welfare of strangers, may not carry the weight they should as we simply look to check items off our agendas. Our self-worth attaches itself to a narrow view of accomplishment, with things that don’t seem to help us get ahead being devalued. Just as a rich man can feel like a pauper when devoid of the things money can’t buy, discounting the smile you put on a sad friend’s face is turning your nose up at the power to create change that is already yours.

Our outcomes most often come as a result of what we do for those around us. The tiny actions we take, no matter how seemingly insignificant, reverberate far beyond the fleeting effect we may observe. While the investment is minimal, a gesture like holding a door open or giving up your seat on the subway can be the nudge that allows a row of dominoes to fall, or shifts the direction of one just enough to avoid such an effect.

Helping you is an important part of the growth of those that come to your aid. It enriches their lives and earns them favor with the universe. They know that the more they help, the bigger their network becomes. While today they may be in a position to pull you out of a ditch, tomorrow they could find themselves face down in the dirt. Most of your network will remember you down the road, when they think they can return the favor. Those people get how the game works. They accumulate points by being genuinely generous and use them when necessary, thereby virtually guaranteeing that they’ll always have a helping hand at the ready.

It’s possible to contribute without feeling like you’re doing anything. So much of the way we communicate with each other is unspoken. Our “vibe” is felt by those in our proximity and though many of us do our best to mask our feelings, a generally shitty attitude is corrosive. Conversely, a bubbly mood is contagious, and a random smile to a passing stranger will often result in at least a grin back. There are some people that singularly affect the mood of a room, brightening it up or dragging in dark clouds, but most simply adjust to blend into their surroundings. Even with no thoughts being shared aloud or any actions performed, the atmosphere informs the stories playing out in people’s minds.

So sensitive are humans to the power of our own thoughts that the mere suggestion of grievance or admiration is enough to elicit a cascade of emotion. When so many of our personal interactions are done in a flash, it’s easy to disregard our influence on those we come across for but a moment. We’ve all declared someone we don’t know as evil over a perceived slight that we simply misinterpreted. Getting cut off in traffic, skipped in line or ignored — because we literally were not heard — all leave us feeling unseen, unappreciated and insignificant. While we are left fuming, the offender — with no emotional connection to the situation and unaware of your agitation — goes on his or her merry way, oblivious to the impact on your life.

The clueless agitator’s lack of mindful attention is partially to blame for the misinterpretation of events. Usually, it’s not that they have deemed their target unimportant, but they have, hopefully only temporarily, disregarded the very existence of other people and their relevance in the grand scheme of things. Everyone lives in a vacuum sometimes. The outside world plays little role in their decisions while in such a state.

Of course, the “victim” in this particular case is also to blame - Or more specifically, their baggage is. Without the hangups we all carry around, none of this would matter. We would not be affected by the perceived slights of strangers, but would smile and wish them well, fully aware that they are sleep walking through their day. Instead, our insecurities leap to the surface when we feel as if our feelings have not been considered, especially when someone acts like we don’t even exist. For people that need validation to prevent them from feeling worthless, a harmless oversight is akin to confirmation that their meaningless life has left no mark on the world.

But no one is free from responsibility for our collective experience. Those who feel worthless have simply failed to focus on the qualities they’ve brought to the table. Choosing destructive behavior to affirm our significance is often the result of minimizing the value of the little things we can do to foster positive change in the lives of those around us. Any great accomplishment was preceded by innumerable unremarkable events and forgettable interactions without which everything would be different.

My daughter, Grace, named after the U2 song, is an easy going kid. She pretty much goes with the flow and is down for whatever. Grace will go from dancing ballet to practicing judo from one moment to the next and can get down to The Beatles or Reggaeton just the same. Traditional gender roles aren’t something she grew up with and I started her watching women’s MMA when she was three so she could see that girls are just as tough as boys (if I’m being honest, they’re usually tougher.) I’m a very liberal dad and I don’t believe in bullshitting my kid. When she asked if Santa and the Easter Bunny are real, I told her it was up to her to decide. She concluded that they were the creations of well meaning parents.

Now, as I tie a bandana around her beautiful little face before taking the trip back to her mom’s house, she doesn’t even bat an eye. She’ll go right along watching her favorite cartoon while I dress us up like Bonnie and Clyde.

“It’s because of the germs, right daddy?”

Grace was born in 2015, a year when the world seemed to change dramatically again as the ugliness that a lot of people had been holding in was given permission to go forth and multiply. I was worried about bringing someone new into the madness. As I wonder if things will ever go back to “normal”, it’s easy to forget that normal was way different five years ago.

Society is strange. We want to grow and evolve, yet we fight our own expansion out of fear. Conserving what exists becomes more important than progressing to the next level of our development. Going back to a romanticized time long past becomes preferable to the unknown fortune of the future, despite the promise it may hold — but when you have no point of reference, you are only left with the now.

Grace’s adaptation to the new normal caught me by surprise. While I initially felt sad at the shitty world she inherited, that was soon replaced by admiration. She hasn’t complained about not seeing her friends, going to the playground or being able to have sleepovers with her cousin. Instead, she’s seemed happier than ever because we’ve been spending so much time together.

Granted, she’s only missing out on Pre-K and having a birthday in January means she’s more mature than the other kids in her class, so we don’t have any fears of her falling behind.. She’s also been in school since she was two years old, so this year wasn’t her first exposure to the socialization that structured education offers. Her mother and I have always shared complex concepts with her that most children her age are not introduced to. We both felt stifled and underestimated as children, and are always sure to give our daughter the credit she deserves.

As for conventional school work, teaching her how to read is about the toughest thing I’ve got to do with Grace. That’s been made way easier by a puzzle game her mom got her where she matches a piece displaying a written word to another piece with a picture on it. The rest of her curriculum is stuff we would normally do for fun: Art, Jiu Jitsu, Hide and Seek, reading stories, dancing, a board game — and lots of snacking. Five year olds never stop eating - or at least asking for food, taking a bite and then asking for something else. She actually proposed we play a game where I pretend to be a waiter at a restaurant bringing her unlimited dishes to sample. I couldn’t tell if she was just busting my balls.

Having a routine has made this much easier. Although I do mix up the day a bit, the general structure remains, with enough familiarity that Grace has been able to settle in and actually look forward to our time together more than before. Prior to quarantine, I only saw her for a couple of hours during the week and overnight on Saturdays. Now she’s with me every other day, all day and sleeps over once or twice a week. The virus has brought us closer together.

It also really feels like we’re here for each other - like we’re all we’ve got right now. The only people I’m seeing are my girlfriend, daughter and ex-wife during pickups and drop offs. Going through something like this with another person is bound to reinforce bonds, or rebuild them. It’s nice to be stuck with people that make you feel like you’ve got everything you need. Having the ancillary figures in your life filtered away to find the ones you hold dearest are worthy of your devotion is refreshing when you’ve questioned the authenticity of everyone you’ve come across. There’s a difference between thinking you can count on someone and knowing you can.

In these weird times, it’s been important to make sure Grace knows I’m something she can count on. Too much has changed all at once for her. Divorce already turned her world upside down. A half a decade in, she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in a country without war, constant surveillance, a mad king, a deadly plague, or having to take your shoes off when you get on a plane. To her, this is just what life is.

But it’s also the age of #metoo — a time when sexual predators are decried while a confessed pussy grabber holds the highest office in the land. The mixed messages mean it’s especially important for fathers of little girls to promote an empowering message to their daughters. Once a generation of young women has been raised with rock solid self esteem and the expectation of being treated with equal respect, violators will quickly be excoriated.

I’d like to think this entire system is just rebooting itself. The political process, our mental and physical health, communication, the way we treat each other and our very idea of who we are has been challenged, and it was probably well overdue. Grace’s generation will have to rebuild — pick up the pieces we’ve left smashed up into bits and reshape things the way they see fit. They’ll get to choose the world they live in because the ones before them fucked things up enough to forfeit their turn at being in charge.

For those innocent enough, the now instantly becomes normal. With no time spent lamenting past glory, they only relish in the current experience. Be it pleasure or pain, they experience it fully, embodying the emotion of the moment. Just as quickly, they forget. They let go of the experience and the feeling it brought — except in the case of trauma.

Making sure none of this scares them is up to us. The way we behave and the front we present will frame this reality for our children. Just as the coronavirus has challenged our fortitude, guiding our kids through this while ensuring that they maintain an optimistic and powerful self-image demands that we practice all we’ve preached. This is the time to espouse the virtues of faith and demonstrate to those whose futures are our responsibility that in the face of uncertainty, it is most critical that we believe.

Luckily, my job is easy - In the words of the great Paul David Hewson:

Because Grace makes beauty

Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty

In everything

With nearly everyone in the United States under stay at home orders, much of the nation is stir crazy. Big city folk who are used to being out every night and dining at their favorite pub three times a week are going downright nuts. People may always talk about wanting to slow down and just “do nothing,” but they sure are bad at it.

Stillness isn’t easy at first. Potential energy craves motion and idle minds can wander to dark places. Quieting your thoughts when you have a tough enough time sitting still is a tall order. Just like training yourself to perform an action, your body needs to be programmed to do nothing. I don’t mean lying on the couch and watching mindless television - I mean being without doing or consuming anything that distracts you from you

When beginners spar in martial arts, they move inefficiently. Unaware of when and how to expend minimal energy for maximum results, their undisciplined efforts inevitably lead to defeat. Nearly as important as the actions their skill allows them to perform are the pauses in between movements. These breaks are integral to reading one’s opponent and choosing a course of action. Frenetic movement will cause too much indiscriminate feedback to allow for clarity.

The patience to read pauses only comes with practice. The relaxed fighter can see these clues far easier than the tense or angry practitioner can. The answers to solving the puzzle of your opponent are in those silent moments you will miss if you insist on always talking — But before you can listen, you’ve gotta teach yourself to shut up.

Like the dog whisperer, you’ve gotta show your body who the pack leader is. Being manipulated by physical sensations is allowing your vehicle to drive you. When you take control of it, that machine will get you anywhere you want to go — but if you let it, it will fool you into believing the limits you’ve put on yourself. To paraphrase rapper NF, your feelings are liars. Often their goal is to suppress action that could lead to change, because change is risky. Letting your feelings run wild by living unconsciously means simply reacting to the events of your life rather than shaping them through your perception. Controlling your world begins with controlling your body.

A lot of people say they can’t meditate because their brain won’t shut off. But guess what, no one’s brain shuts off, unless they’re dead. There are always thoughts — The goal, if you can call it that, isn’t to shut those thoughts off. The objective is to allow the thought and observe it for the phantom that it is without judging its significance. Fighting off a thought once it’s in your mind is what it feels like for a white belt trying to get out from under a black belt — like drowning on dry land.

Here’s what the process of learning to sit still looked like for me in the last eighteen months. ADHD added to the challenge of meditation, particularly before I was on the appropriate medication, but through consistent practice, I was able to find a way to coexist with my thoughts while my body obeyed my commands. I began with five minutes and worked my way up to my current twenty. At the beginning, I felt like there was something wrong with me for failing to “not think.” Like so many other things, I had to make it through months of wondering why the hell I was torturing myself. Now, I eagerly go into my meditation, as if I’m checking out of everything I know in order to see things I haven’t yet realized. It took time to get there, but it has definitely been worth it.

Training Yourself To Sit

It starts with making the time. Start with five minutes, but decide that you will absolutely give yourself those five minutes every day, no matter what. You must stick to this first step, because it’s the promise you’ll keep to yourself that will give you the confidence to do the work when you may be tempted to skip a day. Gradually, you can add more time, but for now, this is a good start and should be tough enough to begin with. If you can’t find five minutes for yourself, you may need to reevaluate your priorities.

Know it’s gonna suck at first. Maybe for a long time. In Seth Godin’s book, “The Dip,” he discusses the critical period of grinding that happens after the initial enthusiasm of a new endeavor wears off. I had days that I would wake up in tears because I hated life and wanted to be dead but I sat and cried my way through a twenty minute meditation because I knew I had to. It ain’t always gonna be pretty, but you just need to get through it at first. Period.

You’re gonna want to move, fidget, scratch or anything else that will make your body feel as if its existence is being acknowledged. Let it wait. Teach it to sit still until you’re done. I always hated when I’d see a mother ignore a kid screeching, “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!!” — But in this case, your body is that needy kid and you’ve gotta teach it some manners.

Don’t see it as doing nothing. If you’re someone that likes to feel productive, sitting still can seem like a waste of time. Like any component of a wellness plan dedicated to optimizing health and performance, meditation can increase overall productivity. It gives you the ability to step outside of stale thought loops to find new answers to difficult problems. Stillness can also recharge your batteries, energizing your mind and body — like a pit stop for the human machine. You’ve gotta be your own coach when you’re alone and remind yourself that you’re doing it for a reason, so you can’t quit!

See it as another part of your workout. If you’re someone who takes care of their body, you hate missing workouts. Your meditation practice should be no different. It’s a part of your workout, and in many ways, the most important part. Lots of people skip breakfast nowadays because it’s no longer seen as “the most important meal of the day,” but meditation should now hold this distinction. These are the first thoughts you are feeding your mind when you awaken, and can help you set you up for an amazing, productive day. Morning meditation is taking control of your guidance system from the moment your machine powers up. If you don’t lead it where u want to go, you’ll end up where you never wanted to be.

4 REASONS TO EXERCISE WHEN YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT A BEACH BOD

On a recent trip to the gym, I overheard a trainer ask a new client what she liked most about her first workout.

“Not dying.”

She chuckled before adding, “I feel like I learned something about myself.”

Finding the motivation to workout isn’t easy for everybody. Generic goals like losing a few pounds or getting “in shape” will do little to get you off your ass if exercise has never been a part of your life. You’ve always known about the physical benefits, but that hasn’t spurred you on to get started. When you generally feel OK and are getting through your day just fine, you don’t really feel like you need to change. It’s kind of like the functional alcoholic that doesn’t think he has a problem because things haven’t fallen apart. He may be getting by, but he has no idea how much better his life would be if he got his shit together.

In thirty years of living a fitness lifestyle, the reasons I exercise have dramatically changed. As a kid, it was about getting out aggression, gaining confidence and building a protective shell. During my competition days, it became all about being as big and muscular as possible. Afterwards, it was more about looks and performance on the martial arts mat. As I approached my forties, exercise and diet became the foundation of making sure I felt and performed at my best in every part of my life.

There’s way more at stake than looks or even physical health when you’re talking about the importance of exercise. So, if a six pack and lower blood pressure aren’t enough to get you to the gym, here are four ways that working out will help you become the next best version of you.

1) Mental health

I started working out as a twelve year old to alleviate stress. As a kid who suffered from anxiety, depression and ADHD, I needed a physical outlet to let out the energy that made me feel like I’d explode otherwise. Lifting weights allowed me to change my physical state and gave me the alone time to process my thoughts.

Thirty to sixty minutes of exercise a day boosts mood and decreases feelings of loneliness. Endorphins are released that help you relax while feeling more pleasure and less pain. Production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, which make you feel happy, is increased. Essentially, not exercising is choosing not to release more feel good chemicals into your own body.

Aggression is frowned upon in polite society, but it’s great in the gym. Letting out the primal surge that exists in all of us in a controlled way will help ensure it doesn’t come out at inappropriate times, like while driving or at Thanksgiving dinner with your family.

2) Brain health

I’m not talking mental health here, I’m talking about the brain - the machine and how efficiently it's working to get you what you want and need. Through increased blood flow, cardiovascular exercise changes the brain's function, anatomy and physiology. It promotes the growth of new neurons and increases the volume of the hippocampus, a key part of the limbic system that plays a major role in memory and learning. The bottom line is, if you wanna be smarter and remember stuff, you should exercise.

I know what you’re thinking, “Where are all the ripped neuroscientists?”

Well, you can’t turn working out into the only thing you care about, unless that’s really all you care about. As long as you want to grow as a person and maintain your curiosity about the world, exercise will keep your knowledge furnace hungry for fuel.

Most importantly, the increased blood flow stimulated by aerobic training strengthens your brain, protecting it from degenerative disease. So, if you want to stay sharp for as long as possible, throw on your kicks and hit the treadmill. .

3) Feel Better

This sounds so simple, but you’d think most people just don’t care about feeling better. Compare how you perform after a day of pigging out to how it feels to get up after a day of eating healthy food. Rolling out of bed bloated and groggy because you stuffed your face with “comfort” food the night before isn’t exactly the best way to start your day. Junk food hangovers may not hit you over the head like an all night bender, but they’ll definitely slow you down and make you less enthusiastic about tackling your goals. Combine this with insufficient exercise and you’ll be half-assing your way through your life.

The effects of a poor diet and inadequate exercise is less noticeable when you’re younger and your metabolism is firing on all cylinders, but as you age and things slow down, you’ll notice the difference. While people often chalk up diminished performance to getting older, adjustments in diet and lifestyle will preserve the higher energy levels you remember from your youth. Our bodies are constantly changing and our habits need to change with them.

If certain foods don’t agree with you anymore, stop eating them. Your body is sending you the signal to make a change. If you choose not to listen, you’ve got no right to complain when you feel like shit.

4) Socializing

People that exercise like to be around other people that exercise. It’s much easier to stay on track when your surroundings are conducive to your lifestyle. Habits are contagious, whether good or bad. Seeing people close to you behaving a certain way justifies the same actions in you, so take mom and dad’s advice to heart and choose your friends wisely.

Gyms, yoga studios and martial arts academies are great places to meet like minded, goal oriented people. Talking during a workout should be limited, but the moments before and after are prime socializing time.

During my competitive bodybuilding days, my entire network of friends were people I’d met at the gym. Today, most of my closest buddies are martial artists. As a kid, my whole family ended up following me to the only health club in town that would let a thirteen year old join. Drag a friend to the gym to start the journey with you. Having someone go through the fire alongside you who can encourage you when things get tough always makes it easier.