Connection

Everybody wants chemistry with another. To feel connection. To sustain connection. To do so, with our mates, our kids and of course, ourselves, we need empathy. Yet the part of our brain that contains the major circuitry of empathy, is turned off by chronic stress. Our 24/7 stress-filled lifestyle shuts off the blood supply to the empathy part of our brain. We do more but feel less. We connect more poorly to others, as well as ourselves. Stress induced isolation. By shutting off the blood supply we shut off our deeper emotions of connection and caring. John Gray PhD

Are your relationships in a gray mush? Are you feeling flat? Check out your stress and your stress coping skills.

7 Steps to help turn your empathy brain back on:

  1. Exercise more.
  2. Spend at least 10 minutes outside under natural light.
  3. Eat more greens and take magnesium supplements.
  4. Remind yourself of what you have to be grateful for.
  5. Call up someone who cares about you and ask them why they do.
  6. Figure out the first step you would do to have more control over what feels out of control (stress comes from feeling out of control).
  7. Work with a medical nutritionist who can help shore up your glands related to stress and nutrition.