As the days get longer and finally warmer, my mood has felt lighter, too. I spoke on a panel a few weeks ago on the topic, “Happiness,” and ever since, I have been thinking about what happiness means to me.  As I sit and talk to my patients day after day asking about their mood, I have uncovered what I think is an epidemic that I call health anxiety.  This has led me to wonder how health affects mood and if you need to be 100% healthy, without any symptoms, in order to be happy?

The words health and happiness seem to go together.  However, given the fact that we are all destined to age and have health issues and eventually die, we need to find happiness even while we address health concerns.  So how can we do this?

The answer is to understand what happiness is about after we strip away the labels that we place on ourselves and our illness or challenges.   It takes a personal and very truthful look into how we individually define happiness to be able to answer the question, “What makes you happy?”

Here is what happiness means to me: I believe that we all have a purpose in life and it is up to us to figure that out. For each of us to find our own true north. I have found that as long as I am checking in with my deepest self and am living in alignment with what’s true and right for me, then I am happy.  I feel unsettled and unhappy when I lose myself and get so involved with other things that I veer off my path.  This also happens when I let my mind get too busy with worry and noisy thoughts so that I don’t pay attention to my own intuition. And then I rely on mind-body practices to bring myself back to center again.

I love meditation and guided imagery.  I also love to walk my dog outside in nature, quietly and off the phone.  These are called mindfulness practices.  As you learn to quiet your mind, you can hear your deeper voice that can guide you on the path toward happiness.  This can sound complicated, but it really isn’t! To help you learn these tools, Elizabeth and I have created a 1-Day Happiness Retreat we will co-lead on June 6.  We’ll practice these techniques together for a full day of learning, sharing, and fun! We can only include 14 people in our group that day, so register soon!

I believe diets make people very unhappy.   They don’t work long term because every one of us is different and requires an individual food plan. When you try and fit the mold of a restrictive diet, you live within the confines of your new program instead of exploring the freedom of foods that make you feel better.   All of our nutrition programs, whether through testing or food experiments, are designed to help you figure out what makes your body work well and feel well, which is a key step on the path to overall happiness.

Our 21-day elimination food plan is brilliant at helping your discover how food actually makes you feel.  Removing all allergenic foods for 21 days and then adding them back individually is a great way to experience this body-mood-food connection.  These food reactions can be very insidious at first, but with care and mindfulness you can discover, for example, that dairy can give you brain fog, or that eggs make you gain 2 pounds.  I have found that sugar can feed depression, and that for some people, taking it out of the diet is the best happiness cure there is!

Choosing the right foods for your body can tap your highest potential.  While I know that finding your true north food plan is a process, it is important to me when I work with you to bring you into your own power of healing – and happiness —  by finding the foods that work for your body and then staying the course.   Join me on May 11th for our 21-Day Group Detox and discover the foods that make you happy!

Start your day with a smoothie that will make you smile! This colorful and refreshing smoothie is a great way to add greens into your breakfast routine with a taste of the tropics.  Kale has detoxifying benefits for the liver and pineapple is loaded with digestive enzymes that are good for the stomach.  The coconut oil provides your body with healthy fats and a flavor that instantly transports you to a tropical island getaway.  A VitaMix-type blender is the best blender to achieve a smooth consistency. There’s happiness in every sip!

Sun breaths, a simplified version of sun salutations, are a heart-opening, uplifting, and peaceful series of movements that help to bring your physical body back into alignment.  If happiness in life is finding your own true north, then sun breaths in a yoga practice are like tapping on the stuck compass needle of your body. Perform this series in the morning to awaken and stretch the body or after the physical stresses of a long day.

Be sure to pair the movement with breath.  The movement between the four static postures is as important as the postures themselves!  Inhale as you rise, exhale as you lower.

• Start by raising your arms out and around to meet over your head, while gazing at your fingers and opening your chest (even adding a slight backbend if it’s comfortable).
• “Swan dive” forward over your legs, keeping your back flat, until you are folded at your waist. Reach your hands down towards your feet, keeping an easy bend in both knees and softness in your spine.
• Lift your head to a flat back posture, looking up with hands comfortably on the knees, and release again into the forward bend.
• Finally, lift up with arms outstretched, rising up to stand with your hands above your head.  Complete the sun breath with your hands in Namaste over your heart, your gaze soft towards the horizon.

Move through the series four times, honoring your internal compass, the teacher within you. Face north, and meditate on what it is that is your own true north.  Face east and feel the potential of each new day.  Face south and accept the warmth of the growing Spring sun.  Face west with gratitude for the passage of time and your place in the universe.