Good Morning!

Today’s a good day to start improving your lifespan and healthspan by listening to our episode on “A Healthy Bite” podcast. Check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Youtube (and watch our glee as we talk healthy habits).

Also, we’ve got a daily meditation session starting this Wednesday, August 11, hosted by Lynn, an Ayurvedic practitioner. They’ll happen every weekday morning at 8:15am EST (don’t worry, you can still attend the Core Collective after) and they’ll begin at just 5 minutes. Reply here to join.

– ⚡️Ashley

Duel of the Brains

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve heard us preach about systems, aka focus on the process, the plan, the how of your goal, not the goal itself. Today, I talk about systems once again. But this time, we’ll dive into systems 1 and 2 of our brain, a concept developed by psychologist, economist, and Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

According to the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Mr. Kahneman himself, our brains have two separate minds of their own:

System 1: Our primordial, emotional, and impulsive thought processes, aka Fast Thinking. I can usually blame/thank System 1 for the times I selfishly finish the last slice of pizza when no one’s looking, when I impulsively buy that extra lip chap in the Sephora line, or when I have a gut feeling I’m not alone in this alleyway.

System 2: Our logical, reasoning, and self-controlling side, aka Slow Thinking. I thank System 2 for the times I’ve chosen the summer salad over the fully loaded poutine, my college degree, and that one time I said ‘I’m sorry’ during an argument. Since System 2 is more recently evolved, it’s less developed and thus has a weaker voice. So if you didn’t already intuitively know this, it usually bows out before System 1 when we run out of fuel. Something else you also may have intuitively known, certain people tend to have more developed system 2’s than others.

These two thought processes have their differences but complement each other exceptionally. Like Thing 1 and Thing 2, Tom & Jerry, CJ and Casey.

Training System 2

In the book The Craving Mind by Judson Brewer PhD, he explains that in order to mitigate System 1’s faults and further develop System 2, we need to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness can come in many different forms, but he preaches mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness has the power to see our subjectivities objectively and release us from cravings.

This awareness is what mindfulness is all about: seeing clearly what happens when we get caught up in our own behavior and then becoming viscerally disenchanted.

How to meditate? You can learn from the best apps: Waking Up or Ten Percent Happier, and check out our full newsletter on it.

THS member: Sifiso from Toronto

Habit: 5 minutes of daily affirmation videos

How: Cut my daily workout routine by 5 minutes to accommodate for this. This past book club with The Habit Society showed me I’m too focused on my physical wellbeing.

We wanna see you step up onto the podium! Reply here to tell us what we can hold you accountable for.

Profile: Alicia Wood

Well-being expert and CEO of Camp Fuel

Tell us about yourself and what brought you into the wellness world.

I wasn’t the healthiest person, and I really needed to make some changes in my life. The first one was that I quit smoking. I didn’t know much about habits at the time and didn’t think to replace the habit with something healthy, so I accidentally took up eating sugary foods. I ended up gaining weight and feeling even more unhealthy, and then made the decision to release the weight. I started adopting healthier eating habits as well as going to the gym. I felt awesome! And wanted to help other people feel awesome too.

What are your daily non-negotiable habits? How do you hold yourself accountable for them?

My non-negotiable habits now are mainly mental habits. For instance, I used to be in the habit of saying things like “I hate exercise”, and then exercising would be hard because I believed I hated it. But just because we believe something, doesn’t mean it’s true. So, I’m in the habit of questioning my thoughts and beliefs. Asking myself, “Do I want to believe this?” And if the answer is no, I actively work to change the belief through journaling and visualization.

Was there a book/piece of content that changed everything for you?

Reading Jen Sincero’s book You Are A Badass completely changed the way I saw the world.

How do you get into peak state? How do you coach your clients to do so?

By doing things that make me feel good. Sometimes it’s shaking my arms around, doing jumping jacks, being in nature, or painting. Even listening to nature sounds as I lay on the couch. I always ask my clients to check in with themselves to see what brings them joy. (And if they don’t know, to try different things and pay attention to how it makes them feel.) And then, do what feels good more often.

Where can our readers learn more about you?

Follow along with me on Instagram at @alicia.rose.wood or listen to “The Fuel Your Fire Podcast with Alicia Wood“.

Check out our full interview here.