Q&A: Should I use a posture corrector or posture brace?

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Overworked woman with back pain in office sitting on chair with bad posture

Q: My posture at work is terrible. Should I use a posture corrector or posture brace?

A: Back pain is now the second most common reason North Americans visit the doctor (after the common cold). With an estimated 80% of North Americans sitting for their work and averaging more than 11 hours per day seated, it’s no wonder that posture-related health issues are going through the roof. Humans have never been so stationary in our entire existence! But no matter how much our parents have nagged us to “sit up straight”, our bodies weren’t designed to sit, they were designed to move.

Almost all previous work involved moving constantly—bending, lifting, standing, and walking—so posture-related pain in the workplace is a relatively new thing. When our spine is chronically out of its natural alignment, the muscles that support our spine become imbalanced. Some muscles atrophy while others are in constant strain. The result is pain, lack of energy, muscle exhaustion, headaches, bad mood, osteoporosis, lack of balance, and even compromised immune function.

Recently there have been a plethora of products invented to remind us to get up and move, alert us to stretch and straighten, or brace us into a ‘neutral spine’. While these devices can give us a glimpse of correct posture, they do not fix the underlying issues—they are like bandaids, and should only be used temporarily.

6 actions that you should try to habituate to make your good posture permanent:

  • Learn what neutral spine is (get a C.H.E.K postural alignment assessment)
  • Lengthen some of our chronically tight muscles (sign up for weekly gentle Hatha Yoga class)
  • Strengthen our core and stabilizing muscles (sign up for a weekly pilates class and strengthen your back and neck muscles, not just the chest)
  • Move (functional fitness and HIIT classes), and remind yourself to stand and walk whenever you are on a phone call
  • Ergonomically adjust our workspace (standing desks, elevated computer screens, forearm supported keyboard)
  • Build your mindfulness practice to constantly scan and readjust our body posture until it becomes habituated

Once you implement the above, you will notice your back and neck pain subsiding substantially. If you’d like to read more about the dangers of sitting, read our article, Why Sitting Is Bad For You and 5 Ways To Fix It.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Q&A: My Body Feels Toxic—What Should I Do?

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closeup of a label-shaped chalkboard with the text time to detox written in it, placed on the branch of a pine tree

Q: My body feels toxic—What should I do?

A: The topic of detoxification is old and new, detailed, and confusing. All modalities of detoxification are essentially supporting the eliminatory systems of the body to release unwanted substances that are taxing the body’s health and energy. Our body naturally filters chemicals and bio-toxins via the kidneys, liver, and lymphatic system. We also expel particles of waste with our breath, urine, feces, and sweat. In the modern world, we are ingesting, inhaling, and absorbing toxic chemical compounds from the food industry, our urban atmosphere, cosmetics, and cleaning products. Our filtering organs are taxed.

Here are 7 simple lifestyle tips to help your body detox naturally

1. Drink Water

Drink a minimum of 10, 8 oz. glasses of filtered plain water to help your kidneys flush water-soluble toxins.

2. Fiber-Rich Diet

Aim to get 2-3 bowel movements a day with a fiber-rich diet so that the fat-soluble toxins that the liver filters and releases into the intestines don’t get reabsorbed.

3. Breathe Deep in Nature

Go for a fitness hike or walk in a clean natural environment whenever you can to expel unwanted waste via your lungs.

4. Sweat

Enjoy a relaxing sauna or steam once a week to purge toxins through your sweat glands.

5. Natural Chelators

Include natural “chelators” into your diet like cilantro, garlic, spirulina, chlorella, or miso. Chelators bind to heavy metals and pull them out through the digestive system in a process called chelation.

6. Get a Massage or Foam Roller

Relax with a full body massage that includes lymphatic drainage to support bio-toxin removal. Stretching and foam rolling can also assist lymphatic circulation.

7. Break and Cleanse

Schedule a simple 24-hour water or juice fast once or twice a year to give the eliminatory organs a break.

Introduce some or all of these practices to help avoid the negative effects of hormonal disruption, cancer cell stimulation, and organ duress from the accumulation of excess minerals, heavy metals, plastics, and petroleum chemicals. We hope these tips help you feel cleaner, inside and out.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

If You Own A Smartphone, You Need A Mental Health Retreat ASAP

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a woman Relaxing, sitting overlooking a lake and mountains

Mental health is a trending topic and for good reason. 1 in every 13 humans worldwide suffers from anxiety, a rate that is even higher in the US (1 in every 5 people). Depression rates have increased 18.4% between 2005 and 2015. Somewhere in the world, a person dies by suicide every 40 seconds. Studies show that for every death by suicide, there are approximately 20 other attempts. 

Seeing a therapist has become as common as going to the dentist, and a study by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America found that around 40 million adults in the United States admit to having anxiety. For perspective, that’s basically everyone living in California, or more than the entire population of Canada. These figures don’t even include those who don’t realize they are suffering from depression, stress, or anxiety, meaning the percentage is actually higher. 

It’s a scary time for mental health. But finally, society is opening a dialogue about why everyone feels as if they are falling apart, and what can be done to help. Mental health is losing its taboo-ness.

Smartphone Use Leads To Pessimism

Let’s get to the bottom of what’s tampering with our wellbeing. What has led us to our current mental health situation? Why are depression and anxiety increasing? There is certainly a lot of depressing news about the coronavirus, toxic air, deforestation, global warming, garbage-filled oceans, hunger, racism, sexism, bigotry, and the list drags on. But that’s not what’s causing our depression. Genocide, natural disasters, and epidemics have always occurred. The difference today is our awareness. Thanks to our smartphones, we are constantly connected. And while having easy access to information 24/7 has its perks, it comes with seriously consequential downsides.

Hearing about all the bad things happening worldwide every time you open your phone creates a “sky is falling” mentality. You start to focus on disheartening events, and the weight of the world’s problems weighs on your mind ‘round the clock. The result isn’t just that you trend pessimistic, it’s that pessimism compromises your stress-management capabilities.

First, pessimists naturally dwell on stressful or negative events longer than optimists. This means your stress hormone—cortisol—levels are elevated for longer. Over-exposure to cortisol has been linked to anxiety, depression, metabolic issues, heart disease, poor sleep, and weight gain, as well as memory and concentration impairment.

Second, optimistic people have been proven to be more active, eat more healthfully, and they don’t typically turn to excessive alcohol or drug use to get their kicks.

This doesn’t mean you should be like an ostrich, burying your head in the sand, believing unseen danger is no danger at all; rather, it’s important to learn healthy ways to cope with life’s stressors.

The positive thinking that usually comes with optimism is a key part of effective stress management.Mayo Clinic

Social Media Increases Our Anxiety

Beyond the exhausting stream of negative news, social media is proving to be a menacing opponent to our mental health. It’s the perfect landscape for our insecurities and self-criticism to proliferate. Whenever we log into social media we see “perfect” people who make us doubt our self-worth. I need to be as skinny, or as muscular; I should make more money; I need to find a way to afford expensive, trendy clothes; my job isn’t good enough; I’m not as adventurous; I ought to travel more; I must experience more; I need to be more.

Incessantly comparing ourselves to a seemingly fabricated reality quickly takes a toll on our wellbeing. We spend more time worrying about what we are not, rather than becoming who we should be, and our anxiety spikes.

The depressing news we receive daily combined with our need to succeed and the constant comparison game we play on social media is a recipe for anxiety. Phones keep us always “on,” prohibiting us from truly breaking away as we constantly search for the instant gratification technology brings, instead of slowing down and relaxing. We are attached to technology instead of to ourselves and our surroundings, and that allows physical and mental toxicity to thrive.

We Need To Regain Balance In Our Mental Health

So what about today’s environment makes it so toxic? In short, we’re out of balance. Everyone is hyper-focused on career and personal success. We’ve stopped treating our mind, body, and spirit respectfully. 

Popular belief these days is that you have to be the hardest worker, dedicating every spare moment to your work in order to be successful. Taking the time to eat a wholesome meal or get a full night’s sleep somehow equates to not working hard enough. Pushing your body to breaking point has become like a badge of honor. Just read interviews with high-profile business people or celebrities. Chances are they’ll boast about their long work hours, lack of time to eat or sleep, and how they prioritize their career and image above all else.

But failing to give yourself time to rest and recharge isn’t something to brag about, because really you’re functioning at a small percentage of your full potential. Crazy as this may sound, by allowing yourself to properly sleep and eat healthfully, you’ll be able to get more done. How? It all comes down to having more energy and being more alert. And that’s not all, once you stop comparing yourself to other people, you’ll be able to focus on reconnecting with yourself instead.

Forget “Likes”. Be Real.

Do you remember what it was like before social media and smartphones? Back then, mornings started out by getting ready for your day. Nowadays, the first thing most of us do when the alarm sounds is to check our phone and tap into social media. Essentially, we’re comparing ourselves to others–and consequently feeling inadequate–before we even have a chance to put our slippers on. 

Instagram’s test in removing “likes” is a step in the right direction. In a recent press conference, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri stated, “The idea is to try and depressurize Instagram, to make it less of a competition, and give people more space to focus on connecting with the people they love and the things that inspire them.”

The hope is that removing “likes” will help users stop comparing themselves to others, thus removing the stress of being “good enough” or as liked as everyone else. This comparison game is causing many people to feel as if their anxiety is spinning out of control, but few people actually stop long enough to address the cause of the decline in their mental health and wellbeing.

Put Down The Phone

The good news is it’s not hopeless. Just because the odds seem stacked against us doesn’t mean we are helpless. We can do many things on our own to help break the trance of our phones (read our recent article on how to do a digital detox). For instance:

  • Immerse in nature (aka “Forest bathing”). Even just spending 20 minutes a day in nature has been proven to help lower stress and anxiety, decrease blood pressure, lower your heart rate, and decrease your chances of developing a psychiatric disorder.
  • Read a novel. Find a comfy chair and put your phone on silent. You might find you can go more than two paragraphs without getting distracted when it’s just you and a good story.
  • Learn a new hobby. The practice of learning something new is extremely beneficial for our brain health.
  • Take a bath. Alone, without your phone. Light candles and watch them dance instead.
  • Exercise
  • Do yoga
  • Eat healthful foods. Pay attention to the flavors as they hit different parts of your tongue.
  • Connect with other humans
  • Volunteer
  • Pet an animal
  • Take a vacation
  • Visit a spa
  • Meditate. The use of meditation apps in adults in the US has increased from 4.1% in 2012 to 14.2% in 2018. Are you part of that statistic?

…this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don’t Do It Alone. Try A Health Retreat.

If you are feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, or perhaps don’t have the time or energy to get things back on track yourself, check out a wellness retreat that incorporates mental health practices.

Mental health retreats are a great place to start—you’ll be surrounded by people who are in the same boat as you and having support from a team of professionals will ensure you stay on track.

Health retreats will actually help you break toxic habits and provide you with long term solutions for living a balanced life, but in case you are thinking they just aren’t for you, I’m here to tell you they are. Why? Because they aren’t one-size-fits-all.

There are many different types of mental health retreats available to suit various needs and interests. Some retreats focus on eastern healing practices, like yoga and meditation, while others focus purely on self-care (think spa: mud baths, steam rooms, massage, etc.). Some are open to everyone while others are gender-specific. Others are centered around particular activities, such as farming, clean-eating, creativity, or hiking. Many retreats emphasize connecting with nature, but for all the indoors-personalities, others don’t. 

And while the word “retreat” might make it sound like something only possible for wealthy people with unlimited days off from work, there are actually retreats available at any budget, for any length of time, and for any lifestyle choice. Finding a place to unplug and reset is more attainable than it seems.

Mental Health Retreats Are About More Than Just Relaxing

While visiting any mental health or wellness retreat will do wonders for your wellbeing, starting off with one that combines many aspects of your health might be the best choice. Such retreats, like Mountain Trek, are holistic health retreats that focus on five areas of health in harmony: fitness, nutrition, stress management, sleep, and detoxification. Combining these five areas has a profound effect on your health and wellbeing, laying the groundwork to reduce social anxiety, decrease depression, and relieve stress in your life back at home.

Instead of focusing on just one area of your life, these types of holistic health retreats address each of these key areas in equal turn. After all, each one plays a role in our wellbeing and are all equally affected by the toxicity of modern society. 

For example, fixing your diet is a great place to start and will make you feel better, but if your stress levels are still sky-high your life will still feel toxic and unbalanced. This is why a wellness retreat like Mountain Trek is an ideal choice to get you started on your journey to a detoxified life. Every detail of your stay there is planned and prepared for you–all you have to do is focus on being present in the moment. It takes the guesswork out of trying to learn how to detox on your own.

A visit to a mental health retreat is about more than just relaxing–it’s about changing your life and giving you the tools you need so you can continue to reap the benefits long after you’ve returned home.

Prevent Burnout. Invest In Longevity.

You can only push yourself so hard before burning out. Between the go go go attitude of modern society, the negativity surrounding us worldwide, and the constant need to compare ourselves to each other, it’s no wonder our mental health is in a state of decline.

Our way of life isn’t sustainable; we need to reset our bodies and minds, beginning with purging toxic thoughts and habits. Taking time for yourself shouldn’t be viewed as a treat, but rather as a necessity. We need to take care of our bodies and souls if we want to be able to function at our best without breaking down. We only get one body, after all. Show yourself some respect and tackle the issue before it gets worse!

Visiting a mental health retreat will teach you the skills you need in order to reset and recharge by helping you cultivate valuable practices you can continue back at home. It’ll jumpstart the process and be the catalyst for changing your life and living a healthier lifestyle, both mentally and physically. There’s never been a better time than now to unplug and reconnect!

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

 

Accomplish your goals with “20 for 20”

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When was the last time you read 20 pages without getting distracted? Or listened to your favorite music album for 20 minutes without feeling the need to do something else at the same time? When was the last time you went 20 days without having a glass of wine after work to help you unwind? Or had 20 seconds without a thought racing through your mind?

2020 is not just a new year, it’s a new decade. The perfect time to take a step back, refocus, and reset. But that doesn’t mean we will magically accomplish all of our goals. In fact, 92% of all goals fail. So no matter how clean a reset this decade is, we still need a lot of help accomplishing our goals. This year, we’ve come up with a framework to help you do just that:

“20 for 20”

Simply put, whatever goal you set this year, make it 20 something—seconds, reps, days, you get the gist. This framework is easy to remember, makes a lot of sense, and lets you get creative—a potent combination for success.

20 for 20 is memorable

Who can’t remember 20 for 20? How about 20/20 vision? How about the fact that this year is “20”-”20”? Definitely helps. So right off the bat, this framework is more likely to lead to success, simply because it’s memorable. That’s massive when it comes to succeeding as your goal will be front of mind more of the time. This will result in more awareness and therefore a greater chance for action. With enough practice, we will eventually have success.

20 for 20 is fundamentally sound

We’ve studied goal setting exhaustively over the last two decades and have learned a thing or two. First, preparation is just as important as execution. Setting the right goal is vital. Otherwise, you’re just like Sisyphus, fighting an uphill battle the entire time. One strategy we’ve seen work year after year at our award-winning health retreat is following the acronym SMART. Set your goal so it is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time anchored. The 20-for-20 framework works really well with SMART goals. 

For example, a broad goal like “practice being in the present.” Applying the 20-for-20 formula would look something like: “20 seconds of focusing on my breath.” While applying the SMART framework would improve the goal. Make your goal more specific by indicating focusing on your breathing. Measurable is the 20 seconds—we could use a watch or a phone timer. 20 seconds is so short it’s certainly attainable. Doing it every single morning? Perhaps that’s not realistic, so we should adjust a bit. Following the 20-for-20 framework, resolving to spend 20 seconds in the morning just 20 days per month might be more realistic. And to make this goal time-anchored, we need a deadline. Perhaps we start with a month. A SMART 20-for-20 goal would be resolving to “take 20 seconds each morning before waking to focus on my breath, 20 days of the next month”.

Another thing we’ve realized is that there are 5 main reasons our goals fail

  1. We have too many goals
  2. Goals are set too big (learn why micro resolutions are more effective than large goals)
  3. Our goals aren’t concrete
  4. Our goals don’t fit into our routine
  5. We don’t share our goals

Setting a SMART goal covers items two, three, and four. Making a goal attainable and realistic usually means setting a smaller goal that fits into our routine. Making your goal specific and time-anchored makes it concrete. But what about setting too many goals and not sharing them? Setting too many is easy to fix: just set one goal at a time. But what about sharing our goals? Sometimes it’s daunting to think about sharing our goals with a friend. But a small action like sharing our goal with a friend, and giving them a weekly one-sentence update, can dramatically improve our chances of success. In fact, this exact action has proven to increase the odds of success 10x! We think this small step is so powerful we’ve built a tool to facilitate it. Use our goal tracker to share your SMART goal with the Mountain Trek team and then receive a weekly email touching base and asking for your update. Simple, yet incredibly powerful.

Unleash Your Creativity with 20 for 20

The wonderful thing about 20 for 20 is that it’s just begging for creativity and personalization. The breadth of possible goals that fall under this framework allows us to customize our efforts to our personal preferences—a final, and vital component of success. Making your goal relevant to you will significantly increase your interest in following through. For example, if you’re a big tennis player, setting a 20 for 20 goal that will improve your game will be more appealing than a goal that is unrelated to your interests. You’ll be more motivated to do the work, and you will show up more of the time. You’ll dig a little deeper and work a little harder when things are tough because it matters to you. A 20-for-20 goal can and should break traditional molds. The usual resolutions of “lose weight,” “eat healthier,” “exercise more,” or “manage finances better” are so broad and boring—it’s no wonder that 92% of our resolutions fail each year. Make 2020 about getting creative.

20 for 20 Goal Ideas:

20 seconds

Take 20 seconds first thing each morning and just watch your breath. Follow it in and out, in and out, immediately upon waking. You might find that you spend longer than 20 seconds here because it’s such a nice, peaceful moment. But set your goal to do 20 seconds—that’s all it takes. 

Bonus: find 20-second moments throughout your day where you can pause, and just focus on your breath. Transition moments throughout your day are wonderful opportunities, such as getting up from your desk to go to the bathroom, getting in the car, or getting off of a phone call.

20 minutes

Give something your undivided attention for 20 minutes each day. Two great ideas are music and reading. Listen to your favorite album for 20 minutes without looking at phone notifications or checking something off of your to-do list. Turn the volume up and really sink into the music, letting go of all of the other things you need to do once you’re done. Or find a comfy chair and just read for 20 minutes. Go into it with the same intention, to unplug from the world around you.

20 days

Build a habit by doing something 20 days out of one month. We don’t have to do an action every single day to make it a habit, but we do need to create momentum in that direction. Doing something, such as waking up and immediately spending 20 seconds on your breath, 20 days out of the month, is a great step in creating a habit. It’s not shooting for perfection by doing it every day, so we have some room for error, which is inevitable and important to embrace when building a new habit. Accepting failure prevents us from catastrophically derailing the moment there’s one tiny bump in the road. Embracing failure makes us more resilient. 

Tip: put a physical calendar on your wall and put a big checkmark over the days you successfully worked on your goal. Having this physical reminder of our progress will help momentum. Also, use the calendar to plan ahead. Look for days there’s little chance you’ll be able to work towards your goal and acknowledge them. Preplanning “off” days will remove guilt and reduce your stress.

Now is your chance to reset, not just on the year, but on the entire decade. Start 2020 off on the right foot; give 20 for 20 a go!

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

9 Ways To Digital Detox

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I’ve recently become a parent, and because of that, I feel justified in employing scare tactics to warn you of the dangers out there in the world. I’m not talking about the man in the van who looks like a clown. I’m talking about something that Albert Einstein saw coming 70 years ago when he said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction, the world will have a generation of idiots.” 

HP, the company that promises, “With our technology, you’ll reinvent your world,” just surveyed over 7,500 people in North America to learn about our relationship with technology, specifically our smartphone screens. 

What HP found in a recent study:

63% think our digital lives and real lives are out of balance.

50% of couples have used their phones to ignore each other.

65% think it’s ok to check their phone during dinner.

58% think it’s ok to check their phone on a date.

40% admit they use their phones in public to avoid talking to others.

63% believe relationships were closer in the past, and the same percentage believe relationships were more meaningful before social media.

60% wish they could return to a time before social media.

91% would rather have 1 real friend than 100 online friends.

I could shake these stats off and pretend they don’t apply to me. But HP also found that parenting has gone digital and that 1 in 3 parents spend over 5 hours daily on their phone. A stat that requires just too many exclamation points to bother entering them.

Digital Use is Leading To Addiction, Depression, Suicide

I’m worried that if the day Einstein feared isn’t already here, it’s fast approaching. Selfies are up, relationships are down. Every day it seems like there is more connection, but less connecting. Engaging with the *actual* world is becoming overwhelmingly intimidating. And while this certainly might lead to a generation of idiots, we’re now realizing that the staggering amount of time we spend staring at a screen is also leading to a generation of anxious, depressed, and lonely souls. Einstein had no idea the extent of what this technology dependence would do to our psyche. How could he? Who could have predicted that global depression rates would increase 18.4% between 2005 and 2015 and suicide rates in the US would rise 24% between 1999 and 2014? And that governments would have to step in and impose curfews on gaming for minors to prevent addiction?

Our digital habits aren’t just wreaking psychological havoc – they’re physically harmful too. Sitting 10+ hours a day in front of screens leads to chronic inflammation, which has been proven to be the cause of many serious ailments and diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Cell phones distract drivers from red lights, stop signs, children running across the road, and ultimately cause 1.6 million car accidents in the US every year. That’s one every 20 seconds. By the time you get to the end of this paragraph, there’s a chance someone just died texting and driving. That’s not okay.

If Einstein were to see the amount of time we spend glued to our screens would he really be that shocked? Or would he just say we are all now those “idiots” he theorized we’d become? By scrolling through an endless stream of emails and social feeds, inevitably comparing our lives to the highlights of everyone else’s, obviously deteriorates us physically and spikes our social anxiety. As a new mother, I feel it’s my duty to try and change our current course so that my daughter does not fulfill Einstein’s prophecy.

Be aware of your current usage

Just like a dietary detox, the first step in digitally detoxing is awareness. For instance, if you want to lose weight you have to look at what you’re putting into your body. Garbage in = garbage out. The same goes for your relationship with your devices. 

Look at how you’re interacting with your devices by building a digital diet sheet. Record how much, how often, and when you’re on your phone, laptop, game console, or TV. Seeing those numbers will do half the detoxing work.

Tip: start with your smartphone and enable Screen Time on iOS and Digital Wellbeing on Android. These two stock features will give you a snapshot of how you currently use your smartphone. I personally like the stat about how many notifications you get each day. Each notification breaks your concentration on what you were doing, be it driving, chatting with a colleague, or playing with your child.

Most spend upwards of hours on social media weekly, let alone daily. Larry Rosen, psychology professor and author of The Distracted Mind, says “most people check their phones every 15 minutes or less, even if they have no alerts or notifications.” Don’t judge yourself. Don’t judge your numbers. Simply be aware.

Technology isn’t to be demonized by any means. It helped put a man on the moon and sequence the entire human genome. But the way it’s used today tends to keep people inside a bubble. Instead of simply inspiring or enabling us, it’s creating anxiety and tension. It needs to be rebalanced. Here are nine ways you can reprogram your relationship with technology.

Nine Ways To Digitally Detox:

 

Build “No Phone Zones” in your home

This could be the kitchen or the bedroom, places primed for human interaction and bond-building. Place baskets at the perimeters of these zones so you can physically leave your phone behind.

Set “No Technology Times” in your home

If you’re a culprit of looking at your phone before falling asleep or before your feet even touch the floor in the morning, leave it in the hallway when you go to sleep. Mountain Trek suggests stopping device-time at least one hour before bedtime to reduce blue light consumption, which is similar to the wavelength emitted by the sun and triggers our “rise and shine” cortisol stress hormone.

Let your friends and family know you’re taking a break from your phone

This way, you won’t feel anxious about people contacting you.

Turn off notifications

Notifications are the digital version of that person always bothering you. Mostly, they actually fuel potential symptoms of addiction by causing your heart rate to increase. Notifications let your phone control you, as opposed to how it should be, the other way around.

Turn on grayscale

By making your phone less desirable to look at, you’ll be less tempted to tap around on it. Here are tutorials for iOS and Android

Take distracting apps off your home screen

This way, you’ll have to intentionally seek out an app to use it, and, in doing so, you’ll cut down on the “accidental” time-sucks that happen when you mindlessly hold your phone.

Put a learning app like Duolingo or Elevate next to your social media apps, increasing your chance of skipping out on an hour-long social media binge. Learning is one of the best ways to satiate our mental needs.

Play phone Jenga

When you go to a dinner party, or at least host your own, encourage the guests to stack their phones. This way, everyone will be less inclined to look at them; you don’t want to be the one who removes your device and makes the whole stack tumble down.

Set out parameters

Don’t go all or nothing, because when you starve yourself of anything, your mind wants to go to the other extreme. Instead of deleting all your apps at the same time, try deleting Facebook first, then Instagram, and the list goes on. One habit for one day, then one week, then one month. The idea is to make your change a big priority and a small step.

The most delicious things in the world don’t taste so great after a few too many bites, and the same goes for digital consumption. But it’s hard to shake ourselves out of a stupor. It’s hard to “awake” once our brains have been habituated to scrolling on devices and apps literally engineered for addiction. Breaking the trance will be hard, but you don’t have to go at it alone. In fact, we suggest getting a friend or family member bought in on the idea as well. 

For a full digital detox, come visit us in the lush mountains of British Columbia for a week of unplugging and resetting, physically, emotionally, and digitally! 

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

5 Reasons You Need to Start Hiking Right Now

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female hiker standing in front of waterfall

We’re meant to be outside. The terrible thing is, most of us spend over 2,000 hours at our desks yearly. That’s like watching The Titanic 616 times in a row. The stress, the long hours, the sedentary nature of our chair-bound lives—it’s all sucking the life out of us.

This year, take it outside. More specifically, go hiking. Immerse in nature. Forest bathe. Time spent hiking doesn’t just burn calories, it helps cell health, lowers stress levels, balances hormones, improves immunity, and deepens sleep. How? It all boils down to ditching your devices and immersing in nature.

Heal Your Cells

By simply trading your iPhone, iPad, iPod, i-you-name-it for a walk amongst the trees, you’ll immediately notice a sort of cellular exfoliation. You’ll feel alive. Truly alive. This is because, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, in nature, you’re exposed to terpenes, a naturally-occurring hydrocarbon in plants and animals that are neuro-protective, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumorigenic. Don’t ask us exactly how they work—all we know is they do the body good.

Lower Pulse Rate

That’s just the beginning. According to the School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, forest bathing, by which they mean spending at least two hours in nature, is a meaningful way to significantly lower pulse rate, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Calm Your Mind

The School of Forestry and Resource Conservation’s study also found short bouts in nature to be “an effective psychological relaxation strategy.” Turns out the forest engages all of your senses—your mind stills, and you reconnect to your soul.

Lose Weight, Sleep Better & Reduce Stress

Going on a three to four hour hike can burn serious calories—over 1,500 if you really get after it. Beyond the obvious benefit of burning fat and losing weight, this type of medium-intensity, extended-duration exercise does two things. First, it elongates our deep-sleep stage, which is the most restorative stage of sleep that sees the release of growth hormones. Second, it reduces our levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is directly linked with memory loss, poor immune function, decreased bone density, increased weight gain, cholesterol, blood pressure, heart disease, and the list goes on. It’s a no-brainer that cortisol wreaks havoc.

OK, you caught us—that’s six reasons, but hey, what’s wrong with being healthier?

This is why we say now is the time to boot up—the benefits are too compelling not to. John Muir, the “Father of the National Parks,” once said, “In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” No matter what you’re seeking right now, make sure you look outside first.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning hiking-based health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

How To Accomplish Your New Year’s Resolutions

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How doing less will help you achieve more

Ringing in the New Year is supposed to be exciting. The thing is, it’s often far from it. We’re hyped up on sugar while we enjoy the night’s festivities, but when we crash, we’re reminded how our New Year’s resolutions don’t last more than a few weeks. By which I mean a maximum of two of the 52 weeks we were supposed to uphold them. We’re reminded we don’t have the willpower. We don’t have the discipline. We’re “failures”.

Just writing these words bums us out; because in reality, we’re not powerless. We’re not negligent. We’re not a failure. 

If anything, we’re simply overachieving. In turn, we’re setting ourselves up for not accomplishing our goals. We’ve looked at this problem long and hard (Learn the top 5 pitfalls of typical Resolutions). Let us introduce you to what will forever change not just your sentiment around the New Year, but your life: micro-resolutions. 

Micro-Resolutions are the Solution

Micro-resolutions are simple, concrete actions that compound over time to achieve a goal. Tiny behavioral changes you can form into daily habits. These are the key to making lasting changes.  Micro-resolutions, even though they seem less impactful, are twice as likely to succeed as typical goals. These small wins will add up over time to be something far greater than any goal you have set in the past.

With that, this year try being less ambitious, and about making intentions so do-able they seem trivial. Because if it’s drastic, it’ll feel too foreign, and you won’t bake it into your routine. Choose a micro-resolution that can build upon an existing behavior; something specific and personal.

The less abstract your goal, the easier it will be to enforce because you won’t be quite so resistant.

Here’s an example. Last year, I made the lofty New Year’s resolution to cut out all refined sugar, primarily because I thought it would bring my hormone levels into harmony. At first, the arbitrary line I drew was no desserts, cookies, doughnuts, chocolate, candy, waffles, ice cream, and brownies. No sweetened yogurts, cakes, milkshakes, you name it, either. I was going cold turkey.

Not even one week later (yes, you have permission to laugh), I was tricking myself into chocolatey granola bars—they’re healthful and fibrous and good for the heart, no?—and jam-topped toast, because jam’s practically a fruit, right? My goal—no sugar, at all, ever—was too ambitious. It caused me to crumble, and quick.

This year, I’m tackling the same sugar-free resolution, but with a micro-resolution mindset. Instead of saying none, ever, my micro-resolution is: enjoy two desserts per week. Seems doable, right?  This means I can still enjoy a vanilla yogurt every now and then, and I won’t feel so painfully deprived. By moderating my sugar intake instead of ending it, hard and fast, I’ll be able to more easily achieve my ultimate goal of hormonal balance. Win, win.

How to turn over-ambitious resolutions into manageable micro-resolutions:  

RESOLUTION MICRO-RESOLUTION
To eat healthier To cook one new healthy recipes per week
To sit for only four hours daily To stand at my standing desk every morning while I read my emails
To never use my electronic devices around my children To leave my phone at the front door when I get home Monday through Friday
To lose 20lbs To eat breakfast three times weekly
To exercise every day To go for an energizing hike, at least 60 minutes, four times monthly
To give up alcohol To only drink on the weekends, Friday included, after 5pm
To sleep more To get to bed at 10 pm on Tuesday of every week

As the author John Bytheway says, “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life’s hard.” Although setting concrete, actionable micro-resolutions will seem small and easy at first, over time they will compound into dramatic, mile-sized changes.  

We also discovered that actually writing down your micro-resolutions, instead of keeping your goals to yourself, dramatically improves your chances of success. This happens because once anyone else knows about your goal, it becomes more real than ever. You are no longer accountable to just yourself, but everyone who knows what you are trying to accomplish. To help you accomplish your goals this year, we’ve created the Mountain Trek Goal Tracker, a simple accountability tool that will make you ten times more likely to succeed!

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Micro Resolution Tracker

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Micro-Resolution Tracker

Welcome to the Mountain Trek Micro-Resolution tracker!

Micro-resolutions are simple, concrete actions that compound over time to achieve a goal. Simply setting micro-resolutions makes you twice as likely to succeed compared to typical goal setting (learn more about that here). However, going one step further and actually writing down your micro-resolutions—vs leaving them in your head—makes you 3x as likely to accomplish your goals!

So list your micro-resolution(s) below to give yourself the best shot of success this year:

5 Reasons Your New Year’s Resolutions Fail

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Avoid These 5 Resolution Pitfalls

Sorry to break it to you, but New Year’s resolutions don’t work. In fact, 92% of them fail. Don’t believe us? Think back to any of the ones you’ve made. Perhaps you vowed to read more, and ended up reading more of your eyelids. And maybe you said you’d eat more healthfully, and then found yourself with a salad, topped with bacon, too much cheddar, and a mountain of croutons. We know because we’re in the same boat.

Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” By Einstein’s standards, we should all put on a straight-jacket before making this year’s resolutions. It’s time we break the cycle.

First, we must study our enemy. Why do our resolutions fail? What is so fundamentally flawed with setting goals on January 1st? Only once we have these answers can we give ourselves a fighting chance of success. 

5 reasons your resolutions fail, and how to dramatically improve your chances of success

You have too many resolutions.

Sure, we’d all like to start the year with the hope of reading a book every month, going to the gym every day, walking to work, eating salads 90% of the time, and sleeping 12 hours nightly. Pick one goal, find a small way you can bake that goal into your daily life. For example, if your goal is to read more, set the intention to read for 30 minutes three times per week. Before you know it, those three times will feel so natural you’ll be able to add a fourth and fifth reading session, no sweat.

Your resolutions are too big.

Saying you will drop four dress sizes in four months is all fun and games until you find yourself in the same pair of pants at Thanksgiving. Keep it real by setting your goal to not eat desserts, including doughnuts, pancakes, and muffins at least four times per week.

Your resolutions aren’t concrete.

Arbitrarily saying you’re going to lose weight isn’t enough. You need concrete steps to take to achieve your goal. Turn the resolution “to exercise more” into “to take one fitness class three times weekly.” Once you’ve bagged your 12 fitness classes for the month, treat yourself to something. That could be a massage, or a night at the movies–anything that will help keep you motivated.    

Your resolutions don’t fit into your routine.

If you’ve resolved to go for a lengthy hike in nature four times weekly, but you live in the city and don’t get off work until the sun has set, you’re doomed. Set a goal you can incorporate into your routine. Once it becomes a habit you’ll have accomplished your goal for life, and you’ll only keep improving upon it.

You keep it a secret.

Telling the world your goals may be scary because of fear of judgment and disappointment should you not reach them. But it’s one of the best ways to ensure staying on track. Sharing your micro-resolution with your family and friends holds you accountable, and therefore makes you more likely to succeed. Don’t be nervous–be confident.  

Set “micro-resolutions” and share them with a trusted ally.

Micro-resolutions are simple, concrete actions that compound over time to achieve a goal. Simply setting micro-resolutions versus lofty, over the top goals makes you twice as likely to succeed. Learn more about micro-resolutions.

Go one step further by writing down your micro-resolution and sharing it. Writing your micro-resolution down, instead of leaving it in your head, makes you three times as likely to accomplish your goal. Even better, sharing your goal with a trusted friend, and then sending weekly follow-ups makes you 10 times as likely to accomplish your goal! We’ve created the Mountain Trek Goal Tracker, a simple accountability tool, to help you accomplish your goals this year.

This is your year.

What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

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