Welcome to Sunday Reads on Refocuser, a collection of weekly links from around the web to help you do incredible things.  These links span topics like creativity, performance, focus, exercise, nutrition, and positivity.  I’m posting this on Saturday this time to make sure email subscribers get this on Sunday.

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On Work/Life Balance, Anxiety, and Habits

A new study in the Journal of Marketing Research: “Emotions such as guilt about where time is being spent or fear over loss of income both generate stress, and make a person feel more pressed for time than they actually are.”  I’ve always been of the opinion that work/life balance and “lack of time” isn’t the problem, it’s the underlying feeling of trading off the things that matter most to you. Missing your daughter’s piano performance for a mind-numbing meeting evokes feelings of guilt and resentment regardless of how much time you’ve spent at work or with family.  So what do you do?  One tip from the study is to pause to breathe more often.

Being mindful about anxiety can help to reduce it.  “The solution isn’t identifying why you’re anxious in the first place (though that knowledge has its place), but recognizing the signs of anxiety before nervousness, panic and rapid breathing hijack your emotional wellness.”

Using quotations from others can help improve your self-talk.  For almost 15 years now, I’ve been working on my own self-talk as I realize how important it is to overall well-being.  Here’s one of my favorites from this list:

The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join in the dance. —Alan Watts

Great post by James Clear on habit triggers, something I’m a big proponent of.  Using Time and Location triggers have been instrumental in a number of my own personal habits, including a new one to “do at least 10 minutes of mobility work every day” thanks to Kelly Starrett’s new book, Ready to Run.

People who multitasked with multiple types of media were worse at focusing on a single task and less effective at switching between tasks than those who multitasked less.  This probably goes without saying, but multitasking is just not worth it most of the time.

On Chronic Pain, Nutrition, and Longevity

Neck pain is something many creative people deal with as a result of being hunched over a computer, a notepad, or a musical instrument.  It’s important to realize that – like most things – neck pain doesn’t have to be a constant in your life; you actually have the power to fix, tweak, adjust, and otherwise improve yourself.  On that note, here are 5 Simple Exercise to Eliminate Neck Pain.

Meditation can also be an effective treatment for reducing chronic neck pain according to research reported in the Journal of Pain.

We know that vitamin D and marine omega-3 fatty acids can improve cognitive function.  A new paper suggests that serotonin production could be the reason why.  “…Serotonin is a critical modulator of executive function, impulse control, sensory gating, and pro-social behavior.”

On that note, I’ve been supplementing with Jarrow Krill Oil and Thorne Vitamin D/K2 for some time after experimenting with virtually every brand under the sun.  Here’s an article comparing Krill Oil and standard Fish Oil on the Bulletproof blog.

Our environment, not our DNA, is the primary driver of health and longevity according to Chris Kresser.  Genes only account for 10% of disease, so what’s responsible for the other 90%?  Diet, lifestyle, and environment.

Random Musings

The Psychology of Wonder on Psychology Today: “The wonder of science and art lies in their capacity to alter our model of the world, and thereby alter our conception of ourselves.”  Couldn’t have said it any better!

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