Have you come across any limiting beliefs about your own passions✨ this past week? Leave a comment or hit reply, I’m genuinely curious!

Here in Vancouver, cherry and plum blossoms have popped like pink fireworks, blanketing the streets with their petals🌸! I’m finding my eyes completely locked onto them, almost holding my breath as if they’ll disappear when I blink. And I love how when I look around, other people seem to be feeling the same way. These colourful gifts from nature feel so delicate because we know how fleeting spring is…especially here in Vancouver where one day of intense rain could wash them all away. Also, I know our necks are thanking us for taking a break from looking down at our phones to craning our heads up towards the blossoms…marvelling…if only for a moment!

There is actually a Japanese saying for this feeling: “mono no aware” (物の哀れ.) Mono no aware roughly translates to “a bittersweet awareness of impermanence”, or “an appreciation of fleeting beauty.” When you think of it, our entire life could be thought of in this way…a human’s lifespan is just a blip on the universe’s timeline!

In honour of the Japanese-Canadians who fought in WWI, Japan gifted Vancouver 500 cherry blossom trees. Now, there are over 40,000 trees here! Many cities have specific parks for these trees, but we’re lucky that they’ve also been planted throughout residential streets so that we can feel the romance of falling petals wherever we go! We also have an ideal mild, coastal climate for dozens of their varieties; which makes our “cherry blossom season” stretch out longer than many other places outside of Japan.

Btw, I’ve started gouache painting this week (thanks to my sister for recommending that I try gouache instead of watercolour!) so this will definitely be one of my first flowers I try painting!!

I feel like deep down we all naturally find it easier to change things up during shoulder seasons, and the more we connect to nature, the more obvious it becomes. And just like in nature, no season of our lives is more important than another. However, in order for a season to flourish, a “letting go” period of the previous season has to happen…

Although my partner is the “plant parent” in our home🥰, I can at least understand the reason plants must be thoughtfully pruned or deadheaded🌿: a plant will continue to send energy to a dying leaf until that dying leaf is chopped off. Only after the dying leaf is completely gone will the plant be free to devote all of its energy to healthy leaves make new ones!

It sounds kind of dramatic, but more and more am I noticing the same thing has to happen in life😌. There’s a letting go that must happen to your “old life” in order to welcome your new chapter:

It applies to anyone in a transition period in their life. It could be a break up, where you have to grieve the relationship with previous partner in order to begin a healthy new one. Or it could be a retirement; even if you’re happy to be finished your job, there’s a sweet “saying goodbye” to your old identity. Or maybe a role has changed: you’re still a parent but your children have flown the nest, and your identity has shifted because caretaking doesn’t have to be your priority anymore. Or maybe you’re changing careers, having a baby for the first time, or realized you’re no longer extroverted and hate going out!

Some “letting go” moments take longer than others, and these life transitions can be so confusing and scary. We’re not only saying goodbye to a version of our past selves, but there’s a large question mark about the future, because we got used to doing and thinking in one way, only to realize that way isn’t working anymore.

The change I’ve been feeling most has been how my physical body has changed due to health issues and being in my 30s. Things that used to be fun no longer work for me anymore. Once I started to prioritize my health and listening to my body last year, I realized that I had way more limitations than I used to, which meant grieving an entire life and lifestyle that used to be mine. I’m now happier than I’ve ever been (no exaggeration lol!), but it’s still been bittersweet to say goodbye to my past self and her wild life, because I loved her so much…and it’s a reminder that life itself is fleeting and precious. However, pruning the parts of my life that no longer serve me has been so freeing and given me a lot of self-love and clarity😌.

There’s actually recent studies that show how our brains physically change throughout our lives, which might help explain one part of this phenomenon of growing up and our priorities changing. For example, here’s what happens from our teens to our 30s:

First off, different parts of our brains develop at different rates! So when we’re in our early teens/20s, our brains are first developing their reward circuitry, which makes us highly biased towards novelty, exploration, social connections, and peer approval. This makes sense, because it’s when we’re naturally and legally becoming an adult and focused on finding our place in the world!

Generally, its not until our late 20s when our prefrontal cortex strengthens, which is our “control system” connecting future-oriented decisions with other parts of the brain. This is why we usually get better at things like not caring so much about what others think, nurturing selective relationships, and delaying gratification when we get older.

However, if you have conditioned your brain with habits centred around instant-gratification activities from your youth, they will require effort to break. Some people don’t want to change these habits and it’s totally fine of course, but for those of us who realize some of our bad habits are holding us back from blooming, we need some help pruning off the dead leaves✂️🌿.

So if you want to change them, the good news is that it’s definitely possible, and I think it helps to know that it’s not your fault why instant-gratification habits are so hard to change! There’s nothing wrong with you, you just have to learn how to trick your brain into working with you🪄🐇.

Thank you for visiting my brain this week, friends🦋! I hope you’re somewhere you can enjoy the blossoming🌸 and have some mono no aware in your day😌.

P.S. I talk a little about how I’ve changed my habits for the better in this post, but I’m actually currently creating bonus PDFs for paid subscribers wanting step-by-step guidance for how to apply the right habits for the season of life they’re in in a gentle way💆🏼‍♀️. Before I finalize them, please don’t hesitate to reply to this email or comment with any questions you have so I can make sure I answer them in the PDFs☺️.

…My maternal grandfather Arved Viirlaid’s 105th birthday! (Instead of calling him “grandpa”, my sister and I always called him “Taadi.”) As I mentioned in my last post “🐺how i’ve stayed committed to my habits!,” part of my morning routine has been reading his poetry that’s been translated from Estonian to English. When he was alive, I didn’t speak much Estonian, and he didn’t speak much English, but I always felt a connection to him as my family encouraged me to follow in his footsteps as a writer. That, and if I had been born male I’m told I would have been given his name!

What’s interesting is that even though he passed away in 2015, now that I’m reading his writing as an adult, I feel closer to him than ever- which makes me so grateful for the written word! I’ve always felt like reading poetry or books is so intimate, because writers usually write alone, letting their most vulnerable thoughts fall onto the page…and then the reader is often reading alone as well, perhaps in bed or another cozy nook…two separate people perhaps years (or centuries!) apart, having a private, deep connection to one another, reminding us that we have more in common with each other than we may think❤️.

I think, today of all days, it would be fitting to share a poem I wrote a during the pandemic about a girl and her grandfather…so thank you, dear readers, for reading it if you choose to, and having this intimate connection with me🥰!

In The Dark


I.

we rested on our backs,
absorbing what was left
of the day’s sun
through the rock
at the top
of a hill
on salt spring island.
the balmy pinks had melted
into a velvety indigo,
and you took your large wrinkled hand,
skin thick
from a hard day’s work
a hard many years
into my young palm,
smooth from a summer of sand and pacific waters.
you pointed out aquila, cygnus, and lyra,
among constellations i could never remember.
i listened to your soft, lulling legends
of greek memories in the sky.
your lores would end at the moon,
lit by the biggest star
in our snowy galaxy.
do you see the face in its black seas?
your voice a doughy bed
that man is me,
your company in the dark.


II.

years passed
the coast salish earth,
made of ancient
granite
and quartz
remained
protecting
our footsteps.
animals lent us
their woods,
oaks and firs guided
a path,
so that
after we climbed
at dusk
grand father
and daughter
could descend like
waddling raccoons
in shadows,
cautious
but unscathed.


III.

my hand
is now folding
with its own timelines...
it’s spring
and the deer
have been eyeing your cabin
with their fawn
in the back field
noting
your absence
while i
have been isolating
with your
syrupy
and savory
plants,

waiting
for you to come home.

 

soon.

maybe.


IV.

tonight
through telephone
wires
i learned a
hollow sickness
brawny sickness
cryptic sickness
its only acquaintance
machines
during visitation hours

won.

grey
pallid
yellow
walls
greeted you
at your final minute.

did you know
i wanted
to be there
as it stole
your last breath
for itself?
did you know
how i
wished
to warm
your hand,
as you
had warmed mine,
the blood
from your
heart
pumping
into
my own
through your fingertips?

blood that
now,
i guess
has turned cold.


V.

i run out the door
and into the trees
upupup the small mountain
until i

drop

to my back
in the old clearing
on the old rock
in our old place.
i feel the absence
of your touch
as i grasp
for any
lingering
sun
in the ground.
my chest
is heaving.
i open
my eyes.

a storm of stars

welcomes me

and in the middle

is the moon

is you

my company

in the dark.

❤️Happy birthday, Taadi! Your love of nature helped inspired this poem❤️.

xo,

kaja

But first, a little story! You’ve probably heard the Cherokee Tale of the Two Wolves-there are a few different versions of it, but the more popular ones go something like this:

One day a young boy came to his grandfather, filled with anger at another boy in his community.

After listening to his grandson’s story, the grandfather paused and calmly told him, “There are two wolves that live inside us all, and they are at battle with one another.

One of these wolves is evil. The evil wolf is full of anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, guilt, lies, fear, superiority, and ego. The other is good. This wolf is full of love, joy, peace, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, and faith.”

The grandson asked,

“Which wolf wins?”

To which the grandfather replied,

“The one you feed.”

This tale came to my mind this week as I was thinking of a current habit I’m trying to break.

As I’ve stopped drinking alcohol, sometimes I replace times that I would’ve had a drink with sugar instead. For example: soda at a concert, or indulge in candy at parties! However, this week I noticed my sugar cravings have been stronger than usual, which is a familiar feeling my body signals to me when I’m having too much of it and need to cut back. I have an auto-immune disease, so I have to be careful about sugar since it causes inflammation! The best thing that usually works for me is to just do a 30 day detox. After the 30 days, my cravings are gone and I can go back to having a reasonable amount of treats without feeling like I “NEED” it!

But how do I approach this detox? Similar to how I’m approaching everything these days, which has surprisingly been super effective!

I link pleasure to the habits I want to keep, and pain to the habits I want to quit.

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This can be done in countless, creative ways, but I’ll share what’s been working for me in case it helps someone else!

So, even though I know I’ll go back to eating sugar in appropriate amounts, right now my cravings are so strong that I’ve been feeding my brain information to associate pain to eating sugar. I also feed my brain information to associate pleasure to eating delicious nutritious food!

What does this look like in action?

• When I’m tempted by a treat, I think about how lethargic I’ll feel afterwards during the sugar crash. (PAIN!)

• I listen to audiobooks and podcasts talking about how bad sugar is so that I immerse my subconscious into automatically being turned off by treats for now! (PAIN!)

• When I eat a salty snack or nutritious meal- it sounds silly, but I say “good job!” in my brain to associate feeling proud of myself for eating healthy! (PLEASURE!)

• While I’m exercising, I remind myself how much easier it is for my body to move properly when I’ve filled it with good food :) (PLEASURE!)

• When I wake up in the morning full of energy, I remember it’s because I wasn’t pounding back candy the night before😂. (PLEASURE!)

I practiced the same technique for alcohol and exercise, and it’s been over 6 months now that I’m sober and rarely miss alcohol, exercise 4-5x/week and actually enjoy it (!!!), have way more energy (this also helped), and have a way calmer nervous system!

BTW- For anyone wanting to exercise more, the biggest game changer for me was finding a studio that I LOVE and only doing exercise that I actually enjoy at first. For example, if going to a gym and weightlifting bores you, just do any type of movement that brings you even a bit of joy- a sport, hiking, walking, dancing, swimming, boxing, whatever! You’ll eventually find momentum from the endorphins you get from moving consistently that it will inspire you to do it more…and maybe try other types of exercise too!

For the first few months that it was REALLY hard to get me into the habit of exercising, in addition to trying every studio until I found one I actually looked forward to going to, I got myself out of bed by telling myself “remember how good it’s going to feel after the exercise is complete!”

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And then when I DID finish exercising, I trained my brain to remember the great feeling for the next time I was feeling tempted to sleep in. I repeated it like a mantra in my head, encouraging myself to feel MAX happiness for accomplishing my goal so that it would become embedded into my subconscious. I even talked about it out loud at dinner to my partner which helped us both pump each other up and cement the wiring in my brain for exercise = pleasure! (Neuroplasticity!!) Now when I take too many rest days in a row, my body feels gross and remembers sedentary lifestyle = pain!

In addition to my 30 day sugar detox, I’m now starting to apply this pain/pleasure-brain-feeding-method to procrastination and other areas of my life! TBD how this goes…☺️ Even though a lot of things are out of our control right now, we can be in control of feeding “the right wolf” to shape our own habits!

I curate the newsletters I consume, the public figures I follow, the books I read…all to try to optimize my brain for the wiring I desire. So to wrap up today’s post, here are some of my favourite brain “food” this week🥰:

😂For more laughs: Amy Poehler’s podcast Good Hang - particularly this episode with Paul Rudd!

🧚🏼‍♀️✨For more magic: Amber Fillerup’s Substack !

👩🏼‍🔬For empowering science: The Mel Robbins Podcast - particularly this episode: “The Body Reset: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health, Fat Loss, & Energy with Dr. Stacy Sims” :)

🥦For healthier eating: listening to these books for free via Libby: Good Energy by Casey Means, MD + The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes

💆🏼‍♀️For calmer eating: listening to Headspace meditations when I’m eating alone instead of being on my phone or watching videos, so that I remember to breathe and appreciate my food!

📰For calm-ish news: READING (not watching tv/reels/social media which is overstimulating, often misinforms, and is created to capture our attention rather than give information) The New York Times (not perfect) and Hot Tip (perfection) long after priming my brain FIRST with…

☕️For better, grounded mornings: while my coffee is brewing in the simple stovetop espresso maker I bought in Paris, I consume dreamy physical books🥰. Last month I was reading poetry from the Romantic Era. This month I’m revisiting poetry from my grandfather Arved Viirlaid❤️, and Catfulness: A Cat's Guide to Achieving Mindfulness, which my sister bought me years ago😸🙏🏻

Good morning and happy Friday everyone🤍! I wanted to start this week’s post with a little Zen parable:

Once, there was a Zen master known for his wisdom. People traveled long distances just to sit with him, hoping he might offer guidance on life and the path to enlightenment.

One day, a scholar arrived at the temple.

“I’ve come for you to teach me about Zen,” he said.

The master welcomed him and listened politely. But as they talked, the scholar kept interrupting. Every thought the master shared was quickly met with the scholar’s own opinions, stories, and theories. He was eager to explain what he already knew, but he didn’t pause long enough to truly listen.

After a while, the master quietly suggested they share some tea.

He placed a cup in front of the scholar and began pouring. The cup filled to the top—but the master kept pouring. Tea spilled over the rim, onto the table, then dripped to the floor, eventually soaking the scholar’s robes.

“Stop!” the scholar exclaimed. “The cup is already full. Can’t you see?”

The master gently smiled.

“Exactly,” he said. “You are like this cup—so full that nothing more can be added. If you want to learn, you must first empty your cup.”

As winter begins to thaw, we often get an urge to open the windows for fresh air, clear out our closets, do a deep clean, and delight in making room for all the new beginnings the season gives us🌸!

“Spring cleaning” is such a well-known ritual, but have you ever applied it to your mind? I feel like I’ve been consuming so much lately that my brain has become that teacup: overflowing so that there’s no room for what really matters.

Letting our brains rest (whether through walks in nature, meditating, simply lying down with our eyes closed, or even sleeping) is finally being recognized in science and some social circles as an essential part of progress itself versus a “reward”.

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Even athletes know that the body must have recovery days in order to let muscles grow, yet I’m always seeing people in my exercise classes run out of the room to skip the last 10 minutes of recovery stretching. It goes without saying that knowing something and practicing it are two very different things.

There are countless other excuses why we won’t set time aside to let our brains “restart”: many of us who have grown up with hustle culture still feel guilty in doing so…or have learned through our phone habits to always be stimulated…therefore we may have forgotten how to even start to go about resting and feel uncomfortable in doing so! But don’t worry, the more you practice and prioritize it, the easier it gets!

And if a clear, peaceful mind is not enough to motivate you, many studies have proven that it’s often the times we let our minds fully relax (you’ve probably experienced “shower thoughts”) that we have those “eureka!” moments!

So let today’s post be the permission you may need to have some spring cleaning for your brain💆🏼‍♀️ Whether it’s for 5 minutes or 5 days, consciously de-stimulating your brain will help get you in the habit of clearing the mind’s cobwebs and make room for peace…something I think we all could use a little more of these days🤍.

Does your mind usually live more in the past or future? I know we’re allllll trying to live more in the present, but I’m curious if you have a tendency towards one or the other?

Personally, I live mostly in the future. I love daydreaming up future plans, trips, etc.! When my anxiety takes the driver’s seat, it’s also usually about something that hasn’t even happened yet, versus replaying something that already happened.

Speaking of planning a trip- if I had to choose, I’m someone who generally values experiences over material things, like spending money on travelling versus buying a fancy car (though, hello universe I would still like both😂🙏🏻✨) and maybe this is the reason why:

In Gilovich and Van Boven’s studies at Cornell (“To Do or to Have?”), they conclude that while people think that material things will make them happier than an experience, the joy of a purchase usually fades quickly. For example, how often have we been so excited to buy an item of clothing, yet years later we’re totally bored of it? Most items’ emotional value depreciates over time.

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On the other hand, their studies found that experiences grow in emotional value over time because they become part of our identity and social connections.

Experiences have the power to bring us happiness for longer amounts of time because we can:

1. Get excited about planning for the experience! Feeling happy visualizing an experience can bring the same amount of happiness as the actual experience itself!

2. Being fully present while the experience is happening!

3. Reliving the experience after its done! In fact, people often remember experiences as better than they actually were. For example, when you look back on your last trip somewhere, do you marinate in the feeling of boredom of all the waiting (lines, airports, trains, etc.!) you most likely had to do? Or do you remember the highlights? Even “bad experiences” you had in the moment usually become the most exciting travel stories you can laugh about later

Knowing all of this, today I realized that lately I’ve been spending more time in my mind thinking about future trips instead of all the amazing ones I’ve already had!

Since studies show that the emotional value grows over time, I’m curious why I haven’t been looking back and reminiscing about experiences like I used to…

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours looking through the photo albums and home videos my mum took to jog my memory. In more recent years, I even had fun looking back on my own Instagram page!

Since being off of Instagram, that’s been out of the question, and I let go of a habit I had last year of looking back at “this day [x] years ago” photos on my phone.

This is why I was surprised that I was surprised I’ve had so much fun editing my Super 8 footage in the last 24 hours! It felt like the best of both worlds: using a material thing to remember experiences.

Since Super 8 doesn’t have audio anymore, I’ve been editing them while listening to my favourite film scores/soundtracks (La La Land, Amélie, Call Me By Your Name, and Pride & Prejudice to name a few…) and it’s made me feel like I’m watching a movie of my life😂! So fun!! It’s really made me want to revisit more experience I’ve had…maybe even for future stories or poems like this one✨:

This made me think about what I shared on this post; that high achievers have a habit of only looking to all the things they still want to accomplish, which is a recipe for misery. If they (we, me…) spend more time listing the things they have already done, they have a greater chance of feeling proud, accomplished, grateful, and happy! This satisfaction of all they’ve achieved so far won’t lead them to stop progressing; it will just help them enjoy the journey along the way.

What about you? Is there a dusty photo album begging for reminiscing? Or how about scrolling through your phone’s camera roll instead of scrolling through social media? How about having an evening with your friends looking through your high school yearbooks? Or asking your partner about their favourite time they did [X]? Or watching home videos with your siblings from when you were kids?

As most people aren’t travelling at this time of year, let me know how you plan on time-travelling back to all of your beautiful memories, or share some of them in the comments section!

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all photos are stills from my Super 8 film that were captured by me, JD, and Denis Ogrinc. the locations of the selected stills in this post are in the following order: Leeds (England), Paris (France), Palawan (Philippines), Paris (France), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Vancouver (Canada), Orléans (France), Paris (France), New York (USA).

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Although I knew a lot of that lack of energy came from my auto-immune disease, I was determined to find out if there were any changes at all that were in my control to give me even 10% more energy.

We’ve all heard about how sleep and exercise helps, but what if your sleep is fine but you barely have enough energy to go for a walk? And because you can’t go for a walk, you’re gaining weight, eating your feelings, and getting depressed in a long loop of never-ending exhaustion?

Enter…my naturopath!

I was so skeptical of going back to a naturopath, as the first one I encountered years ago was no help and made me feel like the practice wasn’t based in science😅. Thankfully, my sister recommended me to Dr. Krista Moyer who completely changed my mind about the profession. Not only was she compassionate and took me seriously, but she also had so many evidence-backed options for me during a time where I felt like I couldn’t find any good solutions.

The first thing she did was hear my story, analyze my charts, and get a full picture of where my body was at. A lot of the time, medical professionals will take one look at your basic blood levels, say “they’re normal”, and leave it at that. Not Dr. Moyer! She examined every result, knew what my levels actually should be at, analyzed what was going on in my body as a whole like a detective, and came up with a personally tailored plan just for me, metaphorically holding my hand the whole way. I actually cried happy tears because I was so grateful to finally have some professional support!

We worked on quite a bit, but today I specifically wanted to talk about iron deficiencies, as it’s something a lot of women don’t realize is the easiest fix of them all!

I had been taking capsule iron supplements for over 15 years (even doing this didn’t get my levels up to where they should have been) and dealing with a lot of the symptoms I mention below, so an iron infusion would have saved me SO much time if I knew it was an option! I really hope this post reaches at least one person who will get the help that could have saved me so many years of pain.

Although I’ve been doing a lot of other lifestyle changes since, getting an iron (monoferric) IV infusion was the first, easiest step to breaking my depressing can’t-get-out-of-bed-or-do-anything loop.

Wait- before we begin, what’s the difference between “iron” and “ferritin” again?

“Iron is a vital mineral used to create hemoglobin and carry oxygen, while ferritin is a protein that stores this iron in an inactive, safe form within cells. Think of iron as the currency in your wallet (active) and ferritin as your savings account (stored). A low ferritin level indicates depleted iron stores, often serving as a more reliable, stable marker of long-term iron status than serum iron.”

(Source)

If you watch this video, the two fun naturopaths who helped me will tell you all the information about whether an iron infusion is right for you or not! (I don’t think I need to remind you that I’m not a doctor lol, just relaying information from doctors that helped me!)

CLICK HERE for all the iron info you could want at the clinic I got it at (Gravity Health)! And here is the 18min video below:

And…here’s my summary of what I think are the most important elements of the video in case you don’t watch it:

1. On your latest blood test, if your ferritin is <100 µg/L, you should seriously consider it…especially if you are female since we are prone to iron deficiencies! Many times if you haven’t reached anemia (<15), family doctors will graze over your results, but you are actually deficient unless your ferritin is below 100. If you have anemia (<15) it is severe deficiency. This example of results shows “52” as a result, so it won’t be flagged, but again, it should be over 100:

   

2. You could also qualify for an infusion if your ferritin levels are above 100 but you have chronic inflammation:

   

3. If you have any of the following symptoms, it could be due to low iron:

   

   Some of the above symptoms kick in as early as ferritin levels in the 90s.

   let me demystify what school never taught you🤓

4. If you get an iron infusion, you could: have way more energy, have no more headaches, have an increase in sex drive, a stronger immune system to fight off sicknesses, have less depression…basically the opposite of all the symptoms listed above!

5. To get one, you just sit down for 90 minuted with an IV- easiest thing ever, you don’t need to make any new habits!

6. It takes about 2 weeks for it to kick in. The only side effects I had was feeling like I had the flu for a day the week after my infusion as my body adjusted. Totally worth it!

7. The naturopath who performed it for me said I wouldn’t need another infusion for 10 years, or if I have a baby (babies make you lose a lot of iron apparently lol).

8. If you have extended health benefits, it can be covered (my benefits weren’t great at the time and it still covered 100%), otherwise it’s more than worth paying the money out of pocket in my opinion!

Many things we do for our health require so much time and effort: exercise, eating well, remembering to take our vitamins, etc., so why wouldn’t you do the easiest thing first?

The worst case scenario is that the iron infusion doesn’t solve all your problems. But! Even if that’s the case, now you know the iron deficiency isn’t the root cause of your issue, and you can cross that off your list as one less thing to worry about.

I know it sounds like I’m getting sponsored for all of this (I wish I was😂) but I am so passionate about raising awareness about this since it’s made such a difference in my health journey, and I was NEVER told about any of this in school or by my family doctor!

According to WHO and this video, “approximately 30% to 40% of women of childbearing age suffer from iron deficiency, a common issue often caused by menstruation and, in some cases, pregnancy. Studies show nearly 40% of teenage girls and young women (aged 12–21) are iron deficient. Globally, about 539 million non-pregnant women aged 15–49 have iron-deficiency anemia.”

!!! That’s a lot of people suffering from something that is totally curable in one 90min session!

So if you know someone (especially if they are female) who is constantly tired, ask them if they know what their ferritin levels are and help educate them, or direct them to this post! You never know, this might just be the catalyst that changes everything, like it was for me🤍.

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Oh my goodness we’ve reached February already! Going from what feels like the longest month of the year to the literal shortest always feels a little weird (who planned that?)! I first wanted to say that I’ve been loving all your messages of how much my posts have been helping you through such dark times! It always means so much to know that even one little thing I’ve shared can make a positive difference in someone’s day🥹.

In addition to what I’ve already shared in the seven posts since my last Kaja’s Korner, here are the top three past, present, and future brain health + wellness tips that I’ve been implementing:

🧡Past: This winter has been a whirlwind of highs and lows! If I had to choose only one thing that has helped me the most during those low stretches, it’s been exercising. I do it in the morning so that I don’t have time to talk myself out of it!

💛Present: Every morning before I look at my phone-

(other than to turn off my alarm- I’ve been looking into a gentle alarm clock so that I don’t have to keep my phone by my bed, but haven’t found a style I like yet— if you have any recommendations for one please let me know!)

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I’ve been reading a poem from the Romantic era! I love this new ritual I’ve implemented because poetry not only celebrates The Little Things in life, but it helps me feel at peace leaning into the themes of Romanticism during the present time that parallels many similar themes to what these writers were also struggling with (ex: a return to things such as nature during a period of technological advancement). Also, reading poetry from writers who are long gone feels like they are holding my hand, guiding me with their wisdom, and helping me put my own time on this planet into perspective🔮.

🩷Future: I learned another interesting perspective this week which I’m curious to try to implement in the future. It’s that humans aren’t meant to live a life with zero problems. Problems are key to our human experience, and there’s never going to be a time where we will forever be free from them. This sounds obvious, but how often are we upset that we have problems to begin with? I know that I get annoyed when yet another problem comes up after I just got over something else. But if we’re constantly challenging ourselves, problems are bound to come up. And if you try to avoid any potential problems, you’re avoiding life and not growing as a person. Maybe that’s okay to you, but I think if you’re reading this you’re a bit like me and like to try to improve themself. In fact, it’s better for your brain health and will help you live longer if you do. So in the future, when the next problem comes up, I’m going to try to ask myself things like:

• What can I learn from this?

• How can this help me?

• How can this make me stronger?

• How can I be creative about solving this?

• In what ways will I be proud of myself when I get through this?

• Or perhaps the most radical question of all, that my partner taught me: How can I learn to love this?

Some problems are worse than others. All I can hope for is that my life will keep giving me good problems to solve…or maybe one day I will see them all as good problems😘.

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In case you missed them, here’s a little recap of my last seven posts:

🎶How singing will actually, scientifically, give you good vibes!

🛫Proof that experts aren’t always correct!

🇪🇪My favourite Estonian holiday!

👀Read this if you’re a high-achiever!

☁️Read this if you want to make your dreams come true🥰

🍃An exploration of letting go for the people who like control (me too)

🌈What cognitive neuroscience says is the most restorative way to experience nature!

Thank you for reading this week, and may your soul be filled with stars✨

click here if you’d like to support me😍

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film photo taken by JD🤍

However, as I’ve been prioritizing my health over the last few years, I’ve been extremely aware at how lucky I am to have grown up and be based in Vancouver, Canada: a place that has SO many nature walks/trails/hikes in or close by the city—the possibilities of places to breathe fresh air a short jaunt from the downtown core feel endless!

The more health and wellness research I do, the more I’ve been hearing that air quality is one of those things people are going to take more seriously as a determining factor of where to live in the future👀.

Plus, the psychological and physical healing benefits humans can have from spending regular time in nature is frequently mentioned in health and neuroscience studies!

For example, are you tired often? Can’t focus? Need a dopamine detox from your phone? Feel stressed about the state of the world in general? Or do you or your child have ADHD tendencies and can’t sit still?

Dr. Marc Berman, PhD who speaks on THIS podcast thinks he has the antidote to help all of that: spend more time outdoors.

Berman argues that there are not only brain benefits (good mental health, less stress, more ability to focus, better imagination, more “eureka!” moments), but also mentions a study where patients healed faster from operations if they had a window in their hospital room to look outside of every day (compared to the patients with no window).

I highly recommend the podcast to hear even more cool experiments they did and came across!

To briefly sum up his findings to an actionable tool we can use, he says that to get the “maximum overall health benefits” from nature, he recommends a daily 20 minute nature walk alone.

That means no talking to anyone, and doing nothing but walking. Yes, this means being off your phone. Yes, this means no listening to music or podcasts or checking texts etc. (I had this question and waited a while until it was answered on the podcast because I was listening to it while going on my nature walk lol).

If you’re thinking “I don’t live near a forest or beach” or “I don’t have time to go outside” or “I don’t want to go alone”. Don’t worry! Anything is better than nothing. You could:

• go to a city park

• just go outside and literally look up at the sky

• walk with a friend (accountability buddy!)

• watch a nature video online (preferably one without narration)

• close your eyes and do nothing but listen to online “soundscapes” of bird sounds or waves or other things found in nature

• even just study a photo or painting set in nature

Although he says the “best” thing is uninterrupted time fully immersed in the outdoors away from cars, buildings, and other human inventions, stressing out that you’re “not doing it right” is counterproductive to the whole point of doing it, so take in this information gently and don’t stress that it’s something you need to add to your ever-expanding to do list.

Personally, I’ve been trying to rewire my limiting beliefs about Vancouver, and since an endless variety of nature opportunities is one of the best things this city has going for it (my trainer calls it a “nature tax” to justify the price of living here), I’ve been trying to take advantage of all the nice spots by going on weekly-ish “nature dates” with my partner!

However!! Even though I grew up in Vancouver, even though I know the health benefits of spending time outdoors, even though so many gorgeous trails are so accessible to me, and even though I love it— I still have to make the effort to get out of my regular routine and do my special nature walk. So don’t feel bad if it feels like a chore at first. Once you’re there, you won’t regret it!

Also, notice that I’m not doing exactly what Berman recommended:

• it’s weekly-ish (not every day)

• it’s with my partner (not by myself)

• I take photos while we’re on our nature date (I’m not totally phone-free)

Even though I’m not doing the “scientifically-recommended” routine for maximum brain and body benefits, I still find myself in a way better mood after, so appreciative of the gifts of Mother Earth, excited when I look back on my photos and remember our excursions, and curious about which spots we’ll discover next!

Also…taking a breather to literally “touch grass” as they say, has never in human history been a bad idea:

Let me know if you have any fun nature days coming up- I’d love to hear about them to get even more inspired😍🌿!

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An old monk and a young monk were traveling together when they came upon a fast-flowing river.

As they prepared to cross, they noticed a woman nearby, unable to make it across on her own. She asked for their help. Both monks hesitated — their vows forbade them from touching women.

After a moment, the older monk walked over, lifted the woman onto his shoulders, carried her safely across the river, and then continued on his way without another word.

The younger monk was shocked, but he stayed silent as they walked on for hours.

At last, unable to hold back any longer, he said, “Brother, our vows forbid contact with women. How could you carry her like that?”

The older monk smiled and gently said, “I set her down on the riverbank hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

I think one of the most difficult things for people to do is let go…let go of anxieties, of people, of anger, of sadness, of old identities, of habits, of thought patterns…etc.

I wrote about letting go in a previous post of mine here:

But I’m brought back to the topic today as I watched neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s new TEDx talk about “compensatory control”. You can watch it here:

I’ve talked about her book Tiny Experiments many times here on The Little Things Life! (Tiny + Little are friends after all…🤍)

The Compensatory Control Theory “proposes that people embrace ideologies that emphasize personal, societal, or religious control to alleviate anxieties they experience when they perceive randomness and disorder in their lives.” (Kay et al., 2008; Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009).

Le Cunff talks about her personal experience with compensatory control when she was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and her first impulse went to checking her calendar instead of taking a moment to process the news. I can relate, not only because when things feel out of control for me, I often resort to planning and organizing things until I feel a false sense of security…but because after stressful events in my life I’ve had to catch myself before I fall back into textbook OCD behaviours.

So when things feel even more out of our control and uncertain than usual with the state of the world…what does Le Cunff suggest?

Well, yes! “Tiny Experiments”! But how exactly? And why is this her preferred approach?

She argues that by distancing ourselves from habits and goals, a tiny experiment takes the pressure to control the outcome off of the table. As scientists, experiments are approached with curiosity rather than harsh self-critical judgements.

Her simple formula for these tiny experiments is:

I will [action] for [duration].

Ideally, it’s something very low-stakes that you’re curious about exploring. The duration is a commitment to yourself with an end-date so that you don’t feel like it’s a permanent habit you have to have forever!

For example, it could be I will [meditate] for [5 min every Sunday for one month].

In the TEDx video above, and her book, she goes into greater detail of how this can alter your sense of self and why this disruption is important.

Personally, I’ve taken Le Cunff’s general outlook on experimenting in my own life, but after experimenting (an inception of experiments ;)!) with her specific formula, I’ve found it’s not really for me in this season of my life. However, I’m mentioning it here because I know it works for a lot of people, so give it a try!

I’m also mentioning it because I got a lot out of her book, and the formula is really only a small part of a bigger mindset shift...

For example, lately I’ve realized that if I put a harsh deadline on a personal project/goal (ex. get X amount of pages written by X date, or lose X pounds by X date, etc.), it gives me a lot of anxiety and makes the whole experience unenjoyable. I then start to rabbit hole into a series of existential questions about why I’m even doing the goal in the first place if it’s making me unhappy!

So, I’ve concluded that if it’s possible (like, not a work or school project!), I will give myself lots of breathing room in my goals and projects to explore, experiment, and let go of harsh end dates.

This has made my projects so much more enjoyable! The old me would have feared that if there’s no deadline, I won’t get it done, but the fact that I’m actually enjoying the process has made it a lot easier for me to get work (i.e. not procrastinate!) than if I was being hard on myself and looked at it as something I “have” to do!

By letting go of deadlines when it’s possible, I have surprisingly alleviated my anxiety surrounding personal goals, enjoyed the journey, and increased my productivity.

I’m curious, do you have anything in your life that could be more enjoyed with a little experimenting?

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Last month when my 5-year-old niece came over, she requested that we watch KPop Demon Hunters and asked if I’d seen it!

“I have! But I’d love to watch it again!” I said.

She looked a little confused. “Did you watch it when you were little?”

“No, I just watched it a few months ago. I love kids movies!”

I could feel any “cool aunt” vibe I’d collected over the years melting away with her suspicious look back at me😂.

In my defence, one of the main creators and directors, Maggie Kang, said, “we didn’t craft this movie thinking that it was for children. It was really for a more mature audience. And really for ourselves.” in this heartwarming New York Times article about the 9-year-long process of making the hit movie.

In the article Kang also mentioned the different Korean easter eggs you may have missed, how she was firm on hiring Korean (not Korean-American) voice-over artists, and that:

“I really liked this type of female character that was cool but also a little silly. I had been in so many animation writing rooms where we were scared to make female characters really silly, and that was always frustrating.”

Perhaps the most surprising part of the article (for those of us who are not already completely wrapped up in the fandom!) was not only why the main character Rumi’s singing voice was voiced by the actual co-songwriter of the Golden Globe-winning hit (and probable Oscar contender!) “Golden” EJAE:

“What made me say yes is the efficiency. I wrote the song; I know the nuances and how to sell it.”

but the fact that she didn’t really want to do it at first.

EJAE is a rejected K-Pop artist herself, who decided to lean into the behind-the-scenes world of songwriting after people told her that her voice wasn’t good enough to perform.

So when she was asked by the filmmakers if she could do Rumi’s singing vocals, she hesitated. Fear and her limiting beliefs telling her that she still wasn’t good enough to perform resurfaced.

Thankfully, she took the leap even though she was scared, and then…Kpop Demon Hunters became a global phenomenon. Kids dressed up like the characters at Halloween all over the world, Golden was blasting on the streets in Mexico when we were there in December, and now as of this Sunday, the song has won a Golden Globe award.

If EJAE hadn’t had the courage to begin again, she would be watching someone else performing on The Tonight Show, at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, on SNL, and quite possibly on the Oscars stage!!

If you want to watch her emotional Golden Globes acceptance speech, here you go:

And in case you don’t watch it, let me repeat a lesson she reminds us:

“Rejection is redirection.”

Whether you’ve been rejected by someone else or yourself, begin again.

Yep, it’s both scary and exhausting…but that’s what separates the stagnant from the “successful” (whatever “successful” means to you)!

Whether it’s something big like dusting off a old dream, or small like figuring out another way to make a new habit stick (this week for me it’s using a Waterpik every night😂), the best thing you can do is just have the courage to begin again, regardless of the outcome, and be proud of yourself when you do.

Btw I talked more about habits and feeling proud of yourself in last week’s post:

At this time of year, it’s easy to beat yourself up when you don’t follow through on a goal you set for yourself. Making yourself feel bad about it will only make the situation worse. I personally find it helps to look at the situation objectively and try to take my emotions out of the equation otherwise I end up in a guilt-spiral.

For example, instead of feeling guilty that I missed a workout, I’ll objectively reassess why that was. Was it because my body actually needed the rest? Was it was at the wrong time of day? Was it because it was raining? Was it because I stayed up too late the night before?

Once I find out what my reason for breaking my habit was, I can then experiment with adjustments, like: schedule in more recovery days after hard workouts, workout in the morning instead of at night, sacrifice a coffee purchase by splurging on an uber instead so that I don’t have to walk to the gym in the rain, or research how to train my body how to go to sleep earlier.

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If there’s a goal or habit you truly want to pursue (and it’s smart to let go of it if you realize you don’t actually want to pursue it anymore! Life is too short!) let this post be your reminder to be kind to your mind and that you have the power to begin again. Maybe in a different direction this time😉.

On the theme of Korea because why not, here’s a gallery of film photos from my first trip there this time last year!!! I took them in Seoul and Jeju Island, and the ones of me were taken by my partner JD❤️. (Click each photo to expand it!)

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And if you love the magical world of numerology, happy start to Year 1 of a 9-Year cycle as well😉!

How do you like to treat the month of January? Are you indifferent? Do you like it? Or do you prefer to just get on with it😂?

If you’re so kindly curious about my personal excitement and “method” to this time of year, here it is:

I like to treat this time from the winter solstice (read my latest post about it HERE), through the Gregorian (aka Christian) “New Year” of January 1st, and past a new moon to the second new moon after the winter solstice- aka the Lunar New Year, as a “soft opening” rather than a strict start date of resolutions.

Why? If you’re like me, you’ve been setting intentions and habits all year, so the beginning of the year is more like a season of celebration for reflection and self-improvement!

The soft-opening approach to New Year’s resolutions is also a chance to marinate in daydreams…of who you’d like to be…what opportunities may pop up in the coming year…etc.!

The soft-opening approach is slow and kind…not an intense rush of goal-setting.

So often, the winter “break” right before January 1st is chaotic and full of time with loved ones—not the prolonged periods of solitude and introspection needed to actually navigate where in your life you’d like to draw your attention to.

Btw, if you’d like some help with that navigation, I recommend watching THIS 30min YouTube video by Ali Abdaal where he shows you an effective and condensed 4-Hour version of the infamous “Think Week”.

However, everything I’ve been consuming lately has people talking about how New Year’s resolutions are “terrible”, “never work”, and how everyone should just start with one tiny habit. This totally bums me out every time I hear it😅.

I think that everyone should listen to what works for them. You won’t know what works for you until you try! Who knows, maybe you’re actually one of the people who can keep their resolutions!

And while I totally agree and promote building small, consistent habits over time is better than overcommitting oneself, one tiny standalone habit is not exciting enough to make me want to commit to it👀…

Let me explain: I am someone who needs to be motivated by a BIG overarching goal (ex. Become the healthiest version of myself I can be! Become fluent in French!) which can then be broken up into tiny, achievable, beginner-friendly habits (ex. Go for a morning walk 3x/week! Spend 15min on Duolingo every day!). Otherwise I don’t remember why I’m doing the tiny habit in the first place😂.

Then, I also go against all the advice out there to just focus on one tiny habit goal by trying to do as many of the tiny habits as I can. (Obviously don’t listen to me if you know this doesn’t work for you!) I like to do as many of tiny habits as I can because I treat it like an experiment. In other words: I throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. Then I change or eliminate what doesn’t.

I find this experiment gives me momentum and confidence! Instead of focusing on what habits didn’t work out, I look at what I was able to stick to or modify, and actually allow myself to feel proud about it!

Many people waste their happiness away by chasing the next thing. Thinking they’re not doing enough. Thinking they’re behind. Comparing themselves to others. When really, most of us would benefit from giving ourselves a genuine “pat on the back” for even trying in the first place.

🧠 It sounds almost too small to even bother, but training your brain to feel dopamine for trying daily (and even failing!), rather than a big epic result, is neuroplasticity in action…and often leads to the big epic result much quicker!

I can speak from personal experience. Every night before I go to sleep, I think of 3 things I’m proud of myself for that day (or 3 “wins”). They could be as simple as:

• I didn’t hit snooze!

• I meditated for 5min before work!

• I brought my coffee cup home to recycle rather than throw in the trash!

• I gave a genuine compliment to a stranger even though it could have been embarrassing!

• I remembered to take a breath when I noticed I was getting overwhelmed!

• I ate more vegetables than usual today!

• I moved from 5lb to 10lb weights at the gym!

• I’m getting better at teaching my body how to go to bed early!

I’ve been doing this routine almost every day since November, and it’s crazy how fast my habits have been stacking! By being my own cheerleader, I’ve found that it’s almost like I tricked my brain into thinking small wins are big wins, which has increased my confidence to be bolder with my habits. Who would have thought it really does pay off to be kind to your mind!

Okay okay, I can’t take the credit for this last “proud routine”! I modified it from this awesome book called “The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide To Happiness, Confidence, And Success” by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy which I listened to for free on Libby🤍📚.

I believe The Gap and The Gain is one of the best books you could read if you get overwhelmed by New Year’s resolutions or always find you’re not able to achieve the ones you set out for yourself.

If you’d like to try the simple, yet effective, exercise of thinking of 3 things you’re proud of from the day, here are some tips that might help you remember to actually do it (which is honestly half the battle of goal-setting):

• Put a note on to your bedside table or phone charger so you’ll see it before you go to sleep.

• Set a (gentle!) alarm on your phone close to your usual bedtime (if you have an iPhone, I love the “Birdsong” alarm🕊️🥰!) or create an Event in your phone to reoccur everyday with an Alert that will give you a notification at a particular time.

• Have an accountability buddy- someone who would be down to try this too! You can text each other a single emoji (ex. 🌝, 🛌, ✅, etc.) right before you go to bed which is code for “Goodnight! I’m listing my 3 things to myself!”. You don’t have to actually say what the wins are- in fact, I’d probably recommend that you don’t. Knowing what each other’s wins are will naturally lead you comparison, which is the complete opposite of what we want. Focus on your path, not anyone else’s.

• Maybe don’t even wait until you’re about to go to bed- habit stack it to another part of your evening routine: brushing your teeth, washing your face, etc.

Thank you so much for reading!!! As we walk into this new year together, I would like this to be your gentle reminder that it’s not selfish to listen to your body and prioritize what it needs; give yourself permission to take care of yourself (however that looks) and celebrate YOU while you do so🤍! When we give that love to ourselves, it becomes way easier to then give it to others🥰.

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For those that don’t know, my mum’s side of the family is from Estonia, where lots of pagan traditions live on…including the summer and winter solstices which some Estonians consider to be even bigger celebrations than Christmas!

The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year- and that makes for a VERY long night in Estonia: around 18 hours long depending on where exactly you are!

In many cultures (especially Pagan ones!) the winter solstice is also all about celebrating the “death” of the old year and “rebirth” of the sun’s start to longer days! This means it makes it the perfect time to reflect, honour your ancestors, and set intentions for the new year :)!

To give a little more context about Paganism: before Christianity spread across Europe, there were many Pagan rituals paying respect to nature and their corresponding “gods”. If you know anything about current Indigenous traditions, many Pagan rituals have a similar theme: having a deep connection to Mother Earth and her cyclical patterns.

Over the years, Christianity adopted and reframed many of the Indigenous and Pagan rituals, which resulted in many of the traditions we celebrate today! For example: the Christmas tree, Yule log, St.Nick, mistletoe, and even Mexico’s Day of the Dead are all rooted in ancient Pagan traditions!

🎄I may be biased, but I think Estonia is one of the coolest countries to visit in December, because they do a magical job at blending Christmas with Pagan traditions- which results in a very unique holiday experience!! In fact, my time there with my family still remains one of my favourite Christmases to date.

👀Want to know more about some modern winter solstice traditions in Estonia? Then here are some fun facts to grow your brain🧠 and share with your family at Christmas dinner🎅🏻!

• Heard of the Yule log? Many Estonians still bring a large log into the house to keep burning throughout the longest night of the year- a symbol of life and the returning sun🪵! You can also write any worries you have on paper and then burn them in the fire!

• Although bonfires are more traditional for the summer solstice, some people like to have fires outdoors to ward off bad spirits🔥!

• People light candles in their windows (and on graves), as well as leave food out to honour and welcome the spirits of deceased relatives and ancestors back home🕯️!

• Speaking of spirits, you are supposed to be very quiet this night so that your “visitors” feel welcome and at peace👻!

• Thorough physical and spiritual cleaning is done before the solstice to drive out bad luck for the new year (especially with straw)🧹!

• To ensure abundance for the new year, hearty meals of pork, sauerkruat, and blood sausage are enjoyed🍗!

• Sauna! Estonians love their sauna routine, and the solstice is no different! Bathing and relaxing in the sauna with your family before the big feast symbolizes purification and renewal🧖🏼‍♀️!

• Some lucky animals are given special treats to ensure good health throughout the winter🐄!

• Many Estonians also think this is the perfect night for fortune games about the coming year🔮! Although some wait until the Christian calendar’s New Year, these games were traditionally done on the Pagan New Year.

Curious to read more about everything you need to know about Estonia’s sauna traditions? Click here! Or here if you’d like to read about the UNESCO-listed smoke sauna traditions!

One more thing about this special time of year! We’re also nearing the end of the Chinese Zodiac’s Year of the Snake (February 17th) and Numerology’s “Universal Year 9” (January 1st) - which means there’s an EXTRA collective “shedding” of what no longer serves you. Here are a few end-of-year/winter solstice journal prompts if you’d like to take advantage of this moment!

• Am I still holding onto something that no longer supports me?

• What limiting beliefs have I outgrown but continue to revisit out of fear or habit?

• What would it feel like emotionally in my body to truly let go of what I know I need to?

• What have I learned from [this past] season[s] of darkness?

• What do I want to bring with me into the new year’s light?

• How can I rest during this transition of “shedding” and renewal?

• What does it look like to love myself and others more?

• What’s ending for me? What’s beginning for me? How do they connect?

Alright! In the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’m taking a little screen time break until 2026 so that I can connect and be more present with my loved ones this holiday season so I’ll see you back here then! Happy holidays✨ and lots of love to you all❤️!

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P.S. If you’d like some really great self-care ideas to practice during this busy time of year, I recommend checking out ‘s latest post on Hot Tip:

Hot Tip

On leaning into comfort when the world is shit

If this email is too long for your inbox, you can read the whole thing here…

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4 months ago · 53 likes · 9 comments · Alex Friedman

This is a simple and obvious observation, but reminding myself of this every time I get in an airplane helps train my brain into a state of wonder and awe, versus annoyance that my seat is cramped, it smells a little weird, and a headache may be coming on. In fact, after doing my little mental exercise, I laugh that I would even think to let those minor inconveniences ruin my day!

I feel like I’ve finally done this little exercise enough times that my brain is now wired to feel amazed any time I catch myself stewing in annoyance on a plane. If you’d like to try it next time you’re on a plane, here is exactly what I do:

I close my eyes and visualize me and my chair floating high in the sky without the physical plane above or below me. The entire plane (luggage, floor, ceiling, people, etc.) has disappeared and it’s just me with my seatbelt securely fastened (this helps me feel less scared lol).

I then imagine looking down where my feet are dangling. I see fields, ocean, mountains, little houses, or clouds whooshing below me. I play with different scenery for fun. If you’re close to a window you can even see what is actually below you and feel even more amazed. Then I look up and see the wide, blue, endless sky. Possibilities feel endless. Or if it’s nighttime I can see star constellations so clearly and up close! A comfortable breeze is against my skin.

Then, if I feel like it, I imagine what it must have been like to be an explorer on a boat: sick, wet, dirty, hungry, and afraid. I imagine being in terrible situations like huge waves coming at me, hitting an iceberg, or not knowing if I’m ever going to see my loved ones again. I think of how many people spent months suffering on these ships. I remind myself that if I was a woman during that time, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to travel alone.

Then I switch back to reality. Remember that I’m literally flying! It’s not imaginary! I’ll see my loved ones soon. And if we safely land it will be another miracle, not to be taken for granted. And I remember one more thing: “long flights” really aren’t that long when you think about it.

Let me know if you actually try this or have tried something similar in the past!

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It might sound silly but it’s actually really fun and been a game changer for me🥰. I think skydiving helped me gain this perspective actually😂! Here’s a video of my brother-in-law and I skydiving for the first time a few years ago! Please ignore the cheesy music they attached to our video😂.

Now, all this plane talk reminds me of one of my favourite true stories I heard this year.

(I heard about it in Sahil Bloom’s newsletter which you sign up for here.)

Almost everyone in October of 1903 believed that it was scientifically impossible for humans to fly in the air. And that wasn’t even just the general public- leading journalists, scientists, and mathematicians were enforcing this “fact”.

There was even an article in The New York Times printed during that time saying that if it were to actually happen, it wouldn’t happen for another one to ten million years (!!!):

What’s so cool is that just a few states over from the NYT headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, (at that exact same time!) two “crazy” brothers were working hard to prove everyone wrong. They refused to accept a “fact” for a “fact”, and spent years in their bicycle shop obsessed with experimenting with flight.

They weren’t devoting all those years to this obsession because they had been given money to, they were just extremely hungry with curiosity!!

Nine weeks after The New York Times article was published, on December 17th, 1903 (almost exactly 122 years ago today!) Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully flew in the air for 12 seconds in their flying machine!

If those two brothers had accepted everyone else’s limiting belief, they would never have even tried…and now we may not even have airplanes or have gone to space!

This makes me think, what other things are we accepting experts’ opinions on? Many ground-breaking scientific discoveries have come questioning previous “facts”. For example: I remember being taught in elementary school in the 90s that the brain is fixed once we reach a certain age. However, at that exact same time, neuroimaging technologies were finally able to prove this theory wrong!

Maybe we personally don’t care to be the next ground-breaking inventor or scientist, but knowing these things can help us question our own interpretation of reality. What in our own reality might be able to be disproven?

Could you pick up a new sport late in life? Could you discover that you’re actually an incredible drummer or painter? Could you go back to school and study something out of your comfort zone? Could you find love again? Could you start a band? Adopt a kid? Write a book?

Personally, biology was the one subject I had a really tough time with at school, so I’ve constantly told myself “I’m bad at biology.” But now, I’m not only obsessed with the brain (which involves biology), but I’m also spending my free time learning about the body and trying to finally teach myself what the major muscles are when I exercise.

I also recently learned that while I thought I had a bad knee (an assumption that became a limiting belief), it turns out my quadriceps just get tight really easily which makes my knee hurt😅. After learning that I need to stretch them in certain ways (and much more than I was previously), my knee pain has completely gone away!

What could you possibly prove yourself wrong about think week? Pay attention to how you speak to yourself and let me know if you discover anything new!

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Thank you so much as always for reading and have a great rest of your week!! ❤️

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Some researchers say this is because we’re subconsciously picking up on learned social cues from subtle micro-expressions and environmental patterns that we’re wired to detect patterns from. However, today I’m going to share something I recently learned that goes even deeper into the science of it all!

Did you know that our heart literally gives off vibes, AKA vibrations? (I’ve written the scientific sources at the end of this post!) And they can be detected up to 1-2 metres away from the body! This electromagnetic field is measured in an “electrocardiogram” (ECG) and is shown to change depending on our mood!

This itself was so mind-blowing to me, but there’s even more🤯😍!

So, we’ve all heard of or gotten our heart rate checked at some point or another, right? Well say you have a heart rate of 70 heartbeats per minute. Each beat is not completely even; the time always changes slightly between each beat.

For example, one gap between beat might be 0.45 seconds, the next might be 0.86 seconds, etc. This little difference of time between beats is called your heart rate variability (HRV). Stay with me here!

Studies show that…

When you’re stressed or anxious your HRV decreases (the heart beats more steadily aka with little variation):

• this can result in more negative mental and physiological effects

• paradoxically, it’s not good for it to beat more steadily because it makes it more rigid/less adaptable to change

When you’re calm, thoughtful, relaxed, and caring, your HRV increases (the heart beats with an irregular rhythm):

• this means you’re more flexible for any environmental or emotional changes

• which means your parasympathetic nervous system (via the vagus nerve) is healthy and responsive

• a high HRV actually lowers your blood pressure and production of inflammatory proteins!

🌳This whole thing was confusing to me at first, but when you think of it like a tree it makes more sense: a flexible tree that can move easily (high HRV) can bend in the wind and survive, whereas a stiff tree (low HRV) can break in the wind.

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🚙Or if you prefer a car analogy, two cars can be driving at 70km/h (like two people can have a heart rate of 70 beats per minute), however one can’t change its speed (low HRV), so it would crash into the car in front of it if that car slows down. Whereas another car that has the ability to speed up or slow down depending on the situation (high HRV) is more flexible and has a way lower chance of crashing!

Now that we understand the difference between low HRV and high HRV, studies have shown that when someone has low HRV we think of them as having “bad vibes” and when they have high HRV we think of them as having “good vibes.”

Well!!! We also subconsciously mirror people when we are around them, so if we spend a lot of time with people who have good vibes (high HRV) or bad vibes (low HRV), our own HRV will start to mimic or sync with theirs! This is so crazy to me! It totally makes sense now as to why we feel awful after hanging out with some people, and feel elated and energized after hanging out with others.

Note: A big way that you can instantly change your own HRV from low to high (and thus make you someone people aren’t running away from😂) is through breath work (aka learning how to control your breathing)!

The best example I can think of to when a large group of people are all emitting “good vibes” (high HRV) is when they are singing!

Singing not only controls the breath, but if you’re connected to the lyrics, it means the group is simultaneously feeling the same good, calm emotions at the same time too. This could be a choir or even just singing along with friends in the car to your favourite song!

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Does any of this resonate with you? Anything still confusing? Leave a comment and let me know!

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I’ll end this exciting discovery with a link to one of my favourite songs growing up: Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys🌞!

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Sources:

Lehrer P, Kaur K, Sharma A, Shah K, Huseby R, Bhavsar J, Sgobba P, Zhang Y. Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Improves Emotional and Physical Health and Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2020 Sep;45(3):109-129. doi: 10.1007/s10484-020-09466-z. Erratum in: Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2021 Dec;46(4):389. doi: 10.1007/s10484-021-09526-y. PMID: 32385728.

McCraty R, Zayas MA. Cardiac coherence, self-regulation, autonomic stability, and psychosocial well-being. Front Psychol. 2014 Sep 29;5:1090. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01090. PMID: 25324802; PMCID: PMC4179616.

Doty, J. R. (2024). Mind magic: The neuroscience of manifestation and how it changes everything. Avery.

Hello friends and family! How’ve you all been? I’m writing to you today from MEXICO🌴, where I’ve been for the last bit celebrating my three year anniversary with my partner🤍!

This is one of our happy places, and I am so lucky to be back here!! I’m soaking up as much of the warm air, tropical birdsong, and sunrises as I can!

Speaking of, if you’d like to read and see “my favourite little thing of the day✨” while I’m here, feel free to check out the Notes section of my substack: https://www.thelittlethingslife.com/notes

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Before I get into what I’ve been mentally working through the last few weeks, I want to give you a little recap of what you may have missed here on The Little Things Life since my last Kaja’s Korner!

1. “ride the métro like a parisian🇫🇷”: “do”s, faux pas, and all the tips you’d need for navigating the métro like a local!

2. “how the paris métro 🇫🇷 can make your brain bigger💡”: a short intro to the hippocampus and how travelling is perfect for our mental fitness!

3. “✨ my free paris map!!! 🇫🇷”: I think this is one of my most valuable posts! If you or anyone you know is going to Paris, just download my free Paris Google Map (always up to date!) and voilà! You have all of my recs with my very own descriptions as if I was there with you!

4. “could curious george be the key to a better life? 🐒”: my partner said this might be his favourite post so far! I shared my history of one of my favourite book series growing up, along with lots of easy neuropsychology hacks to keep our brains sharp!

5. “why is Paris called Paris?🇫🇷”: have you ever wondered? Read this post for a brief history of the city of light!

6. “if you have trouble making decisions...”: the information in this post has been ESSENTIAL (get it?) for me in getting the most important sh*t done!

7. “what I got wrong about the “Year of Yes”👀”: have you ever heard of Shondaland? Read about how one of television’s most powerful producers got over her fears, and how you can too!

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The post that’s still been on my mind is #6: I’ve really been trying to prioritize only “one thing” in my career goal[s!], which can be hard when you’re not working a “traditional job”; without a boss telling you what to do, you end up with so many options/paths that it’s hard to choose which one to take!

For example: Social media or no social media? If social media, which one? What are the topics? What are the subtopics? Where should I get my research? What is my organization system? What are my tools? Should I get my work or workout done first? What is my ideal schedule in sync with my energy? Or in sync with my menstrual cycle? Etc. etc.- The paths are endless!

One thing we can do is look at what works for people in other non-traditional careers. Apparently this roadmap system called the “Harada Method” was used by the Dodgers baseball star Shohei Ohtani in his freshman year of high school to break down his goal into smaller steps (and obviously worked for him!):

As you can see, you simply put your goal in the middle and then further breakdown each general goal into smaller steps. If you’d like to learn about it further, click here.

Does this system calm you or give you anxiety? Personally, I can’t really decide…

Even though I do break down my goals into smaller actionable steps, I think the Harada Method has too many small steps for me to be able to prioritize them😂.

I end up having an inner dialogue like this with my number of small steps already:

“Is this the best use of my time?”

“Am I doing this at the right time of day?”

“Am I prioritizing the right sub-task?”

“Is this really bringing me closer to my main goal?”

Am I alone in this or does anyone else have trouble committing with confidence to their career to-dos?

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However, I think I’ve come up with a solution for myself. This week I’ve created the motto“trust the to-do list” to have more confidence in my past self’s decisions; I have to trust that my past self’s prioritization was correct in order to stop my inner chatter:

Anytime my inner dialogue starts doubting my task at hand I shut it up by saying “trust the to-do list, trust the to-do list, trust the to-do list” like a mantra.

This helps me reduce the any anxieties or unnecessary inner saboteurs, so that I can be fully in the moment during my task/work (aka “flow state”).

Cool 🧠 fact: once you enter “flow state”, your brain releases an amazing combination of feel-good chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins among others!

Sometimes my motto/mantra works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I assume with some practice (neuroplasticity!) it’ll get easier!

Are there any mottos/mantras you’ve been using lately that works for you?

Hope you’re having a great week and thank you so much for being here and taking the time to read my newsletter❤️. See you next week😘!

Hi friends💛! A question I’ve been seeing pop up a lot lately is: "what happens if you get what you want, but it still doesn’t make you happy?”

This instantly reminds me of the iconic gangster movie Scarface (1983) [spoiler ahead!] where Al Pacino’s character Tony Montana gets everything he wants and is happy, but only for a moment…he then proceeds to engage in self-sabotaging behaviour, losing it all.

Something similar happened to Shonda Rhimes, the legendary producer and screenwriter behind Grey’s Anatomy, and How to Get Away With Murder, and Bridgerton to name a few. On paper, her dreams were coming true: winning tons of awards for her tv shows and rolling in dough - but in reality, she was miserable.

She realized that she had been living her life through the characters that she had created on screen, but had no life outside of work. Thankfully, Shonda Rhimes is a smart cookie and didn’t let everything crash and burn like Tony Montana😂! She realized she needed to completely 180 her life.

In Mel Robbins’ recent podcast interview with Rhimes, she claims that she used to be SO shy that even though she was being invited to participate in one-in-a-lifetime experiences (think: meeting the Obamas, being on talk shows, big trips), she wouldn’t even entertain the thought of getting out of her shell and going.

Because Rhimes knew that she wasn’t happy, she thought maybe the answer lay on the other side of doing things she was afraid of- thus the title of her best-selling book “Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person” was born!

When I first heard about Rhimes’ book years ago, I thought “I don’t need that. I need a book called the ‘Year of No’”! From pretty much the ages of 13-30, anytime someone asked me to attend an event or go for coffee etc. etc., I thought “that sounds like fun!” and would say yes before I took a beat to examine whether I had the physical, emotional, or mental capacity to fit yet another thing in my schedule. As you can probably guess, burning the candle at both ends is not sustainable!

It wasn’t until I listened to Mel Robbins’ podcast with Shonda Rhimes that I realized I had dismissed her book before understanding that it was actually perfect for me- I was just in the second phase of her journey:

1. Say yes to everything, especially if it scares you.

2. After doing this, you can you figure out what you should be saying no to.

3. Reassess as you grow. (ex.: Maybe say yes to something you’ve gotten comfortable saying no to, and see if the answer is still the same.)

Are you in any of these phases in your life? Or in a blend of them depending on the area of your life? Let me know in the comments!

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The new edition of “Year of Yes” and the aforementioned podcast have some great examples on how to say no! She even goes into detail about moving away from L.A., and how much she loves love, but has realized marriage is not for her. She sounds genuinely content with her life now, because she is being authentic to her real self, while leaving room to grow and adjust!

Shonda Rhimes’ story is refreshing; so often we see tragic endings from celebrities and public figures after they reach their “top”. Instead, Rhimes’ shows (not only tells!) us that we’ll totally be fine if we just actively listen to our inner Truth and get comfortable with switching things up, even if it scares us!

I haven’t reached the peak of my career goals yet, but soon I’ll share how I’ve completely changed how I approach goal-setting in order to actually “enjoy the journey” before I get there🥰. As Tony Robbins says: “It’s not about the goal. It’s about growing to become the person that can accomplish that goal.”

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When I started to write about France, my brain became so busy with arguments that I should actually be writing topics closer to the book I’ve been writing…which resulted in me getting overwhelmed and not writing anything at all🙈 - this is something psychologists call “decision fatigue”.

Have you ever experienced something like this? Apparently, too many options can actually be a bad thing, and is called the “paradox of choice.” So much of society has spent centuries working towards the privilege to be able to make our own decisions, but at a certain point too many choices lead to overwhelm and anxiety.

Studies (this is an article about it if you’re interested!) have even shown that menus that have fewer food options actually make more sales! When we’re hungry, the last thing we want to do is to have 1000 choices of what to eat. Similarly, how many people say there’s nothing to watch in a time where we have 1000s of films available at our fingertips?

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Why else do so many of us have trouble making decisions? Perhaps it’s because we’ve been conditioned by the school system that in order to be a “good student”, we must obey our teachers and follow instructions. If we started making up our own rules, chances are we’d get punished for it. This breeds good employees, but not necessarily good artists, entrepreneurs, and “free thinkers.” Fun fact: our modern school system was modelled after the army😅 and structured during Industrial Revolution to prepare students to work in factories! Click here to learn more!

❤️Side note: I LOVED school when I was little, and still do! So I’m not trying to bash it- just providing context as to why it might be uncomfortable for some of us to transition from employee to self-employed👀.❤️

In Essentialism, McKeown quotes the Austrian-American writer Peter Drucker:

“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time-literally-substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”

It’s no surprise that after being conditioned from a young age to follow “orders”, a lot of us feel lost when we leave school or a traditional job! And even if we enjoy carving our own path, as many artists and entrepreneurs do, many people aren’t cut out for a lifestyle that depends on making so many decisions on their own, because it can feel like like they’re jumping into the deep end every time they do so. Frightening! The lifestyle of an artist, entrepreneur, etc. requires a lot of confidence and inner faith- especially if your employees or family depend on you financially.

In McKeown’s book, he offers some tools to help those of us who need help self-navigating our career and life. He defines essentialism as “the disciplined pursuit of less, but better.” In other words, he claims that you must get clear about what is essential, and eliminate everything else…for now. It’s cutting fat. Editing your wardrobe. Saying no. Setting boundaries. Cleaning your physical and metaphorical house. Prioritizing your top task. Getting clear about what really matters to you right now in a world that’s always competing for your attention; trying to convince you that you should be doing this thing, no that thing, actually that thing!

Once you get clear about what is essential to you, it feels like a weight has been lifted! However, it requires you to be brave about letting go of what is not essential; when we don’t have the courage to get really honest with ourselves about what we really want right now, McKeown argues that we risk being governed by what other people want or our past self wanted. This could be due to anything from fear, a lack of time to reassess, or not giving yourself permission to explore different things to see what makes you actually happy. (Sounds pretty similar to “limiting beliefs”, doesn’t it?)

Discovering what our heart truly desires could be as simple as realizing you actually do like to wear pink now, or want to spend more time with your children. It could also be as life-changing as realizing your current career or city doesn’t serve you anymore, and that you need to give yourself the time and space to experiment with what does.

So…as mentioned, I was reading Essentialism because of my career goals. Since the book I’m writing doesn’t have France as a main topic, you could say that my Substack would not only be falsely advertising my writing to any potential readers of the book, but also any potential publishers or literary agents as well.

Okay, I LOVE writing and learning about France, I hope to move there again, and I want to use it as a setting in another book one day…but at this moment in time, France as a MAIN topic can’t take priority if I want to be smart about my time management. But don’t worry- it’s not going away completely!

Okay. Pause. Let’s review the word priority. My mind was blown after reading this passage in Essentialism:

“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities.”

How many of us think about things in terms of our “top 5 priorities”? I know I do! Rewiring my brain to only think of priority as singular helped put my to-do list in perspective.

For example, every day you can ask yourself “what is the most important thing to complete today?” and feel satisfied that you are actually moving in the direction you want, whether that’s revolved around family, friends, career, or health, etc. It’s better to complete only one task that will get you closer to your goals, rather than complete a bunch of nonessential items that leave you with a sense of false productivity.

Of course, this is assuming you actually know what you want. But our wants are always changing as we grow up! Sometimes we won’t know if something is the right path unless we just take action and try it out, then later reflect on how it feels. It’s kind of like dating: if you don’t take the leap to go on that first date, how will you know if that person is right for you?

So while the Alice in Wonderland meme at the top of this post of is true (if you don’t know what you want, then any path will get you there), we may have to continually leap, experiment (Tiny Experiments!) , and “fail” to find out what path works best for us at this moment in time!

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Thanks so much for reading friends!! I’m curious, is there an area of your life you feel you need to prioritize that you haven’t been? What about an area you need to edit out for now, even if it’s hard? Please let me know in the comments if you feel like it! ❤️

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When travelling, how often do we ask ourselves how the name of a place came to be? For me, it’s been surprisingly rare (though maybe this post will change that) but that question often leaves great clues to the history of a place! Although the exact details of the history of Paris are still being debated, historians can usually agree that “Paris” comes from the Parisii, a Celtic (specifically a Gaulish) group that existed around the third century BCE!

And why were the Parisii called the Parisii? Historians still argue about this, but based on the language roots of the name, it’s possible that they were named after being either “makers” / “producers” or “warriors” / “leaders”. Some linguists even think they may have been named after a landmark near their original home. However, I personally enjoy the first theory and like to think Parisians come from a long line of leaders producing beautiful things😍.

Now what’s up with the Parisii and why did they choose to settle where they did? The Parisii chose to live along the Seine- arguably in what’s now the modern-day “Île de la Cité” (Island of the City) where the Notre Dame now resides! Paris has always been a smart choice for settlers due to its central location in Europe. However, the Parisii were extra strategic in choosing this small island because it was a natural fortress against invaders! They didn’t have a large army, so the fact that the Île de la Cité is surrounded by water on all sides meant that it had limited access points and could be defended more easily.

Why else was the Île de la Cité a perfect location?

1. They could control the river traffic which was HUGE because the Seine was (and is!) a major trade route connecting the Atlantic coast to mainland Europe and the Mediterranean.

2. Back in the day, the land surrounding the island wasn’t full of the beautiful architecture of today. It was all farmland! The Seine thus provided an essential resource in helping the land grow everything the Parisii needed.

Eventually, the Romans took over the Parisii in 52 BCE and named the area “Lutetia Parisiorum”, meaning Lutetia of the Parisii. “Lutetia” roughly translates to “marsh” or “mud”, probably referring to the land around the Île de la Cité!

Over the years, Lutetia Parisiorum then started to simply be informally referred to as “Paris” by the locals, and once Saint Denis (and thus Christianity) entered the picture in approximately 250 CE, even “Lutetia” was dropped formally for it to be called Civitas Parisiorum.

Throughout all of this conquering, language evolved as well! France went from speaking Latin to Old French, and with that, a lot of words officially became much shorter: Parisiorum became Parisi, and then just simply Paris during the 5th century CE onward to today!

In case you’re curious, these were the old names of other well-known French cities!

Lugdunum → Lyon

Rotomagus → Rouen

Burdigala → Bordeaux

Crazy to think Paris one of the evolutions of Paris’ name was after MUD considering how beautiful the architecture is now! Did you learn anything new this week? Your brain thanks you! Let me know in the comments or see if you can remember any of these facts the next time someone brings up Paris - your brain will thank you even more❤️!

Merci beaucoup for reading until the end! Bisous! À la semaine prochaine! 🇫🇷

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If you’ve been around any toddlers lately, you’ll very well know that they LOVE to ask “why?” so much that it’s tough to have the patience to properly answer them every single time. And if you trace your own beliefs back far enough, you’ll realize that a lot of them come from an adult you asked in your youth because you didn’t know how to read and write to find out the answers on our own just yet! If that adult didn’t know the answer or have enough time (on top of the million other things that they probably had to do) to explain it to you, it might have gone like this:

1. They made up an answer or told you what they believed could be true.

2. They didn’t know how to explain the answer or were embarrassed to admit that they just didn’t know, so they replied with something along the lines of “that’s just how it is.”

3. They made you feel embarrassed for asking.

When we’re under five years old (or even older), we usually trust and depend on adults to have the answers for us. If #1 happens, we can get a good response and/or this can be where a lot of our limiting beliefs start. If #2 or #3 happens often enough, eventually we just stop asking questions. Unfortunately, it’s “the norm” that as we get older, we often stop being curious enough to ask questions- which can lead to a decline in brain health. However, if you’re reading this right now, I bet you are not that type of person!

What does this have to do with Curious George? Wait, who even is Curious George? Even if you haven’t read the books as a kid, I’m sure you know the cheeky little monkey I’m talking about. Despite a rather problematic backstory of The Man in the Yellow Hat bringing the monkey George back from Africa, the popularity of the books live on! Author H.A. Rey and his wife Margaret wrote and illustrated the original books together for decades, but made sure to pack the very first manuscript during their escape from Nazi-occupied Paris in 1940! You can read all about it in Dinitia Smith’s New York Times article“How Curious George Escaped the Nazis” here.

Maybe it’s because I was born in the year of the Monkey, or because my nickname was “Kaja Jean the Monkey Queen”, but I’ve always felt like George and I had a special bond. Apparently Lupo Sites analyzed why the books have been so popular and said:

“George’s qualities of curiosity, determination and cleverness have enduring appeal to children. George provides the excitement and humour while the Man in the Yellow Hat provides safety and security.”

Some of my earliest memories are learning how to read from Curious George books at bedtime. I distinctly remember my dad and I repeating the catchphrase “George was CURIOUS”, and him realizing I knew how to read on my own when I would catch him skipping words to get through the sometimes very very long adventures when he understandably wanted to hurry up and go to sleep😂.

My opinions about George have also changed as I’ve gotten older. I realized that as a kid who was always afraid of accidentally doing something wrong, Curious George was my compass of everything I should not do. I think he even ended up in jail a few times!

Now, after reading so many neuroscience studies, a common thread I’ve noticed is that curiosity is a key ingredient to keeping our brains healthy. As we explored in my previous post here, so is “failing,” which George did all the time!

Think about your own life. When was the last time you were super curious about something and did a deep-dive google search or took a class on it? Didn’t it just make you feel more awake and energetic? That’s not a coincidence.

The studies I’ve listed below show that when we’re curious about something, activity increases in our hippocampus (our memory centre that we talked about in this post) and our “dopaminergic midbrain” - the place in the brain that produces dopamine and acts as our reward system. Why is that important?

By being curious about something, your dopaminergic midbrain is telling your hippocampus that you are enjoying the discovery of new information. We can use this to our advantage, because the more often these two parts of the brain are activated now, the more active and flexible they will stay into our old age, which can help increase plasticity in our brains and preserve memory function later in life! I would again recommend the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff if you’d like to visit this topic more, because it’s all about listening to where your curiosity is driving you, rather than where you “think” you should be going.

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Some more good news? The power is in your hands! We can choose to stay curious about something that’s good for our brain (like a new skill, language, or other memory-based activities) and try to stay away from being curious about things like gossip, doomscrolling, or comparing yourself to other people on social media, etc. Why do we have to make the active choice?

When you’re interested in something like doomscrolling, the curiosity feeds us dopamine, but the final result then makes you sad and deflated. This can lead you to becoming prone to self-destructive behaviours because your brain gets used to that pattern. It’s not your fault, it’s how we’re wired! However, now that you know this, you can be a little more intentional with directing your curiosity towards healthy, brain-boosting activities that leave you feeling energetic and happier instead!

I’ll leave you with some more examples of activities to get curious about that strengthen your brain so that you can add more happiness, playfulness, and energy into your life- just like George!

Remember: it’s also good for your brain to fail, so don’t be afraid to try something totally outside your normal wheelhouse!

Are there any that you’re curious in experimenting with? Let me know!

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Gruber, M. J., Gelman, B. D., & Ranganath, C. (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron, 84(2), 486–496.

Sakaki, M., Yagi, A., & Murayama, K. (2018). Curiosity in old age: A possible key to achieving healthy ageing. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 88, 106–116.

Swan, G. E., & Carmelli, D. (1996). Curiosity and mortality in aging adults: A 5-year follow-up of the Western Collaborative Group Study. Psychology and Aging, 11(3), 449–453.

Kempermann, G., Kuhn, H. G., & Gage, F. H. (1997). More hippocampal neurons in adult mice living in an enriched environment. Nature, 386(6624), 493–495.

Click HERE to download my free Google Map, make sure to SAVE it, and then just follow the croissants for my favourite finds!

The biggest frustration that I’ve faced with guidebooks and PDFs is that I spend an enormous amount of time trying to search for all the places that they mention! SO the BEST part about using my personal map is that you can just download it and have me whispering recommendations to you depending on wherever you are in the city!

For example:

Each place has a little (some longer/shorter than others) personalized description of why I recommend it, like the Vigne du Clos Montmartre in the description above! Below is my video of the vineyard with the tip of visiting it through the Montmartre Museum garden. I’ve also added locations on my map that I’ve heard through the grapevine (pun intended lol..) from local Parisians that it’s a good place to check out!

This means that say you’ve decided you want to go to the Louvre or Sacre Coeur, and then have some time to kill before lunch and don’t know what’s in the area to do! Pas de problème, just pull up my map and take a look at the places that I’ve saved nearby so that you can explore my recommendations!

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My free map will save you TONS of time! The other good news is that I’ll be adding new ones all the time, and deleting ones if I would no longer recommend them…or if they close down- another pitfall of guidebooks that I’ve come across time and time again. And all you have to do is just save it once to your Google account! I’m always adding tips, hidden gems, and the classics for you to keep it fresh!

Here’s another little preview:

If you have any tech questions on how to use it, please let me know and I’ll be happy to help☺️! It’s an ongoing labour of love, so please share it widely with anyone you know who will be going to Paris!

Click HERE for the link to my map again!

Also, if you could nudge those friends to subscribe to my Substack too, that would be AMAZING😘❤️! Many bisous and merci beaucoups in advance💋🙏🏻!!

Merci! À la semaine prochaine! 🇫🇷

click here if you’d like to support me😍