'Can' Versus 'May'

A listener named Donna says that after familiarizing herself with the definitions and usages of “can” and “may,” she still isn't sure which word to use in this sentence: “May we expect you tomorrow?” or “Can we expect you tomorrow?”

That's a tough one! 

Ability or Permission?

Once upon a time in the land of strict grammar rules, “can” denoted physical or mental ability, and “may” denoted permission or authorization (1). It wasn't OK to use “can” if you were talking about permission. You could hear citizens of this land saying, “May I accompany you to the ball, Miss Fuzzywink?” and “Why of course you may, my dear.” This young lady perhaps would ask her suitor about his dancing ability: “Can you do the cha-cha?” and he would answer that he did have the ability: “Why of course I can, Miss Fuzzywink.”

'Can' Instead of Traditional 'May'

Nowadays, the rules aren’t so cut and dried. Since the second half of the 19th century, “can” has been used in informal contexts to denote permission (2). You’ve probably heard someone ask, “Can I go to the party?” If we lived in strict-grammar land, the authorities would complain about this usage, but these days it is acceptable to use “can” in this manner if you’re speaking informally (3). If you’re a teacher of young children, you probably often hear “Can I go to the bathroom?” Parents probably hear their children whining, “Can I have a cell phone?” So are the kids to blame for using “can” instead of “may”? Well, they just repeat what grown-ups say, and grown-ups are apparently moving away from the sometimes prissy-sounding “may.”

For example, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, the experts on its usage panel were more accepting of using “can” to mean “may” in a recent survey than they were in the past.

'May' Is OK

Now, “may” does have its rare place. If formality and politeness are of utmost importance, you should use “may” to denote permission. So it would be better to say to the waiter at a fancy restaurant, “May I have more water, please?” than “Can I have more water, please?” If you’ve just knocked on a door, you should probably say, “May I come in?”

Next: "Mayn't" and the Final Word on "Can" Versus "May"

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'Mayn’t' Isn’t OK

Before we answer Donna’s question, let’s talk about denying permission: No, you may not turn off your listening device just yet. It’s possible to say the obscure contraction “mayn’t,” but I wouldn’t recommend it. The American Heritage Dictionary says mayn’t sounds unnatural, and Garner’s Modern English Usage states that “educated people” typically say, “Can’t I?” instead of “Mayn’t I?” or “May I not?” So if we were in the land of strict grammar rules, we might hear Miss Fuzzywink asking her governess, “But why can’t I go to the ball?” Even she probably wouldn’t say, “Why mayn’t I?”

'Can' Versus 'May'

Now we can ponder Donna’s question about “Can or may we expect you tomorrow?” First, we might ask ourselves if the speaker is talking about ability or permission. I don’t think we're talking about permission: “Are we allowed to expect you tomorrow?” No.

Neither does it seem to be talking about ability—“Are we mentally able to expect you tomorrow?”—at least, not in this literal sense. But it does work in the sense of "Will we be able to expect you tomorrow?" In other words, can we make plans to have you at our house?

"Can" also has meanings beyond simple ability. For example, it can also mean to have the possibility of something, such as "I hear you can win at poker." Therefore, "Can we expect you tomorrow?" could also have the sense of "Is there a possibility that you will arrive tomorrow?"

If we want to ask, “Are you coming tomorrow?” maybe we should just say it that way. But if I were forced to choose between “can” and “may,” I would say, “Can we expect you tomorrow?”

Bonnie Mills is the author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier and blogs at sentencesleuth.blogspot.com.

References

1. Garner, B. Garner's Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016, p. 139-40.

2. Burchfield, R. W, ed. The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Third edition. New York: Oxford, 1996, p. 126.

3. American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005, p. 74.

The 5 Biggest Myths of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is everywhere these days. Mindfulness headlines like “Healthy Mind, Healthy Life” or “The Medicine of the Moment” are trumpeted from grocery store checkout stands, right next to celebrity gossip and thinner thighs. 

In many ways, this is a good thing: mindfulnessis improving lives the world over. Recent studies have found mindfulness benefits everyone from emergency room nurses to law students waiting for their bar exam results to pregnant women—to the extent that their babies later showed less negative social-emotional behavior than the babies of less mindful women.

But as the mindfulness movement gets bigger and more unwieldy, misconceptions sprout like mushrooms after the rain. Therefore, this week, we’ll tackle the five biggest myths of mindfulness.

The 5 Myths of Mindfulness

1. Mindfulness is meditation.
2. Mindfulness is about taking time out to rest and relax.
3. Mindfulness is having no thoughts.
4. The ultimate goal is to be mindful all the time.
5. Mindfulness is bliss.

Let's explore each in more detail.

Myth #1: Mindfulness is meditation.

The two terms mindfulness and meditation often get thrown around interchangeably.

Mindfulness is an awareness. It’s paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. You don’t need a meditation cushion, or even more than a split second, to be mindful. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the first American mindfulness researchers, likens mindfulness to being behind a waterfall. You’re not under the waterfall, caught in the swirl and pounding of thoughts, emotions, and sensations, nor are you trying to stop or change them. Instead, you’re behind the cascade, observing all that’s happening without evaluation.

Mindfulness meditation, by contrast, is a practice. It’s all the awareness that is mindfulness, but sustained. Rather than just checking in with the waterfall, it’s logging some time behind it. It’s bringing your attention back when it inevitably wanders away, often many times a minute. 

Meditation requires sustained attention on an object. And by “object,” I don’t mean a physical object like a toothbrush or a can of green beans—instead, it’s simply something on which to focus your attention. The classic is your breath, but it could also be your body, a piano sonata, or the thoughts running through your head. You can mindfully meditate on the sensations of walking, washing dishes, or eating a cookie. Really, you can be mindful of anything, and likewise, anything can be the object of mindfulness meditation.

Myth #2: Mindfulness is about taking time out to rest and relax.

This is another big one. Mindfulness isn’t relaxation. Stress reduction may be a side effect; checking in with your thoughts, body, and impulses decreases your chance of getting yanked around by them, which in turn lightens your life’s drama quotient considerably. Likewise, the “without judgment” part may result in less stress—we all feel lighter with less judgment.

But fundamentally, mindfulness isn’t rest; indeed, the two are kind of apples and oranges. Even remembering to be mindful can take quite a bit of work. But many people, including me, find that checking in with their thoughts, feelings, and sensations, even if it’s not necessarily restorative, is definitely illuminating. 

Myth #3: Mindfulness is having no thoughts.

The idea that mindfulness requires a blank mind is a myth that makes many people believe they can’t be mindful. But just like you can’t stop your heart from beating or your stomach from digesting, you can’t stop your brain from thinking. That’s what it does.

Think about it this way: mindfulness isn’t a suspension of thoughts; instead, it’s a suspension of judgment. 

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Put another way, mindfulness is an observation of what’s happening: that itch above your left eyebrow, the bad taste in your mouth, the realization that the thought that you’re a bad daughter is nothing more than a thought, or the fact that the Kit Kat jingle has been running through your head for the better part of a minute. 

Mindfulness welcomes any and all thoughts, but sees them as just that: thoughts. As my favorite bumper sticker sums up: Don’t believe everything you think.

Myth #4: The ultimate goal is to be mindful all the time.

Not at all. It’s impossible to be in the present moment at all times. Sometimes you need to plan for the future: “What’s for dinner?” or “I can feel a migraine coming on—I should really take some medicine, drink some coffee, and go lie down.” It’s important to reflect on the past: “Next time I’ll actually try to listen rather than shooting off my mouth,” or “Ugh, I shouldn’t have eaten those leftover pork dumplings.”

Even mindfulness gurus have many mindless moments.

Being aware of everything in the present moment all the time isn’t just impossible, it would leave us overstimulated and exhausted. Even mindfulness gurus have many mindless moments—getting lost in rumination, daydreaming, or humming another jingle: how about Folgers this time? 

Myth #5: Mindfulness is bliss.

This is a tough one. Mindfulness is not simply savoring the moment, of taking time to notice the hues of a sunset, or the taste of that warm chocolate chip cookie, or the bubbles in your champagne. It’s also noticing your defensiveness after losing your temper, your helplessness in the face of injustice, or that the milk in your coffee has most definitely gone sour.

In short, mindfulness looks at the negative, the neutral, and the positive, all with equanimity. It’s not joy—instead, it’s the awareness of joy, but also of pain and everything else.

It’s taking a step back from the constant input of sensory information and the constant output of thoughts and feelings. Whether for a split second or many hours, it’s your journey behind the waterfall.

And with any luck, you won’t find the Kars for Kids jingle there waiting for you.

Image of a mindful brain © Shutterstock

‘Duct Tape’ or ‘Duck Tape’?

Many people have asked whether the correct term is “duct tape” or “duck tape” or if maybe both exist and there’s a difference.

The especially sticky and especially strong tape that helps you MacGyver your way through life is known today as “duct tape.” But the name has a long and confusing history.

‘Duck Tape’

It was invented by a division of Johnson & Johnson in the 1940s and used by American soldiers in World War II, reportedly “for everything from repairing broken windows to making temporary bandages,” and soldiers called it “duck tape.” 

‘Duct Tape’

After the war, it was used by construction workers to hold ventilation ducts together, and at this point it was silver colored to match the ducts it was holding together, and it was generally referred to as “duct tape.”

The Trademark

According to SureTech Brands, which now owns the trademark on the name Duck Tape, duct tape wasn’t marketed to the general public until 1978. It was sold by Manco, Inc., and they made their version green instead of silver. It wasn’t marketed as Duck Tape until 1980 at which point they also made the tape in other colors. Of course, today it’s available in all kinds of colors and prints, and I see it sold in craft stores. My friend’s daughter used to make colorful purses and wallets out of it.

The Original Duck Tape

An interesting side note, and another reason people may be confused about whether it’s called “duct tape” or “duck tape," is that the backing of the original tape was a type of woven cotton called duck cloth. “Duck” in this sense comes from the Dutch word “doeck,” which means “linen cloth.”

And long before World War II, electricians were using tape from duck cloth that they called “duck tape,” For example, this instruction is from an 1894 article about amateur motor building in a magazine called “The Electrical World”:

In belting from the motor, connect to as large a pulley as possible and practical, and use a heavy duck tape, one inch wide, such as printers use on their large presses.

But adhesive tapes weren’t in wide use at that time, so tape usually wasn’t tape as we think of it today. It was just long strips of duck cloth.

Today, the tape is generically known as duct tape and sold under the brand name Duck Tape.

‘Duct Tape’ and ‘Duck Tape’

To sum up, first it was duck tape, which was just strips of duck cloth; then it was duck tape with adhesive like we think of today and it was used by soldiers; then it was duct tape mostly used in construction; and finally today it is generically known as duct tape and also sold by one company under the brand name Duck Tape.

Image by Mignon Fogarty

Why Do We Say ‘to Boot’?

In a recent podcast, I said the phrase “an interesting bit of history to boot,” and I started to wonder why we use the phrase “to boot.” It’s kind of odd, right? Does it have to do with boots you wear on your feet? The trunk of a car, which is called a “boot” in Britain? I had to look it up!

'To Boot'

According to the Oxford English Dictionary and Etymology Online it goes all the way back to the Old English word “bōt.” The word meant something like “advantage, help, and to make something good or better.” Eventually it also came to mean something extra or added into the bargain, as in this citation in the OED from the 1599 play “1st Part King Edward IV”:

What boote wouldst thou giue mee?

The boot was something good and extra, something thrown in for good measure, which is essentially what it still means in the phrase “to boot.” I explained a main point, and then I said you also get an extra story about history—“an interesting bit of history to boot.”

The Financing Boot

Doing that research reminded me of a word from finance that I encountered during my time in Silicon Valley. I had completely forgotten about this, but when you’re doing a round of financing such as an initial public offering, you might, for example, offer 10% of your company for $3 million, but such deals also often have a boot—an extra bit of your company that you’ll let the investment bankers sell if the offering is going really well. 

I didn't find that exact definition in any dictionaries, and all my attempts at Google searching got swamped out by stories about the Boot Barn IPO, employees getting the boot (getting fired), entrepreneurial boot camps, and so on, but I checked with a couple of people who have done such deals, and they confirmed that I’m remembering correctly. So that’s a specialized finance meaning of “boot,” possibly just jargon (possibly not widespread), that also goes back to the “extra” or “something special thrown in” meaning.

A second meaning in finance is something you add to a deal to make the exchange equal. For example, if you buy a car and trade in your old car and then also give the dealer some money, that extra money you add is called “the boot.”

These meanings of “boot” are from a completely different origin than the type of boot you wear on your feet, the part of a car where you put luggage, and the saying “give someone the boot,” which means someone has been fired or kicked out. All those meanings of “boot” ultimately go back to a word from Old French.   

'Booty'

Finally, I wondered whether the “extra or something special thrown in” meaning of “boot” was related to the word “booty” for pirates plunder, and it appears I’m not the only one to see a connection. Both the Oxford English Dictionary and Etymology Online say that “booty” does not come from the same origin as “boot.” It goes back to different Old French and Germanic words, but it was influenced by association with the word “boot” that means “extra or additional.”

So that’s a long (and I hope interesting) answer to my original question of why we say things like “…and an interesting bit of history to boot.”

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

13 Secrets to Pill-Free Pain Relief

From headaches to sore feet and everything in between, these all-natural pain relievers will have you feeling your best without ever spending a dime.

Headaches

1. Hit the Spot
That pain in your head might actually start in your neck. Use your thumbs, index, and middle fingers to squeeze just below the large muscle that runs from the high point of both shoulders and joins your neck. Or even better, have a partner do it for you. Hold for 30 to 45 seconds.

2. Migraine? Give Yourself a Brain Freeze
Okay, so it sounds crazy! But tons of migraine sufferers and even medical experts highly recommend this strategy. Here’s how to bring on a brain freeze to stop a migraine in its tracks: Simply drink ice-cold water or slurp a slushy drink through a straw held against your upper palate. Eating ice cream or a Popsicle can work, too—aim for the roof of your mouth.

3. Prevent a Brain Freeze
If your headaches aren’t migraines but are actually brought on by that infamous ice-cream effect, turn the science around. You can prevent brain freeze by pressing your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much surface area as possible. Brain freeze (also known as ice-cream headache) happens because the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, so your brain thinks your whole body is cold. It compensates by overheating, which causes your head to hurt. By warming up the roof of your mouth, you’ll chill your brain and feel better.

4. Spice Up Your Cure
Dab a cream containing capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, inside the nostril on the side of your head where pain is concentrated. Studies show it can help block the pain of cluster and migraine headaches!

Muscle and Joint Pain

5. Ease with Arnica
Old-time remedies for muscle soreness often included arnica. Now it’s easy to find this herbal healer in lotions available at health food stores. Rub on for relief!

6. Natural Recovery Drink
Tart cherry juice serves up anthocyanins, natural anti-inflammatory compounds that can reduce muscle pain and swelling. Just make sure you choose unsweetened juice to get the most benefit. Don’t like cherries? Raspberries also contain anthocyanins to bring you relief from soreness.

7. Arthritis Relief Rub
Massage can feel great and help both your pain and your mood. Researchers in Korea found that bringing in aromatherapy has amazing benefits for people suffering with arthritis. Here’s the blend they used:

• 1 ounce almond oil
• 1 ounce apricot oil
• 2 teaspoons jojoba oil
• 8 drops lavender essential oil
• 4 drops marjoram essential oil
• 8 drops eucalyptus essential oil
• 4 drops rosemary essential oil
• 4 drops peppermint essential oil

Simply combine and rub on any joints affected by arthritis.

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8. DIY Capsaicin Cream
Capsaicin is a timeless remedy for arthritis pain relief. It works by reducing levels of a compound called substance P, which transmits pain signals to the brain. You can buy over-the-counter capsaicin creams for arthritis and back pain at any drugstore. But it’s simple enough to make your own. All you need to do is mix a few dashes of ground cayenne with 2 or 3 teaspoons olive oil. Apply it to unbroken skin at the painful joints several times a day. You may feel a mild burning sensation at first, but that will fade with use. Watch your hands after application to avoid getting the salve in your eyes or mouth.

Common Aches and Pains

9. Get Tooth Relief from Your Hand
You can relieve a toothache by rubbing the back of your hand between your thumb and index finger (the V zone where the bones of the two fingers meet) with an ice cube. Rubbing the hand on the side of the body where the toothache is located may reduce pain intensity by as much as half, according to the results of a small study. What’s going on? Researchers believe this little trick can block pain impulses traveling to the brain. It can’t hurt—and might take away the hurt—when you give it a try.

10. Stay Comfortable with Clove
If you have an achy tooth or gum and your dentist’s first opening is in a week or two, a dab of clove oil can offer some temporary relief while you’re waiting to get it looked at by a professional. Just dab on with a cotton swab on the tooth or area that hurts; after a few minutes, it’ll be good and numb.

11. Roll Away Achy Feet
Stretch, relax, and find relief by rolling your bare feet over a tennis ball, lacrosse ball, or soup can. For cooling relief, try a frozen water bottle.

12. Treat Feet to Tea
Steep four peppermint tea bags in 2 cups boiling water. In a basin, add that tea to 1 gallon comfortably hot water. Let your feet enjoy a soothing soak.

13. The Secret to No-Tears Shots
I wish I’d know this trick when the boys were little: Simply cough as the needle is going in! The full science: Coughing brings on a short and quick rise in chest pressure, which blocks pain-signal conducting work by the spinal cord. The bottom line: pain-free injections.

How to Use Semicolons

Today's topic is semicolons. I get a lot of questions about semicolons, so it's time to clear up some confusion.

4 Reasons to Use Semicolons

1. To separate clauses
2. To create variety
3. To emphasize relatedness
4. To separate items in a complex list

Let's talk more about each of these techniques and how to use other grammar tools at your disposal to enhance your writing when it comes to semicolons.

Semicolons Separate Clauses

Semicolons separate things. Most commonly, they separate two main clauses that are closely related to each other but could stand on their own as sentences if you wanted them to.

Here's an example:

I have a big test tomorrow; I can't go out tonight.

The two clauses in

 that sentence are separated by a semicolon and could be sentences on their own if you put a period between them instead:

I have a big test tomorrow. I can't go out tonight.

Semicolons Create Variety

One reason you might choose to use a semicolon instead of a period is if you wanted to add variety to your sentence structure; for example, you might use a semicolon if you thought you had too many short, choppy sentences in a row.

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Semicolons Emphasize Relatedness

Another reason to use a semicolon is to draw attention to how related your two clauses are. The semicolon in our example sentence highlights that the reason you can't go out tonight is that you have a big test tomorrow. You wouldn't write, “English is my fifth period class; I can't go out tonight,” because those two main clauses have nothing to do with each other. I can't think of a single reason why English being fifth period would mean you can't go out tonight.

Semicolons and Coordinating Conjunctions

You should never use a semicolon and a coordinating conjunction such as “and,” “so,” and “but” to join two main clauses; that's the job of a comma. If you want to use a coordinating conjunction you'd write it like this:

I have a big test tomorrow, so I can't go out tonight.

Nevertheless, there are a couple of instances where it's OK to use a semicolon with a coordinating conjunction.

Semicolons Can Join Complex Clauses with a Coordinating Conjunction

First, if you have a long sentence with multiple independent clauses, and some of those clauses contain internal punctuation such as a comma, you can use a semicolon with a coordinating conjunction to make the separation between clauses more clear. Here's an example:

If you want me to go out tonight, you need to help me with my homework first; and if you say no, I'll know that you don't really care about going out.

Because each half of that long sentence has a conditional clause that must contain a comma, it's OK to use a semicolon before the “and” that separates those two parts. You could make them two sentences, but you don't have to; and because they are so closely related, it makes a lot of sense to have them be together separated by the semicolon. The “and” after the semicolon is actually optional in this case, but I think it adds to the flow of the sentence.

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Semicolons Can Separate Items in a Complex List

The second instance in which it's OK to use a semicolon with a coordinating conjunction also occurs when you have an excess of commas: it's when you need to separate list elements that contain commas.

Here's an example:

This week's winners are Joe from Reno, Nevada; Diane from Phoenix, Arizona; and Matt from Irvine, California.

Because each item in the list requires a comma to separate the city from the state, you have to use a semicolon to separate the items themselves.

Notice again that both times you can use a semicolon with a coordinating conjunction such as “and,” it's because commas are already being used for something else, so using a comma could be confusing to readers.

Semicolons with Conjunctive Adverbs and Transitional Phrases

Finally, you use a semicolon when you use a conjunctive adverb or transitional phrase to join two main clauses.

Conjunctive adverbs are words such as “however,” “therefore,” and “indeed,” and they "usually show cause and effect, sequence, contrast, comparison, or other relationships" (1). For example, “I have a big test tomorrow; therefore, I can't go out tonight.” (The comma after the conjunctive adverb is optional.)

A transitional phrase is something like “for example” or “in other words.” A sentence with a transitional phrase could read as follows:

I have a big test tomorrow; as a result, I can't go out tonight.

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Coordinating Conjunctions Versus Conjunctive Adverbs

Sometimes people seem frustrated because they have to remember to use commas with coordinating conjunctions and semicolons with conjunctive adverbs most of the time. If you can't keep the difference straight in your head, it can help to remember that commas are smaller than semicolons and go with coordinating conjunctions, which are almost always short two- or three-letter words—small words, small punctuation mark.

Semicolons are bigger and they go with conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases, which are almost always longer than three letters—bigger words, bigger punctuation. I'll put a list of the different kinds of connectors on the website.

The Grammar Devotional

Also, my second book, The Grammar Devotional, is available in stores now. It's a good idea to follow me on Twitter or Facebook or sign up for my free grammar tip e-mail newsletter. I'm @grammargirl on Twitter and my Facebook page is facebook.com/GrammarGirl.

References

1. Wikipedia contributors. "Conjunctive Adverb," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conjunctive_adverb&oldid=108619955 (accessed February 23, 2007).

 

Common Coordinating Conjunctions	Common Conjunctive Adverbs	Common Transitional Phrases
Use these with commas to join main clauses	Use these with semicolons to join main clauses	Use these with semicolons to join main clauses
and	accordingly	after all
but	again	as a matter of fact
nor	also	as a result
or	besides	at any rate
so	consequently	at the same time
yet	finally	even so
for	furthermore	for example
	hence	for instance
	however	in addition
	incidentally	in conclusion
	indeed	in fact
	likewise	in other words
	moreover	in the first place
	namely	in the meantime
	nevertheless	of course
	nonetheless	on the contrary
	otherwise	on the other hand
	similarly
	still
	that is
	then
	therefore
	thus

More Semicolon-Related Reading

France Debates the Future of the Semicolon (April 4, 2008)

Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location (February 18, 2008)

Has Modern Life Killed the Semicolon (June 20, 2008)

And Now He's Dead: Semicolon; Punctuation Mark (April 7, 2008)

The End of the Line? (April 7, 2008)

The Unlikely Friendship Between FDR and Al Smith

On a cold January day in 1911, a young lawyer with a famous last name and a spring in his step entered the New York state capital in Albany to be sworn in as a new state senator.

His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was 28 years old and he was sure he was following in the footsteps of his fifth cousin—who also happened to be his wife’s uncle. Not so many years earlier, Theodore Roosevelt had been a young member of the New York State Legislature, and he had gone on to bigger and greater things. Young Franklin told friends that his goal was to be a New York legislator, then assistant secretary of the Navy, then governor of New York. Just like Teddy. And then? Anyone who was governor of New York, he said, was a presidential candidate in waiting. None of Franklin Roosevelt’s friends considered this scenario far-fetched.

Some of his new colleagues, however, had a very different opinion of the young patrician from Hyde Park who had been raised in a manor house called Springwood and traveled in a private rail car with his wealthy parents. They found him aloof, arrogant, contemptuous of professional politicians, especially those from New York City. More than anything else, they considered him an amateur and a lightweight.

One of Albany’s most powerful politicians summed up what others were thinking about state Senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt. “He doesn’t have any idea of how you get on in politics,” said the majority leader of the state assembly, Alfred E. Smith—better known to friend and foe alike as simply Al.

Al Smith was a son of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the grandson of an Irish immigrant, a self-made, self-taught product of New York’s famous political machine, Tammany Hall. He was 37 years old, wore loud suits, and had the voice of a carnival barker. On Thursday nights when the Legislature was in session, he gathered a handful of colleagues together for dinner at a hotel just down the hill from the Capitol. There, over cigars and drinks, he told stories about the sidewalks of New York to legislators from the mill towns of western New York, the potato fields of Long Island, and the forests and villages of upstate. They had never met such an extraordinary political leader, a grade school dropout who learned about life as a teenager working in the Fulton Fish Market.

On that January day in Albany, there was a chasm separating Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Al Smith. True, they were both Democrats. But they represented two very different constituencies and two very different traditions, and they seemed unbridgeable. Roosevelt was a voice for the party’s elite reformers and its rural voters, who had in common a disdain for cities, immigrants, and urban politics. Smith represented the new Americans of the 20th century who traced their roots to the shtetls of eastern Europe, the villages of southern Italy, the townlands in the west of Ireland. They were a rural people transformed almost instantly to city dwellers, and they relied not only on themselves but on their local political machines for help and guidance. The machines were happy to help, as long as they could depend on their new friends on Election Day.

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For years, decades even, the two factions of the Democratic Party operated on opposite sides of the canyon that divided them, shouting insults at each other from across the chasm. Not surprisingly, the party was virtually impotent in national elections. From the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 to the election of Teddy Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, in 1908—a span of nearly 40 years—only one Democrat, Grover Cleveland, had been elected president. And as long as the Democrats continued to produce disparate leaders like Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt, the party’s divisions seemed destined to continue.

But, because of Al Smith and Franklin Roosevelt, that’s not what happened.

Within seven years of Roosevelt’s debut as a state senator, he and Al Smith began building a bridge between all that divided them.

Within seven years of Roosevelt’s debut as a state senator, after he left Albany and moved on—as he predicted—to become assistant secretary of the Navy, he and Al Smith began building a bridge between all that divided them. In 1918, a century ago, Smith was running for governor of New York against a popular incumbent. As election day approached, Smith received a letter from somebody who described himself as his “sincere friend.” The letter spoke of the “personal friendship” they had formed when they served together in Albany. And the letter-writer said he would be delighted to help Al Smith’s campaign for governor in any way he could. It was signed by the assistant secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt.

Nobody, least of all these two very different men, would have predicted such a coming together, the Protestant country squire and the Catholic city kid, the reformer and the machine pol. And, in fact, Roosevelt was unable to actively campaign for Smith in 1918 because he and his children fell victim to the flu pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people around the world. The horrific outbreak forced Smith to cancel most of his campaign appearances in the weeks before Election Day, a distinct disadvantage for a candidate with Smith’s personal magnetism.

But he won, barely, becoming the first Catholic to be elected governor of New York, a cultural milestone at the time, something taken for granted a century later.

Letters poured into Smith’s office from old and new friends, favor-seekers, job-hunters, advice-dispensers. Among them, and perhaps fitting into all of those categories, were letters from Franklin Roosevelt.

They were building a bridge, the two of them. And that bridge would one day unite their party and lead it to unprecedented dominance of national politics.

And in many ways, it was Al Smith who paid the toll.

Photo of Franklin Roosevelt as a child on his pony, “Debby,” on the grounds near Springwood in Hyde Park. (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum)

Become a Grilling Genius with These 11 Tips

Improve your grill-game without expensive gadgets or materials. These tips are easy, inexpensive, and sure to impress your guests.

Easy Prep & Tools

1. Dress Your Grill
Don’t spend big money on a grill cover! Just look for an inexpensive poncho at a discount store—it’ll do the trick and protect your grill just as well.

2. DIY Chimney Starter
Using one of these metal canisters makes getting charcoal good and hot a cinch! You simply place crumpled newspaper at the bottom and pile charcoal on top. Then light the crumbled newspaper. The upward draft created by the chimney shape helps spread the heat to the charcoal in no time. You can buy one, but it’s simple to make your own. All you need to do: remove both ends of a large coffee can with a can opener, and you’ve got a canister ready for charcoal. A set of pliers helps you lift off the hot chimney and free the coals once the charcoal is ready for cooking.

3. Wood Chips Made Easy      
Getting wood chips ready for the grill by soaking them? It’s easy to make sure they stay submerged in a zipper-lock bag filled with water. And it’s easy to carry the bag right out to the grill.

4. Add a Warming Rack
While gas grills usually have a built-in warming rack, most charcoal grills don’t. But you can create your own with a simple technique. Just set a smaller rack on top of two empty tin cans placed on the main grill rack. Now you can keep food warm until you’re ready to serve. The lift also gives you control for when you want to toast (not burn!) buns.

The Main Event

5. Juicy Burgers Begin with Ice
The secret to a super-juicy burger that will impress your barbecue guests is closer than you think. Just head to your icemaker! Fold an ice cube into the center of each burger patty, or use your thumb to make an indentation and set the ice cube on top. As it cooks, the ice cube melts and locks moisture in the burger.

6. Give Meat a Spritz
While you’re grilling, keep some 100% apple juice in a spray bottle nearby. Periodically spritz your meat for more flavor and tenderness and better color. So simple! Just resist the urge to spray your guests.

7. Grilling Something Delicate?
To prevent a free fall through the grill, place an extra grill rack perpendicular to the rack beneath it.

8. Double-Team Your Kebabs
When barbecuing meat and veggies, use two skewers per kebab. It’s a simple trick to stop food pieces from spinning when you rotate the skewers. Be sure to soak wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes beforehand, to keep them from burning.

9. Naturally Seasoned Skewers
Skip the usual wooden or metal skewers, and swap in rosemary sprigs. Look for long sprigs that have especially thick and sturdy stems. Simply remove the leaves from about three-quarters of the sprig to allow room for your kebab ingredients, and set aside the rosemary leaves for another use. No presoaking, plus you add amazing flavor and aroma! They look gorgeous, too.

10. No More Smoke in Your Eyes
The simple secret: Lift the grill’s lid away from your face. And make sure that you are not standing downwind from a breeze.

11. Sweet Finale
You’ve enjoyed your main grilling event and started to shut down the grill. While the heat remains, make a fun dessert: banana boats. Slice deep lengthwise cuts along the curves of unpeeled bananas, being careful not to cut all the way through. Now fill in the banana slits you’ve created with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, chopped nuts, or any other topping you dream up. Wrap the banana in aluminum foil and place on the grill, cut-side up, for 8 to 10 minutes before spooning out the gooey goodness.

Your Guide to Getting a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC)

Being a homeowner always comes with pros and cons. It can help or hurt your finances depending on where you live, the debt you take on, and your goals. The joys include having a place to call your own, stable housing costs, and the chance to build equity.

In fact, according to a 2018 J.D. Power study, Americans are enjoying more lendable equity than ever. Rising home prices have pushed the amount of equity that homeowners can tap up 10 percent from the previous pre-recession peak in 2005.

So, if you’re a homeowner watching your equity tick higher and higher, you might wonder if you should dip into it with a home equity line of credit, or HELOC. In this post, I’ll cover what a HELOC is and the requirements to get one. Plus, you’ll learn the recent tax deduction changes, if you can use a HELOC to pay off a primary mortgage faster, and the main pros and cons to consider.

What Is a HELOC?

Just like a mortgage and a home equity loan, a HELOC is debt that’s secured by your home. But a HELOC is fundamentally different because it’s actually not a loan, but a line of credit.

A mortgage and a home equity loan are installment loans with fixed maturity or ending dates, such as 15 or 30 years. In contrast, a HELOC is a revolving debt, which means you can access it any time you like up to the available maximum credit limit, similar to a credit card. Your lender gives you a line of credit in an amount that depends on the available equity in your home.

Another similarity between a HELOC and a credit card is that they typically have variable interest rates. The rate is tied to a financial index, such as the prime rate, which means it can go up or down.

In some cases, you may be required to make an initial draw on a HELOC, such as $5,000 or $10,000, depending on the total line amount, to make sure the lender earns some amount of interest. You can spend it, pay it back, borrow more, or just set it aside for an emergency fund.

Once you take money from a HELOC, it’s deposited into a companion checking account that you access with a debit card, paper checks, or through an online account. You can spend it on just about anything, such as credit cards, college expenses, home improvements, a down payment on another home, or even paying down your mortgage. I’ll discuss more on that topic in a moment.

5 Requirements for Getting a HELOC

It’s important to remember that when you spend a HELOC you’re borrowing against your home equity. And not every homeowner has enough equity or other financial qualifications to get a HELOC.  

If you’re considering tapping your home equity, here are five HELOC requirements you should know:

1. Having enough home equity.

Most HELOC lenders require you to have at least 20% equity in your home to qualify. This is measured by your loan-to-value (LTV) ratio, which compares the total loans on your home to your home’s fair market value. To know what your home is worth, lenders typically require you to have a professional appraisal.

Lenders typically won’t approve you for a home equity loan or a HELOC that would cause you to exceed an 80% to 90% LTV.

For example, let’s say your home is worth $200,000. If your mortgage balance is $140,000 and you want to borrow $20,000 using a new HELOC, then your LTV (including the new debt) would be 80% [($140,000+ $20,000) / $200,000 = 0.8 = 80%].

Lenders typically won’t approve you for a home equity loan or a HELOC that would cause you to exceed an 80% to 90% LTV. However, lenders have different requirements and also evaluate you by other factors that we’ll cover next.

2. Your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio.

This is an important factor that HELOC lenders use to measure how much total debt you have compared to your gross income. Your DTI is a strong indicator of how easy or difficult it may be for you to manage an additional debt in your financial life.

Your DTI includes all debt, such as credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and mortgages. For example, if your total debt payments are $2,500 and your income is $5,000 per month, then your DTI is 50% ($2,500 / $5,000 = 0.5 = 50%).

Most lenders have a DTI cutoff of 40% to 49%, and the lower the better. If your DTI exceeds acceptable levels, you’ll need to pay down your debt, increase your income, or do both in order to get a HELOC.

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3. Your income.

Just like with all creditors, the amount you earn is key for getting a HELOC. You must be able to show that you earn enough to cover your current debts, plus the additional line of credit you’re seeking.

You’ll typically need to show at least two years of banking records or tax returns to prove that your income is high enough.

4. Your ability to repay.

HELOC lenders also consider if you’re likely to have the ability to repay a debt in the future. They review how consistent your income has been over the past few years. Plus, they look at assets you own, such as savings and investments, that you could liquidate to maintain debt payments if needed.

5. Your credit score.

Another important way that all creditors, including HELOC lenders, evaluate your financial responsibility and willingness to repay debt is your credit score. While the minimum score varies, the higher the better for getting approved at the lowest possible interest rate.

If your credit isn’t good, you may still be eligible for a HELOC if you have plenty of income and home equity. All the factors I’ve covered are taken into account. So being slightly deficient in one financial area may be okay if you’re strong in another.

How Do You Pay Back a HELOC?

After you tap your home equity with a HELOC, you must pay some portion back each month. There are typically two phases for repayment: the draw period and the repayment period.

The draw period is when you’re allowed to continue borrowing from a HELOC, up to the total line amount, with interest-only payments. For instance, if you have a HELOC with a 20-year term and a 10-year draw, you would just have to pay minimum interest payments for the first 10 years.

After the draw period ends, you can no longer borrow against your HELOC, and the repayment period begins. Your payment changes to amortize, which means it’s composed of principal and interest, over the remaining 10 years. That ensures that your balance is paid off by the end of the term.

But HELOC terms can vary depending on the lender. Some may have a balloon payment, which is a larger-than-usual payment at the end of the term. And some HELOCs may not have a repayment period, but require full payment at the end of the draw period.

Changes to the HELOC Interest Tax Deduction

One big benefit of getting a HELOC is that it may come with a tax deduction. However, the rules for homeowners changed due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which went into effect in 2018. It reduced the cap on deductible mortgage interest from $1 million to $750,000 for those filing a joint return, and $375,000 for single taxpayers.

The new law also changed how HELOCs and home equity loans are treated. Previously, you could deduct all the interest paid on up to $100,000 for home equity loans or HELOCs. It didn’t matter how you spent the money; the interest was deductible whether you used it for home improvements or a trip around the world.

Beginning in 2018, the ability to deduct interest on anything other than home-related expenses has been suspended until 2026.

Beginning in 2018, the ability to deduct interest on anything other than home-related expenses has been suspended until 2026. Until that time, HELOC debt must be used to buy, build, or substantially improve your home in order for the interest paid to be tax deductible.

The new regulations also allow you to combine the total of all types of home acquisition debt, including mortgages, home equity loans, and HELOCs, and deduct interest paid on a maximum amount. As I mentioned, you can deduct interest paid on up to $750,000 of acquisition debt if you file taxes jointly, or up to $375,000 if you file as a single.

For instance, let’s say you have a $500,000 mortgage and get a $150,000 HELOC to remodel your home. You could deduct the interest on up to $650,000, or all of your home-related debt.

But if you have a $200,000 mortgage and use $25,000 from a HELOC to pay for college expenses, none of the interest paid on the HELOC would be deductible. Again, you can spend a HELOC on anything you like, but only the portion within the total limit that’s used for home-related expenses is eligible for an interest tax deduction.

So, if you’re considering a HELOC, understand that the tax law recently changed. You may not be eligible to deduct your interest expense, depending on how you use the money, and whether you itemize deductions on your tax return.

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Can You Use a HELOC to Pay Off a Mortgage Faster?

With the rising popularity of HELOCs, many people are using them to pay off other debts. Whether you should use a HELOC to pay off your primary mortgage faster is a hotly debated topic.

The idea is that if your HELOC has a lower interest rate than your mortgage, you could save money by spending a HELOC to pay down your primary mortgage faster. This is basically refinancing your mortgage with a HELOC.

Problem is, drawing down your HELOC is risky because it’s typically an adjustable-rate product, which means you could have substantially higher interest rates and monthly payments. Also, you’d have to have a large amount of home equity in order to get a HELOC big enough to really make a dent in your primary mortgage.

If, and only if, your finances are in great shape, with plenty of savings and no debt, you may be in a position to pay off your mortgage early. But instead of using a HELOC to pay down your mortgage, I’d recommend that you just pay extra toward the principal each month.

You could also refinance your mortgage for a shorter, fixed-rate loan, such as a 10- or 15-year term. But you can accomplish the same thing and avoid the cost of doing a refinance by setting up your own schedule and just paying extra each month. Use the Excel Mortgage Loan Calculator template to easily see how much faster you can pay off a mortgage by making additional lump sum or ongoing payments.

Unless you’re saving at least 10% of your gross income for retirement, have an ample emergency fund, and zero debt (besides your mortgage), you shouldn’t even be thinking about paying down your mortgage early.

But if you are a good candidate to use a HELOC to refinance your mortgage, ask your lender if it’s possible to get a rate lock. That would make all or a portion of your HELOC a fixed-rate loan, with a set monthly payment. And by the way, locking your HELOC rate is also a good idea when interest rates are moving up.

While it might be awfully convenient to tap your home equity, don’t use it as a band-aid if you’re having a financial hardship.

Using a fixed, lower-rate HELOC to pay off a higher-rate primary mortgage could make sense, but it’s not a feasible or wise solution for most people. Always discuss your plans for using a HELOC with potential lenders and be clear about upfront fees or prepayment penalties.

4 Pros of Getting a HELOC

In addition to the potential tax deduction I covered, there are other benefits of a HELOC. One is that using your home equity for renovations could increase the market value of your home, helping you increase your net worth.

Here are four main pros for getting a HELOC:

1. You have the flexibility to tap a line of credit whenever you need it.
2. Interest is charged only for amounts you use.
3. Adjustable interest rates can be lower than fixed loan rates (but not always).
4. You can spend it on anything you like.

4 Cons of Getting a HELOC

Now, let’s cover the downsides of a HELOC. The biggest con is that borrowing against your home puts you at risk. Since your property is collateral for a HELOC, if you can’t repay it, the lender can force a home sale to satisfy your debt.  

Also, if you take a HELOC and the value of your home drops due to local market conditions or an economic downtown, you may have to come up with cash to repay it. If you qualify for a HELOC, here are four cons to consider:

1. You must pay interest on amounts borrowed.
2. Lenders charge fees and closing costs to originate the loan.
3. Adjustable rates mean your minimum monthly payment can go up significantly, depending on the laws in your state.
4. Missing payments can hurt your credit.

Applying for a HELOC can be a sensible and convenient way to cash out part of your home’s equity. Just remember that if you spend it on something that decreases in value or has no value over the long term, such as consumer credit card debt or a vehicle, your net worth can decrease.

While it might be awfully convenient to tap your home equity, don’t use it as a band-aid if you’re having a financial hardship. Carefully consider whether decreasing your equity and paying interest on a HELOC is worth it. If it doesn’t bring you closer to achieving your financial goals, it probably isn’t.

Get More Money Girl!

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Calculator With Origami House image courtesy of Shutterstock

4 Tips for More Mindful Eating

Whenever I talk about foods that can help control your hunger, I’m aware  of the fact that hunger is only one if the things that drive us to eat. Frequently, we eat simply because it’s time to eat, or because food is present, or because we’re bored, or blue, or procrastinating.  I’d even go so far as to say that, for many of us, hunger is only rarely our primary motivation for eating.

If we only ate when we were hungry, then choosing foods that are good at satisfying hunger (such as those that are high in protein, fiber, and water) would pretty much solve the problem of overeating.  But because we so often eat (and overeat) when we’re not hungry, we also need strategies that address non-hunger eating.

This week, I have four strategies that can help you avoid mindless eating and overeating.

Mindful Eating Tip #1: Only Eat

Just as distracted driving is responsible for a huge number of traffic accidents, distracted eating is the culprit in a lot of overeating. Eating in front of the computer or TV, in the car, while reading, or any other time when your attention is elsewhere is an easy way to lose track of what and how much you’ve eaten.

See also: Why We Overeat

I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. When eating lunch by myself, I always want to grab a newspaper to read or scroll through my Facebook feed while I’m eating. If I get hungry while I’m working, I’m tempted to bring a snack back up to my office so that I can keep working while I nosh.

But when most of our attention is on something else while we’re eating, we barely taste our food. We get very little enjoyment out of it. We’re not in touch with how much we’ve eaten. And worst of all, because we’re not at all tuned in to our bodies, we’re more likely to keep eating past the point at which our hunger is satisfied.

The solution is simple: When you’re eating, only eat. Turn off the TV.  Step away from your desk. Put down your phone. Give all of your attention to your meal and the experience of eating it.  Something that you’d eat mindlessly while staring at your screen might suddenly strike you as not worth the calories once you’re actually paying attention.  If just eating isn’t entertaining enough for you, maybe you’re actually not that hungry!

I don’t mean to imply that you always have to eat alone—or completely ignore your dining companions—in order to eat mindfully.  Eating with others can divert some of your attention away from what you are eating and how you feel while eating it. But sharing a meal is one of life’s great pleasures—and it needn’t come at the expense of mindful eating. The next two tips can help you eat mindfully even when eating with other people.

Mindful Eating Tip #2: Mind the First Bite

Last fall, I went on a Mindfulness Retreat and at the retreat center I attended, meals are consumed in complete silence, in order to promote truly mindful eating—with every bite given our full attention. Although it was an illuminating exercise, eating all of your meals in complete silence isn’t really practical in real life. But you can get a lot of benefit simply from giving the first bite of every meal or every food your complete attention.

This tip is actually from Chade Meng Tan, best known as Google’s in-house mindfulness guru. In his book, Joy on Demand, he talks about tuning in to the “thin slices of joy” in everyday life as a way of increasing our overall happiness and contentment.

Research has shown that the very first bite or sip of a tasty food or beverage is the most rewarding, with every subsequent bite or sip delivering a diminishing amount of pleasure. So Tan’s tip is really designed to help you pay attention to the most pleasurable moment of every meal.

But really tuning into the very first bite of every food you eat can also help ensure that the decision to begin eating is an intentional one, as opposed to a reflexive or even unconscious response.

How often have you walked by a dish of candy and popped one in your mouth without even stopping to consider whether you even like that kind of candy? Or walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bit of whatever was sitting on the counter or table, just because it was there? Five minutes later, and you might not even remember having eaten it!

If you can train yourself to give your complete attention to the first bite of every food, the decision to eat something will always be a conscious choice. You’ll also notice how much pleasure you do or don’t get from it. Try this for a week and watch what happens!

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Mindful Eating Tip #3: Mouth Full/Fork Empty

This genius tip comes from Darya Rose, who has lots of great insights about mindful eating in her book, Foodist,  and in her blog on SummerTomato.com.  Darya noticed that, after taking a bite of her meal, she immediately began loading the next bite onto her fork while she still was chewing. After she pointed this out, I realized that I do the same thing.

Darya implemented a simple rule for herself that I highly suggest adopting for yourself: If there is food in your mouth, there shouldn’t be food on your fork. Wait until you’ve finished chewing and swallowing whatever is in your mouth before beginning to compose the next forkful. This simple habit can be game-changing!

If there is food in your mouth, there shouldn’t be food on your fork. 

For one thing, it will tend to slow you down, which can help prevent overeating.  You’ll also have a more vivid experience of the food because it helps keep you focused on the bite you’re currently enjoying rather than the one that’s coming up next.  I also like this practice because it can help you eat more mindfully without impairing your ability to enjoy the company of your dining companion.

Mindful Eating Tip #4: Create a Meal-Ending Ritual

The meal is over. We’ve finished what’s on our plate and are feeling pleasantly full. But somehow our brain doesn’t get the memo that the eating occasion has ended.  And so we continue to mindlessly graze. We snack on leftovers while cleaning up, or pour another inch or three of wine into our glass. On our way out of the kitchen, we might even open up the cupboard to see what’s in there—despite having just eaten!

To stop this tendency, develop a ritual that clearly signals to your brain that the meal or snack is now complete. You might brush your teeth, or wash your hands and apply a scented hand lotion. You could chew a piece of gum while you do the dishes. (Wine tastes terrible after gum!) There’s even a brand of after-dinner mint call Meal-Enders, designed specifically for this purpose.  

Whatever you meal-ending ritual is, the more consistently you invoke it, the more effective it will be. Your brain will come to associate that particular activity or sensation with the cessation of eating.

It’s the same trick I used to develop my now-ingrained morning exercise habit.  I've trained myself to put on my gym clothes as soon as I finish my cup of coffee.  And once I’ve got my gym clothes on, going to the gym is automatic. It’s gotten to the point that I don’t even consciously think about it anymore. When I see the bottom of my cup, my brain instantly pictures my running shoes. It’s weird.  But it works!

This Week: Mindfulness on the Menu

You could implement one or two of these mindful eating strategies or all four.  But try to stick with it for at least a week. Then, tell me what you think. Did any of these tips help you avoid or reduce mindless eating? Which ones had the biggest impact?  Did eating more mindfully increase your enjoyment of food?  What did you learn about your eating habits? Post your thoughts below or on the Nutrition Diva Facebook page. I’m really looking forward to hearing the results of your experiments!

More questions? Send an email or post your question on the Nutrition Diva Facebook page. Then, be sure to subscribe to the Nutrition Diva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen, so don't miss a single episode! 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

What's It Like to Train in a Restaurant?

Brooke Caison was getting an engineering degree, taking advantage of her natural aptitude in math, when she realized food was her true love. "I decided to go to culinary school!," she recalls. "I'd like to say the rest is history, but I feel like I'm just getting started."

The key to getting a job in a restaurant kitchen is what's called a "trail," or, as Brooke explains, "the culinary world's version of a job interview. It's the longest job interview you'll ever go on, pretty much for an entire shift. So imagine going to a job interview where you're there for eight hours. You're there all day, you meet everyone that you would be working with if you did get the job. It's a weird place to be because you really don't know anything, you don't know the kitchen very well, or really anything that's going on. You're extra dependent on all these people that you've never met before to guide you through your job interview. It's a very vulnerable place to be, but you learn a lot about yourself and the place where you would potentially be working."

So, if you're dreaming of a chef's life, how do you know if it's right for you? "I would say, start!" Brooke says. "For me, I started with a part-time job. If you're afraid of taking the leap and going to culinary school, do what I did. I'm terrified of finite decisions, so I kept my full-time job and worked part-time in kitchens for a year and a half. That let me know that this was where I was supposed to be, something that I could pivot to full time, and then I did."

Brooke is also a freelance food writer, which introduces a new range of challenges as opposed to working hands-on in a professional kitchen. "The two are so different in pace," Brooke says. "When you're in the moment and you're plating or cooking or you're in the middle of service just trying to get the food out, you're not really thinking, you're just going on muscle memory. When I sit down and write, for me it's an opportunity to reflect on what I've made, or things I've gone out and tasted that other people have made. It gets me to slow down and really understand what I ate."

Grammar Quirks: Michael Donkor on the Word 'Authenticity'

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Michael Donkor: "Mumpsimus." It's a person who stubbornly clings to beliefs or ideas even when those beliefs or ideas are shown to be flawed. It’s such a fun word to say!

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

MD: "Authenticity." This word is bandied around so much at the moment, often in quite lazy and unthinking ways. What does "authenticity" actually mean? Convincing? Realistic? Relatable? Recognizable? Positive? All of the above?

Equally, I find the ubiquity of this word in literary criticism quite troubling. Particularly for fiction writers dealing with identity politics, the demand that the portrayal of marginalized peoples is, first and foremost, "authentic" runs the risk of limiting writers’ creative freedom.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

MD: "Parsley" and "curiosity."

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

MD: A term that succinctly encapsulates the feeling when you wake up in the morning and momentarily think it's the weekend then realize that, in fact, a difficult working day lies ahead!

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

MD: Is this a peeve? I constantly chastise myself for not maintaining a constant view on the Oxford/serial comma.

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and voice?

MD: In my debut novel, "Hold," I’ve tried hard to explore and engagingly stylize the features of urban British slang and Ghanaian English, and so in lots of instances, I had to defy the rules of conventional or standard grammar, which felt simultaneously risky and liberating!

GG: Do you have a favorite quote or passage from an author you’d like to share?

MD: "Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun."

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne.

I love the immediacy and vibrancy of Donne’s poetry, and this line is a wonderful example of the startling emotional honesty that characterizes the best of his work.

GG: What grammar, wording, or punctuation problem did you struggle with this week?

MD: Keeping my sentences precise and purposeful, and not overloading them with distracting adjectives and adverbs, is always a challenge!

Teach Your Dog to 'Go to Bed'

It’s often convenient to park your dog: To crate her while the delivery men bring in your new refrigerator. To  have her hold a down-stay, instead of climbing on you and licking your face, while you sit on the floor to wrap enormous holiday presents. And you can teach her to self-park, by going to her bed and hanging out on it when she might otherwise get in your hair. This week, why “Go to bed” – or whatever you decide to call it – is useful. And two ways to teach it: a formal one, and a sloppy one for those of us who, like me, are laaaaazy.

“Go to Bed” is a handy behavior because you don’t need to bring your dog to a spot and cue her to stay on it. Instead, you send her there, and she parks herself. Nice when you have your hands full. Nice, too, when you can move the spot so your dog can self-park in any number of locations, either in your home or at someone else’s when you’re visiting.

“Go to Bed” the Formal Way

When you send Dogalini to bed, the first thing she has to do in order to comply is look around for the bed. So when you start training, you’ll reward her just for noticing the bed. As I’ve explained in my episodes on clicker training, a clicker is the easiest and most exact way to indicate to your dog that she’s on the right track and has earned a food reward. But if you don’t have one, you can choose one short word as your marker instead. I use “Yes.” Here’s how to set up.

Have ready your dog’s bed, your clicker, and a hefty supply of small, tasty treats. Oh, yes, you’ll also need your dog. Drop or place the bed on the floor, and as you do so, watch your dog. She will probably at least glance at the bed, because it’s in motion. Also, even if it’s her usual bed, it’ll be “new” in this context, and that will also attract her attention.

Start Small – A Glance at the Bed!

The instant you see your dog glance at the bed, mark her behavior with a click or a “Yes” and immediately deliver a treat. Many or most dogs will look at the bed again – mark and treat. Every time you do this, it becomes more likely that your dog will look at the bed; after, say, half a dozen reps, hold out for a little more action before you mark and treat.

This could be a bigger head turn toward the bed, or a shift of your dog’s body weight in the direction of the bed, or an actual step toward the bed. Clicker training is both solid science and an art; the art is in your careful attention to your dog and your knowledge of her personality. If she has a lot of reward-based training under her belt, she may experiment eagerly and persistently, trying “bigger” behaviors to get you to click. That eager, confident, experienced dog may be heading for the bed during your very first training session.

Be Patient with Cautious Dogs

At the other end of the spectrum is a dog who maybe doesn’t have a lot of practice learning new things, or who’s a little more cautious by nature, or (worse) who has a lot of experience with the kind of training that consists mostly of punishing mistakes. These dogs may be reluctant to try new behaviors and less likely to keep trying if the rewards don’t flow quickly. To help them learn, keep training sessions short and fun. A dozen reps is plenty. And don’t expect too much at first...

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...unlike a super-confident dog who heads for the bed during her first lesson, your quiet, cautious dog may get only as far shifting her weight or lifting a paw in the right direction.

Troubleshooting

Most dogs do seem to get stuck a few times, especially in the early stages of teaching “Go to Bed.” Your dog might seem to forget about the bed – to stop orienting herself toward it, for instance. Or maybe she got as far as taking several steps toward the bed, then all of a sudden she quit doing anything. How you should respond depends on what your dog is doing. For instance, displacement behaviors are normal behaviors that show up out of context, such as sniffing the ground, licking the genitals, or suddenly discovering an itch that has to be scratched. They’re a sign of stress, so if you’re seeing them, give your dog a few minutes or more to chill out before you try again.

Try picking up the bed and putting it down again in a different spot. This often seems to “refresh” it or make it seem new and interesting again.

Your dog might seem to be confused but still in the game, though. Maybe she’s just sitting there looking at you for a cue.  Try picking up the bed and putting it down again in a different spot. This often seems to “refresh” it or make it seem new and interesting again. It’s also an important part of the training, because eventually you’ll be sending Dogalini to bed from different locations. Moving the bed around helps her figure out that she should focus on the bed, not a particular spot on the floor or any particular orientation toward you. You can also help keep your dog from getting stuck by moving around so that you and the bed aren’t in the same spots all the time. And when you deliver treats, toss them on the ground and close to the bed. Keep your dog moving as much as you can, especially if she automatically sits when she sees a treat coming.

Move the Training Along

Once your dog is confidently moving toward the bed, hold out for her to step on it, then to stand on it with all four legs, then to sit on it, then to lie down. Many dogs will readily experiment with sitting or lying on on the bed once they’ve got the idea to head for it in the first place, but your dog may learn faster if you give her a cue the first few times.

At this point, you can say your “Go to Bed” cue just before you know she’ll head for the bed anyway; she’ll associate the cue with her behavior.

Also, now you should gradually start holding out for longer times spent on the bed before you click and treat. Since your ultimate goal is for your dog to stay on the bed once she gets there, take several practice sessions for this part of the training. And give your dog a clear signal that she’s free to get up after each rep. Don’t toss a treat to lure her off the bed, because you want her to learn to stay parked on it in spite of distractions. Instead, invite her with body English. If she stays on the bed, that’s fine; the point of a release cue is that your dog is free to do whatever she likes. Have another training session later.

Last, practice with the bed in different locations and at different distances from you and your dog, so that she learns to head for it even if it’s in the next room. Be sure that she’s confident at each stage before you move on to the next.

“Go to Bed” the Lazy Way

Like a lot of clicker training, “Go to Bed” is waaay more work to describe than it is to do. When I used to teach puppy classes, we had most of our little students confidently heading for their mats in a session or two. And if you teach your dog with some precision, she’ll learn the lesson more reliably. But if a casual approach will do for you, try this.

Leave the bed down and make sure everything good happens on it. Feed your dog on the bed, pay attention to him when he’s on the bed, leave treats on the bed for him to find at random times. If you’re cooking, put the bed in an out-of-the-way corner of the kitchen or nearby, and make sure that tiny bits of your meat or cheese or pasta find their way to it; if that’s where the goods show up, that’s where your dog will learn to show up as well.

The “lazy way” doesn’t really call for less of your attention and focus than formal training sessions do. You just need to distribute your attention differently, taking advantage of any chance you see to make your dog’s bed super attractive to him, so he chooses to hang out on it often. One method doesn’t rule the other out, either – use both, and teach your dog not only to go to bed on cue, but also that bed is where a dog should lie in wait to get excellent surprises.

As always, you can write to me at dogtrainer@quickanddirtytips.com. I get so many questions that I can’t respond individually, but check out past episodes – I might already have answered yours! And visit me on Facebook, where I’m The Dog Trainer. Thanks for reading, and have a great week.

Dog bed photo coutesy of Shutterstock.

34 Creative Ways to Use Rubber Bands

Rubber bands can be used for sturdy grips and cheap alternatives to some pricey items. Find out which household objects you can revamp with these versatile heroes.

Household Helper

1. Open a Stuck Jar or Bottle
For a simple but effective grip, wrap a thick rubber band around the rim of a jar lid or bottle top and then twist. Plastic wrap and rubber kitchen gloves work well as grippers, too.

2. Prevent a Cutting Board from Sliding
A rubber band wrapped around the board will create enough resistance to stop any counter glide. Safer and easier!

3. Keep Tea Bags in Place
Whether you’re brewing a single cup or setting a jar out for sun tea, this trick can keep your tea bag tags from sinking into your beverage. Simply wrap a rubber band around the rim of the drink’s container.

4. Track Ingredient Levels
Have canisters or other kitchen containers that are difficult to see inside? Keep track of how much is left by securing a rubber band around the outside to mark the level of whatever’s inside. This little trick works well for paint containers, too.

5. Hold Lids in Transport
Bringing a dish of food to a party or potluck? Rubber bands can help you secure lids to a slow cooker or other dish. If there is a knob in the center of your lid, simply loop a rubber band from the knob to each side handle.

6. Keep a Candle (and Wax!) in Place
Candle not quite fitting snugly into its holder? Wrap a rubber band around the candle’s base for a tighter fit. Secure a band a little higher up to stop any wax drips from moving past the candle onto your furniture.

7. Corral Craft Ribbon
If you have rolls of ribbon around for crafting or wrapping gifts, you know how difficult it is to keep them from unspooling. Solution: Wrap them with a rubber band to keep the ribbon in its place on the spool until you need it.

8. Save Your Chargers
Charging cords for phones or other devices starting to wear? Wrap a rubber band around the cord to protect the vulnerable spots and stop wires from fraying more. You can also slip a colored rubber band or two around the main part of a charger to spot it as yours versus your spouse’s or kid’s.

9. Make a Grip
Wrap rubber bands around pens and pencils, tools, walking sticks, and sports equipment to create a more comfortable hold. Super helpful for those with arthritis!

10. Build an Eraser
Create a small rubber band ball by wrapping bands. Once it’s sturdy enough to rub on paper, it will erase pencil just as well as your standard eraser. Bonus: It makes a great stress ball to squeeze!

11. Glide Through Papers
Counting or sorting a large stack of papers? A few rubber bands wrapped comfortably around the tips of your fingers will make the job a lot easier. This little tip will help prevent paper cuts, too. Try it when reading an old book with not-so-crisp pages as well.

12. Slow a Leak
Thick rubber bands wrapped around a leaky hose or pipe can buy you a little time (and save money) as a temporary fix.

13. New Life for an Old Broom
Don’t throw it away quite yet! If the bristles are starting to feel tattered, tighten them up by wrapping large rubber bands halfway up the bristles.

14. Make a Mop or Broom Work Harder
With a large rubber band, secure a dust cloth to a long-handled broom or mop to clean high places. It’s an amazing tool that works just as well as expensive store-bought contraptions!

15. Loosen Up a Baseball Glove
New gloves can be super-stiff—especially for a child’s hand. Just a little loosening up can help a lot. After conditioning with olive oil or petroleum jelly (two of our Who Knew? Heroes), place a baseball inside the glove’s pocket. Then wrap a big rubber band around the glove to hold the ball in place. Simply let it sit or tuck it under your mattress overnight. Use the glove daily, and repeat the process of oiling and banding for about a week, until the glove is more flexible.

16. Protect TP Rolls
If your toddler or fur baby likes to unroll or shred your toilet paper, you’re not alone. Simply slipping a rubber band around the roll will keep it safe from curious hands and paws.

17. Prevent a Door from Locking
Wrap a large rubber band around the knobs on each side of the door, crisscrossing the band at the side edge of the door to cover the lock. This tip may come in handy if you have kids or pets who could accidentally trigger a lock.

Decorating And Entertaining On A Dime

18. ID Wineglasses
Having a party? Put rubber bands in different colors (or even shapes) to good use! These are perfect for slipping around the stems of wineglasses so your guests can tell whose glass is whose. Slip in a flower or other small charm or item as a decoration or party favor.

19. Better Flower Arranging
To help keep flowers where you put them, simply group with rubber bands around the stems.

20. Decorate a Jar or Tin
Wrap multicolored rubber bands around an old can or jar. Use it to hold flowers, pens, or even hardware—whatever you want to contain in a fun way. You can also space out some bands a bit and tuck in little touches such as dried flowers or cinnamon sticks.

21. Easy Curtain Pullbacks
Use a rubber band that matches the color of your curtains to keep them pulled aside.

22. Elevate Your Egg Decorating
If you enjoy dyeing Easter eggs, here’s a simple way to add patterns: Just wrap rubber bands around them before dipping into the dye. Wherever you place a rubber band will remain white. Try stripe and plaid patterns. This trick works for any kind of craft painting as well.

On-the-Go Solutions

23. Hands-Free Phone Holder
Thread a rubber band through the top of your car’s AC vent, then pull it out through the bottom. Secure both ends around your phone at the top and bottom. The bands will hold the phone in place, ready to view for driving directions.

24. The Smartest Packing Technique
The secret frequent travelers use: To fit the most in your luggage without smashing and wrinkling, roll your clothing and secure with rubber bands.

25. DIY Tripod
Crisscrossed rubber bands can fasten your phone to a chair, bicycle handlebars, or wherever you’d like to enable fun photos or video.

26. Protect Books
Whether in your bag or your kids’ backpack, books can get damaged when pages fly open. Keep books closed by wrapping a rubber band around them.

27. Makeshift Splint
Use a rubber band to firmly secure an injured finger to a support you have on hand, such as a stick.

28. Create A Wrist Strap
Flashlight, camera, or other item missing a strap? Simply loop and tie a rubber band to make one.

Cosmetics And Clothing

29. Slow Pumpables for Kids
Pumps that dispense soap, shampoo, and lotion can make it too easy for kids to take too much. To reduce the amount, just wind a rubber band around the neck. This simple step will control how far the pump can move and how much it dispenses—and stop the sink mess.

30. No More Shower Drops
Shampoo bottles and bars of soap can get slippery to handle in the shower. Wrapping a rubber band or two around them will give you a better place to grip.

31. Simple Nail Template
You can give yourself a French manicure without a lot of fuss and save the $20 to $40 salon charge. Wrap part of a rubber band over your nail to use as a guide, leaving just the nail tip exposed to paint.

32. Eyeglasses Prone to Slipping?
Looping a rubber band around the end of each side can help them grip better and stay in place.

33. Hangers That Hold
Wrap rubber bands around the pointed ends to grip and keep tops from sliding off.

34. Get a Little More Give in Jeans
Make the waist of your jeans stretch a little farther by looping a rubber band through the buttonhole and over the button. It’s a great quick fix for early pregnancy months or even just after a big dinner.

The Perfect Workout Recovery Day

Since I published the article "6 Reasons Recovery is Essential to Your Exercise Routine," I have received several questions from readers looking for more information on how to properly recover. So in this article, we are going to look at some protocols that will not only ensure minimal levels of post-workout discomfort, but also allow your body to recover quickly and gain better fitness and strength from being the dedicated mover and lifter that you are.

Why Workout Recovery Is Important

As you learned in the previously mentioned article, our fitness builds, our muscles grow, and we become fitter and stronger when our bodies are placed under a certain amount of stress. Then, during the recovery period after a workout, the body repairs its fibers and builds new blood vessels to the stressed area. In addition, the energy-generating components of our cells develop a better work ethic and even our bones step it up a notch.

But—and this is a big but—none of these adaptations will occur if the body is not allowed to get the rest and recovery it needs. Basically, exercising without recovering is a bit like trying to cook a steak without turning on the grill: you go through all the steak cooking rituals, but your meal is still going to be served raw.

Often when I tell an athlete that they need to take a recovery day they panic and think I am telling them that they need to stay in bed or lay on the couch with a box of bonbons. That rings alarms in their well-trained brains. But that's far from what I intend for them to do. What I prefer is something called Active Recovery.

What Is Active Recovery?

The activity known as active recovery is simple. Rather than letting all that inflammation, swelling, and muscle damage simply sit there like a lump after you have crushed a hard workout or race, you move the muscles instead.

An active recovery includes easy workouts that are the equivalent of no more than 60 percent of your maximum effort (in other words, very low to moderate intensity). This type of movement helps the muscles stay loose and can bring more blood flow to the areas with damaged tissue. This can help them heal faster and allow you to bounce back more quickly.

Circulation of blood in and out of a stressed body part improves the speed of recovery. Techniques that can improve blood flow include cooling down after your workout, taking a walk or easy bike ride, performing light stretching during or after each workout, alternating between warm and cool running water during your post-workout shower, taking an ice bath after a weight training workout or hard run, and performing a light jog, swim, or easy exercise routine the day after a hard workout.

Active recovery has also been shown in studies to help your immune system by moving what is known as lymph fluid around your body. That can make you less likely to get sick after a tough event or workout.

The Recovery Day

When one of the athletes that I coach sees “Recovery Day” in their schedule it usually reads something like this:

This is not a day to lay on the couch or to make up for a missed workout, today is a day to actively focus on recovery.

Morning: Start with 10-15 minutes of foam rolling and massage ball. Hunt for every tight/sore spot and roll it out. Next, move on to 10-15 minutes of gentle movement, stretching, and deep breathing.

Afternoon/Evening: Choose any or all of the following depending on time.

1. Cold/hot contrast shower (20 seconds cool, 10 seconds warm, 10x times through for a total of 5 minutes).
2. 30 minute sauna.
3. 20 minute ice bath/cold water soak.

All day: Eat and Hydrate well. Focus on a variety of veggies, a decent amount of protein, and add in a few more carbs than usual (avoiding inflammatory refined sugars).

So with that in mind, let’s examine those techniques, and a few others, in detail.

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My Top Workout Recovery Tips

1. Foam Roll

You can check out the article called "The Many Benefits of Foam Rolling" for more info on this but I also want to tell you about a study that was published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that investigated whether foam rolling could reduce soreness and boost recovery. This study looked at how a foam rolling protocol affected soreness following a squat workout.

Twenty men were split up into two groups and both groups underwent a pretty serious squat workout that included ten sets of ten back squats at 60% of one-rep squat maximum. After the squats, both groups were evaluated for their soreness level, quadriceps and hamstring range of motion, performance during a vertical leap test, and measurements of muscle electrical activity. After these tests, half the men did a foam rolling routine and the other half hit the showers.

The study concluded that the foam rolling had three effects.

1. It significantly reduced muscle soreness.
2. It caused a significant increase in quadriceps range of motion.
3. It led to better performance in a vertical leap test.

Another study at Memorial University of Newfoundland looked at the immediate benefits that you get when you finish a foam rolling routine. In this study, after only two minutes of foam rolling, quadriceps range of motion had increased by ten degrees, where the control group, who did not foam roll, only saw an increase of one degree.

What makes foam rolling decrease soreness, speed up recovery, and increase range of motion? Well, it comes down to movement of connective tissue. While exercise damages connective tissue, which stimulates pain receptors and inhibits muscle activation, using a foam roller helps repair damage to your connective tissue. This has a direct effect on decreasing soreness and preventing a drop in performance after a hard workout.

2. Hot or Cold Therapy

The second thing listed on my “recovery day” workout is some hot or cold therapy. I include this for a few reasons. One being that growth hormone is crucial for repair and recovery of muscles and research has shown that two 20-minute sauna sessions, separated by a 30-minute cooling period, elevated growth hormone levels two-fold over baseline. Two 15-minute sauna sessions at an even warmer temperature separated by a 30-minute cooling period resulted in a five-fold increase in growth hormone. Which is pretty important.

Perhaps even more important is that repeated exposure to whole-body, intermittent hyperthermia (or overheating) boosts growth hormone immediately afterward, and two one-hour sauna sessions for seven days have been shown to increase growth hormone up to 16 times.

Adding to the recovery is that a sauna also increases blood flow to the skeletal muscles, which helps keep the muscles fueled with oxygen, amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose while simultaneously removing byproducts of metabolic processes such as lactate and calcium ions.

Then there are the benefits to your immune system. In Germany, sauna medical research showed that heat therapy is able to significantly reduce the incidences of colds and influenza. And both Finnish and German studies show that regular sauna bathing leads to a 30% lower chance of getting a cold and influenza.

On the other side of the temperature spectrum, a cold water soak after a workout enhances the recovery of muscle function. But—and this again is a big but—cold water plunges immediately after training also appears to impair long-term muscular adaptations to resistance training. In a nutshell, a cold bath may help you get movin' in the short term but it may be at the cost of all those long-term adaptations.

In any case, science still shows us that cold water exposure can restore muscle contractile function and reduce soreness following collision sports like rugby. And both cold water immersion and hot/cold contrast therapy can help restore force production after performing some high intensity interval training.

Cold water immersion also helps cyclists maintain their high performance when they are training hard on consecutive days. And basketball players who use cold immersion recover from their games and maintain a higher jump height.

3. Good Food and Drink

The last “workout” on my recovery day list is to eat and hydrate well because working out expends energy (calories) and that energy must be replenished before you are able to fully recover and get yourself ready for another workout.

A friend and mentor of mine, Marks Sisson, always says “eat the carbs you earn.” While that often means eating fewer carbs, it can also mean eating more—if you’ve trained hard enough to warrant them.

It is important to remember that what you replenish depends on the type of exercise that you engaged in. If you went for an easy bike ride or a long walk that burned primarily body fat, obviously you don’t want to worry about replenishing that! But if you just crushed a 30-minute full body (insert brand name) session that left you feeling weak as a kitten and sweaty as a Florida Gator, then you probably have some glycogen (carbohydrate) stores to refill in your liver and your muscles.

Eating inadequate calories coupled with some intense exercise sessions can eventually send a "we’re in trouble" signal to the body. This can cause the body to down-regulate our anabolic hormones. So, instead of growing the lean mass that we want and burn the body fat that we don't want, this state of "starvation" can actually cause muscle atrophy and body fat retention. Not what we are looking for at all!

As far as protein goes, I am going to quote Monica Reinagel, The Nutrition Dive, from her podcast episode called "How to Build More Muscle with less Protein."

“Building and repairing muscle tissue requires protein—and that’s a nutrient that our bodies have to use as it comes in; we can’t store it for future use. Whenever we eat foods containing protein, we get a little burst of muscle-building activity. The amount of muscle you build is dependent on the amount of protein you take in at that meal. Eat a little protein, build a little muscle. Take in more protein, build more muscle...but only up to a point.”

The research done by Douglas Paddon Jones of the University of Texas shows that muscle protein synthesis (your body’s ability to use protein effectively) peaks at about 30 grams of protein per meal. Anything above that is largely wasted in terms of its muscle-building benefit. So, that amount is a good amount to aim for whether you are using the preferred source of real food protein, a protein powder, or you are getting it in bar form.

Dehydration is also one of our recovery enemies.It is advised that you try to drink one 20-24oz bottle of water for each hour of exercise you are engaged in. Notice that I didn’t say sports drink, energy drink, or soda—I said water. There is a great book on this subject by Tim Noakes called Waterlogged, and I recommend you read it if you are still very much a slave to the sports drink industry. Suffice to say that if you get some good food (which contains many vital minerals) and water in your belly, you will be headed in the right direction.

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Other Recovery Tips

Here are some other quick and dirty workout recovery tips that you can also try. 

4. Wear Compression Garments

Check out the article called "The Best Way to Use Compression Gear" for some extra info on this but a recent meta-analysis called Compression Garments and Recovery from Exercise looked at all of the available research and concluded that compression garments can indeed enhance muscle recovery after strength training and also improve next-day cycling performance.

5. Lotions, Creams, and Salves

There are several sticky, slippery, and gooey compounds that you can rub on a sore muscle to alleviate the soreness and help improve recovery. Most of these goops work by creating a pain-relieving and cooling sensation, which can increase blood flow, or even displace elevated levels of by-products like calcium.

6. Reduce Your Stress

Researchers at the Yale Stress Center recently published a study in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that confirms that "mental stress" impairs workout recovery. Thirty-one undergrads were assessed for stress levels using a bunch of psychological tests, then engaged in a heavy lower body strength workout. An hour after the workout the students in the high-stress group had regained 38 percent of their leg strength, while students in the low-stress group had regained 60 percent of their strength. That’s nearly double the recovery!

Yes, I know that some stress is unavoidable in this modern world but many of us seem to create or seek out additional stress in our lives. We also fail to do enough to counter or manage it through things like mindfulness practice, breathing, yoga or simply unplugging occasionally.

7. Get Some Sleep

Carrying a sleep debt can impair exercise recovery by increasing cortisol, lowering testosterone, and lowering muscle protein synthesis. It can also impair recovery by disrupting slow wave sleep, the stage of sleep which shows a peak in growth hormone secretion. Growth hormone is know to heal tissues and rebuild muscles. Sleep deprivation has also been linked to muscular atrophy and reduces muscle strength.

8. Avoid Alcohol

That post workout or race beer directly impairs muscle protein synthesis which is an essential step in recovery and adaptation to training. Even a single day per week of binge drinking is linked to 4x the risk of sarcopenia (muscle-wasting). I probably don’t need to tell you that it is hard to recover from your workouts if your muscles are atrophying.

9. Get a Massage

Not only does a massage feel great but evidence shows that it is absolutely awesome for recovery from exercise. The only reason I don’t include it in my own personal “recovery day” workout is that it can be costly. But if you can afford it, your health plan covers it, or you are willing to splurge, it has been shown to alleviate DOMS and speed up the recovery of muscle strength and enhances proprioception. It also has been shown to improve central nervous system parasympathetic/sympathetic balance, and this was true even if it was a massage device (not a human) who was doing the work.

There are of course many more pieces to the recovery puzzle, but I hope this gives you enough information and knowledge so that the next time you have a hard workout or race, you will resist the urge to simply flop on the couch. Instead, I hope you try some active recovery, foam rolling, hot or cold therapy, gooey balm, replenishing carbs, or any number of other options listed in this article. If you do, I guarantee that you will recover faster, better, and be feeling the recovery benefits in no time.

For more rest day info, recovery tips, and to join the fit conversation, head over to Facebook.com/GetFitGuy or twitter.com/getfitguy. Also don't forget to subscribe to the Get-Fit Guy podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spotify, Google Play or via RSS.