It's easy to feel like you’re in disarray when your space feels cluttered. Do a quick tidy-up. Throw all clothes in a hamper, wash the dishes in the sink, and make sure everything is in its place! Even if you just take the time to straighten the piles of paper mounting on your desk, it's a start, and will make you feel so much more at peace. 

Set a timer. 

When you set timers, you have dedicated a certain amount of time to solely focus on the task at hand. It's amazing how much you can get done in 20 minutes!

Make your space cozy. 

National Minority Mental Health Month may be winding down, but the conversation about mental health in marginalized communities doesn’t — and shouldn’t — stop. Mental health issues don’t discriminate. Although eating disorders have historically been associated with young, cisgender, straight, white, upper-class females, they can affect anyone. They don’t choose any one race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, or any other classification. While anyone can have an eating disorder, minorities tend to face unique obstacles when dealing with mental health issues.

Recovery doesn’t just happen. It’s also not some cliché buzzword tossed around to “inspire” you. Recovery is real. It’s not a luck-of-the-draw deal where you put your name in a hat and hope to be chosen. It’s a grueling, relentless, personal process that will push you beyond your limits over and over and over. Will you choose it?

If you ask my friends in NYC to describe me, you’ll be painted a picture of a boss lady taking on the city as a full-time professor, writer, and consultant, in addition to being a fitness influencer. They’ll also tell you I’m a people person, excitable, and will always make time to help you move apartments and celebrate your birthday.   

The focus in the eating disorders field is usually on diagnoses, symptoms, and related impairment. There has been little research, or even discussion, about negative traits that were present during the illness, which can be positive during and after eating disorder recovery. This is particularly important because, for most people, these traits will persist throughout their lives. In addition, Walter Kaye, MD, has noted that these traits may confer advantages in professions.

For so long, I existed in what I thought was a gray area. The entity I can now recognize as diet culture was guiding me for my whole life, or at least beginning from the moment I understood that hating my body was commonplace. As a child, I considered the images and perspectives from TV, movies, magazines, and real-life conversations and decided that diets were good. Being on a diet would make me good. Exercising would make me good, and it would all make me smaller.

I feel extremely lucky to have a mother that is also my best friend. She has and always will be a source of comfort for me. When I was in elementary school and would come home from ballet class in tears because the teacher made me feel badly about my body my mom would hug me, hold me, and make sure that I felt loved and appreciated for exactly the way that I was. As I got older, coming home from school or ballet in tears because of body-shaming comments became a more regular occurrence, and every time my mom was there for me.

Imagine you take one of those vibrating back-massagers (the kind that look like little plastic squid creatures you might find at a CVS) and place it on the back of your head. Then, use duct tape to secure the massager to your head by wrapping the tape around your jaw - kind of like a birthday party hat. Go ahead and turn the device on.

I can vividly recall my first day at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital clinic. I had already been sick for 3 years, in which time I had seen more treatment providers than I can count on two hands. I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever get better. My EKG showed my heart beating at a measly pace, just 1 beat above the cardiac hospitalization threshold.

When I began my recovery from my Eating Disorder (ED), Anorexia Nervosa (AN), I had a lot of momentum. I was sprinting towards a “recovery finish line” that I had imagined for myself within a self-imposed timeframe of a few months. This was in stark contrast to my 23 years of living with AN. At the 6 month recovery mark, I hit what I thought was a huge roadblock. For the first time in years, my weight had been restored to a point where my periods returned. I had a lot of mixed emotions surrounding this; happiness and excitement, but also distress and fear.