In September of 2018, I was fired from my job. It was an exciting, new position at a large employer, and when I accepted the role, I’d felt ready for the challenge. I’d worked in the legal industry for nearly a decade, and I was good at it. I’d built a career managing busy practices for my supervisors, balancing their demanding schedules and dealing with the court systems. I was the first point of contact for many clients. I was used to fast-paced work environments with lots of moving parts, I knew what I was doing and I felt confident. I’d certainly never been fired before.

But I also live with bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and agoraphobia. I regulate my day-to-day by keeping a close watch on my moods and somatic symptoms. I take my medications, visit my doctor when needed and attend my therapy appointments. After 20 years of dealing with this, I’ve become a bit of a self-management expert.

As the days went by in my new job, anxiety started creeping in. Despite the positive feedback I was receiving from my supervisors and colleagues, I began to feel incompetent, and it was affecting my ability to work quickly and under pressure, which is the norm in the legal field. I also heard harmful slanders against folks with mental illness, and working in a large open-concept space was triggering my agoraphobia. For me, this manifests as panic attacks whenever I feel like people can see me, judge me or otherwise threaten my safety.

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My panic attack at work

One Friday afternoon, panic hit. It started around my jaw—my muscles tightening, my teeth chattering. It didn’t take long for the panic attack to overwhelm me. My desk suddenly felt unfamiliar, the space hostile.

As I tried to catch my breath, furiously wiping away tears that just kept coming, my supervisor walked by. She stopped and asked if I was okay. “I’m having a panic attack,” was all I could whisper. “I’m okay, though.” With a nod she continued on her way. No one else came by. After a while, I was able to work through it alone, but the rest of my day, unsurprisingly, wasn’t very productive. No one ever followed up with me.

The following week, I attended a mandatory, in-person seminar on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, which took place in a boardroom filled with about two dozen people. During the seminar, I noticed that there was barely a mention of mental illness. This didn’t seem appropriate. I’d been navigating misperceptions of mental illness in the workplace long enough to know to speak up when I could.

Mental health emergencies in the workplace

Then and there, I asked if anyone in the firm was trained in the event of a mental health emergency, but there wasn’t an answer. I followed up with inquiries about mental health accommodations. Again, no answer. The group benefits offered a few hundred dollars a year for therapy, and most prescriptions were covered. But those types of resources weren’t really what I was concerned about. I needed to know that if I experienced another panic attack, there would be some kind of support. What if I needed some time off, or to work from home? Was that available? And, deep down, I needed to know whether I could feel safe enough to be myself, mental illness included.

Three hours later, my employment was terminated.

In an empty boardroom—the same boardroom I’d initially been interviewed in—my supervisor told me that it had been a difficult decision, but it was best for all parties. Best for whom? Why was I being fired? What had I done wrong? Why didn’t anyone say anything, coach me, train me? Why was this such a surprise? I was told I wasn’t learning fast enough, not taking enough notes and that I’d been seen crying at my desk. “But I was having a panic attack,” I shot back. “You knew that.” She simply smiled and said, “See? This job isn’t for you.”

As I was escorted out of the office, seething with fury, I wondered whether there would ever be a place for someone like me in the working world. If the only visible sign of my disability—a panic attack—could be seen as a reason to fire me, what hope was there?

When I got home, I told my partner all the reasons why this simply wasn’t okay. How could they so blatantly disregard my rights? If that job wasn’t for me, what job would be?

My partner sat there, quietly listening, until he said, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Taking legal action

With his support, I hired a lawyer and filed an application with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The policies differ slightly from province to province, but the Canadian Human Rights Act protects employees with disabilities from discrimination, including from termination due to disability, even if the employee is within the probationary period (often the first three months), like I was. But lawyers are expensive, usually hundreds of dollars per hour, and the former employee—who is now without a paycheque—must shoulder it. Employers typically have more funds to fight back, and a case can drag on for months, even years.

If a case settles privately, the dismissed party might have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and it’s possible the employer would not be required to admit any wrongdoing. In these cases, because no one can speak out, it’s likely that nothing will change and the discrimination continues.

Yes, employees can elect to disclose their disability at the outset of a new job. But this wasn’t something I had ever felt comfortable with, due to the stigma associated with mental illness.

And the data backs me up: The federal Office of the Ombudsman for Mental Health and Employee Well-Being reported in 2017 that 82 percent of the confidential meetings they held over a six-month period were with concerned employees rather than employers (and it was mostly women—68 percent were female). The report found that when workers do address their mental health challenges and requirements with employers, they risk facing stigmatization or negative career repercussions. Because of this, employees may hide their diagnoses instead of seeking accommodations. So where does that leave people with mental illness? What security do we have?

Finding a new path

The day after I was fired, a friend told me about an editor at a national newspaper who was taking pitches. I didn’t even know what a pitch was, but I cobbled something together and sent it off. I received a response within the hour: This sounds great. I can give you 600 words. Also included was a rate and a deadline. I couldn’t believe it. I started writing immediately. That assignment opened a door: I learned that people wanted to hear my opinions. Not only that, to my complete disbelief, they were also willing to compensate me for my writing.

From that thought, another one began to percolate: While legal recourse is impossible for many folks with mental illness, what I had was my ability to communicate, which could help others feel less alone. I continued to write about mental health, using my own experience. One of my essays even won an award. This is what I learned: Being fired was hard, and fighting back is even harder. Justice can be so far out of reach that silence and compliance feel like the only viable next step. But maybe that’s not good enough. What if I dared to use my own voice? Could I possibly become louder than the wrongs levied against mentally ill folks? Could this be my form of advocacy?

I’ve now left my former career behind to pursue my own writing projects and mental health awareness work. I know that what I send out onto the internet reaches thousands of people, and that makes me proud. This is exactly the life I’ve wanted all these years. Some days, I don’t know how I got so lucky. It took me a few years to realize that my former supervisor’s comment—this job isn’t for you—was in fact true, but not in the way she had intended. That job wasn’t meant for me because I was meant for a lot more.

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Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) is reminding Ontarians why milk is a vital, nutrient-dense drink. For those with a particularly active lifestyle, matching good-quality nutrition with exercise is the key to getting the desired results.

Local milk is an incredibly beneficial, well-rounded and wholesome drink. In fact, a single glass of milk boasts 15 essential nutrients—such as protein, vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium, and zinc—that work together to support a healthy body.

Milk the benefits

There are many science-backed reasons why milk is nutritious, with four benefits reigning supreme: energy, immunity, recovery and strength. And no, it’s not a coincidence that these four are also at the top of many peoples’ personal fitness goals.

Energy

Milk helps to satiate hunger and keeps you powered up. With the slow-burning energy of casein and the quick-burning energy of whey and lactose, your stamina is easily balanced from the beginning to the end of your workout. Not to mention, milk is also a great source of vitamin B12, an essential nutrient for converting food to energy in the body.

Immunity

While not as commonly known, milk has lots of immune-supporting vitamins and minerals. In particular, vitamins A and D as well as zinc are great to have in your corner this time of year to keep your body’s natural defenses on high alert.

Recovery

After a workout, your body’s nutrient and electrolyte levels need to be replenished. As a complete protein source (containing all essential amino acids), milk helps with muscle repair and maintenance of all bodily functions. As for the nutrients lost through sweat, milk’s electrolyte content (hi, potassium and sodium!) and fluid levels make it a perfect choice for rehydrating your body.

Strength

During your childhood someone likely told you to drink milk for strong bones, right? Well, consider this your reminder. Milk happens to be one of the most bioavailable sources of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium—all important nutrients for maintaining bone health. Regardless of how active you are, bone strength is essential for quality movement and longevity.

Have you herd?

DFO is helping Torontonians reach these four smart, nutritious choices to support their active lifestyles by adding milk into their daily routine.

DFO collaborated with Altea Active Toronto, a renowned fitness facility on the fringe of Liberty Village, to educate consumers on the nutritional benefits of milk. Aside from its top-class fitness studios and gym, Altea has a food and beverage space perfect for fueling members pre- and post-workout.

From January 23 – 25, DFO offered complimentary smoothies, packed with 15 essential nutrients, including nine grams of complete protein.

The surprise? All of the smoothie boosters were made using one very essential ingredient—milk!

Whether members were looking to replenish their energy post-workout or boost their immunity during the winter months, DFO was ready to meet their needs with a nutritious milk smoothie at Altea Active’s Smoothie Bar. Sometimes the best foods for a healthy diet are the simplest!

Making (moo)ves

If you weren’t able to visit Altea Active Toronto during DFO’s pop-up, we suggest incorporating milk into your daily routine—post-workout or otherwise. To level up your smoothie recipe, add just one cup of milk for an extra nine grams of protein.

The bottom line? Milk is a key player in supporting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. From its high protein content to its immune-boosting properties, you’re bound to find a reason to introduce (or re-introduce) it into your diet.

To discover more nutritional and science-backed benefits, visit milk.org.

The biologically female human body is an enormously trippy thing. Set aside the whole getting-pregnant-and-giving-birth business: Some female eyes can detect 100 million distinct colours, which is 99 million more than the eyes of your average folk. The female ear hears better at higher frequencies. Female muscle fibres can endure over ultra-long distances, while female lungs and cardiovascular systems are far likelier to outrun disease. Given all that, you’d think modern science might be keen to usher these bodies under a microscope. But you already know what happens instead: It’s the male body, whether mouse or monkey or human, that gets studied in the lab, written about in papers and analyzed in clinical trials. And that’s why there was a long history of women being more likely to wake up in the middle of surgery—we just didn’t bother testing sex differences for general anesthesia until the turn of the 21st century.

Author and academic Cat Bohannon thinks that’s bananas. She knew we needed a no-nonsense, rigorously researched, highly readable user’s guide to the female mammal—and she kept waiting for one to arrive. “I thought, someone is totally on this right now,” she says. “And then I realized that no one was on it, and I had to write it.” And so she did: a process that took 10 years—during which time she also earned a PhD from Columbia University, got married, moved across the country, had two children and lived through a pandemic.

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Years of Human Evolution traces several essential traits (including our breasts, wombs, fatty brains, and menopausal bodies) to their earliest known ancestors. In doing so, the book makes an enormously convincing case that it was women—thank you very much—who paved the way to language, tool use and padding around on two legs. Here, Bohannon discusses when we got milk, why the uterus is a war zone and how the image in your head of the female reproductive system is totally wrong.

(Related: Why Squirting Orgasms Are a (Really) Good Thing—And How to Have One)

You write at the start of Eve that lactation began 200 million years ago, under the feet of dinosaurs—and that beyond nutrition, milk is also about infrastructure. How so?

Milk is 90 percent water, which is maybe not surprising, because our bodies are also very much water. But when you think about milk, you need to think not only about slaking thirst. You need to think not only about nutrition. You also need to think about immunology. Milk initially comes about as a hot dose of immunological aid from the mother’s body to the infant’s body in those vulnerable, early periods of life. So the infrastructure question is interesting, because early milk is really a laxative. It’s there to help you poop out the remainder of all the things you’ve ingested in the womb. It clears the slate, as it were, along the digestive path, and also seeds key populations of friendly bacteria in the gut that will train the infant’s immune system.

Breastfeeding is a dialogue, where the upsuck is telling a woman’s body something important about what’s going on in her infant’s body. How does that mechanism work?

We love the upsuck. It’s so weird. It’s so wonderful. It’s kind of batshit crazy when you think about it, but it’s just physics. Milk starts before the nipple. But once you have a nipple on board, then you have a docking seal; you can clamp the offspring’s mouth around it to form a vacuum. Because the milk is moving back and forth, the offspring’s saliva is sucked back into the mammary tissue, which has ductwork lined with immunoagents and sensors that read that spit like an ancient code and tailor the milk to it. Every species seems to do something like this. So if our baby is sick, we make different milk to suit. That way, milk is a co-produced biological product, because of this communication that’s happening around the nipple.

I want to detour for a moment to the woeful limitations of my grade-school sex ed. Because I did not realize until I saw the diagram in your book that my reproductive organs are so completely smooshed together. What’s going on down there?

Yeah, so: same. We’re taught that classic diagram—this T-shaped thing where you have the womb, and then the little arms of the fallopian tubes hanging out the sides. And almost no one realizes that this isn’t accurate. We have a lot of organs in our lower abdomen just piled on top of each other. I remember very clearly having a transvaginal ultrasound—which is already awkward, right?—and the tech could not find my freaking ovary. I’m like, did I lose it? And she said, no, this happens a lot. It’s just hiding today behind your uterus or behind part of your bowel, because they’re all smooshed.

But the health impacts are many and varied. Many people get used to the weird aches and pains of having ovaries and a uterus. And that signal can be pretty diffuse, because it’s radiating out from one organ and touching other organs and your intestines can come along for the ride. So everything down there feels kind of messed up, and we learn to ignore a lot of the signals. But they’re often the exact same signals of the early stages of ovarian cancer. So please talk to a doctor. But don’t be scared. Not every gas pain is cancer.

But the uterus, you write, is a war zone. How does that explain why we, among only a handful of species, menstruate the way we do each month?

What’s interesting is not necessarily that we shed the lining of our uterus externally. It’s very annoying for us, obviously, but what’s interesting is how we build up that lining in the first place. We don’t wait for a signal from an incoming embryo. We do it pretty much right as the egg itself is starting to develop. The reason we do that is we have crazy invasive placentas—like, they go about as deep as they can into the maternal bloodstream. That means building up the uterine lining is more like a buffer for the maternal body—not to simply cushion and support, but rather to protect itself from this incredibly greedy, incredibly invasive embryo that has long evolved to suck out as much as possible from the maternal body. I love my children very much, but when they were in the womb, they were taking everything they could out of my body, and my body was doing everything it could not to die from the process. We give birth when we do not because the baby gets too big to fit out the hole, but because doing it any longer becomes a metabolic threat. It’s no longer sustainable to maintain this intense transfer of goods and resources across the war zone.

For a global population of 8 billion, we are really garbage at making babies. How is the human reproductive system stacked against us?

I’ll initially flag that if it weren’t for modern gynecological care, oh my god, I’d be so dead. And so would many of my friends. And we are not outliers. But there are many reasons why human reproduction is such a flaming garbage pile, and the big one is the obstetric dilemma: We are trying to fit a watermelon-sized baby out of a lemon-sized hole. The word for that is problematic. The best theory going is that when we evolved to walk upright, the pelvic bowl shifted. Instead of a pelvis that’s shaped more outward, it rotated up to support the different centre of gravity, which shrank the pelvic opening at the bottom. And that makes our labour and delivery a lot longer than it is for our most closely related primate cousins. A chimp mom is usually done in 30 to 40 minutes, while a first-time human mom takes 12 to 16 hours and sometimes much longer; I did. But it’s not just the delivery, it’s the lead up: the super invasive placenta, the long pregnancy that is so metabolically taxing. There’s so much opportunity for something to go wrong. When things do go wrong, they tend to go wrong fast, and the later you go into a pregnancy, the more dramatic those risks can be. We don’t often admit to ourselves how much we’re on the edge of a really big cliff, simply in the act of being a pregnant person.

So modern gynecology is terrific, but how did ancient gynecology help us succeed as a species?

If we have a really risky reproductive system that has so many fail points, that sometimes takes out the mother, and more frequently takes out the offspring, that is not the portrait of a likely success story. Like, if you had a time machine, you would not go back and think, They’re definitely getting to 8 billion. We can’t improve our reproductive success without behavioural workarounds—like the invention of gynecology, which includes not simply obstetrics but also all the interventions we have around a female’s reproductive life. Now, we didn’t have anything like the Pill when we were small, furry things running around Africa. But we do have local plants, which influence fertility cycles. We might cluster our babies at the start of our fertility, or spread it out over time, depending on which environment we’re in. And going all the way back 3.2 million years—so pre-human; still very chimpy—it’s clear from analyzing fossilized pelvic structure across many different hominids that they shared this obstetric dilemma. So it’s very likely they had a midwife. Having that flexibility around reproduction, and helping more people survive that horrible process, is a huge part of how we thrived. Unfortunately, some of that also has to do with sex rules and sexism.

Right, let’s talk about that. How does sexism help solve how bad we are at making babies?

There’s no one way to go about being sexist. Actually, we’re very diverse in our sexism. But what we do have in almost every human culture is a strict set of rules that guides access to female bodies—where they can go in a given day, how much of them can be seen, whom they can interact with. There’s nothing in your DNA that codes for how you feel about how short a skirt is. But we are hardwired to care about how we fit into our local culture and whether or not others are following the rules. And a lot of what these rules do is influence pregnancy rates. They’re very much influencing the circumstances under which you might have sex with a man and whether, or when, that sex is allowed to produce a pregnancy. So those rules are what I analyze as sort of the evolutionary roots of sexism. It’s another behavioural workaround that we generated over deep time to overcome our crap reproductive systems, to work in parallel with gynecology to keep more mothers and offspring alive. But now that modern gynecology is so miraculous, it has way outpaced the benefits of sexism. In fact, modern sexism works very clearly to reduce the health and well-being of biologically female people. It’s killing us.

A biologist would then say, well, it’s just a matter of time before that behaviour changes, because it no longer serves us. But I wonder if doing so requires a shared acceptance of its perniciousness—and that seems harder and harder to come by, as much for something like climate change as for the effects of sexism.

I get a lot of questions about how hopeful this book is. And I am actually deeply hopeful. You ask me, okay, wouldn’t we simply evolve away from sexism? Yeah, maybe, given enough time, but you don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait. Is it 100 years? Is it 3 million? We are only 300,000 years old as a species, which sounds like a lot, but in the scale of deep time, it is very much yesterday. But my hopefulness comes from scale. If you pull the camera back, and you look at the historical trajectory of the last 500 years, it is very, very clear that many human societies have been moving toward sex egalitarianism. And the advances that have been made are obvious. Now, that is not to reduce the very real suffering of so many women and girls and non-binary folk over those many hundreds of years. It is not to discount the fact that my country somehow elected Trump, nor that so many places in the world are so steeped in rape culture. All of that is very real, and we must care. But by pulling the camera back, you can tap into evidence for why we should be hopeful. And then you can recommit, with that hope, to active change.

Next: This Is Why We Need to Talk More About Sex, and Our Intimate Body Parts, at Every Age

Keys, wallet, phone, lip balm. For many of us, a good balm is an item we can’t leave home without. But why do our lips constantly need a hydrating product? Is this normal, or could there be a deeper, underlying issue?

According to Monica Li, a double board-certified dermatologist in Vancouver, the main reason for your dry pout is that lips don’t have sebaceous (oil) glands, which are responsible for keeping skin moisturized. That means your lips are more susceptible to dryness than the rest of your skin and require more care. Add a cold and dry climate into the mix, and you’ll experience even more moisture loss, says Li. That’s why chapped lips are so common in the winter. While high humidity levels (think warm July days) help lips feel hydrated because of the extra moisture in the air, low humidity levels (think frosty February nights) can suck moisture out.

But other circumstances can lead to dry lips, too. Li says being dehydrated, over-licking, using a strong skin care product like retinol near your lips andside effects from medications such as the skin-drying acne pill Accutane can also be to blame.

(Related: Have Super Dry Skin? This Canadian Skincare Company Is Here to Help)

On rare occasions, dry lips can be a sign of a more serious condition, says Li. For instance, a B-vitamin deficiency, iron deficiency, eczema and bacterial infection can cause a severe form of chapped lips known as cheilitis. With cheilitis, lips aren’t just dry, but also often red, swol- len, itchy and cracked. With angular cheilitis, the corners of the lips become cracked and sore. There’s also actinic cheilitis, which is a precancerous lesion caused by long-term sun exposure and damage. Symptoms include scaly lips and discoloured patches. When in doubt, and certainly if symptoms persist or worsen, consult a medical professional.

Your treatment for chapped lips will depend on the cause. If it’s a vitamin deficiency, work on addressing your levels, as no amount of lip product will be enough to hydrate them. Same goes for a bacterial infection—work on clearing that up first. But in most cases, the cause for chapped lips is just a matter of a lack of moisture, and a good quality lip balm is about enough to heal them.

Look for a balm that has ingredients like glycerin and aloe, which, according to Toronto-based dermatologist Geeta Yadav, “will be able to absorb into the lip skin to attract and retain moisture.” That’s why these two ingredients are so important in lip products—they’re classified as humectants, which pull water into the skin. You may also want to seek out a product with emollients, including lipids or fats like shea butter, cocoa butter and beeswax, which are also great for soothing dry and irritated skin. Ideally, these ingredients are paired with an occlusive, such as petroleum jelly, mineral oil or silicone, says Yadav, which acts as a barrier to lock in hydration and prevent moisture loss. On that note, avoid applying Vaseline alone to lips, she adds. You should apply a hydrating product first, then layer on the Vaseline to lock it in.

To treat chapped lips, you’ll need to apply a lip balm several times a day, says Li. But once your lips heal, you should really only use a balm a handful of times a day: once in the morning, once before bed and perhaps after eating. While your lips are on the mend, Li says, avoid menthol or camphor: The cooling sensation they offer can feel nice in the moment, but these ingredients can further dry out your lips. You might also need to avoid irritating ingredients like fragrances, dyes and preservatives—and that goes for your lipstick, too, so check the label on all of your lip products. And, of course, make sure to keep skin care products with active ingredients away from your lips.

If flakes are a concern, you can use a physical exfoliant to buff away the dead skin, says Alain Michon, the medical director at Project Skin MD Ottawa. (Bonus: This can help lipstick go on more smoothly, too.) But if your lips are tender, cracked or inflamed, a scrub will only make them worse. In that case, stick to lip balm until they heal.

Once your lips are healthy, you’ll want to keep them that way. Do so by amping up hydration. “Increasing your water intake and adding moisture back into your environment will help your lips retain more hydration,” says Yadav. A humidifier can help, especially during the winter when heaters are running indoors and the air tends to be drier.

Also, think about how you breathe. “Try to breathe through your nose and keep your mouth closed—it will reduce air flow that will dry out lips,” says Li. This is particularly important when you’re sleeping. You may also want to avoid or limit your consumption of salty or spicy foods, which could irritate your lips. But if you can’t give up those jalapeño chips (we don’t blame you), Li says you can just wipe your lips clean after eating and apply a lip balm afterward to soothe them.

The last step in your lipcare game is SPF, which does more than protect lips against skin cancer. “The sun can reduce moisture at the lip surface to cause it to be dry and chapped,” says Li. What’s more, the skin on the lips is super delicate, so it’s more susceptible to sun damage. That means if you’re in the sun, no matter the season, a lip balm with SPF is important.

5 Lip Products to Heal Your Pout

Skinceuticals Antioxidant Lip Repair
This is a pricier pick, but worth it because it can repair the driest of lips. Its special sauce contains vitamin E, which serves as a humectant and emollient to provide deep hydration and lock it all in. It also contains allantoin, which is an anti-irritant that can soothe lips and help them feel supple again.
$52, beautysense.ca

Coola Classic Liplux SPF 30 Lip Balm
If you’re out in the sun (yes, even winter sun), bring along this vitamin- and antioxidant-rich lip balm that contains nourishing avocado butter and boasts broad spectrum UVA/UVB protection. It also boasts organic cupuacu butter and jojoba seed oils for extra hydration.
$22, well.ca

Ilia Lip Wrap Reviving Balm
A cult-fave clean beauty line founded by a Vancouverite, Ilia is best known for its lip products. This particular one offers ample moisture while healing the skin barrier to help prevent future chapping and irritation. Its list of hydrating natural ingredients includes coconut oil, castor oil and shea butter.
$32, well.ca

La Roche-Posay Nutritic Lip Balm
Delivered in a convenient stick, this balm is here to address all your dry lip needs, whether they feel tight, cracked or stingy. It provides nourishment with ingredients like glycerin and shea butter for the perfect humectant- emollient combination— but also boasts a light, comfortable texture.
$16, beautysense.ca

Eucerin Aquaphor Lip Repair Healing Ointment
Dealing with cracked lips? Ouch—go straight to this reliable pick. It’s a deeply nourishing ointment that seeps right into those cracks to hydrate and heal. It contains ingredients like panthenol and vitamins C and E, which will moisturize, soothe and protect lips.
$8, well.ca

Next: 9 of the Best Hand Creams for Soft, Healthy Skin

Bulgur is a whole grain in the wheat family that can easily replace rice or quinoa if you’re looking to switch things up. It has a chewy, nutty texture and a flavor that lets other ingredients shine. In this dish, Brussels sprouts add even more gut-friendly fiber and a smoky flavor that works wonderfully.

(Related: This Zesty Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad Makes a Perfect Side Dish This Winter)

Bulgur Salad With Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Tangerine, and Pomegranate

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

Salad

• 1 lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup bulgur
• 1¾ cups  water
• ½ cup pomegranate arils
• 1 tangerine, peeled and sliced into rounds
• 1 green onion, sliced
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh mint

Dressing 

• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp honey
• Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a food processor fitted with a steel blade, shred the Brussels sprouts. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with the oil, season with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Spread evenly on the baking sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until caramelized.
3. In a saucepan, bring the bulgur, water, and a pinch of salt to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 5 minutes or until the liquid has been absorbed. (See Kitchen Tip.)
4. Prepare the dressing and dress the salad: In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, mustard, honey, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the bulgur, Brussels sprouts, pomegranate arils, tangerine, green onion, and mint. Toss to mix, and serve at room temperature. Store leftover salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator and eat within 1 day.

Tip: You can prep the bulgur (step three) in advance and store it in the refrigerator for up to five days. You can also cook more than you need for this recipe, adding in the extra to your weekly menu, so that it includes even more whole grains.

Excerpted from Everyday Mediterranean by Vanessa Perrone. Copyright © Vanessa Perrone. Photographs by Ariel Tarr. Published by Appetite Books by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

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Maybe using the F word is a little strong, but it’s accurate: I completely failed at exercise for the entirety of my 30s. At least the sweaty, heart-pounding, happy endorphins, cardio-burn kind of exercise.

I love to ski (downhill), I love a hike or brisk mental-health walk, a gentle yoga class. I did a lot of postpartum Pilates core classes, toting my babies along. But a chronic hip injury, the demands of working full-time during the pandemic with kids mostly home, and a general state of overwhelm meant I just never got into a solid cardio routine, especially anything approaching high-impact. The last time I went on a jog was literally when I was forced to, while chasing a runaway toddler. But I’ve read enough about fitness and aerobic activity, especially as we venture into middle age, to know that it’s essential for my heart health.

What is the Carol bike?

That’s why an efficient, effective and short workout was so enticing to me. Carol, the “smart” spin bike I’ve been trying out at home for the past year, promises five minutes to peak fitness and is designed to help users “swap out their 45-minute run” for super-fast high-intensity workouts that are easy to slide into a busy daily calendar.

The science behind it is REHIT, which stands for reduced exertion high-intensity interval training. Carol delivers AI-personalized, tailor-made spin rides set at your optimal resistance each time you hop on, factoring in your age, weight, height, sex, rate of fatigue, maximum pedal speed, past resistance and heart rate, from a chest strap monitor worn at your bra line.

The “signature” five-minute workout is two maximum-intensity sprints lasting 20 seconds each, spaced out with low-intensity warm-ups and a cool-down period. Two or three rides a week, at five minutes each, is really all you’re supposed to do to increase your aerobic fitness levels. Trainers or elite athletes sometimes refer to this as your “VO2 max” – or your maximum rate of oxygen uptake during exercise. A higher VO2 max is an indicator of better cardiorespiratory fitness—meaning improved heart health and lung health, and it’s easier to run, swim or do any other kind of cardio.

Niels Vollaard, a lecturer in health and exercise science at the University of Stirling in Scotland, is a senior author of multiple widely cited studies examining the biological and biometric gains of REHIT forms of exercise. He looks at exercise in an evolutionary context, comparing our modern sedentary lifestyles—complete with delivery apps and grocery stores—to the physical demands of our hunter-gatherer days.

“We don’t have to do any exercise anymore to be able to eat—and our genes haven’t evolved to cope with that,” he says. “So in order to stay healthy, you have to exercise—there’s no way around it.”

Effective exercise must create what Vollaard calls “a disturbance of homeostasis.” You need to shake it up, he says. “Your heartrate has to go up, and your muscles have to start using their fuel, and you have to breathe faster.” But if you’re choosing low- or moderate-intensity exercise as your preferred method, says Vollaard, “you have to have lots of it.” And because not everyone likes to exercise, and it takes longer, compliance is low.

(Related: Bungee Cord Fitness: The High-Intensity, Low-Impact Exercise You Need to Try)

The science behind REHIT

REHIT sessions can be very short, he says, because “REHIT incorporates ‘supramaximal’ or ‘all-out’ exercise. Doing more of it will not further enhance the benefits you get.”

“This is why we’ve been looking at, ‘What is the exercise that will disturb homeostasis the most?’ Because if you can disturb homeostasis quickly, then you won’t need to do too much of it,” he explains. These very short bursts of explosive activity—pedalling like your life depends on it—are what make the Carol cycling workouts stand out from other stationary bikes.

In fact, the British female voiceover that accompanies the cycling intervals and cool-downs asks riders to imagine they’re cave men, essentially, trying to outrun a tiger. How hard and how fast you pedal results in a tablet screen full of numbers: wattage, cadence, heart rate, fitness score, calories burned, energy output. They all add up to your overall fitness and whether you would have survived in a racing-across-the-savannah, man-versus-animal chase scenario. Not exactly a peaceful or anxiety-reducing exercise. (I promptly disabled the voice and chose music instead.)

Sometimes the tablet-screen readouts, which are meant to be inspirational, seem lost in translation or suffer from cultural differences. For example, if you choose a longer, more traditional “fat burn” ride, the prompts are mired in outdated admonishments about junk food, and seem out of touch with current body-positivity trends. One read, “My sprints burn a lot of sugar in your thighs,” and another joked, “But no KitKats when I’m not looking!”

My personal Carol bike review

Unlike the popular Peloton, this bike—which came to market in late 2018—isn’t really about building camaraderie with group classes, or the fun soundtrack, or the standout instructor personalities. Carol, which stands for CAR-diovascular Optimization Logic, is a German company, and it’s designed for people with no time. In fact, it’s main selling point is how little time you need to spend in the saddle. You don’t really break a sweat, and you probably won’t have to shower after. I’ve used Carol in between Zooms, while still in my pajamas in the morning, or while my kids conduct raucous playdates in the basement around me. And like any indoor exercise machine, it’s great for when you don’t have childcare, or when the weather outside is grim.

Truth be told, it’s one of the only forms of cardio I’ve ever stuck with. Trainers and fitness gurus call this consistency; doctors and researchers call this exercise adherence. The best form of exercise is the one you’re actually going to do, week after week, month after month, Vollaard told me, even if it doesn’t feel like you’re logging lots of miles or getting sweaty.

This is one of the trickiest hurdles that doctors and cardiologists encounter with patients at high-risk of heart disease, or recovering from heart disease, says Jennifer Reed, the director of the Exercise Physiology and Cardiovascular Health Laboratory at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. Her research focuses on women’s heart health and the role exercise plays in cardiovascular disease prevention and rehabilitation.

She says that HIIT or REHIT may sound intense or intimidating, but it’s actually doable for many people, even her patients with heart disease. “It allows them to train at a higher level, and then achieve those cardiovascular health benefits that they probably wouldn’t have achieved if we said, “Go exercise for 45 minutes on the elliptical at moderate to vigorous intensity.’”

In a way, the shorter intervals simulate very real-world scenarios, Reed explains. “If you’re a patient with heart failure, you struggle to even walk up a flight of stairs, right? You may walk a few stairs and then take a break, and then walk a few more stairs and take a break. And that very much aligns with interval training.”

In short, it works, she says. “If you can exercise at moderate-to-vigorous intensities, you will reduce your risk for cardiovascular morbidity and cardiovascular mortality.” I don’t have heart disease, but I do worry that all my yoga, stretching and mobility classes—mostly floorwork—mean I’m neglecting my cardiovascular health. So I was heartened (forgive the pun) to hear that I was on the right track with REHIT.

It’s quick, it’s easy and perfect for people who don’t actually enjoy exercising. What it isn’t: cheap. At $3,395, plus $19 per month in membership fees, it isn’t realistic for most individuals to purchase a Carol bike for their home. Vollaard believes the best use of the Carol bike is in the workplace. Because workouts don’t take long, multiple employees can use the same bike, quickly counteracting the negative health effects of their sedentary workdays while the employer shoulders the hefty price tag.

“We need a range of solutions and more preventative care,” Vollaard explains. “If you do only one thing – and if you would stick to this – you only need two or three sessions a week. That really becomes a cost-effective intervention that is easy to fit in. Just hop on and get it over with.”

Cycling with the Apple Watch

If the price tag on a Carol bike makes you gulp, there is an easier way. The latest operating system update for the Apple Watch has new bike and spin workout features that will allow you to use your watch as your own personal AI while cycling, at a fraction of the cost. With watchOS 10, you can connect to Bluetooth cycling accessories—such as power metres, speed sensors and cadence sensors—to capture metrics like cycling power and RPMs. The watch will show you your heart-rate zones and cycling speed, as well as elevation and race route, if you’re actually cycling outside. Personally, I found that the heart-rate monitor built into my Apple Watch was just as consistent and accurate as Carol’s chest-band heart-rate monitor, and it’s way more comfortable to wear while exercising.

Apple Watch Series 9, apple.com/ca, starting from $549.

Next: Kickboxing is the Fun, Full-Body Workout You Never Knew You’d Love

Do you feel your home is cluttered? Certain items take up way too much physical—and sometimes emotional—space. Clear them out, and you’re on your way to an organized home. They are:

Gifts

Let go of things you are holding onto because they were a gift. Realize that the gift has already served its purpose. Release yourself from the feeling of obligation to someone else. Its purpose was to symbolize love or thoughtfulness from the person who gave it to you. You’ve said thank you, felt the love and are now free to let it go.

Books

There are not many good reasons to keep your university textbooks or that romance novel you read five years ago that was good but isn’t even in your top 10. Books are meant to be read and shared, not collect dust, so if the book has served its purpose for you, it’s time to pass it on to someone who can enjoy it, just as you did.

Your kids’ schoolwork and art

I know, I know. I know. The very idea of getting rid of your kids’ art can feel like you are throwing away your actual child. But I am here to tell you: It is okay to say good-bye to the snowman he made from socks four years ago. Have one box set aside per kid to keep the most treasured items and take a picture of the rest and save it on a flash drive. The memories are forever but the things don’t have to be.

Mugs

From every tourist attraction you’ve visited on a road trip and every “you are the world’s greatest (Insert your personal world’s greatest title . . .),” I can guarantee you that mugs are taking up at least twice as much space as they should. Just remember that most mugs were given to you by people who didn’t really know you—that’s why they gave you a mug.

Memorabilia

Mickey ears from Disney World, participation ribbon from the sciencefair in the fourth grade, the giant foam finger from the football game backin ’93. You and I both know you don’t go into a box and look at them often. It’s time for them to go.

Towels and bedding

We often have too many linens,especially with kids. Come up witha number of how many sets youactually need and use, then donate the rest. If you have kids, take my wordfor it, you’ll need a few spare for those middle of the night pee or puke incidents. Animal shelters are a great option for towels, and human shelters are perfect for extra sheet sets.

Makeup and perfume

First of all, this stuff expires. Second of all, if you didn’t like the way that perfume or the hand cream your best friend gave you smelled yesterday,you won’t like how it smells tomorrow. Why not just cut to the chase and throw it out?

Medication and sunscreen

Again, these expire, and these expiration dates are a matter of health and safety. Medications and sunscreens will become less effective overtime and expired medication can be dangerous. These need at least a yearly purge.

Take-out containers
Holding onto a take-out container because it feels wasteful to get rid of it doesn’t unwaste that item. If you’re never going to reuse it, it needs to go.

Water bottles

You probably have one from every conference you’ve ever been to and gym you got roped into joining. It’s okay to say good-bye to the ones you never use and only keep the ones you actually do.

Kitchen gadgets and utensils

You don’t need six spatulas, four corkscrews, three lemon zesters and two different nut crackers. Think about what you use, what you need and get rid of the rest.

Reusable bags
You need a few in the house, some in your car, maybe one or two in your purse and that is it.

My favourite tools for organizing

Now, this doesn’t mean you need to toss them out, you just need to find the most convenient way to organize them. The key is figuring out what works for you and your space; whatever that is, that’s the right answer. These are some that I love.

Collapsible laundry baskets

They store flat, so they take up very little space when they are not in use.

Over-the-door shoe storage

These are great for lots of things, not just shoes, because they’re just pockets. You can use them for socks, underwear, and belts if you’re limited on drawer space; or hats, mittens, scarfs, cleaning supplies, craft supplies—whatever you want!

A non-skid lazy Susan

I don’t want to put oil and other spillable items directly on the shelves because they could potentially damage the cabinet. A lazy Susan also helps you easily access and maximize your space.

Shelf dividers and adjustable drawer dividers

For separating, organizing and maximizing space.

Sliding baskets for cupboards

These are great for accessing items in deeper cupboards.

Shower caddies

Like the back of the door shoe storage, you can hook them anywhere and the uses are endless. It’s great for those accessories that don’t have a home: belts, sunglasses, watches, ties, etc.

Baskets, bins and boxes

These are the classic organizing tools. Think about where you’ll be storing them. Do you need them to be stackable? Would it serve you if it was clear plastic or opaque? Are you happy with them open or do they need a lid? My recommendation would be to go for durability. It wins every time.

Clear pantry containers

Visible and easy to see when you need to replenish items such as flour, rice and pasta.

From the book, Dirty Guide to a Clean Home by Melissa Dilkes Pateras. Copyright 2023 by Melissa Dilkes Pateras. Reprinted with permission.

Next: 6 Smart Ways to Have a Clutter-Free Home in 2024

It didn’t take much convincing to get me to try magic mushrooms to improve my mental health. I’m no stranger to psychedelic drugs—I’ve tried a number of them throughout my life for recreational reasons—and I even worked in the cannabis industry for a time as the head content strategist for a trio of brands. This career move—pivoting from fashion director to pot proponent—did not come as a shock to my friends and family, who are well aware of my long-time use of psychedelics.

My experiences with these hallucinatory compounds have all been resoundingly positive. (With one exception: the time I cried after doing a small sampling of acid while listening to Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. Surely I’m not the only one.)

That’s why I decided to try microdosing psilocybin as a tool for managing my anxiety and depression. Of all the currently recommended pharmaceuticals and experimental offerings used to treat these disorders, psilocybin was the one I was ultimately most comfortable with.

My mental health crisis originally stemmed not only from the myriad effects of COVID lockdowns, when so many of us felt down and isolated, but also from two horrible health scares in my family and the realization that I no longer felt morally okay with many aspects of the industry I then worked in—fashion. I was also suffering from body dysmorphia. Then, in June 2022, I severely injured my ankle. I needed multiple surgeries and had to move in with my parents for help during my recovery. Everything was reopening, but I spent the summer seething—and mostly indoors—because I was afraid to move and injure my healing body again.

It all contributed to what became a highly agitated and depressive state. Eventually, I found myself in a hole so deep I couldn’t conceive of therapy alone being able to help me. That’s the thing about a mental health crisis: Over time, a few snowflakes build into an avalanche. And then you become convinced that there’s no way to dig yourself out from under it.

In the deepest throes of my depression, I did try talk psychotherapy, which was greatly helpful; I eventually felt decent enough to discontinue it in favour of online check-ins, which I still do. And while I know that many depression and anxiety sufferers have had success using prescription meds—my husband has chosen this route—I can’t help but resist the idea. I have a deep skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry in general, which I believe cares far more about profits than about creating a product that actually helps people.

My choice to try psilocybin was bolstered by science as much as by my proclivity toward feeling groovy. The concept of microdosing had caught my attention a few years earlier, thanks to the work of folks like the bestselling author and fellow psychonaut Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma; This Is Your Mind on Plants) and the amateur mycologist Paul Stamets. The emerging research is promising, but it’s still pitifully meagre—largely because of psilocybin’s criminalization and the villainization of psychedelics in general. But psychedelic-assisted therapy clinics, which already exist in other countries, are slowly opening across North America, and they promise to offer psilocybin, along with mescaline and ayahuasca, once it’s legalized.

It’s Stamets who is responsible for inventing the microdosing routine that I currently follow. From what would colloquially be dubbed a “grey market” company—that is, one operating in an illegal industry with the notion that it will one day be legalized—I order a shipment of capsules containing a low-dose blend of psilocybin mushrooms, as well as another variety called Lion’s Mane. I take the capsule with a niacin pill, which can improve absorption into the body. This treatment, which I take every three days, is dubbed the Stamets Stack, and I’m immensely grateful for its existence.

My therapeutic dose also includes chaga and reishi mushrooms as part of the recipe, and I’m confident this combination of fungi is rewiring my brain. About a week after starting my routine, I noticed improvements across nearly every aspect of my life. To me, it’s no different from taking a vitamin or supplement, and aside from the obvious-to-everyone side effects I’m about to describe, the one thing I don’t feel is… stoned.

I now feel like I’m on an even keel, emotionally. I have a better understanding of my place in the world, and at 42, I finally believe that I deserve to be happy. With this newfound clarity, I find myself better articulating what I need from my personal relationships and what no longer serves me.

The anxiety is still there, but I understand how to mitigate it. When depression descends, I can ride the dips and waves with insight and tenacity rather than sinking further. I’ve also become acutely aware of what can trigger or anger me and I can control how I react.

I feel like I’m becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be: Instead of lying in bed until the last minute every morning, I get up and meditate, tidy, check my plants and exercise. When I’m microdosing, I have more bandwidth for daily tasks, I can more easily recognize when I’m about to get annoyed or irritated and I’m more inclined to give myself breaks before I do.

Career-wise, I have the capacity to work on the idea that my job does not define me. I’m now able to take on work assignments that my ego and my pride wouldn’t have allowed me to consider before, when I was younger and more professionally ambitious. This means I might never again be extended the more prestigious invites, such as London Fashion Week, but that no longer bothers me.

This idea—the concept of “ego death,” and the ability to see the bigger picture—has been described by other users of psychedelics throughout history and it’s really a joy. Ultimately, microdosing helps me feel in tune with nature: its beauty, its cycles and what it can show us about living a harmonious, peaceful and happy life.

Next: Could Laughter Be the Best Medicine for Stress and Anxiety?

If I asked you to locate any item in your home, wouldn’t it be great if you could you find it with ease? Imagine having a home for all those pens you “didn’t steal” from work or being able to find a safety pin when you need one last minute. Imagine being able to find the spare batteries you’re sure you have somewhere instead of borrowing them from your remote or digging through the junk drawer. You know the one, we all have one: It’s where you have to push past the old takeout menus, past all the electronic cords you have no idea what they’re for but you can’t throw them away ’cause one day you might find out what mystery device they charge, past the spare piece of paper with someone’s number on it and you can’t remember who it is but you might need it someday, the free toothbrush you got from the dentist, a three year old ChapStick, to maybe, just maybe, find a battery, but it’s a AA when you needed a AAA. All that work and now you’ve disturbed the ecosystem of the drawer—so much that now you can’t get the damn thing closed.

Here’s the thing about that drawer: When you find a battery, does it always work? Or is it an old one that’s out of juice that for some reason you chucked back in there instead of the trash? There is a fine line between having an organizational system that works for you and having a messy dumpster fire of a drawer. Beware of that line. When it comes to tools to get organized, the list of things you absolutely need is pretty short: Garbage bags, storage, labels (optional), a gallon of determination, a shit-ton of focus and some time.

(Related: 30 Things You Should Clean in the Next 30 Days) 

Start small and live large

I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to organize your entire home all at once. That’s unrealistic, overwhelming and definitely not how I roll. We are going to start small. Our first goal is to pick a section: one room, one cupboard, one shelf, or even one tiny little drawer. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: start small. My aim is to set you up to succeed. As we’re just starting out on this organizational journey, I don’t want to overwhelm you. Once you conquer your first small goal, it will give you a sense of accomplishment that will prove to you that you can do this. It will also allow you to move at a pace that works for you. If I asked you to organize one drawer in your kitchen, that would seem like a doable task; but if I asked you to reorganize your entire kitchen, you’d probably get an overwhelming tightness in your chest. If we break it down, section by section, one drawer turns into two, then three, then a shelf, then a cupboard, and before you know it, the kitchen is done, no need for the overwhelming tight feeling in your chest. When setting a goal, you want to make it SMART! (That’s Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound.)

You’re a smart cookie, so make your goal SMART, too. Let’s break them down so they’re not so boring-presentationat-a-work-conference:

Specific: Pick one section of your home to organize. Start with a small drawer, a small shelf, that top cupboard, or perhaps, if you’re feeling adventurous, your entire closet. Whatever the section, be detailed and clear about what you want to accomplish and stick to it.

Measurable: Let’s stick with the drawer example. It’s a small space, so it’ll be easy to know when you’re finished. Once everything in it is easy to access and find, meaning no more shuffling the mess around just to get the damn thing closed, stay on track.

Achievable: Make sure the space you choose to organize is achievable. If the thought of cleaning out your closet all at once makes you feel overwhelmed, then pick something smaller, perhaps just your T-shirts. That’s more achievable. Make sure you are in the right mood to tackle the section you have picked. The more you achieve, the more motivation you’ll have to keep the ball rolling (and you know I love balls).

Realistic: Ask yourself, Do I have all the tools I need to complete this project? If it’s a drawer, maybe you need a drawer organizer; if it’s a closet, maybe you need shoe boxes; if it’s the dreaded Christmas decorations in the basement, maybe you need storage bins. Whatever the section, make sure you have the necessary tools needed on hand and ready to go before you start. You don’t want to have to stop halfway through to go to the store to get the items you need, run into Brenda while you’re there, end up having a 30-minute catch-up about how the kids are doing and then suddenly realize you need to get home and make dinner and no longer have time to finish the task at hand.

Timebound: This is the big one, and the real cause of our anxiety, because it’s something we never feel we have enough of. Make sure you set aside the time to start and finish the task. This means, be strict and give yourself a deadline. If anyone knows distraction it’s me, so if you only have an hour, perhaps today is not the day to do the entirety of your closet. You don’t want to have to stop halfway through because you have to pick your kid up from basketball practice and then come home and help your other kid with their science project that you just found out is due tomorrow. So perhaps an hour is best set aside for a drawer, or if you’re feeling courageous, perhaps two drawers. Make the time that fits the space you want to tackle, pop on some tunes, and get it done.

Abide by the keep, toss, donate, sell rule

The best approach to a real declutter-and-organize is to remove all the items from that space and divide them into four piles/categories: things to keep; things to throw away; things to donate; things to sell (yes, why not make a bit of cash while you’re at it?).

Now that we have our piles of things we want to keep and a nice clean drawer to put them back into, place those items back in a way that makes sense to you. For the things you want to throw away, put them in the trash never to be seen again. For the things you want to donate, place those in a bag and drive it to the donation bin now (remember to include that time as part of the project when you’re thinking about being Timebound, above). And for the things you want to sell, take some photos and post them on an online marketplace to sell right away. Don’t wait. The aim is for those three piles to leave your home as soon as possible, for two reasons: to remove the temptation of changing your mind and because you don’t want a bag of more clutter around the house when the goal is to declutter.

Goodbye, old charger cords that no longer serve you and hello, clean, organized drawer of AAA batteries you can find when you need them.

Taking everything out of one small section allows you to be critical of all the items and ruthless about what you really need and what you really don’t. If you don’t do that, you’ll just be shuffling things around in the space and not actually organizing anything. If you just push aside that pile of dress pants to the back of your closet instead of taking them out, you might not realize that one of them is a size 2 pleated black corduroy pant that you haven’t worn since the ’90s because a) they’re ugly and b) you haven’t been a size 2 since the ’90s. It’s as simple as that. But if it’s that simple, why haven’t you done it before? Well, simple doesn’t mean easy. If it was easy, you would have already done it. So, let’s talk about the process, the barriers and—most important—the solutions.

(Related: 18 Vinegar Cleaning Hacks That’ll Save You Money)

Get messy but not distracted

Yes, you heard it right. Organizing does involve getting a little messy first. Like I’ve said before, when you pick your space, whatever the space, no matter how big or how small, I want you to remove everything in that space and survey its contents. The taking-everything-out strategy works the same for an entire room as it does for a single drawer. So, pick your space, take everything out, get messy and assess what you’re working with, but most important, stay on task, because this is where our old friend distraction can pop by for a visit.

If you’re anything like me, it’s hard not to entertain distraction. The simple act of cleaning out your closet can sometimes turn into a movie-montage fashion show where you’re trying on old clothing and singing to the imaginary crowd attending your bedroom concert. We’re all guilty of it. We’ve all experienced the nostalgic feeling of rediscovering those forgotten photo albums or the worst culprit…old yearbooks. They instantly bring a smile to your face and trigger an old memory. REFRAIN!!! DON’T DO IT! PUT THEM DOWN!

It can happen fast—and not quicksand fast, but falling-througha-trapdoor fast. Little old innocent Memory Lane can send you on a detour down Where the F*ck Did the Day Go? Boulevard in a hurry. Mindless flipping through the pages of forgotten high school memories will quickly hurl you into an investigation abyss. Once you are into that box, it’s almost impossible to get out. Seeing Cheryl Farmer in that class photo will instantly get you wondering… whatever happened to Cheryl Farmer? Did she peak in high school? What she’s doing now? At this point it’s too late. You have already crossed into the danger zone. Next thing you know you’re on Facebook, typing in her name, hoping it’s still Farmer. Oh look! There she is. You find out she did marry Mark Murphy after all and it looks like they have two kids. The plot thickens…in 2014 she and Mark split up and she clearly invested in a quality, celebratory boob job. She loves selfies, wine, inspirational quotes and activewear. Wait…what were we doing?

I’ve gotten distracted like this many times while organizing, and to be honest sometimes it’s the fun part—but it’s also the part that could set you up to fail. So, if you know that you are prone to this type of distraction, allow time for it. If you’ve allotted time to specifically organize the yearbook drawer, then by all means, flip through the pages and reminisce, but keep your eye on the prize. You’ve set aside an hour to clean out and organize this space, so perhaps just take five minutes to flip through the pages of that yearbook, but then it’s book down and back to the task at hand. You can investigate Cheryl’s life path another time.

Now, you might think I’ve just taken the only joy out of organizing if you can’t spend hours reminiscing, but there are other ways to keep you entertained while still getting the job done. I work best when listening to music or a podcast, which is in the background enough that I can stay on task but enough of a diversion that I don’t feel so painfully bored. You know yourself. Pick something to have in the background that will keep you energized and motivated but not so enthralled that you want to stop what you’re doing. Think of this as a healthy distraction that will make the time fly by.

Get rid of the ones that no longer serve you

For some spaces this may be a few items here and there, and for other spaces you’ll be taking a trunk-load of bags to the donation bin. Have you ever felt like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders? Well, it’s not the world, it’s all of your stuff. If the idea of getting rid of things feels scary, that’s okay, you’re allowed to feel that way. But believe me, parting with things that no longer serve you can actually do the opposite: It can free you. Sounds simple right? But remember what I said, simple doesn’t mean easy.

Parting with things can feel like parting with a piece of yourself. Maybe that old blanket or teddy bear from your childhood is something you can’t part with. It’s okay to hold onto items that are truly sentimental, but does the trophy you won for a three-legged race at the fireman’s picnic in 1979 or the ticket stub from the Depeche Mode concert you went to in high school actually serve you in any way?

Have you ever filled a bag to drop off at a local donation bin and had a brief second, third, or even fourth thought of regret or uncertainty before you could let it go? You know you don’t need the stuff, you haven’t used it in years, and the space you removed it from looks so much better. But for some reason, you still have a moment of hesitation. You have a little conversation with yourself before you can let it go. Do I need it? Should I keep it just in case? Am I being wasteful or thoughtless? You are not alone.

If you are having a hard time letting go of an item, put it in plain sight for a while. Yes, I said in plain sight. Seeing it often will have you thinking about it more often. It will be easier to decide if it actually serves you. Hidden or tucked away will have you forgetting about it and allowing it to stay and take up space.

Out of sight, out of mind

In your sight, on your mind. Understanding that your memories are stored within you and not in your stuff may help a little. With that being said, a physical possession can trigger memories. Try taking a picture of an item before letting it go. If you have a collection of something, try hanging onto your favorites and letting go of the others. When you let go of things, you not only free up physical space, but you also free up visual busyness and space, which will in turn free up mental space. If you’re holding onto something simply because you fear you may need it in the future, think about how many times you have used it in the past year. The more unused and unloved possessions we hang onto, the more bound we feel to them and end up devoting more time and energy to maintaining and storing them.

I’m a vegetarian but I cook a turkey once a year, so I do need a roasting pan. I use it annually, it serves me and therefore there’s a good reason to keep it. If I never used it, it would have no utility and there would be no good reason to keep it. The key is determining what items actually serve you. If they don’t, let them go. Clutter begets more clutter.

But try to be honest with yourself. Do you need that T-shirt you got for participating in the charity walk-a-thon five years ago? These are not hypothetical questions; these are questions to ask yourself and try to answer honestly. I get wanting a lot of clothes, truly, but there are only seven days in a week.

Listen, nobody has more clothes than I do. I have had a Lululemon shirt in my closet for five years that I’ve never worn but refuse to get rid of. I hate the sleeves and I keep meaning to get it altered. It was $120, so it feels wasteful. But I have to be honest with myself: If it’s been five years, what are the chances this imagined alteration is ever going to happen? Is hanging onto the dress you splurged on but never wore somehow earning you your money back? Do you really want to torture yourself by keeping that pair of jeans just in case you lose weight? Do you really need all of those painting clothes for the one day a year you paint?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, get them outta there. Stop creating a function for things in order to justify keeping them. This is a convenient tactic for hanging onto shit you really don’t need. Less is more, almost always.

Questions to ask about every item you pick up:

• Do I love it?
• Do I use it?
• Does it enhance my life?
• Would I pass it on to a loved one?
• Do I have more of the same item?
• Would I buy it again today if it broke?
• Would my life be more difficult without it?
• Do I have somewhere adequate to store it?
• Is its utility worth my time to clean and maintain?

Stuff is just stuff. I’m a social worker, and earlier in my career I worked with kids who had experienced difficult home lives. Many of them had no possessions of their own. While out on excursions, a lot of them took flyers, business cards and pamphlets at every opportunity. The things they took were of no use to them, but they were theirs. Things can make you feel safe and secure, but as it accumulates you suddenly find yourself with too much. What started as safety and security flips to having the opposite effect: stress, anxiety being overwhelmed.

Think before you buy

Imagine for a moment that you’re done. Every inch of your house is decluttered and organized, and you can find things and live in your space with ease. Feels good, doesn’t it? Or does it? Maybe it also brings with it that small little worry of How am I going keep it this way?!? And that brings me to my little friend I like to call “keep-up.” The key to keeping up your organization is thinking before you buy.

Questions to ask yourself before you buy:

• Do I really need it?
• Why do I want it?
• Where am I going to put it when it’s not in use?
• How easy it is to clean and maintain?
• Do I already have one, and if so, do I really need another?
• Is this a replacement, and if so, am I getting rid of the old one?

You have to think about why you want what you want, and that’s a complicated question for most of us because shopping isn’t just about need. Shopping can be emotional, it can be therapeutic—but overshopping can also lead to clutter, which can lead to anxiety, which can lead to having a house you don’t feel comfortable in. A common example of overshopping is “It was on sale” buying. This is when you buy too much of an item that you use, or don’t use at all, just because it was on sale. Great that the spaghetti sauce was on sale and you want to pick up a few extras, but if you buy 47 of them, where the hell are you going to store it and will you ever be able to use it all before it expires? Sometimes we feel like we need every new gadget and tool—new things are fun!—but there is a big difference between need and want. When the line gets blurred, we can end up with a bunch of stuff that we thought we needed but don’t. When you’re considering buying or upgrading to a new gadget, again, mindfulness is key. For example, I have a Vitamix, but new blenders come out all the time.

So, I think to myself, Does this new blender do something so special that renders mine useless? If the answer is no, then I don’t buy a new one. I bought a Roomba because on TV, that thing glides through a house like a figure skater at the Olympics. Mine? It gets stuck on everything. It can’t get down the stairs. I bought it to make my life easier, and it doesn’t, so I hate it. And because I hate it, I never use it, and it’s just another appliance sitting in my garage in the Island of Misfit Toys. Most people don’t use gadgets that are complicated to clean. It’s great that I can whip up a smoothie in 30 seconds but when I have to take apart 500 pieces to wash and put back together, it doesn’t really seem worth it. If this is you, accept that about yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with it. It just means that appliances that require a lot of maintenance are not for you. My mission is to get you to enjoy the time you spend in your home doing the things you enjoy. Buying a new gadget might seem like it’ll help you enjoy your space, but before you purchase, follow the thought process through to the end. You know yourself better than anyone. If you really want something, get it! But pause first and consider how it fits into your life and your goal of feeling comfortable, organized and relaxed in your home.

When it comes to organizing, hopefully it feels a little lighter. I’ve taught you the how, the why and the keep-up—all you have to do now is go and do it. So remember what I said: one step at a time; you’re not going to move mountains overnight. Start small and stick with it. Be ruthless, be kind to yourself, but be realistic.

From the book, Dirty Guide to a Clean Home by Melissa Dilkes Pateras. Copyright 2023 by Melissa Dilkes Pateras. Reprinted with permission.  

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Whether Jennifer Crawford is doing pullups in their barn or lifting 270 pounds in a barbell squat in their driveway, they’re constantly striving to increase their strength. This hard work enables them to throw down their opponents as a professional wrestler who performs under the moniker Moon Miss.

Even though Crawford still doesn’t self-describe as a “fitness person,” strength training and physical activity serve several functions in their life. They have always loved expressing themselves in corporeal and kinetic ways—using movement as a creative outlet. They’ve been an athlete since childhood, starting out as a kid who was into golf, and then playing varsity rugby in university.

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Primarily, fitness helps them stay sober and well. For years, “I used alcohol as an answer to every feeling,” Crawford says, whether those feelings were joy or despair, until it became clear that drinking usually made life worse—and that it was time for a big change.

2019 proved a pivotal year. They were living in Toronto and working as a senior policy analyst. After years of struggling with alcohol and a CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) diagnosis, Crawford got sober and enrolled in an outpatient trauma treatment program.

“I spent six weeks learning how to regulate my nervous system and take good care of myself—that was a piece that was always missing for me,” Crawford says. “That program changed my life.”

Fresh out of treatment, Crawford—who had no culinary training—started filming for MasterChef Canada, a competition show for amateur home cooks. They won the contest and used the cash prize to buy a farmhouse in Nova Scotia, near where they grew up.

Once settled in the Hants County region north of Halifax, they joined a local wrestling gym and developed the persona Moon Miss, a drag character they had already created for a different cooking show, a YouTube series called My Queer Kitchen. (In one episode, Crawford teaches viewers how to make only in–Nova Scotia Moon Mist ice cream, which is a combo of bubble gum, grape and banana flavours.)

Crawford now co-produces wrestling events in Nova Scotia through their promotion company, Glory Hold Pro Wrestling, creating space and community for gender-queer youth in what is otherwise a “very cis-male-dominated” world, they say. “Glory Hold aims to make that world just a little bigger.”

Though there’s a lot of theatre and performance in the ring, the wrestlers are serious athletes who train hard and often get hurt. Last year, Crawford had a freak accident during a match and sustained a tibial plateau fracture. They were on crutches for eight weeks.

“At its weakest, my right leg had atrophied to five inches smaller than my left,” says Crawford. They spent most of 2022 slowly rebuilding their leg strength with lots of low-weight, high-rep rehab, and by the end of October, Moon Miss was back.

Crawford says that they have faith their body is “hard-wired to heal, as long as I don’t do anything stupid and stay out of my own way.” Here’s a breakdown of all that they engage in to feel healthy, both physically and mentally.

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SETTING THE BAR Crawford revels in the painstaking work it takes to achieve a goal—like being strong enough to do a pull-up, after training every day for months and months, “until you finally get your chin over that bar. Only you know what you’ve been up against—it’s not just gravity. There’s something divine about that.”

FREE SOLO After years of working out in group settings, Crawford now mostly trains on their own, in a barn they’ve outfitted to meet their fitness needs. “I push myself much harder when I’m alone,” Crawford says. “But I realize that most people have the opposite experience.”

BUCKLE UP During matches, Crawford gets into a specific mindset as Moon Miss. They picture Moon Miss as an alien here to visit “the earthlings,” on a quest to become the greatest wrestler in the galaxy. “Like, ‘I’m touching down—it’s my time to shine, baby. Let’s go!’”

TOP DOG Daisy, a street dog rescued from Cairo who “fell into” Crawford’s life in June 2021, arrived with a significant amount of anxiety and physical limitations (she only has three legs). While she can’t join her owner for long walks or swims, she loves hopping in the car for a ride.

BIG DIPPER Last March, Crawford started a daily cold-plunge ritual at a local waterfall. “I’m still coming every day, even when it’s cooler out, and I’ll keep going as long as I can,” they say. “But I stay in the water a lot longer in the summer.”

CHOPPING BLOCK Crawford says they learned to cook because they love to eat, and their inventiveness in the kitchen is also clearly a creative outlet. Food is more than fuel: “It’s comfort and art and healing, connection and community. I went through a period of my life where I counted macros and it made me feel terrible. I will never do it again.”

IN GOOD TIME “If there’s anything I have 10,000 hours of practice with, its femininity,” Crawford says. They also perform in drag shows as Moon Mister, their character’s masculine alter ego, “because if there’s anything else I have spent 10,000 hours studying, it’s masculinity.”

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