Back in November, I took a break from my daily cup of coffee and was a little surprised to find that within just a few days, my vocabulary had halved and my ability to finish a sentence seemed to be on the fritz. I’ve always been sensitive, so it made sense that caffeine withdrawal could make me feel fuzzy and tired. But months later, my brain fog hadn’t gotten even a bit better and I was still super tired. Mid-sentence I lost my train of thought, never to catch it agai

There's a weird self improvement philosophy that takes positive thinking to the extreme by suggesting that we only experience negative feelings because our mindset is messed up. The idea is that if you can just look at the world through a positive lens, you can be done with negative feelings and transform your life for the better! That simplicity sounds tempting, right? Unfortunately, the positivity-or-bust approach can start to look less like stepping into a transformed li

Prefer to listen? Click here. Maybe the rug in the living room was always hot lava and you had to leap onto the couch to keep from burning your feet. Maybe you had a mischievous invisible friend to blame for losing library books or trimming off the cat’s whiskers. Perhaps Barbie and Ken selflessly gave up their dream house to nomad My Little Ponies. Maybe you enlisted your neighbors to help you protect the backyard from the attack of nearby pirate ships. Hours could be los

Quick: describe your body in one word! Don’t think too hard, just spit it out. Now that it’s out in the open, how do you feel about how you described your body? Does it feel like a celebration of what it can do? A criticism of how it looks? Neutral? I’ve asked this question on Facebook more than once, and the public comments are mostly positive words. But later, in private, I hear words of struggle and resignation. If that’s the case for you, know that you aren’t

Exercise used to be my unhealthy obsession. It usually felt joyless, but I gave it hours every day. I’d jog alone at night and lift weights so aggressively that I was nearly always sore. If someone delayed my "workout" (a term I rarely use now!), I would get so anxious that I wanted to cry. My friends called me a health nut, but when I was honest with myself, I wasn’t exercising for my health. I was willingly sacrificing my safety and mental health to shrink my body into OK-n

Pssst: If you're signed up for my newsletter, please note that I have a new email address! Please add emily@emilyburrows.com to your contacts. We miss out a lot when we're preoccupied with hating our bodies. I'm not only talking about the pictures we duck out of, the pools we don't swim, and the adventures we don't take. I also mean the day-to-day energy drain of tearing down our bodies, our physical homes, that makes it really hard to care for ourselves (and others). You

I love watching improv and have always wanted to try it. So, in an effort to expand my creative life and take on new adventures, I recently signed up for a beginners’ improv class. My first class was not a huge success. A few minutes in, my face started twitching from nervousness, and I stumbled over my words. Everytime it was my turn to speak, my mind, which can get jumpy in large groups of strangers and likes having plenty of time to process thoughts before words can

Recently, I came across a box of some of my many old journals. The last time I stumbled upon them, I found some embarrassing relics of my past, including a love letter to New Kids on the Block and a photo of my face pasted onto a model posing with Chris O’Donnell. This time, I found a notebook of mostly tables and numbers. I flipped through a couple of pages before I recognized it as one of my old “health tracking” notebooks. From high school through public health grad

Here’s the thing about 2015. Despite appearances, there’s still time to bring a little of this year’s bucket list to life! OK, so maybe there isn’t time to hang glide over Switzerland, holding hands with Beyonce, before the clock strikes midnight. But if that’s your kind of daydream, you’ve still got a chance to get at the core of that feeling you’re chasing. So, what is it? Are you looking for adventure? Purpose? Gratitude? Excitement? You can absolutely grab a litt

I have the great privilege of working with and being cared for by some truly big-hearted people. They are parents, siblings, caregivers, service workers, social justice advocates, volunteers, environmentalists, and animal lovers. They’re attuned to the world and care deeply for its inhabitants. Sometimes they can be painfully awake to the suffering of others. That sensitivity is a superpower that can make the world a better place. It can also be a source of great heartache. A