May
02

Still Your Mind To Stop Your Stress

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Healthy living requires a healthy lifestyle that is as stress-free as possible. That being said, living a stress-free life in this day and age is almost impossible; at best, learn to cope with everyday stress.

Stress is your mental perception of fear of something unpleasant that may happen to you. Stress can be caused by something positive: a wedding may be a stressful event; even going on a vacation may be stressful to some. The fear that causes stress is due to memories of past experiences etched in your subconscious mind, as well as projections of those experiences that may repeat themselves in the future. These mental thoughts, once established, begin to flash back forth in your subconscious mind, and thus creating the anxiety that aggravates the fear. In the worst scenario, they may even generate paranoia and paralysis. Stress is the underlying cause of many diseases and disorders. To live well, you must stop your stress—especially the stress that is unreal and exaggerated.

To stop your stress, you must still your mind.

But how do you stop your thinking mind, given that your mind is thinking non-stop without your conscious awareness?

Practice mind training everyday. If your mind is fully engaged in doing something, you will not be thinking of the past or the future, just like the skydiver. It is only when you are half-engaged mentally, then your mind begins to wander and your subconscious mind begins to take over. Remember, the subconscious mind controls the conscious mind

There is a difference between the knowledge mind and the thinking mind. The former provides facts or information about something or someone; the latter provides labels, judgments and opinions. Practice mind training to focus on the present moment so as to withdraw the thinking mind from the past and the future whenever it is not needed.

You can practice mind training by focusing your mental attention on something insignificant or even irrelevant, such as your breathing. For example, you can focus your mind on an object, such as the cup you are holding in your hand. Say, while you were considering buying that cup from a store some time ago, you looked carefully at its shape, style, and design to decide if you wanted to buy it; but ever since you bought it, you have never looked closely at it again. You hold the cup several times a day, but you no longer pay any full mental attention to it. Learn to re-focus your mental attention on the cup every time you are holding it in your hand; in that case, you are training your thinking mind to stop thinking, even though for just a brief moment. Look closely at the cup every time you are holding it in your hand.

Stress is real because your perceptions of fear due to stress are real to you. Meditation is the most effective way to deal with stress. During meditation, you not only can stop the thinking process by focusing your mind on the present moment, such as your breathing, but also can gain access to your subconscious mind, where you have an opportunity to look more closely at what is going on. Remember, focusing on the present moment to the exclusion of everything else holds the key to stilling your mind to stop your stress.

A Course in Mind Power: Learn how to control your thoughts; instead of letting your thoughts control your mind. To live a stress-free life, your mind has to be in control of your thoughts, which affect your choices and decisions in life, which then become your life experiences. Empower your mind with catalyst for transformation.

To find out meditation techniques, visit my webpage: How To Meditate.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

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Jan
09

The Mind of a Food Addict

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Food addiction is a compulsive behavior of binge eating, despite awareness of its dire consequences. Food addition adversely affects healthy living. A food addict is an individual who uses food compulsion to satisfy certain physical and emotional needs, with no regard for the negative consequences of binge eating. Compulsive eating is a disease of food addiction.

People often attribute food addiction or compulsive eating to weak willpower, bad eating habits, or behavioral problems. But food addiction is a serious mental and physiological disorder. In addition, it is chronic and progressive in that food addiction never really goes away, and the symptoms always get worse over time.

To fully understand food addiction disorder, it is best to go into the mind of a food addict.

A food addict begins with an obsession with food, using food for weight control or to overcome emotional distress. The mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts of food, such as what food to eat, what food to buy, and how to prepare food. These obsessive thoughts in the mind of a food addict begin to create food anticipation to the extent that it becomes out of control. Once the food addict crosses from desire into addiction, compulsion takes over. Once started, the compulsion to eat is never fully satisfied, no matter how much food is consumed.

On the wake of episodes of binge eating, feelings of guilt often begin to sink in after the food addict’s repeated wrestling with wanting to eat on the one hand and desiring to stay slim on the other hand. As the dilemma continues and the fear of obesity intensifies, the food addict may turn to aggressive and drastic measures, such as self-induced vomiting (the characteristic binge-purge syndrome), different weight-loss programs, fad diets, diet pills, diuretic drugs, and even dangerous surgeries.

As with any addiction, tolerance begins to take effect on the food addict: tolerance to purging, drugs, and pills. Worse, the food addict develops tolerance to increased food intake. By then, compulsive eating has become a disorder in that food addict.

Denial to having an eating disorder is common among food addicts, as with an addiction, such as alcohol. Food addiction is a disorder that tells an individual that there is nothing wrong with that individual. Therefore, breaking that denial is the first, as well as an important, step towards recovery.

When a food addict stops binge eating, symptoms of withdrawal, such as chills, dizziness, headaches, and nausea, begin to emerge. These uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms may be relieved by binge eating, but the relief is short-lived, and the symptoms will recur after a brief interval. Food addiction is a vicious cycle of eating and despair. It is important to prevent any relapse.

A food addict requires professional and medical help, not just willpower.

Food addiction may be initially triggered by emotions and impaired metabolism. Therefore, emotional health and eating right are important to healthy living. Dieting may be another culprit in developing food addiction. Stop Dieting and Start Living shows you the way to lose weight without dieting.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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Dec
31

Brain Fitness for Healthy Living

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When you think of staying fit, don’t just think from the neck down: think about your brain! A healthy brain plays a critical role in almost everything you do—thinking, feeling, remembering, and sleeping.

Optimize your brain health throughout your entire life. How do you maintain optimum brain health? Simple, what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. Your heart pumps about 20 percent of your blood to your brain to nourish billions of brain cells with oxygen and nutrients.

Accordingly, anything that may damage your heart, such as alcohol and tobacco, may also adversely affect your brain. Research showed that obese adults with high cholesterol and high blood pressure had six times the risk for dementia. In other words, a heart-healthy diet is essential to a healthy brain. Control your cholesterol and blood pressure naturally without the use of drugs, because pharmaceutical drugs are toxic chemicals, and should be avoided wherever possible.

Manage your body weight naturally without resorting to fad diets. (Download a FREE copy of my 143-page e-book All-Round Weight Loss to get the know-how to lose weight naturally.)Because your brain needs oxygen, your breathing is also important to your brain health.  Learn how how to breathe right; that is, breathing with the diaphragm, not your chest. Breathing incorrectly is the cause of many ailments and disorders. Good posture also facilitates optimum breathing.

Stress ages not only your body but also your brain. Stress affects your body’s production of DHEA, which is a hormone critical to anti-aging and longevity. Meditation is an antidote to stress (Read my web page: Meditation Healing for more information).

A healthy brain for healthy living for life may require a change in lifestyle, such as getting involved in brain activities to keep your memory sharp and to optimize your cognitive functions. Your brain health may decline as you age due to altered connections among brain cells. But research has found that keeping your brain active not only increases its vitality, but also builds its reserve of brain cells and connections. In addition, your brain has the capability to generate new brain cells at any age. Adult learning is an important factor in brain health. Use it, or lose it!

Brain Fit For Life is a user’s guide to lifelong brain health and fitness. Learn to take good care of your brain for healthy living for life.

 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

 

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Dec
08

Home Remedies for Fibromyalgia

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The effects of fibromyalgia, a pain related sickness, can be very hard on the patients with this disease. The patient of this sickness often experiences elevated levels of pain in various parts of the body. Although there are several remedies for this disease, home remedies for fibromyalgia can be the best solution to deal with the problem. Some are even better than fibromyalgia medications.

There exists an assortment of rewards, when using home remedies. The most obvious benefit of home remedy is that there are no side-effects, excluding some exceptional cases. You, as a patient, should discuss all remedies and issues that come to your mind with the doctor. Another important thing is that these forms of remedies have proven effects on the health of an individual.

A simple home remedy, that involves no intake of any food or fluids, is aerobic exercises. One would not believe it, but aerobic has resulted in improvements, of up to 35%, in the health of the patient.

There are various other home remedies for fibromyalgia. One more convenient and fun remedy is to keep a good, healthy and balanced diet. During the disease, the human body needs fuel to perform different functions and regain its previous condition. Therefore, keeping a balanced diet is the only thing that can perform these two functions naturally. People suffering from fibromyalgia should recall that these treatments are safe, without any side-effects. Having sufficient rest is another thing that can bring comfort for a patient of fibromyalgia.

If you need energy when working out, or when doing physical tasks, avoid any kind of physical stimulants. To void the need of taking physical stimulants, stick to your medication and take plenty of rest, to counter the symptoms.

Home remedies for fibromyalgia include the combination of lemon juice and honey in lukewarm water. You can easily take such drinks at least twice a day to counter the symptoms of the disease and stay healthy. It would be a very smart idea to use turmeric, in addition to honey and lemon juice, to improve the potency of the drinks. This is a prime example of a home-made fibromyalgia remedy, easy to prepare and safe to consume. You need to take fibromyalgia care if you are suffering from great pain.

A very simple rule to remember, and follow, is to avoid any food that is white in color. The three, most common, white things in your daily food are white flour, white sugar and white salt. White refined sugar, should be completely eliminated from the food if at all possible, to help with the relief efforts. This act will go a long way to subside the pains in the various parts of your body and to improve general health. A simple way to change the color of the food would be to use the unrefined forms, for example use brown sugar and whole grain flour.

If the pain in any area of the body becomes too much, try applying and softly massaging with warm vinegar locally. You can definitely use vinegar, in a variety of forms, to fight the symptoms of fibromyalgia. It is easy for people to make unfounded statements, denying the positive effects of these therapies, because they do not believe in it. The duality of the reality is that if find any belief in these remedies, you may find great relief in your condition, as you are more likely to follow them. Humans have a power of belief that is undeniable, use it to empower the healing powers of your body. In short, all these remedies are best for any individual who is suffering from the pain disease. The name home remedies may be misleading, as these remedies are just good and healthy living tips, with no additional cost.

For more information in natural healing, visit: Self-Healing Self-Help.

 

 

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Nov
18

Your Wellbeing Could Be Affected By All The Different Things You End Up Putting Into Your Body

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By Kathy Jenkins

Living a clean and healthy life is not just about ensuring you’re obtaining the exercise that you have to have every single day. Just about anybody will tell you that getting enough exercise is important for health, your diet is also going to be an additional major player in your battle for healthy living. One more thing you are going to recognize is that even if you’re trying to eat healthy, more than likely you are still eating things you should not be eating. As you continue to read we’re going to be talking about foods that you need to be eating every single day in addition to things you need to try to avoid.

The fast food restaurants are one of those items that individuals try to avoid; nevertheless, most individuals still stop by to grab a quick lunch a few times every week. Although some individuals will argue that they’ve got vegetables on their burgers, most of us already realize that this is not a healthy eating choice, particularly, if you wash it down with a shake. Surprisingly, there are lots of individuals who actually believe food from a fast food joint is healthy so long as vegetables are involved. You have to recognize that fast food might be convenient, but the negative effects it can have on your health can in fact be detrimental.

Preparing your own home cooked meals every single day and packing a lunch is the best choice. This obviously does not mean you have to avoid cheeseburgers and chicken wings, since you can make these at home in a more healthy way. With regard to making a cheeseburger you need to attempt to get the leanest meat you can find. When you just think about the quantity of fat you can cut out of your cheeseburger by making it yourself with 95% lean beef you will comprehend why fast food joints ought to be avoided. You can actually make nice crispy wings by baking them rather than purchasing them from a restaurant that cooks their wings in grease.

One more thing you actually want to ensure you’re getting enough of is your daily recommended allowances of vegetables and fruits. This is something which is going to help your overall health as a lot of the vitamins and minerals your body requires every single day are discovered in these foods. A lot of individuals who do not get the proper amount of vegetables and fruits are obviously not obtaining the essential vitamins and minerals they need in order to fight off sickness and diseases. One more thing you might want to keep in mind is that if you just do not like vegetables and fruits, you will still probably be able to choke down a healthy fruit and vegetable drink.

Should you genuinely want to live a healthy life the recommendations above should be able to help. The recommendations we discussed above will be an excellent place to start; nevertheless, you need to recognize that there are plenty more steps you can take to improve your health. Obviously one of these other things that you can do is to ensure you’re getting enough exercise every single day.

Kathy Jenkins gives advice about Healthy Body with Father of the
Groom Speeches. To know more about father of groom wedding speech click here.

 

 

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Nov
14

Yoga for Healthy Living

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Yoga is not a competitive sport, but it is more than a set of physical exercises. The practice of yoga, with its different positions and postures, integrates the body, mind, and spirit to activate energy healing.

In addition to creating balance, flexibility, and relaxation, the goal of yoga is not to achieve a final perfect position or posture without stress or strain, but to attain an awareness of the different signals given by your physical body. It is this awareness that makes you become conscious of any area of tightness or blockage of energy. This consciousness enables you to use slow and natural body movements and stretching, enhanced by natural breathing, to relax any tightness and to unblock any blockage to bring about energy healing to the body and mind.

Motion is the natural characteristic of the human body. You body has to move with its energy constantly flowing through your body system to ensure health and wellness. Yoga practice enables you to experience a state of “being” in natural movements. After all, yoga literally means “union” of the individual with the universe.

Although there are hundreds of different positions and postures of yoga, it is important to focus on the basic set that stretches and tones all parts of your body, especially flexion and extension of your spine. Remember, your focus should always be on your increased awareness and attention on different movements and natural breathing, rather than on achieving the positions and postures.

Through conscious body movements and stretching, yoga attains energy healing of the body, mind, and spirit. Energy healing can alter your spirit and your mind to change your physical behavior to reap health benefits. This explains why this ancient yoga practice can even help you with healthy weight loss and quitting nicotine.

Yoga is anti-stress. It is recommended that you practice your yoga basic set prior to any meditation.

Yoga for Anyone: Learn yoga for healthy living.

 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

 

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Nov
01

Tai Chi to Overcome Arthritis Pain

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Arthritis is a common chronic condition faced by millions of people worldwide. This is especially a debilitating problem for seniors and the elderly. Arthritis is not curable, and its symptoms are only controllable through diet and exercise.

Arthritis may not be what you think it is: just swollen cartilage and painful joint.

Arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system is attacking itself, instead of its foreign invaders. It is more than just inflammation of joints: it affects other body organs, such as glands of the eyes and mouth, linings of the heart and lungs. In its initial stages, the patient may have difficulty in climbing stairs and lifting heavy objects. Even if pain is experienced, it is often mild or occurs only in the morning or at night. The pain may be intermittent, giving the illusion that there is nothing too seriously wrong. However, without proper treatment, the disease will continue to progress in the body with disabling joint deformity pain, affecting surrounding ligaments and tendons, robbing them of tone and flexibility. The ultimate result is disability.

There are more than 100 types of arthritis, and among them osteoarthritis is the most common.

Arthritis is more than just joint pain: it is a systemic disease, that is, involving the whole system of the body. Arthritis is not localized. As such, the disease is a reflection of the general health conditions of the patient. An individual suffering with arthritic conditions most probably has other chronic conditions, such as digestive disorder, constipation, chronic fatigue, nutritional deficiencies, or insomnia, among others. In other words, poor diet, improper digestion, unhealthy lifestyle, mental and physical stress, insufficient rest are aggravating factors contributing to a toxic body, resulting in arthritis pain. To overcome arthritis pain, you must have a holistic approach to health and wellness.

The good news is that you can use Tai Chi to overcome your arthritis pain, because practicing Tai Chi is a holistic approach to health through gentle movements of the body to create physical, mental, and spiritual wellness.

Tai Chi is an extraordinary exercise system that can break the vicious cycle of arthritis symptoms, which are characterized by acute joint pain, muscle stiffness, and stress in ligaments in varying degrees of severity. Due to the debilitating conditions of arthritis, body motion is reduced to a minimum, and immobility always leads to further deterioration of joints, muscles, and tissues, and thus forming a vicious cycle of pain episodes.

Tai Chi, an ancient Chinese system of exercises, is capable of not only breaking the vicious cycle of arthritis pain, but also improving balance, coordination, and flexibility to prevent falls, which may further aggravate the arthritis conditions.

Tai Chi is composed of a series of gentle, graceful movements linked together in a continuous and smooth-flowing sequence. Tai Chi is often called “meditation in motion.” In other words, it is an exercise that not only benefits the body but also calms the mind. In most exercises, such as aerobics, weight training, running, the benefits are mostly physical, but not mental or spiritual. Perhaps only yoga and qi gong (another type of Chinese exercise involving coordinated movements) benefit both the body and the mind.

In addition, Tai Chi focuses on breathing techniques. After all, the Chinese believe in the healing power of qi, which is internal life energy coursing through the meridians to nourish different body organs and tissues with oxygen. Learn more about Tai Chi Breathing.

Tai Chi can be pleasing to do, easy to learn, and may be practiced almost anywhere without any expensive equipment. Undoubtedly, it is a form of exercises involving different sets of movements to enhance breathing as well as to facilitate the free flow of qi throughout the body. It is believed that the stagnation of qi is responsible for pain, inflexibility, and stiffness of joints and muscles. Because of its slow and graceful movements, Tai Chi is suitable for people of all ages, regardless of their physical conditions, to relieve anxiety, stress, and physical pain associated with many different forms of arthritis.

Because Tai Chi promotes the free flow of qi, it is also instrumental in benefiting chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, and rehabilitation after surgery.

 

Start learning the movements of Tai Chi from The Beginners Guide to Tai Chi; within weeks of regular practice, you can master it. Tai Chi is a must for healthy living for longevity.

 

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 


 

 

 

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Oct
25

Digestive Health Is Overall Health

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Your digestive health is your overall health. People often use the term “indigestion” to loosely mean stomach upsets as a result of overeating, eating certain inappropriate food, or some emotional strain. But indigestion may be due to a host of more serious health problems in the digestive tract.

(1) Too much hydrochoric acid in the stomach can cause irritation in the esophagus, leading to heartburn. A glass of water with a teaspoon of baking soda may be as effective an antacid as an over-the-counter drug. However, the symptoms of heartburn may be similar to those of heart disease, so people may think they have heartburn instead of heart ailments, and this could be dangerous.

(2) Indigestion can be a result of bacteria in contaminated food. Again, this could be caused by ulcers or other dangerous diseases of the digestive tract.

(3) Chronic constipation is not uncommon, given that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is far from being healthy. Chronic constipation, which adversely affects digestive health, is due to repeatedly ignoring the urge to go to the bathroom for whatever reason, or the overuse of laxatives. Weakened muscles of the bowel—often a result of lack of use or misuse (as in laxatives)—make bowel movements difficult.

(4) Another digestive problem is diarrhea, which occurs because of infections from contaminated food, some medications, or an overdose of vitamin C. The remedy to diarrhea is to drink plenty of water.

(5) Hemorrhoids, associated with constipation, often disappear when bowel movements are normal again.

(6) Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is becoming more common. The characteristic symptoms are pain that can be relieved only by having a bowel movement, or pain associated with more frequent bowel movements. This “indigestion” disorder may be due to alcohol, caffeinated or carbonated drinks, cruciferous vegetables (e.g. broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower), dairy products, beans, red meat, and white-flour products. The remedy to IBS is eating smaller but more frequent meals, and deep relaxation to reduce stress.

(7) Ulcers may cause abdominal pain as a result of irritation in the lining of the stomach. Ulcers may be due to the chronic use of aspirin or other painkillers. To alleviate the symptoms of ulcers, drink plenty of water before a meal. Also, drink cabbage juice daily. Avoid irritants, such as aspirin, and stop smoking.

Good digestive health is overall health, because it affects your intake of nutrients, as well as your disposal of body toxins. Do not take indigestion lightly: it may be a warning sign of ill health. For good digestive health, eat a balanced acid and alkaline diet.

 

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

 

 

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