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Top 5 Tips to Create Optimum Health

November 5, 2010 By Admin Leave a Comment

We all desire good health, yet the majority of us take for granted our health and assume we are healthy due to the absence of disease. The human body is an amazing machine, that despite the abuses incurred upon it, still functions. But optimum health is more than just the absence of disease, it is the gift of living a vibrant, quality life full of energy, free of disease and symptoms, slower aging and the joy that comes from living a healthier life.

Tip One

Drink eight 8 oz. glasses of water each day.

Hydrate! Our bodies are essentially two-thirds water and without it, we will die. Most of us are walking around with mild dehydration that creates lethargy, headaches, constipation, joint problems etc. drinking water helps rid our body of toxins. Many people mistake being thirsty for hunger. By the time you feel thirsty, you are already 1-2% dehydrated. Drink at least 8 eight ounce glasses of water each day and more if you exercise or it is hot.

Tip Two

Eat a Healthy Diet.

Eating for optimum health focuses on a variety of whole foods. The majority of your daily food intake should be red, orange, yellow, and green fruits and vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, mangos and tomatoes. As well as complex carbohydrates such as beans, brown rice, oats etc. These complex carbohydrates metabolize slowly resulting in stable blood sugar. Ingesting sugar or refined carbohydrates such as white flour, white flour products, white rice, processed foods, bakery goods, and desserts etc. will result in a rapid increase in blood sugar levels, thus producing inflammation in the body. Inflammation is now thought to be responsible for diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and arthritis. By avoiding sugar and refined foods and focusing on complex carbohydrates, you will not only eliminate huge blood sugar spikes, you will also be adding bio-available vitamins, mineral, antioxidants, phytochemicals and fiber.

Eating the right types of good fat will also reduce inflammation in your body. Good fats to add every day are Omega 3 fats and monounsaturated fats. Use olive oil, oily fish such as salmon, sardines and anchovies. If you don’t eat fish twice a week, consider taking a fish oil supplement and a handful of walnuts every day. Flax seed, olive oil and avocados are other very healthful fats. Limit saturated fats from animal products such as butter, milk and fatty meats. Avoid trans fats as these fats are heart damaging. Trans fats can be found in baked goods, deep-fried foods and margarine. Avoid any food product that contains hydrogenated fat.

Most of us overuse salt. Medical experts consider salt a contributor to hypertension, strokes, and kidney failure. Be on the lookout for sodium in all foods and consume no more than 2,000 milligrams per day.

Maintain a balance between your food intake and physical activity level. Do not overeat as this leads not just to weight gain but inflammation in the body as well.

Tip Three

Exercise For Optimum Health.

Sedentary folks are at major risk for cardiovascular disease. Regular aerobic exercise benefits the heart and can raise HDL (good) cholesterol and lower LDL (bad) cholesterol. Strength training is just as important as aerobic training for optimum health. The benefits of strength training will reduce your overall health risks from major diseases, keep you strong, decrease your body fat and improve your appearance. The American Heart Association recommends at least 30 to 60 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week. Strength train 2-3 times of week for 30 minutes. Another component of exercise is stretching your body. Stretching does not have to be a huge time commitment. Just 10 minutes a day will increase your range of motion, increase circulation and enhance muscle coordination.

Tip Four

Supplements are necessary.

Nutritional supplements are, at the very least, like insurance. They can protect and enhance your health when we fall short. It is obvious that very few of us are getting the required vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients through our diet due to lower nutrient levels of foods resulting from pesticide use, soil depletion, long storage, etc. We are also more sedentary and stressed than ever before. We need help to prevent disease and illness and increase energy. Here is a basic daily supplement program for optimum health: A High-dose multivitamin and mineral supplement, a calcium and magnesium supplement (1200 mg calcium and 600 mg magnesium), B-Complex (50 mg), Vitamin D3 (800 IU), Omega-3 Fish oil (1,000 mg), Vitamin E mixed tocopherols (400 IU), Vitamin C (1,000 mg), Coenzyme Q10 (50 mg), Selenium (200 mcg), Zinc (30 mg).

Tip Five

Manage your stress.

Stress is a physical reaction to a situation that demands our attention whether or not that stress is positive or negative. If we perceive the stress as negative and the stress is chronic, the health implications can be serious. Coping with stress through a variety of means can help protect you from illness, disease, aging and a poor quality of life. Learning to quiet our thoughts and bodies through a variety of ways such as yoga, meditation, breathwork, and reducing sugar, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, caffeine and replacing lost nutrients, will enable us to reduce or avoid the negative health consequences of stress.

Through implementing these five tips, you will transform your life in profound ways. You will have the ability to live not just disease or illness free, you will experience the joy that comes from optimum health.

Lori L. Shemek, PhD, CLC, NC

Lori L. Shemek is Founder and President of DLS HealthWorks, LLC. At DLS HealthWorks, we truly care about our clients. We strive to help create optimum health through gentle support, motivation and guidance. Lori also utilizes the process of Co-Active coaching to further ensure success for her clients. Lori has had much success guiding clients through many health, nutrition and weight loss issues at every level of health.

If you would like to know more about DLS HealthWorks, LLC, please find us here:

http://www.dlsHealthWorks.com/

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Filed Under: Health Tagged With: aging, Disease, energy, exercise, Free of Disease, Good Fats, healthy diet, self improvement, Stress Management, sugar, water

The Rocky Road of Perfectionism – Reduce Stress & Anxiety by Changing Unrealistic Expectations

October 28, 2010 By Admin Leave a Comment

By Sharon S. Esonis, Ph.D. -

Perfectionism is an unhealthy way to live. I have witnessed the emotional turmoil of too many people who have this particular belief system with its ridiculous expectations. Believing that only one outcome (the perfect one!) is acceptable is incompatible with emotional health and creative living.

I’ve worked with many perfectionists over the years and have found that convincing them of the insidiousness of this particular mindset presents quite a challenge. If you are a perfectionist, changing your beliefs, expectations and behaviors won’t be easy, but it will open the path to greater health, happiness and self-confidence.

Perfectionists generally fit into three categories: those who expect perfection from themselves, those who expect perfection from others only, and those who expect it from both themselves and others. You or the others you impact with these expectations will never be perfect or attain perfection in any desired goal. It’s not going to happen, no matter what.

Expecting the impossible is a straight shot to trouble, disappointment and rocky interpersonal relationships. It consumes so much energy to follow this particular brand of dead-end thinking. Harriet Braiker, author and psychologist, warns, “Striving for excellence motivates you, striving for perfection is demoralizing.”

Think about it for a moment. If something has to be done to a tee, there’s not much room for exploration, discovery, spontaneity and joy. Costly, debilitating and not much fun! Keep in mind that the perfectionist is worried about all the details of the outcome. That’s a powerful way to put out the fire and marginalize whatever gains you or anyone else make. This also makes it hard to be open to unexpected and/or disguised opportunities. It affects other people adversely because it’s “your way or the highway.”

Signs of Perfectionism

Unrealistic expectations of self or others
Narrow idea of what success is
Broad definition of failure
Fear of disapproval
Fear of failure
Fear of making mistakes
All or nothing thinking
Long list of “shoulds”
Setting goals that are unachievable
Conflict in relationships because of unrealistic expectations and disappointment when others don’t meet those expectations
Unwillingness to show others their vulnerabilities
Strong need to be in control
Excessive need for achievement
Focusing on mistakes, missteps, failures
Procrastination because they don’t want to complete something that isn’t perfect
Inordinate amount of worrying and guilt
Main focus on details not big picture
High sensitivity to criticism

Beliefs

If I can control myself and my world, the likelihood increases that I will be perfect
I need to be perfect in order to gain the respect and approval of others
Success comes more easily for others than for me
Whatever I do is never good enough
Anything worth doing is worth being done perfectly
My self-worth is directly related to my performance

What the Perfectionist Often Experiences

By focusing on unrealistic goals, the perfectionist is set up for failure
Unresolved relationship conflicts often occur for perfectionists who want others to do things their way
They have difficulty feeling successful and peaceful
They often apply this philosophy even to leisure activities: “anything worth doing is worth doing right”
Perfectionists ultimately find that their productivity suffers
They too often experience loneliness, sadness, frustration and feelings of inadequacy
They experience sensitivity to what others think and are negatively affected if there is disapproval
Instead of finding what is important to them, perfectionists become hung up on the dreaded “shoulds”
Finding peace is allusive to perfectionists
They often feel stressed, anxious, depressed; many perfectionists have symptoms that rise to the level of a clinical diagnosis of a stress, anxiety, depressive or eating disorder
They can be mired in procrastination
They may have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Perfectionists may experience headaches, gastrointestinal difficulties, muscle tension, and cardiovascular problems

What To Do About It

Change your belief that perfectionism is something to strive for; dispute it when the thought comes to mind
Identify and admit the perfectionism beliefs and behaviors that are a major part of your life
Dispute the beliefs and expectations that are out of line with reality
Understand that the mistakes and failures are opportunities to learn and get stronger; adopt that as part of your new belief system
Give yourself permission to be imperfect and to make mistakes; learn to see the humor in your mistakes; think of mistakes as chances to learn
Accept your weaknesses. See them as part of your uniqueness
Inject a humorous approach to your life and goals; so many things in life just aren’t that serious or important; develop a 10 point scale for importance and make sure when you assign a number that there are few or no tens
Resign as CEO of the universe; it will be a relief for you and others
Learn more about mindfulness and living in the moment; spend time with people who live in the moment
Be kinder and more patient with others. Learn to listen to others and have empathy
Understand that procrastination is a form of avoidance; the perfectionist avoids finishing a project because it will lead to an evaluation of its perfection by him/herself or by someone else
Set realistic, achievable goals; congratulate yourself when you complete any part of your goal
Get to know what you really want in life
Look at life and your goals as a journey, not as a destination
When something bad happens have an optimistic attitude: don’t take it personally, don’t think it’s permanent and don’t allow it to affect unrelated parts of your life
Figure out what fears lurk behind your perfectionism and face them directly
If this is too difficult to do alone, talk to a psychologist or other health care professional

You can be excellent, but not perfect, at some chosen goals, and just plain mediocre at others that don’t matter much at all. Make the decision to be selective about what endeavors merit your finest efforts, and then plan to revel in your accomplishments, even the ones that may fall short of the mark.

To learn more about Positive Psychology, look for my latest book, It’s Your Little Red Wagon… Six Core Strengths for Navigating Your Path to the Good Life (Embrace the Power of Positive Psychology and Live Your Dreams), available on Amazon.com

Sharon S. Esonis, Ph.D., has spent close to three decades helping individuals thrive and improve their lives through her work as a licensed psychologist, author and life coach. An expert in human behavior and motivation, Dr. Esonis specializes in the burgeoning field of Positive Psychology, the scientific study of optimal human functioning and the core strengths that can lead to the achievement of one’s personally-defined goals.

Her most recent book, “It’s Your Little Red Wagon… 6 Core Strengths for Navigating Your Path to the Good Life (Embrace the Power of Positive Psychology and Live Your Dreams!),” is Dr. Esonis’s contribution to the field of Positive Psychology, presenting proven success factors and strength-building techniques that can lead individuals to a life of purpose, motivation and happiness. It is available on Amazon.com.

Dr. Esonis earned her doctoral degree at Boston College and currently maintains a life coaching practice in the San Diego area. She also teaches Positive Psychology in the Extended Learning Program at California State University San Marcos. To learn more about the power of Positive Psychology and to order her latest book, visit her website at http://www.PositivePathLifeCoaching.com

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Filed Under: Self Improvement Tagged With: anxiety, depression3, expectations, obsessive-compulsive, perfectionism, positive psychology, Stress Management

Noise Pollutions and Its Negative Effects to One’s Health and Well Being

September 18, 2010 By Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

By Sunnez Madsen -

What are the Causes of Noise Pollution?

The causes of noise pollution are varied but some of the most common things to blame for this are the following:

*Cars – The sound of traffic has become music to people’s ears, particularly those who live in urban areas. But this music is not the type that relaxes and soothes you, it is like those overly loud hard rock or metal music that can be damaging to your ears.

*Airplanes – People who live close to airports are affected with the noises that come from airplanes. They typically suffer from problems like chronic stress, high blood pressure, and heart ailments.

*Workplace – Construction sites and assembly lines are two common sources of noise. Other than that, office noise which consists anything from talking co-workers, drumming of fingers on the desk to the sound of computer typing and air conditioning noises, is also a culprit for noise pollution.

*Home – At home, pollution can be the television, sound system, talking individuals, and sound of other appliances.

What are the Negative Effects of Noise Pollution to our health?

Research reveals that noise does have adverse effects in our overall health and well being, the most common of which is chronic stress. Noise pollution can trigger the body’s response to stress and increase stress hormones to high levels.

This is why, noise can be associated with ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and musculoskeletal problems. Noise can also lower immunity to diseases by disrupting proper sleep cycles. Aside from your health, noise can also reduce a person’s productivity. It disrupts people’s reading ability and comprehension. Some even have memory impaired due to this problem.

How can we Reduce Noise Pollution?

Since it can have a negative impact in our bodies, it is necessary that we do something about it. Fortunately, there are certain things you can do to reduce noise. One of these is to limit the noise that enters your space. You can do this by having double-paned windows and weather stripping.

Installation of such equipment can reduce heating, cooling bills, and increase insulation in your home. You can further reduce home noise by turning off the television and opting for appliances that don’t emit much noise.

As for the workplace, changing your job may be the only solution if what you are currently doing poses grave danger on your health because of the noise pollution. Now for less serious problems like office noise, you can bring this to the attention of the employers who can implement policies regarding this matter. After all, less talk means more work done, which is what they want to achieve in the first place.

Noise pollution is not only irritating and maddening. It is also detrimental to a person’s overall health and wellbeing. This is why, it is important that you do something about it.

Sunnez enjoys researching and writing articles on vast and varied subjects from massage chairs to teeth whitening

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Filed Under: Health Tagged With: comprehension, diseases, Hormones, immunity, memory, noise pollution, overall health, reading, sleep, Stress Management

Dealing With Frustration

August 21, 2010 By ireneconlan Leave a Comment

By Irene Conlan -

Did you ever notice how it’s the little things that get you tied up in a knot? The big things we often handle with grace and acceptance. We muster all our inner resources and deal with the situation accepting what cannot be changed and doing what we can to adjust. .

But sometimes those little things … Well, you know what I mean.

As you may have read, this week lightening struck our house and did some damage to some of our electrical outlets and phones. Everything is fixed now except for the halogen lamp. Yesterday I bought a bulb (a $6.95 bulb which I think is pricy) and installed it in the lamp. No light. I twisted it, turned it, took it out and put it back in, reversed it – no light. I checked the plug which I already knew is working just fine, plugged the lamp back in – no light. I didn’t know what else to do so I went about my business doing something else for awhile.

I really wanted to get that lamp fixed. I have a sectional couch and I had it pulled apart because the lamp sits behind it in the corner which is the only dark spot in the room. The couch is heavy and I didn’t want to put it back together until the lamp was fixed. I just wanted to do it once.

A few hours later I returned to the lamp. I took the bulb out and did all the same things I did the first time. (The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Hmmm) I had a flicker of light and then nothing. No light. Insanely, I tried most of those steps again hoping to get the bulb “just right” and be rewarded with beautiful, corner-filling light. No such luck.

By now my frustration level was getting rather high and it isn’t a feeling I liked.

Wikipedia has a nice description of frustration:

Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. Causes of frustration may be internal or external. In people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict can also be an internal source of frustration; when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, it can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual, such as a blocked road or a difficult task.

So what do you do when you’re totally frustrated?

As in all things there is a choice. In this situation I could

Have a temper tantrum (react in anger) to release the inner stress
find a solution
do nothing

This may sound strange, but I was in too good a mood to have a temper tantrum. No tantrums today! I find that they rarely solve anything and there are other ways to let off steam. That left me with a choice between finding a solution or doing nothing.

My solution was to do nothing. We have a good friend who knows about these things. He will be coming by one day next week and I will let him try his hand with it. In the meantime, I put the couch and the lamp back together and we’ll just wait for Andrew.

Generally, dealing with frustration in a mature and effective way involves awareness. When you are aware of the whole situation and aware of what’s happening within yourself, you can make rational decisions about the action you can take.

Ask yourself the questions:

Is this important enough to allow it to ruin my day?
Is this within my control?
Is this something I have the skill set to deal with or do I need to get help?
What can I do now to lower my stress level and deal with the situation without losing my cool?

If after assessing the situation I realize there is nothing I can do right now to change the situation, I can make a decision to get help, postpone the action until I have something I need, or drop it all together.

You may find that it’s something you can drop altogether or at least drop your expectations about. I had high expectations for getting that lamp fixed and the couch put back together. It didn’t happen. Changing my expectations took all the tension out of the situation.

Neither the cat nor I are worried about the dark corner. In fact, it would be a good place for both the cat and I to have a nap. Maybe then she’ll get off my computer.

Enjoy the day

Filed Under: Self Improvement Tagged With: dealing with frustration, frustration, self improvement, Stress Management, stress management

Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. How Stressed Are You?

August 19, 2010 By ireneconlan Leave a Comment

By Irene Conlan -

To measure stress according to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, the number of “Life Change Units” that apply to events in the past year of an individual’s life are added and the final score will give a rough estimate of how stress affects health.

Life event 2	Life change units2
Death of a spouse	100
Divorce	73
Marital separation	65
Imprisonment	63
Death of a close family member	63
Personal injury or illness	53
Marriage	50
Dismissal from work	47
Marital reconciliation	45
Retirement	45
Change in health of family member	44
Pregnancy	40
Sexual difficulties	39
Gain a new family member	39
Business readjustment	39
Change in financial state	38
Death of a close friend	37
Change to different line of work	36
Change in frequency of arguments	35
Major mortgage	32
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan	30
Change in responsibilities at work	29
Child leaving home	29
Trouble with in-laws	29
Outstanding personal achievement	28
Spouse starts or stops work	26
Begin or end school	26
Change in living conditions	25
Revision of personal habits	24
Trouble with boss	23
Change in working hours or conditions	20
Change in residence	20
Change in schools	20
Change in recreation	19
Change in church activities	19
Change in social activities	18
Minor mortgage or loan	17
Change in sleeping habits	16
Change in number of family reunions	15
Change in eating habits	15
Vacation	13
Christmas	12
Minor violation of law	11

Score of 300+: At risk of illness.

Score of 150-299+: Risk of illness is moderate (reduced by 30% from the above risk).

Score 150-: Only have a slight risk of illness.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: self improvement, Stress Management, stress management, stress rating scale

Stress and Well Being

July 25, 2010 By Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

By Ali Bierman

Stress lowers your immunity leaving you vulnerable to getting sick more often. You probably create stress when you feel like you are coming down with the flu or a cold.

Did you ever stop to think that worrying about how you are going to pay all your bills or lose the weight you know you need to lose impacts your every day health too?

The more you worry about something the bigger that something looms in your life. You become obsessed with thinking about that something all the time. You even wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep because that thought keeps racing around in your head.

Here is the thing – it is just a thought. And you are the one who made up that thought. In fact you created the fear that continues to feed that thought.

What happens when you feed a monster? It grows into a bigger monster, right?

Stop and ask yourself if what you are thinking is possible. Next ask if that something comes to pass in your life what is the worst possible outcome for you? Chances are even the worst scenario can turn into a gift for you – when you learn to look at life that way.

Sure, life does not have to be a struggle yet somehow you refuse to learn your lessons until the Universe gets in your face with whatever you chose to ignore.

What do I mean?

You came here to learn soul lessons so you can grow on a spiritual level. The Universe sets up small obstacles on your path so you can easily learn those lessons.

If you are like most people you walk around those problems, pretending they do not exist. You act as though you do not even see them. If we do see them then you fail to acknowledge them as problems.

So the Universe presents the same issue in the form of a different person and situation – different in appearance but identical issue – for you to resolve. Again, you walk around the problem.

So the Universe presents the problem in a more pressing form – over and over again, each time creating more and bigger obstacles until finally you cannot get over, under or around the problem.

Your only choice is to burst through it and resolve the issue you have long ignored.

Once you resolve the issues that cause you stress you will not need to struggle. The Universe will no longer assist your lesson as you already figured it out.

In other words your life will shift into one of low stress that, when it comes up, you will know to clear the issue immediately instead of waiting for the Universe to create a series of unpleasant events.

And when you are ready to create new habits that eliminate stress from your life,
I invite you to click here to get your FREE copy of my brand new,
Special Report: 25 Tips to Eliminate Stress Now
Click here to get your GIFT copy now.

And remember… Don’t give up hope… You do NOT have to live with stress – ever!

Ali Bierman, Your Guide To Destress
http://LiveInHappinessNow.com/index1.html

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Filed Under: Health Tagged With: self improvement, stress and health, Stress Management, well-being

For the Health of It!

June 30, 2010 By amaslan Leave a Comment

By Allison Maslan –

We often take our health for granted until there is a reason to give it some attention. When acute pain or chronic symptoms arise, all of a sudden our health, which we may never have given a second thought, shoots to the forefront of our consciousness. If we are younger, and lucky enough to not experience any serious ailments, we may assume our good health will continue. And as we age, if we don’t treat our body-mind with care, prevention and maintenance, the systems of our body can begin to break down and become more vulnerable and susceptible to weakness and disease.

The Blastation Program incorporates a holistic point of view on healing because every part of your life affects and influences every other part of your life. For instance, financial worries can promote physical changes in the body that may lead to health issues. Meanwhile, it is clearly true that health impacts everything. When your body feels strong, it is much easier to focus, and your mood is uplifted and calm rather than frustrated and stressed. You are able to see and receive the abundance of life, rather than walking around seeing your life as that half-empty glass. By the same token, when your body is tired, weak, and in pain, it’s difficult to see and appreciate life’s simple beauty and the opportunities that may be sitting right at your feet. When you’re in pain, or feeling depressed, anxious, fearful or angry, it’s hard to get motivated to find or connect with your sense of purpose and passion.

In Deepak Chopra’s book, Quantum Healing, he explains that every cell in the body regenerates itself. The lifespan of red blood cells, for instance, is approximately thirty-seven days. Even brain cells have the capacity to regenerate. Nerve cells, he mentions, take the longest to renew. In fact, within a seven-year period, the body can create a completely new body of cells. Poor health is limiting, but the good news (as Deepak’s observation suggests) is that we can improve our health and well-being at any time, at any age of our lives.
Life can be stressful at times, no question.

And too much stress with no support to counteract its often harsh energy can have detrimental effects on the body and the psyche. On the other hand, when your body-mind is feeling nourished, sound and resilient, the stress will not create such a serious impact or have chronic implications.

When you find yourself under stress, overwhelmed, running late, and dealing with conflict or in an emotionally challenging situation, your body tenses up. You start gripping the steering wheel or gritting your teeth while thinking about what terrible thing is going to happen because you messed up big-time. Panic may even set in. Heart palpitations, tension headaches, and stomach upsets are a few of the physical reactions that you might have encountered in a stressful moment. If this is your state much of the time, you can see where chronic physical conditions could arise.

Your first line of defense is to breathe.

Your breath is your connection to life. Your first action as you entered this world was to breathe. Without breathing, there is isn’t anything for the body to draw on. Bringing in oxygen and expanding your lungs in a stressful moment, will give your body the new life energy it needs to deal with the crisis, and then bring your system back to center.

Do the Blastation Breathing Exercise on the Health Page anytime your are under stress or have a moment just to chill.

Move That Body!

I challenge you to make exercise a priority in your life. As I’ve already noted, it’s an important element of Blastation because a healthy motivated body-mind is more likely to have the energy and motivation you’ll need to reach your dreams. If you haven’t exercised in a while, it may take two to three months to start realizing some of the benefits—such as weight loss—even though you’re likely to start feeling better emotionally right away. So don’t give up after a month of little progress on the weight-loss front. Work out with a friend, hire a trainer…but whatever you do, stay consistent, and don’t give up. Longer term, regular exercise provides the opportunity for a longer, healthier, and more productive life. Please remember that without health you’ll never reach your true wealth. So turn off the television, stop making excuses, and get that body moving.

Input your mini feats for your weekly exercise plan so that you will be committed to making it happen. Any time you write your goals down, they move from fantasy to reality!

More Vitality, More Passion.

There’s nothing more humbling than to witness someone’s life transform from illness to vitality, from apathy to passion. When that happens, everything changes. As individuals reclaim their health, it can positively impact the dynamics of their entire life. There’s a desire to improve relationships, the motivation to reach for more in their careers, the incentive to be creative, and the inner peace to enjoy life’s small but powerful moments. You can improve your health at any age and at any stage. I went from huffing and puffing up the stairs to running 10k-run obstacle courses through the mud. If I can do it, so can you. The path to a healthy body-mind is an important part of the journey to the life of your dreams.

Filed Under: Self Improvement Tagged With: exercise, good nutrition, health, healthy, Self Improvement, Stress Management

How Negative Emotions Affect Your Health

May 13, 2010 By Guest Contributor 1 Comment

By Kristin Hutchings

For the sake of your health you want to let go of your negative emotions. The effects negative emotions have on your body are long and depletive – it places a tremendous amount of stress on your system and we all know how dangerous stress can be.

Negative emotions can affect your immune system, making you more prone to colds and ‘flu; it can affect your hormones – which is a particular problem for women, causing an increased likelihood of premenstrual tension and menopausal problems. Negative emotions can also affect your circulatory system, your blood pressure, your digestion (stomach ulcers and indigestion) and it also causes insomnia in a lot of people. Sleep is restorative and essential for our overall well-being, so if you are deprived of sleep you are not going to function very well in your everyday life.

Letting go of negative emotions such as resentment and guilt, worry and anger will benefit your life in so many ways. How do you know if you have unresolved negative emotions which are affecting you physically and mentally? Well, that is simple. If you are constantly imagining someone’s downfall or dreaming about them in some negative way then it is easy to say that you are harbouring negative emotions because of anger or jealousy or both. If you picture your own failures and misfortunes then it suggests that you are worried about your future or feel guilty about wanting success. When these thoughts are multiplied several times a day, you need to do something about it before it begins to cause stress.

Firstly, pay close attention to what your body is trying to tell you. For example, anger often expresses itself in a clenched jaw or fist, dry mouth, shallow breathing, impatience and a raised voice. These outward displays of anger do not stay on the surface. Inside your body, the anger is causing a chemical reaction which results in your blood pressure becoming elevated, your heart pounding faster, and your stomach tightening up. Your brain is likely to be sending a “fight or flight” message to your adrenal glands to release adrenalin throughout your body, which constricts your blood vessels and can potentially trigger a headache, back ache, high blood pressure, and, in the worst case scenario, a heart attack. As you can see, there is very little pay off for holding onto your negative emotions.

The key to letting go is to begin with your thoughts. It is our thoughts that create our emotions and luckily we have full control over what we think, even if it doesn’t always feel like that! If you have negative thoughts, for example an angry thought about someone you dislike, it stands to reason it will create a negative feeling within you. If you replace your negative thoughts with positive thoughts the effect is reversed. Positive thoughts make us feel good, they produce positive emotions such as joy, happiness, love and empathy. And these positive emotions have a wonderful, beneficial outcome on our bodies – protecting us from stress and all its bad effects.

Want to learn how to banish your negative thoughts and emotions? Then visit http://www.self-confidence-matters.com/ for all the answers you need to leading a positive and happy life.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristin_Hutchings

http://EzineArticles.com/?How-Negative-Emotions-Affect-Your-Health&id=3834190

Filed Under: Emotional Health, Health, Physical Health Tagged With: feeling bad, feeling low, negative emotions, negative feelings, negativity, positive emotions, Stress Management

Exercise Ease

May 11, 2010 By kzane 1 Comment

by Kerri Zane -

Cue the stress relievers!

Every time we exercise we stimulate the creation of new brain cells (neurons), calm ones. For years it has been a given that exercise enhances mood. But how a physiological activity affected our psychological state was unclear. Now it seems that science is beginning to uncover the biochemistry and genetics of our thoughts and how exercise remodels our brains.

Researchers at Princeton University recently conducted a study on our buddies; the rat, where one group of rats was allowed to run and the others were not allowed any physical activity at all. Then all the rats were placed in a stressful situation, swimming in cold water (which they hate, (I’m not so fond of swimming in icy water either). The brand new brain cells, those that were born from running, were legitimately biochemically, molecularly calm and those rats with the baby neurons were chill. The old neurons in the unexercised rats were amped out of their minds and those rats were stressed.

There have also been studies on the relationship between exercise and the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine and antioxidant powers of moderate exercise. Anxiety in rodents and people has been linked with excessive oxidative stress, a condition characterized by the release of free radicals, which can lead to cell death in the brain. Moderate exercise seems to dampen the effects of oxidative stress that in turn saves our cells.

In another study led by researchers at the University of Houston rats whose oxidative stress levels had been artificially heightened with injections of certain chemicals were extremely anxious when faced with unfamiliar terrain during lab testing and hid in the corners of the maze. Rats that had exercised, even with the injection of oxidizing chemicals were nonchalant under the same terrain stress, they just kept on exploring. It appears that the “stress” of exercise prepares cells, structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms. The purely physical stresses we endure through exercise ultimately positively affect psychological stresses like afternoon drive time traffic or tiffs with our bosses.

How long before this magical exercise induced calm kicks in? No one is exactly sure, but somewhere between three and six weeks according to the rat research. Three weeks was not quite long enough but by the time the rats had been at it for six weeks the new baby chill neurons were firing away happily. What we know for certain is that exercising, aerobic activity specifically, without a doubt, creates calm brain cells. Once you start a workout program you must keep it up. You may not feel the reduction of stress after your first power walk but the molecular biochemical changes will begin and eventually the results will become profound.

Filed Under: Self Improvement Tagged With: brain cell growth, calmess, exercise, Stress Management

The Four Types of Stress Management

September 28, 2009 By Guest Contributor 2 Comments

By John Groberg –

Just like there are a myriad of different symptoms of stress, there are likewise a myriad of different ways we as human beings have learned to deal with or “cope” with stress. As I’ve thought about it, I’ve come up with four major categories of stress management strategies. The first three stress management strategies are the most common. The fourth stress management strategy is what I am proposing as the right solution.

To make this a bit easier to understand, let’s use an analogy.

Imagine you live on an island and you have a small sail boat that you use to get between two islands. But the boat has a hole in the bottom and every time you go out on the ocean, you begin to take on water. There are basically three strategies you could employ in this scenario. There is a fourth, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

1- Bailing the Water

2- Plugging the Hole

3- Ignoring the Problem

The Boat represents you- your current ability to move around and deal with the world around you and the element of change.

The Ocean represents your external environment- nature, the way things are, change, the things you can’t control, etc.

The Hole represents stress in your life.

Let’s address each of the three stress management strategies briefly.

Bailing the Water

This is the equivalent of trying to relieve the pressure by trying to PUSH OUT the energy from the system.

Examples in real life of bailing would be anger, yelling, screaming, venting, blaming, sexual activity and violence. On the more innocuous side would be things like exercise and talking with friends.

Plugging the Hole

This is the equivalent of trying to relieve the pressure by trying to KEEP OUT change in the system.

A common example in real life of plugging the hole would be going into depression mode- where our body literally shuts down the inputs into the brain by constricting the pupils so less light gets in, and causing the body to sleep more so less consciousness gets in.

Other examples might be saying “No” to new commitments and shutting down new opportunities because we can’t handle what we’ve already got to process. We all have to learn to say NO to the less important, but often we become indiscriminate in our blocking and go into isolation mode trying to reduce and eliminate sources of input- often positive sources of input, in order to “deal with” or “cope” with the negative that we’ve already let in.

Ignoring the Problem

This is the equivalent of watching for dolphins while your boat fills with water.

Ignoring the problem comes in many varieties- usually we just let our attention get distracted because we’re too fearful of keeping it where it needs to be to fix the problem.

Drugs, alcohol, excessive eating, excessive entertainment or excessive shopping are all examples of Ignoring the Problem. They are all just distractions from the problem of a sinking boat.

A Better Way

All of these three stress “coping” mechanisms provide temporary results and can be either healthy or unhealthy depending upon the use. But none of them really solve the problem.

The problem with all of these mechanisms is that they leave unchanged the system’s capacity for handling change in the environment. They do not GROW the capacity of the system to handle stress and change, they just relieve some of the pressure temporarily and have to be resorted to again and again as the pressure just keeps coming in like the unlimited ocean water.

So what is the lasting solution? What is “True Stress Relief?”

To stick with our row boat analogy- it is to build a bigger, stronger, more water tight boat that is capable of handling more “stress” in the environment without having to resort to bailing, plugging or ignoring the leak.

As we turn our focus inward and take on the challenge of regular internal alignment, what we do is create in ourselves a “system” or “boat” that has increased capacity to handle change and stress.

Now, we don’t go from a small sailboat to a battleship in one single makeover. The process is incremental, but each time we do the internal work prescribed in this site, we strengthen and grow our boat. We increase our system’s threshold of tolerance. We literally become more tolerant of change and stress- able to handle more without breaking down.

But even when our threshold is exceeded, if we allow it to happen instead of resorting to bailing, plugging or ignoring, and instead go back to work on internal alignment, we can take a breakdown in life and use it as a re-creation, a re-building, a re-organizing of a system at a higher level of existence.

John Groberg writes on a wide variety of topics related to personal and spiritual growth. His slogan is Grow. By Choice™. His articles draw out principles of personal and spiritual growth common to the world’s ancient wisdom and spiritual texts as well as many of the great philosophers, poets, and writers of ancient and modern times. These principles are then put to the test in his own life with an emphasis on simple, sustainable practices we can apply in our daily lives to more effectively deal with the stresses and struggles of modern life and to more fully realize the benefits of deliberate growth. John developed a model called the Divine-Align-Shine model as a way of visually organizing the principles, practices and the overall process of personal and spiritual growth. His writings are cataloged and organized on his website, http://johngroberg.com where contact information is available.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Groberg

Filed Under: Happiness, Self Esteem, Self Improvement, Stress Management Tagged With: self improvement, Stress Management, stress management

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