Relaxation Through Simple Meditation

This is quite funny advice coming from someone like me that really needs to learn how to take a chill pill! Although I may be a person that is quick to become high strung about an issue, I am also the last person to rely on a quick fix through pills, medication, or over indulgences of unhealthy behaviors.
My favorite way of inducing a relaxed behavior is through exercise, but sometimes exercise alone is not enough, or I may feel a moment when I just need to slow down and take a deep breath. Try it, literally, take a deep breath and slow down.
Here is a tip that you can do any where, any time: Find a comfortable spot to sit or lay down. You may want to close your eyes, but do not let yourself fall asleep (unless you need to use these techniques to induce sleep). Try to find a place that is quiet enough that you can concentrate on your breathing. Pay attention to slow breaths in, and slow breaths out. Naturally your mind will begin to wander. Take note of your thoughts and tell them that you will come back to them later. Address them quickly, and let them go. Continue to concentrate on your breathing. Next focus on your body. Do you feel comfortable, are you relaxed. Try to relax every muscle in your body. Your mind will continue to produce an endless stream of random thoughts, some pleasurable and some not so pleasurable. Now is not the time to work them out. Tell yourself to let the thoughts go. Focus on your breathing, your body alignment, your muscles relaxing. Pay attention to each muscle from your jaw muscles all the way to your toes. Acknowledge each muscle and make sure they are each relaxed. Breath, relax, breath....
There are literally hundreds of benefits to meditative relaxation. Try this when you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. You will love how it makes you feel.

Can't Change Someone?

So many times I find myself frustrated by other people's actions. I want to change them and make them see things from my perspective. Even though I know in my heart that I can't change people, I still evoke an emotion because I want to be heard, understood, appreciated or whatever the case may be. I loved this article because there is only one thing that I can change, and that is my reaction to others. For those of us that possess a bit of a type "A" personality, here is a way to gain back some control. I loved this article that I found on "MindBodyGreen".....

Can't Change Someone? 5 Tips to Change How You React

By Maria Mooney

Time and time again, I am faced with questions in cyberspace that go something like this: “My (insert relationship here) won’t stop (insert annoying habit here). How do I stop him/her from doing that?” The answer is that you don’t because you can’t change another individual. The only person you have total, absolute, and unwavering control over is yourself, and this is where the magic happens. Believe it or not, you actually have the ability to change the way you react to someone or something that makes you feel less than unapologetically blissful.

Anyone can change, but making a change takes time, effort, and patience. It won’t all happen at once, and that is OK. Below are five tips to change how you react.

1. Have Understanding and Compassion.

It can be difficult to offer individuals compassion when you assume they are the cause of a majority of your perceived problems, but if you can, take the time to put yourself in their shoes. Imagine what it is like to be them and reasons why they could be doing that thing they do that absolutely burrows under your skin and lives there only to annoy you time and time again. This way of viewing the situation doesn’t justify bad behavior, but it does explain it and make your life a heck of a lot easier.

2. See the Innocence in Them.

Beneath the neurotic behavior, the damaged ego, and the closed heart there exists an innocent soul, a living expression of the divine, just as it lives inside of you. When you are having a particularly difficult encounter, see the innocence within him/her and remember that you are connected through the one energy that connects us all. Pretend you are meeting him/her for the first time with no past experiences or future expectations, and expect the best. You might be pleasantly surprised.

3. Understand Yourself.

Know what you are doing and why. Self-awareness is an important piece to the happiness puzzle because it is followed by the ability to make a lasting change. Pause. Thinking before you act never goes out of style.

4. Consider the Consequences.

Newton was spot on when he declared every action has an equal and opposite reaction, even in relationships. If you react out of anger or frustration, you are likely to receive just as negative of a reaction back, and you will get what you expect. Consider the consequences of your actions and work toward creating healthier, more positive, or at the very least, neutral exchanges.

5. Look for the Lesson. 

If life is a classroom and people are our teachers, look for the lesson hidden within a difficult situation, the diamond in the rough. Why are you attracting these individuals and situations into your life? Are you not living in alignment with your highest good? Is it a lesson in patience? Or maybe judgment? Possibly self-awareness? Every situation is an opportunity for growth, and when looked at through this rose colored lens, life becomes a lot more enjoyable.

 

Published April 5, 2012 at 3:50 PM

Is Sugar Toxic?

 I just watched a segment on 60 Minutes, which was an overview on the toxicity of sugar. This is such an important message I just had to post this. The link is below and you can watch the segment as long as it is still active, and the article is outlined below:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57407128/preview-is-sugar-toxic/?tag=pop;stories

(CBS News) Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, believes the high amount of sugar in the American diet, much of it in processed foods, is killing us. And as Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, new scientific research seems to support his theory that sugar is toxic, including some linking the excess ingestion of sugars to heart disease. Gupta's report broadcasted on 60 Minutes Sunday, April 1 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Americans are now consuming nearly 130 pounds of added sugars per person, per year. Those include both sugar and high fructose corn syrup. And while many vilify high fructose corn syrup and believe it is worse than sugar, Dr. Lustig says metabolically there is no difference. "They are basically equivalent. The problem is they're both bad. They're both equally toxic," he says.
Dr. Lustig treats sick, obese children, who he believes are primarily sick because of the amount of sugar they ingest. He says this sugar not only leads to obesity, but to "Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease itself." Something needs to be done says Dr. Lustig. "Ultimately, this is a public health crisis...you have to do big things and you have to do them across the board," he tells Gupta. "Tobacco and alcohol are perfect examples," he says, referring to the regulations imposed on their consumption and the warnings on their labels. "I think sugar belongs in this exact same wastebasket."
A recent study supports the idea that excess consumption of high fructose corn syrup is linked to an increase in risk factors for heart disease by increasing a type of cholesterol that can clog arteries. The University of California, Davis, study also indicated that calories from added sugars are different than those from other foods. Subjects had 25 percent of their caloric intake replaced with sweetened drinks. Nutritional biologist Kimber Stanhope was surprised to see that after only two weeks, "We found that the subjects who consumed high fructose corn syrup had increased levels of LDL cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease," she tells Gupta. "I started eating and drinking a whole lot less sugar."
What happens says Stanhope, is the liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts come of it into fat, which gets into the bloodstream to create "small dense LDL," the kind of LDL that forms plaque in arteries. The irony here is that for precisely that reason - avoiding heart disease - a government commission in the 1970s mandated that we lower our fat consumption. "When you take the fat out of food, it tastes like cardboard," says Dr. Lustig. "And the food industry knew that, so they replaced it with sugar...and guess what? Heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and death are skyrocketing," he tells Gupta.
And other scientific work shows that sugar could also be helping some cancer tumors to grow because sugar stimulates the production of the hormone insulin. Nearly a third of common cancers such as some breast and colon cancers, contain insulin receptors that eventually signal the tumor to consume glucose. Lewis Cantley, a Harvard professor and head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says some of those cancers have learned to adapt to an insulin-rich environment. "They have evolved the ability to hijack that flow of glucose that's going by in the bloodstream into the tumor itself."

What does the sugar industry have to say about this? Gupta spoke with Jim Simon, a member of the board of the Sugar Association. "To say that the American consuming public is going to omit, eliminate sweeteners out of their diet, I don't think gets us there," he says. Simon points out that the science is "not completely clear" and it's wrong to single out one food because the real emphasis should be on long-term reduction of calories, balanced diet and exercise.