Life Is Like A Rainbow

When my father was alive he loved nature and being outdoors. He had the ability to pick up natures clues and relate them to everyday life. He taught me that our life is like a rainbow and that it takes both rain and sunshine to create its beauty. Both joy and sorrow must come to it in order to develop, shape and mold its true essence. Our life is a combination of polarities/opposites (healthy - unhealthy, happy - sad, heavy - thin, strong - weak). Finding and creating a happy balance between the polarities is challenging but also necessary if we are to live a well-rounded, rich, colorful and brilliant life.

The best way to exercise and strengthen your new perspective is to "reverse" your position. This helps to create balance between your inner and outer life.

Exercises:

When you've been inside all day, go outside and take a walk in nature. This will elevate your mood, enhance your concentration and problem solving abilities. Walking will also provide you with a cardiovascular boost.

When you're feeling unattractive, create an environment for yourself that makes you feel beautiful. Allow yourself to see that beauty surrounds you at every moment and you will feel that same beauty covering you like a blanket.

When sitting behind a desk all day, stand up and stretch your limbs. Stretching increases the blood flow to your muscles, brings them nourishment and gets rid of waste byproducts in the muscle tissue.

When surrounded by people all day, take time out for yourself and be still. Being still has profound healing properties. Your heart rate and breathing slow down, your blood pressure normalizes and you use oxygen more efficiently. Your adrenal glands produce less cortisol, your mind ages at a slower rate, and your immune function improves. Your mind also clears and your creativity increases.

When feeling stressed, allow yourself to feel relief by releasing fatigue and anxiety through moderate exercise. When you feel calm, you lose the need to feel agitated or wrapped up in daily drama.

A Positive Exercise Workout

When I was growing up my mother use to tell me that our body is like a coat that we put on and take off again - our human experience is but a moment in time but our spirit lives on forever!

My mom has since passed - left her physical form (has taken off her coat) but her spirit, her breath, continues .....may these messages serve you well.

While healthy food, plenty of rest and exercise sustains the functioning of our physical body, spiritual conditioning is also essential to nurture and lift us beyond our physical form. This begins by being grateful for all things and maintaining a
positive outlook.

The Positive Exercise Workout:

Choose to be happy.
Look at the bright side of life.
Learn to master your thoughts.
Love who you are, right now.
Give until it hurts and then give some more.
Smile at everyone, even if they don't smile back.
Read quotes and affirmations that inspire and motivate you everyday.
Focus on the things that you are grateful for.
Focus on the positive qualities of someone you dislike.
Watch movies and listen to music that makes you happy.
Engage yourself in physical activity.
Visualize what you want to happen.
Associate yourself with people who think positively. Take a walk in nature.

Like any good workout program, this discipline takes practice, attention, concentration, commitment and repetition. Positive thinking brings inner peace, success, improved relationships, better health, happiness and satisfaction. It also helps the daily affairs of life move more smoothly, and makes life look bright and promising. Everyday life is our spiritual school and our exercises begin on the ground by creating a healthy body and a positive outlook.

Are You Suffering From Headaches, Insomnia or Heart Burn?

If you are suffering from insomnia or headaches, try eliminating MSG (monosodium glutamate) from your diet. Also, if you are experiencing heart-burn or disturbed sleep patterns, limit your consumption of spicy and fatty foods before bedtime.

Instead, delight in the sweetness of fresh succulent fruit and organically grown vegitables. Enjoy a quiet sunset walk while basking in the radiant glow of the vibrant fall foliage. Turn off the TV and turn on some soft relaxing music with candlelight and the fragrance of chamomile. This is a "natural" sedative and salve for the heart and soul.

Be Well - Think Well - Live Well!

Are You Losing Weight For All The Right Reasons?

If your true intention towards losing weight is because you truly care about yourself and your well-being and not because you are trying to please or get approval from other people then your chances of keeping it off "forever" are greatly multiplied. Before losing weight, be honest with yourself by being authentic about your true intentions. It is true that losing weight can make you feel better about yourself initially, but it's not the ultimate key to a lifetime of happiness and fulfillment. Being over-weight can cause you to feel unhappy but it can also be a symptom towards your unhappiness.

The human heart can only be fulfilled through Love. We first have to consciously choose to embrace and experience the peace and joy within by shifting our behavior and attitudes to a place of well-being by appreciating and loving ourselves first. It is in this place that we will successfully lose the extra weight and keep it off forever!

The Meditation Of Daily Life Is To Let The World Become Your Objest of Attention

The beauty of meditation is that you can do it anytime, in everyday life, with your eyes open, using whatever task is at hand as your meditative object. For example; serving tea, arranging flowers, walking, working in your garden, painting, reading, journaling... All are forms of meditation. Anything you do in daily life with your "Full Attention" is a means to quiet your mind.

The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is within us. "The first step towards loveis to be present and listen with your full attention"

What You Eat Can Effect Your Moods

What you eat and drink affects your moods. Sometimes negative emotional states come not from your heart, but from your intestines. Lightening up your diet can help to brighten your moods.Increasing the proportion of fresh, uncooked vegetables and fruits in your diet provides unprocessed nutrients in their most direct form, with a full array of enzymes that help you assimilate the food you eat. These high water-content foods also provide fiber necessary for good food elimination. Eating mostly or exclusively raw foods naturally promotes weight loss, while ensuring high-quality nutrition and vitality. Eating only raw fruits and vegetables for a period of time has much the same cleansing effect as a fast.

Ultimately you are the final authority over how you feed your body, and you have to find what works best for you. Favor experimentation over rigid rules; diet involves lifelong learning and practice. The same applies to the arena of exercise.

To Transform Your Life Begin With One Foot In The Door

Breaking a negative habit or starting a positive one happens in two stages: First, making the desired change; second, maintaining the change. Patterns tend to reassert themselves unless you can maintain the new pattern long enough for it to become familiar and a direct part of you.

The key to change is keeping it simple: A little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. You are more likely to do and continue doing, what is convenient and simple.

If you don't exercise every day but would like to start, then get up tomorow morning and remember to do one jumping jack; then the next morning do another jumping jack; and then the next morning and then the next. That one jumping jack every day is a profound step in the right direction, because it gets your foot in the door--you are forming the habit of dedicating a portion of your day, no matter how small, to exercise. The following month you may decide to trade in your daily jumping jack for a brisk walk around the block or two minutes of free-form movement and deep breathing. To Transform your life, begin simply, begin each day by being "Thankful", its a small little foot in the door.

Ask Yourself These 3 Questions

1. Are you eating well?
2. Are you exercising regularly?
3. Are you getting enough rest?

These three elements taken together, balance your body and generate vitalitythat enables you to meet the challenges of everyday life. It is not enough to know about or merely appreciate these three elements of a healthy lifestyle. For you to benefit from them, (diet, exercise and rest) they must become absolute priorities. Unless you make your health more important than your work, your money, or watching television, you will always find something more pressing to do instead. Each day you choose whether to make a nutritious meal at home or get some fast food, whether to get up early to exercise or sleep in because you stayed up too late watching television. And let's face it, it's much easier to watch television, sleep in, skip exercise, and grab some fast food. But ask yourself, "When I look into my full-length mirror, what do I see?" You see your living habits reflected back to you. So don't wait until you have time- make time.

Relax And Breathe

Breathing is the key to longevity and relaxation is the key to energy. You can live for weeks without food, days without water, but only minutes without breathing. For most of us, breathing is a relatively automatic, unconscious act. You don't usually notice your breathing unless you have a problem with it. One of the goals of spiritual practice is to make conscious what was previously unconscious. You don't suddenly have to pay attention to every breath you take, but you benefit by expanding your breathing capacity and control.

So if breathing is the key to longevity then relaxation is the key to abundant energy. Relaxation is one of the most important life skills you can learn because the ability to relax enhances your strength, elasticity, grace, coordination, reflex, speed, sensitivity, sensuality, awareness, balance, peripheral blood circulation, breathing, and overall sense of well-being.

To improve the overall quality of your life just remember to breathe deeply and relax as much as possible in "everything" you do.

Inspirational Fitness

Peaceful Living

What do the bible, the philosophy of yoga, the philosophy of all of the martial arts, the latest thinking on how to reduce illness and disease in this country, and the fundamentals of high performance in athletics all have in common? All are premised on the overriding importance of "peace" to our mind and body.

Peace is the natural state. As human beings we often undermine the natural state of peace by letting our ego's careen out of control. For left to its own, the ego creates a powerful force of our being eager to prove we are right - an action that time and time again creates stress and conflict. Chief among the destructors of peace is our ego and its need to be right. Let go of the need to always be right. As Dr. Wayne Dyer is fond of saying "when the choice is to be right, or to be at peace, always "choose peace."

As you focus more on being at peace, you are likely to discover a new purpose for life. Perhaps you will even discover your calling. When you do discover your calling, you will achieve even more peace when you align your activities with your calling.

R.I.C.E. For Sprains And Strains

If you suffer from a sprain or strain, use R.I.C.E. The term stands for Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. Rest - Take a break from exercise or any type of movement that may stress the injured area. A minor injury should be rested for one or two days, while more severe injuries may need longer. Ice - Ice the affected area. Icing reduces pain, limits swelling and bleeding, and encourages rapid healing. Wrap ice in a towel to avoid direct contact with the skin. Compress - Compress the injury with a stretch bandage. Make sure not to wrap it too tight, just enough to support the injured area comfortably. Elevate - Elevate the limb. If possible, try to keep the injured part above the level of the heart. At the very least, try to keep it higher than the hips. This helps limit swelling and also prevents movement of the area that is injured.

Four Healthy Lifestyle Tips

1. Be communicative. Express your feelings in a non-threatening, non-combative way to significant people in your life, including your family, friends and business associates. Don't wait for the pressure to build and then blow your top. Catch the anger or concern before it causes you stress.

2. Find time for yourself, alone, every day. Even if it's just 10 minutes in the bathtub or 20 minutes walking or working out at the gym or with a friend. Spend the time in constructive ways such as meditating, listening to soothing music or just enjoying nature.

3. Don't try and keep up with the Jones'. Seeking material things is healthy until it becomes more important than human things such as sharing time with loved ones, enjoying a sunset or catching some rays at the beach. Find work you love and do it with a happy heart.

4. Build a network of trusted friends with whom you can share ideas, joys and sorrows. Remember to give as well as to receive.

Trans Fatty Acids

Trans fatty acids, also known as trans fat, is an artery-clogging fat that is formed when vegetable oils are hardened into margarine or shortening. While some foods like bakery items and fried foods are obvious sources of trans fat, other processed foods, such as cereals and waffles, can also contain trans fat. One tip to determine the amount of trans fat in a food is to read the ingredient label and look for shortening, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil. The higher up on the list these ingredients appear, the more trans fat. Be Sure to Read The Ingredients!

Mental Health

In your quest for physical fitness, don't forget your mental health. Two of the main reasons we seek physical fitness is to feel better and to look better. A great part of that feeling of well-being involves our mental and emotional outlook. Believe it or not, there are exercises we can do for mental fitness just as there are for physical fitness. The following list of exercises needs no diagrams or lengthy explanations. They are familiar things that we all do occasionally, some more often than others and some a lot less than others. Do the following "exercises" daily and your mental outlook will become more positive, a sure route to feeling and looking better.

1. Do something nice for someone and don't tell anyone about it.
2. Smile at a stranger.
3. Lend a hand to someone who needs it.
4. Compliment somebody and really mean it.
5. Visit a sick friend.
6. Send a thank you note to someone who has done something for you, either recently or long ago.
7. Forgive an enemy

Move More

Make it a daily challenge to find ways to move your body. Climb stairs if given a choice between that and escalators or elevators. Walk your dog; chase your kids; toss balls with friends, mow the lawn. Anything that moves your limbs is not only a fitness tool, it's a stress buster. Think 'move' in small increments of time. It doesn't have to be an hour in the gym or a 45-minute aerobic dance class or tai chi or kickboxing. But that's great when you're up to it. Meanwhile, move more.

Don't Cut Too Many Calories Too Fast!

Avoid drastically cutting your calories. Quick and drastic weight loss can cause issues with your body's metabolism and muscle mass. When you lose a lot of weight quickly, you really need to strictly monitor where the weight is coming from. Is it water weight, body fat or muscle mass? The majority of the time, it unfortunately comes from lean muscle mass and this is exactly what causes serious issues with your metabolism. Muscle is your body's most potent and active tissue for burning calories and body fat. It's basically your body's "furnace" and you always want to keep it burning hot. When someone loses a lot of weight, which usually comes from crash dieting or some other unhealthy way of dropping the weight, the body's lean muscle mass is cannibalized and the person loses some of the most powerful tissue for keeping a lean body.

To take off one pound per week, you'll need to reduce calories by 500 per day. (one pound of body fat equals about 3,500 calories.) Try eating 250 calories less per day and exercising enough to burn 250 calories, like walking about 2.5 miles each day. The easiest way to cut back on calories is to watch your portion sizes.

Eat Your Beans!

Nutrient compounds called 'flavonoids' have been found to be effective 'antioxidants' that help protect against heart disease and cancer. These flavonoids are found in the coating of such beans as navy, pintos, kidney, great northern and black beans

Walk 10 Minutes A Day To Increase Your Fitness Level

Old thinking was to work out in a sweat-filled gym for hours a day. No pain, no gain. New studies show that even short bouts of activity can increase your fitness level, especially if you're new at working out.

For a "Total" Workout Include Mind, Body And Spirit

The best workout, according to top trainers and fitness experts, is one that includes the mind and spirit as well as the body. Consider some alternatives to your regular weight and cardio training. For a change of pace, try yoga, Pilates or tai chi, all of which engage your mind, body and spirit. Include these alternative mind/body disciplines on a regular basis. Add them to your workout regime and feel the difference.

FIGHT CANCER WITH TEA

Fight Cancer with America's Favorite Summertime Drink. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) conducted a research study that turned up some surprising results. Tea contains "antioxidants" which neutralize "free radicals" that are thought to cause cancer. Next time you order refreshing iced tea, enjoy and know you may be fighting cancer.