Stress Relief Archives - Page 2 of 3

Why you should start meditating and stop thinking?

December 9, 2011 by admin 2 Comments

If you were a vibration of energy wouldn’t you want to vibrate at a high frequency, just like beautiful music, perfectly coherent? That is what meditation does, it raises your vibration and helps to undo the old patterns of the brain that keep you locked in a less desirable frequency. If you want to take charge of your health, lose weight, and get off auto-pilot learn how to meditate.

Meditating daily is like putting money in the bank. You are able to deal more effectively with stressful situations as they come up without having them be harmful to your health. People are attracted to you because we all respond to wave frequencies without even being aware of it. The higher the frequency the more attractive you become. It was once said to me by someone very wise, I don’t care how much Botox you use to clear the frowns on your forehead, if it doesn’t get rid of your anger, it won’t work.

I tried for many years to learn how to meditate. I am very appreciative of the training I did with Jon Kabat Zinn who created MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Meditation. I am also grateful for the work of Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz who developed an awareness practice very similar to what Jon means by mindfulness that is taught at UCLA. This practice helps people to overcome anxiety and OCD without the use of medication. This process is also helpful for anyone who is stuck in a negative pattern or mind state which is everybody at some point in their lives.

Mindfulness along with meditation is of course two of the steps in the Eight Fold Path as written by Buddha. The Eight Limbs of Yoga written by the so-called father of Yoga, Patanjali, also includes breath work and mediation to assist in the journey towards more enlightenment.

I also studied with Sherrie Wade creator of Transformation Meditation. But, it was my “initiation” experience with Brijendra, who resides with Sherrie at an Ashram in the Himalaya in an area called the Valley of the Gods that helped me to turn the corner and make meditation a way of life. Part of the gift he gave me was his personal breathing practice and how he gets into meditation. He told me I was free to share it with who ever wanted it. So I decided to create my own version of this and it is now available for on my website.

Any diet or health approach you follow will be made easier if you meditate because meditation is a mind training exercise. You will also find it easier to do follow a healthy lifestyle because you will begin to vibrate at a higher frequency. Our thoughts feelings and emotions have a vibrational frequency. This has been proven by Dr. Hawkins’s ground breaking work which you can read more about in the book Power vs. Force.

The program I developed for home study also includes the mindfulness practice I developed based on the all of the above is called the Pausing Technique. This is how you start to train the brain, so that when you find yourself in a stressful situation, you are able to drop into what in meditation we call “the space.” By doing that, you strengthen your ability to act consciously and not automatically. This is how we find our power, live consciously as opposed to being on auto-pilot. The following quote by Viktor Frankyl explains this beautifully:

“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. In between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Through the practice of mediation and observing your thoughts, you develop the power to be more conscious and decide what you want to think, feel and do and thereby gain control over the automatic reactions of the brain. This is the beginning of how you cultivate mind power. This is the real secret, you have to be able to have a high vibration to your thoughts and feelings. Put another way you get what you think, but it is not easy to change your thoughts if you don’t like what its getting you.

As with anything it requires that you do it for at least six months to build a habit. To read more about how change or create a new habit read this.

Start Your New Year’s Resolution Now…10 Tips to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

December 6, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Losing weight is always the number 1 New Year’s resolution. The problem is that each year the holiday weight that is gained sets people back and does not go away.

In a recent study conducted by the NIH (National Institute of Health), it was concluded that while the amount of weight gained during the holidays will vary from person to person, and is probably less than the popular belief of an added five to ten pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. The problem is that the cumulative effects of yearly weight gain during the fall and winter months are likely to contribute to the substantial increase in body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood.

In a study conducted with 165 volunteers, the extra weight gained during the holidays was not lost during the year, and each ended the year heavier than they were the year before.

The study further concludes “promotion of weight stability during the fall and winter months may prove useful as a strategy to prevent age-related weight gain in the United States.”

“Because losing weight is so difficult, it is important to learn when and why people gain weight so that effective strategies to prevent obesity can be developed”, says Dr. Susan Yanovski, Executive Director, National Task Force on the Treatment of Obesity.

Here are some tips I hope will help:

1. Plan Ahead It is best not to go to a party if you are hungry. I recommend that people know their habits and their bodies. Usually if you eat three meals a day spaced over three to four hours that should be when you are hungry. This assumes you eat the right food, because it is a known fact that eating foods with a high glycemic index will cause a quicker return of hunger. So that’s why you have to plan. Don’t go to a party starving. It will be easier to lose control and eat mindlessly. If it is hors d’oeuvres that are being served try to make it into a small meal.

2. Be aware and avoid mindless eating. During the holidays it seems that food is everywhere. Be aware before put anything into your mouth if you are really hungry if not it is mindless eating.

3.Bring your own healthy snack. The best snack is a portioned controlled amount of nuts, with a small fruit or vegetables ideally with some protein such as a hummus dip. I personally also really like the Think Thin bars.

4. Limit Your Alcohol. Alcoholic drinks can lower your guard and are basically like empty calories that are loaded with sugar. In one study, people who drank an alcoholic beverage consumed about 200 more calories in the 24 hours afterward than those who did not. Most importantly, alcohol inhibits your ability to burn fat for 48 hours by lowering your metabolic rate and can also interrupt sleep patterns.

5. Drink lots of water. Drink water, especially if you are drinking alcohol. One extra glass of water is needed for each glass of wine. Water not only helps you feel full, but it keeps you from becoming dehydrated. Dehydration can be confused with hunger. Plus, water boosts metabolism, helps you to detox and avoid becoming constipated. Plain or sparkling water is a “win/win”! Try drinking sparkling water with a twist or a splash of cranberry juice as a healthy party drink, and as an alternative to alcohol.

7. Make salad and greens your main course. Most people do not realize that salad and vegetables are carbohydrates. This is consistent with the post I made about Dr Fuhrman’s eating concept. They are the best carbohydrates because they also contain fiber and protein. This is the ideal way to eat…balancing the nutrients. To this add your portioned controlled protein and you have the ideal way to eat.

8. Keep up the exercise so you can have your cake and enjoy it, Stay committed to your exercise routine. Exercise not only keeps the pounds off, it reduces stress and gives you more energy. If you can’t find time to exercise, walk fast and far. Mentally missing a workout permanently breaks the habit of exercising, so do your best to commit to a routine and stick to it.

8. Remember how uncomfortable it feels to wear tight clothes. If you do overeat or drink, the dress will let you know. What better reminder than a zipper that won’t zip? Ouch.

9. Eat for the right reason. Most people who have a weight problem also have some issues with how to deal with their feelings. The holidays and also make life more stressful so learning how to deal with your feelings and neutralize stress by planning your time better is critical. See the post I made on how to neutralize stress.

I also recommend the MP3 hypnosis downloads I created that deal with many of these issues. Try Ending Emotional Eating, or Motivation to exercise. Whatever your issue is you will find one to suit your needs and give you an extra boost. If you want to permanently change how you deal with stress, I recommend you start a meditation practice. It is like putting money in the bank.

REMEMBER HOLIDAY WEIGHT GAIN MAY LAST A LIFETIME

Get motivated and overcome resistance… the root of stress

October 18, 2011 by admin 2 Comments

When you find the motivation to change the things that are not working in your life, you will find your stress levels go down. Imagine waking up in the morning and feeling you have the power to take the steps necessary to change what you have been resisting or ignoring. That includes having the motivation to pursue some of your dreams as well. In these challenging times, you have to learn how to think out of the box, see the silver lining and deal with the stress. Remember the book Who Moved my Cheese? The message in that book is to stop looking in the same place for the cheese if it is no longer there. In order to do this you have to master and learn how to overcome what prevents you from doing this.

Recently I came across a very inspiring video on Marion Woodman called Dancing in the Flames. Here is the link [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELL_5hStC_k[/youtube] Marion is a well-established Jungian analyst, who overcame an eating disorder and cancer. Marion reveals how she did this in the video. What she was able to do was to overcome resistance.

Resistance leads to stress and eventually to anxiety. Anxiety is different than fear. With anxiety there is no clear cut reason as to why you feel anxious. That means there is no action you take. It is taking action and seeing progress that makes us feel good.

Most of us talk about how we want change, but we do not know what to do and or do not take consistent action to accomplish the goal. Change is the platform by which Obama got elected and yet nothing has changed. Change happens when we learn how to see how what we think is fear is really anxiety and may not be real. If it were real, we would know what to do and do it. It is anxiety that is paralyzing.

Since most people do not want to confront their resistance, they end up with smoke screens in their lives that distract them and keep them from dealing with the real issues. This is the root of stress and anxiety.

You probably have a lot of stress and anxiety in your life, the byproduct of resistance if you are or have:

Drama in your life sucking up your energy
Unhealthy habits that you cannot seem to change
Feel like a victim in your life
Self- critical
Doubt yourself
Fear rejection

It has been my experience that the first step to changing anything is to recognize what is really going on. Once you do that, you can see the actions that need to be taken more clearly and take them. Nothing is “good or bad.” I never look at anything as being bad. It is just feedback. I also trust there is an order to the way things happen that I do not completely control. That is why watching Marion Woodman in Dancing in the Flames is so inspiring. She received valuable feedback from her dreams and intuition. We all have access to this except when we are under the negative and debilitating influence of anxiety.

To overcome stress, resistance, and get motivated you need to learn how to be calm and easy going despite with what is going on around you that is stress inducing. Some people call this going with the flow and are able to do it more naturally. If it does not come naturally to you, the best way to cultivate what I call “presence” is to start meditating. Think meditation is hard, think again, or better yet check my new home study program meditation made easy. This is my personal meditation practice and it works. Getting motivated and overcoming resistance is made easier when you learn how to dance in the flames and have fun. Life is a game…that is why I say “enlighten” up.

6 Steps for Reducing Stress In Difficult Times

October 17, 2011 by admin 2 Comments

When things get difficult is when you need to get “tougher.” It is inevitable that you will be doing a two-step with stress at some point in your day if you are alive. That’s right it is a part of our everyday life. Oftentimes I have conversations with my clients on how to reduce their stress, since so many “unhealthy” habits we have are things we do to give us immediate gratification to make ourselves feel better. I call it looking for pleasure to try to deal with or not feel the pain. The more skillful or enlightened approach is to change your relationship to stress.

Let’s take emotional and compulsive eating or what is called binging. Working with a recent client helped her to identify the triggers and see that the emotional eating usually followed feelings of anxiety, or not getting her needs met and feeling abandoned. I gave her a way to create the gap or space she needed before she binged so she could start to break the pattern. At first she called it stress, once she understood the pattern she had a way to deal with it.

That’s how you start: recognition of the pattern, understanding what is driving it, and focusing on the questions I have provided below. She now feels as if she has more power over the behavior, instead of feeling enslaved by it.

Did you ever think about the fact that your reaction and how to then deal with something is probably the only thing that under your control. Most people do not use their power of choice and react automatically. Here is a way to start to break that pattern and reduce the effects of stress. This is really important because chronic or continual stress can have serious health effects. I first studied this with the master, Jon Kabat Zinn. Read his article At Home in Our Bodies. I have since modified the approach. Here it goes…

Mindfulness in a nutshell to Reduce Stress:

1^st Step to Reduce Stress:

Stop & Breathe. The way out of a habit or a pattern is to break it and just give yourself some space. Slowing down the breath is proven to change your energy and break the stress response.

2^nd Step to Reduce Stress:

Identify what it is that is causing the stress. Mindfulness gives you the opportunity to get out or the conditioned stress reaction and just look at what is objectively.

3^rd Step to Reduce Stress:

Identify what you are feeling and see what the feelings are trying to tell you. That’s right most people do not want to feel their feelings and do not use them as a guidance system. This will help you to do what release and let go of your feelings once you understand what is going on. You can also see if you are over-reacting and use your breathe to calm yourself down. Stress triggers the primitive fight or flight response. It is not a state that gives you the sense that you have many options.

4^th Step to Reduce Stress:

Rethink…is there anything you can or should do about “it.” Decide if there is something you can do to change the situation that is causing you stress. If so…

5^th Step to Reduce Stress:

Act consciously… don’t just react. You may need to take a look at a bigger problem that you are avoiding or just take a simple step like plan your day better next time.

6^th Step to Reduce Stress:

Let it go. Holding on to things is not going to make anything any better. Let it out…write about it in your journal, talk or vent to a friend or just laugh. Don’t eat that will only make matters worse. Make sure you examine the priorities you have in your life. Are you somehow creating your own stress? You are or need to view yourself as a priority.

Download my MP3 on stress reduction. Scroll down to Overcoming Stress in Difficult Times.

Are you taking time to have a self-care practice that you do daily.? That is how you put money in the bank for when you need it. Here’s mine: walk daily, breathe, meditate, spend some time in nature, and make sure I have some unstructured time. Give me your feedback if you have some other tips how you reduce stress and send this to a friend if you feel they are in need of advice.

Overcome unhealthy eating patterns…the “easy way” to follow a healthy diet

October 10, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Let’s put first things first. Did it ever occur to you that the food you eat influences your thoughts and feelings? It has been said that you are what you eat, but who really things about that when they are eating. What you think affects what and how you eat. Most people are aware they are driven by their senses, the smells and perhaps the “memory of how good it tastes” and how they think the food will make them feel good. Advertisers know this and use it in their messages. Next time you watch a commercial for fast or processed food, pay attention to the underlying message.

It has become so obvious to me that many of my clients are eating poorly because of their feelings and how they think. Food and eating becomes a way to stuff down and not feel or deal with their feelings.

Overeating and eating junk or crap food (processed food with sugar or fat) becomes a coping mechanism or a release from the feelings. Usually it is what I call a “low vibration” emotion such as anger, fear, guilt and all the negative nuanced feelings that flow from those emotions.

Did you know what that the energetic vibration of thoughts and feelings can be measured? If you do not believe me pick up Dr. David Hawkins’s book Power vs. Force. Using kinesiology, he measured the different emotions. As you would expect, shame and anger were the lowest on the scale. This is why how you deal with your feelings and what you feel is so tied into why it may be hard for you to follow a healthy lifestyle and diet. You have to change your energy first.

That is why I have come to the conclusion that before anyone even attempts to change their eating, or embark on a new habit that is going to involve delaying immediate gratification, it may be better to start doing something to change your energetic vibration first and learn how to be more present to your feelings.

Overcoming unhealthy eating patterns should start with the practice of:

1. Mindfulness

2. Meditation

It is not surprising that mindfulness and meditation go together. Creating the habit of mindfulness and meditation makes it easier to practice a healthy lifestyle. I learned this from Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness Meditation Workshop years ago. Zinn calls it awareness.

I have found the best way to do this is to first become aware that you may have an unhealthy relationship with food because you have food patterns in your life that are unhealthy. Recently one of my clients came to the awareness that she eats processed foods because she does not process her feelings. She grew up in an environment where it was not ok to say what you feel or to “rock the boat.” So even though she is a successful highly functioning adult on some level she operates as if she is frozen in time and still that little girl. It has been an awakening to her to begin to feel her feelings and instead of stuffing down food, she can begin to express what she is thinking and learn how to let the feelings pass.

So instead of beating yourself up which is all about shame and guilt, why not start being aware of what you are feeling? Identify what triggers eating episodes, and how you may be trying to shut down and not feel. The problem with that strategy is that you may get temporary relief, but eating, especially junk food, lowers your energetic vibration even more. No wonder you feel like you have no energy. Gaining energy is one of the first things my clients report to me they see changing. Then you can move to the next practice which is exercise. Take one step at a time.

Before you try to make changes to your eating and are able to eat healthier naturally, you may have to understand why it has been so challenging. What purpose is the food serving? What is your relationship with food that is mirroring how you are unhappy with your relationships with other people? If you down load my E-book available on the website you will find an assessment that will get you so much clearer about what is really going on.

Stay tuned in because in the next post I will be talking more about how meditation is the foundation for change and how it can help you want to eat healthier naturally.