Living in Harmony with Winter
By Kumiko Yamamoto DAOM. L.Ac. Dilp.O.M. After a long and intense summer this year, we are finally welcoming the winter. Winter gives us a wonderful opportunity to embrace quietness and self-reflection and to rebuild our vitality of mind and body before the rebirth of spring. The seasons have a profound effect on our health. By living in harmony with the seasons, we can stay healthy, help our healing process, and cultivate gracefully for a long and happy life. Winter in Chinese medicine is associated with the kidney system. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the kidney system holds our body's most fundamental vitality. In fact, the kidneys in Western physiology perform several critical bodily functions from waste removal to regulation of blood pressure and the stress response. A healthy kidney system is also crucial for a healthy heart and brain function, metabolism, fertility, sexual function, and the health of your low back and bones. How can we strengthen our kidney system? Rest and get plenty of sleep - Rest is important for revitalizing the kidneys as well as strengthening immunity for the winter. Lower stress and avoid overworking. If you suffer from insomnia, this is a good time to heal your sleep. Acupuncture and herbs like jujube seeds can help. Winter blues? Winter is a good time to connect deeper within ourselves and tend to our heart. Fear is associated with the kidney. By getting in touch with fear and working through it, we can find truth in our heart and strengthen our spirit. Meditation, qi gong, and tai chi practices are all wonderful to nourish our spirit. Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:
It is found that a mix of honey and cinnamon cures most diseases. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also note honey as very effective medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without side effects which is also a plus. Today's science says that even though honey is sweet, when it is taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm even diabetic patients. Researched by western scientists: HEART DISEASES: Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, put it on toast instead of jelly and jam and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol and could potentially save one from heart attack. Also, even if you have already had an attack studies show you could be kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of cinnamon honey strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada, various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as one ages the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and the veins. ARTHRITIS: Arthritis patients can benefit by taking one cup of hot water with two tablespoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. When taken daily even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University, it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week (out of the 200 people so treated) practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain -- and within a month, most all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis now started walking without pain. BLADDER INFECTIONS: Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder....who knew? CHOLESTEROL: Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water given to a cholesterol patient was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, when taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol-could be cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol. COLDS: Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and, clear the sinuses, and it's delicious too! UPSET STOMACH: Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also is said to clear stomach ulcers from its root. GAS: According to the studies done in India and Japan, it is revealed that when Honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas. IMMUNE SYSTEM: Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacterial and viral attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of Honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles (where DNA is contained) to fight bacterial and viral diseases. INDIGESTION: Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food is eaten relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals INFLUENZA: A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural 'Ingredient' which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu. LONGEVITY: Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Use four teaspoons of honey, one teaspoon of cinnamon powder, and three cups of boiling water to make a tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans increase and even a 100 year old will start performing the chores of a 20-year-old. RASPY OR SORE THROAT: When throat has a tickle or is raspy, take one tablespoon of honey and sip until gone. Repeat every three hours until throat is without symptoms. PIMPLES: Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it off the next morning with warm water. When done daily for two weeks, it removes all pimples from the root. SKIN INFECTIONS:Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin Infections. WEIGHT LOSS:Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast and on an empty stomach, and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. When taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet. FATIGUE: Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, even when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, when taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M., the vitality of the body increases within a week. BAD BREATH: People of South America, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water first thing in the morning so their breath stays fresh throughout the day. HEARING LOSS: Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restores hearing. Make sure you SHARE this to save & find on your wall later.https://www.facebook.com/Acudoulabc/posts/953392021414798 5 SureFire Ways to Support Digestion is a guest post. 1-Digestion doesn’t begin in the stomach, the process actually starts in the brain first. 2/2. Put your ‘attention’ where your mouth is. Chew chew chew 3/Regular movement increases circulation, and keeps the body organs toned up & in good working order to assist with digestive functions. 4. Spice it up, Baby! Nature provides us with a wonderful collection of natural digestive aids. It’s not only uber easy to enhance your food with fresh herbs & spices, it’s fun and tastes great too! 5. Plant Power to the Rescue. Aromatherapy has a long history of digestion supportive essential oils. Sweet Orange, Peppermint and Black Pepper are just a few that help stimulate and aid digestion. Here is a recipe that you can try for a DIY Digestion Support Blend. http://bigtreehealing.com/5-surefire-ways-to-support-digestion/?inf_contact_key=da75d1dfc61bf63bac05e0308013fc688bdc54ec01bf34032ec9048ca7fccba1 7 Steps for Dealing With Difficult Peopleby: Adam Brady ShareThis Facebook Tweet LinkedIn Pinterest Email Life is a web of relationships. Human beings are social creatures, deeply entangled in countless relationships throughout life. It’s natural to gravitate toward those relationships that bring you the most happiness, growth, and fulfillment. However, despite your best efforts and intentions to the contrary, you’re sometimes forced to deal with challenging relationships and difficult people. Navigating these interactions can often result in stress, tension, and anxiety that negatively impact your mood and expose you to unpleasant emotional toxicity. When dealing with difficult people it’s important to remember that everyone you encounter is doing the best they can from their own level of consciousness. Therefore, try to avoid judging their behavior. No matter how it may appear from your perspective, few, if any of the difficult people in your life are deliberately trying to be the bad guy or villain. They are simply making the choices that seem best from where they find themselves in the current moment, regardless of the amount of mayhem it might bring into the experience of others. Part of the curriculum at the Chopra Center’s Perfect Health Ayurvedic Lifestyle program includes exploring the tools for conscious communication, which can help you learn to communicate directly with the people in your life for maximum emotional and spiritual well-being. This includes asking yourself the following four questions derived from Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication:
These are powerful and transformative questions that can lead to a more productive and conscious exchange with the people in your life. However, what if a person is unwilling to help you meet your needs and falls squarely into the category of being a difficult person? How can you maintain your presence and respond from the level of highest awareness? The following seven steps can be used to help you navigate the rough waters of dealing with a negative person. They can be used independently or in sequence, depending on what the situation requires. Interactions with difficult people are dynamic and there is no one quick fix for every situation. Also, note that these suggestions focus primarily around changing your perceptions of the relationship rather than trying to change the behavior of the other person. 1. Use the S.T.O.P. Model to Avoid ReactivityThis acronym can be the most fundamental step in coping with a difficult personal relationship. S.T.O.P. stands for:
No matter how challenging the difficult person or relationship is, this pause will help to derail the emotional reactions that are primed to take over in the heat of the moment. 2. See Through the Control Drama the Other Person Is UsingControl dramas are manipulative behaviors that people often fall into when their needs aren’t being met. There are four primary control dramas:
Control dramas are frequently learned in childhood as a strategy to manipulate others into giving you what you want. Interestingly, many people never outgrow their primary control drama or evolve to higher forms of communication. When you witness one of these control dramas playing out in a difficult person, you can automatically become more understanding. Imagine the person you’re dealing with using the same control drama as a child. From that perspective you realize that this individual never learned another way to get their needs met and, as such, is deserving of your compassion. This simple and profound shift in perspective can take the entire relationship dynamic in a new direction. 3. Don’t Take it PersonallyWhen you’re involved with a difficult person, it can feel like their words are a deliberate personal attack. This is not the case. Their reaction and behavior is not about you; it’s about them. Everyone is experiencing reality through personalized filters and perceptions of the world and your behavior is a direct result of those interpretations. A difficult person’s point of view is something that’s personal to them. In their reality, they are the director, producer, and leading actor of their own movie. You, on the receiving end, play only a small part in their drama. In a similar manner they are possibly only bit players in your drama, so you can choose not to give the bit players of your life control over your happiness. If you take the situation personally, you end up becoming offended and react by defending your beliefs and causing additional conflict. In refusing to take things personally you defuse the ego and help to de-escalate a potential conflict. 4. Practice DefenselessnessThis can be a powerful strategy when confronted with a difficult person. Being defenseless doesn’t mean you’re passive—you still maintain your personal opinion and perspective in the situation—but rather than engaging with the intention of making the other person wrong, you consciously choose not to be an adversary. Being defenseless means you give up the need to be the smartest person in the room. You ask your ego and intellect to sit this one out and proceed with an open acceptance of the other person’s position. You don’t have to agree with their perspective (or even like it). The point of this process is to compassionately suspend your need to defend a particular point of view. An interaction with a difficult person doesn’t have to turn into a heated debate. Oftentimes, the other person simply needs to be heard. By allowing them to express themselves without resistance, they can fulfill that need and perhaps become more amicable. Establishing defenselessness creates space that allows for a more a compassionate and peaceful interaction. 5. Walk Away if NecessaryDifficult people can often draw you into a field of negativity. If you feel like you can’t maintain your awareness and objectivity, there’s nothing wrong with removing yourself from the situation. A toxic exchange can leave you feeling physically depleted and emotionally exhausted; if the above options aren't helping you deal with the difficult person, walk away. You don't have anything to prove to anyone; there’s no need to martyr yourself on the relationship battleground. You may have the best intentions for the exchange, but sometimes the most evolutionary option is to consciously withdraw from the interaction. This isn't about winning or losing, it's about stepping away from a toxic environment that’s dampening your spirit. Detach from the situation and trust the universe to work out the resolution. 6. See the Experience as an Evolutionary OpportunityAs challenging as it is, dealing with a difficult person can be a learning experience. Relationships mirror your inner world back to you and help open your eyes to those things you may not want to see. The qualities in another that upset you are often those aspects of yourself that you repress. Recognize the petty tyrant in your life as a teacher who can help you learn what you haven’t yet mastered. Better yet, see in this person a friend who, as a part of the collective consciousness of humanity, is another part of you. As Ram Dass reminds says, “We're all just walking each other home.” When you can see a difficult person as an ally on the journey you’re traveling together, you'll be ready to answer the telling question, "What am I meant to learn in this situation?" 7. Resonate CompassionCompassion is an attribute of the strong, highly evolved soul who sees opportunities for healing, peace, and love in every situation. Even when faced with a difficult person, compassion allows you to see someone who is suffering and looking for relief. Compassion reminds you that this person has been happy and sad, just like you have been; has experienced health and sickness, as have you; has friends and loved ones who care for them, like you; and will one day, grow old and die, just as you will. This understanding helps to open your heart to embrace a difficult person from the level of the soul. If you can think, speak, and act from this perspective, you will resonate the compassion that lives at the deepest level of your being and help you to transform your relationships. Difficult people can challenge your commitment to spirit, but by practicing these steps you can respond reflectively, rather than reactively, and hopefully take your relationships to a more conscious level of expression. Remember once again that no matter how it might appear, difficult people are doing the best they are able. Knowing this, you can smile at the wisdom of Maya Angelou's words when she said, “We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better
- See more at: http://www.chopra.com/ccl/7-steps-for-dealing-with-difficult-people?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=n%2Fa&utm_content=Newsletter%20150310&utm_campaign=March#sthash.kZhKrdyZ.dpuf MeditateMeditation is a powerful antidote to stress. In the inner quiet of meditation, the body decreases its production of so-called stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, while increasing neurotransmitters associated with calm and well-being, including dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. A regular meditation practice is one of the most powerful tools for improving overall health. Recent studies are confirming that with even a single meditation, you “turn on” or upregulate genes associated with total well-being, and “turn off” or down-regulate genes that are related to illness and disease. In addition to the physical health benefits, regular meditators experience more happiness, less anxiety, and greater feelings of connection and purpose. Try this: The ideal meditation practice is 20 to 30 minutes in the morning, and 20 to 30 minutes again in the evening; however, meditating for just 10 minutes daily will make a huge difference in your life and stress levels. Here is a guided meditation you can try right now: So Hum Meditation. BreatheMany ancient healing traditions incorporate deep breathing into a daily routine to cultivate calm and balance. Studies show that deep breathing can immediately help you shift out of the stress or “fight-or-flight” response, and into the relaxation response. With deep breathing, the body and mind slow down and you instantly feel stress dissipate. In fact, with modern biofeedback tools you can actually see an improvement in heart-rate variability (a sign of reduced stress) within seconds of deep breathing. I recommend 3 to 5 minutes of deep breathing, twice daily, and any time during the day when you become aware of feeling stressed. If you have a morning meditation practice, which is highly recommended, do your deep breathing just before you meditate. Try this: Close your eyes and breathe in slowly through your nose. Your belly should rise gently with each inhalation. Imagine that you are directing the breath to any areas of stress in your body, or simply feel the sensation of the breath in the lungs. At the peak of your inhalation, pause for a moment; then slowly exhale. Keep breathing until you feel centered and calm. Learn more:The Mind-Body Healing Benefits of Pranayama WalkRegular movement is one of the best ways to dissipate the energy of stress in your body. When you walk briskly or do other forms of exercise, your body releases many neurotransmitters that lead to improved mood and a greater sense of well-being. These neurotransmitters include endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. Some research suggests that improvements in mood are also due to increased blood circulation to the brain. More good news! You don’t have to spend hours at the gym to decrease your stress. By taking a 15-minute walk, you will experience immediate benefits, including greater feelings of calm and energy. While some people argue that nothing can be accomplished with a short walk, you can judge for yourself. Try this: Commit to taking a 15-minute walk after lunch, or at the end of your day, and see what happens to your stress levels. Of course, when you can fit in a longer walk, go for it. SleepMore and more studies are confirming the importance of regular, restful sleep for combatting the negative effects of stress and increasing total well-being. Getting restful sleep gives you the opportunity to repair and restore the mind-body system. With good sleep, you have better emotional regulation, stronger immunity, reduced pain, and decreased risk of many chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes. Poor sleep, whether in amount or in quality, is the precursor to many disease processes. A lack of restful sleep also disrupts your neurochemistry and can lead to worsening anxiety, depression, and pain. Try this: One important way to improve your sleep is to align your sleeping times with your circadian rhythms, which are your body’s own natural rhythms of mental and physical activity. These rhythms are aligned with nature’s rhythms, which means that when the sun rises, your body is naturally more awake and alert. When the sun sets, your body prepares for sleep by increasing the production of natural chemicals such as melatonin. You will enjoy more restful, restorative sleep if you are in bed by about 10:00 p.m., and wake up by 6:00 am. During this sleep time, your body can process all of the foods, experiences, and energy of the day and “digest” it, so you don’t carry it over into the next day. Of course, since often it is stressful feelings that interfere with sleep, using the other practices discussed in this article will help you reduce stress, and therefore, improve your sleep. Reduce Excessive StimulationYou live in such an overstimulated world that you sometimes may not even notice how much you’re bombarded with noise, information, music, bright lights, and other distractions. Now, it’s hard to enjoy even a moment of silence when you’re filling up your car since many gas stations have installed videos that automatically turn on with a loud commercial when you insert a credit card. The world is vying for your attention, and all of the information entering through your senses requires processing, which can lead to an increased stress response. Try this:By making a conscious choice to reduce unnecessary stimulation, you can stop the sensory overload and create greater calm in your mind-body system. Pay attention to how you feel when you spend time exposed to different forms of stimulation. If you find yourself feeling jangled after shopping at a mall or watching a violent movie, eliminate or limit these experiences in your life. Instead of leaving yourself at the mercy of your electronic devices, take steps to control their interruptions. For example, turn off your automatic email alert and the ringer on your phone, and set up regular times to check your messages instead. These are just a few suggestions for reducing sensory overload. Consider your environment at home, work, and anywhere you regularly spend time, and start making conscious choices to reduce the unnecessary and stress-provoking stimulation. This will help you experience more joy, balance, and peace of mind. 7 Simple Ways to De-Stressby: Sheila Patel, M.D. ShareThis Facebook Tweet LinkedIn Pinterest Email If you feel that stress is affecting your physical health and emotional well-being, you’re not alone. An estimated 75 to 90 percent of all doctor visits are for stress-related issues and ailments, and this is certainly what I see in my medical practice. But don’t let this information increase your stress levels, for there are simple practices that you can bring into each day to feel less stressed—and more calm, centered, and happy. MeditateMeditation is a powerful antidote to stress. In the inner quiet of meditation, the body decreases its production of so-called stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, while increasing neurotransmitters associated with calm and well-being, including dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. A regular meditation practice is one of the most powerful tools for improving overall health. Recent studies are confirming that with even a single meditation, you “turn on” or upregulate genes associated with total well-being, and “turn off” or down-regulate genes that are related to illness and disease. In addition to the physical health benefits, regular meditators experience more happiness, less anxiety, and greater feelings of connection and purpose. Try this: The ideal meditation practice is 20 to 30 minutes in the morning, and 20 to 30 minutes again in the evening; however, meditating for just 10 minutes daily will make a huge difference in your life and stress levels. Here is a guided meditation you can try right now: So Hum Meditation. BreatheMany ancient healing traditions incorporate deep breathing into a daily routine to cultivate calm and balance. Studies show that deep breathing can immediately help you shift out of the stress or “fight-or-flight” response, and into the relaxation response. With deep breathing, the body and mind slow down and you instantly feel stress dissipate. In fact, with modern biofeedback tools you can actually see an improvement in heart-rate variability (a sign of reduced stress) within seconds of deep breathing. I recommend 3 to 5 minutes of deep breathing, twice daily, and any time during the day when you become aware of feeling stressed. If you have a morning meditation practice, which is highly recommended, do your deep breathing just before you meditate. Try this: Close your eyes and breathe in slowly through your nose. Your belly should rise gently with each inhalation. Imagine that you are directing the breath to any areas of stress in your body, or simply feel the sensation of the breath in the lungs. At the peak of your inhalation, pause for a moment; then slowly exhale. Keep breathing until you feel centered and calm. Learn more:The Mind-Body Healing Benefits of Pranayama WalkRegular movement is one of the best ways to dissipate the energy of stress in your body. When you walk briskly or do other forms of exercise, your body releases many neurotransmitters that lead to improved mood and a greater sense of well-being. These neurotransmitters include endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. Some research suggests that improvements in mood are also due to increased blood circulation to the brain. More good news! You don’t have to spend hours at the gym to decrease your stress. By taking a 15-minute walk, you will experience immediate benefits, including greater feelings of calm and energy. While some people argue that nothing can be accomplished with a short walk, you can judge for yourself. Try this: Commit to taking a 15-minute walk after lunch, or at the end of your day, and see what happens to your stress levels. Of course, when you can fit in a longer walk, go for it. SleepMore and more studies are confirming the importance of regular, restful sleep for combatting the negative effects of stress and increasing total well-being. Getting restful sleep gives you the opportunity to repair and restore the mind-body system. With good sleep, you have better emotional regulation, stronger immunity, reduced pain, and decreased risk of many chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes. Poor sleep, whether in amount or in quality, is the precursor to many disease processes. A lack of restful sleep also disrupts your neurochemistry and can lead to worsening anxiety, depression, and pain. Try this: One important way to improve your sleep is to align your sleeping times with your circadian rhythms, which are your body’s own natural rhythms of mental and physical activity. These rhythms are aligned with nature’s rhythms, which means that when the sun rises, your body is naturally more awake and alert. When the sun sets, your body prepares for sleep by increasing the production of natural chemicals such as melatonin. You will enjoy more restful, restorative sleep if you are in bed by about 10:00 p.m., and wake up by 6:00 am. During this sleep time, your body can process all of the foods, experiences, and energy of the day and “digest” it, so you don’t carry it over into the next day. Of course, since often it is stressful feelings that interfere with sleep, using the other practices discussed in this article will help you reduce stress, and therefore, improve your sleep. Reduce Excessive StimulationYou live in such an overstimulated world that you sometimes may not even notice how much you’re bombarded with noise, information, music, bright lights, and other distractions. Now, it’s hard to enjoy even a moment of silence when you’re filling up your car since many gas stations have installed videos that automatically turn on with a loud commercial when you insert a credit card. The world is vying for your attention, and all of the information entering through your senses requires processing, which can lead to an increased stress response. Try this:By making a conscious choice to reduce unnecessary stimulation, you can stop the sensory overload and create greater calm in your mind-body system. Pay attention to how you feel when you spend time exposed to different forms of stimulation. If you find yourself feeling jangled after shopping at a mall or watching a violent movie, eliminate or limit these experiences in your life. Instead of leaving yourself at the mercy of your electronic devices, take steps to control their interruptions. For example, turn off your automatic email alert and the ringer on your phone, and set up regular times to check your messages instead. These are just a few suggestions for reducing sensory overload. Consider your environment at home, work, and anywhere you regularly spend time, and start making conscious choices to reduce the unnecessary and stress-provoking stimulation. This will help you experience more joy, balance, and peace of mind. Do Less and Be MoreIn this fast-paced and often manic society, it’s easy to focus too much on doing and not enough on being. Even though you are a human “being,” and not a human “doing,” the ego mind often takes over and defines success and happiness by what you accomplish. However, if you look around, you will find that the people who do less and let themselves be more actually seem less stressed. They appear more calm, peaceful, and happy. And if you could look into their bodies, you would see that they have fewer symptoms of chronic stress than their more harried counterparts, including less inflammation, greater hormonal balance, and lower blood pressure. Multitasking can also take a toll on your body-mind. A recent study by neuroscientists Kep Kee Loh and Ryota Kanai showed that people who reported engaging in high levels of media multitasking (defined as the concurrent use of multiple media devices, including mobile phones, laptops, and television) had decreased gray matter density in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain that processes emotions. Their research supports findings of earlier studies that found an association between high levels of media multitasking and a tendency for anxiety, depression, and other emotional difficulties. Try this: Look at your to-do list for the day and remove one of the items, choosing instead to use that time to just be. Sit quietly and notice the sensations in your body and then observe the activity of your mind without being attached to it. Or you can find a lovely spot outside and just become aware of everything entering you through your senses. What do you hear, feel, see, taste, and smell? After you’ve tried this for a few days or weeks, notice whether your feelings of stress have diminished. In the beginning, you may feel some resistance to this practice, but over time, you will find you crave these experiences of simply being. Keep a JournalOne of the best tools to reduce stress is journaling. Studies have found that writing about stressful events improves both physical and psychological health. There are many theories about why journaling helps to reduce stress. According to some researchers, when you have an experience you perceive as stressful and then ignore it or “stuff it”—or obsess and ruminate about it—you activate the stress response in your body and mind. If you write about the experiences instead, you can process what happened, keeping only what serves you and letting go of the rest. A regular journaling practice doesn’t need to take a lot of time. By spending only a few minutes journaling, you can reduce the energy of stress in your body and improve sleep, which, as discussed, is vital to your health. Journaling Tips:
Although these practices may seem too simple to be the answer to reducing stress, I encourage you to adopt them into your daily life and experience the benefits yourself. The small amount of time invested in these easy practices, some of which take almost no time at all, will begin to transform your mind-body from a state of stress to a state of relaxation. Ultimately, when the mind and body are calm, you are able to experience your underlying spiritual nature of happiness, wholeness, and bliss—and open up to your full human potential.
- See more at: http://www.chopra.com/ccl/7-simple-ways-to-de-stress?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=n%2Fa&utm_content=Newsletter%20150310&utm_campaign=March#sthash.1Qcy0wwd.dpuf http://www.chopra.com/ccl/7-simple-ways-to-de-stress?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=n%2Fa&utm_content=Newsletter%20150310&utm_campaign=March Your immune system is one of the most critical, and most fascinating, aspects of the mind-body connection. For a long time, the ability of immune cells to attack invading disease organisms was considered purely physical, even though the mechanism was not completely understood. Then, in the ‘80s it was discovered that the immune system is highly intelligent; it became known as “a floating brain” because of the ability of immune cells to participate in the chemical messages sent by the brain throughout the body. This means that your thoughts, moods, sensations, and expectations are transmitted to your immune cells. When you meditate, these messages change in important ways. Consider these research findings that offer very good news for anyone who mediates.
These findings bring into focus a clear message: Your response to potential illness, as managed by the immune system, improves with meditation. This is in keeping with another strong message. Being susceptible to chronic disorders like type-2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure, conditions that are not the result of invading microbes, is also reduced through meditation. The entire mind-body system is brought into a natural state of balance, the key to what I’ve called the higher health. Medical science proceeds through findings that provide reliable data, and we actively support such research at the Chopra Center. But your lifestyle isn’t a scientific experiment, of course, so what kind of program can you adopt that focuses specifically on preventing illness, especially in winter? Keep up regular meditation morning and evening. Reduce and avoid stress, since the immune system is easily compromised when stress hormones surge. Seriously address low-level chronic stresses that may be present at home or work. You are not helping your immune status by putting up with constant “minor” stress. Get adequate sleep, which is directly connected to brain function and hormone levels. Wash your hands several times a day, and always after direct contact with someone else’s skin. Doctors who make sure to wash their hands after seeing every patient reduce hospital-borne infections by more than 50 percent. What is the spring that is referred to in the name, “Bubbling Spring”? Kidney is the Yin Organ of the Water Element. Springs are where fresh water emerges from the ground. Water nourishes all life. When we bring conscious attention to Kidney 1 while standing on the ground, it is possible to receive energy directly from the Earth. The Kidney meridian becomes a passage way for Earth’s energy to rise from our feet all the way up to our chest. Along the way this Qi nourishes our legs, reproductive organs, digestive and urinary organs, lungs and heart. All of vital organs are infused by the nourishing energy of the Earth, transformed into flowing Qi of Water. http://bigtreehealing.com/kidney-1-bubbling-spring/ |