2010

December 2010 – Enjoy a blissed out holiday season

With the hustle and bustle of the holiday season fast approaching, it might be a good time to deepen your ability to drop into a state of relaxation and ease. These suggestions can help you make your way back to balance and tranquility.

1. Exhale. One of the best ways to bring yourself back down to earth is to lengthen your exhalations. This form of breathing encourages the nervous system to become calm and quiet, moving the body into a more restful state of being.

2. Focus your mind. Sometimes when the world sends us spinning, we want to do nothing more than drop into an easy chair and stare into space. But this approach often gives the brain free rein to continue its obsessive and agitated thinking. Instead, try focusing your mind in a constructive and engaging way: go for a brisk walk, do some strength training or practice a challenging yoga pose.

3. Minimize external stimulation. Turn off the television, unplug the telephone, and dim the lights – turn down the volume of your life, remembering that outer calm nurtures inner calm.

4. Substitute positive thoughts for negative ones. When we are disturbed by negative thought patterns, we can recover our balance by inviting peaceful thoughts into our minds. So the next time you find yourself reeling with an agonizing fear or a depressing thought, notice the negative habit, toss it out, and use your creativity to develop a more positive outlook on the world.

5. Seek out laughter. There’s nothing more stress-busting than a first-class belly laugh. Call your funniest friend, rent a comedy on video, read a book that makes you laugh or play with your kids or pets.

6. Practice, practice, practice. Like fine wine, relaxation improves over time. Even if you don’t happen to feel completely blissed-out today, you are priming the body for quiet and ease tomorrow. Repeatedly practicing these suggestions greases the wheel of relaxation, so you will be able to quickly and easily drop into a deep state of ease.

Ref: Yoga Journal

November 2010 – Exercise your way to a cold free winter

Keeping physically fit helps reduce the likelihood of falling sick with a cold, a new study suggests.

People in the study who got aerobic exercise five days a week or more for at least 20 minutes had more than a 40 per cent reduction in illness days compared with those who averaged one day of exercise per week or less.
Exercise not only reduces physical and emotional stress, it helps people sleep better. Physical activity also causes more immune cells to circulate through the body, where they are available to kill any viruses. “You just have a better capability to detect pathogens and kill them, and then that adds up over time to reducing illness rates,” the researchers said. And, the immune-boosting effect of exercise is in addition to its known benefits in fighting heart disease, stroke and cancer.

The actual effect of exercise on the immune system only lasts a few hours, which may be why the benefit was only seen in people who exercise at least five days a week. So, put on your woollies, lace up your winter runners, get some movement into your body and have a healthy, happy winter.

Ref. British Journal of Sports Medicine, November 2, 2010

October, 2010 – An ounce of prevention

We all hope to stay active and independent for the rest of our lives. And most of us want to stay in the familiar surroundings of our own homes and neighborhoods, rather than move to some form of assisted living. Fortunately, there are ways to help ensure that you never have to make such a choice. Addressing a handful of health risks at midlife can profoundly affect your ability to continue living independently. Here are some steps you can take–and recommend to friends and aging parents.

1. If you smoke, talk to your doctor about options for quitting. We all know that smoking is bad for health, but here’s a quick reminder of how bad: it’s harmful from before birth to the end of life, raising the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, and cataracts.

2. Become more active. Just 30 minutes of brisk walking five days per week reduces the risk of heart attack, stroke, and diabetes; lowers blood sugar levels; decreases depression; and helps activate genes that clear fat and sugar from the bloodstream. Upping your physical activity level to 60 to 90 minutes most days of the week can help you lose weight–and keep it off.

3. Improve your diet through some simple changes. Add more servings of dark green, red, orange, or yellow vegetables or fruits to your daily intake, with a goal of reaching nine servings per day. And switch to healthier fats: skip trans fats, choose fewer saturated fats, and get more healthy fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated oils and omega-3 fatty acids). Plant oils, nuts, and fish are all good sources.

4. Get your blood pressure under control. Exercise regularly, don’t smoke, and consider adopting the classic DASH eating plan, a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products and low in red meats (and other sources of saturated fats), sweets, and sodium (salt). The OmniHeart trial, published in 2005, showed that you can lower blood pressure even more by eating fewer carbohydrates and more healthy fats and protein. If improved diet and increased exercise alone don’t bring your blood pressure under control, prescription antihypertensive medications may help, as long as you take them consistently.

5. Talk to your doctor about bone mineral density (BMD) testing. All women ages 65 and over should have their BMD tested. If you’re at high risk for osteoporosis, your clinician may recommend screening at an earlier age. Be sure to get adequate calcium (1,000 to 1,200 mg per day) and vitamin D (800 to 1,000 IU per day).

Ref: Harvard Medical Publications

September 2010 – Which group are you?

People can be divided into three groups:

* those who make things happen
* those who watch things happen, and
* those who wonder what happened

John Newberg

August 2010 – Burn your way to fit and slim

Want to drop one pound just by walking? For every 3,500 calories you burn, you loose 1 pound. So if you weigh 150 pounds and walk at a 6.4 km/hr pace for an hour a day, a pound could be gone in just over 10 days — without dieting…provided you don’t eat more! Check out how much you’re burning every hour you walk:

July 2010 – Secrets for sticking to your goal

The Run for the Cure is coming up on October 3, 2010. There’s no better time than now to set a goal to walk or run 5km or 1km to fight breast cancer. These small steps help you stick to even b-i-g goals.

1. Make your goal doable. Make your immediate goal something you know you can do — if it’s just a 10-minute walk, fine. Don’t push yourself to the brink of exhaustion. Just do it, and aim to do slightly more every week. Eventually, you’ll achieve goals that first seemed beyond you.

2. Get in your face. The best way to do something regularly is to have constant reminders to do it. Have sneakers at home and at work. Put a chart on your fridge. Keep your goal in sight.

3. Seek out positive people. If your friends believe that exercise is a waste and are interested in only watching TV or going out for dessert, you’re going to have challenges sticking to your goals. Cultivate new friends, people who like being physically active, and suddenly getting active every day gets much easier.  A Personal trainer or Body Coach can also help you stick to your goals.

4. Put it in writing. You can have the best intentions in the world, but a funny thing happens as time passes. You don’t want to run or walk one morning, and then at the end of that week, you’ve walked or run five times instead of six or seven, and you tell yourself that’s still pretty good. Soon, three times a week is still pretty good, and you don’t remember your goal of at least five walks a week. That’s why it’s vital to write down your goals.

5. Avoid temptation. Whatever your guiltiest habit is, get everything related to it as far from yourself as possible. If your goal is to be fit and eat less junk, the best favour you can do yourself is to clear your house of junk food. Removing temptation does make a difference.

6. Recognize negative thinking patterns. There are a million varieties, but they all come down to the same issue: not existing in the here and now. Things get complicated when your mind starts focusing on the past or future, not the present. Maybe you say, “When I’ve lost 20 pounds, I’ll look good,” or “If I had started this a year ago, I’d really see progress now.” But these thoughts trick you into ignoring one reality: that anything you do happens one step at a time, starting with this moment.

7. Aim for no slips for 4 weeks. Once you’ve established a pattern, you can slip now and then and it won’t affect your overall success or motivation. But earlier slips interfere with forming a new habit. So for the first month, try extra hard to stick to your goals. If necessary, remind yourself that you will be allowed to deviate eventually. Sticking to something with no slips for 4 weeks is doable; doing it for life with no slips isn’t.

Adapted from Real Life

June 2010 – The S-L-O-W way to slim

A recent study published in the online version of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found some interesting results about the speed at which you eat. Researchers had study participants eat the same meal at varying speeds to determine how their body reacted. Hormone levels were measured before and after eating and participants’ feelings of hunger and fullness were noted. The researchers concluded that when participants ate quickly they had a harder time feeling full and wanted to eat more. This is because eating quickly curtails the release of hormones that bring about feelings of fullness. This decrease in our “feeling full” hormone levels often leads to overeating.

Here are some easy ways to slow down your eating habits:

* Pause before you eat to notice what you are about to eat and express gratitude
* Eat without distractions like watching TV, using the computer, reading, or driving, since when you are distracted, you don’t notice how fast you are eating and usually eat more
* Notice everything about your food, the colour, texture, temperature, aroma and, of course, the taste
* Chew your food thoroughly – 25 chews per mouthful
* Put down your knife & fork between each bite
* Sip water while you eat
* Eat sitting down in a pleasant relaxed environment
* Don’t eat out of a food container: serve your meal on a plate
* Don’t talk and eat at the same time
* Stop eating when you feel 80% full

And last, but not least, spend at least 20 minutes on your meal as it takes this long for your hormones to react and tell your brain that your body has had enough nourishment to meet its needs.

May 2010: BAFFL your way to happiness

Be Grateful – Every day, express gratitude. Take notice of that which is good in your life. Feel grateful that your heart is beating, that you are taking a breath, that you were given yet another day.

Accept – Perfection is your illusion. Accept that life can be hard and that few experiences or people will be exactly as you wish them to be.

Forgive – Find it in your heart to forgive others and yourself for mistakes, weaknesses, and shortcomings. Make the conscious decision to let go of the anger and regain yourself and your life.

Find Your Joy – Spend time each day doing what you love. Whether it is a new hobby or something you haven’t done for years. Take 11 minutes each day just for you.

Love your life – Practice compassion for yourself and all others everyday and see how this changes the way you see your life.

April 2010: Add some Spring to your workouts

Sometimes we get into fitness rut and hit a plateau after doing the same routine. Well, Spring is upon us and it may be time to rejuvenate your workouts. Try these suggestions to inject renewed energy into your workouts.

Are you coasting on your aerobic activities?
Repeatedly doing the same walk in the park or jog on the treadmill can sabotage your results. To truly boost your fitness – which enables you to burn more calories with less effort – you need to venture outside your comfort zone a couple of times a week, to the point where you can feel your heart rate increase.

Beginner
Instead of taking your regular walk in the park, add a few hills or increase the speed at which you walk. Start off at your regular pace and kick it up a notch for a minute or two, then go back to your regular pace. Repeat five times.

Intermediate/advanced
Similarly, zoning out on the treadmill by reading a magazine or watching TV will not challenge your aerobic fitness. Ditch the publication or turn off the tube, and then mix in some high-intensity intervals once or twice a week. For example, after warming up for 5 minutes on the treadmill, increase the speed or incline for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then recover with 1 to 3 minutes of an easy-to-moderate pace. Keep alternating for 15 to 20 minutes, then cool down.

Are you doing the same strength workout all the time?
If you do the same strength training routine over and over, your muscles will adapt. You’re likely to hit a plateau because each exercise stimulates only a limited number of muscles. However, if you challenge your muscles from a variety of angles by adding or alternating moves periodically, you’ll develop more strength and endurance.

For each muscle group, learn an additional 2 to 3 exercises, trying new angles or equipment. (It’s best to get instruction from a trainer, but there are also plenty of books and videos that will give you new ideas.) Expand your strength-training repertoire enough so that you can change your entire routine every 6 to 8 weeks.

Beginner
For instance, if you normally do two sets of 12 repetitions with 10-lb dumbbells, try increasing it to three sets. Or try two sets with 12-lb weights.

Intermediate/advanced
If you are currently using the chest-press machine, try using free weights like dumbbells or a barbell to do the chest press. Or change the movement to a chest “fly” which is more demanding and activates more muscle fibres.

Have you been doing the same-old, same-old?
It’s only natural to be intimidated by equipment you’ve never used or classes you’ve never taken. But venturing into new territory may be just the ticket to better results. If you’ve never tried strength training, ask a trainer to teach you a few dumbbell exercises. If you’ve shied away from a spinning class, hop on a bike. Getting past your fears also will give you a sense of accomplishment and confidence − and what could feel better than conquering the unknown?

References: Heart and Stroke Foundation

March 2010: Heart Healthy Month

What better time than Heart Health Month to start making changes to your food choices?  Here are some heart healthy food choices that can help you to lose weight, feel better, and boost your nutrition. It’s never too late to start on the road to better health.

February 2010: It’s all Invented

It’s all invented is a concept explored in The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander. If it’s all invented anyway, why not invent a story or a structure of meaning that enhances your quality of life? This way of thinking proposes that we can shift our view of the world to one where the underlying assumptions enable the conditions we desire. As new thoughts and actions arise from the new structure we can discover a new way of being: one that is more peaceful and in harmony with the way things are.

The stories or structures that our mind creates, define…and confine…what we perceive to be possible. Every story we tell ourselves is founded on a network of hidden assumptions based on our perceptions at the time. It’s all a story invented by us: not just some of it – all of it.

If you’d like to begin to shift the lens through which you view the world, try the following reflective practice with sense of curiosity and compassion. The next time you begin to invent a story based on your underlying assumptions that contain unwanted conditions, feelings, or attitudes, ask yourself:

What assumption am I making that I’m not aware that I’m making, that gives me what I see?

Then, ask yourself:

What might I now invent, that I haven’t yet invented, that would give me other choices?

Watch what happens as you begin to become more and more aware of how you have invented your world.

January 2010 – Inspiration in the Philosophy of Yoga

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

- Maharishi Patanjali (founder of yoga philosophy, c. 200 BC)

May 2010 bring you the realization of your wishes & dreams & the recognition that your body is your vehicle for awakening.

Empowering the Whole Person