Our MIND.

Think about it. Our mind is constantly fluctuating from one thought to another and perhaps, back to the original thought. The mind is always leading. Always demanding. Incessantly pointing us into various directions beyond our conscious will. Our mind might mislead us into negative thoughts periodically. Even whilst we are asleep, our mind directs us into dreams and nightmares.

Can our mind ever be calm, stable and clear? Why is it important and essential that we are to be calm and be able to achieve inner clarity in our mind?

All thoughts consume enormous amount of energy or “qi”. More so with negative and ill thoughts. They suck and sap away our life-force necessary for us to maintain wellness and sanity of our mind, body and spirit. Each single living moment, such negative energies or the qi are slowly and surely being drawn away from us; the qi we are so in need of to conserve our well-being, health and peace.

Pranayama is one very simple way to do it. And it does not take just a few minutes of each day for us to attain inner clarity and solace. Pranayama is a breathing practice used by yogis for centuries; proven to give each one of us who do it, harmony and balance within our ourselves and everything that evolves around us. Pranayama removes fluctuations of our mind, gives us immense inner clarity, stillness and peace within ourselves.

After each pranayama, we can observe the calmness of our breath and the silence of our mind. These are invaluable and easily obtainable gifts we can generously bestow upon ourselves if we cared to do this daily practice. We re-establish and re-balance our inner life-force and rejuvenate ourselves after the harsh beatings and polluted environment our mind, body and spirit continuously are subjected to on a daily basis.

Benefits are endless and these include -

-Hair will regrow within two months of practice;

-Body will go to it’s ideal weight by itself;

-Face becomes bright and luminous;

-Lost vision will return;

-Removes fear/anxiety of any kind -
- Aligns both hemisphere of the brain for full brain functionality
- Creates a deeper sense of well-being and harmony
- Helps alleviate migraines and headaches and frazzled states of being
- Works great in situations where you find yourself anxious, board and need grounding; and

-Blockages in the arteries of the heart are removed and the arteries become clean, making circulation unimpeded.

I strongly recommend to you to discover this sheer pleasure, state of bliss and this definite self-fulfilling, self-enriching journey into a peaceful, healthy and wealthy mind, body and spirit. A Wonderful And Meaningful Life.

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Great introduction to pranayama by reviewer who delivers workshops on these types of topics, March 13, 2007
Reviewer: Patrick D. Goonan “www.meaningful-life.us” (Pleasanton, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
I am a personal growth coach who is educated in biology, biochemistry, biofeedback and psychology. I give workshops on stress management, coach executives on this topic and also do workhshops that combine these techniques with biofeedback. This gives you some background on me and my perspective that I’m writing this review from.

As someone who works with these techniques and sees the results via biofeedback with myself and others, I highly recommend this very inexpensive book as a brief overview and introduction to the topic. The author covers a lot of ground in a small space and the instructions are clear and simple.

If you practice these exercises as they are explained, they will cause effects in your physiology. Regulation of the breath is very tied to the nervous system and to heart rate variability which correlates with resilience. If you buy this book and get serious about a practice, I would pick up some additional material to augment this text such as the SCIENCE OF BREATH and THE LIGHT ON PRANAYAMA. The first of these is a more Western explanation by a respected yoga institute and the second is a classic text with a lot of detail.

I also highly recommend getting a home biofeedback program such as FreezeFramer or Healing Rhythms. You can read the descriptions of each and determine what is best for your needs. However, this additional step will really heighten your awareness and help you to develop more control over your internal states.

Excellent., February 10, 2007
Reviewer: Sanjay Raj “OmsDaddy” (Woodbridge, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
i still need to learn more to understand completely the given material, but a very lucid book and a good source.

Valuable Book, February 24, 2006
Reviewer: Manish A. Patel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Instead of wasting money on Iyengar’s books, this is safer, simple way of doing PRANAYAMA. This book is worth it’s weight in gold.

Alternet Nostril Breathing is the best for weight loss, however Ujjaini works, too, but little slowly.

Following are two techniques:
Alternate Nostril Breathing
(Anulom Vilom Pranayama with no breath retention) This pranayama (control breathing) is done with alternate breathing from the left and right nostrils for cleansing of Nadis. (energy meridians). Seated in a convenient posture, start off with slow inhalation from the left nostril first by closing the right nostril with the middle of right hand thumb ,and after fully filling the lungs, (not the belly breathing) breathe out slowly from the right nostril by closing the left nostril with the two ( left hand middle and ring) fingers. Now breathe in from the right nostril by closing the left nostril in the above manner and exhale from the left nostril by closing the right nostril with the right thumb. It completes one cycle. Do this for three minutes for two months then gradually increase to 5 minutes.

Do it two hour after eating or drinking. (Do it on empty-stomach) Do not eat for 15 minute after you are done. Better to lie down for five minutes after you are done. If you limit practice to maximum of five minutes, it will be the best.

The very first sign you will experience is lightness in the body and clearer thinking.

The practice of this breathing for a period of three to four months can open up thirty to forty percent of the heart arteries’ blockages. This pranayama alleviates all the diseases of the body, leads to the state of joy, enthusiasm for living , fearlessness, peace of mind and deep meditation.

Benefits:
-Hair will regrow within two months of practice.
-Body will go to it’s ideal weight by itself.
-Face becomes bright and luminous.
-Lost vision will return.
-Removes fear/anxiety of any kind.
- Aligns both hemisphere of the brain for full brain functionality
- Creates a deeper sense of well-being and harmony
- Helps alleviate migraines and headaches and frazzled states of being
- Works great in situations where you find yourself anxious, board and need grounding
-Blockages in the arteries of the heart are removed and the arteries become clean, making circulation unimpeded.

Ujjayi Pranayama

1. You can do this sitting, standing or walking anywhere anytime.

2. Inhale slowly through both nostrils, keeping the throat slightly constricted so as to make a gentle sound that will help you to feel the breath in the throat. The sound will remind you of ocean waves washing up the beach. Concentrate on the feeling of the breath moving in and out through the throat.

3. During inhalation do not allow abdomen to bulge out, let the chest expand.

4. After completing inhalation slowly exhale. (Either by both nostrils or by left nostril) During exhalation chest should go inside and abdomen should remain steady.

Remember :-

1. While doing Ujjiayi air should touch the throat.

2. Breath must be mentally locked in chest area. (Do not do belly breathing)

3. After practicing it for few days, knowing your limitations, keep the ratio between inhalation and exhalation 1 : 2.

4. In easy Ujjiayi Pranayama, inhalation and exhalation can be practiced by both the nostrils.

Benefits:
This simple practice has a subtle influence on the whole body. It calms the mind and has a soothing effect on the nervous system. Ujjayi is very useful for people with high blood pressure as it slows down the heartbeat. It has subtle effects on the flow of life force in the astral (energy) body and helps you to be aware of its movement within the sushumna (astral spine).

Video 1 Kapalbhati Pranayama - BSK Lyengar Pranayama

Video 2 - narrated in Tamil - Kapalbhati Pranayama - An ancient way to keep an individual’s body fit. 3:56 minutes running time

Video 3 - Conscious breathing - 2:28 minutes running time

Video 4 - Pranayama with Masterji II - 7:27 minutes running time - Change your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies through simple, focused yogic breathing techniques. Enjoy the first 2 beginners lessons of this dynamic yogic breathing instructional dvd - Brought to you by yoga.india.yogeleme.

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Wellness. This is such an important thing to have. It is something so priceless. People pay loads of money to achieve a state of wellness. A simple yet forgotten way to go down the path of wellness is to ensure our colon health that is one of the keys to our wellness. It only take just a little time and we can receive abundant positive improvement in our health.

In our years leading to today and moving on into the future, we are literally taking in plenty of undesirable elements found in food that we consume. Slowly and surely, toxins and layers of food residue line our colon. As this layer thickens over the years, we come heavier and our health problem multiples and increases. Problems such as colon cancer, flatulence, cholesterol, colon discomfort, constipation, diarrhea, and occasional pains in the intestinal tract can be eradicated with this simple cleansing habit. For anyone who has yet to cleanse his or her colon, do make it a habit to do so. One will immediately find that his or her weight will come down and after a short while, the weight can be maintained. Nutritional absorption will vastly improves and unhealthy conditions would heal.

There are a number of ways to cleanse the colon. Methods include forced passing of water up into the colon and drinking cleansing formal available in the marketplace. The best way is really to have a natural process of cleansing. I use a specific yoga cleansing practice combined with consuming a natural product in the morning on an empty stomach. Since then, I don’t any uncomfortable conditions including adding on weight, stomach pains, constipation, stomach aches and other abdominal and intestinal related concerns. For friends whom I have recommended colon cleansing, they have also found tremendous benefits and weight control.

Try it now to realize that such a simple habit of colon cleansing can bring enormous benefits in health leading to overall wellness of body, mind and spirit.

Think about the following sayings.

The old proverb put it this way: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” The Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius put this yet another way:

“As thy thoughts are so will thy mind be also; for the soul takes its coloring from thought.”

“If you are pained by an external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you―but your judgment about it.” (The Meditations, 160 AD).

For those who come by to visit my blog, who are much more conversant in Cantonese and would like to know what NLP is in Cantonese, here are 4 videos covering different aspects of the subject by Cheung Wai Tsz. Enjoy the programs.

Video 1 NLP in General.

Video 2 - Part 1 張慧慈 講NLP - 建立完善結構的結局 (第七集)Part 1

Video 3 - Part 2 張慧慈 講NLP - 建立完善結構的結局 (第七集)Part 2

Video 4 - NLP and Self-Confidence 張慧慈談自信

I have meant to post this writing up a few weeks ago and I did not get down to doing so. Reason was merely that I was not inspired to do it yet!! Now I reckoned would be the right time. heehee.

Each one of us operate on a primary mode of being a visual (sight) person, kinestatic (feeling / emotional), auditory (hearing), or digital auditory (logic).

First of all, “Visual”. A visual person will think “visually”. He would paint a picture in his mind and think of colors before he or she decides to do something or answers a question. To move such a person, we will have to employ words like “think for the colors”, “look at the lyrics of the song”, visualized the applicability of that idea”.

Kinestatic. This person is particularly into feeling most of the time. He or she has to dig deep into his or her feeling to be able to react to a situation or an question. Operative words or phrases would be “feel this richness in the texture”, “touch the surface and you will notice…”, “embrace this idea”.

Auditory. He or she is primarily into using his or her hearing ability more than using imagination or getting into an emotional state to respond. To speak to this person in order for his or her ease of understanding, we will have to use words like “do you hear me?”, “I heard what you are saying”, “that sounds like a great idea”, “I want you to hear me out”.

Digital auditory. This person has to dig very deep into himself or herself for a rational and logical reason. Such a person will most likely be into accountancy, quality assurance and control, research, audit. Words applicable to establish rapport and understanding are “dig deeply into yourself and find me an answer”, “discover the reason that resides in you”, “deep within you, lies the motivation”.

The following video demonstrates how we could discover which category a right-handed person would would fall into. It holds true most of the time. Try it and you will discover the language to getting into rapport and establishing understanding.

Imagine, using the visual words on a child when he or she is auditory. That would not work. In addition, this child if asked to read a book, will not be able to understand what was written fast enough. Give him or her an audio disc and this child will getting into what is being communicated instantly.

Just imagine talking to an artist who is most likely visual and use the auditory digital or auditory words. Rapport is bound for failure.

Many couples could not understand each other because the exchange of the words used were all wrong. Visualize how effective the husband and wife could understand and rightly respond to each other, if they could only know how to use the right words on each other.

Try it. Watch TV and watch the actor’s or actress’ eye movement when certain questions were asked. How our unconscious mind tell the truth about ourselves. Interesting….watch for future thoughts on this subject.

Video - Eye Patterns

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl9sOYPT5UY]

Now, let’s take just a moment to think. Is it our brain who acts funny when we refuse to want to do something? Or is it our physically self that become resistant to doing it? Or is it the way we are wired up that we form states in response to situations that we are not encouraged to what to do something? The subject is mind-twisting. Read how Dr. Michael Hall looks at it and how he intrigues us with his perspective of the brain and how it triggers us into certain states. A very provocation article, one of many of his.

By L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., cognitive psychologist, international NLP trainer, entrepreneur; prolific author and international training; developer of Meta-States and co-developer of Neuro-Semantics. www.neurosemantics.com.

The Brain Game
How Do We Run Our Own Brain?

Brains follow directions. They take the directions that you give them and they follow them.

“John, did you see that red, white and blue cat yesterday? Yes, red, white and blue― in fact, the American Flag colors were bright red, white, and blue. Someone in the neighborhood must have thought it would be a patriotic thing to do. Where did I see it? On Linda’s yellow car. It was being chased by a pair of French Poodles across the greenbelt by the swimming pool. That was just before King Kong climbed to the top of the school and beat his chest at the circling plane.”

Provide a little description and the brain goes to work representing the information on our internal mental screen. Like a movie director, brains use the information as instructions for our mental Cinema. This explains why the following are very important questions for our states:

What directions are you giving your brain?

What are the default instructions that you’ve learned to give your brain?

What instructions did your parents or teachers provide you about yourself, life, others, etc.?

How useful, ecological, healthy, balanced, valuable, true, etc. are those instructions?

Do those instructions create empowering states for you?

Would you want to give those instructions to your children?

Do they map out an exciting and loving life?

Why are these questions so important? Because the quality of our lives is a function of the quality of the information processed by our brain. The quality of that information flows from the quality of its instructions. The most important thing you do in life then are the instructions that you give your brain. Are the instructions those that you would use to create a world-class movie?

Recently a young man wrote to me.

“I’m an extremely shy person. When I see a social situation, I avoid it because I say to myself that I’ll have nothing to say and that I’ll be a complete idiot because they will find me boring, then I’ll feel depressed. So I just don’t go. Every time I make a mistake, I feel stupid, then depressed. And that’s what causes me to procrastinate. It’s really stupid, and I know better, and I see it causing me to produce sub-optimally. I feel like these are insurmountable problems….”

I copied the words from the email, cut and pasted them back into my reply. I then asked him to step back from the words and view them as brain instructions.

“Just pretend for a moment that these are instructions for your brain. Are these ideas healthy or sick ones? Would you recommend this way of thinking? Suppose the most popular kid at the university thought this way. How much of a party would these instructions make his or her life?”

There’s a principle in this. Namely, feed your brain toxic ideas and you enter into a toxic world. Your brain will go there because that’s what brains do. Brains go places. Just this week I caught a Brain (thank God it wasn’t mine) going to “Worst Case Scenario!” The person was talking about terrorism in the world. He then entertained unimaginable scenarios. Then he freaked out. Then he said, “This shouldn’t happen!”

And I can tell you, these instructions did not put him in a very resourceful state.

Brains use words, pictures, sounds, tones, volumes, smells, tastes, all kinds of things as the basis for swishing us places. Mention a word and off your brain goes. But where? It depends on your learning history, experiences, memories, imaginations, hopes, etc. Brains are phenomenal at linking things. They do so very, very quickly. Actually, this is one of the chief problems we have with our brains. The problem is not that they don’t learn, but that they learn too quickly. It’s just what they learn that often times is just not true or useful.

Brains are also incredible instruments that never shut down. Even in sleep, we dream as brain wave activity continues. This becomes a problem if we don’t give the brain lots of interesting things to process. The stimulus hunger of brains will trigger them to play the old B-rated movies or hallucinate freely.

Cartoon Video - Anatomy Of The Brain

Video - A Scientific Way To Look At The Brain

An inspiring story about 1000 marbles.

1000 Marbles

by: Unknown Author

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps
it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to
rise, of maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at
work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning
are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the kitchen, with a
steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in
the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned
into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from
time to time.

Let me tell you about it. I turned the volume up on my radio
in order to listen to a Saturday morning talk show. I heard an
older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the kind,
he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business
himself.

He was talking about “a thousand marbles” to someone named
“Tom”. I was intrigued and sat down to listen to what he had
to say. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your
job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to
be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a
young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a
week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter’s
dance recital. ” He continued, “Let me tell you something Tom,
something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my
own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his
theory of a “thousand marbles.”

“You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.
The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know,
some live more and some live less, but on average, folks
live about seventy-five years.” “Now then, I multiplied 75
times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of
Saturdays that the average person has in their entire
lifetime.

“Now stick with me Tom, I’m getting to the important part.
“It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about
all this in any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I
had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. “I
got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only
had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. “So I went to
a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended
up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles.
“I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear
plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio.
Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and
thrown it away.

“I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused
more on the really important things in life. There is nothing
like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get
your priorities straight. “Now let me tell you one last thing
before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for
breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of
the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then
God has blessed me with a little extra time to be with my
loved ones…… “It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you
spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you
again someday. Have a good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the
show’s moderator didn’t have anything to say for a few moments.
I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to
do some work that morning, then go to the gym. Instead, I went
upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m
taking you and the kids to breakfast.” “What brought this on?”
she asked with a smile. “Oh, nothing special,” I said. ” It has
just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with
the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I
need to buy some marbles.”

How many marbles do you have?

This is something good that I wish to share.

Why Love Heals: How Friendships Keep You Healthy

By Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, MD
Getting Connected

There is an actual, physical chunk of brain that runs your emotions called the limbic brain. You can trace its development back a hundred million years. You can see it on an MRI. Every second you spend with other people, your limbic brain is tuning in to them, being changed by their moods, and changing theirs in turn. It’s a constant, life-affirming limbic dance.

Experimental psychologists have known for decades that we share moods. If you don’t believe me, just think of the people who make you feel better simply by walking into a room. These sorts of interactions feel so good (directly and unconsciously) that we would wither away without them. This is why you should never underrate the emotional side of your life.

Women are better than men at keeping the limbic dance going by working to ensure that families stay connected as the years go by and by building lasting friendships and deep connections from the many different aspects of their lives. High school and college friends, friends from work, friends from raising children together, from neighborhood committees, from shared vacations — sure, some of these bonds and friendships fall away as part of the natural cycle of growing and changing, but most women find new friendships to replace them. Women who don’t find close friendships, who have trouble keeping up connections, need to make an effort to change those patterns.

Hundreds of research studies confirm that isolation hurts us and connection heals us through the same physical mechanisms as exercise and healthy diet. Blood vessels are measurably more elastic, the heart’s ability to respond to extraordinary demands is higher, cardiac inflammatory protein levels are lower, and blood pressure response to exercise is better in more connected people. Their stress-hormone blood profiles are also measurably healthier than those of isolated people.

Building a Community

Sadly, I see people in my medical practice who give up on connection, who stop living years before they die. These are women and men who feel so overwhelmed by the prospect of getting out and building new connections that they stop trying. Our society — with its emphasis on the traditional family structure and the workplace as centers of social togetherness — doesn’t help matters. People who lack either of those have to work doubly hard. But the consequences of not making connections are so devastating that you cannot allow yourself to retreat into isolation. The stakes are too high. A study of more than 4,000 women and men in Alameda County, California, showed a direct link between the size of one’s social circle and survival, with larger circles bringing ever-greater longevity. Women with fewer than six regular contacts outside the house had significantly higher rates of blocked coronary arteries, were more likely to be obese and have diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression, and were two and a half times more likely to die over the course of the study than those with an extensive social network.

Having either a good marriage or just one close friend cuts the risk of mortality by a third, and the benefit increases the more your circle broadens. It’s reassuring to note that both quality and quantity count. Some people have a few close friends or family members, while others have a broad network of involvement with their community. Either works well, though it’s best to have both.

Talk to any nurse about how much it matters for patients to have visitors in the hospital — about the difference in outcome for those people who have a steady stream of visitors, a wall covered with get-well cards, flowers obscuring the monitors and tubing. But the thing is, you can’t wait until trouble strikes to build your community. You have to work at it day after day, make the calls, make the effort, be the hospital visitor years before you need one yourself.

I’m lucky that no one in my own family has ever shied away from making these kinds of efforts. I couldn’t imagine any other way until I became a doctor and saw the isolation in so many people’s lives, particularly as they age. My mother and father each care deeply about building their passions and connections. They work hard at staying in touch with friends, and they’re critically important people in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives. They have made living, caring, and connecting their jobs.

Optimism is an extraordinary limbic resource and is available to everyone because it’s a learned skill. You can decide to be optimistic with remarkable success. Not Pollyanna optimistic, but glass-half-full optimistic, and it’s worth the effort. Women who are optimistic about motherhood before pregnancy have a much lower risk of postpartum depression. Optimistic women have lower mortality rates from cancer and heart disease. It seems to help to approach illness with a positive, optimistic attitude, which may lower blood pressure and improve immune function. You recover from bypass surgery faster and better, you get out of bed sooner after back surgery, and you go back to work and regular exercise sooner. Anger doubles your risk of heart disease. But perceiving your work as satisfying cuts your risk of heart disease in half.

Finding Satisfaction in Life

Generations ago, extended families provided rich, lifelong limbic safety nets and connections to the group. In the days before TV, telephones, electric lights, and convenience stores, this wasn’t a choice. There was nothing to do but be within a group. The great gift of traditional societies was that you were a necessary part of the community your whole life. Okinawans, a group of people living on an island off the coast of Japan, have the greatest documented longevity of any population on earth, and in their culture older people are integral parts of the community until they draw their last breath. At 90, or 100, they are respected for their life experience and are relevant to the group.

It seems as if that model is vanishing from the planet. But our society still has all those limbic connections — you just have to find them and put them together for yourself. For those who are frantically busy with work, the office can be an important source of connection and gratification, which helps to explain why increasing numbers of Americans of both sexes are choosing to work past retirement. Sometimes this is for financial reasons, of course, but sometimes it’s due to the increasing recognition that work has a value beyond the paycheck. Part of the value is simply in the structure — in having a reason to get out of the house in the morning. Part of the value is in the social interactions that come automatically with most jobs. And part of it is the importance of still having a role in the tribe: a defined niche in the great social order.

There are other pathways to connectedness, too, such as spirituality. A search for meaning is too profound and personal for facile advice giving, but we do know that for limbic reasons alone you should be on the journey. The growing number of reasonably well-done studies on spirituality point to its importance in our lives for both mental and physical health. Many people who search for meaning in their lives and their experience via religion or spirituality survive loss, cancer, and heart disease better and have healthier immune chemistry and lower risks of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease than those who do not.

People who report that faith is an important part of their lives have higher levels of life satisfaction and emotional well-being. You can decide for yourself how much of the positive effect stems from the increased social connections offered by organized religion and how much is from something ineffable, but the simple message is that it is important to look for the meaning in your life’s experience.

Every single human being on the planet craves limbic connections. We just need to head out the door to build them. The tide of social atrophy — of limbic decay — is not that strong. It’s just remorselessly steady. The ultimate message is swim against the tide, every day. If you work at it steadily, it is almost impossible to fail.

Let’s give love in abundance and we can be absolutely sure that we will receive love many times over.

This is something good that I wish to share.

Why Love Heals: How Friendships Keep You Healthy

By Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, MD
Getting Connected

There is an actual, physical chunk of brain that runs your emotions called the limbic brain. You can trace its development back a hundred million years. You can see it on an MRI. Every second you spend with other people, your limbic brain is tuning in to them, being changed by their moods, and changing theirs in turn. It’s a constant, life-affirming limbic dance.

Experimental psychologists have known for decades that we share moods. If you don’t believe me, just think of the people who make you feel better simply by walking into a room. These sorts of interactions feel so good (directly and unconsciously) that we would wither away without them. This is why you should never underrate the emotional side of your life.

Women are better than men at keeping the limbic dance going by working to ensure that families stay connected as the years go by and by building lasting friendships and deep connections from the many different aspects of their lives. High school and college friends, friends from work, friends from raising children together, from neighborhood committees, from shared vacations — sure, some of these bonds and friendships fall away as part of the natural cycle of growing and changing, but most women find new friendships to replace them. Women who don’t find close friendships, who have trouble keeping up connections, need to make an effort to change those patterns.

Hundreds of research studies confirm that isolation hurts us and connection heals us through the same physical mechanisms as exercise and healthy diet. Blood vessels are measurably more elastic, the heart’s ability to respond to extraordinary demands is higher, cardiac inflammatory protein levels are lower, and blood pressure response to exercise is better in more connected people. Their stress-hormone blood profiles are also measurably healthier than those of isolated people.

Building a Community

Sadly, I see people in my medical practice who give up on connection, who stop living years before they die. These are women and men who feel so overwhelmed by the prospect of getting out and building new connections that they stop trying. Our society — with its emphasis on the traditional family structure and the workplace as centers of social togetherness — doesn’t help matters. People who lack either of those have to work doubly hard. But the consequences of not making connections are so devastating that you cannot allow yourself to retreat into isolation. The stakes are too high. A study of more than 4,000 women and men in Alameda County, California, showed a direct link between the size of one’s social circle and survival, with larger circles bringing ever-greater longevity. Women with fewer than six regular contacts outside the house had significantly higher rates of blocked coronary arteries, were more likely to be obese and have diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression, and were two and a half times more likely to die over the course of the study than those with an extensive social network.

Having either a good marriage or just one close friend cuts the risk of mortality by a third, and the benefit increases the more your circle broadens. It’s reassuring to note that both quality and quantity count. Some people have a few close friends or family members, while others have a broad network of involvement with their community. Either works well, though it’s best to have both.

Talk to any nurse about how much it matters for patients to have visitors in the hospital — about the difference in outcome for those people who have a steady stream of visitors, a wall covered with get-well cards, flowers obscuring the monitors and tubing. But the thing is, you can’t wait until trouble strikes to build your community. You have to work at it day after day, make the calls, make the effort, be the hospital visitor years before you need one yourself.

I’m lucky that no one in my own family has ever shied away from making these kinds of efforts. I couldn’t imagine any other way until I became a doctor and saw the isolation in so many people’s lives, particularly as they age. My mother and father each care deeply about building their passions and connections. They work hard at staying in touch with friends, and they’re critically important people in their children’s and grandchildren’s lives. They have made living, caring, and connecting their jobs.

Optimism is an extraordinary limbic resource and is available to everyone because it’s a learned skill. You can decide to be optimistic with remarkable success. Not Pollyanna optimistic, but glass-half-full optimistic, and it’s worth the effort. Women who are optimistic about motherhood before pregnancy have a much lower risk of postpartum depression. Optimistic women have lower mortality rates from cancer and heart disease. It seems to help to approach illness with a positive, optimistic attitude, which may lower blood pressure and improve immune function. You recover from bypass surgery faster and better, you get out of bed sooner after back surgery, and you go back to work and regular exercise sooner. Anger doubles your risk of heart disease. But perceiving your work as satisfying cuts your risk of heart disease in half.

Finding Satisfaction in Life

Generations ago, extended families provided rich, lifelong limbic safety nets and connections to the group. In the days before TV, telephones, electric lights, and convenience stores, this wasn’t a choice. There was nothing to do but be within a group. The great gift of traditional societies was that you were a necessary part of the community your whole life. Okinawans, a group of people living on an island off the coast of Japan, have the greatest documented longevity of any population on earth, and in their culture older people are integral parts of the community until they draw their last breath. At 90, or 100, they are respected for their life experience and are relevant to the group.

It seems as if that model is vanishing from the planet. But our society still has all those limbic connections — you just have to find them and put them together for yourself. For those who are frantically busy with work, the office can be an important source of connection and gratification, which helps to explain why increasing numbers of Americans of both sexes are choosing to work past retirement. Sometimes this is for financial reasons, of course, but sometimes it’s due to the increasing recognition that work has a value beyond the paycheck. Part of the value is simply in the structure — in having a reason to get out of the house in the morning. Part of the value is in the social interactions that come automatically with most jobs. And part of it is the importance of still having a role in the tribe: a defined niche in the great social order.

There are other pathways to connectedness, too, such as spirituality. A search for meaning is too profound and personal for facile advice giving, but we do know that for limbic reasons alone you should be on the journey. The growing number of reasonably well-done studies on spirituality point to its importance in our lives for both mental and physical health. Many people who search for meaning in their lives and their experience via religion or spirituality survive loss, cancer, and heart disease better and have healthier immune chemistry and lower risks of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease than those who do not.

People who report that faith is an important part of their lives have higher levels of life satisfaction and emotional well-being. You can decide for yourself how much of the positive effect stems from the increased social connections offered by organized religion and how much is from something ineffable, but the simple message is that it is important to look for the meaning in your life’s experience.

Every single human being on the planet craves limbic connections. We just need to head out the door to build them. The tide of social atrophy — of limbic decay — is not that strong. It’s just remorselessly steady. The ultimate message is swim against the tide, every day. If you work at it steadily, it is almost impossible to fail.

Let’s give love in abundance and we can be absolutely sure that we will receive love many times over.

For those mums to be, take a look at this interesting video of a mother during childbirth using hypnotherapy to help her deal with a much easier period of pregnancy as well pain during childbirth.

The video and the link do provide more information.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA7Y_DnC_kA]

Yes…be just like this bird and reach for the sky.

www.postpalace.com

I am back!! Just to post this and will come back soon.

Be like this illuminated Teddy Bear. Cheerful as ever and still smiling much more. Never give up and let’s spare a thought and kindness for all living creatures on this Earth especially, those displaced by all sorts of act done onto them by the human kind.

www.postpalace.com

Hoodia. What is that you might ask?

Its full name is Hoodia Gordonii. It is a cactus-like plant, succulent and bitter in taste. The plant originates from the southern parts of Africa; in the wild in the Kalahari Dessert. It has a history of thousands of years and has been a faithful companion for the African tribesmen to withstand long periods of hunger and thirst for days while they left their homes for hunting trips.

How does this nature’s wonder does what it does? Hoodia has an active ingredient known as P57 molecule that fools the hypothalamus into getting the stomach to perceive as being “full”; similar to the same effect that glucose creates. Glucose raises the blood sugar level, signaling to the brain that you are full. Hoodia provides the same effect.

For those who require a little helping hand, Hoodia might be just the answer to give a little boost to start loosing that excessive stubborn weight that you have been trying to rid of for a while. Although chewing on parts of the plant is difficult to accept because of the bitter taste, there are a number of convenient ways now. Capsules and pills are just one of them. These will reduce cravings for cream, sugar, tit-bits, snacks and unnecessary consumption that we can do without. You can read more about Hoodia appetite suppressant. This particular product come in the form of Hoodia Gordonii diet pills.

Do keep in mind though, a complete wellness program is just not about losing weight. It is about fitness and being well. Integrating our mind, body and spirit is ultimating the balance we want to achieve. It has to be coupled with exercise, eating well, with the right amount of calories for you and vitamins and minerals. And very importantly, using breathing techniques (pranayama) to calm our frequent busy conscious mind. Furthermore, in today’s world of extensive processed foods, we do not received appropriate amounts of vitamins and minerals. Therefore, take the appropriate and balanced amount of supplements that our bodies require together with our wellness program.

No excuse not to exercise. This following is a short office desk workout or at home. All it takes is 15 minutes. Check out the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKCPcRcJmqc]

Everyone of us exists in many parts. When it comes to decision-making, the parts show up very obviously. Self-questioning like, ” Do I buy the car or not. I love it but I am not quite sure if I should.” Watching the language is an quite easy to identify the parts exist. The use of the word “BUT” shows that the person has a conflict within.

Many a time we are at such crossroads. Multi-personalities are extreme cases of parts.

NLP and hypnotherapy both do have an intervention that helps to resolve conflicting roles within a person. The intervention is known as “Parts Integration”.

The following video shows how the induction is done. Mind you, the person undergoing the induction is fully aware of what is going on and what is being said to him. Therefore, there is no trick or mind-control. He is purely in a heightened state of deep relaxation.

Enjoy the Video and give feedback / comments if you can.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TklwRDt8pDc]