MOSQUITO BITES

Home Remedies For Mosquito Bites On Babies BY LILY ALLEN, PREVENT DISEASE 

Mosquitoes are ubiquitous and it is very challenging to prevent bites without the application of topical agents. In addition to practicing prevention with environmental deterrents, there are many natural home remedies for mosquito bites on babies. They are simple and very effective.

Below are top natural home remedies for mosquito bites on babies.

Baking Soda

One of the most popular home remedies for mosquito bites on babies is baking soda which is inexpensive. Its alkaline characteristics are beneficial for restoring the pH level on the skin and reducing itchiness quickly.
• One teaspoon of baking soda should be dissolved in 1 cup of water.
• A clean cloth needs to be dipped in it and placed over itchy areas for about 10-15 minutes.

Lemon

With anesthetic and anti-inflammatory properties, lemon is one of the simplest and most effective home remedies for mosquito bites on babies.
• A lemon should be cut into 2 pieces and rubbed over affected areas.
• Alternatively, you can use freshly squeezed lemon juice to rub over the skin.

Salt

Also being anti-inflammatory and antiseptic, sea salt is another effective home remedy for mosquito bites on babies which you can find immediately in the kitchen. Simply use the sea salt water to clean the skin areas bitten by mosquitoes. You can also combine garlic salt and water to get better results.

Garlic

When a baby’s skin becomes swollen due to mosquito bites, a soothing ingredient like garlic helps. It has been used commonly to cope with swelling and itchiness for years. Furthermore, the strong smell of garlic will deter mosquitoes.
• Rub garlic over areas bitten by mosquitoes.
• Several minutes later, use water to clean the skin.

Aloe Vera

Known as a natural antiseptic agent, aloe vera is one of the best home remedies for mosquito bites on babies. Not only is it beneficial for the skin, but it is also effective in treating swelling, itchiness and pain.
• Keep the gel in the fridge 10-15 minutes to make it cold first.
• Then, apply it immediately over areas affected.

Ice

The coldness of ice cubes will prevent inflammatory substances from distributing to areas bitten by mosquitoes. As a result, your babies will not feel pain or itchy any more. Ice is really one of the simplest, but most effective home remedies for mosquito bites on babies.
• Hold some ice cubes in a clean cloth.
• Dab it over the skin in approximately 15 minutes.

Toothpaste

Toothpaste can be dabbed directly over areas bitten by mosquitoes to reduce the itchy and painful feeling within a short period of time. Stick to holistic varieties free of fluoride and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

Honey

A variety of applications of honey in the medical world come from its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory qualities. Spreading a thin layer of honey on a mosquito bite soothes and curbs inflammation.

Apple Cider Vinegar

With its alkaline nature, apple cider vinegar can be regarded as one of the greatest home remedies for mosquito bites. However, it should be diluted in warm water and the mixture should be applied sparingly to babies.

Tea Bags

Last but not least, used tea bags work thanks to the high content of tannins which are astringent. Tea bags can reduce itchiness quickly by removing fluids in the bite.

Meditation

Meditation is Essentially Addressing this One Point.

Via Travis May on May 2, 2016

The reason that we cannot simply be present is that we have a habituated impulse to act—to lunge forward to what’s next, to find that one thing out there that we need to be okay.

It’s as if we are constantly seeking to fill a hole in ourselves, in our heart. Something isn’t quite right and we constantly reach out to finally find that missing link that will make us feel whole.

In this way, we are forever experiencing a sense of lack. We feel as if there is something that isn’t quite right and that there is always something that we need to do to correct this feeling.

The word that is used in traditional Buddhist teachings to describe this feeling is trishna. If you have read traditional Buddhist teachings you may recognize that word from the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths, or perhaps a better translation is the The Four Truths of the Noble One (the Buddha) were the first teachings that the Buddha offered after reaching enlightenment. They describe our predicament of feeling this constant sense of unease, or dissatisfaction (the first truth). They explain the cause (the second truth) and cessation (the third truth) of this suffering, and finally the path to be liberated from it (the fourth truth).

The best translation in English of the cause of discontent (trishna) seems to be grasping. It is that habituated impulse to act, that feeling that we need to do something. Essentially, it is the feeling that something is not quite right with things as they are right now, and we must jump ahead and find a way to fill or cover what is missing.

The thing about desire, in this sense, is that it is never actually about the object of desire, and so it is never fulfilled. Desire is a mentality that only strengthens the act of desiring, and when one object is obtained the craving impulse simply shifts to a different object. In this way, we never, or ever only briefly, feel satiated.

In shamatha meditation practice, we begin to work with this impulse. Sakyong Mipham once told a group of us meditating at Shambhala Mountain Center in the Colorado that the main thing we are working with in our mindfulness-awareness meditation practice is breaking habit.

We have the simple object of meditation—feeling our body breathing—and when we are distracted by a thought or sensory perception, we notice and gently, but deliberately, return our attention to the feeling of our body breathing.

After doing that over and over and over again. we begin to be able to relax more and more into our present experience and ever more subtly work with that impulse to escape the moment.

In this way, meditation is seemingly akin to a type of behavioral therapy, using psychological terms. There isn’t anything particularly mystical or religious about this practice, although the experience can seem deeply satisfying and profound.

But, we are essentially retraining ourselves to experience our lives in a different way. Our culture seems to condition us—whether purposefully or not—to always be looking ahead. Many of us are taught that there is something fundamentally flawed or missing within us, and that we need to be fixed. If we only had that degree, or that job, or that beer, or that dress, or so on, we would finally be happy.

Meditation practice is a process of undoing, or unraveling, this pattern. We learn to let go of the struggle and find contentment with things as they are. This does not mean that we no longer seek to improve ourselves, or to achieve our goals, but we begin to do so from a position of strength and health.

Because what we learn—experientially—is that there actually was never any hole to begin with, there was never, fundamentally, any mistake that needed to be corrected, and that we were essentially okay just as we always were.

When we are able to feel that quality in our experience on a moment to moment basis, we let go of the grasping of our discontent and find the peace and wellbeing that was our birthright all along.

We can then bring that experience into our lives and relationships, and, radiating it out like the rays of the sun, be a force of change that impacts our world in a positive way.

~
~
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light light light!

 

p.s.  light candles, make a fire in the fire place even during the day, be out in the sunlight without sunscreen (within reason), create a beautiful "nest" around you....

7 Ways to Fight Seasonal Affective Disorder This Winter

Posted by Christiane Northrup, M.D.

As our daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere are waning, and as we turn back the clocks to accommodate this change, it’s easy to forget that most of the people on Earth lived without electricity as little as 125 years ago! Despite being able to “change time,” I know that this transition is difficult for many of you. Being without light is difficult for me, too. Light is, after all, a nutrient.

If you are one of millions who experience seasonal affective disorder (SAD), don’t let anyone tell you it’s all in your head. It’s not. SAD is real. It can also be a nudge from Mother Nature that something in your life isn’t quite right.

Why We Feel SAD In Winter

Your body needs a minimum of about 30 minutes of sunlight a day. (Two hours is ideal.) However, after 48 hours, all of the nutrients and energy you receive from the sun are depleted. Depending on where you live, you may go through long, cloudy periods during the winter where you don’t get direct sunlight every day. This can make you want to sleep more. And there is a good reason for this. For one thing, circadian rhythms, those that govern the sleep and wake cycle, are different in winter than in summer. In addition, our bodies make more melatonin in the winter. Melatonin is a natural substance created by your brain when it’s dark. It aids with sleep. Of course, too much melatonin can leave you feeling sluggish and mentally foggy.

For millennia, our ancestors honored the natural rest cycle that winter brought. This meant sleeping more in the winter. (Even the earth rested—very little grows in winter, although the trees send nourishment to their roots, so the cycle can begin again in spring.) We, however, have become accustomed to living a 24/7 lifestyle. Much of our world is lit up when our bodies intuitively know we should be sleeping. And most of those lights we encounter today are still incandescent and florescent. Over exposure to these types of lights can cause symptoms that, in addition to lack of sunlight, contribute to SAD, such as eye fatigue, hyperactivity, and stress. Incandescent lights in particular put out a yellow-orange frequency. If your body becomes overdosed or sensitive to this frequency, you crave carbohydrates and more sleep. You may even experience changes to your menstrual cycle. Many people become irritable and depressed. Finally, you may experience a weakened immune system and notice that you catch more colds or even the Flu.

Words of Wisdom

Lack of ultraviolet light during the winter is the single biggest reason for seasonal depression. TWEET THIS!

How To Beat The Winter Blues With Full Spectrum Light

As daylight gets shorter, it’s not uncommon to experience fatigue, lethargy, weight gain, carbohydrate cravings, premenstrual moodiness, irritability, excessive sadness, and even changes in your libido. Luckily there are some easy things you can do to alleviate seasonal symptoms:

The best thing to do when you have long cloudy periods when the sun doesn’t come through is to use full spectrum light bulbs. A full spectrum light is the closest thing we have to real sunlight. “Full spectrum” means they contain all the colors, including the blues, greens, and purples that florescent and incandescent bulbs don’t have. Using a full spectrum light for about six hours a day is equivalent to 30 minutes of sunlight.

An easy way to add more full spectrum light to your environment is by replacing your light bulbs with full spectrum light bulbs. I did this many years ago. You can buy full spectrum light bulbs at most major hardware stores. They used to be extremely hard to find, but are now widely available. Some companies tout their products as being better quality. Since I haven’t tried them all, I can’t recommend one over another. In the past, I’ve purchased full-spectrum bulbs from the company Light for Health in Colorado, and, although more costly than those from the big box hardware stores, they have lasted for years! Dr. Joseph Mercola also sells his own line of light bulbs.

Note: The compact florescent bulbs have the spirals and are touted for their energy efficiency. Unfortunately, they also contain mercury! The good news is the mercury is only released if you break the bulb. Be careful how you dispose of any light bulb that has a spiral pattern as opposed to a smooth globe. Most big box hardware stores like Lowes and Home Depot are aware of this and offer a safe way to dispose of these bulbs. You just bring them to the store (unbroken).

Another highly effective way to combat seasonal blues is with a light box. A light box gives off full-spectrum light and extends the number of daylight hours you get. I use my light box every winter beginning in October. Light boxes are great for rainy days, too. Although they sort of look like a tanning apparatus, the idea is to enjoy the ambient light from five to ten feet away in your peripheral vision. Staring into a light box can cause eyestrain and headaches, and should be avoided.

6 More Ways To Fight Off SAD

In addition to using full spectrum light, you can keep the seasonal changes from impacting you negatively by following these simple suggestions:

• Take a pharmaceutical grade multi-vitamin/mineral every day. It’s essential to health!
• Supplement with vitamin D. This is critical in winter months. Vitamin D levels drop in the winter because the body makes it after being exposed to sunlight. The vitamin D research is so compelling when it comes to the connection between depression and vitamin D deficiency. (Vitamin D deficiency is also linked to certain cancers, like breast and colon; a weakened immune system; poor bone health; and much more.) Make sure to get 2,000- 5,000 IUs per day in the winter, especially if you tend to be vitamin D deficient (less than 32 ng/ml.). Some people require more to get their levels into the optimal range with is 40-80ng/ml.
• Get enough essential fatty acids. These are found in coldwater fish (like salmon— avoid farmed salmon.), nuts, seeds (like flaxseed), and many plants. Aim for 500–2,000 IUs of fish oil or flaxseed oil per day, or some combination of the two.
• Eliminate refined foods. Cut out sugar, flour, and other processed and white foods from your diet. Eating processed carbs increases serotonin, which you might find in short supply if you’re not getting enough natural light. Be aware that while this may give you an initial pick-me-up, the drop afterwards just isn’t worth it. Plus these foods deplete vital vitamins and minerals that help the body handle stress and build immunity. Eating a baked or roasted potato between 4Pm and bedtime is actually a very effective way to raise serotonin. Hence the book Potatoes, Not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
• Practice stress reduction or energy medicine. Women who practice meditation or other methods of deep relaxation are able to alleviate many of their PMS and seasonal blues symptoms. Relaxation of all kinds decreases the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine levels in the blood and helps to balance your biochemistry.
• Get at least twenty minutes of aerobic-type activity three times a week. Brisk walking during sunlight hours — especially without sunglasses so your eyes absorb the light — can boost endorphins. It’s estimated that half of all depression cases can be helped through exercise alone. (Read Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, Chapter 18 for more information.)

Adopt as many of my suggestions as you feel comfortable with. Not only will they chase away the winter blues, they’ll help you stay healthy at the cellular level, too.

When to Seek Help

Being a 24/7 culture is not always a good thing. Listen to you body’s wisdom. We all need to “go into darkness” at times to rejuvenate and to take stock of our lives. This is particularly true after we’ve created something significant in the outer world. I experienced this after the launch of each of my books—and did my best to honor it.

However, if your symptoms are excessive, don’t ignore them. Seek the help of a professional if they are severe. Depression hurts you, but it also hurts your family, your relationships, and can even jeopardize your career.

loss.....heartbreak

Last week I had to put my pup to sleep after a sudden crisis.  In less than 24 hours, she was gone. I read this short article this morning in the Elephant Journal and it confirmed both the deepest sadness of heartbreak, and also the brilliance of an open heart.  To be so deeply vulnerable, to feel the profound suffering of others on our earth - it's homeopathic really - and an opportunity to become more whole, more compassionate, more present and less afraid to live & love.....

Making it to the bottom:  getting intimate with life's mini deaths.....

by Via Courtney Dukelowon Oct 18, 2015

For the first 34 years of my life, I believed an extraordinary life meant that I had reached some pinnacle of attainment and “made it to the top.”

My quest to some imagined top seemed to get projected mostly onto my ideas around spiritual enlightenment—believing some day I would arrive at an all-knowing place above my humanity.

There wasn’t much space in my ideology for loss, heartbreak or times of uncertainty. All of this changed when my marriage ended and I got pushed off the high end diving board and into the waters of the deep end.

During this four-year passage through grief and loss, my cultural ideas and identities would get reinforced around me regularly. At one point, after another email appeared in my inbox around making it to the top, leaving a legacy, becoming bigger and brighter and more successful, I didn’t find myself in my typical struggle of trying to live up to these cultural expectations.

Instead, a distinct and booming voice rang out from my depths. This voice was clearly not interested in solely “making it to the top” and continuing along this paradigm which, in my own life, had fostered competition, comparison, envy and greed.

“What about making it to the bottom? What about rooting deeply into the soils of the Earth?” this voice said.

“What about stepping off the vertical ladder and rejoining the circle of life?” I was floored in the simplicity and intrigued by the possibility of how different our culture would be if we weren’t phobic of loss and these mini deaths in our lives. What gems might discover when we are intimate with loss and we focus on what is below?

Soon after this sacred shattering of my cultural conditioning, I met David and the path and purpose of “making it to the bottom” became clear. He came for some bodywork at a small hot springs where I occasionally offered healing sessions. He told me he had just gotten back from India. I had never met him before. As I approached him as he was meditating while waiting for his session. The first impression that passed through my awareness was that he was with a guru, striving toward the pinnacle of realization at the top.

I was so wrong. As I laid my hand on his back, I was overcome with sensations and feelings of utter horror, shock, and grief. Tears welled up in my own eyes, and I asked, “Where have you been?”

He breathed in deeply, and on the exhalation I felt his utter exhaustion. He began to tell me that he had been involved in volunteer work to help out children living in one of the worst brothels in India.

“These children are so sweet and they are treated worse than the dogs,” he said, in a voice filled with sadness. He told me that he hadn’t wanted to leave, but after a few months there, he had begun to develop a thrombosis that was affecting his heart.

As we continued with our bodywork session, I felt how deeply he had brought those children into him. Images flashed before me of dark, graffitied corners, stained pillows, and dirty ground for a bed. I saw deeply worn eyes disproportionate to their young battered bodies that somehow communicated, “There is no safe place.”

“Out of all the things we did,” he said, “what seemed to make the biggest difference was that they got to eat one organic meal a day. Somehow, that was the thing that helped them know that their lives were worth something.”

At the end of the session, he looked at me with worn eyes that have seen the unspeakable and said, “I don’t know if I made a difference in those children’s lives.” I immediately jumped in and replied, “Of course you did.”

He took a moment, lowered his eyes, and I felt as if he was back with those children. He looked up, his face now tinged with some bittersweet memory, perhaps some sense of longing, and he replied, “No, I really don’t know. They are used to having people come and go.” He placed his hand upon his heart as he said, “But I know they sure got into my heart and changed my life.”

I think that session was more for me than it could have ever been for him. I continue to learn from it and feel in many ways that the images of the children still live within me as well. The wounding of it branded a message upon my heart, “Remember these children. Keep them in your heart. Don’t take anything in your life for granted.”

David was a hero in my heart. He wasn’t a hero because he made it to the top or some place perched above the pain and suffering in the world. His bigness reined in his courage to touch so low and to show that all life matters. The beauty of his passion to serve, without the need for fame, recognition or even knowing that he made a difference, ignited more intimately love’s transformation flames inside my own heart.

This humble love unveiled left a blazing signature of a divine human potential that we all carry in our cells. I was embraced in a love that includes it all: our highs and our lows, the light and the dark, the top and the bottom.

What happens if we let the suffering into our hearts? Not only our own pain but also the pain of those who are less fortunate than we are? What happens when we are stripped of a hero’s agenda but flow with the uncertainty of cracked open love?

SELF-HELP

"HOW TO STOP TIME:  kiss

HOW TO TRAVEL IN TIME:  read

HOW TO ESCAPE TIME:  music

HOW TO FEEL TIME:  write

HOW TO RELEASE TIME:  breathe"

the MIND

MEDITATION IS NOT ABOUT BEING PERFECT, IT'S ABOUT THIS - ~ Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Jul 23, 2015

We sometimes forget how the Buddhist teachings came into being.

We forget why the Buddha left his father’s palace.

Dissatisfied with maintaining an illusion, he wanted to understand his life—and life itself.

Just like the Buddha, most of us also would like to discover some basic truth about our life and get some perspective about what’s going on. But are we really capable of knowing what’s going on?

This is a question that relates to the most profound truth of the Buddhist teachings. The Buddha’s answer is, “Yes, ultimately we are. But we need to go on a journey of meditation to find out, because essentially we are in a state of bewilderment.”

Why are we bewildered? Because we don’t understand how our mind works.

The process of undoing bewilderment is based on cultivating the ability to become familiar with, stabilize, and strengthen our mind. Being aware and observant of what’s happening in our mind gives us an opportunity to see a more profound level of truth all the time. In the practice of meditation, we learn to zoom back and get a bigger perspective, rather than always thinking so small.

The Buddha understood that if we want to go on any kind of journey—not just a spiritual one, but also a secular one, such as, studying or doing business—we need a mind that is workable. We need a mind that we can rely on. That’s the notion of training the mind, of making the mind workable so it can do whatever it needs to do.

Shamatha—mindfulness—meditation is how we make this mind more stable, more useful. From this point of view, shamatha is not purely a Buddhist practice. It’s a practice that anyone can do. It doesn’t tie in with a particular spiritual tradition. If we want to undo bewilderment, we’re going to have to be responsible for learning what our own mind is and how it works, no matter what beliefs we hold.

The word shamatha in Sanskrit (Tib. shi-ne) means “peacefully abiding.” Peacefully abiding describes the mind as it naturally is. The word peace tells the whole story. The human mind is by nature joyous, calm, and very clear. In shamatha meditation we aren’t creating a peaceful state—we’re letting our mind be as it is to begin with. This doesn’t mean that we’re peacefully ignoring things. It means that the mind is able to be in itself without constantly leaving.

In meditation we learn how to calmly abide. We’re learning how to let ourselves just be here peacefully. If we can remember what the word shamatha means, we can always utilize it as a reference point in our practice. We can say, “What is this meditation that I’m doing? It is shamatha, calmly, peacefully abiding.” At the same time we begin to see that our mind isn’t always abiding calmly or peacefully. Perhaps it’s abiding irritatingly, angrily, jealously. Seeing all of this is how we begin to untangle our bewilderment.

Meditation is a very personal practice. Just like the Buddha, we can approach it by way of valid cognition: “What is truly valid? What is the truth of my experience?” We begin to realize what we don’t know. And we become curious.

In doing so we leapfrog from question to answer, with each new answer leading to a new question. And if we persist we begin to experience another truth that the Buddha also discovered: In every situation there is the continuum of the truth. Each answer is followed naturally by the next question. It’s seamless.

With this kind of practice and inquisitiveness, the Buddha learned to look at the landscape of life in a clear unbiased way. When he began to teach, he was just reporting his observations: “This is what I see. This is the truth about how things are.” He wasn’t presenting any particular viewpoint. He wasn’t preaching dogma; he was pointing out reality. We forget this. For example, most people would say that one of the key teachings in Buddhism is karma. But the Buddha did not create karma; the Buddha just saw it and acknowledged it. Saying that karma is a Buddhist belief is like saying that Buddhists believe water is wet. And if you’re a Buddhist, you must also believe that fire is hot!

In meditation what we’re doing is looking at our experience and at the world intelligently. The Buddha said that this is how we learn to look at any situation and understand its truth, its true message, its reality. This is what a buddha does—and we are all capable of being buddhas, whether or not we are Buddhists. We all have the ability to realize our naturally peaceful minds where there is no confusion. We can use the natural clarity of our mind to focus on anything we want. But first we have to tame our minds through shamatha meditation.

Perhaps we associate meditation with spirituality because when we experience a moment of peacefully abiding, it seems so far-out. Our mind is no longer drifting, thinking about a million things. The sun comes up or a beautiful breeze comes along—and all of a sudden we feel the breeze and we are completely in tune. We think, “That’s a very spiritual experience! It’s a religious experience! At least worth a poem, or a letter home.” Yet all that’s happening is that for a moment we are in tune with our mind. Our mind is present and harmonious. Before, we were so busy and bewildered that we didn’t even notice the breeze. Our mind couldn’t even stay put long enough to watch the sun to come up, which takes two-and-a-half minutes. Now we can keep it in one place long enough to acknowledge and appreciate our surroundings. Now we are really here. In fact, this is ordinary. We can bring the mind under our own power. We can train it to be useful and workable.

This is the not just the point of being Buddhist, it’s the point of being human.

the TUT oath

 

In the face of adversity, uncertainty, and conflicting sensory information, I hereby pledge to remain ever mindful of the magical, infinite, loving reality in which I live - a reality that conspires tirelessly in my favor.

I further recognize that living within space and time, as a Creation amongst my Creations, is the ultimate Adventure, because thoughts become things, dreams do come true, and all things remain forever possible.

As a Being of Light, I hereby resolve to live, love, and be happy, at all costs, no matter what, with reverence and kindness for All. So be it!

Best Workout for Your Body Type (Dosha)

Find the Perfect Workout for Your Body Type (Dosha).

Via Dr. John Douillardon Jul 16, 2015

Today, 80 percent of Americans do not exercise regularly, and ten million are exercising less today than just three years ago. (1) Yes, people are very busy these days, but I feel the real reason behind these statistics is that they do not enjoy it—people find time to do the things they enjoy.

It’s a workout, something you have to do, not something you look forward to. Making exercise fun again will not only keep us doing it, but will deliver numerous health benefits from exercise that are not available from our conventional approach.

For years, we have been encouraged by experts to exercise because of its pronounced health benefits. People who exercise regularly on the whole have less chronic disease, but only recently studies have shown some not-so-good effects of exercise. Many reports have linked too much exercise with compromised immune systems. (2-5) The problem is that at the present time, experts don’t know how much exercise is good and how much more is harmful.

There can be no standard answer to this question that will apply to everyone.

Ayurveda tells us that we are all different and have individual requirements for exercise.

Understanding your dosha can help you determine how much exercise you need, as well as the type of activity that would be best suited for you.

Sport by Body Type

Vata types will typically excel in sports requiring quick, short bursts of speed and agility. These individuals are like high-strung thoroughbred race horses – always on the go, very restless and even jumpy at times. They love fast, vigorous activity but can’t handle too much of it if they are going to stay in balance. If anything, vatas need to slow down and nature often forces them to, since their endurance is not great and they tire quite easily. Vata types are quick to get involved in fitness programs, but because of their constantly changing interests, they are also quick to give them up.

General Fitness and Cross-Training to Balance Vata: Vata-balancing sports or exercises require slow, calming activities that facilitate rejuvenation rather than exhaustion. Some examples:

Aerobics (low-impact or dance), archery-kyudo, badminton, ballet, baseball, bicycle touring, bowling, canoeing and easy rowing, cricket, dance, doubles tennis, golf, hiking, horseback riding, martial arts (non-violent Aikido and Tai Chi), ping pong, sailing, stair-stepping (moderate) stretching, swimming, walking, weight training, and yoga.

Pitta types excel in individual competition requiring strength, speed and stamina. They are fiery, both in personality and desire to win. They are highly motivated and driven and are often not satisfied unless they have won. They are natural leaders and are attracted to individual sports because of their strong ego and natural competence in most sports. Pitta types must be careful not to get overheated and must learn how to enjoy themselves regardless of the final score.

General Fitness and Cross-Training to Balance Pitta: Cross-training and general fitness sports for pitta types must balance the excessive heat and competitive spirit with sports that provide enjoyment, rather than a focus on competition and winning. Some examples:

Basketball and other team sports, cycling, diving, golf, hockey, ice skating, kayaking/ rowing, martial arts, mountain biking, non-competitive racquet sports, sailing, skiing (downhill), skiing (recreational cross-country), surfing, touch football, water skiing, wind surfing, and yoga.

Kapha types excel in endurance and mind-body coordinated skills. They are great under pressure and are naturally calm, stable and easy-going. They are often late bloomers, both physically and mentally. They love the camaraderie of team sports, although these don’t usually give them the aerobic exercise that they need. Because of their hypometabolic nature, they will need more motivation when exercising. They love team sports, but must be sure to get plenty of stimulating and vigorous exercise as well.

General Fitness and Cross-Training to Balance Kapha: These sports must be stimulating and vigorous to maintain balance in the slow-to-get-started kapha types. Some examples:

Aerobics, basketball, bodybuilding, calisthenics, cross-country running, cross-country skiing, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, handball, in-line skating, javelin, lacrosse, martial arts, parcourse running, racquetball, rock climbing, rowing, sculling, shot put, soccer, stair-stepping, swimming, tennis, and volleyball.

For more info about how to choose a sport for your body type, please see my book, Body, Mind, and Sport. (7)

Minding Your Body

In addition to knowing your mind-body type and its requirements, it is also important for your mind to know how to listen to your body. We have heard the phrase, “Listen to your body!” for years, only no one has ever told us how to do it. In the past, we have been taught to listen to our body by jogging at a pace that allows us to hold a conversation with our partner. To me, this technique sounds more like listening to someone else’s body rather than your own.

Inadvertently, many of us have been conditioned to distract our mind from our body during exercise. Oftentimes, exercise is found to be too boring unless we have a TV to watch, a book to read, or a magazine to flip through.

It seems we have resigned ourselves to the fact that exercise is mindless and boring, so we engage our minds in one activity while our bodies do another. High-tech distraction devices have emerged on the scene as virtual reality workout centers and TV-ridden cardio-theaters fill health clubs. People can now exercise beyond their tolerance without boredom and without feeling the pain. “No pain, no gain” has been replaced with, “If we distract you, you won’t feel it.”

Rather than distracting yourself during your workout, my recommendation is to focus on your breath. The premise with Ayurvedic fitness is that the body’s life force or prana must flow effortlessly into every cell of the body to achieve benefit. This is accomplished primarily via the breath. It is the proper use of the breath during exercise that will bring harmony between the mind and body, and create a measurable experience of calm and rejuvenation in each workout. As is turns out, how you breathe determines how you respond to stress.

Ayurvedic Exercise to Reduce, Not Incur, Stress

Most of us do not realize that our body responds to exercise as an emergency. The fight-or-flight nervous system gets maxed out even during moderate exercise. This emergency response during each workout not only produces stress-fighting degenerative hormones but it is likely the key factor in America’s chronic aversion to exercise. (6)

If you saw a bear in the woods you would likely take a quick upper chest gasp through your mouth. This would trigger receptors for stress that predominate in the upper lobes of the lungs, and your body would know to produce the accurate hormonal response needed to get you to safety.

Conversely, when we breathe through our noses, the incoming air is forced through the turbinates in the nose and are driven deeply into the lower lobes of the lungs, where the calming, repairing (parasympathetic, “rest and digest”) nerve receptors predominate.

In other words, breathing through the nose during exercise is a tool that can alter the body’s perception of an activity it normally perceives as stressful, to one of calm and repair.

taming the mind

Mindfulness helps us live in the present moment, where we can find our joy.

via Tina Fossellaeo July 6, 2015

Our beliefs and feelings about ourselves come from the past. The secret to recovery is realizing that we have already survived everything that has ever happened to us.

The healing we are seeking can only be found now—in the present moment.

As we set out on our healing journey, the most important skill to train in is mindfulness. Mindfulness is our essential tool—there are many ways to strengthen our ability to maintain the continuity of our awareness in the present moment.

But what exactly does mindfulness mean?

Mindfulness means learning to stay with ourselves and not losing sight of where our attention is placed. It means bringing ourselves back to the present moment repeatedly throughout the day.

We bring ourselves back, notice when we’ve drifted away, and bring ourselves back again. It is the opposite of distraction and dissociation. Mindfulness is our greatest support and will come in handy every step of the way as we traverse the healing journey.

The Buddhist term for strengthening our mindfulness is “taming the mind.”

When we say, “taming our mind,” it means that we are training and building up our “mindful muscles” to directly work with our mental confusion and difficult emotions. Training here does not mean meditation boot camp. Rather, it means developing an openness and caring towards our mind—reminding ourselves that our situation is workable. Even if we need “to fake it until we make it,” it is important to trust ourselves, take a seat of authority inside ourselves and learn to listen to our inner guide.

As long as we can imagine the possibility of change—and we have the willingness to try—our spiritual practice is off to a good start. We can heal and find our innate joy and happiness.

When I first started my “sitting practice,” I could barely sit still for one second. My meditation teacher always said, “Not a problem! Appreciate the richness in all that activity.”

It does not help to think about what other people are experiencing when they sit on their cushions or wonder if we’re supposed to be having some different kind of experience. That kind of thinking always brings us down. We must appreciate our own unique, naked and beautiful mind.

As we work on developing our daily practice, it’s important to understand what it means to be disciplined.

Discipline, on the spiritual journey, is not about following a set of rules. It is about getting in touch with our desire and determination to feel better. We learn to listen to our own inner knowing, rather than trusting some outer figure. It is about taking responsibility for ourselves, standing on our own two feet, noticing when we make mistakes and learning how to self-correct. This kind of discipline is not fear based—it comes from our own internal wish to be happy.

We work on correcting the patterns of behavior that we know are not good for us—replacing old habits with new ones. We are doing it because we want to and we know it will make us happy. This is a self-determination that comes from our own trust in ourselves. We are moving toward our vision of wholeness and peace.

I can’t say enough about mindful discipline, as I have worked with enough people to feel certain that change does not come about from simply talking about how much we want to be different.

Change comes from loving ourselves so much that we become dedicated to going about life in a different way.This includes how we are working on our recovery. We can continue to treat ourselves poorly or begin taking care of ourselves—talking to ourselves in a kind voice, soothing those scared inner children.

It’s not about following a list of rules, but rather working with our own mind. It has to come from our own heart.

Mindfulness—learning to be present with yourself in your life—is the key.

The actual practice takes place moment by moment, throughout the day, and influences everything we do. There are many ways to train and different practices to try. We may need to try them all—to see which ones work for us—then apply them in a personal to our own healing journey.

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the ups and the downs

Without Down There Would Be No Up

"Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution."  

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  

Throughout the ages masters from many spiritual disciplines have described this universal principle in uniquely different ways: The heartthrob of the Universe is always pulsating in a manner that serves the evolution and, ultimately, the dissolution of all things. 

Unfolding a life of purpose and meaning is to understand that life is a spiral, not a  straight line; at times it's up and down...two steps forward and one step back...successes and failures...wins and losses...good days and bad days...peaks and valleys...light and darkness. The reality is we can't have one without the other because we need the contrast of down to appreciate up.

Wherever you may be on the spiral today, be it on a high or on a low, may you breathe deeply and remember that this too shall pass; you'll bounce back. This is how a living universe works; it's the pulse beat of Nature. It's quite an amazing thing to behold knowing you are part of it all, isn't it?

- Dennis Merrit Jones

meditation

20 Meditation Tips for Beginners from The Huffington Post

If you're new to meditation, then you might feel overwhelmed when trying to keep so many instructions in your head: watch your breathing, calm your mind, keep your back straight...

To take the pressure off and allow your practice to unfold more naturally, here are 20 priceless tips to help you get started. As you practice more, you'll develop a routine and get more used to these concepts. As a guiding principle, whatever happens during your meditation session is okay. Meet your experience with kindness and gratitude, and your meditation session will be well worth it, no matter what happens.

1. Begin With Quick 5-Minute Sessions
It's easy for beginners to get overwhelmed when trying to sustain a 20-minute-meditation. That can feel brutal in the beginning. Start out nice and easy. Begin with 5-minute sessions, and when you're ready for more, move it up to 10 minutes.

2. Stretch or Do Yoga First
By stretching or doing yoga before you start meditating, you'll prepare your body to sit in one position for a long time. Yoga and meditation go hand in hand. Even just rolling your neck and stretching your back beforehand can help you stay comfortable for longer.

3. Try Out a Guided Meditation
For a fun experience and to have someone guide you through your meditation, try out a guided meditation. You can find free guided meditations available on YouTube and other platforms. You might find it easier when you follow someone else's instructions.

4. Set Your Timer
When you set a timer for your meditation, you don't have to keep checking the clock. This removes a big distraction from your practice. Moreover, you won't be sitting in meditation all day because you've forgotten to see how much time has elapsed. Set your timer so you can relax and enjoy your experience.

5. Remove Distractions
Turn off your cell phone, put it on vibrate, or leave it in the other room. You want to be in a space without distractions. I find that the best place to meditate is in my room with the door closed.

6. Don't Try Too Hard
Meditation at its best is soothing, relaxing, and effortless. It's merely observation; observing your breathing with your conscious awareness. So there is no real effort involved, just being consciously aware. So don't work too hard at it.

7. Create a Daily Practice or Ritual
By meditating every day at the same time or within the same daily routine, you develop a habit that becomes easier to practice every day. If you don't build meditation into your daily routine, you'll find yourself forgetting to do it.

8. Get Relaxed Beforehand
You want to wear comfortable, loose clothing and be in a relaxing environment. Make sure your room is comfortable. Before you start, take a few deliberate deep breaths and stretch any part of your body that feels tense or achy.

9. Try Out Different Types of Meditation
There are dozens of techniques to meditate, such as Zen meditation, chanting meditations, mantras, and so on. Try out different types to see which one feels right for you.

10. Read "The Power of Now"
This epic book by Eckhart Tolle sheds new light on what it really means to be present. And meditation is simply the practice of being present. To me personally, "The Power of Now" is like the bible of true meditation and mindfulness.

11. Let Go of Expectations
Don't expect enlightenment. Meditation is about noticing and observing your own sensations, thoughts, and feelings. By just allowing your experience of meditation to unfold in any way that it does, you'll get the best experience.

12. Stay Nonjudgmental
By simply noticing things as they are -- without judging them -- you are being mindful. When you notice your mind labelling, commenting, and making opinions about things, you're judging. And that's okay when you judge too. Just notice that, and let it go.

13. Have Fun with Your Practice
Allow yourself to really enjoy your meditation session. View your repetitive or silly thoughts with humor. Laugh at your "monkey mind" as it keeps churning. Have fun with it!

14. Your Mind Will Quiet Itself
Don't try to force your mind to stop thinking; that'll create distress. It will stop thinking all on its own when you practice your technique, whether it's observing your breathing or repeating a mantra.

15. Your Mind Will Wander
It's okay when your mind wanders, that's just what minds do! Just notice that your mind has wandered, and gently -- with compassion -- return your attention to your technique (observing your breathing). Don't beat yourself up, it's normal.

16. Find a Comfortable Posture
There are no rules that you have to sit in the lotus position. As long as I'm not feeling sleepy, I prefer to lay down. Find a position that works well for you, whether it's sitting on a chair, cushion, or bench.

17. Your Eyes Can Be Open Or Closed
Do what feels right for you. If you keep your eyes open, you might see visual distractions. If you close your eyes, it may feel forced and unnatural while you're awake. So do what works for you.

18. Get Up Slowly
After you finish your practice, take your time getting up. Don't rush off to the rest of your day, as you want to stay mindful and bring your meditative state into the rest of your day's activities.

19. Meditate With Others
Whether it's with friends, family members, your partner, a coach, or an organization, by meditating in a group it'll help you stay committed to the practice. Moreover, you can share your experiences afterwards. You might be surprised to hear how different their experience was.

20. Observe the Feeling Within Your Body
Notice how you feel internally, within your body. What sensations are there in your legs? Do you feel your toes and calves? Notice your diaphragm moving as you breath. This will keep you connected to your body.

GLUTEN FREE SNACKS

Top 10 Gluten Free Healthy and Portable Snacks

from "gluten free fitness newsletter"

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Ah, snack foods. The land of high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats and excessive packaging. The land of oversized bags, tempting you to stick your hand in just one more time, for one more handful.
STEP AWAY FROM THE BAG!!

There are lots of better options out there. It does take a little pre-planning, but we are used to that eating gluten free. As I mentioned in “preparing ahead for healthy gluten free eating success,” celiac disease makes us automatically more aware of what we put in our mouths in order to not get sick. So let’s take it a step further to make choices that can impact our health, energy, and potentially our body composition (fatness vs not fatness) in a positive manner. You could very easily just have a smaller version of what you might have for another meal. A snack of some chicken breast, green beans and a little olive or macadamia oil is very common for me. It depends on what your resources are, how portable you need your food to be, and if you have refrigeration or a cooler. A small soft sided cooler with an ice pack is a great thing to keep with you, and then you’re never caught absolutely starving and headed for the closest crap food to dive into. A general rule of thumb I like to follow is to try to include a fruit or vegetable source in the snack, a protein source, and possibly a healthy fat. (Side note-Some people consider nuts and nut butters to be a protein source. Me, not so much. If you look at the nutrition facts for lets say 2 TBSP of Smuckers Natural Peanut Butter. There are 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of carbs and 8 grams of protein. So yes, there is some protein, but there’s twice as much fat as protein. See what I mean? It’s fine, it’s a good healthy fat source, but I wouldn’t consider it a bunch of protein.) This way you get a snack that helps you get a larger amount of produce in your day, and gives you some lasting energy.

These are in no particular order, by the way.

1-Apple and string cheese-my go-to snack. Very portable, easy, and tasty. I like Fuji’s, and I like the 2% string cheese. Personal preference.

2-Celery sticks and natural peanut butter with a small container of cottage cheese or greek yogurt. Try to get the plain kind-the flavors add A LOT of sugar. You can generally find the Greek yogurt Fage or Oikos brands in many regular supermarkets. They are thicker and creamier than regular yogurt, with a higher protein content.

3-Deli turkey slices (make sure it’s gluten free, Boar’s Head brand is very common and gluten free) wrapped around baby carrots, and/or wrapped around pickles.

4-a small handful of almonds with a piece of fruit, and a hard boiled egg or three.

5-sliced bell peppers dipped in homemade bean dip (seriously-can’t be easier-open, drain and rinse a can of white or garbanzo beans, throw ‘em in the Magic Bullet or a food processor with some garlic, thyme and a tiny drizzle of olive oil and some sea salt, add some cayenne if you like or whatever spices. Voila) or store bought hummus-again and as always check labels.

6-small pop top or packet of canned tuna, and celery or carrot sticks, small handful of nuts.

7-Plain Greek yogurt with some berries, and sliced almonds or crushed walnuts.

8-Cottage cheese with a piece of fruit or some cut up veggies. You can also make this like a “ranch” type dip by adding some seasonings and blending until smooth.

9-Ostrim jerky-ONLY THE NATURAL FLAVOR IS GLUTEN FREE!! But it’s tasty, doesn’t require refrigeration, dairy free, and high in protein. Add an apple and you’re set.

10-A protein shake and a handful of almonds with an apple. Protein powder you can keep in your car, won’t go bad, and all you have to do is have a secure bottle and some water to shake it up and you’re good to go.

11-I know, I said 10, but if the guys in Spinal Tap can take it to 11 so can I. A couple ounces of chicken breast left over from dinner the night before, some green beans and slivered almonds. Yum. I’m a big fan of cooking in bulk, and having leftovers to have either as snacks or as entire meals. Why cook 2 chicken breasts when you can cook 10? Save time, save energy, and have great healthy food ready to grab.

a letter to my head

Via Rebecca Jane on Jun 14, 2015

Dear Head,

I need to speak with you.

After all these years you have taken up way too much space, telling me what and how I should live and feel. That I am not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough…never enough.

How many opportunities have been lost because of what you have been telling me? I believed you, I trusted you, you were the fountain of all wisdom. You ranted on about how I should feel, be, become. And I listened.

Your words made me fearful, self-conscious, unloved, hurt, unworthy. It angers me to know I had let you dictate how I should live my life, who I could be friends with, what achievements I was capable of. Yet, again I trusted you. You were all I knew.

I had no idea that deep inside me there was another voice, a kinder, more loving voice, that speaks to me in whispers, so quietly I could barely hear it above the cacophonous words you kept lobbing at me.

I am ready to take ownership of you! You are not in charge anymore! I am in charge! I choose!

You are here to help me, to assist, not to dictate. That quiet voice deep in my soul will be given a space to speak and to be heard.

Head, I love you, but you are not to take control anymore. We are a team, you come out when I need you to make some decisions or help me solve a problem. But you are not to define me or place me in box where I am stifled and scared. We both want to be happy, let’s embrace one another and let the other parts of us in.

Thanks for your hard work, but it is now time to take a step back and sit in the peripheral.

I will let you know when I need you.

Remember, I am the one in charge.

WOMEN'S CIRCLES

EACH TIME WOMEN GATHER IN CIRCLES WITH ONE ANOTHER, THE WORLD HEALS A LITTLE MORE

TreeSisters: women seeding change

Did you know that up until twenty years ago, all stress research was done on men? Researchers thought that female hormones fluctuated too much to measure accurately, so they left them out of their studies...

Luckily, some researchers embarked upon a ground-breaking stress study – one that included women. What they discovered could have a potentially radical impact for women, especially women who are engaged in a healing journey of any kind.

Taylor’s studies show that the typical ‘Fight, Flight or Freeze‘ stress response isn’t always what happens for women. Rather, the female body often responds to stress with a flush of different hormones, including Oxytocin, which instead creates an attitude of ‘Tend and Befriend'.

In times of stress women don’t move to run or fight, they reach out to protect and connect.

Oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the ‘Goddess Hormone’, and along with the other ‘Tend and Befriend‘ hormones, it serves as the female body’s natural de-stressing mechanism, by:
~helping muscles to relax
~reducing blood pressure and cortisol levels
~increasing pain thresholds
~activating anti-anxiety effects
~and promoting the body’s natural healing response.

Women’s circles can be a tend and befriend heaven. Deep listening with no agenda, hugs, feeling ‘seen’ and ‘met’, low light and soothing music, a sense of kinship, eye-gazing, and respectful touch all activate oxytocin.

Could the friendship, bonding and support within women’s circles have tangible, measurable healing effects for chronic health problems?

Read the full blog "The healing Keys inside the Female Body" here: 
https://treesistersofficialblog.wordpress.com/…/the-healin…/

making habits stick

8 POWERFUL WAYS TO MAKE HABITS STICK by Jonathan Alpert

Many of my clients see me because they want to change. There's something in their lives that is so routine, yet so undesirable or unhealthy. Maybe it's a poor diet, dating toxic men or women or laziness. They seek change, yet it eludes them. Most behaviors, good and bad, become automatic or habituated over time. For example, tying a shoe is probably something you do without any thought whatsoever -- you might even be able to do it blindfolded. That is essentially, habit. Similarly, reaching for junk food is a behavior that becomes reinforced and happens almost like a reflex. Whereas, studying more effectively or being more diligent at work, are habits that can be developed.

Here are my tips to form healthy habits that stick:

• Watch your language. That's right, so often the way you think and talk informs and influences your actions and behaviors. For example, if you're trying to eat healthier and you tell yourself "Don't eat junk food" -- that will serve as a negative command. In much the same way if I say, "Don't think about a zebra with pink and blue stripes." One has to actually think about what a zebra would look like in order not to think about it.
•  
• What might stop you? Ask yourself, "What might possibly get in my way of doing this?" If you anticipate and troubleshoot possible resistance or stoppers then you can devise a way to counter them. By acknowledging an excuse before it happens, you'll weaken it and it no longer will hold power over you. For example, if you're waning to go to the gym every morning before work yet you feel you'll never get there, think of all the reasons or potential road blocks, prior to devising a schedule. "It's too early", "I'm too rushed in the morning", and "I'm lazy" are just a few stoppers I hear when it comes to this. Counter them with an actionable plan such as "I'll go to sleep 30 minutes earlier and get up sooner so I have time to exercise."
•  
• Start with small and easy. You want to set yourself up for success, not failure. Setting up small tasks that you can actually accomplish will help to reinforce behaviors that support the goal as well as provide you with a sense of control. For example, if you're trying to get into shape, and are embarking on an exercise program, introduce walking briskly for 10 minutes a day for the first week and then increase it from there. Or if you want to eat healthier foods, don't start with a complete makeover. It will be too much to get used to all at once. Rather, cut out one unhealthy item and add something better such as an apple or vegetable.
•  
• Use triggers to your advantage. Triggers typically are thought of as being related to a negative or unhealthy habit like someone who smokes only when they drink alcohol, or someone who eats chips while sitting in front of the TV. Just as a stimulus can trigger a bad behavior, it can lead to a positive behavior. Set up a new, healthy behavior while watching TV - maybe it's eating carrots, or stretching. This new, healthier behavior will soon become habit.
•  
• Understand your motivation. People are motivated usually in two ways: 1. to move towards something positive and desirable. 2. to move away from something negative. For example, someone who wants to drop a few pounds, tone their body, and look great in a bikini is working towards something positive: looking and feeling good for swimsuit season. Whereas the person who is out of shape and leads an unhealthy lifestyle but doesn't do anything about it until his doctor warns him that his health is at great risk and he could drop dead, is motivated only by the potential negative consequence of not doing something. What's your motivation? Are you moving towards something positive or away from something negative? The former is far more powerful and lasting.
•  
• Make it convenient. Things that are easy are more likely to become routine. Brushing teeth, shaving, and grocery shopping for most are habit. By organizing our lives we're able to accomplish these mundane tasks without much resistance or problem. Imagine if you had to travel an hour to grocery shop? It would be harder to accomplish and stick with. That said, if you want to join a gym, make it close to home or work and get prepared by having the proper clothing and equipment. If you want to eat healthy, then prepare a few meals in advance.
•  
• Start early. Most people have more energy earlier in their days after a night of sleep and are less likely to have excuses that could arise later in the day. Take advantage of this by scheduling new tasks in the morning. I recommend to many of my clients to allow 30 minutes in the morning for self-care such as exercise, stretching, or reading. These have essentially become habit for them.
•  
• Make it fun. By making a behavior fun you're more likely to stick with it. We protest and reject hard, laborious, and unpleasant tasks and embrace those that are fun. If you dread the gym, then try to find a fun exercise program. Maybe it's an outdoor boot camp, or biking along a scenic route. If you want to develop better eating habits but don't like the taste of health food, then take a cooking class. These usually have a social component, are fun and provide good information for tasty treats.

forming new habits

How Long Does It Actually Take to Form a New Habit? (Backed by Science)

Posted: 05/29/2015 8:44 am EDT Updated: 05/29/2015 8:59 am EDT

Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s when he began noticing a strange pattern among his patients.

When Dr. Maltz would perform an operation -- like a nose job, for example -- he found that it would take the patient about 21 days to get used to seeing their new face. Similarly, when a patient had an arm or a leg amputated, Maltz noticed that the patient would sense a phantom limb for about 21 days before adjusting to the new situation.

These experiences prompted Maltz to think about his own adjustment period to changes and new behaviors, and he noticed that it also took himself about 21 days to form a new habit. Maltz wrote about these experiences and said, "These, and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to jell."

In 1960, Maltz published that quote and his other thoughts on behavior change in a book called Psycho-Cybernetics. The book went on to become an blockbuster hit, selling more than 30 million copies.

And that's when the problem started.

You see, in the decades that followed, Maltz's work influenced nearly every major "self-help" professional from Zig Ziglar to Brian Tracy to Tony Robbins. And as more people recited Maltz's story -- like a very long game of "Telephone" -- people began to forget that he said "a minimum of about 21 days" and shortened it to, "It takes 21 days to form a new habit."

And that's how society started spreading the common myth that it takes 21 days to form a new habit (or 30 days or some other magic number). It's remarkable how often these timelines are quoted as statistical facts. Dangerous lesson: If enough people say something enough times, then everyone else starts to believe it.

It makes sense why the "21 Days" myth would spread. It's easy to understand. The time frame is short enough to be inspiring, but long enough to be believable. And who wouldn't like the idea of changing your life in just three weeks?

But the problem is that Maltz was simply observing what was going on around him and wasn't making a statement of fact. Furthermore, he made sure to say that this was the minimum amount of time needed to adapt to a new change.

So what's the real answer? How long does it actually take to form a new habit? Is there any science to back this up? And what does all of this mean for you and me?

How Long It Really Takes to Build a New Habit

Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit.

The study examined the habits of 96 people over a 12-week period. Each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt.

Some people chose simple habits like "drinking a bottle of water with lunch." Others chose more difficult tasks like "running for 15 minutes before dinner." At the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.

The answer?

On average, it takes more than two months before a new behavior becomes automatic -- 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally's study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit. [1: Even though the study only ran for 12 weeks, the researchers were able to use the data to estimate the longer timelines (like 254 days) to form habits. Again, the exact time depends on a variety of factors and isn't nearly as important as the overall message: Habits can take a long time to form.]

In other words, if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life -- not 21 days.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that "missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process." In other words, it doesn't matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process.

Finding Inspiration in the Long Road

Before you let this dishearten you, let's talk about three reasons why this research is actually inspiring.

First, there is no reason to get down on yourself if you try something for a few weeks and it doesn't become a habit. It's supposed to take longer than that! There is no need to judge yourself if you can't master a behavior in 21 short days. Learn to love your "10 Years of Silence." Embrace the long, slow walk to greatness and focus on putting in your reps.

Second, you don't have to be perfect. Making a mistake once or twice has no measurable impact on your long-term habits. This is why you should treat failure like a scientist, give yourself permission to make mistakes, and develop strategies for getting back on track quickly.

And third, embracing longer timelines can help us realize that habits are a process and not an event. All of the "21 Days" hype can make it really easy to think, "Oh, I'll just do this and it'll be done." But habits never work that way. You have to embrace the process. You have to commit to the system.

Understanding this from the beginning makes it easier to manage your expectations and commit to making small, incremental improvements -- rather than pressuring yourself into thinking that you have to do it all at once.

Where to Go From Here

At the end of the day, how long it takes to form a particular habit doesn't really matter that much. Whether it takes 50 days or 500 days, you have to put in the work either way.

The only way to get to Day 500 is to start with Day 1. So forget about the number and focus on doing the work.

James Clear writes at JamesClear.com, where he shares science-based ideas for living a better life and building habits that stick. To get strategies for boosting your mental and physical performance by 10x, join his free newsletter.

LEAKY GUT

Leaky Gut: Is it Becoming an Epidemic?

May 27, 2015 by Carol Grieve

Leaky gut is a condition that causes many health problems, yet it’s rarely talked about in the media or in doctors’ offices. As a matter of fact, many people have this condition but have no clue! Here’s a look at what leaky gut is, how it occurs and what you can do to create a healthy gut without the use of pharmaceuticals. Many of the doctors and health practitioners that are talking about and diagnosing leaky gut are saying that almost 80% of the U.S. population has some degree of leaky gut.

The leaky gut issue starts in a very important organ, your small intestine. The small intestine is so important because most of the vitamins and minerals in the foods you eat are absorbed there. In order for the vitamins and minerals to be absorbed, the small intestine contains microscopic pores so the nutrients can be transferred into the bloodstream. Once transferred, the nutrients are then shuttled and deposited all around the body by the blood.

The wall of the intestine is considered semi-permeable. This means it only allows certain things to enter the bloodstream and block other things from entering the bloodstream. For instance, specific molecules and nutrients are allowed to pass through but toxins and large undigested food particles are blocked. When you have leaky gut, the pores in your small intestine widen and this allows undigested food particles and toxins, that would normally be blocked, to enter your bloodstream. These particles and toxins aren’t recognized and the immune system goes into attack mode because they are not supposed to be in the blood. In essence, the immune system literally recognizes these undigested particles as dangerous. This can lead to allergies and much worse conditions. These particles that shouldn’t be there cause an immune response and build up antibodies to protect–it is just basically doing its job. The problem is the immune system doesn’t just build up antibodies to the food particles; it attacks your healthy cells, too. This is one of the ways food allergies and autoimmune disorders develop.

Keeping in mind that 70% of our immune system is in our gut, doesn’t it seem important to have a healthy one?

Let’s back up a bit and discuss some of the reasons why we are having a leaky gut epidemic? Why now? What has changed?

What has changed in the American diet over the last 25 years? We are a country that consumes much processed and fast food. The typical American diet consists of high amounts of sugar (an average of 22 teaspoons per day[i]) and many nutrient deficient foods or foods that are just void of any nutrients. We have become a society of convenience and a society of wanting it right now–and our health is paying a big price for this!  Our food is processed and filled with harmful chemicals and preservatives. Is it any wonder why Diabetes is so rampant in this country? In 2012, 29.1 Million people had Diabetes which is 9.3 percent of the population[ii]. That figure has increased since then and continues to grow daily!

There are a few different ways you can develop leaky gut. For example, if you are chronically constipated, over time the toxins in your stool will irritate the lining of your intestines. This irritation leads to inflammation which will cause the pores in the small intestine to expand. If the irritation and inflammation are allowed to continue for an extended period of time it can lead to irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, or colitis, as well as other auto-immune diseases. So why are so many people constipated? Could it be a lack of proper nutrition, clean water and stress?

The other common cause of leaky gut is an imbalance of the flora inside our gut. We all have good and bad bacteria in our digestive system. When our gut flora is in balance the bad bacteria poses no threat. But when the bad bacteria outweighs the good, irritation and inflammation occur, again, causing the pores of the intestine to open up.  This creates something called dysbiosis which means that the billions of bacteria in our gut, which consists of good and bad bacteria, is out of balance. When we  have too much of the bad bacteria, it literally creates holes in the lining of the walls of the small intestine and creates a leaky gut. What causes dysbiosis? Could it be stress and poor nutrition?

Something else that has changed in our diet over the last 20 years is the introduction of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Currently, 80% of the foods in our mainstream grocery stores are genetically modified. Last year (2014), 89% of U.S. corn, 93% of U.S. soy, and 95% of U.S. sugar beets [iii] were genetically modified for tolerance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.  Repeat  spraying of glyphosate tolerant (Roundup Ready) crops builds residues that can carry over into food products.  Some conventional crops are also sprayed with Roundup in low concentrations to control the timing of the harvest. Roundup is used as a desiccant (drying agent) on oats, Non GMO flax, barley, wheat, edible peas, potatoes, cantaloupe, and sugar cane. Glyphosate (RoundUp) is the most widely used herbicide in the world. It is a patented antibiotic[iv] and a mineral chelator. When Glyphosate gets into our gut, it can bind the beneficial minerals that are needed to maintain that healthy gut flora and makes these minerals unavailable. This creates dysbiosis. Through dysbiosis, the bad bacteria creates holes in the lining of the walls of the small intestine and creates a leaky gut.

Stress can be a factor in creating leaky gut. Severe emotional stress or trauma, drug use, especially antibiotic and anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can be a contributing factor. Sometimes they are necessary, for a period of time, but overuse or extended use of antacids (for reflux or heartburn), anti-inflammatory drugs (for pain) and/or antibiotics (for infections) is known to cause leaky gut. Antacids cause leaky gut by suppressing digestion of your food, making it more likely that your immune system will be triggered by the food you eat. Once the immune system starts to react, leaky gut is aggravated each time you eat, even if it is food that you would think is good for you.

Gluten causes leaky gut by increasing levels of a protein called zonulin, which opens up the spaces between the intestinal cells, even if you don’t have gluten sensitivity.

What are some of the symptoms of leaky gut? Brain fog, anxiety, depression, emotional ups and downs, food allergies, hives, rashes, sinus issues, joint pain, food cravings for artificial fats and sugars (alcohol), autoimmune disease, weight gain, bloating, diarrhea, digestion issues, irritability, cramping, fatigue, headaches or thyroid conditions are some of the issues associated with leaky gut.

What can you do for leaky gut? It is recommended by many health practitioners that those with leaky gut eliminate all dairy, grains, sugar, legumes, GMOs, and seeds from your diet for a period of between 2 weeks to 12 weeks, depending upon the severity. There are leaky gut formulas available online or in your health food stores. It’s best to abstain from alcohol which contains sugar. Also, adding a good probiotic to your daily routine can be beneficial. Fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi are wonderful probiotic foods that contain live cultures and they can assist in creating a healthy gut. Bone broth is also very healing for the gut. You can find recipes for bone broth online.

Another issue is that our gut or microbiome, as it is now called, is very much connected to our brain. When we have an unhealthy gut, we cannot get adequate amounts of tryptophan.  Tryptophan is an amino acid that is used by the brain and is converted into serotonin.  Serotonin is important because it controls feelings of hunger, depression, anxiety, thirst and sleep. Tryptophan has also been found to be an important nutrient when it comes to immune system functioning.  Serotonin is one of the four main neurotransmitters that are responsible for our mood. If our serotonin levels fall off we may experience anxiety and depression. Doesn’t this make sense that a leaky gut can cause brain fog, mood swings, depression, apathy and many more brain issues? Could it be the key to having a healthy brain is having a healthy gut?

In summary, leaky gut is the root of many health issues. Now that you are familiar with some of the health issues associated with leaky gut, including common syndromes like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, IBS, and multiple food and chemical sensitivities, as well as asthma, anxiety, autoimmunity, diabetes, and arthritis, you can take steps to create a healthier gut which is so important to your well being and your immune system. Discuss your symptoms with your doctor if you have a doctor who is knowledgeable about leaky gut. Most functional medicine doctors fully understand leaky gut syndrome and can assist you if you have a severe case of leaky gut. I always encourage people to be their own health advocate because only you can heal you!  Be well!

learn how to quiet your mind....

10 Meditation Tips for Beginners

05/15/2015 12:18 pm by Nathalie Thompson, HuffPost GPS for the Soul

Meditation is a wonderful tool for decreasing feelings of stress and anxiety, and increasing feelings of peacefulness, contentedness and connectedness. It helps you stay present in the moment so that you can experience your life as it happens, rather than always being caught up in the past or the future, and it can help you gain a deeper understanding of your true self. And yet, for so many people, starting a regular meditation practice is a frustrating and difficult task.

Here are 10 simple meditation tips for beginners to help you get through that initial frustration and get started with your own meditation practice:

Tip #1: Make it a habit.

The best way to make progress with meditation and really get it to start working for you is to turn it into a habit. Make it a formal practice with time that you dedicate specifically to meditation in your schedule. Do it at least once a day -- twice if you are able to manage it.

Tip #2: Start small.

Don't listen to people who tell you meditation doesn't count unless you do it for half an hour at a time. Maybe you'll get to the stage where you want to do it for that length of time, but don't start out trying to force yourself to be still for that long. Try five minutes at first, and then when you're comfortable with that, work your way up in five-minute increments until you get to a practice length that feels right for you.

Tip #3: Guard your time.

Make sure that you dedicate a time for meditation when you know you won't be disturbed. You're not going to be able to still your mind if you're thinking that the kids will be home soon, or that the baby will wake from her nap soon, or that you have a board meeting in an hour and you're expecting your secretary to bring you the agenda for approval any minute now. Pick a time in your day when you know you will have the undisturbed time that you need.

Tip #4: Try stretching.

If you're new to meditation, doing some light stretches before beginning your meditation practice can help you loosen up any muscle tension that might make sitting still for a while uncomfortable for you. Stretching also helps you bring your focus inward and helps center you.

Tip #5: Pick a comfortable position.

Many of the experts out there are going to tell you to sit in a straight-backed chair with your feet flat on the floor, or to kneel with a cushion tucked under you for support. And I'm sure you've seen all the pictures of yogis and swamis in full lotus position while they meditate. But if you're not comfortable in such positions then try something else: lie flat on your back on something comfortable, or sit on a comfy couch with your legs crossed and your back supported. The key is to find something that feels comfortable for you and your body, or you're just not going to keep at it. It's not the position you're in that's important here; it's the stillness and quieting of the mind that is important.

Tip #6: Set your intention.

Before you begin your meditation practice, set your intention for the practice; what is it that you want to get out of this meditation session? Is it clarity? Is it relaxation? Peace? Connection? Set your intention before you start so that your subconscious mind knows what to work on.

Tip #7: Focus on your breath.

If you're just starting out with meditation, focus on your breathing. Count your breaths as they flow in and out, and slow your breathing down. Breathe deeply. It slows your heart rate and helps you to relax. It also helps to focus your mind so that your random thoughts are less likely to intrude.

Tip #8: Don't stress over it.

If you start to get frustrated because your mind keeps wandering and you can't seem to focus yourself very well, don't stress over it. This is normal when you begin meditating -- it really is very common, and nothing to be concerned about. When you feel the frustration creeping in, just bring your awareness back to your breaths and start counting them again. You can try using breath patterns, if it helps. For example, instead of every breath in as one and every breath out as another one, count cycles; one breath in and one breath out is "one", another breath in and out is "two", etc...

Tip #9: Practice gratitude.

At the end of your session, take a minute or two to appreciate the fact that you have begun your new meditation practice. Appreciate that, even though you may have had trouble focusing, there were moments when you achieved the intention you set. Gratitude is the cornerstone to building everything you want in life, including a beneficial meditation practice!

Tip #10: Be present throughout the day.

Even if it's not your set "meditation time", finding moments throughout your day to practice mindfulness and being fully present in the moment is a great way to strengthen and build your meditation habit and abilities.

When you start meditating and deliberately trying to quiet your mind, you will quickly become aware of just how many thoughts are racing around your head, all the time. Don't beat yourself up over all of this. With practice, you will learn to deflect these thoughts and "quiet the chattering monkeys" so that you can find the inner calmness that you're looking for. It does get easier the more you do it!

Nathalie Thompson is the author of Seven-Minute Stress Busters and the founder of VibeShifting.com, your guide to mastering the methods and mindsets of success and transforming your dreams into reality. For more inspiration, sign up now for free access to her "Build Your Best Life" video course!

sorting out medical advice....

Sorting Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense

May 24, 2015 | By Dr. Mercola

There’s so much confusion regarding health information in the media. How do you determine which advice to follow and what to take with a grain of salt? Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote the book Doctoring Data: How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense to help you answer that question.

His fabulous book will teach you how to identify common research flaws and help you sift through misleading and meaningless data. An important resource if you are a serious student of health.

Dr. Kendrick has also written The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth about What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It, which is another great book. Like me, he’s a trained family doctor whose journey led him to abandon much of what’s promoted in conventional medicine.

“The first time it really hit home, I was at a conference in Gleneagles... At that meeting the results of the first ever trial on treating mild to moderate hypertension came out.

Prior to that, no one has done a study. It was done in the UK under the Medical Research Council. When the results came out, there was great fanfare.

But once I teased out all the figures... it worked out that the total number of deaths from stroke and heart disease in the placebo group was 124, and in the treatment group, it was 124. I thought, ‘Well, nothing happened. This was a complete waste of time...’

I realized that basically, research, data, facts, and figures seem to have no effect on some people. I think that was when I suddenly thought, ‘Hold on, this is nonsense.’”

Quite often, this kind of “nonsense” is a manipulation effect designed by the people who funded or put these studies together. Over the past decade, Dr. Kendrick has developed 10 tools the average person can use to help identify the truth in any given study.

The book is an important tool that teaches you how to tear apart any study promoted in the media as a breakthrough. The reality is most of the time it isn’t, and the book will explain how you can make that determination yourself.

Correlation Does Not Prove Causation

A basic tenet of science is that correlation does not imply or prove causation. This is one of Dr. Kendrick’s 10 principles. It’s a common mistake to get excited about associations that in reality frequently amount to nothing.

“People will look at a group of people, studying what they eat and do over many years. Then they say, ‘Oh, look, they drink red wine and they don’t get heart disease.’ They immediately come out and say, 'Red wine protects you against heart disease.’

I always go, ‘No. It could mean that. But what it probably means is that people who drink red wine may be better off; maybe they’re more educated, maybe they exercise, maybe they eat vegetables as well, maybe they don’t smoke, or maybe they do a hundred of other things.’

Even though it’s something highly correlated... it doesn’t mean it is [causative].”

On the other side of this coin, lack of association disproves causation.

“We have studies like that,” Dr. Kendrick says. “There’s a huge study in Austria of 150,000 people, which showed that the higher your cholesterol level was, the longer you lived. And the lower your cholesterol level was, the shorter you lived. These [findings] don’t see the light of day. They are published, but silenced...”

Many Times They Just Make Stuff Up

While it’s hard to comprehend, some health recommendations are completely fabricated and are not based in any science. Dr. Kendrick wrote about this in a recent article for The Independent:1

“If you are a man, it has virtually become gospel that drinking more than 21 units of alcohol a week is damaging to your health. But where did the evidence to support this well-known ‘fact’ come from?

The answer may surprise you. According to Richard Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, the level for safe drinking was ‘plucked out of the air.’

He was on a Royal College of Physicians team that helped produce the guidelines in 1987. He told The Times newspaper that the committee's epidemiologist had conceded that there was no data about safe limits available and that ‘it's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't.’

Smith said the drinking limits were ‘not based on any firm evidence at all,’ but were an ‘intelligent guess.’ In time, the intelligent guess becomes an undisputed fact.”

According to Dr. Kendrick, the linear model for blood pressure—which states the higher your blood pressure is, in a linear fashion, the greater your risk of dying—was also made up.

Ditto for recommended cholesterol levels, and healthy versus unhealthy obesity levels. Believe it or not, none of these are based on real data. The recommendation to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables is equally made up, yet recommendations such as these become set in stone.

People believe it must be based on solid evidence and therefore true. One of the most impressive comments he made in the interview is: “Don’t believe it. They just made it up.”

Absolute Risk versus Relative Risk, and Number Needed to Treat

Absolute risk versus relative risk can be used to make something sound far worse than it really is, or conversely, make something appear better than it is. Most doctors even struggle to understand what these two terms actually mean. Dr. Kendrick explains absolute versus relative risk with the following example:

“You get 100 people and you put them on a blood pressure-lowering medication, and you get 100 people and put them on a placebo. After a year, two people have died in the placebo group; one person has died in the blood pressure-lowering group.

That’s an absolute difference of one percent [one out of 100], and a relative difference of one death versus two; that’s 50 percent.

Now, take 1,000 people and do the same. In the thousand-people group, one person dies in the blood pressure arm and two people die in the placebo arm. The difference is absolute: It’s 0.1 percent. The relative risk difference is one versus two—it’s 50 percent...

When it comes to things like statins, which they say reduces the risk of heart disease by 40 percent, you say, ‘What was the underlying risk? Was it one in 10,000, one in two, one in a million?’ Unless you know that, the statistic is meaningless. I think relative risk should never be mentioned in any clinical study. It should be absolute risk all the time. [Relative risk] is the standard, and it shouldn’t be because it’s just ridiculous.”

Overall Mortality versus Specific Cause of Death

Another way medical findings can be twisted is by focusing on the prevention of specific causes of death. For example, a study might claim that a cholesterol-lowering drug reduces the risk of dying from heart disease, but the people in the study may have died in greater numbers from other health problems instead. Naturally, you cannot die from heart disease if you die from another disease first. As a result, some research ends up forming the basis for health recommendations that actually do more harm than good.

“It’s the overall mortality you have to look at—ALL causes of possible death. What was the impact? When you look at, say, alcohol consumption, it increases the risk of mouth cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer... But when you look at the overall figures, it reduces the overall mortality risk. So you can take all of these things, add them together, and basically ignore them on the basis that you’re going to have to die of something,” Dr. Kendrick says.

Another perfect example is sun exposure.

“Dermatologists have taken over the world on sun exposure and said, ‘Oh, people are getting skin cancer so you must never allow a photon go straight to your skin.’ To which I say, I’ve seen studies where women who have higher sun exposure are 50 percent less likely to get breast cancer.

Men who have higher rates of sun exposure have are 50 percent less likely to get aggressive prostate cancer. Men and women who have higher rates of sun exposure are 75 percent less likely to get colorectal cancer... Frankly, the research I’ve looked at says sun exposure protects against malignant melanoma; it doesn’t cause it. Therefore the whole thing is a crock.”

Sun exposure also protects against heart disease, improves bone strength, reduces osteoporosis, and reduces your chance of developing multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Does it raise your risk of deadly skin cancer? If you get burned, yes, it may, but the overall health benefits FAR outweigh the potentially elevated risk of melanoma. Part of the problem is you cannot see that which does not happen.

If you tan and get melanoma, your dermatologist will tell you it’s your fault for not following his recommendations to stay out of the sun. But if you never come down with colorectal cancer, no one will pat you on the back and say, “Great job! You successfully avoided cancer because you spent so much time in the sun.”

Longest Running Study in the World Refutes Conventional ‘Facts’

One of the examples in Dr. Kendrick’s book is the Framingham Study, which was one of the longest studies ever done in the world. It has been going on for about seven decades. One of the conclusions reached was that people whose cholesterol was reduced by one millimole per liter, which equates to about 40 milligram per deciliter, raised their risk of dying of heart disease in the next 14 years by 500 percent.

Falling cholesterol was determined to be the most important risk factor for heart disease mortality in this study, yet this finding has received virtually no publicity, as it runs contrary to conventional recommendations to lower your cholesterol to prevent heart disease. They also discovered that the more saturated fat people ate, the lower their cholesterol level was during the length of the study. This too is completely contrary to conventional recommendations to avoid saturated fat because it raises your cholesterol.

Mammography is another area where science and “conventional wisdom” is often at odds. Dr. Peter C. Gotzsche, a professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis, and director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, wrote an excellent book on this subject called Mammography Screening: Truth, Lies, and Controversy. After studying it for years, he came to the conclusion that mammography probably does more harm than good.

The Cochrane Collaboration, by the way, is a worldwide effort of researchers who have no industry connections, who collaborate to review and evaluate available evidence on any given topic and then come to a conclusion. The Cochrane Database the gold standard for objective, impartial, non-biased meta-reviews.

Non-Disclosure of Negative Data and Other Shenanigans

Other common tactics of misdirection include the non-disclosure of negative studies and good old-fashioned conflicts of interest. As noted by Dr. Kendrick: “In the States, they have the non-disclosure of negative data on antidepressants. They only publish positive studies, and the negative ones aren’t published. You then have a bias of infinity. There are hundreds of these things that go on.”

His book also addresses the now infamous revolving door between the government and the drug industry. One classic example is Julie Gerberding, who headed up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—an agency charged with overseeing vaccines and drug companies—for a number of years before becoming the president of Merck’s vaccine division.

If you don't see the enormity of the influence her former high-level ties to the CDC can have, just consider the fact that Merck makes 14 of the 17 pediatric vaccines recommended by the CDC, and 9 of the 10 recommended for adults, and while vaccine safety advocates are trying to rein in the number of vaccines given to babies, safety concerns keep falling on deaf ears.

“You should be banned forever from working with the industry if you’re in the position of authority making decisions about drugs and medications,” Dr. Kendrick says. “If we have to get opinion leaders and experts, people running studies, that’s fine. You can do that if you like. But you cannot then sit on the guideline committee.

You cannot be the person who says, ‘This is how we’ll be treating X.’ Look at the cholesterol-lowering guidelines. How many conflicts of interest are there? Last time I looked at the guidelines made in 2004, there were 107 conflicts of interest, 70 directly with statin manufacturing companies. How can this be? This is nonsense.”

More Information

Anyone who’s a serious student of health needs a copy of Dr. Kendrick’s book, Doctoring Data: How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense, in their library. It goes into far more details than we’ve covered in this interview. It’s definitively eye-opening, and will empower you to make sounder choices for you and your family when it comes to your health and lifestyle.

It is an important tool to help you take control of your health and avoid deception by the media and drug companies. You don’t have to be fooled by drug industry manipulation once you know some of the tricks they use. Dr. Kendrick also has a blog, DrMalcolmKendrick.org, where he discusses this and other health-related topics.

ah, sleep....

Key Strategies for Optimizing Your Sleep

May 21, 2015 | 98,323 views

By Dr. Mercola

Are you tired of being tired? If you feel sleepy during the day, there’s a good chance you need to get more sleep or better quality sleep. Even if you think you can “get by” on five or six hours a night, your body is not easily fooled.

Poor sleep impacts virtually every aspect of your health. Your sleep-wake cycle actually drives biological activity at the cellular level, so circadian disruptions tend to ripple out through your entire body.

This explains why many studies clearly show that poor quality sleep has been linked to everything from weight gain to cancer to premature aging.

One of my favorite tools for resolving anxiety contributing to insomnia is EFT, or “emotional freedom technique.” EFT combines tapping on certain points of your body with making statements that help pinpoint the underlying issues, as demonstrated in the video above.

EFT helps to release worries, fears, and physical symptoms that stand between you and a good night’s sleep.  

In addition to your reaction to daily stress, several other factors can interfere with your sleep, such as your pre-sleep routine, room temperature, and lack of daily light exposure. Read on if you want the secrets to achieving permanent, deeply restorative sleep.

The Risks of ‘Just Getting By’ on Minimal Sleep

Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or illness,1 which may help explain why lack of sleep is tied to an increased risk of so many different chronic diseases.

Sleeping less than six hours per night more than triples your risk of high blood pressure, and women who get less than four hours of shut-eye double their chances of dying from heart disease.2

According to research from Great Britain,3 poor or insufficient sleep is actually the strongest predictor for pain in adults over age 50,4 and people with chronic sleep problems may develop Alzheimer's disease sooner than those who sleep well.

Interrupted sleep is equally harmful, leading to depressed mood, fatigue, and confusion. Besides making you more susceptible to pain and impaired cognition, poor sleep can also:

• Harm your brain by halting new neuron production. Sleep deprivation can increase levels of corticosterone (a stress hormone), resulting in fewer new brain cells being created in your hippocampus
• Pave the way to a pre-diabetic state, and make you feel hungry even if you've already eaten, which can lead to weight gain
• Contribute to premature aging by interfering with your production of growth hormone, normally released by your pituitary gland during deep sleep (and during certain types of exercise, such as high-intensity interval training)
• Increase your risk of cancer
• Increase your risk of dying from any cause

How to Determine How Much Sleep You Need

Dr. Rubin Naiman, a Clinical Psychologist, author, teacher, and leader in integrative approaches to sleep and dreams, recommends simply sleeping "enough hours that your energy is sustained through the day without artificial stimulation, with the exception of a daytime nap," which he believes you are biologically programmed for.

While I generally agree with this functional description rather than trying to come up with a specific numeric range, the bulk of the scientific evidenceindicates that most people need around eight hours of sleep for optimal health.

So in addition, I would suggest watching out for physical or biological symptoms that might indicate you’re not sleeping enough. For example, when I push myself and don't get enough high-quality sleep, I'm predisposed to postprandial hypoglycemia or tend to get tired after eating lunch.

Pay attention to clues your body may be giving you. For example, if you need an alarm clock to wake up and you awaken feeling tired and groggy, you probably need to go to sleep earlier (or get more restful sleep).

It’s also said that if you fall asleep within a few minutes of your head hitting the pillow, you’re probably sleep deprived. A well-rested person will take about 10 to 15 minutes to fall asleep at night.5

You might want to consider the use of a fitness tracker. In addition to providing exertion and fitness data, the latest technology includes sleep-monitoring algorithms, which can be quite useful and have minimal EMF exposure.

Newer devices, like Jawbone’s UP3 (up for release later this year) can even tell you which of your activities led to your best sleep and which interfered with your sleep.

Empty Out Your Stress Backpack BEFORE You Hit the Pillow

Many people who’ve learned EFT report excellent results when using it for sleep problems, especially if anxiety is a contributing factor. One of the reasons EFT works so well is that it’s such a powerful stress-reduction tool.

Tapping allows you to reprogram your body's reactions to many of the unavoidable stressors of everyday life, making it easier to take them in stride, and when your stressors improve, you will naturally sleep better.

In 2012, a triple blind study6 found that EFT reduced cortisol levels and symptoms of psychological distress by 24 percent—more than any other intervention tested. This is enormously significant, as there are few things that will destroy your health faster than stress!

Researchers at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine discovered that how you cope with stress might have even MORE impact on your sleep than the number of stressors you encounter. They also found that mindfulness therapies worked best for suppressing the "mental chatter" that inhibits the onset of sleep. Lead author of the study Vivek Pillai, PhD wrote:7

“While a stressful event can lead to a bad night of sleep, it's what you do in response to stress that can be the difference between a few bad nights and chronic insomnia.”

Tapping Your Way Toward Peaceful Slumber

The first and most important thing is to examine the underlying issues in your life that may be causing your ongoing pattern of wakefulness. This is crucial if you want to obtain lasting relief from your sleep difficulty. A sleep disturbance is always caused by something, be it physical, emotional, or both.

Anxiety and anger are two mental states that are incompatible with sleep. Feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities is another common sleep blocker. To identify the cause of your wakefulness, analyze the thoughts that circle in your mind during the time you lie awake. Themes will emerge. Ask yourself questions such as the following:

• What are these thoughts concerned with?
• Do they relate to a specific theme or themes in my life?
• Is there a particular concern or worry that refuses to leave me alone at night?
• Do I have a problem that insists on seeking an answer right away?
• Can solving this problem wait until morning?

One strategy is to compile a list of your current concerns. Once you have your list, simply start tapping on each issue, one at a time—anxiety, anger, job stress, physical pain, or whatever—EFT has worked on just about everything at one time or another. To learn how to tap, please refer to our free EFT guide. For specific instructions about how to adapt EFT for insomnia, including what to say as you tap, please read our prior article by EFT Master Patricia Carrington. You can also tap along with Julie as you watch the video featured at the top of this page.

Optimize Your Light Exposure for Better Sleep

 

Download Interview Transcript

Making sure you get some measure of bright sun exposure daily is also important for optimal sleep. Your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright sun exposure in the day and complete darkness at night. If you’re in darkness all day long, your body can't appreciate the difference and will not optimize melatonin production. Sleep researcher Dan Pardi recommends getting at least 30 to 60 minutes of outdoor light exposure during the daytime in order to "anchor" your master clock rhythm, in the morning if possible. More sunlight exposure is required as you age.

Once the sun sets, avoid light as much as possible to assist your body in secreting melatonin, which helps you feel sleepy. It can be helpful to sleep in complete darkness, or as close to it as possible. Even the slightest bit of light in your bedroom can disrupt your internal clock and your pineal gland's melatonin production. If you need a bit of light to navigate down the hall in the wee hours of the night, install a low-wattage yellow, orange, or red light bulb. Light in these bandwidths does not shut down melatonin production in the way that white and blue light does. Salt lamps are lovely for this purpose. You can also download a free application called F.lux that automatically dims your computer device screens.8

Additional Sleep Tips

Small adjustments to your daily routine and sleeping area can go a long way toward ensuring you uninterrupted, restful sleep—and thereby better health. I suggest you read through my full set of 33 healthy sleep guidelines, but for starters, consider those listed in the table below. If you’ve tried everything to no avail, you might want to consider consulting a qualified sleep specialist. Sleep disorders such as insomnia can be treated in as little as several sessions, without medication. Dr. Silberman recommends a sleep specialist who does cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Many people keep their homes too warm (particularly their bedrooms). Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Take a hot bath 90 to 120 minutes before bedtime. This raises your core body temperature, and when you get out of the bath it abruptly drops, signaling your body that you’re ready for sleep.

Avoid loud alarm clocks. Being jolted awake each morning can be very stressful. If you are regularly getting appropriate sleep, you might not even need an alarm.

Avoid watching TV or using your computer in the evening, at least an hour or so before going to bed.These devices emit blue light, which tricks your brain into thinking it's still daytime. Normally, your brain starts secreting melatonin between 9 pm and 10 pm, and these devices may stifle that process.

Be mindful of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in your bedroom. EMFs can disrupt your pineal gland and its melatonin production, and may have other detrimental biological effects. A gauss meter is required if you want to measure EMF levels in various areas of your home. Ideally, you should turn off any wireless router while you are sleeping—after all, you don’t need the Internet when you sleep.

Pre-sleep routine. Going to bed and getting up at the same time each day helps keep your sleep on track, but having a consistent pre-sleep routine or “sleep ritual” is also important. For instance, if you read before heading to bed, your body knows that reading at night signals it’s time for sleep. Sleep specialist Stephanie Silberman, PhD suggests listening to calming music, stretching or doing relaxation exercises.9

Use your bed only for sleep and intimacy. Harvard sleep expert Dr. Lawrence Epstein10 advises creating a clear association between your bed and sleep. In fact, if you’re having trouble sleeping, he even advises against reading, watching TV, texting, or using your computer in bed. He says it’s OK to do those things in your bedroom but avoid doing them in your bed.

Relaxation exercises: Progressive relaxation and breathing exercises can help you relax. “Trying to relax” typically backfires, instead building up tension and frustration that often leads to more wakefulness. But there are specific progressive relaxation techniques that do work. Try the “Relaxing Staircase Technique,” for example.11Mindfulness therapies have also been found helpful for insomnia.12

Physical activity. Getting adequate exercise every day improves sleep quality and is a major anxiety-reducer. Be careful about exercising just before bedtime, as it can be too stimulating for some people, although studies show that vigorous evening exercise can augment sleep for many.

Avoid alcohol, caffeine and other drugs. According to Dr. Epstein, two of the biggest sleep saboteurs are caffeine and alcohol, both of which also increase anxiety. Caffeine’s effects can last four to seven hours. It isn’t just coffee—remember that tea and chocolate also contain caffeine. Alcohol can help you fall asleep faster, but it makes sleep more fragmented and less restorative. Many other drugs can also interfere with sleep.