Lifestyle Choices

Read

There are thousands of self-help books available that actually have some very good advice. While some of the advice may not apply to your situation, most books at least have one nugget of knowledge that can be useful. Visit your local bookstores and libraries, and read as much as you can. The internet also has useful information to offer although care must be exercised as some sources of information may not be reliable. If in doubt, one should check with one’s mental health provider concerning the validity of information obtained from the internet. Some people have a problem when they read self-help books. (more…)

You Are Not Alone

Many teens suffer from depression, therefore you are not alone. There are effective treatments and hence no depression is a hopeless case. You need to be patient with yourself. It takes time for the mind to heal just as it takes time for the body to heal. Wishing that the depression will disappear is not going to work. It will not go away immediately but it will, eventually. Continuing with treatment and therapy will ensure that that day will come even sooner. In the meantime, try to relax yourself, sort out your feelings and thoughts, and allow your mind and emotions to recover. (more…)

As a result of sexual healing, each survivor creates a comfort zone for sexual activity. Within this zone certain behaviors feel okay, while others do not. A survivor might feel fine having sexual relations, but only under the condition that sexual contact is made in the same position every time. Another survivor might feel comfortable with fingers touching genitals but not want oral sex at all.

While establishing limits to sexual behavior and activity is crucial to being able to sexually heal, as time goes on survivors often feel limited by their own restrictions. Then the task becomes one of expanding the outer limits of the comfort zone to make room for new experiences. (more…)

Most women become aware of the poor condition of neglected muscles when a strain occurs, but there are various tests you can run on specific muscles to find out how strong and resilient yours are. One in particular probably gives more indication than any other of how susceptible you are to back pain. It is used by one of Europe’s top back experts, who taught it to me. And it is particularly useful for women after childbirth.

Lie flat on your back on the floor. With one hand stretched out and fingers together, press the tips of the fingers against the center line of the abdomen at the navel. Now raise your head off the floor. If the rectus abdominis muscle (the long, flat muscle on the front of the abdomen) parts, allowing your fingers to press easily into the abdominal cavity, then your abdominal wall is definitely not strong enough. (more…)

Every woman has two kinds of energy, male and female. Male energy is like the sun—invigorating, stimulating, creative, and powerful. The male postures in yoga call forth this dynamic energy and release it.

Female energy is recuperative, calming, nurturing, and gentle. The female postures are restoring to body, mind, and spirit. Yoga attempts to release male and female energies and ultimately to fuse them in union—to integrate the person.

The first four postures are male. They are done standing and they revitalize you. The last four are female and calming. In order to achieve the best balance and effect, it is best to do them in the order in which Geoffrey recommends them. (more…)

The Decanter

This exercise stimulates the nervous system and at the same time stills a restless or anxious mind. I like doing it after I have been working in an immobile position for a long time—for instance, when I have been at my desk writing for several hours. I do it just before I get up to move about.

Sitting comfortably in a chair with a straight back or cross-legged on the floor, imagine that your body is like a decanter, the bottom of the decanter being your pelvis and hips and the top of it your head. Pretend that you are going to fill it with energy in the form of air. (more…)

Your unconscious mind is tremendously powerful. It is a source of energy and creativity which—provided you can get in touch with it and turn it toward your desired ends—will work wonders for you. The use of creative imagery specifically geared to slimming can help you harness your own power. Following the principles of creative imagery, here are a few imaginary trips you can take to help you slim. Some will bring insight and increased self-awareness, others will help you get accustomed to yourself as a healthy, lean woman, still others can help you shed old, no longer useful thought patterns that have been hampering you. (more…)

Aim: this is a Gestalt technique designed to increase your awareness of how you feel about food and why the desire to eat has always seemed so compelling.

Picture a food which you think has a particular hold over you and which has contributed to your being overweight. See it in front of you and be aware of how it smells and feels and tastes. Now imagine that it can talk to you. Ask it questions like, “What are you doing?” and “What do you want from me?” Listen to its reply. You may have to speak to it several times. Then let it speak and pay attention to what it says. Do you agree or disagree? Carry on a dialogue with it and listen to all it has to say about itself and you. Continue with the conversation until you have said all that needs to be said and heard all it wishes to say to you. (more…)

One of the best things you can do for your feet is to walk barefoot. Wearing exercise sandals is the next best thing. When your feet are free of shoes and hose they relax and stretch; exercise sandals are designed to let the feet do this. They follow the natural contour of the foot, imitating and slightly exaggerating the effect of walking barefoot. This is great for toes as they grip and then relax from the gripper bar with every step. But exercise sandals are just that—meant for exercise, not all-day wearing. You can tire yourself and develop bulky muscles in the calves if you wear them too much. (more…)

Instant broth cubes are superb for quelling an appetite and they cost you only about twelve calories a cup. You can also carry them to work with you or, if you don’t have boiling water available, make them up in a thermos to take along. They are also nutritious whereas coffee and tea will do nothing for you in terms of building health and beauty. Herb teas (no calories) are also excellent although they don’t give you the same full feeling that broth does. They can be sweetened with a teaspoon of honey, which is an excellent source of essential trace elements such as zinc, copper, iron, manganese, and chromium—often in scarce supply in ordinary slenderizing regimens. (more…)

EYES

This exercise is excellent for the eye area, which usually goes slack faster than any other part of the face. It is particularly designed to prevent or eliminate crow’s-feet. It is in two parts.

Part one Looking into a mirror, lower your chin to your chest and open your eyes looking straight ahead. Then, slowly and in eight definite steps, close your eyes by bringing the lower lids up to the upper, all the while looking into the mirror until the very last moment. Hold this position with your eyes tightly shut for four counts, then release in the same eight definite steps. Repeat four times. Once you can control these movements in definite steps, you are ready to go on to the toughy that really does the work. (more…)

One of the most useful things you can do yourself to prevent your face from aging and to correct sags and bags even after they have occurred is to practice face exercises every day.

The bones you were born with give yaw face its individual shape and structure. Short of plastic surgery or adjustments to your skull through cranial osteopathy, there is nothing you can do to change them. But your muscles are constantly changing either for better or for worse. They are made up of bundles of fibers, each of which works independently to shorten muscle and draw a part of the face into a particular expression. Just like the muscles in the rest of your body, each of these groups of fibers has an antagonistic group. This means that for each muscle that pulls an area of your face into one expression, there is an opposite muscle to pull it the other way. (more…)

The behavioural treatment of obesity is based on changing daily habits and behaviours to reach the desired goal. The basic premise of behaviour therapy is to reward beneficial behaviours and discourage detrimental ones. However, state of the art behavioural treatment has a wider perspective and focuses on eating behaviours, social support, exercise, attitudes and nutrition. The aim is to modify the situations which promote eating and to evaluate the consequences of eating behaviour. Behaviour therapy involves specific processes which are aimed at modifying behaviour.

Self-monitoring

The client is asked to monitor when she eats, how much she eats and why she eats. This increases self-awareness so that eating cannot ‘just happen’, and enables her to evaluate her success and whether any changes have occurred. put their eating into context and to learn to say ‘I am not useless, the odd slip is inevitable and I will now return to my diet‘. This eradicates an ‘all or nothing response’ which can often result in the client abandoning the diet. (more…)

Your body is designed to move, and a certain level of exercise is needed just to keep it working healthily. However, it’s all too easy to develop a couch-potato lifestyle, or simply to run out of time to exercise. This is bad news for your long-term health as well as your weight. Low activity levels exaggerate your appetite, slow your rate of metabolism and interfere with your body’s ability to keep blood glucose levels stable.

GET THE EXERCISE HABIT

Combining diet and exercise is the best way to lose weight: that way you lose fat, not lean muscle when you diet.

Muscle burns up more energy than fat, so the less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism.

Aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, dance, skiing, circuit training) increases your heart rate and is ideal for fatburning, whereas anaerobic exercise (using weights or resistance) builds lean muscle and improves body tone. (more…)

5 EXERCISE - FOR AT LEAST 15 MINUTES

Exercise - for at least 15 minutes a day - helps to stabilise your blood sugar levels and reduce your appetite.

It seems that the less we move, the more we eat - and vice versa. The human body needs physical activity to work properly, just as it needs water or vitamins. The right kind of exercise will increase muscle and boost the rate at which you burn fat for up to 15 hours afterwards. A pound of muscle burns many more calories a day than a pound of fat, so every pound of fat you lose, and every pound of muscle you gain will further increase your body’s long-term ability to burn fat.

To kick-start this process, start by doing 15 minutes exercise a day, or 20 minutes five times a week, or 35 minutes three times a week. Go for it! The short and long-term benefits will far outweigh the initial strain. (more…)

The first step in managing stress is to recognize the causes and to be aware of the symptoms.

You need to recognize the situations in your life that are the stressors. Try to identify the things that make you feel “stressed-out.” Everything from minor irritations, such as traffic jams, to major life changes such as births, deaths, or job loss can be stressors. Or a stress overload of just too many demands on your time can make you feel that you are no longer in control. You may feel so overwhelmed that you become depressed.

Make yourself aware of how your body feels when you are under stress. Are the muscles beginning to tighten? Are you gritting your teeth, gripping the steering wheel tightly, drumming your fingers, patting your foot, or hunching your shoulders? Can you feel your heart beating faster, your breathing rate becoming faster and more shallow? Are you perspiring, shaking, or getting a headache? (more…)

Total fasting is dangerous as are crash (fast) diets. Crash diets that bring about weight loss by dehydration of only 5 percent in forty-eight hours have been shown to reduce the individual’s working capacity by as much as 40 percent. The practice of making weight in athletics, whether by dehydration, induced vomiting, or starvation diets, is dangerous to health and should be condemned (see Concept 13 on weight control and Concept 19 on dehydration). Much of the weight lost on such fad diets is valuable lean muscle mass.

Pill popping, hormone injections, and powder and liquid diets havt little value in long-term weight control programs and present many health hazards. When in doubt, avoid diets that: (more…)

The first step in fat control is establishing realistic goals.

Too many teens and adults, both men and women, establish unrealistic goals for their physical appearance. Fat weight, and body proportions are all factors that can be changed, but people often set standards for themselves that will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. It is important that goals be set for fat and weight control that can be accomplished for both the short term and the long haul. This necessitates developing an understanding of your own body proportions as well as your body fatness. Unrealistic goals may result in eating disorders (see Concept 20), failure to meet goals, or the failure to maintain fat loss over the long haul. The measurement procedures used in Labs 13A and 13B should help you establish realistic goals.

Goals that emphasize the behavior of eating less and exercising more are more effective than those emphasizing a specific outcome such as weight or fat lost (or gained).

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The support of family and friends can be of great importance in fat control.

In Concept 18, the importance of family and friends to successful exercise adherence was emphasized. Family and friends can also help you in changing and adhering to healthy eating practices. It is known that parents who overeat have children who eat more than normal. In these cases, it is important for the entire family to participate in a program to control fatness. Family and friends should provide support for the person trying to gain or lose fat by helping them follow the guidelines presented in this Concept, rather than tempting the person to eat improperly. (more…)

So far, we have discussed many positive life changes you can make to experience a healthier, happier life. But getting into new habits is not always easy. We are creatures of habit and our own laziness often stops us from implementing the most sensible resolutions we might have made such as exercising regularly, taking time out to care for ourselves and using positive self-talk, for example. So how do you keep up the motivation? When it comes to motivation there are two types of pain the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Which one will you choose? The pain of getting up and exercising or meditating now or the pain of regret tomorrow or 10 years from now? Looking after yourself is only a one-minute decision each day — a decision to eat the food that is healthy, the decision to go to the gym, or the decision to look after your skin. Here are our top tips to getting motivated and keeping it up: (more…)