Meditate Your Way To Wellness

Many people think of Eastern religions when they think of meditation, and too often those who know little about meditation are greatly confused by what it really is and what it really does. We may hear how meditation is good for our well-being, but we fail to find a simple “how to” manual when we decide to incorporate it into our lives. The fact is, most people make meditation much more complicated than it needs to be. To meditate is to simply eliminate excessive thought, enter awareness and narrow our focus. Once thought of as an enhancement only to our spiritual being, medical research is also now touting the physical benefits of regular meditation. Doctors nowadays often advise the use of meditation as a way to reduce stress and fatigue, and studies have shown that it may provide positive benefits to the circulatory and respiratory systems. Since stress is linked to life-threatening disease such as diabetes, stroke and heart disease, it seems practical to make daily meditation a part of preventative medicine along with proper nutrition and regular exercise. While there is no one right way to meditate, it is the general consensus that one must do it consistently to achieve optimum wellness. Here’s a simple way to get started. Set aside 15 minutes of uninterrupted time, change into comfortable clothing and sit in an upright and relaxed position. Close your eyes and breathe consciously: in for a count of 4, hold for 2, and out for another count of 4. Concentrate only on the breaths you take, focusing solely on the air filling your lungs…and then leaving your body. As random thoughts enter your mind, acknowledge and release them, returning to your breath meditation. After just 15 minutes of this, you’ll be on your way to less stress and better health. Additionally, this same process can be used to enhance your mental and spiritual health. Simply by consistently releasing stressful thoughts and sitting quietly, you will clear your mind, strengthen your focus and get better connected with your spiritual core. Regular meditation can also help you to adopt a whole new way of thinking. For example, if you are typically in the habit of dwelling in negative thoughts, you can use your meditation sessions to begin changing that pattern to automatically become more positive. Try reciting empowering phrases (affirmations) like the following to yourself once you feel completely relaxed physically: “I always expect the best. Great things always happen to me. I am usually very lucky. I love myself and take good care of myself. I am a good person. I get along well with others.” Basically, you can include any type of positive message you want to sink into your subconscious mind. Because you will be very relaxed physically and mentally during and after a meditation session, it’s the perfect time to absorb some positive new messages because your subconscious mind will be less resistant to them. Likewise, you can do the same thing with spiritually empowering messages, like: “I am never alone. I am guided and supported by a loving universe. I am surrounded and protected by angels.” Even if you don’t initially believe these statements, consistent repetition will begin to change that! Keep working on it and before long you’ll find yourself feeling calmer, more centered and balanced from within.

Wellness Affirmation:

I am centered and peaceful in body, mind and spirit.

I enjoy caring for all aspects of my well-being.

Are you depriving your children of sleep?

Modern society makes it difficult for children to get enough sleep. If youngsters are left to themselves, they may fight off sleep in order to do things they think are more fun. If the whole family does things together, including spending evenings together, that, too, may deprive young people of sleep. Why? Because young people—even into their early 20s—need more sleep than do adults. It’s too easy for children to try to adapt to adult sleep patterns or for adults to impose “eight hours” on their children, even though adults are the only age group that manages well on 7-9 hours’ sleep. How much sleep do children need? As a parent or caretaker, you may already have a good idea, but since everyone fits into a range, the best starting place for you is to ensure you, as an adult are getting enough sleep consistently. If you have “found your own sleep number,” the hours of sleep that leave you consistently refreshed and energized, so that you don’t need to sleep more than an hour late on the weekend, you’ll be in the best position to help young ones around you find their own ideal sleep time. You begin with good sleep hygiene. Lights out, preferably a gradual dimming from bright light to darkness—perhaps dressing for bed with only a small lamp showing the way. To bed the same time every night and awaking about the same time every morning. Quiet, of course, is also essential. Infants’ needs vary the most. One newborn sleeps only 10.5 hours while another sleeps 18. By the time a baby is three months old, on up to 11 months, its need for nighttime sleep has dropped to 9-12 hours. But a 3-11 month old baby also needs naps ranging from half an hour up to two hours and as many as four times a day, depending upon their duration. Toddlers from a year old through three years old may actually sleep longer at night than a baby under a year, again, depending upon whether the child does better with or without a nap. These one, two and three year olds will be the happiest when they are getting 12-14 hours of sleep a night. Read more

Sleep apnea

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Clean up your sleep

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Put Your Insomnia To Sleep

In an article cleverly titled “Are Doctors Sleepwalking Through Treating Your Insomnia?” Eric Sabo reported that many physician-prescribed sleep remedies are no better at curing your insomnia than are your own made-up fixes, like taking an allergy pill or sipping a glass of wine. In fact, many of the medications doctors Read more

Insomnia Is Making You Ugly

I have a friend who wants to get her chin tucked—a couple of them anyway. I stumbled across an article the other day linking double chins and snoring, so I went out on a search for all the ways insomnia might result in physical characteristics many people in the West Read more

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Remember having sex when it was so all-consuming and thrilling it was all you could think about for days? Days of anticipation, mind-blowing, body-shaking sex, then remembering it for days or even years afterwards… Either that was a long time ago for you and you’d like to Read more

Do Your Legs Keep You Up?

Restless Leg Syndrome Do you ever wonder about diseases or disorders that we have today that apparently didn’t exist 100 years ago, or even 10 years ago? Seemingly the golden child of recent television pharmaceutical advertising, restless leg syndrome (RLS) was so named in the 1940s by Swedish neurologist Read more

Your Sleep Crisis—How Bad Is It?

I’m assuming you’re in a sleep crisis, not because we’ve met and you’ve bragged about late-night partying or, on the other hand, complained about tasks you had to do after the children were in bed. I’m assuming you’re in crisis because three-fourths of the population is, and half of those Read more

Sleep Your Way to Better Sex!

Remember having sex when it was so all-consuming and thrilling it was all you could think about for days? Days of anticipation, mind-blowing, body-shaking sex, then remembering it for days or even years afterwards! Either that was a long time ago for you and you’d like to Read more