Yoga for Stress Relief: Downward Facing Dog

In our society, many of us find ourselves completely stressed out on a daily basis.  It seems that most everybody is suffering from too many obligations, financial problems, relationship problems, or work-related stress.  To temporarily relieve some of the stress you might be carrying in your body, consider doing a few minutes of yoga each day.  This move in particular - downward facing dog - is an easy move to incorporate into your busy day.

How to do it

Downward facing dog is an easy pose that can be done almost anywhere.  All it really entails is getting into an inverted "V" position.  That being said, there are a few particulars for maintaining good form.
First off, start by getting on all fours.  Your knees should be under your hips and your hands should slightly in front of your shoulders.  Slowly raise your pelvis off the floor so that your body looks like a "V."  Try to keep your heels on the floor.  If you can't, don't worry about it.  With practice, your calf muscles will become more flexible and you will improve.  Your arms should be stretched out in front of your head and you should be looking at your feet.  Stay in this position for a minute or so, drop back to your knees to rest, then do it again.

In addition to relieving stress, this exercise will tone your upper body, increase the flexibility in your back, and give you a boost of energy.  Most people find that they feel better after about a week of practice.

How to Relax More This Summer Without Going Away on Vacation

With the economy like it is, many people are not going to be able to afford to go on an exotic vacation this year.  But that doesn't mean that you can't get some rest and relaxation.  By changing just a few things - including your mindset - you can train yourself to go into vacation mode on a daily basis.

Summertime is marked by long, warm days which means it is the perfect time to use your evenings after work for a little R&R.  Here are some tips for learning how to vacation without taking off time from work or going very far away.

• Unplug from high-tech.  When you get home in the evening, consider turning it all off.  Yes, that means phones, computers, iPads - everything.  Hgh-tech gadgets can cause high stress levels because they  keep us plugged in to our need to compulsively check stuff like e-mails, text messages, and our Facebook page. 

• Change.  When you get home in the evening, the first thing you should do is change your clothes.  By changing into shorts, a swim suit, or lounging clothes you also give your brain the cue to change from work mode to vacation mode.  After you put on some comfortable clothes, change your location.  Don't stay in your living room and watch the news.  Why not take a drive to a local lake, river, or beach?  The long days of summer offer ample time for such excursions.

• Think "staycation."    Just because you are not going anywhere far doesn't mean you can't have fun.  Take a day or two off from work and visit a spa, take the family to a water park or the zoo, or take your partner and spend the night in a fancy hotel on the other side of town.  These short one or two day trips can do a lot to rejuvenate and refresh.

Happiness Resides Within

It seems that finding happiness and contentment seems to be a very difficult thing for people to do these days.  The Chinese philosopher, Lin Yu-tang, wrote:

The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.

I think the key here is the first part of that sentence - enjoy what you have.  Why do we always want more? Is it our culture?  Is it conditioning?
 
Did you know that happiness, contentment, and joy are feelings that reside within every person already?  If you think for a moment, I’m sure that you can recall a time when happiness spontaneously bubbled up as you watched puppies play.  Maybe you experienced an overwhelming sense of contentment as you lay in your lover’s arms. Or think about the joy that sprang up inside of you when you graduated from college or welcomed your first child into the world.  Is happiness really something to pursue, or is it something that has been there all the time?  Maybe we should simply learn to take the blinders of desire off and turn our attention toward the treasure that is already yours.  Be happy with what you have.

Success is Not a Doorway, It's a Staircase

What is it that we all want? Isn’t it success and happiness? So, it’s no surprise that a reader in Iran is interested in success. Arash (not his real name) is a 35-year-old married carpenter who wants to become extremely successful. That is, he wants to be free from financial worries, free to travel anywhere, and free to do anything he and his family choose to do. To that end, he listens to Brian Tracy audio programs in his car and studies books on success. Arash is asking for help because he doesn’t know where and how to begin. He would like an action plan or roadmap to success that will end the confusion and clearly point out the steps he needs to follow. So, let’s begin.


The Staircase to Success

Step 1. The first step is to understand what is required for success. And what is that? Hard work! You've got to work harder than most people if you want to be more successful than them. To emphasize this point, let me quote William A. Ward (1921~1994), “The recipe of success is to study while others are sleeping, work while others are loafing, prepare while others are playing, and dream while others are wishing.” It is essential to realize that success is not a doorway that you walk through, but a staircase that requires effort to climb.

Step 2. After acknowledging that it will take hard work to succeed, you must be willing to make the effort and determined to do whatever it takes to succeed. In other words, you must be committed.

Step 3. You must understand that some difficult tasks are harder to do than others because of subconscious interference. Here’s an example of what I mean. Arash already has the self-discipline to exercise, but when it comes to taking steps for success, he feels powerless to act. Why is that? It is because when he tries ..............read more

Original Articles. Constant-Content.

Reasons You Can't Afford to Not Meditate

I used to have to deal with sub-clinical depression.  Even when my life was going really good, my emotional body would be laced with an underlying feeling of sadness and even utter hopelessness at times.  A few years ago, however, I started meditating and my world changed in some astounding ways.  I rarely ever deal with depression any more and I have learned to enjoy each life experience that comes along.

Somebody once likened meditation to the water that flows over rocks in a river.  The rocks are slowly smoothed and shaped by the continual running water.  Your life is a lot like those rocks that get transformed.  It happens slowly, but one day you wake up to find that your life has really changed.  Some of the jagged edges have been smoothed away and you are experiencing more peace. 

Here are a few reasons why your life should include daily meditation:

• Meditation gives your brain a much-needed rest and allows for divine presence.  When we learn to manage the barrage of thoughts that clamor for our attention during the time of meditation, we are also learning how to listen to our deeper, wiser selves.  Through meditation, we can develop our intuition and hear directly from God.
• Meditation returns us to center.  The nature of meditation itself involves the art of letting go.  And that includes practicing detaching from our charged emotions.  When we are engaging in emotional extremes, we are pulled into the past or catapulted into the future.  By letting go of those extremes in meditation, we can return to a more balanced state of being.
• Meditation is good for your health.  By learning to become calm in meditation, you will automatically find yourself utilizing that skill when you are faced by the stresses of the day.  Research has shown that meditation lowers blood pressure, reduces the likelihood of having migraines, and reduces other stress-related symptoms.

Meditating is easy.  Sit in a relaxed position and close your eyes.  Become aware of and focus on your breathing without trying to control it.  When you can do this for about 5 minutes, then you can begin to repeat a spiritual mantra like God is love, or simply the word peace.
 

Original Articles. Constant-Content.

Making and Keeping New Year's Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions – does anybody keep them anymore?

The answer is “yes” if you know how to formulate them properly.  We all know people (maybe even you) who find that their ardently planned resolutions were dropped somewhere along the wayside right beside the motivation and enthusiasm that it took to create them.  So what is the secret to making resolutions and, more importantly, how do we keep them?

1.) Make sure that there is a true desire to change. Many people make resolutions based on the expectations of other people.  If you do not have a true desire to reach your goal, you most assuredly will not.

2.) Lay out your objectives with specificity. Many people make the mistake of stating their goals in very broad terms. Two very popular New Year’s resolutions are:  I want to quit smoking or, I want to lose weight.  These statements are not specific enough. Your subconscious mind plays a big role when it comes to reaching goals in life.  Taking that fact into consideration, say you are successful at losing one pound or one ounce. Your subconscious will perceive your goal of weight loss as having been reached and will stop helping you.  After all, you did lose weight.  To use your subconscious in the most effective manner, word your resolution statements in terms of measurable outcomes.  Consider these revised resolutions:  I am reducing my smoking and will smoke half as much by Valentine’s Day, or, I am making choices that result in a twenty pound weight loss by July of this year.

3.) Make your resolutions present tense. Keep in mind when making resolutions that the subconscious part of your brain operates in the present tense. Formulating your objectives in this manner will be much more powerful.  Here are some examples of effective resolutions: I am becoming healthier each day as I choose nutritious foods to eat, or, every day I am getting closer to becoming a non-smoker.  These types of statements are more readily accepted by your subconscious mind.

4.) Write your resolutions down. Experts agree that you increase the likelihood of reaching your goals significantly by just simply writing them down.  When you write your goals down, you develop a more visible target on which to focus and concentrate.  Your goals become clear objectives.

5.) Formulate smaller sub-goals.  The reason that many New Year’s resolution and other goals go unfulfilled is because they are too daunting.  That’s why breaking your goals down into smaller, more achievable chunks is a good idea.  If your goal is to lose twenty pounds then some smaller sub-goals would include things like, substituting fruit for sweets, eating raw vegetables for snacks during the day or setting a goal to walk for 30 minutes a day.  These are small yet very do-able actions that will lead to the greater goal of losing the amount of weight you want to lose.

Looking at resolutions in a new way and with new resolve involves having the right tools to implement a plan to achieve the results you desire. Let this be the year that you keep your New Year’s resolutions. 

Original Articles. Constant-Content.

Do You Know Where You are Going in LIfe?

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Would you be surprised to find out that most people do not set goals?  Except for giving brief attention to a failure-prone New Year's resolution list, most people don't give a second thought to what they want to accomplish this year, this month, or today.

Setting Yearly Goals

Having a target for the year sets your trajectory.  It points you in some general direction.  Let's say, for example, you decide you want to write a book this year.  This is a goal.  You have set an intention for the year.  Enter monthly goals.........

Setting Monthly Goals

Now that you have your yearly goal, you will need to set smaller monthly goals in order to accomplish your large one.  In the monthly breakdown of the book writing in the above example, you would set smaller achievements up month by month.  For example, you could intend to write one or two chapters a month.  Enter weekly and daily goals.............

Weekly and Daily Goals

This is where the work gets done.  In order to accomplish the monthly goals, your large project must be broken down further into smaller pockets of work.  For example, you would set aside a certain amount of time to write every day; or, you might schedule a weekly meeting with an editor or a writing coach to keep you on track.  You get the idea.

Any job, project, or undertaking can be accomplished when you break it down into smaller units.  Remember that big dreams are achieved ultimately through very small courses of action.