Tag: reduce stress

Start using meditation today and improve your health now.

On By RosemaryIn Holistic Therapy, meditationLeave a comment

Meditation can help ease your pain, anxiety, stress and improve the health of your heart, boost your immune system and mood.

Conditions which are caused or worsened by stress and tension can be helped through meditation. By relaxing in meditation, you lower your blood pressure and improve your heart rate, (please note you must continue to take any medication until your doctor advises you can stop) slows your breathing and brain waves. When your muscles start to relax, they release the tension and tightness. The repetition in meditation is what helps us to relax. As we focus on our breath, letting go of our thoughts, and repeating a mantra, affirmation, or word we become present, and start the relaxation response.

Meditation is not difficult to learn, it is a skill which, you need to practice. After a few weeks of practice, you will be able to get to a relaxed state more quickly. If you relax several times a day, you may find you feel more relaxed during the whole day.

There have been many studies done showing meditation can lower cardiovascular risk, by relaxing and reducing your stress. Poorly managed stress is associated with a risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Meditation is an immune booster. Your immune system responds to both negative and positive thoughts, meditation will create a positive mental environment for the immune system to flourish. Meditation stimulates the immune system brain-function regions.

There have been studies where HIV patients slowed down the reduction of their CD-4 cell count, using meditation. The CD-4 cells are the immune cells which keep the virus from propagating.

Knowing if meditation is working. If your body is feeling relaxed, calm, and warm when meditating, you are probably going deep enough for the relaxation response.  If you are struggling to feel these, perhaps join a group to help you.

If you really do not get on with meditation any relaxing technique would be helpful.

If you would like to join a fortnightly group online email Rosemary

10 Healthy Living Facts to Help you Improve your Life.

On By RosemaryIn Alternative Therapy, Holistic Therapy, meditation, Natural HealingLeave a comment

During my training as an energy healer, we covered nutrition and how processed food affects your health and energy levels. This post will cover a little about nutrition, straightforward ways to move more during the lockdown, and help your physical body. We will also cover ways to help your mind and spirit.

To work with me as a therapist or join our fortnightly online meditation group email Rosemary

Healthy Eating,

Most of us know sugary and processed foods are not the best choices for a healthy diet. Processed foods are any that have added ingredients. Try to eat at least 80% of fresh food.

  1. Vegetables are packed with the nutrients our body needs; they should be a major part of your healthy diet. Try experimenting with different recipes, finding ones you like, and use them in your lunches and dinners.
  2. Eating proper meals and healthy snacks. Snacking all day makes us think we are not eating much, but we miss out on essential nutrients and eat wasted calories. Eating healthy fats and proteins in complete meals helps to fill us up. If you need a snack, the following are more nutritional and keep you fuller longer, hardboiled egg, a portion of cheese, avocado, apple or other fruit, nuts, and red pepper with guacamole, cucumber slices with hummus, dried unsweetened coconut, and olives.
  3. What we drink, there is no nutritional benefit to alcohol, fizzy drinks, or fruit squashes. The caffeine acts as a diuretic, we, therefore, need to drink more fluids to replace those lost through drinking drinks high in caffeine.  Opting for green tea, herbal tea, or black coffee (keeping our coffee intake to no more than two cups a day, preferably cutting it out altogether).  The best fluid to drink is pure plain water, there are no calories or additives to worry about.  Drinking a glass of water before every meal will make you feel less hungry, and you will be drinking three glasses a day.

Exercise

We all know exercise is good for our bodies, however, it is so easy to sit and watch telly with a snack instead.

1.Walk More

Regular movement is key to so many health benefits. Aim for at least 10,000steps a day. Start easy, with these smallways to walk more and be healthier!

  • Decide to only take the stairs if you are walking less than six floors.
  • Park further away from supermarket entrance when you go shopping.
  • Walk during your work breaks.
  • Plan a walking meeting, or take your phone call while you walk.
  • Get up ten minutes earlier in the morning and take a short brisk walk before the chaos of the day.
  • Walk your kids to or from school, walk to work if it is close.
  • Take a family walk with the kids after dinner.
  • Schedule a once a week walk with a friend.
2. Short Workouts  

Long workouts are not necessary to be healthy.  For most of us, trying to fit in more than 20 minutes is a challenge.  We can try running on the spot or doing some squats while waiting for the kettle to boil or any other time we have a spare five minutes. We can do several basic exercises at home, squats, lunges, push-ups, tricep dips, plank, wall sits, burpees, and mountain climbers, these all get our muscles working again. There is lots of information on how to do these on the internet if you have never done them. You may want to get a professional to show you, though.  Build on this slowly over time, if we have been sedentary for a while, it will take several weeks to get our bodies moving again.

Healthy Mind

This is a balanced mental and emotional state. Where you are productive, feel confident, face your fears, and learn from your mistakes. To keep our minds healthy, we need to exercise and eat healthy as I have already discussed above and get enough sleep and stay mentally active. Your brain is similar to a muscle and needs to be used like any other muscle in your body.

  1. Sleep, getting seven to eight hours of sound sleep, should be our aim. Tracking your sleep with a Fitbit or similar helps you see how well you are sleeping. In a deep sleep is where tissue growth and repair take place. If we are not getting enough deep sleep, we will not feel as refreshed in the morning. Download my tips for a Good Nights Sleep.
  2. Mental Activity. Things to keep your brain healthy include mental activity, crossword puzzles, sudoku, reading, playing cards, and doing jigsaw puzzles. These all help train your brain. There are electronic games for brain training available too. Watching television does nothing to stimulate the brain as it is a passive activity.
  3. Stress has a significant impact on our minds and can contribute to memory loss. Therefore it is important to try to reduce your stress levels. Exercise, relaxation, good sleep, many of the things already mentioned will help reduce stress. Social interaction also helps our stress levels look for ways to connect with loved ones, friends, and others, especially if you live alone. Brain atrophy has been linked to solitary confinement, making the recent periods of lockdown hard for many. Therefore, it is important to stay socially active via the many online means during this time until we can meet face to face again.

Healthy Spirit

The spiritual part of our wellness is the most personal and overlooked piece of living a healthy life. We all would like to live with meaning and purpose, when this is met, we have harmony in our life. Here are some tips for spiritual wellness.

  1. Your spiritual core. By working with a group or therapist exploring your spiritual centre, you will ask yourself deep questions about who you are and your meaning. You may meditate on Who am I? What is my purpose? What do I value most?. Doing this will help you think deeply about yourself and help you achieve fulfilment in your life, possibly clearing energy blocks that are holding you back.
  2. Meditation this is a healthy spiritual practise, where you connect to yourself. Meditation has many benefits for your health. Start slowly, if you are not used to the practice start with clearing your mind of thoughts and focusing on your breath for 3 to 5 minutes each morning before you get up and evening before you go to sleep. Once you have mastered 5 minutes increase to 10, gradually increase by 5 minutes until you can do 20 minutes.

Benefits:-   (for more information on these benefits read my post “About Meditation and the Benefits)

  • Improved health
  • Lower blood pressure
  • Reduced anxiety
  • Decreased stress
  • Deep rest
  • Reversal of the ageing process
  • Increased perception and memory

To work with me as a therapist or join our fortnightly online meditation group email Rosemary

Easy Ways to Reduce Your Stress Now!

On By RosemaryIn Natural Healing3 Comments

Taking control.

Remaining passive, thinking there is nothing I can do about my situations, makes your stress worse. Remember, there is a solution to every problem. That feeling of being unable to control your life problems is a leading cause of stress and anxiety.

Taking control is empowering; it is part of finding the solutions to your problems. The solutions need to help you, not someone else. Identify and write down your options, choose the best option, and accept the outcome, even if it is not what you expected.

Socialising with people.

We all need a network of people to talk to, friends, family, colleagues. Talking to these people helps put a different perspective on things.  Socialising and connect with people gives us a network of people that can help us when low. We can do activities with them have fun and laugh, which will help us relax and relieve our stress.

Talking with our support network helps you find solutions to your issues.

Taking some time for yourself.

Having “ME time” is essential; working in the UK, we have the longest working hours in Europe. Therefore, we are unlikely to spend as much time on the things we enjoy. We all need to take time to relax, exercise, and socialise away from work. Organising two nights a week for yourself gives you a better chance of work and personal life balance.

Take on challenges.

It is a good idea to continue learning throughout your life.  This could be in work or outside, make them relatively challenging like learning a new language, new sport, or other hobbies. You will start to feel more confident, helping your stress.

Making continued learning part of your routine, you become more resilient and are less likely to sit and watch telly for hours; you are more likely to want to do things.

Be active.

Being active can also help your stress. This can be going to the gym for a workout, but it can also be gentle walks or a keep fit routine at home. Exercise helps take your mind off your worries, so you can deal with your situations calmly.

Healthy diet and habits.

Drinking alcohol or caffeine, and smoking is not good for you, they are just ways of coping and avoiding the problems.

Men are more likely to use these to relieve their symptoms temporarily than women. Women are far more likely to talk to their friends.

You need to find the cause of the problems causing your stress.

Help others.

It has been proven that “volunteering” and community work makes us happier and more resilient.

By helping people whose situations may be worse than your own, helps you put yours into perspective. If you have a busy schedule and cannot commit to volunteering for a group, look for ways to do someone a favour daily.  These can be little things, holding the door open, treating someone to a coffee.

Work smarter, not harder.

Prioritising your day and workload, complete the tasks that will make a difference first.

You may need to accept your email inbox or your in-tray will not be empty at the end of the day, taking away the pressure of clearing all your tasks, can make you feel less stressed.  Having regular breaks, even for five minutes to take some deep breaths, you will be amazed how shallow you breathe when under pressure. You will then be able to focus more.

Be positive.

Appreciate what you have, be the glass half full person. Look for the good in people and life, find those “silver linings”.

Write down three things you are grateful for or went well for you each evening.

Accept what you cannot change.

Situations in your life are not always possible to change. Putting all your focus on these will not help your stress or anxiety. Look at ways of changing the things you can control.

How many of us complain about the weather, we cannot change it; therefore, we have to accept it, either cancel our plans or make the most of them in the rain. Getting stressed and continuing to moan about it does not help anyone.

The other thing to remember is you cannot change people, you can only change your reaction to them or your perspective.

Contact me now to reduce your stress now with MEDITATION or ENERGY HEALING