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Cleanse More Than Just Your Body, Detoxify Your Mind With Yoga

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

After a stressful summer routine. the beautiful fall season is a perfect time to find balance in your lifestyle and your body, as well as to celebrate harmony and harvesting. It is also the right time think more than about your body, detoxify your mind.

1. Take care of the areas of stress in your life.

Because we, ladies, are full of emotions, stress illness may be on our the horizon. Fall is therefore a good time to rethink and take care of our relationship issues, career choices, physical activities levels, and spirituality.

The answer to the following questions may help you focus on what you need to do to eliminate some unnecessary stress:

Which area of your life (relationship, career, finances, physical activities, spirituality, education, health, social life, home environment) you think needs the most attention right now, and why is that?

Which area of your life do you think keeps you in balance? (try these quizzes )

Where do you think you need to spend more time and energy to create balance?

How satisfied are you in each area of your life is very important for our overall balance. To find it, we have to start listening to our bodies and paying attention to the areas we are dissatisfied the most.

2. Try a Yoga class or Tai Chi class.

Learning yoga poses will reduce your stress levels, boost your mood, and improve your overall health. Studies show that your level of the stress hormone cortisol is reduced when doing basic beginner yoga. You can also get the benefits of yoga with chair yoga, desk yoga, wall yoga, office yoga, and work yoga.

Tai chi -moving meditation – consists of slow, focused, deliberate moves that awaken your chi and allows it to flow unblocked throughout your body, improving your healthy well-being.

3. Learn visualization-meditation.

There are meditation exercise techniques. One of them suggests sitting for a couple of minutes doing nothing but being aware of our breathing. Just sit still for a moment, inhale slowly through your nose, then exhale slowly through your mouth.

If you feel you might be interested in one of my Holistic Health and Nutrition Programs for Women, let me know, and let us talk…

Breathe, smile and be happy.

Women’s Holistic Health, Nutrition and Relationship Expert

NaturalCounselor.com

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Tags: benefits of yoga, Detox, Holistic Wellness, lifestyle, Meditation, mind, Relaxation, stress, stress illness, Tai chi, women's health

Do It Yourself Massage Tips

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008

More than 75% of health problems are related to stress. We know that one of the best stress-relief tools and techniques is a body massage. I would like to share with you the article “Massage-You Can Do It Yourself” by Michael Tasker where he explains how easily you can self-massage your body. These are very helpful tips for us to use, especially in our economy times:

“Qi Gong Tapping is a form of self-massage is commonly used by many Qi Gong and Tai Chi practitioners while warming up before their meditative practices. This can be adopted as a method to energize yourself first thing in the morning or perhaps before a physical workout. Start by forming your hands into a loose fist so that you can firmly tap your body from head to toe along the meridian pathways. The first step is to tap along your arms both inside and outside. Then tap your torso down the front of your chest, continuing down to the front of your thighs. Repeat the tapping on the inside, outside, and back of your legs to cover the entire lower body. Finally, tap along your neck and behind your back to cover the remaining areas. This practice can be repeated several times, until your feel your body warm up from the increased blood flow. Remember, one of the benefits of massage is to facilitate the increase in blood flow.

Abdominal self-massage is best used after meals to improve digestion or by women during their menstrual cycle. To perform abdominal massage, place one hand over the other as they lay above your naval. Breathe deeply as your move your hands together in a circular-motion around your belly in a clock-wise direction. The clock-wise direction is synchronous with the digestive pathway of your colon. Repeat this motion for several minutes focusing your mind on your hands and breathe to warm your abdomen and improve circulation.

Reflexology is a system of treatment where specific points on the hands and feet are used to improve the health and functioning of the entire body. You can benefit from this practice even without a through understanding of reflexology charts. Use some basic massage oil or hand lotion to gently rub all of your fingers and toes. Continue to rub your palms and the soles of your feet, including the back of your hand and tops of your feet. Pay attention to any tender spots you find so that you can focus more on these areas. You will soon discover which places feel the best and which ones need more attention. By adopting a massage session each day, the tension that is accumulated in these areas through the day can be relieved.

An overall ear massage can greatly benefit our health. With the use of your thumb and index finger you need to rub the outer edge of the ear, which is also called the helix. Follow the helix down the ear until you reach your earlobe. Pull gently on your earlobe several times. Move above your ear lobe and begin to massage each of the remaining areas of your ear. The tragus, which is located just above your earlobe, is very helpful to activate the mind and relieve headaches.”