Posts Tagged ‘Health’

November13

The Secrets about Self-Improvement

By: Ririan

sunrise
The word self-improvement becomes synonymous with success, only if the tips you are really following, fetch you some improvement in your life style. The improvement may be in terms of your financial growth or your health or in your relationships. Read through to unravel the simple methods to improve you to the greater heights.

Start with where you are and what you have!

This above line may sound very familiar. But it is important that you should remember or never forget this line when you get up in the morning. Many times you want to start a new venture or even simply new practice in your day-to-day life. For example many of us want to stay fit. So we want to hit a gym. But most of us will not immediately work-out the plan. They will say themselves that let me start on the first day of next week which will grow to month or even a year. Like this, you may want to meet your parents or want to say sorry to your friend and the list continues. These are little things but they make huge differences in your personality and in your life. Do it today.

Don’t blame the things around you:

As long as you are still alive, you are capable of changing and growing. It is you who is responsible for everything which is happening to you. So don’t blame the things around you for your failure.

Take up the responsibility for your own growth:

Life gives us lots of opportunities. But we are not saying ‘YES’ to that. Many a time you want to take up a challenging assignment. And the next moment you will think about the hard work that needs to be put on that task. And also you doubt your ability. So the result is the hesitation, a thief of success. Take up the new challenges. Be open to the new things. Try your hand in adventures. These things will automatically show the path to the growth and self-satisfaction.

Don’t live in fear:

Do you know more people are more scared than you? So never let the fear factor swallow your success. Don’t compromise often with a phrase “if you were”. Stop praising about the great souls. Be the change you want to be.

Rise before the sun:

Last but not least. Wake up earlier and plan the day and at least move an inch daily.

Posted in: Featured, Self Improvement12 comments

October21

Staying in shape, feeling healthy, what’s it all about?

By: RirianProject

I was looking through some health magazines the other day, reading the articles, and started thinking about my own heath. First, if you are going to read those magazines don’t bother looking at the pictures because I don’t know anyone my age who looks like the pictures, I’m never going to look like those pictures, so what’s the point? My twenty one year old nephew looks like the pictures in the magazines but he eats McDonalds seven days a week, and in none of those article could I find anyone saying McDonalds seven days a week leads to better health. So, I thought about what it means to be healthy and fit, and how to stay healthy and fit. My first thought was smokers, forget it, you will never be healthy and fit until you quit. So Quit! Quit cold turkey, take a pill, where a patch, get hypnotized, go to the desert for a month and isolate yourself but quit. I know its a nasty addiction and near impossible to quit, but quit. I know, I know, you’ll put on ten pounds, so be a little fatter cause sooner or later cigarettes will kill you and its better to be fatter than dead. Ok, now that we have smokers out of the way lets talk about you and me. I don’t know about everyone but most people I know don’t want to run a marathon, they don’t want to spend two and half hours a day in the gym, lifting weights and running the treadmill. And even if they did they don’t have the time. And if you are like me then you like to eat, and not little rabbit portions, but you enjoy a good meal. In fact I enjoy good meal far more than I like working out, I look forward to going to good restaurants, I never look forward to going to the gym. And I like sitting on my couch watching sports, and when I do I like to munch on things, Nacho’s, wings, popcorn, in fact one of my favorite things is watching football on a Sunday and munching out.

And despite that I like eating far more than working out, and it is an effort to get me to leave my couch when a good game is on, I am very healthy. And I just don’t say so, I get all A’s from my Doctor. When I was younger I loved playing sports, but I just can’t do that all the time anymore. As an adult you just can’t find the time or even energy to do what you did when you were younger, but you need to find something you enjoy doing, or at least can tolerate and try to do it for at least an hour five or six times a week. For me, I play basketball in a league once a week, and we practice once a week on weekends, I also have found while I don’t love spinning ( bicycle class indoors) I don’t hate it, so I try to spin three or four times a week at my health club. My wife tries to walk/run on the treadmill at least five times a week for an hour, usually before the kids wake up. I have friends who get up and run a few miles everyday, totally not for me, but they love it. I have other friends who do Yoga or Pilate’s, the simple truth is there is some form of exercise out there that everyone can participate in to maintain good health. Am I in great shape? No! Do I have a six pack of abs? No! But I am healthy and I feel good and I have the energy, and I know that exercising the 5 to 7 hours a week is the main reason.

Eating, ugh, my main weakness. I love to eat, and I love crap. I would rather eat a hamburger, milkshake and fries than do anything else. And I love Pizza and candy, and Italian food, and Coca Cola and the aforementioned Buffalo Wings. And I am never giving any of them up, I’m just not going to eat them that often. Temptation is the root of all evil, so whenever I can I just stay away from the places that serve them. And that’s the best advice I can give, if you love to eat like me, don’t give it up just stay away. Because the truth is for most people diets don’t work, even when they do they eventually end and people go back to the bad eating habits they had before. The simple answer is develop better eating habits, try to eat salads, and chicken, and fish. Drink as much water as possible, try to stay away as much as possible from bread and butter, eat fruit and vegetables. I’m not saying anything that anyone does not know, we don’t need all the magazines and the pictures to show and tell us what to do, most intelligent people already know, its just hard. What I am saying is I am probably going to eat Pizza and wings on Sunday when watching football, but that means the rest of the week I’m being careful. I’m going to have my burger, shake and fries but probably only about once a month. I’m going to come home at night and eat the healthy meals my wife cooks and not complain because I want to stay healthy. If I go to a restaurant I am going to have my roll and butter, but only one not the whole basket, and nine out of ten times I am going to order chicken and fish. This is the life I have carved out for myself, I get to eat the foods I love just not as often as I would like, I don’t diet but they don’t work for me anyhow, they just make me hungrier. I get in my workout five to seven times a week and while I don’t love it I have made it part of my routine. My picture isn’t going in any magazines anytime soon for my body, but I am not overweight and I feel great. And at the end of the day, that’s what it is all about, feeling good and getting a clean bill of health. So workout, go easy on the crappy foods, stay healthy, but do the things you enjoy just in moderation.

Posted in: Featured, Health & Fitness5 comments

October19

Saving Money is a Discipline

By: Ririan

Saving money is discipline, pure and simple. It is a discipline like exercising on a daily basis is, or like sticking to a diet. There are no huge secrets to the art of saving money, no secrets that we will reveal that you have never heard before, no earth shattering new technique, just simple focus, mental conditioning and effort. I know many of you think that you just can’t save any money on what you are making, that you barely get by as is, and I am sure for many of you that may be true, but it probably isn’t. The good news is I’m not trying to sell anything here so I am not going to tell you everyone can save money. In this economy many people have lost their jobs, their cars and homes, for them their problems are more severe then simple tips on how to save money. But 90% of you still have jobs and have an income and for you there is more than hope to save money, there is a solution.

First lets do away with the obvious, “if I just made more money I could save more,” this is completely untrue. “I have done a budget and there is no where else I can cut.” Budgets are an outstanding and needed tool for financial health, but just because you have done a budget doesn’t mean there isn’t room to save more money. As stated earlier, saving money is a discipline and like most disciplines it requires dedication, repetition and certain drills. So, for our purposes I am going to suggest one simple drill to work on and perfect, and it won’t cut into your budget, won’t require you to make more money, and will not require you to give up anything significant in your life.

Let’s start with Day one, month one, you need to do one simple thing. Before you go to bed at night take one dollar from your wallet or purse and put it in a drawer. Everyone has a dollar in their pocket, take your loose change you have lying around if you have to, but find a dollar. Now, repeat this procedure every day for thirty days, one month. This is no problem for 99% of the people who are working, do it every day, remember it’s a discipline. At the end of the month, what do you have? Thirty dollars obviously, I know it doesn’t seem like much but you saved thirty dollars more than you did the previous month.

Next, day one, month two. At the end of the day you need to do one simple thing. Take two dollars from your wallet or purse and stick it in the drawer. If you had a dollar in your pocket last month then you will have two dollars in your pocket, no one even notices two dollars. Repeat this procedure for thirty days, do not deviate, at the end of two months you will have saved ninety dollars, I know, seems like a lot of effort for ninety dollars. But you are working towards a goal, developing a discipline, and saving money.
Next, month three day one, repeat the same procedure only with three dollars, if you did two you can do three. At the end of the month you will have saved one hundred and eighty dollars. Do you see where we are heading?

Now I am not saying this can go on forever, the next month is obviously four dollars. At some point to do this you may have to give up something. For me I gave up starbucks in the morning, I made my coffee at home. For a friend of mine to meet his goal he gave up sodas from the vending machine during his coffee break to make his goal of four dollars a day. But if you save four dollars a day for a year you are saving an additional $1500, and if you could save five dollars a day by just making sure you tuck it away in a drawer every night, you will save close to $2,000 a year. And some of you may be able to save even more than that everyday and that will translates into large savings. Most of us really don’t even think about four, five, six or even more dollars, we spend it without considering it no matter our financial situation. But if you instill this discipline, practice it, take it as far as you can without altering your life, you will find that you have acquired a discipline that can save you thousands of dollars a year. Almost every working person can afford to do this, give it a try and see the results. And remember saving money is a discipline, it takes focus and a goal.

Posted in: Money & Finance2 comments

October17

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it

By: RirianProject

I learned a valuable lesson from the life of a friend of mine, this story takes place about twelve years ago but I use his life as an example to me every day. At the time, he was in his early thirties, married, and extremely successful, at least by most people’s standards. But he wasn’t just married, he was married to an incredibly beautiful woman, an attorney who was top of her class at one of the country’s most prestigious law schools, she was brilliant. And it wasn’t that he was just successful, he was in a high profile business, dealing with celebrities and captains of industry, the people you read about in People magazine. He bought a big house, two Mercedes, and traveled the world. He was the envy of most everyone he knew, had set out with goals when he left college and for all intensive purposes met every single one of them by the time he was thirty three years old. And despite all he had achieved, he was an extremely unhappy person, the more this couple had the more they wanted, the more he made the more his wife spent to “keep up with the Jones’.” He felt on a daily basis that he was, for lack of a better term, emotionally out of breath, he was constantly chasing and never catching. It would be easy at this point to take you right to a cliffhanger, to say this person couldn’t take it anymore, that there is a tragic end, that he abused alcohol or drugs, that he hit rock bottom and turned his life around. But he was really no different than most people, and most people who are unhappy with their lot in life don’t commit suicide, and they don’t abuse alcohol or drugs, most people just continue on the path they are on, never make changes and remain unhappy.

One day my friend decided he didn’t want to be unhappy anymore. He didn’t just walk out on his business, but he knew he didn’t want to be in that business anymore, the pressure was to great, the stress was no longer worth it, so over the next two years he closed it down in an orderly fashion. He knew he was unhappy in his marriage but he just didn’t walk out. He talked to his wife about what didn’t work for him, she didn’t understand how he no longer liked their life, they tried therapy, and although he probably knew it was over from the beginning, he tried until he couldn’t try anymore.

At age thirty five he had given up life as he knew it, his work, his marriage, and set off on a new path, but this isn’t a fairytale. He was not instantly happy, he had spent thirteen years working and achieving everything he hoped for, achieved it all and was miserable, now he faced the hard part, he had to figure out why? Why he was so unhappy. Why his dream job and fairytale marriage did not make him a happy person. And how to move forward with his life.

It took years, but ten years later, he was remarried, still successful in an entirely new business and happy. It took him years to figure out what went wrong and how to try and put his life on the right path.He learned that his mistakes were the same that most people make, chasing things that don’t matter, going after material objects, being concerned what others think of you. He learned material objects are great, success is wonderful and an admirable goal, the respect and admiration and even envy of your peers is a wonderful thing to have, but if it defines who you are, if it is your life’s sole ambition, then unhappiness is sure to follow. Life is a constant journey of understanding who you are and what you need, and it constantly changes. If you are unhappy in your life or simply content, strive for more. Not all change needs to be radical like my friends, most often it is just simple adjustments in life, focusing on the things that are most important like family health, and knowing you are the best person you can be. Its about trying to live as stress free life as possible, and that the things are most important come from the inside.

Posted in: Productivity3 comments

September17

Busting Stress through Breathing Techniques and Meditation

By: Ririan

Busting Stress through Breathing Techniques and MeditationThe problem of stress has been around for as long as humanity’s existence and has been the culprit to most health issues – both minor and fatal. Incidentally, one very effective way to combat stress has always been around and handy, and this comes in the form of breathing.

Breathing techniques help calm both mind and body providing for total peace and relaxation, and these techniques make up the core of the stress-busting system we all know as meditation. Devoid of any religious or spiritual bias, meditation gets rid of both stress and fits of anxiety in a most natural manner and results in a perfectly balanced state of mind, body and spirit.

The initial step in going through the process of meditation is to make sure you get yourself a quiet place that is free from distractions. Next among your concerns will have to do with how you position yourself when meditating. Most practitioners have gotten used to the lotus position where you have your legs crossed while seated, with back straightened and shoulders even. If this works for you, then by all means use it.

Any alternative positions would be fine for as long as you keep your spine straight for the entire duration of your meditation. This way, internal circulation is made possible and deep and slow breathing comes easier. Relaxation is encouraged as a result.

As for getting to a relaxed state, you may tweak both your breathing and flow of thoughts to achieve this. For instance, while eyes closed you may focus on parts of your body one at a time, relaxing them until they feel totally limp before proceeding to the next body part. This method works even better when accompanied with slow, effortless deep breathing, at counts of four when you inhale and counts of eight when exhaling. Sticking to this rhythm helps facilitate getting to a relaxed, meditative state.

What’s good about meditation is that there’s no such thing as overdoing it. Because you wouldn’t need any gear, equipment or medicine for it, you can always meditate as often as you need or wish to. You can start handling your stress while not having to worry about side effects and similar things you could otherwise get when you pop pills. Stress and anxiety are usually gone with just 60 seconds of meditation, although going through it for about half an hour should be most beneficial.

Meditation as a potent and natural form of stress relief has been thoroughly studied and much have been documented about its effectiveness. It is not uncommon to hear of all those harmful biochemical byproducts of stress hitting low levels, if not altogether vanishing, through meditation. With brain waves getting fine-tuned to optimally relaxed levels, both heart rate and blood pressure are reduced and stabilized. No artificial stress-busting medication anywhere can produce positive results like meditation does without causing long-standing damage to the body.

Given all the favorable research results and testimonials on both breathing techniques and meditation, it is not surprising to hear of more and more people employing these methods to make their daily lives always relaxed and stress-free.

Posted in: Self Improvement3 comments

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