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Daily Steps To Mindful Living

Mental Health

How to fight your fears

Mental Health, Mind, Personal Growth, Spirit

Most people experience fear or anxiety in some form or other and stress and worry are very much on the increase during these uncertain times. More and more people are turning to antidepressants or other prescription drugs in order to cope with stress and anxiety. For this blog post I thought I’d take a look at some holistic self-help techniques to help you banish your fears the natural way.

The quick anxiety stopper
The quick anxiety stopper is a useful technique I learnt from an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) practitioner. EFT works by tapping specific energy points on the body whilst mentally or verbally tuning into the problem you want to address. The idea is that disturbances in the energy flow are removed, along with the emotional response and anxiety. The quick anxiety stopper involves tapping on three specific energy points. Start by tapping gently with one hand under your eye, then under your arm with a flat hand in line where a bra strap would lie, then with a flat hand tapping the side of the upper chest just under the collarbone. After tapping these points for a few seconds, take a deep breath and then exhale. Repeat the sequence until you feel less anxious.

The calming breath
Changing the way we breathe can change the way we feel. Each inhalation is linked to the body’s fight or flight response whereas each exhalation is linked to the relaxation response. When we are stressed and panicked our inhalations become more dominant, which is why we need to focus more on the exhalations in order to reverse this.

Try the following breathing technique next time you feel anxious. Breathe in for a count of five and breathe out for a count of five. Try to keep to this steady rhythm for a few rounds of your breathing. Then, start extending the exhalation by holding the breath out for a count of two after you have emptied your lungs. Repeat this several times and you will begin to find your relaxation response taking over. It takes a bit of practice and concentration but, believe me, you will notice the calming effects.

Flower power
Bach flower remedies are made from natural flower essences and can help with a range of emotions related to fear. The essences are simple to take – just put two drops in a glass of water and sip throughout the day. Here are some specific essences for fear and anxiety:

Rock rose can help when are experiencing terror or fright and you feel unable to move or think clearly.

Mimulus helps when you feel fearful of something you can name, such as spiders, illness, losing your job etc. It’s also helpful when you feel shy or nervous of telling others how you feel.

Aspen can help when you feel anxious or fearful but you can’t exactly say what you are afraid of.

Use your imagination
Visualisation techniques can really help to beat anxiety and fear. Try this simple technique next time you feel an anxious episode coming on. Close your eyes and imagine that you are in a relaxing place, such as a tropical island, a beach or the top of a mountain. Imagine sitting or lying there and concentrate on how you feel, what it looks and sounds like. Really focus on the details to make the scene as vivid and realistic as possible in your mind. Allow your senses to take you into a state of complete calm. Remain in this place until you feel that your breathing is much calmer and your mind is more settled. You should find that your fears have evaporated and you are more able to face the rest of your day.

About the author: Liz Parry is a writer specialising in holistic health and wellbeing, personal development and spirituality.

Originally posted on April 24, 2012 @ 4:41 pm

Is there a link between our emotions and physical pain?

Mental Health, Mind

When we think about pain, it is generally to do with the physical causes – such as an injury caused through a fall, or a headache caused by staring at a computer for too long. But how often do we consider the fact that there could be an emotional reason for our ailments?

There is a growing belief among complementary therapists that our emotional state can often hold the key to the pains or illnesses we suffer from, and this is a topic I’m going to explore in this blog post. [Read more…] about Is there a link between our emotions and physical pain?

Originally posted on January 28, 2012 @ 8:14 pm

How to use the power of positive affirmations

Inspiration, Mental Health, Mind, Personal Growth, Spirit

Since recently coming back from my travels around south east Asia, I’ve been feeling a bit unfocused and unsure of what the future holds. In order to tackle this, I’ve started practising positive affirmations; something I’ve always found useful in focusing my mind and combating any negative thoughts that creep in. So, for this blog post, I’m going to talk about affirmations: what are they, why should we practise them and how can they help us?

A thinking Man
Creative Commons License photo credit: Klafkid

[Read more…] about How to use the power of positive affirmations

Originally posted on January 18, 2012 @ 11:40 am

The Lifetime Guide to Staying Emotionally Healthy

Mental Health, Mind

“A clear understanding of negative emotions dismisses them.” – Vernon Howard

Stress, depression, panic attacks and anxiety. The modern world is overflowing with emotional problems of all different kinds. And chances are you or someone you know has suffered from some form of emotionally unhealthy state. So how can we avoid these problems? Are there things we can do to prevent them coming about?

In this post I am going to present the lifetime guide to staying emotionally healthy. I hope it helps someone out there.

What is emotional health?

Before I present any ideas about emotional health I need to define it. Without a solid idea we really won’t know what were talking about and we will get lost.

Emotional health is not a single state of mind like “pleasure” or “joy” but an ongoing process. Emotional health is a conversation, a journey and above all it is work. It will change and you will go up and down. Even the most emotionally healthy person will have bad days. But those bad days are all part of the process, and they’re aware of it.

Emotional health is all about gathering new tools and methods to constantly better your mind. It is flux.

To be emotionally healthy you need to spend a lot of time being open and learning. As soon as you close your mind to new ideas or information you cut yourself off from the possibility of being healthy. This post could perhaps serve as a starting point. It is by no means the end point. Read, research, study and practice. And never give up, because emotional health is an ongoing process.

Why is emotional health so important?

Mediating [Struggle For Pleasure]
Creative Commons License photo credit: RSNY

I have always found it extremely interesting that today’s society will place a massive emphasis on physical well being but almost nothing is done about the mental state. Unless you are suffering from serious depression or some other mental illness, you don’t hear anything about “working on your mind” or “developing emotional health”. And this is quite troubling.

Imagine how happy we could be if we spent as much time working with our emotions as we did running on the treadmill or cooking a healthy dinner. Imagine how different the world would be if there was less anger and more compassion. I think it would be a very different place.

What I am going to show you in this post, however, is that you don’t need to necessarily sit on a cushion or take separate time out to become emotionally healthy. In fact, going to the gym and cooking a nice meal is a big part of emotional health. Stick around and see if you learn something new and, as always, leave a comment if I have forgotten anything.

The lifetime guide to staying emotionally healthy

Norbulinka, the Dalai Lama's Summer Palace
Creative Commons License photo credit: fairlybuoyant

Now for the main bulk of the post. Here I am going to present some ideas that you can use work with your emotions in order to become more emotionally healthy. Remember, this is a long term project that you will have to stick at for the rest of your life. You will, however, start to see results right away.

1. Understand you are in control of your emotions
The very first step you need to take on this journey is to realize that you are in control of your emotions. This fact is lost on the modern world; many of us become slaves to anger and depression and stress. But when you turn that around and start to understand that you are the boss of what goes on in your head, you are suddenly left with a very workable situation. Without this understanding, however, no progress can be made.

2. Become familiar with your mind through meditation
Once you have conviction that you are in control of your emotions, you need to become familiar with them through meditation. Now, meditation does not mean sitting on a cushion saying “OOMMM” over and over. Sure it can be that, but it is not only that. The way to meditate is to constantly bring your attention to your thoughts and just let your mind relax in that.

The Tibetan word for meditation is “gom” which means “to familiarize”. This gives us a great insight into what meditation is supposed to be. It is not about relaxing so much as it is about familiarizing ourselves with positive states of mind. Compassion, love, patience, silence. And the very interesting thing about meditation is that these states of mind arise naturally when you just start to look at your mind.

How does this work? Simple. According to Buddhism the nature of every being is compassionate. We are not inherently evil and we are not naturally sinners. Naturally we are compassionate but we have lost connection with that innate part of our being. But looking at the mind re-connects us with that state because we all of a sudden get in control of our minds. And when we get in control of our minds the first thing we feel is sadness for all those people out there who are still struggling. It is an intensely powerful moment in your life.

If you want to learn more about meditation you can check back on some of my other articles:

One of the best things you can do for yourself if you want to become happy and proficient in controlling your mind is learn from someone who has already done it. There are so many wonderful meditation teachers in our world, I encourage you to connect with one. And that leads us to our next point.

3. Connect with good people and avoid bad company
A few weeks ago I wrote an article about avoiding bad company which ruffled up some feathers. A got a few emails that day saying that I was a disloyal friend and that you should stick by your mates even if they are bad for you. Okay, fine. I agree. You should stick by your bad mates if you are able to do so without them being a negative influence on you. But when you see yourself in a downward spiral it is time to leave them alone.

Surrounding yourself with good company is one of the most important life lessons a person can learn. Once a dear friend of mine told me that you will become the average of your five closest friends so make sure you choose wisely. I did. I chose people who were happy, successful and who worked for the betterment of others. I very rarely spend time with people who are selfish, hateful and bigoted. The Buddha once said:

“Put a rose in a sack of fish and soon the rose starts to stink too.”

Now there is no problem visiting people with the motivation of helping them or cheering them up. That is a wonderful thing to do. But if you are best friends with a drug addict racist who starts to rub off on you then you are in for problems. If you want to be emotionally healthy you need to surround yourself with people who are living a life you wish to emulate. Let them rub off on you.

4. Practice ethical behavior to avoid depression, anxiety and fear
Once you have become familiar with your mind and have made a commitment to stay emotionally healthy it is important to live an ethical life. Without a solid basis of ethical behavior there is no chance for long term happiness. So why are ethics so important? Let’s take a look.

Grande Dame
Creative Commons License photo credit: Daniel Greene

The first thing you will notice about an unethical or mean person is that they have very few true friends. They may have followers or people around them who latch on out of fear, but they have no trusted confidants. And that is a very lonely place to be. In fact, it is a situation that will eventually drive you crazy.

It is also important to realize that negative acts come back to you. If you spend your life stealing or cheating on your girlfriends the chances are your reputation will come back to haunt you. And I am not just talking about other people being mad at you. Soon you will begin to feel guilty. Imagine living your whole life hurting others and to be in the last stages of your life and feel intense regret. It would be an emotion so crippling that you would struggle to cope. Life your life without regrets.

5. Read the masters and scholars of the past
Will Smith is a Hollywood star that many people admire for his staunch opposition to gangster rap that denigrates women and encourages violence and his lifetime pursuit of being a “nice guy”. A few years ago I saw a video of Will Smith speaking to thousands of kids at a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards ceremony. What he said really knocked my socks off.

The human race has an amazing history full of struggles and hardships. But out of those hardships have come some amazing thinkers. There have been men and women who, instead of picking up a sword or gun, have sat thinking. Their messages have been passed down the generations long after the wars were over. And now we are left with a gold mine of knowledge and wisdom. These people left a legacy that we should feel honored to be a part of and study. Like Will said, there are no new problems. If you want to be emotionally healthy you need to take a look at what the great adepts of the past have thought and said about being emotionally healthy.

Let me give you a little introduction to a few great minds that have affected my life. A starting point for you.

The Buddha was a revolutionary, possibly the first of his kind. He sat under a tree and developed theories that have served as the basis for most philosophical thinking. Start with the Buddha’s teachings and work your way forward through history. Study the European philosophers and the masters of meditation from India, China and Japan. Do this and you will be well on your way to emotional health.

6. Avoid man made food, eat naturally
For most of my youth I failed to recognize the link between food and depression. I, like most teenagers, ate a lot of fast food and drank a lot of sugary sodas. And I felt crap, all the time. If you want long term emotional health you need to be very careful about what you put in your body.

To prove this point to yourself I want you to go out and buy the most unhealthy lunch you can. McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC or some other deep fried animal should do the trick. Now watch your mind for the next two hours. Are you more irritable? Are you more depressed and tired? Are you quicker to anger? I bet you are. Now for dinner I want you to have a meal that contains nothing man made. That means no pasta, baked goods or anything produced in a factory. Make something full of colorful vegetables and natural products. Avoid meat if you can. Now watch your mind for the next two hours. How much more energetic, happy and alive do you feel?

The thing about food is that it can change your life. If you eat poorly you are more likely to get cancer, heart disease and diabetes. If you eat well you can live longer, avoid illness and look super sexy. So why do we always opt for the bad choice? Laziness? I’m not sure. Eating well is a big part of being emotionally healthy.

7. Enjoy the middle
Quite often the reason we get unhealthy emotionally is because we do things in excess. Instead of partying once a week we do it four times a week. Instead of eating junk food on the weekends we eat it on the weekdays. Instead of having one coffee per day we have seven. A key to being emotionally healthy is doing things in moderation. Quite often it isn’t that something is inherently bad for us, it is just that we do it too often.

8. Develop strength in your own personal set of values
Emotional health is not just avoid depression and learning to cope with stress. That is just a tiny fraction of what we are talking about. Emotional health is also become a less angry person, considering other human beings in a different way and improving yourself on a variety of levels. One of the ways you can improve your emotional health is to develop a set of values and stick to them.

Last Winter, at the Lake
Creative Commons License photo credit: margolove

When I was in high school I remember hearing that “the measure of a man is by how quickly he gets angry“. I found this statement to be extremely inspiring and decided then and there that I was going to avoid anger at all costs. The more I looked into the statement the more I realized how much other people respected calm, strong and un-angry people. This was something I was going to follow through.

Over time life has thrown me many more of these lessons. Compassion, love, patience. All of these ideas I have tried to adopt into my own persona and stick to them no matter what. And it has been an amazing source of strength. Whenever I feel my emotional state slipping I remind myself of who I want to be and whip myself back on track.

Conclusion

Emotional health is all about working with your mind and your body to achieve some sort of personal mastery. It is a long process and along the way you will inevitably stagger, fault and make mistakes. But these mistakes all serve to make you stronger. If you want to stay emotionally healthy for your entire life you need to explore your mind, read philosophy, take care of your body and avoid extremes. If you can do even a few of these you will be far better equipped than the majority of the population.

So how emotionally healthy are you? Do you do most of these things already or do you have work to do? Most important, what have I missed?

Originally posted on November 25, 2009 @ 2:35 am

Technology: The Reason You are Stressed, Depressed and Bored

Life, Mental Health, Mind

bus
Creative Commons License photo credit: Bert Kommerij

“In Tibet you would send a letter and not expect a reply for six months. Now if people send an email and don’t get a reply in 30 seconds they get angry.” – Tai Situ

How long can you go without checking your email? If you find a juicy bit of gossip do you have to Tweet it to everyone you know? Do you SMS more than you talk? Most of us do.And it is making us stressed, depressed and utterly bored with life.

In this post I want to talk about how I believe technology is causing us a lot of problems. In particular I hope the parents reading this will carefully consider the impact all this technology is having on their children.

What technology?

I am going to refer to “technology” a lot in this post so I thought I should clear up what I am talking about. Basically I am referring to media like Twitter, Facebook, iPhones and iPods, Blackberrys, etc. Technology that is providing entertainment. I am not referring to advances in medicine, international travel, etc.

The iPhone, the cafe and addiction

A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe waiting for a friend. I noticed that a lot of people were sitting alone and almost every one of them had an iPhone or Blackberry. Every new visitor to the cafe sat down and within 20 second was flipping away on the phone looking for apps, news or Twitter.

This, to me, is the epitome of the problem with technology – we cannot live without it. This media has become so addictive and we have come to rely on it so much, we wouldn’t know how to live without the constant stimulation. And therein lies the problem.

Technology and its links to stress, depression and boredom

Boredom
Creative Commons License photo credit: PaperThinSerge

We are constantly stimulated by technology. We are constantly in need of a “hit” and over time that need escalates, just like the need for a drug. We are addicted to technology and it is causing stress, depression and boredom. Here’s why:

Technology and stress
The reason I believe technology is causing us to be stresses is simple – we are speeding up too much. Our lives are lived in a constant rush and this is majorly caused by advancing technologies. Think about the news; 10 years ago if you wanted news you had to wait for the evening report or the paper in the morning. Now if you want news you go on Twitter to see if there is any Trending Topics or you jump on your mobile to see what the latest news app is saying. Its fast.

And while I can see the upsides to this (great access to information, etc.) I am also acutely aware that it is causing people problems. They cannot go for very long without an update. They feel like everything has to be done at a cracking pace. And they get stressed when they haven’t had a hit in a while.

Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits has a new eBook out which is all about living simply with minimal clutter. This is what he is talking about. All the technology and speed that we have in our lives is making us stressed and the sad thing is, we don’t need to be.

Technology and depression
The relationship between technology and depression is more subtle but I wanted to write about it because I have experienced it myself. I would love to hear some reader feedback about this one.

As my long time readers will know, I used to be a bit of a gamer. My brother and I would spend hours play Call of Duty, Counter Strike and even World of Warcraft. But after a while we both started noticing something – we were depressed. There was a really empty feeling that just wouldn’t go away. After a while we linked it to the games because we realized that we were so overstimulated and when the games were off we hit a low; kind of like a sugar hit that inevitably leads to a crash. But it was more long lasting and powerful.

And media and technology are like that. We are constantly Tweeting, Facebooking and listening to music that when it all stops at the end of the day we feel depressed. Our senses finally get a moment to relax and we feel terrible. We feel alone. I think that technology is making a lot of us depressed.

Technology and boredom
The last one is obvious as it is closely tied in with the other two. Technology is making us bored. Why? Because we need bigger and bigger hits. Listening to music is no longer exciting, we need a massive show or an LCD screen in our music player. The addition to stimulation is escalating.

I actually think this phenomena is quite dangerous as the younger generation now needs bigger hits to be entertained. The simple pleasures in life are no longer enough because they have experienced amazing things all the time from such a young age. I think it has a lot to do with why drugs and alcoholism are so prevalent. But I could be wrong.

Next time you have a break from work become aware of what you want to do. I am betting you shy away from relaxing and sitting back and grab for a phone, a TV or some Facebook action. Being still and alone is no longer enough for us.

Creating a need, not solving a problem

The interesting thing about this media and technology is that the new innovations do not solve a problem or need, they create one. In the old days marketing firms would sit down and think about some problems that people had and then try to create a technology to solve that problem. Not anymore! Now they create technologies and make us feel like we need it. In fact, I now think that these things create more problems than they solve.

What do you think?

Originally posted on September 15, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

Say “No” to Television: Why TV is Your Worst Habit

Mental Health, Mind


Creative Commons License photo credit: Loving Earth

Television has become like sleep; you just can’t do without it. Every day hundreds of millions of people around the world sit down and spend time watching their favorite shows. In fact, people love TV so much they might even spend a few hours watching programs that they don’t even like! No where else does this happen. No body goes to a baseball game if they hate baseball. But people will watch bad TV just because they love TV.

In this post I want to show you why TV is your worst habit. I want to talk about why I think millions of us will regret the day we ever turned that thing on. Hopefully someone out there learns to say “no” to television.

How much TV do you watch?

Before I get into the meat of this post I want to ask you all how much TV you watch. Now be honest. Take a good look at your week and think about how many hours you have spent laying on the couch just watching whatever is on. Did you catch the news at six? Did you make it up til Letterman? Did you catch Lost or Scrubs or any of those prime time shows? Perhaps you got them all?

Once you have figure out how much TV you watched last week I want you to leave a comment and tell us. Be brutally honest. How many hours of TV do reader of The Daily Mind watch per week?

Why TV is your worst habit


Creative Commons License photo credit: tim caynes

Now that you have established how many hours you are watching I would like to give you a few reasons why I think TV is a bad habit. If you agree with me or disagree with me please share your thoughts.

1. You can’t get that time back
Life is short. It is fleeting. You have no idea when you are going to die and with that uncertainty comes a real sense of urgency. You will never get that time back. All those days you decided to just watch a few more programs are gone forever. Those hours of your life are gone.

2. It takes away from important tasks
All throughout my childhood my father watched a lot of TV. I remember getting up every morning and getting ready for school while he sat and read the paper and watched the finance news. Then he would come home around 6pm and turn on the new again. We’d eat dinner and I’d go to bed. The whole day I would spend no more than 20 minutes with my father.

And then I moved out. Now I never see him. Maybe twice a month in a good month. And I know he regrets it. He has actually told me that he wished he turned the TV off and just want to a game with me or played some chess. Now we never see each other and he regrets it. You will too.

3. It is never ending
Television is very addictive. You get to sit on a comfortable couch with a nice drink and some snacks and do exactly nothing while the networks get better and better at keeping you there. During the good TV shows like Scrubs and 30 Rock you get commercials for the crap that is going to be on afterward and so you sit there instead of going to bed. And then you are too tired to get up in the morning and do something useful.

But it doesn’t end there. Television stations suck you in for new TV programs that are about to be launched. So instead of being satisfied by a good TV show you are now thirsty for the next thing that is going to be on. TV watching is never ending. You are never satisfied.

4. It makes you numb
Television makes you numb. And it makes you numb because you have spent years now watching everything that has ever been invented. You watch comedy, drama, movies, reality TV, documentaries, porn… everything. Any human experience that you can think of you have already seen it on the TV. And now you are numb. Things don’t excite you as much. Life doesn’t give you the same innocent buzz that it used to. The media has killed that buzz and replaced it with an urge to sit and do nothing.

Your brain is less active when you watch TV than when you sleep. It is numbing. It is relaxing. But you never really get more relaxed. You just want more.

5. It makes you lazy
Television, more than anything else, makes you a lazy person. Going to the gym seems like climbing Mount Everest because you have spent so much time sitting there with a numb mind doing nothing. And when you finally realize that you are out of shape and quit unhealthy you are too lazy to do anything about it. Sad.

I believe there is a direct relationship between how much TV you watch and how much you accomplish in life. The more TV you watch the less you will achieve. Whether it is a happy family, a good career, a fit and healthy body or a loving marital sex life – TV compromises all of those things. And it is not just because it takes up all of your time, it is because all of that stuff seems far too hard.

6. It changes your personality
How many times today have you quoted Bart Simpson or said something from your favorite TV show? My best friend and I are constantly quoting Scrubs lines. When something good happens we say, “Eagle!” like Turk and JD and when I answer the phone he calls me Vanilla Bear. I often wonder what we would talk like if we had never watched Scrubs.

Television changes your personality. You absorb so much of the characters on the screen that you forget to think for yourself. You just mirror what they do. You might be cynical like House or funny like Liz Lemon or witty like David Letterman. But where are YOU in all of that? Where have your own original thoughts gone? What about your political opinions? Are they are own or are you just mimicking Bill O’Reilly or some other talk show host? TV changes your personality to the point that you forget to think for yourself. And that is scary.

Say “No” to television for one week

I am proposing a radical plan. Turn off the TV for one week. Just for seven short days. See how much more you get done. See how much more exercise and sleep you get. Feel how much happier and healthier you feel. Discover how much more you can do with your time on Earth. At first you will feel the separation anxiety. The TV will call you. Resist it and find out how strong you really are.

Will you do it?

Originally posted on April 9, 2009 @ 3:26 am