Self Care: What It Really Is | Susannah Winters | TEDxHiltonHeadWomen

4 components of self care that will support your overall wellness

Nourishing Foods, Stillness & Movement, Time in Nature & Self Expression

How to Practice Self Care

Self care is one of the most important things available for health and well-being Life gets busy and overwhelming, but it is necessary to make time for self care. Self care consists of focusing on what you need when you need it with the intention of health and well-being.

Self care means resting when it is needed, eating natural whole foods, moving the body, meditation, healthy relationships, fun and elimination of toxic behaviors or poor habits. The list includes anything that is focusing on your wellness.

When the body has been abused enough and self care is not a priority innate wisdom takes over. The body sends messages. Sometimes the messages are ignored or suppressed with prescription medications, over the counter drugs or other toxic vices. It is wise to listen in order to bring the body into a state of balance again.

Symptoms are a body's wise way of saying that yourself needs attention. Healing comes by going deeper and asking the sometimes difficult questions. Why is this symptom happening? What is my body saying? What lifestyle changes need to be made? What emotion is attached to this symptom? There are more questions that need to be asked rather than suppressing an issue further. The issue will come back again and again until healing the root cause. Once the root issue is healed balance will be present.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine the body associates particular emotions within certain organs. The liver-gallbladder holds anger, kidneys hold fear, heart is associated with joy, spleen harbours worry and over thinking. The lungs are connected with grief. So the next time a symptom is experienced you may consider a possible emotional connection.

Many women, mothers and care providers often get caught in the trap of over giving and not setting boundaries. The adrenals become fatigued or even worse exhausted and the whole body becomes out of balance. In this case saying no when necessary is self care. Saying no to something or someone else and saying yes to self care as needed is best for everyone involved. Taking the time that you need to rejuvenate, nurture and nourish yourself well in order to be a caregiver adds to the quality of life.

To practice self care it is best to listen to your own body. That can mean facing some unpleasant truths, but ultimately self care practiced correctly leads to health, happiness and well-being. It is not selfish to give yourself care as needed. Without taking time for your well-being and recognizing your worth there is nothing left to share with others.

Lisa R. Marshall is a natural wellness, nutrition and healing arts practitioner. 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7559684 

How to Lose Fat the Right Way (MEN VS WOMEN!)

Male and Female Weight-Loss

and how we are naturally best able to achieve our goals, 

based on our bodies make-up

First Step Can Be The Hardest

Everyone wants to change their health and fitness habits. So why is taking the first step so hard?

What stops us?

Mostly our brains. One problem is a fundamental law of physics: simple inertia. A body at rest tends to remain at rest unless and until acted upon by an outside force. Overcoming inertia takes energy. But brains hoard energy. They need that whack from an outside force like a mean dog bearing down on us, or an upcoming family reunion or vacation, or bad news from the doctor to make us move.

Another problem is our brains love stories. Sometimes stories are useful like when they help us understand events or motivate us. But from what clients tell me, their health and fitness stories are more often full of scary questions about the unknown: If I get in better shape, will I lose my friends who didn't? Do I deserve to be successful? What if I improve my health but my partner doesn't? How can I eat better if my partner won't? My family isn't going to want to eat what I eat. How will I manage? If I change my appearance, I'll get a lot of attention-how will that make me feel? What kind of people are these new admirers? Why didn't they pay attention to me before? And the biggest one: What if I fail?

Every time we fail, believe me, the brain remembers. Part of your brain that protects you from dark alleys and poison berries will fire up and search the data base for previous failures. If it finds any, it will fight hard to get you to stop before you start-even if it means holding onto those extra 40 pounds and a pre-diabetes diagnosis. The brain doesn't care. It will relentlessly remind you of your previous failures (ever had buyer's remorse?) until you sit back down. Or never get up.

What can we do to get past our brain's force-field? Perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves is to remember that we invent most of our fears. Fear = False Expectations Appearing Real. We start telling ourselves imaginary stories full of potential problems and therefore inevitable failures. And we keep re-writing the stories with each new fearful situation.

What can we do about this?

Try telling yourself a different story. Self-talk is real and it's important. So is having support. As my clients tell me 6 months after starting out with us, "What was I thinking?? This is actually fun!" Your brain loves stories. So why not use that knowledge to create success. Ask yourself, "What would life look like if I aced this?" And start writing from there.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9997829

Live Healthy Longer: Healthspan vs. Lifespan

Making Lifestyle Choices as opposed to having Lifestyle Issues

Brian Kennedy at TEDxMaui

Life Span Vs. Health Span

Life Span vs. Health Span - You may have heard of these two terms and wonder what the difference is. Living well and long: Are they the same? Can we do both?

Living a longer life does not necessarily mean a better life. New research has changed our concept of aging. Instead of worrying about how long we live - our life span - we now place emphasis on our "health span."

Ideally our health span (that functional, disease-free period of physical, mental and emotional health) should equal our life span. But, statistics show our health has steadily declined since World War II with over 50 percent of adults suffering one chronic illness or condition while others suffer multiple conditions.

It's obvious that advancements in medicine and technology have increased overall lifespan, but the achievement of extending our health span is still lagging.

For example, let's look at the villain cancer, the second leading cause of death in the world. Even though billions of dollars has been spent on research cancer is just as deadly now as it was 20, 30 or even 50 years ago.

The average person has a one-in-two chance of getting cancer and a one-in-three chance of dying from it. Three quarters of the population find themselves in this category already and sadly these figures are expected to soar as the number of overweight and obese people climbs to unprecedented levels.

The reality is, even with more drugs, more hospitals and more nursing homes available many people still suffer more than their parents did at a similar age.

To live with a life span that does not match one's health span is very expensive and a much less attractive option. If along with those extra years of life, life to years is to be added, experts agree the next chapter in medical advancement will need to be as much about "lifestyle as medicine"

This is wonderful news as it means we do have a lot of control and can structure our lifestyle to ensure our health span does indeed match our life span.

A huge part of being healthy is about removing the risk around getting these killers. To lower the likelihood of developing modern "lifestyle chronic diseases" like diabetes, heart disease and cancer along with many hundreds of others, a healthy lifestyle should start in childhood and last throughout adulthood

So, what can we do to increase our health span?

It is now becoming evident that adherence to healthy lifestyle choices like proper exercise, healthy eating (REAL food) and other healthy lifestyle elements like stress management, quality sleep and healthy doses of sunlight is the formula necessary to obtain a comparable increase in "health span."

A focus on lean body mass which is the amount of lean muscle tissue we have is vitally important and many of us fail to understand that our muscles go far beyond mobility.

Increased muscle mass helps slow the aging process, improve our functionality, and enhance our quality of life. Unfortunately, our modern increasingly sedentary world does not offer enough "work" for our muscles to remain strong. We literally sit for most of the day and do not get enough muscle- building and maintaining activity.

The only way to assure we do get enough of the right activity is to add intentional strengthening exercise into our lives and never stop doing them no matter how old we are, or we get.

Muscle health protects against metabolic and hormonal decline, insulin resistance, obesity and increased risk of fractures. When neglected it will limit health span.

Lean body mass is the MOST important biomarker because it hugely influences many other biomarkers such as basil metabolic rate, overall body strength, bone density and brain health.

If we ignore these issues and do nothing about them, sarcopenia - the serious loss of muscle mass and strength - sets in.

Toned, strong muscles maintain optimum blood sugar levels, boost heart strength and immune system health, keeps bones and joints healthy, and enhances cognitive function while slowing the aging process.

Given the metabolic and biological importance of healthy muscle mass, allowing degradation of this system through inactivity particularly as we get older can set the stage for a significant health crisis.

In short, once muscle tissue loss sets in, health is on a slippery downhill slope, triggering unhealthy body composition (muscle/fat ratio) changes, loss of physical energy and vitality, increased tendency to gain excess weight, increased vulnerability to disease and accelerating the aging process.

When strength is lost, the loss of independence also disappears and we become too frail to move around unassisted in order to take care of ourselves. A condition many of us have seen with our parents and grandparents.

Partaking in strengthening exercise (not cardio-type activity) defined as slow, direct controlled loading of the muscles through their ranges of movement under with adequate resistance is the key to rebuilding lost muscle mass and strengthening or maintaining it.

Moral of the story: Every lifestyle choice we make has a direct impact on our health now, and in the future.

Decide today to become passionate about increasing your own health span for a long AND healthy life.

It's not so much about years of life, but about life in years. A long life with a high burden of chronic disease is not a good thing if it means more time is spent living with illness and disability.

Carolyn Hansen -Your Go To Health & Fitness Specialist

"I help clients take charge of their health before circumstance removes the option. If your quest for a life of true physical and mental well-being is a journey I'll put you in the driver's seat."

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10526535

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