July Relaxation Techniques

Rosie Cox is a qualified and practising Yoga Teacher in Wanaka, New Zealand and offers this relaxation technique you can utilise at any time of day.

Connect with the quiet at the centre of your energies.

Begin by sitting or lying comfortably. Close your eyes, begin to deepen the breath and allow your body to settle, inviting relaxation. Observe your body as you allow the stillness to settle, only the movement of the breath, the sounds of your breath. Leen softly into your experience and give it your whole attention.

Now begin to ask this question into the space between your muscles, your bones, your ligaments, your cells: What is stillness? Now let your body experience the answer while you simply stay in the stillness of a witness to this experience. Let the body’s response wash into every part of you with a wave of relaxation and quietness. Feeling the relaxation wave wash through every part of your body, from the top of the head all the way down to the souls of the feet. As your body quietens, softens just be the witness to the stillness you gather.

Then notice the space of your awareness and allow it to relax within. Let sounds in the the distance pass you by and dont grasp onto them, keep lettting the quietness gather, the softness of the breath bring calmness to your entire being. Letting go of any sense of attachments to the outside world, letting the stillness dissolve any efforts as you simply relax.

(Once you have stayed in this quiet moment for a period of time) Gently start to notice your physical body again, feeling the sensations arising in the body. Noticing your environment, opening your senses to the sounds surrounding you.

Feeling the movement of your breath in the body, then gently start to bring movement back into the body and wiggle the toes and fingers, if lying down roll over to the right side in a foetal position for a few moments, when you are ready sitting up.

To complete the practice come into a prayer position to give thanks for this quiet time you have given to yourself.

A Breakthrough Solution For Insomnia

Sleep Sound Insominia CD creator, Liz Beresford explains how brainwave entertainment can help with your insomnia by helping you relax.

Are you having trouble sleeping? Do you go to bed at night and lie there unable to drop off? Or perhaps you fall asleep easily but wake again a few hours later? Insomnia can really put a damper on your days; nothing is quite so easy when you are always tired.

So what is the solution to insomnia or poor sleep? There are of course some sensible steps you need to take and you have probably already taken them. For example cutting out caffeine containing drinks in the evenings, taking regular exercise and establishing a regular bedtime routine, will all make a difference to how you sleep.

But what if you have taken all these steps to beat your insomnia and you are still lying awake in the wee small hours?

One reason that sleep eludes us is that we are unable to completely relax. To begin the relaxation process for sleep your brain begins to slow its electrical impulses so that your brainwaves shift from the fast rhythm that they produce when you are awake, called beta waves, to the slower rhythm called alpha waves.

If you are not able to relax and your brainwaves do not slow down you will not be able to fall asleep.

One solution to this is a breakthrough in sound technology called brainwave entrainment.

Fall Asleep Quickly and Easily

Brainwave entrainment will slow your brainwaves down into alpha rhythm so that you easily fall asleep. All you do is listen to a specially constructed audio that induces your brainwaves to slow down. The word “entrainment” simply means “to synchronize with”.

Research has found that when you hear a particular beat or tone your brain waves synchronize with it. The practical implication of this is that you can induce the brain to move from the beta waves it produces when you are wide awake, to the slower more relaxed alpha waves needed for sleep initiation.

This shift allows you to fall asleep easily and quickly. If you wake in the night you can simply listen again and you will be able to go back to sleep.

This technology is amazingly simple and easy to use. All you have to do is to listen to a CD that contains the brainwave entrainment sound specially designed for insomnia. Just listen when you go to bed at night and you will most likely fall asleep long before you hear the end of the audio.

So if you are finding it difficult to sleep why not try a brainwave entrainment audio CD?

Author: Liz Beresford is a registered nurse and the creator of the popular Sleep Sound Insomnia CD which uses brainwave entrainment and guided relaxation to send you to sleep. Along with the CD you get a free book about how to get a good night’s sleep, plus a free relaxation Mp3 to use during the day. You can find other brainwave entrainment audios for download here: www.magneticsounds.com

Facing The Fear and Anxiety of The Unknown

Author Stanley Popovich offers ways to deal with uncertainty with minimum stress in uncertain times… Essential reading with a constant stream of anxiety-inducing financial news dominating the media:

Almost everybody worries about what will happen in the future. The prospect of not knowing if something good or bad will happen to you in the near future can produce a lot of fear and anxiety. As a result, here is a list of techniques and suggestions on how to manage this fear of dealing with the unknown.

Remember: It Might Not Happen

Remember that no one can predict the future with one hundred percent certainty. Even if the thing that you feared does happen there are circumstances and factors that you can’t predict which can be used to your advantage. For instance, let’s say at your place of work that you miss the deadline for a project you have been working on for the last few months. Everything you feared is coming true. Suddenly, your boss comes to your office and tells you that the deadline is extended and that he forgot to tell you the day before. This unknown factor changes everything. Remember: we may be ninety-nine percent correct in predicting the future, but all it takes is for that one percent to make a world of difference.

“One Day At A Time”

Learn to take it one day at a time. Instead of worrying about how you will get through the rest of the week or coming month, try to focus on today. Each day can provide us with different opportunities to learn new things and that includes learning how to deal with your problems. When the time comes, hopefully you will have learned the skills to deal with your situation.

Self-Visualize to Prepare For Challenges

Sometimes, we can get anxious over a task that we will have to perform in the near future. When this happens, visualize yourself doing the task in your mind. For instance, you and your team have to play in the championship volleyball game in front of a large group of people in the next few days. Before the big day comes, imagine yourself playing the game in your mind. Imagine that you’re playing in front of a large audience. By playing the game in your mind, you will be better prepared to perform for real when the time comes. Self-Visualization is a great way to reduce the fear and stress of a coming situation and increase your self-confidence.

Distract Yourself

Remember take a deep breath and try to find something to do to get your mind off of you anxieties and stresses. A person could take a walk, listen to some music, read the newspaper, watch TV, play on the computer or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things. This will distract you from your current worries.

Bottom Line: Worrying Changes Nothing

A lot of times, our worrying can make the problem even worse. All the worrying in the world will not change anything. All you can do is to do your best each day, hope for the best, and when something does happen, take it in stride.  If you still have trouble managing your anxiety of the future, then talking to a counselor or clergyman can be of great help. There are ways to help manage your fear and all it takes is some effort to find those answers.

Author: Stan Popovich is the author of “A Layman’s Guide to Managing Fear Using Psychology, Christianity and Non Resistant Methods” – an easy to read book that presents a general overview of techniques that are effective in managing persistent fears and anxieties. For additional information go to: www.managingfear.com

The Happy Millionaire

Subconscious stress may be the reason for your financial stress according to Jacob Korthuis:

Short of cash? Don’t blame the economy. It seems like a lack of money leads to stress. But it’s really the other way around. Unconscious stress causes financial self-sabotage.

A Dutch training and business consulting company has researched this pattern over the past 12 years, and the solution is surprising.

“If you are worried about money then the first thing to do is find the internal cause and correct it quickly,” says Jacob Korthuis, president of the PMA Institute and the author of The Happy Millionaire. “The solution is not to go and find another job, or start a side business, the solution is first to remove your internal block to making money.”

“Most people say that they want to be rich, but then act in ways that sabotage themselves,” Mr. Korthuis explains. “That’s because a lifetime of accumulated data is stored in their brains linking pain to making money.”

Mr Korthuis offers talks on dealing with financial stress by dealing with the underlying stresses that cause people to fail financially.

In addition to explaining the root causes of financial lack, he will also show your audience a series of techniques they can use at home to help find and correct their own limits around money, including…

* Why it’s literally never too late to become rich.

* Why luck is not a factor, and why some people seem “lucky” when it comes to money.

* Why “positive thinking” or an “attitude of gratitude” will actually keep you broke – no matter what Oprah tells you.

* Why two children from the exact same upbringing can have completely different financial lives – one can literally be a millionaire while another child slaves at minimum wage.

* Why many successful people fail repeatedly before they make it, and why you don’t have to.

* “Bad clusters” in your mind. How your brain produces them, and how they literally stop you from making the money you want.

Author: Jacob Korthuis (pron.: Korthouse) is a fun, fast-paced interview who has been featured radio and print in Europe. He is located in Orlando, Florida. To interview Jacob, call (321) 948-5811.

For more information and books about this subject, please visit the website www.pmainstitute.com

Five Tips For a Stress-less Summer

Tips for summer stress relief from Health in Harmony’s friend Christopher Wesseling:

1. Make a half hour appointment with yourself at least once a week. If you find yourself getting caught up in work or other duties, make time just for you.

2. Find a place you enjoy being and visit it regularly. It may be a place with a view or a place that inspires you with its sense of beauty. Maybe it’s somewhere that just makes you feel relaxed and or inspired inside.  Enjoy the sense that comes with being there, take time out and relax.

3. Refocus and breath out the stress letting it go. If you find yourself getting caught up on something that is bringing on stress take a breath and focus on the sense of it coming in turning around and going out again. Do this for as long as is required to expell the stress.

4. Learn to ask for help. Two heads are better than one and often others see things we may have missed great to have the contribution.

5. Learn to meditate (classes are availabe with Evolve ) and buy a book of inspirational thoughts and sayings to reflect on. Some time meditating or reading your book is a great way to start or end the day before going to bed.

Christopher Wesseling.
Evolve.