Health Notes

 

Top 10 longevity habits

1- Positive mental attitude: People who live a long healthy life have a positive view of life and themselves. Practice thinking thoughts that reflect feeling good about yourself and your life. Focus on what is going right rather than what is going wrong. See the good in yourself and others. Everything is energy including your mental attitude. Project out positive images of yourself and the world and that is the world you will experience!

2-Consume high energy, nutrient dense foods: People who live a long healthy life eat  whole, organic locally grown foods that come from healthy soil. They know that to be healthy you have to eat healthy. Know what is in your food and how it got to your plate. Choose a plant based diet and make sure that 51% or more of each meal is raw. Cooking destroys necessary nutrients and enzymes. Eat 5 small meals instead of 3 large meals. People who live long healthy lives ‘graze’ throughout the day. It  is  healthier  to eat, small amounts  than to eat large amounts at prescribed times. Only eat when you are hungry;  eat only to the point of feeling satisfied and don’t go beyond that feeling. Over eating  taxes the digestive system and depletes energy. Maintaining a healthy body weight is necessary for optimal health. Eat well and you will live well. You truly are what you eat!

3-Drink pure water: People who live a long healthy life drink water. It seems simple, but the fact is most are not drinking enough pure water to replace the water that we lose during the day. Every cell in the body needs water to survive. In order of priority and second to air, we cannot live without water for more than one day. Dehydration of our cells is associated with every disease. Water is also the conductor through which energy flows through our bodies. Drinking water throughout the day, including herbal teas, and eating  high water content foods such as fruits and vegetables, will take care of your hydration needs.

4- Get enough sunshine: People who live a long healthy life go out into the sunshine daily. There is a fear about being exposed to too much sunlight, but we need to be exposed to enough sunlight to be alive. The sun is the prime source of the energy that we get from the food we eat. It provides energy and photosynthesis that is needed for the plants to grow; same with all the living things in this world. There is a connection between not getting enough Sunlight and SAD- Seasonal Affective Disorder which causes people to feel depressed. Sunlight on our skin and taken in through our eyes balances hormones and also helps the body to produce Vitamin D which enables the body to absorb calcium to build strong bones and teeth. Get out into the sunlight when it is out everyday and you will a longer healthier life.

5-Move your body everyday for 20 minutes or more: People who live a long healthy life are active in a variety of ways that feel good. There is absolute connection between longevity and exercise.  Do what feels good and will become a habit. Choose any way you can get your heart pumping and work up a sweat. The health benefits of a daily exercise program cannot be stressed enough. Regular exercise that includes aerobic, flexability and weight training helps promote physiological well-being, strengthen the immune system, maintain joint mobility, increase energy and even increased intelligence!

6-Take life lightly: People who live a long healthy life don’t take life too seriously. They find ways to laugh, smile often and have a sense of humor. Life is what you make it, so it’s a matter of choice. Even when life throws us a curve ball and it feels heavy, we can always choose how we are going to respond.  ’Stress’ is a a response. Choose to be among the people who don’t allow the stresses of life to have a negative effect for any amount of time. It is amazing what happens when you decide how life is going feel no matter what is going on. The effect is a happier existence regardless of circumstances. Practice releasing the heavy burdens of life everyday by focusing on what feels good. 

7-Quiet your mind: People who live a long healthy life practice quieting the mind. Also called meditation, the practice of stopping during the day to quiet down the chatter leads to a longer healthier, happier life. We have over 60,000 thoughts in a day; most of them are negative. It is necessary to replace these thoughts with ones that feel better. The first step is simply to become quiet. Start with a few minutes and increase the time each day until you reach 15 minutes. Focusing on your breathing in and out will distract the mind and increase oxygen which causes relaxation. In addition, you will produce more of the feel good chemicals such as serotonin and less of the stress chemicals such as cortisol. Over time, it will become a part of your day. The result will be a deeper connection with that peaceful, harmonious part of yourself called spirit. 

8-Cultivate loving relationships: People who live a long healthy life have a circle of loving relationships. Being a part of a community of people who you know care and who you care about has an effect on us physically, emotionally and spiritually. We thrive when we feel that we are part of a ‘tribe’ or family. A number of studies have highlighted the importance of family, friends and good relationships to health. Being socially engaged leads to more positive emotions, which in turn may actually boost your body’s immune system and reduce the physical signs of stress. No man/women is an island. Surround yourself with others who you can share your love, time and talents. Volunteer in your community. Get involved, make a difference. Develop relationships with happy healthy, positively minded people who support your dreams. Be supportive of theirs. Your life will feel more fulfilled which leads to a long healthy life.

9-Keep your mind active: People who live a long healthy life keep their minds active. They stimulate their minds daily by reading and studying. They don’t slow down, they keep going and look for ways to make life more interesting. There are ways to exercise the mind to create new neuropathways such as learning a new language or to play an instrument. Doing brain training exercises such as writing with your left hand if you normally write with your right. Challenging the brain solving math equations, puzzles and memory games keeps the brain fit. There is no reason to think that because you are moving forward in time that your mind moves backward. Keep it stimulated and you will surprise yourself at how creative your mind will become. Healthy mind=healthy life!

10-Practice appreciation: People who live a long healthy life practice being in a constant state of appreciattion. Did you know that there is a link between authentic appreciation health and longevity? According to best selling author Dr. Dean Ornish appreciation is more important than any other health factor including, diet, exercise, stress, genetics, drugs or surgery. The feeling of appreciation either for someone or being on the receiving end is very powerful. Experts in the fields of positive psychology rate it up there with passion and love. So spread the appreciation around today. A great habit to get into is to keep an ‘appreciation journal’. Write down the things you appreciate about yourself, your life, people in your life etc. and the effect is profound. The feeling of appreciation attracts more to appreciate and life just gets better and better! 

These healthy lifelong habits are adapted straight from the time-tested traditions practiced by centenarians all around the world. It takes 14 to 21 days of repetitive behavior to form a new pattern in your brain. Once the pattern is formed, it becomes an automatic behavioral response. As you develop new healthy habits, they will begin to replace unhealthy habits. Start today and you will a long healthy life! 

 Foods to Avoid for Awesome Health and Wellness

* Overly processed, refined and packaged foods that contain chemicals and preservatives. Choose organic, whole, fresh local foods and produce.

*Refined white sugar and products that contain sugar. Choose to sweeten with stevia or agave nectar.

*Refined flours, especially bleached white flour and products that contain them. Choose organic whole grain flour such as: spelt, brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat and sprouted grain.

*All animal products including meat, milk, cheese, butter, ice cream. Choose organic oils such as organic raw coconut oil, olive oil, and almond nut butter; organic almond or coconut milk.

*Table salt which has been chlorinated and stripped of minerals. Choose Himalayan and Celtic salts high in natural minerals.

*All fried foods. These foods create free radical damage to the cells and saturated fats. Choose organic raw, steamed or baked.

*All fast food.

*Soda and caffeine.

*All chemicals in your foods and beverages.
Eating a diet of fresh, raw, local organic foods, raw organic juices and pure water insures that you are providing the highest nutrition needed to experience Awesome Health and Wellness!

Wired for Health

The health you are experiencing right now is as a result of what you believe about health. It has nothing to do with luck or chance and has much less to do with genetics than what was once believed by medical science. YOU are the creator of your health and wellness.A belief is a thought you keep thinking. When you practice a thought long enough it becomes ‘wired’ in the brain.  A habitual thought creates a neuropathway that can actually be seen with brain imaging. The beliefs you have about your health and longevity were given to you very early in your life. The good news is, if you aren’t experiencing the kind of health and wellness you desire, you can create new beliefs. You can become ‘wired for awesome health and wellness!’Our brains are like computers. We have programs that are beneficial and some that are not. And just like our computers, we can delete the old ones that we no longer need and replace them with updated ones that help us to achieve the results we desire. If you aren’t vital, vibrant and healthy and full of energy, there is an old outdated belief about health that needs to be deleted. But, how do you do this?

According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, author of Evolve Your Brain-The Science of Changing Your Mind, one effective way is by practicing ‘mental rehearsing’.  No matter what state of health you are experiencing, you can practice new thought about how you want to be experiencing health and well-being. A very powerful practice is to visualize images that represent  health and wellness for you and feel the feeling of already having the experience. The best time to do this is  few minutes in the morning just after waking and at night as you just as you are falling asleep because our subconscious mind is open to suggestion and will assist us by inspiring us to take the actions that will help us to achieve our desires.

 Facts about Food

 

Based on experiences and traditions, our ancestors have used foods and plant materials to treat various kinds of illness. Manuscripts discovered from a tomb (dated 168 B.C.) in China described prescriptions for 52 ailments with herbs, grains, legumes, vegetables, animal parts, and minerals. Ancient Sumerians recorded the use of 250 medicinal plants on tablets five thousand years ago. Today, plant and food remedies are still the major medicinal source for 80% of the world’s population.

 

‘Go Green’ with Chlorophyll

Heart Appreciation

Did you know: that your heart generates an electromagnetic field that is several feet in diameter and is 5 thousand times greater than the field generated by the brain; that your heart beats 100,000 times in one day sending 2,000 gallons of blood surging through your body, 40 million times in a year and 3 billion times in the average persons lifetime; Although it’s no bigger than your fist, your heart has the mighty job of keeping blood flowing through the 60,000 miles of blood vessels that feed your organs and tissues. That’s long enough to go around the world more than twice! So give your heart some good lovin’ today and everyday!

Here are a few ways you can-

*Love more-especially yourself. Place your hand over your heart and simply say ‘I love you.’

*Move your body in ways that feel good-get your heart pumping and your blood flowing faster for 20 minutes or one or more a few times per day.

*Eat a mostly organic raw food diet and drink lots of water.

*Practice ways to de-stress. Meditation is at the top of the list. Sit quietly, close your eyes and follow your breath for 15 minutes at least once per day, and then for even a few minutes throughout the day. Other ways include, massage, giving and recieving loving touch, making love, laughing, listening to music, walking in nature etc.

*Give more. Offer a helping hand, volunteer, be a friend. It has been shown that the more we offer our help to someone else, the better we feel, which is great for the heart! 

Our hearts are where the ‘juice’ of our lives come from. When the juice is flowing, we feel great! Love your heart and it will love you back!

Loving Touch

Loving touch is necessary for awesome health and wellness! The many powerful benefits include: Decreases stress, increases relaxation and aids in better sleep; Supports immune system and promotes the self-healing process; Raises the vibrational frequency in the body; Slows the aging process and stimulates endorphins that naturally suppress pain. From his influential book, ‘Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin’, Ashley Montagu brings together a vast array of studies shedding light on the role of skin and physical touch in human development. He goes on to illuminate how the sensory system, the skin, is the most important organ system of the body, because unlike other senses, a human being cannot survive without the physical and behavioral functions performed by the skin. “Among all the senses,” Montagu states, “touch stands paramount.”

So share some loving touch today! Your body, mind and spirit will thank you!

Healthy Mind-Healthy Life

Healthy Mind/Life Daily Practice: Throughout the day, take ‘mini mind breaks’. Take small breaks and center yourself. Set aside 5-15 minutes where you just sit and calm your thoughts.  Close your eyes and follow your breath to make that important connection to your inner wisdom that knows all the answers. Just by taking these mini breaks, you will be strengthening the relationship between you and that part of your that is here to support you. Feeling that connection helps us to feel powerful  and capable of creating the life we desire. 

Eating for The Chakras

Did you know that eating foods of a certain color at certain times effects the energy of your chakras?

In the morning, eat red, orange and yellow foods to support the first, second and third chakras; ie: fruits such as apples, oranges and bananas. Golden colors also include wheat, rice, corn, buckwheat and rye. Yellow gold includes most nuts and seeds. 

The foods to eat at midday to enhance the third, fourth and fifth chakras are the colors yellow-golden, green and blue with green being the most predominant. Eat your vibrantly colored salad and other vegetables at this time. Include sprouts, avocado and dark green leafy vegetables, lettuces. Sprinkle some Super Greens Powder on top for an extra charge! Satisfying and balancing the chakras is key to awesome health and wellness! 

To enhance the fifth, sixth and seventh chakras choose foods that are the colors blue, indigo, purple, gold and white. The crown chakra is associated with both gold and purple. These include: eggplant, beets, purple cabbage, sea vegetables, kale, purple broccoli; blueberries, plums, grapes, dates, golden apples, pears, apricots, figs, prunes; whole grains include rice, millet, quinoa, oats, rye; nuts and seeds: sunflower, sesame, hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts. Be sure to choose whole organic food and eat them mostly raw. This ensures that the enzymes are still alive and available. The evening meal should be the lightest so as not to interfere deep restful sleep. Digesting heavy foods is one of the reasons why people suffer from insomnia. We want to retrain our beliefs about the foods we eat at specific times and shift off of eating a large meal in the evening. We will wake up feeling energized, alert and alive. Just by making these changes in the our food choices and when we eat what we eat can make a major difference in how we live, think and feel! 

 Keep the juices flowing! 

 Are your sexy juices flowing? Sexual energy is a powerful and potent force that is necessary to fully experience Awesome Health and Wellness! Why? Sexual loving touch stimulates healthy hormones. When we have an orgasm, we are flooded with oxytocin, ‘the love hormone.’ Some of the benefits of oxytocin include- we feel calm and connected, lowers stress, diminishes pain, we heal faster, increases positive feelings, decreases cravings and addictions, counteracts fear and so much more!

 

Awesome Body! 

You don’t have to dedicate hours of time exercising to have an awesome body!  With just a few key moves throughout the day you can keep your body firm, fit, flexible, sexy and healthy for your life. Your body is built for movement and flexibility. When we move and stretch deliberately thoughout the day, the reward will be a healthy, strong, pain free body that looks beautiful.

Dedicating even 15-30 minutes during the day to moving your body, increasing your heart rate and stretching your muscles will achieve amazing results. The secret to being fit is muscle memory. When you do this everyday it will become a habit and you will feel and look good. Exercising and moving your body in a variety of ways will become a habit for the rest of your life and that is when you no longer have to think about it, you just naturally do it! 

Choose the ways that you enjoy! Mix it up. Walking fast, running, dancing, swimming, biking or any type of aerobic excise to get your heart rate up and keep it there for 15 to 30 minutes 3-5 times per week; along with weight bearing exercise on alternate days with added flexibility movement such as yoga and pilates will ensure that you are doing all the kinds of movements that effects the entire body. 

Even if you are stuck at a desk, raising a family on a busy schedule or work long hours, you can still make time to move your body every day. And let’s face it, everyone wants and Awesome Healthy Body!