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Posts tagged with “health”

How Obsessing About Your Body Gets in the Way of What Matters

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“Focus on what you want your life to look like—not just your body.” ~Sarah Failla

Growing up I never had much concern for the shape or size of my body. Perhaps once in a while the idea of losing weight or beginning an exercise routine crossed my mind, but it was always fleeting and I was quickly back to gossiping with my best friend or writing a note to my boyfriend.

Once I entered college I gained some weight, what with the unlimited access to Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch (something that never, ever crossed the threshold of my childhood home) …

3 Things You Need to Stop Telling Yourself If You Want to Lose Weight

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“Stop hating yourself for everything you aren’t. Start loving yourself for everything that you are.” ~Unknown

Picture it: You’re out with friends having dinner, then one of them says, “I shouldn’t be eating this. I skipped the gym today.”

Another one replies, “I’m so bad. I’ve been eating out of control all week. I just can’t stop.”

And another one says, “I’m going to have to eat salad for the next couple days to make up for this.”

Does this type of conversation sound familiar to you?

It’s all too familiar to me. I used to be the leader in …

3 Ways to Slow Down and Take Better Care of Yourself

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“Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

It’s interesting how easily we forget to appreciate the simple day-to-day luxuries that we are granted with our body.

We assume that as we exhale, there will always be an inhalation to follow.

We assume that when we lay our head down on our pillow at night, our heart will beat, our blood will flow, and we will open our eyes in the morning.

We go on day after day, running around with a mile-long to-do list without taking a moment to check in with …

Enter to Win $500 at Thrive Market (A New Online Health Food Store)

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Have you ever noticed that unhealthy food is a lot cheaper and easier to get than healthy food? You can zip through a drive thru and get an entire meal off the dollar menu without losing more than five minutes or five bucks.

Because I was busy and on a budget, I formerly ate a steady diet of processed, packaged food, which did very little for my energy level.

I didn’t realize at the time how poorly I was meeting my nutritional needs, or how I was poisoning my body with artificial ingredients and chemicals, but I knew I frequently …

How to Listen to Your Body (and Become Happy Again)

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“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos—the trees, the clouds, everything.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

It’s embarrassing, isn’t it?

You don’t want to make a fuss about tiny health annoyances.

But you feel lethargic for no apparent reason. You get constipated, especially when you travel. You have difficulty sleeping.  And your hormones are all over the place.  You hold onto that niggly five or ten pounds like your life depends on it.

Sound familiar? I’ve been there too.

I was working at a dream job and living on the French Riveria. I was paid …

4 Simple Questions That Can Revamp a Sensitive Soul’s Health

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“Quality questions create a quality life.” ~Tony Robbins

Have you ever wondered, maybe even worried, “Why is it easier for others to take care of their health? Why do they have more willpower? Less struggle?”

And, “What am I doing wrong?”

I used to ask myself all this, and more. It was confusing; I tried to eat healthy and exercise, but my body argued back. Weight issues. Fatigue. Chronic pain. Injury after injury.

The answer seemed obvious.

Try harder.

But doing so made the issues worse, or another problem started. Or both.

The doctors all said my symptoms didn’t make …

Why It Doesn’t Pay to Put Wealth Above Health (and 3 Tips to Get Fit)

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“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” ~The Dalai Lama

It was three in the morning. The mean, destructive words that someone had said to me back in high school were replaying in my mind like …

Forming Healthy Habits: 3 Tiny Choices That Create Huge Change

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“It is better to make many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

Seven years ago I was a sedentary, over-caffeinated, unmindful, somewhat neurotic meat-eater with a bit of a drinking problem. My meals came out of boxes with chemical compounds for ingredients and had little in the way of anything that grew outside or came from a field.

I made excuses for not exercising, but in reality I was so insecure that I didn’t think I was strong enough to be athletic. I was afraid of making an …

How to Convince Your Brain to Change Your Habits and Your Life

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“To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.” ~Unknown

Heroes inspire us all. They are strong, smart, and powerful. They manage to win against all odds. They will keep going no matter what.

They may feel fear but fear does not get them. And just when you thought that they were done, it was over, and that there was no way they could overturn the situation, they rise back out of the blue, strike, and win!

Then they cross the finish line. Glory awaits them. From now on everyone will remember them …

Why Be Healthy in the Present When the Future’s Uncertain?

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“The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” ~Pema Chodron

The idea of an open future can be thrilling. What lies before us often feels as though it’s just waiting to be written by a mix of our personal willpower and luck.

Lately, however, the reality of uncertainty has been frightening me. The lack of anything certain to grab onto has destabilized me in a way it never has before.

You see, as we move around the calendar year, the day darkening quickly and the temperatures dropping, I am circling back to what was a …

Body Betrayal: How to Cope with Chronic Pain and Illness

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“As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Up until fairly recently, I often felt betrayed by my body. It was always breaking down, leaving me frustrated and bitter.

No one else seemed to have as many problems.

I’ve had Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, an inflamed gall bladder riddled with stones that ended in surgery. Chronic migraines, chronic hives, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Whenever I get sick, it never seems to be something trivial. A cold becomes bronchitis. Hayfever leads to a sinus infection.

One year after holidaying in Thailand, …

5 Powerful Things to Do for Yourself When You’re Sick

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“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

Getting sick is rarely, if ever fun for anyone, but we all get sick. You can cheat on your taxes, but you can’t cheat on sickness.

When we get sick, we all have a choice of how to work with illness. We can choose to be miserable or we can choose to learn about ourselves and grow from the experience. Since I have had such a hard time with the latter, I’ve investigated 5 ways to practice with illness.

1. Reflect on the benefit

…

Being Sick Doesn’t Mean You’re Wrong: Enabling Real Healing

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“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

A lot of people I know who have had chronic illness, including myself, have had a hard time letting go of the feeling of “wrongness” that arises with it, in the mind.

I sometimes wonder where this comes from. When I look at our culture I get a feeling for where we get these messages. It doesn’t, generally, seem to emmanate non-judgmental compassion!

In our age of consumerism, photoshopped bodies, and a million-ways-to-look-young-and-feel-great-forever, the body’s propensity to get ill is generally seen …

There is No End Worse Than the End of Hope

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“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” ~Winston Churchill

We all fall down. And you’ve probably heard that getting back up is the key to moving forward.

But what do you do when disaster strikes? When a loved one is so injured, so debilitated, that hope seems to have vanished? What then?

This is a true story. It may be hard to believe and beyond what you may think is possible, but it actually happened.

It took place nearly thirty years ago.

Disaster

I picked up the blue referral sheet in the physical therapy office at Brackenridge Hospital …

Giveaway and Interview: Turning Dead Ends into Doorways by Staci Boden

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Especially when we’re going through challenging times, it can feel tempting to try to control the future—but this doesn’t change that much lies beyond our control. Try as we may to avoid the unknown, the future remains uncertain.

How do we navigate change knowing that nothing is guaranteed? How can we develop inner strength to grow, heal, and evolve?

Healer practitioner Staci Boden answers these questions in her …

Forming A Healthy Habit Starts from Within

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“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen

I recently participated in a 21-day online fitness support group. I needed some external motivation to help re-establish a daily habit of fitness activity. My lazy butt was so reluctant to start this! Nevertheless, by the last day of the challenge, I was enthusiastically back into the habit.

We all know it takes three weeks of daily repetition to form a habit, so my success may not surprise you. What surprised me was why I ultimately met my goal.

It turned out …

Battling with Your Body: 4 Simple Tips for Overall Well-Being

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“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

I believe there are four key aspects to our existence:  mental, physical, spiritual and emotional.  The mind is a fairly straightforward concept, and many people can identify with a spiritual component of life.

Yet there is one other aspect of life that I believe is essential to a full and healthy journey on this planet—the emotional element of living. And that emotional state seems to be inextricably tied to the physical.

I have always struggled with the physical. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with my …

Realizing You Have Everything You Need

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“He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything.” ~Thomas Carlyle

I grew up in a small town, Maysville, Kentucky, where I led the perfect, sheltered life. After graduating from high school, I pursued higher education at a local community college, and from there transferred to The University of Kentucky in Lexington.

I had an interest in art, music, and media, pursuing a double major in journalism and communications. I dreamed about either working behind the scenes of a television studio, or becoming a certified systems engineer and working for my father’s employer.

Then a week …

10 Places to Find Hope When Life Knocks You Down

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“He who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.” ~Proverb

In the spring of 2006, I was training for the MS 150, a cycling event to raise funds for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I was hopeful that I could contribute to MS research and support. Someone close to me has MS and I wanted to help.

About a month into my spin classes and outdoor training, I started to feel bad. I was tired, weak, and having some balance issues.

I never got to participate in the ride. In fact, shortly after the event date, …