Mental Fitness

Perfumes, natural oils, resins and incense have been used in religious ritual and in private meditation for centuries or even thousands of years. They have been used not only to provide a pleasant atmosphere but to induce peaceful, devotional and meditative moods in the souls of the people.

Modern sophisticated science of perfumery through the additional use of synthetics presents us with an overwhelming variety for personal selection of our body perfumes. These usually contain small amounts of natural ingredients but in the main reflect the wide use of chemicals.

As certain artificially produced scents can be harmful when inhaled, they are not recommended for use in either aromatherapy or for meditation. The olfactory sense is extremely delicate and can be seriously injured, as can the brain, by inhalation of the smell or vapours of toxic materials and by some chemical combinations. Only natural essential oils, resins or other plant material is safe to use in aiding meditation mental health and mental fitness.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

To follow a vegetarian diet is no longer considered by others as so unusual. Thousands of young people in particular, have chosen to break away from the conventions of western cultural traditions – customs that are leading us to suffer more and more disease, and are making the change to a more healthful way of eating that will benefit both brain and body.

A good idea, and here there is simple logic, as most people are now informed of many of the dangers lurking in commercially produced food. They are also aware of the toxics passing down the food chain to affect all natural life.

However, there is an argument generally overlooked and that is the viewpoint of animal lovers, those who believe mankind’s role in evolutionary design is to be custodians and protectors, not consumers of animals. Anyone who is sincere about their love of animals is already vegetarian or inclined that way. Anyone who loves animals could not go out and kill one in order to eat its flesh. We would recoil at the thought of someone eating their pet dog or even the neighbour’s but it would seem hypocritical or at least inconsistent, if we could then sit down and insensitively eat a lamb chop.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

Healers of all kinds, including those in the psychological and psychiatric professions accept and recommend the art of relaxation as an effective and even powerful tool to help patients improve their health. Relaxation techniques are now being widely promoted and used in hospitals, clinics and the home, in aiding patients to mental health and fitness following stress related disorders.

Individual reactions to stress range from mild nervous and physical discomfort or muscular tension, to chronic anxiety or even acute panic attacks. Anxiety plays an important role in contributing to the cause of many psychosomatic illnesses. Its involvement in tension and migraine headaches, peptic ulcers, asthma, hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders and dermatological reactions is well acknowledged.

Any number of circumstances or situations can trigger states of anxiety, and are referred to as “stresses”. The causes range from minor irritations to serious reactions and frustrations regarding factors in our environment, circumstances or lifestyle. Many relationship problems are believed to cause our personal state of stress but in fact any tension that we hold inside us often will cause others with whom we have a relationship, to have difficulties with us. Stress in fact is rather contagious!

We need to be aware of our own moods and thoughts and emotions that influence our inner life. It is when an aspect or happening is seen as a danger or ‘threat’ situation that there are sometimes severe physical reactions. Usually when nervous we will experience symptoms of dry mouth, faster pulse, butterflies in the stomach, changes in perspiration or respiration. Extreme anxiety can cause symptoms of greater severity and affect our mental fitness severely.

We need to find relief from early symptoms of stress. We need to learn how to relax.

It is best to turn to the specialists in this field with yoga teachers amongst the finest in offering both methods of physical and mental training. Hatha Yoga basic instruction involves the art of physical relaxation and is taught in all Yoga schools. Various relaxation techniques are practised, all emphasising physical methods and exercises involving voluntary control over the muscles, including those involved in respiration. Research has shown specific breathing rhythms to be effective in inducing deep relaxation that results in increased comfort on all levels of the psyche.

In the state of relaxation many stress symptoms are dissolved and are replaced by pleasant feelings of inner harmony, greater psychological ease and acceptance of life.

Practising mental relaxation and the art of meditation increases these benefits and can help us cast off old stress habits to re-establish natural mental fitness.

Become free of stress !  Learn to relax!

 Sally Janssen’s wonderful book “Mental Fitness: A Simple Self-Help Guide”, offers simple and timely solutions. Read more…

Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

Depression is as a term that sounds dark and grey.  It feels dark and grey and the mind can’t seem to spark a change of mood. But we can when we just find a way that suits us – one that works.

Some of us are reminded of the prod that children used to get from parents when they would not eat up their meal “…just think of all the starving children in Asia!” but that doesn’t work at least for many of us. We have to find an idea that feels right and is easy to let some light into our minds – not an artificial light – a real bit of sunshine that will inspire us to go forward into life, not only by doing the correct thing but by enjoying the adventure.

So we must be patient, but also sincere in searching for a way to see and feel the sunshine and the reality of life beyond the grey clouds of an unhappy mood.

It is not correct to believe that there is nothing you can do to alter depression. It is also true that many people take drugs and medicinal ones too, in order to use outside influences and not have to find the secret, the inner secret of how to let the light in again.  But outside assistance will generally prove temporary and if you get caught in addiction to whatever it is, then  matters become much darker.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

Indian Vedic wisdom originated in remote antiquity and covers a wide range of knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, grammar, philosophy and physical health matters. Within one sphere of philosophy, the science of yoga is established in order to assist an individual to realize the truths of life for himself.

It prescribes health measures to clear the brain and body, as well as exercises to control and then develop our mental faculties and mental fitness. These standard methods are universally applied in order to prepare the instrument of the body, brain, mind and whole nature, as vehicles of perception.

Yoga is comprised of several margas or pathways which were designed to satisfy people with different approaches to life. The science has since been developed further by the experiences and discoveries of generations of successive teachers or Gurus and by exponents who continue to apply simple natural laws relating to health and to human consciousness. This valuable science that has endured for so long, offers benefit on all levels of man’s being. It is an integral system with the purpose of combining knowledge of the body, personality, mind and spirit.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

All our mental faculties are important, with those perhaps best known to us being the ability to reason. to comprehend, to articulate, to communicate, to concentrate, and to imagine.
In addition we have special faculties and mental abilities that vary vastly with different individuals such as language skills, musical abilities, mathematical skills, and artistic abilities amongst them.

Insight, imagination and visualization are all involved in creating a mental vision.  It is our clarity of inner vision of our life plans that helps determine our degree of success. This applies to our daily short term plan or to our long term goals and to our most intimate picture of ourselves – our self image upon which our self confidence depends.

Another important faculty we tend to overlook is the ability to translate all sensory information that comes to us from the outside world through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch into material our mental system can best relate to.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

Emotional energy is powerful and expresses the way we feel.

We may choose to deny it, but the fact remains that each of us can and must be responsible for our emotional expression and control. Each of us can and must learn to change for the better our feelings and emotional response patterns that we inherit at our birth and that are modified or developed to become inherent in our personalities as we mature.

We must be capable of appraising our emotions and rejecting, altering or cultivating them as we choose to consciously build our character. Then our emotional energies will be inclined to be positive. They are as necessary for our total well being as the energies of our minds.
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Technorati Tags: anxiety, Meditation, Mental Fitness, mental health, relaxation, Stress

What’s keeping you from trying Tibetan meditation? The thought that you’ll have to sit down, keep still, and face nothing but a blank wall all day? The fear of being made to do nothing for an hour or two except watch your breathing or count your heartbeat? While there are meditation techniques that make use of these two, Tibetan meditation doesn’t. On the contrary, Tibetan meditation would even seem like an action flick in comparison. You will be asked to imagine colorful lights moving up and down pathways in your body. You will be taught to imagine furious deities stepping on the dead with a giant foot or blowing fire as they head your way. Tell me, do any of those sound boring?

It’s unfortunate that many people never realized meditation doesn’t have to be boring or complex. It’s not true that everyone who meditates sits in the lotus position. You can meditate lying down, sitting with your legs crossed, or even with your head on the floor and your legs propped against the wall! Meditation, The Silva Life System can show you, is far broader and bigger than you think. It need not be lengthy or dull. You don’t have to do it for hours. As a matter of fact, you can meditate while doing the simplest of tasks – coloring books, for example! Why not try meditating today? Whether you do it Tibetan style or following the Zen tradition (read: sitting and facing a blank wall), you have tons of benefits to gain and nothing at all to lose!

Sally Janssen’s wonderful book “Mental Fitness: A Simple Self-Help Guide”, offers simple and timely solutions. Read more…

Technorati Tags: body meditation, learn meditation, sleep meditation, tibetan meditation

Has it been weeks since you last fell asleep without popping a pill or two? Is your insomnia so bad you can’t remember the last time you were able to get 8 hours of uninterrupted rest? Sleep meditation can help. Unlike medication which builds lifelong dependence on drugs, sleep meditation empowers you to take charge. When you learn to meditate, you can control when you sleep, where, and for how long. You gain so much control over your internal alarm clock, in fact, that you can wake up the next day without the help of an alarm clock!

The Silva Life System offers techniques for improved sleep and dream control through sleep meditation. You see, sleep mediation is not only good for priming yourself to relax; it can also help you the power of creative dreaming. Deep sleep is well and good in that it gives your body time to re-charge. But imagine if you could use your dreams to boost your creative processes. Wouldn’t that give you a huge edge over others? Few people may have heard of dream control but that doesn’t make it any less important. When you can use dreams to solve practical problems, you are literally being productive even while you snore!

Sally Janssen’s wonderful book “Mental Fitness: A simple Self-Help Guide”, offers simple and timely solutions. Read more…

Technorati Tags: body meditation, learn meditation, sleep meditation, tibetan meditation

Bogged down by stress? Suffering from illness? Unable to interact positively with the most important people in your life? Feeling powerless to go after your goals or live the life you want? Body meditation is the solution to your problems.

For thousands of years, ancient civilizations have harnessed the power of meditation. Monks practice body meditation not just because of the spirituality they embrace but also to keep their minds and bodies young. Emperors, generals, and feudal lords performed body meditation to strengthen the body and the mind while sages did the same in pursuit of wisdom. While we can’t go back in time to ask these monks and noblemen if body meditation worked for them, we do know that in ancient China and Japan, people were fitter and leaner, lived longer (without antibiotics, nebulizers, and hospitals, mind you!), and did more in lesser time.

Jose Silva, founder of The Silva Life System, is one of those who believe in the power of body meditation. But forget oriental mysticism. Silva’s system isn’t just based on snippets of historic lore; it’s based on research – 50 years of research, in fact. Silva invested $500,000 to learn what makes some people happier and more successful than others and he used what he learned to create the Silva Method.

So, bogged down by stress? Unable to sleep because you’re too busy stressing? Too timid to ask the boss for a raise or a promotion? Try body meditation. If it worked for the monks, there’s no reason it wouldn’t work for you.

Sally Janssen’s wonderful book “Mental Fitness: A Simple Self-Help Guide”, offers simple and timely solutions. Read more…

Technorati Tags: body meditation, learn meditation, sleep meditation, tibetan meditation