Saturday, April 27, 2013

Laughter, a self experiment

Have you ever thought about the health benefits of simple laughter? Really it makes sense that laughter would improve your health. Think about it. Humor reduces tension, stress and anxiety. All of those negative emotions have been linked to chronic illness. OK you say, show me the research. I'd like to challenge you to take the laughter test yourself. You should believe what you experience in your own life even if it goes counter to some supposed research.

One of my pet peeves is Doctors ignoring a patient's correlation of the commencement of a negative health issue to just after they started taking some medication, a new job, or some other simple change in the patients life. The patient knows better but the Doctor just refuses to accept the correlation. Either the patient gets another Doctor or they begin to doubt themselves and they quite paying serious attention to their body's warning signals. I'll address this more fully in a future post. I'll give you some suggestions as to how to get your Doctor/primary care person to listen to you and how to be your own best patient advocate.

If you are having a bad day it may seem impossible to laugh. Norman Cousins claimed to use humorous movies and jokes to help him laugh when he didn't feel like it. There are a ton of websites and articles on the internet that gives reasons for why we should strive to laugh more.

So having said that, believe your own observations. Try adding a committed period of laughter to your day, say 5 to 15 minutes all at one time or just scattered throughout the day. Do whatever you resonate with. If you decide to commit to this, it would be great if you could make a comment about just what you observed about yourself. Did your days seem to flow better, worse, or was there no change? Did it change the way you handled stressful situations? Was there any affect on your pain/stiffness/blood sugar/blood pressure or any other health issues? There is research out there that does confirm that those that laugh and use humor to get through their day seem to have fewer health problem.

Would this be considered a scientific experiment? Probably not, but if you pay attention to details, how your feel both emotionally and physically, you might gain some very useful personal insightful information for yourself that you can use day in and day out but can also pass onto others.First hand experience is invaluable! Give it a try. Besides, it won't cost you even a penny. At most it will take a little commitment and time. Journal your experience and you will get more out of it. Sometimes things change in such subtle ways that we don't really see the change unless we have logged where we have been. This happens very often with EFT.(See my earlier post on this very effective form of self help)

Laugh a lot and love abundantly,

Till next time,
Healthbug


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Chronic disease

The word "chronic" refers to something that is ongoing over an extended period of time. The top three causes of death in America are 1) Cancer, 2) Heart Disease, 3) Stroke. These 3 are primarily caused by lifestyle choices! That means that grasping the power to control our lifestyle is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves where Health is concerned.

The following was taken from the www.cdc.gov website
Heart disease and stroke are the first and third leading causes of death, accounting for more than 30% of all U.S. deaths each year.
Cancer, the second leading cause of death, claims more than half a million lives each year.
Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure, nontraumatic lower extremity amputations, and new cases of blindness each year among U.S. adults aged 20–74 years.
Arthritis, the most common cause of disability, limits activity for 19 million U.S. adults.
Obesity has become a major health concern for people of all ages. 1 in every 3 adults and nearly 1 in every 5 young people aged 6–19 are obese.

After these statements the site boldly makes the statement that Chronic Diseases Are Preventable!The CDC's goal is to "Prevent, delay, detect, and control chronic diseases".

Lifestyle choices account for a large portion of the risk of developing any one of these diseases. Now if that was statistics on a pill, we would all shout, "Where can I purchase that!". Fortunately you don't have to purchase a thing. Cultivating an attitude of self responsibility will go a long ways toward being able to not only see the changes you need and want to make but also being able to follow through with those changes.

I acknowledge that changing our lifestyle is not so easy. It takes planning, effort, diligence, persistance, and sometimes just some good old teeth gritting determination. If a person doesn't really see the value in the proposed change, why would you put yourself through all that? Of course knowledge is not enough. Plenty of professional people like Nurses, Doctors, Dietitians,etc have the knowledge of what makes for better health yet they still eat junk food, don't exercise, smoke, drink alcohol to excess and don't get enough sleep.

So what does motivate some people to change? Very, very good question. I think this is the substance of many a person's dilemmas with themselves. How do we motivate ourselves to do what we really believe we want/need to do to get healthy and stay healthy? I don't have all your answers but I can share with you what some of my answers have been.

First and foremost, I must continue to remind myself that what I eat and what I do has a profound affect on my health. I read lots of health and healing books,newsletters and websites. You might not enjoy that kind of reading so much and it might be better to find the statistics about how helpful lifestyle, diet and exercise is and just put them up where you can read them everyday.

Second, when I determine a change I want to make, I know that I must start with small steps. When I jump into something with both feel and try to make more than 3 small changes at a time, I tend to go hoguns for a short time but wear out quickly. It just seems too hard. In my life I have found that small steps equal huge changes in your health. Some people have found that just eliminating all sugar and artificial sugar from their diets, they are able to loose a lot of weight. For me the key with sugar is to to stay away from it at least a week. It is an addictive substance to most people. Read Sugar Blues to get motivated. Of course there are other books out there but that still one of the best.

Third, whatever I decide to do exercise wise, I know I must approach it gradually. Far better to start at a lower level than I think I can do than to push to excess at first and end up getting hurt or burned out. Like the time I decided to do Yoga again. I pushed my self till I over stretched a muscle and have felt the results of that every since, even though that was over 8 years ago.

To start with, realizing that motivation must come from within! That means that everyone must figure out what will motivate them. Sometimes I use silly things that are so simple they make me laugh. Like sometimes I tell myself if I accomplish my goal I will allow myself to watch a movie I want to watch. I don't watch many movies, so this is a real treat to me. Give yourself little gifts for each accomplishment. Take a short walk in the sun. Allow yourself to sit for 10 minutes and enjoy some favorite music. Whatever it takes to stay committed to your goal. It will be worth it in the end.

In order to motivate yourself, you have to get to know yourself. Listen to your body and listen to your self talk. Both of these are also helpful in determining just what you might need to provide your body with for it to begin to stay well or heal.

If you are really committed to developing a healthier diet and lifestyle and just can't seem to get there on your own, consider hiring a Health Coach. Make sure you resonate with how the coach teaches and make sure that they put you in the drivers seat of that change. If you don't own it, it will never work for you in the long run.

To your great health and healing,

Healthbug






Friday, April 19, 2013

New Beginnings!

I am sitting here contemplating how to get back into the swing of things. To be honest, I am actually contemplating how to establish a new habit. It is April 19, 2013 and I think it is time for a "New Years Resolution"!

I really don't believe in "New Year Resolutions" but I do believe in allowing myself the right to start each day anew. Which means I don't beat myself up for not doing what I have wanted or needed to do. Each action or non-action on my part is simply a learning experience. How do I motivate myself to do what I think I "want"/"need" to do? What is not working? What do I need to do to quite procrastinating? Is it really procrastination that is standing in my way or is it some other mental block?

The new habit I want to establish is writing consistently in my blog. As I contemplate this, I realize what is needed to accomplish my goal is similar to what I need to do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Yes, even though I preach it and teach it, I sometimes have motivational issues with doing the things I need to do to heal and stay healthy. I realize it is not about the knowledge base so much as it is about the motivation to do what I already know I want/need to do.

Motivation is all about emotions and attitude. Dis-empowering emotions and attitudes arise from negative self talk. "Why should I _____________ I'll only fail and then I'll feel like a failure and I have failed so many times before. I will never be able to succeed." Fill in the blank with anything that seems to be whipping your butt at the moment.

Other negative self-talk that comes up is "I'm too busy.I don't have time." I'll quit in the middle and thus feel like a failure AGAIN!" "Oh well, so many other people have the same difficulty following through. Why should I bother being different?" These and many more negative statements fill my conscious and unconscious mind while I "think" I am "trying" to accomplish my goal. It is easy to see how I am working against myself. Just realizing this is very powerful?

By putting all that out there, it becomes much clearer what I can do to help empower myself to accomplish that which I want/need to do.It makes sense that a change of attitude starts with a change of self talk. A change of self talk will bring about a change of attitude which hopefully will empower me to accomplish my goals!

Viewing "not accomplishing my goal" as a failure, changes to "Failure is simply another step toward success. Each time I do not accomplish my goal is a stepping stone to the success I so desperately desire." As I say this to myself the "failure" becomes a learning experience instead of a "failure". The important part here is to not ignore the non success but to analyze it as you would a learning experience. Why didn't I reach my goal? "I didn't have the healthy foods in the house. I let myself get too hungry before eating. I went shopping hungry. I've been eating just a little sugar every day and now I crave it. I didn't plan ahead for healthy meals." Some of the harder excuses are "I guess I was too lazy to do what I new I wanted/needed to do." I got to get over it and grow up.

Keeping my eyes on the goal is also very helpful!

Visualize what it will feel like to reach my goal can also be very helpful. Visualization is a huge subject in and of itself and best left for another post.


Thanks for reading this.
Be kind and love yourself. You can do anything you set your mind to if you persist!
Until next time.

Healthbug