Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts

Sunday, December 18

Why exercising is good for you


Here are some random thoughts on the benefits of exercising:

1. It's good for your heart

It had been found over many years of research that exercisereduces LDL cholesterol, the kind that clogs arteries. It also reduces yourblood pressure, relieving stress on your heart; improves your insulinsensitivity; improves heart muscle function; and blood flow and diminishes thechances of developing blood clots.

2. Exercise promotes weight loss

Should you exercise energetically for at least 30 minutes aday, you are bound to lose weight! You can also do an hour of intensiveexercise every second day if this fits into your schedule more easily. Beconsistent and be regular.

3. Exercise prevents osteoporosis

Exercise, together with a healthy calcium intake, buildsstrong bones. Weight-bearing exercises, like running, walking, and weightlifting, help lower your odds of getting osteoporosis as you grow older,according to experts.

4. Exercise lowers high blood pressure

Exercise is good for your blood pressure - no matter yourage, weight, race, or gender. In addition, it really does not matter whetheryou get exercise from a brisk walk, a fast run or a few laps in the pool; theresults are equally good.

5. Exercise is an excellent de-stressor

It is general knowledge: exercise counters stress anddepression. However, exactly how and why does this work?

Exercise acts as a temporary diversion to daily stresses andit improves self-esteem. Increased core temperature during exercise may lead toreduced muscle tension and favourable alterations in brain neurotransmitters.Mood improvements may also occur due to the increased secretion of endogenous(internal) opiates, e.g. endorphins. Psychological changes may occur because ofchanges in norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, all hormones which canaffect mood and anxiety levels.

6. Exercise prevents colds

Health experts believe that exercise spikes the immunesystem for a few hours each day, helping to ward off colds. Thirty minutes ofbrisk walking is enough to make you reap the benefits of exercise.

7. Exercise reduces the severity of asthma

Many people, who suffer from exercise-induced asthma,understandably try to avoid exercise. However, sports medicine specialists say itis possible for asthmatics to continue exercising if they use preventivemedications wisely and avoid certain triggers that exacerbate attacks.Exercise-induced asthma can be made worse by cold, dry air or air containinghigh levels of pollen or pollutants. The extra effort made to stay fit pays offin fewer or milder asthma attacks overall and a need for less medication.

Experts recommend swimming as one of the best exercises forpeople with asthma.

8. Exercise reduces diabetic complications

Lifestyle factors have a huge impact on certain conditions –and diabetes is one of them. Exercise can help to reduce your insulinrequirements, lower your cholesterol levels and high blood pressure, and in thelong term can reduce the development of heart disease and stroke. This isimportant because diabetics have a higher risk of developing heart andcirculatory problems. Exercise can also promote weight loss, improve circulation,and reduce stress levels (raising your glucose level).

9. Exercise promotes a healthy pregnancy

Although exercise might be risky in some cases, the benefitsof exercising during pregnancy generally far outweigh the risks and some womencan even exercise up until the third trimester. Relaxation exercises, Kegelexercise that strengthen the pelvic muscles and back exercises are allimportant for pregnant women.

10. Exercise has anti-ageing effects

Exercise enhances blood flow to the brain, possibly reducingrisk of stroke. It also improves reasoning and memory.

Regular exercise arouses the brain and slows downdegeneration of the central nervous system, which leads to slower reactiontimes and poorer coordination.

Exercise also increases strength and size of muscles andimproves lung function. Regular exercise can reduce body fat and lower the riskof chronic lifestyle diseases in the elderly. Recent literature suggests thatthe greatest threat to health is not the aging process itself, but ratherinactivity.

11. Exercise promotes brain health

If you thought, exercising your brain meant only doing a fewcrossword puzzles or learning a language, you may be wrong – rather put on yourwalking shoes and get moving.

It was found that the brain responses in active seniorswere comparable to those of young adults.
It is thought that exercise increases the flow of blood tothe brain, just as it improves circulation to the heart and the rest of thebody. Activity also stimulates the growth of nerve cells in the part of thebrain involved in memory.

12. Exercise is great for your sex life.

The medical research points towards it: the fitter you are,the better your sex life is.

The reason seems to be two-fold: psychologically you feelbetter about yourself and more inclined towards sex, and physically, being fitimproves libido, blood circulation and sexual functioning.

13. Exercise improves sleeping patterns

Relaxation exercises will help you to ease tension andrelieve headaches, backaches, and insomnia. Exercise releases the body's ownpainkillers, called endorphins, into your system. It also helps you to gain asense of emotional wellbeing and a feeling of being more in control.

14. Exercise helps prevent stroke

Need another reason to make good on that long overduepromise to get more exercise? It can dramatically cut your risk of stroke.

Jogging 15 to 20 minutes a day most days would qualify ashighly active. Brisk walks of 30 minutes a day on most days would qualify asmoderate activity.

The positive effects on muscle strength and aerobic capacitycould be translated into an improvement in the activities of daily living, andthis is what really makes a difference in your life.

Sunday, March 13

Love Heals


Love’s ointment works on bruised knees as well as broken dreams. Love has the power to heal all conditions of the body and mind. Love’s glow melts its seeming opponents into pure light. Where love is, all is well.

Love is at the centre of every miraculous healing. It lifts the spirit of the bereaved. It penetrates the darkest hallway to reveal the next step. There is no loss, pain, or betrayal that love cannot illuminate. There is no sadness that love cannot soothe.

Always Enough

Sometimes it seems that love is the problem. It can appear that love caused the pain. People we love reject us, or they die, or they become so important to us that we encounter endless types of hurt. It seems that love is scarce and can be taken away at the whim of the beloved. This illusion of the scarcity of love comes closer to describing the cause of the pain. It is the sense of lack that hurts, not the love. The lack is an illusion.

There is always enough love. It is behind every great creation. Love is the canvas that holds up the paint. Love is the page that hosts the words. Love is the day you live into. It is every background, hidden behind every story, colored by every circumstance. Underneath every experience there is a field of love upon which that moment was built. There is always enough love. We simply must find it.

Finding Love

Finding love is different from finding your keys or your eyeglasses when they disappear. And yet, we tend to think of it in the same way. We think love is hiding somewhere. We left it with that person or in that old town or in that dear friend. We tend to think love is located in the person we love and when we lose that person we have lost love. Love is very different from that. Love lives in every moment in every particle of existence. Finding love is more like looking through the paint to the canvas, looking through the situation to the essence.

Try This

Here is an exercise for accessing love regardless of conditions. In order to reap the full benefit from this exercise, first take a moment to look around you at the condition of your life. Notice what kind of presence love occupies in your awareness. Take a neutral glance at your entire situation as if through a wide-angle lens. Without judging or defending, free from praise or blame, simply appreciate the contrasting landscape of your incarnation.

Once you have perused your lifescape, close your eyes and gently settle your awareness on your heart centre right in the middle of your chest. Allow your breathing to become soft and relaxed. With each breath imagine your heart center infused with the gentle presence of love. Imagine this love soothing all hurts, filling all spaces of loss, and brightening all gloom. As the light of love becomes more established in you, realize that this love is always there. It is intrinsic to your nature. It is native to your being. You don’t have to put it there or develop it. It is the canvas of your life. Love is what you are made of.

Expand your awareness to include your whole body and an egg-shaped energy field all around you. Let love’s quiet presence ease into your awareness, permeating your entire field. With each gentle breath, allow yourself to become so soft and peaceful that the love that resides within you can shine through your situation and your thoughts, through your pains and your losses. Become so quiet that you can sense the slightest presence of this beautiful love as it glows through your physical body.

You may want to regularly spend some time revealing the love that you are in this type of meditative process. The benefits of this practice may surprise you. Love heals a scraped elbow as well as a broken heart. And it does something more. It attracts more love.

By Rebbie Straubing

Sunday, March 6

To be a woman


1. Get to know your authentic self.

Discover the real you. Don’t blindly accept the role you were conditioned by others to fill. You have your own path to follow. Be your own independent person. Don’t allow peer pressure to force you into an inauthentic role.

2. Own your power.

Accept full responsibility for your life. Don’t live as a doormat, a sheep, or a victim. Stop giving away your power. You must accept that you’re the creator of your life and that no one is coming to rescue you. Many women stressed the importance of taking responsibility for your own financial future instead of leaving it in the hands of a spouse.

3. Find your voice.

Build the courage to express yourself authentically. Speak your truth. You deserve to be heard. If others react negatively, that’s their problem. Ask for what you want; you can’t expect others to be mind-readers. You teach others how you want to be treated — not by dropping hints but by telling them directly. If you don’t speak up for yourself, who will?

4. Find your tribe.

Consciously build and nurture a supportive network of positive relationships, including family and friends. Drop relationships that drain you; maintaining them is self-abuse. If you don’t like your current relationships, it’s up to you to change that. Surround yourself with good people who love you and inspire you. You deserve the very best relationships.

5. Practice self-care.

Avoid overwhelm by taking time to sharpen the saw. Give yourself permission to do what you enjoy. Demands from other people can wait. Accept that you can’t do everything for everyone. You can’t give to others when you’re empty inside.

6. Express your creative side.

Cultivate outlets for creative self-expression. Explore music, art, writing, poetry, etc. Build a business. Be artistic. Put your ideas into physical form.

7. Embrace conscious sexuality.

You and you alone must decide the role sex will play in your life. There are no right or wrong answers. If you want it and enjoy it, let that be enough. Different women had widely varying opinions on what kind of sexual expression they personally preferred, ranging from waiting until marriage to having guilt-free one-night stands. But the commonality was that they consciously decided and accepted what was right for them, regardless of how other people felt about it.

8. Be beautiful.

True beauty comes from the inside. It can’t be found beneath a load of cosmetics and surgical alterations. Recognize that you’re a beautiful person on the inside, and you’ll broadcast that awareness on the outside. You are beautiful.

9. Keep your heart open.

Regardless of how badly you may have been hurt in the past, keep your heart open. You’re stronger than you think. The rewards of love outweigh the risks of being hurt again. You’re here to express love, not to live in fear.

10. Become wise.

You are highly intuitive, so work on deepening your ability to trust your intuition. Keep learning and growing. In the long run, your wisdom will become one of your greatest assets, both as a way to meet your own needs and to help others. (Many women placed a very high value on developing their wisdom.)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...