Tag Archives: health

Motivation & The Blues!

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960054_lilly_dot_comWhile I like to work swiftly with clients toward their outcome, I’ve never been one for what I call the ‘double jeopardy high-five’ motivational approach. Too much of the ‘wahooooooo!’ or ‘Yaaaay goferit!’ makes me want to puke.

I’ve certainly worked with clients who’ve come to me after seeing a ‘wahooo’ coach or attending a ‘wahooo’ seminar or training. And while the initial effect for them was ‘yay!’, like an old plaster peeling off round the edges, they soon plummeted down to earth with a rough bump.

I remember one corporate client telling me she felt more inadequate and unskilled than she did before the seminar. Clearly she was doing something wrong for the seminar not to have worked… which made her feel even worse about herself. Oh pleeeez!

Of course it hadn’t worked because her emotional, psychological and cognitive state was such that she was in a change process. Precipitous ‘wahooo-ing’ lays double-whipped cream over a cake that’s not yet been cooked. Pretty sloppy!

Another corporate client was very clear about what happened. He said he realised he needed to stop papering over cracks and encouraging other people to do so too. When we worked with what he needed it was time out for reflection and chilling as a way forward from his blues.

Down time rather than high up time which, of course, could come later if he chose.

Times of aliveness and dormant times are in fact the rhythm of nature. To our cost, we’ve discovered we’ve impoverished soil by continuously growing on it with artificial fertilisers. Just like the earth, we need time out to reconstitute and develop our potential.

So, be sure your motivation isn’t the hype type which pops like a balloon at the first pin it comes across. Motivation comes from purpose, passion & power… and the process of growth within.

So, what to do if you’re motivation has got up and gone? Here’s some tips…

***Accept it for now!***

It’s normal to have ups and downs. It’s all part of being human… and I just don’t believe anyone who says they’re never down. What?! Never?! If you tell yourself it’s OK and it’s just for now, you’ll be surprised at the inner relief and relaxation you’ll feel.

***Nourish Yourself***

This is a time for pampering. So go for fragrant baths, massage, or listening to inspirational music, or visiting an art gallery. Draw, paint, walk, write, dance… Do whatever it takes for excellent care of you, to give yourself grade A nourishment during this fallow time

***Monitor Your Language***

It’s so easy to fall into talking with negativity and self-abuse language. So monitor what you say to others and, most importantly, what you say to yourself! When you’ve caught yourself at it, reframe what you’ve said. Like, ‘I’m learning to write more courageously’ rather than ‘My writing’s a pile of doo-doo!’

***Vision Buddy***

And, if you haven’t done so already, entrust your vision of how you want things to be to a great buddy. Ask them to gently remind you from time to time what you’re working towards with encouragement and love. Because even in the down time you need to be reminded you’re still moving forward however static it feels!

Then, as all things pass, so will the Summertime Blues. And, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, you too can spread your wings newly invigorated and motivated from within.

© Sharon Eden 2009 All Rights Reserved

With 30 years’ expertise in personal & professional development, Sharon Eden MA is a Certified Coach, Registered & Accredited Psychotherapist & NLP trainer, and founder of Women of Courage. Take just 20 seconds to sign up for her Ezine rich with tips & techniques to boost your purpose, passion & power AND get her ’5 Day Energiser Plan’ absolutely free. Sign up now at: http://www.womenofcourage.co.uk

Directing Your Thought to Power Prosperity

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521554___fritz__

Thought is a very powerful energy and the way you think reflects on who you are.

Directing our thought energy can be very powerful in allowing prosperity into our lives, and this includes health, happiness and all that we ever want to be or have.

Your mind is made up of the conscious and the subconscious mind, the conscious mind directs the way you see, hear, feel, taste, smell and generally how you perceive things initially.

The subconscious mind directs your internal body functions such as your lungs, liver, nervous system, etc. including your powerful inner unlimited mind’s resources which is where your true personal aspirations and seat of wisdom lie.

A simple illustration of how this works is as follows:

The conscious mind which is in touch with the external surroundings and events would usually transmit information from different sources, based on what you see, hear, smell or taste and generally would form an opinion based on your experiences in life, your beliefs, social environment, or your personal preferences.

This information is then transmitted to the subconscious mind which takes its direction from the conscious mind, being that the conscious mind is in touch with the outside world through your senses.

The subconscious mind is always agreeable to whatever the conscious mind decides and so will throw its unlimited resources towards achieving it. This process applies whether the thought is negative or positive. The subconscious mind does not differentiate or argue, it always accepts the decision of your conscious mind.

Although the subconscious mind has unlimited resources it must work naturally in conjunction with your conscious mind as a whole.

So, when there’s a lot of negativity in the thought process, this negative and unproductive energy passes through from the conscious to the subconscious mind and eventually turns into a habit which becomes part of the person’s nature over the long term.

Negative habits repeated over time can be detrimental to the body’s health, and could lead to illnesses such as stress, depression, anxiety and would also inhibit progress towards achieving your true success goals or aspirations from a deeper level.

Hence, it’s important to control thought in the first place so that you can awaken the “Positive Creative Powerful Energy” already within you to constantly flow through and allow your unlimited minds resources to truly work on your behalf.

You may be surprised to know that some people never ever really recognize this power and so they live their lives oblivious of the wonderful mind power resources that exist within.

In a recent research in 2001 at the Harvard School of Public Health and Department of Veterans in Boston, it was discovered that people who took a more positive and optimistic view of life in general had half the risks of coronary heart disease compared to their more pessimistic counterparts.

In another study at Yale University in 2002, it was found that thinking positively about ageing can add approximately seven and a half years to your life.

So, understanding how to direct thought is the most wonderful activity that can be controlled from within, because when mastered, this will then allow you to create your desires as a direct fulfilment of your very own thought power.

In addition, the control of thoughts allow the expression of you as you wish it to be from a deeper level, engaging the conscious mind on a fixed objective as usual, but allowing your subconscious mind to put its wonderful unlimited resources to work for you.

In doing this, your action would be to direct and engage both minds in harmony with your true Prosperity Desires or Lifestyle Aspirations.

Practicing this “Control of Thoughts” constantly and diligently will allow you to gradually and eventually understand how to take absolute control of circumstances and events around you.

In time, you’ll begin to appreciate the pleasures of directing your thoughts to prosperity or other specific life aspirations you have, which should open the doors for better health, improved circumstances, happiness and harmony with your true creative nature whatsoever your desires may be.

You’ll discover that keeping your conscious mind saturated with Peace, Positivity, Gratitude, Love, Confidence, Joy, Willpower, Success, Happiness, Persistence, Strength, and Focus in harmony with your subconscious mind will gradually and eventually lead to “Exuding this Power Mind Force” that will enable you to break every single barrier that has ever stood in your way.

Now the question is, how do you start this whole process in practice?

Starting today, become more aware of your thoughts “All Day Long”

You can repeat affirmations such as the following:

“My mind is a powerful thought energy source and I am directing this energy towards my inner desires through constant control of thoughts”

Affirm this many times daily and let the “FEELINGS” of this settle within you. You can also affirm words like peace, success, positivity, confidence as they apply personally to you.

Feel the true meaning of these words as they apply to you specifically and make each word a personal thing.

As you do this daily, you’ll form the habit, the habit then becomes and feels part of your nature, and eventually this will gradually become embedded deep in your subconscious mind while gradually replacing negative emotions and feelings that may have worn you down in the past.

Drop by drop, like essential oils to the soul, your powerful resource will be laying the foundations for creating the life you desire as you persist daily in this and the control of your conscious mind.

Agree within yourself to live in harmony with these words, become thought conscious, rather than let your thoughts loose to roam aimlessly. As time goes on, trickle by trickle eventually your subconscious mind will commence the work of directing its’ unlimited resources to your cause.

Do not strain or feel any anxiety in doing this, you need to be relaxed, and just take this as an enjoyable therapy towards your Prosperity.

Another important key point is to agree on doing things one at a time. So you choose your most immediate objective and the others are arranged to follow in an orderly procession.

Always seek the guidance of your subconscious mind in choosing an objective that is more of the “real immediate priority to you”. Think the priority out carefully and once you decide that this is the one to tackle first, then focus your thoughts on the outcome you want to see. Your subconscious mind will eventually direct you diligently and gracefully, taking on the challenges along the way until you achieve it.

It’s important not to be tempted to focus on too many things, as this leads to scattered thought with no purpose, no direction and consequently no achievement. Choose to make your objective one at a time and let the others be scheduled into your plan.

Focusing and directing your minds’ resources in harmony with your true desires is the key to all great achievements and prosperity in life.

James Allen, a great contributor in the subject of Thoughts Power once explained that “if you alter your thoughts towards things and other people, then things and other people will alter towards you”.

In another statement he also said “Let a man radically alter his thoughts and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. The divinity that shapes our ends is ourselves.”

So, Prosperity in the Life and any other aspirations you have will begin making its way towards you when you begin to think and direct your actions towards prosperity, knowing that “Thought” is the start of the creative process.

You also understand that what manifests out of thoughts is that which we habitually focus on, be it consciously or unconsciously.

When you become conscious of your prosperity desires, you begin to direct this consciousness wilfully and diligently into your subconscious mind, trusting it to unfold the circumstances and events including the actions you need to take that will lead to your Prosperity objectives.

The important thing to note here is that to have Prosperity in your life, you must be conscious of it, you then build this consciousness in as a habit for it to become part of you. The actions that would then follow, which is necessary to accomplish your desires would be purely a natural process of reaping that which you have already taken time to sow.

To Start your Prosperity Living Now, visit => http://www.fortunekey.net Joy Obihara is a Personal Development Practitioner at http://www.joyobihara.com helping people discover their unique untapped Potential to create the Lifestyle Freedom they desire. Get your FREE Mind Power Resources now to enhance your Life Sstarting Today.

How to Make the Right Life Choices

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140271_texture_3Everyone is at a crossroads each moment of each day – it’s just that we never stop to reflect on the fact that each minute decision we make can have life-changing consequences. A client recently recounted a story from his youth. He told me about he used to hang out with his best friend – and his best friend’s girlfriend. One Sunday afternoon, rather than doing his usual thing of going to the rugby club for a few pints, he decided he’d call to the girl’s house for a chat. The rest is history – they were married twenty years just a few days ago. As he said to me “If I hadn’t taken a right turn out of m y house that Sunday afternoon, we wouldn’t have married, my three children wouldn’t exist and I probably wouldn’t have been propelled along my career path the way I’ve been, given that my wife has helped me so much and been so supportive.

Little choices we make thoughtlessly, mindlessly, change the very course of our life. You’ve made those choices – so have I. And, yet, the vast majority of us make those choices completely unwittingly, paying little or no attention to the consequences of each of our actions. Only the very few – what the University of Chicago might term uncommonly successful people – have the presence of mind, the self-awareness, to realise the importance of the moment – every moment – and, in doing so, are all the more likely to choose their actions reflectively, mindfully. The converse, for what the same university might call “normal people” is that we continually create lives that, at best, are “not too bad”, by not being mindful of the opportunities that each moment can potentially create.

As I tell my many clients, the people who are most important to you in your business and personal lives at present were once complete strangers to you. The logical conclusion we can draw from that blindingly obvious statement is that we never know when we are going to bump into the next stranger who will assist us further on our journey. Normal people interact with other normal people and situations without this realisation and, therefore, their life’s journey can rarely be described as exciting. Most normal people plod through life on what they perceive to be almost a pre-determined treadmill. People brought up in working-class environments usually go on to lead working-class lives. Where I live, village artisans – plumbers, carpenters, masons – usually bring future village artisans into the world. The same goes for most people.

Abnormal people interact with normal people and situations in a totally different manner – ever present to and aware of the potential that each new encounter can hold. The difference between these normal and abnormal people has nothing to do with socio-economic background, nothing to do with education, nothing to do with their friends. The difference is simply to be found in their state of mind. Research indicates that many abnormal people instinctively operate at this level – in these cases, their early upbringing may well have had a positive impact (or a negative upbringing might have spurred them into alternative action). But not all abnormal people are “made that way” – we can all be abnormal, we can all re-learn the ability we innately possessed as children to meet and greet each new person and each new situation with a childlike open-mindedness.

And therein lies the secret to abnormal happiness and success, far beyond the perceived pre-determined routes on which most normal lives meander. We simply need to re-learn to be attentive – not seeking out, searching for or hankering after life’s next opportunity, but simply fully attentive to and mindful of the present moment, the here and now, the only time and place we have.

Psychological research, quantum physics and the age-old wisdom of great minds all converge on the importance of paying attention. Your ability to pay attention to directly linked to your ability to be abnormally happy and effortlessly successful. And all it takes is a little commitment on your part to deliberately pay attention to small things in your life – so that the big things in your life will follow. By way of example, I invariably suggest to my clients that they shave or brush their teeth with the hand with which they do not habitually perform those mundane tasks. This has a double effect – because in deciding to do such a repetitive and habitual task differently, we realise, in that moment, that for every mundane and repetitive task in our lives, we have a choice – moment to moment. That, for many is the only revelation they need. But there’s more because, in doing something so simple differently, we are compelled to pay that simple task more attention. And paying more attention is the key to the life your heart desires.

So, you can take the first step on a journey of discovery that will change your life right here, right now. In doing so, you will realise that the choice between abnormal happiness and success and the mundane alternatives is not a matter of luck, education or social status – it is simply a matter of choice. Your choice.

Copyright © 2009 Willie Horton; Willie’s work in the area of self-improvement and meditation has been described as “life-changing” and “phenomenal” by clients from every walk of life. His acclaimed two-day personal development workshop is now available online at Gurdy.Net

Healthy Weight Loss Plan: How Trish Lost 283 lbs

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1204446_hot_air_balloonSuccessful Weight Loss Plan.
Trish Cubias Lost 283 pounds with her Healthy Weight Loss Plan! You can lose weight too if you have a sound plan with the components necessary for successful weight loss. This is how Trish did it.

Motivation.

First and foremost you must realize you have a problem and be motivated to fix the problem. Unfortunately we often have to go through tragedy in our lives before we realize there is a problem and address that problem. In Trishs’ case it was the death of her mother. You see her mom weighed over 550 lbs when she passed and the death certificate listed obesity as the cause of death. Trish saw herself going down the same path. This was her personal motivation to change what she was doing so she would not experience the same outcome. Whoever we are and whatever we do to achieve any goal we must have a personal motivation. We are not successful because it is important to other people. We are successful when in our heart we have a burning passion and desire to achieve our stated goal. So the death of her mom excited that burning desire in Trish to lose weight. So this became the motivation Trish needed to achieve her goals. What is your motivation? Why do you want to lose weight? No one can answer that for you. It must come from within. Even if I were to give you examples of other peoples motivation if it is not your own their motivation is useless to you. Frankly you can stop reading here if you have no motivation to lose weight. Without passion or a burning desire it is less likely that you will be successful.


Your Weight Loss Plan.

Just like your motivation your weight loss plan has to be personal and come from within. That is not to suggest you create a plan out of your imagination and hope it works. No, I mean the plan you choose, you adapt it to your lifestyle and internalize it to fit you. Your goals and action steps are tailored to fit who you are and your needs. But, there are certain things you must do to be successful.

Whole Body Cleanse.

The first step is a whole body cleanse. I always suggest that as first for a few reasons. first of all we are often full of toxic waste that are deadly to our systems and need to cleansed for our overall health. Secondly when you do a whole body cleanse you get more energy and your metabolism increases. Increased energy and metabolic rate are essential to weight loss. Finally, you will have immediate success. Within 2 weeks you will see results and this will help keep you motivated and working toward your goals. Initial and quick success are always a helpful motivational tool to keep you going. Trish used a Natural Herbal Cleanse as a whole body cleanse and to start her weight loss plan.

Healthy Diet.

One the most important components of a successful weight loss plan is to eat healthy. Without a healthy diet it does not matter what supplements you take nor how much exercise you do. By continually eating a high fat, low fiber diet without complete and proper nutrition you are setting yourself up for failure. Your healthy diet should center around fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains vs. processed foods, nuts, seeds, and beans. Limit your fat intake by reducing the meat, sugar and salt in your diets. Drink plenty of water and eat 5 to 6 small meals each day (starting with a healthy breakfast) versus 1 or 2 larger meals. Fore many people it is hard to limit the calories the eat because it is sometimes a major change. After you complete the Natural Herbal Cleanse I suggest a natural meal replacement shake for breakfast and starting Metabolic Nutrition System that will give you full array of vitamin and minerals you need while helping to suppress your appetite for those unhealthy foods.

Regular Physical Exercise.

Equally important to a healthy diet is regular physical exercise. Both cardio and resistance training are necessary to effectively lose weight and keep it off. Exercise burns calories and fat. As you build muscle mass your body continually burns fat to feed the muscle. In reality the fat that our body stores up is the fat that we do not use. So conversely we either exercise to burn the fat or the fat will build up in our systems. When we exercise we get more energy as we build more muscles. We often need a boost. The Boost that Trish used and I recommend is natural nutritional energy boost supplement.

Essential Components.

The four essential components to a successful weight loss plan are motivation, natural nutritional supplements (starting with a whole body cleanse), a healthy diet of high fiber and low fat, and regular physical exercise (both cardio and resistance training). I only presented the outline and three major components to include in your weight loss plan and would encourage you to consider professional help from a nutritionist and professional trainer. This is how Trish Cubias lost 283 lbs.

Louis Jeffries. As a healthy diet, fitness and weight loss professional, Louis publishes encouraging tips and advice to enhance our lives. Louis is committed to share how people can lose weight, get fit and stay healthy. For additional free tips and advice and to see the Trishs’ video go to Trishs’ Testimony


Weight Loss Foods: What the Diet Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know

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1151571_yellow_pepperSo-called “weight loss foods” are a rip-off. Most supplements do nothing, or even more harm than good. How many times have these products been widely advertised and then yanked off the market? Not a wise use of your money.
“Hey, Jennifer, don’t sugarcoat it or anything”, you say. I know, no introduction, nothing, just ripped that band-aid RIGHT OFF.

I won’t name names but I can’t believe how some companies are able to sell—like crazy, no less, their prepackaged food-ish substances. These faceless corporations (yeah, I don’t care if the company name is that of a person, hint, hint) do NOT care about you. Or their spokesmodels, for that matter. Look at Kirstie Alley. She’s done SO well with it, and she’s getting paid, well, she was. In case you don’t read the headlines at the grocery store checkout, this is complete sarcasm, she’s gotten quite large again. Anyway, these huge companies care about profits. They know you are busy and desperate to lose weight. So they prey on people’s desires and sell crap that I, quite frankly, would not feed my dog. If you need portion control, you can try this and it’s free: Just eat a handful.

True weight loss foods are natural items that do not require any ingredients that you can’t pronounce. Spinach, berries, almonds, walnuts, seeds. Items like these are the ultimate in convenience, too, so I really don’t know why anyone would buy frozen dinners. Yuck. If they can’t even make it look good in the commercial, I shudder to think what it tastes like when you reheat it.

Really, the term “weight loss foods” is simply referring to eating healthy, in my opinion. Most healthy eaters I know have an attitude of balance about it. Balance is key. There’s no need to skip your own birthday cake, but if you eat sweets every time you go to a party, that can easily add up to a problem. Especially if you have little kids. My thinking on this is, unless I know it’s a really, REALLY good cake, there’s no sense in wasting those calories. Heck, if you know me at all, you know I’d rather spend my wasteful calories on wine. (: After all, we still must enjoy life.


On a small side note: I can’t believe that incredibly intelligent, highly successful women (I’m talking about my clients) will fall for these appetite suppressants. From my personal experience, I eat more out of overindulgence than a feeling of hunger. Like today for lunch, as a perfect example, I made softshell tacos. (whole grain tortillas and ground turkey, of course!) I totally could have eaten two. I didn’t need two. And half an hour later, I was very glad that I did not. But I certainly thought about it. And it was nothing to do with appetite.

Think about that. Because as I’ve mentioned before, I know moms (myself included) who clean leftovers off the kids’ plates by shoving them in their mouth. Needless calories that have no link to appetite.

Besides, your body is a complex creature. Your appetite is a very valuable communication of your body’s needs. You SHOULD eat if your body is saying you need food. Because otherwise your body swings into starvation mode and you are instantly storing whatever fat your body can grab. YIKES! Totally the opposite of what you were going for! But that food can be a healthy choice. A weight loss food like an apple. No preparation needed. Add a handful of almonds and a big glass of water and you just had one of those small healthy meals that people claim they don’t have time for. Bullocks. That takes ten minutes. You can do ten minutes.

Jennifer is a caring, real-world weight loss coach, specializing in assisting busy women with quick and easy weight loss. If you have tried every diet gimmick and exercise program with little to no lasting success, check out the $176 gift certificate at http://www.quick-weight-loss-success.com


The Thunder of Leaves

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1191092_oak_leavesThey say in Calgary that if you don’t like the weather out your front door, look out your back door. Well, it was one of those dynamic fall days.

I was standing on my front porch, absorbing the golden beauty of the aspen trees around our house and enjoying the cool fall air. The sky from my front door had a mix of cumulus clouds and a bit of blue. But a closer look at the clouds showed how quickly they were moving. I didn’t know that the weather service had predicted gusts of up to 100 kilometres per hour for that day.

Suddenly, a blast of wind sent every fallen leaf in sight into whirlwinds of movement. If I had looked out the back door, I would have seen the storm coming. Leaves filled the air making every movement of the wind visible in whirlwinds, eddies, updrafts, downdrafts and currents. It was an incredible sight.

Even more amazing was the sound. If leaves could sound like thunder, this would have been it. The sound of the leaves drowned out any sound of the wind. I stood on the porch spellbound.

Shuffling through fallen leaves on the sidewalk or in the yard in the fall has always been one of my favorite things. I love the sound! For me, it is the best part of the experience. I don’t think I have met anyone who didn’t like the sound of shuffling through fallen leaves or who carries a fond memory of jumping into a big pile of leaves as a kid.

When I thought about the sound of these leaves after the storm, it reminded me of white noise. White noise is like the “shhhhhh” you hear when you tune your radio in between the stations. Technically, it represents all frequencies, or a wide band of frequencies sounded equally together. It can also be a background noise that you ignore, like a fan running.

The brain has a response to repetitive noise in the background called auditory habituation. You may have heard of or know people who live near train tracks or a busy highway who no longer notice the sound of the trains or cars. The noise doesn’t bother them. Through auditory habituation, the brain also no longer registers the sound as important or creates an emotional response to the noise.

White noise in the background may help to mask distracting sounds you don’t want to listen to. For example, if you are in a hotel and voices from the next room are disturbing you, turning on a fan or playing a CD with recorded white noise may be helpful in blocking out the sounds. If you work in a busy office with cubicles and are distracted by noise making it difficult to focus on your work, a fan or recorded white noise may be helpful to block out the sounds. If you live by train tracks or a busy road and the sound disturbs you, white noise may helpful in masking the sounds. White noise may also be helpful for those who suffer from insomnia, tinnitus or ringing in the ears. If you are working with your doctor or audiologist for treatment of these conditions, you might ask him or her about the possibility of trying white noise.

Sounds in nature, similar to white noise, may also be helpful in masking distracting sounds. Do you enjoy sitting on the beach and listening to the waves? The sound of waves, a babbling brook, a waterfall, falling rain, rustling leaves are examples of nature’s version of white noise.

I hope you find a few moments to playfully shuffle through the leaves this fall. Maybe we will meet as we zigzag along the sidewalk shuffling happily.

Sharon Carne has transformed a successful 30-year career of teaching and performing the classical guitar to teaching within the wellness programs of corporations. She is asked to speak for numerous groups on the power of healing sound to reduce stress, create deeper meditations, ease emotional release, create focus and concentration and ease the symptoms of illness and disease. http://www.mountainrosemusic.com

Photo: Chris Martin

Easy and Natural Ways to Raise Low Serotonin Levels

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414163_blue_flower_2Research indicates that in the United States 60-80% of the people, especially women, have low serotonin levels. You don’t have to get caught in the low serotonin cycle of hopelessness and despair. You can alter your low serotonin levels by carefully orchestrating your foods, activities and daily routines and habits.

You alter your brain chemistry, manipulate your neurochemical profile and affect your body’s physiology every day by what you do and don’t eat, what you think about, and how and where you spend your time. Through your daily behaviors and the environments in which you spend your time, you create your biochemical profile and this is reflected in the emotions, energy, thoughts, actions, and psychological states that either bring you into peak performance or that block your best functioning.

You have an enormous power to shape your inner world – your experience of life. What you do every day, what you eat, when you eat it, what activities you engage in and when you engage in them, what kind of environment in which you live and work – everything you do and do not do – shapes how you feel, think and how you experience your life.

You can create the range of emotions, energy levels and intellectual and creative functioning that you want. You can learn how to use what you do and do not do everyday and how you do it to create inner strength, hope, joy, mental alertness, and enthusiasm. By designing a life that keeps your biochemistry in balance you can maintain a state of optimal wellness, vitality and performance. When you understand the optimal physiological requirements of your body operating at its best, you can design your lifestyle to provide the diet, exercise, behaviors, thoughts, scheduling, and environment to support and nourish this optimal state of functioning in your body.

1. Serotonin levels are increased by a carbohydrate rich diet.

When you eat carbohydrates it results in a rise in insulin levels that acts to usher the amino acid tryptophan into the brain. Tryptophan is the precursor to serotonin. One and a half ounces of carbohydrate food (1/4 cup of oatmeal or a piece of sourdough bread) will significantly boost brain levels of serotonin. The healthiest carbohydrates to use are whole grain, low glycemic index carbohydrates such as barley, oats, buckwheat and carbohydrate rich vegetables such as yams, sweet potatoes and squashes. Fruits and most other vegetables have a neutral effect on brain chemistry.

2. Eat the kinds of protein that favor serotonin production.

These proteins are high in the amino acid tryptophan: chicken, white flakey fish, lean cuts of pork, veal, cottage cheese, lamb, low fat cheeses, low fat milk and dairy products, soy and legumes.

3. All meditative activities raise serotonin levels.

Spend time in a natural place such as a forest, park, mountains, or seashore.

Prayer, meditation, positive visualization boost serotonin levels and your feelings of well being, relaxed concentration and peace.

Engage in low arousal, highly meditative and internal spiritual practices that relax you.

Try relaxing activities such as hobbies or crafts.

4. Engage in exercise that increases your heart rate somewhat but not significantly.

Strolling, yoga, non-aerobic swimming, bike riding when done at least 4 days in a row a week will over a period of 60 days increase your baseline serotonin levels.

5. Have a regular wake sleep cycle.

The production of serotonin for the next day requires at least 7 continuous hours of sound high quality sleep the night before.

6. Get out in the sun at least 30 minutes in the morning and for 2 hours throughout the day.

Sunlight burns off melatonin produced the night before. The presence of high levels of melatonin consumes serotonin. Sunlight suppressed the production of melatonin and allows your serotonin levels to rise during the day. Without the exposure to adequate natural light your melatonin levels will be higher and your serotonin levels will be lower.

7. Eat a meal with high level of proteins that contain tryptophan and follow that by a carbohydrate snack two hours later.

This will act to drive the lingering tryptophan into the brain and set up the production of greater amounts of serotonin the next day.

8. Do things that revitalize you and let you feel good.

Take a low activity, high relaxation vacation with your family or by yourself with plenty of time to slow down.

Listen to classical music, light rock, folk or easy listening music.

Visit a museum, go to the theater, the symphony, or watch TV or films about love stories, comedies and other feel good movies.

Engage in long, deep conversations with one or two other people.

Clean and organize your environment.

Read: Self-help books are especially complimentary.

Copyright © 2009 Mary Ann Copson; Mary Ann Copson is the founder of the Evenstar Mood & Energy Wellness Center for Women. With Master’s Degrees in Human Development and Psychology and Counseling, Mary Ann is a Certified Licensed Nutritionist; Certified Holistic Health Practitioner; Brain Chemistry Profile Clinician; and a Health, Wellness and Lifestyle Coach. Discover ways to positively affect your neurotransmitter profile at http://evenstaronline.com/brainchemistry