One of the most important steps to reverse your biological age is regular exercise. In this age of push-button technology you run the risk of spending so much time in your mind that you neglect the needs of your body. One of the critical needs of your body is to move.
"Use it or lose it" is directly applicable to your physical body. We are seeing a growing epidemic of obesity in Western society that is now affecting our children, mainly because the average person - adult or child - spends less time moving their body than at any point in human history. As a result of not exercising regularly, we suffer increased risks for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, and cancer.
Several studies have shown how hazardous inactivity can be to your health. A report published in 1968 found that if you impose bed rest on young, healthy men for three weeks, their measurements of cardiovascular fitness deteriorate by the equivalent of almost twenty years of aging. As anyone who has had to wear a cast for a broken bone knows firsthand, not using a muscle leads to wasting and weakness.
Exercise along can alter many of the important biomarkers of aging. Drs. William Evans and Irwin Rosenberg from Tufts University have documented the powerful effects exercise has on improving muscle mass, strength, aerobic capacity, bone density, and many other key biological markers of aging.
One of the most effective ways to raise your level of HDL cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol) is through exercise. Studies have shown that men sixty to seventy years old can
increase their muscle strength by 100 to over 200 percent after just twelve weeks of training.
While your body is getting stronger, it is also getting leaner. As a result, your ability to handle sugar is improved and the risks for diabetes are reduced. Regular weight training strengthens your bones and lessens the chances for developing osteoporosis. This is particularly important for women who are at risk of losing bone once they are beyond their reproductive years.
Of all the approaches to growing younger, exercise produces the most prompt returns. Within a week of beginning a fitness program, you'll notice definite improvement in your sense of well-being. After a few weeks you will not be able to go without it. Regular exercise is an essential element of the reversal-of-aging program.
- Grow Younger, Live Longer: Ten Steps to Reverse Aging
by Dr. Deepak Chopra, M.D.
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
A complete fitness program includes exercises to enhance flexibility, strength, and endurance. Improving suppleness in the body improves your physical and emotional comfort level and reduces your chances for injury. Yoga, tai chi, and qigong all expand flexibility while enhancing mind/body integration. At least ten minutes of gentle, conscious stretching should be a part of every exercise warm-up routine.
Unfortunately, we see too many people who have the good intention to start exercising, but fail to take the time to warm up properly. As a result, they strain a muscle or pull a ligament and are unable to continue the fitness program they need.
Building strength enhances vitality and reverses a common feature of aging known as
sarcopenia. This word, coined by researchers at Tufts University, means "lack of flesh." Weakness, reduced muscle mass, and increased body fat are well-known consequences of inactivity. But they can all be reversed through strength training. Improving muscle tone through weight-bearing exercises can also improve your posture and reduce back pain.
If you are dealing with chronic low-back problems and believe you cannot exercise, start slowly to build your back and abdominal muscle strength and your pain will diminish.
There are emotional and psychological benefits of exercise. Hundreds of studies attest to the value of regular exercise on your mood and mental state. These are some of the psychological benefits that have been shown with exercise:
- Less Depression
- Less anxiety
- Less anger
- Less cynical distrust
- Improved self-esteem
- Better resilience to stress
- Improved sleep
Exercise gives you a greater sense of confidence and competence. It is good for your body and good for your mind.
What type of exercise will you do today?
- Grow Younger, Live Longer
, by Deepak Chopra, M.D.
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
Over the past decade, I've noticed that people tend to make the same mistakes over and over again when it comes to losing weight and staying healthy. Luckily, you don't have to follow in their footsteps.
1. They work out simply to burn calories. What matters more is exercise intensity. Vigorous exercise dulls your appetite, while moderate exercise stimulates it.
2. They strength train with two-pound dumbbells. Heavier weights will help you build bone mass. You should be able to complete only eight to ten repetitions of each exercise.
3. They substitute pie for the pie chart. Draw a circle and divide it into wedges, like a pie. Label each wedge with some aspect of your life - your finances, your kids, your spouse - then, using a plus or a minus sign, note whether each area is going well. Work on nurturing areas that you're unhappy with, and your weight will be easier to control.
4. They aren't aware of third-hand smoke. These foul-smelling toxins can linger on your hair, clothes, carpet, and furniture. Even if your partner isn't lighting up inside the house, third-hand smoke can harm you and your family.
5. They keep eating until they go to bed. Make a hard-and-fast rule: no eating within two hours of bedtime.
6. They don't pay attention to the hunger scale. Imagine a scale from one to five - one being full, and five being ravenous. If you're hitting a three - your stomach's grumbling, you're physically dragging - it's time to eat. Any lower than that, and you're eating to fill an emotional need, not a physical one.
7. They don't think about how relationships affect their motivation. If you've got a strong support network, you're less likely to de-stress by crashing in front of the TV or eating poorly.
8. They think a finite goal is the only thing that matters. I've seen clients reach their goal weight, then gain it back once they realize that life isn't suddenly perfect - even at a size 6. Make your goal to live a healthy life, no matter what's on the scale.
9. They fall for the latest fad. A "cookie diet" is not a sound nutritional plan.
10. They underestimate the power of 80 percent. People tend to have an all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to living healthy. But if you can put these tips into practice even 80 percent of the time you're still going to be successful.
- The Oprah Magazine written by Bob Greene
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
Now, let me first say that if you are a night owl, and that works for you, I think that’s great. There’s no reason to change, especially if you’re happy with it.
But for me, switching from being a night owl to an early riser (and yes, it is possible) has been a godsend. It has helped me in so many ways that I’d never go back. Here are just a few:
- Greet the day. I love being able to get up, and greet a wonderful new day. I suggest creating a morning ritual that includes saying thanks for your blessings. I’m inspired by the Dalai Lama, who said, ” Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ “
- Amazing start. I used to start my day by jumping out of bed, late as usual, and rushing to get myself and the kids ready, and rushing to drop them to school and come in to work late. I would walk into work, looking rumpled and barely awake, grumpy and behind everyone else. Not a great start to your day. Now, I have a renewing morning ritual, I’ve gotten so much done before 8 a.m., my kids are early and so am I, and by the time everyone else gets in to work, I’ve already gotten a head start. There is no better way to start off your day than to wake early, in my experience.
- Quietude. No kids yelling, no babies crying, no soccer balls, no cars, no television noise. The early morning hours are so peaceful, so quiet. It’s my favorite time of day. I truly enjoy that time of peace, that time to myself, when I can think, when I can read, when I can breathe.
- Sunrise. People who wake late miss one of the greatest feats of nature, repeated in full stereovision each and every day — the rise of the sun. I love how the day slowly gets brighter, when the midnight blue turns to lighter blue, when the brilliant colors start to seep into the sky, when nature is painted in incredible colors. I like doing my early morning run during this time, and I look up at the sky as I run and say to the world, “What a glorious day!” Really. I really do that. Corny, I know.
- Breakfast. Rise early and you actually have time for breakfast. I’m told it’s one of the most important meals of the day. Without breakfast, your body is running on fumes until you are so hungry at lunchtime that you eat whatever unhealthy thing you can find. But eat breakfast, and you are sated until later. Plus, eating breakfast while reading my book and drinking my coffee in the quiet of the morning is eminently more enjoyable than scarfing something down on the way to work, or at your desk.
- Exercise. There are other times to exercise besides the early morning, of course, but I’ve found that while exercising right after work is also very enjoyable, it’s also liable to be canceled because of other things that come up. Morning exercise is virtually never canceled.
- Productivity. Mornings, for me at least, are the most productive time of day. I like to do some writing in the morning, when there are no distractions, before I check my email or blog stats. I get so much more done by starting on my work in the morning. Then, when evening rolls around, I have no work that I need to do, and I can spend it with family.
- Goal time. Got goals? Well, you should. And there’s no better time to review them and plan for them and do your goal tasks than first thing. You should have one goal that you want to accomplish this week. And every morning, you should decide what one thing you can do today to move yourself further towards that goal. And then, if possible, do that first thing in the morning.
- Commute. No one likes rush-hour traffic, except for Big Oil. Commute early, and the traffic is much lighter, and you get to work faster, and thus save yourself more time. Or better yet, commute by bike. (Or even better yet, work from home.)
- Appointments. It’s much easier to make those early appointments on time if you get up early. Showing up late for those appointments is a bad signal to the person you’re meeting. Showing up early will impress them. Plus, you get time to prepare.
How to Become an Early Riser
- Don’t make drastic changes. Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15 minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time.
- Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the Internet. But if you continue this habit, while trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall asleep much sooner than you think.
- Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If it’s right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up. Now you just have to stay up.
- Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to go out of the room. My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. By the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.
- Do not rationalize. If you allow your brain to talk you out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. Don’t make getting back in bed an option.
- Have a good reason. Set something to do early in the morning that’s important. This reason will motivate you to get up. I like to write in the morning, so that’s my reason. Also, when I’m done with that, I like to read all of your comments!
- Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you make it pleasurable, soon you will look forward to waking up early. A good reward is to make a hot cup of coffee or tea and read a book. Other rewards might be a tasty treat for breakfast (smoothies! yum!) or watching the sunrise, or meditating. Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to do it as part of your morning routine.
- Take advantage of all that extra time. Don’t wake up an hour or two early just to read your blogs, unless that’s a major goal of yours. Don’t wake up early and waste that extra time. Get a jump start on your day! I like to use that time to get a head start on preparing my kids’ lunches, on planning for the rest of the day (when I set my MITs), on exercising or meditating, and on reading. By the time 6:30 rolls around, I’ve done more than many people do the entire day.
— ZenHabits
Read more about simple productivity, focus and getting great things done in The Power of Less.
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
The prevailing worldview looks at the body as a material vehicle, similar to an automobile, in which parts inevitably break down until the body is no longer serviceable. Modern science and the wisdom traditions tell us this is a flawed interpretation.
Your body is not merely a physical device that generates thoughts and feelings; rather, it is a network of energy, transformation, and intelligence in dynamic exchange with the world around you. With every breath you take, every mouthful of food or swallow of water you ingest, every sound you hear, sight you see, sensation you feel, and aroma you smell your body changes. Just since you began reading this paragraph you exchanged four hundred billion trillion atoms with your environment!
Your body looks static because the changes are taking place at a level too subtle for you to directly perceive. Scientists can calculate the turnover of matter in your body by labeling atoms with radioactive material and tracking their metabolism. Through this process we've learned that the lining of your stomach is replaced about every five days.
It takes about a month for your skin to be retread. In about six weeks your liver has turned over, and within just a few months, most of the calcium and phosphorus crystals that make up your skeleton have come and gone. Every year over 98 percent of all the atoms in the human body have been exchanged. After a course of three years, you would be hard pressed to find an atom that was a part of you then, which could still be considered yours now.
To help you appreciate this idea, consider that your body is like a local branch of the public library. Although on one level the library seems to be stable, on another level it is constantly changing. Books are coming and going every day, with completely new ones added and old ones returned to the downtown facility. Particular books do not define a library; rather, it represents the site and process of this ever-changing exchange of information.
Your body is like a flame that is constantly metabolizing new material. The flammable matter and the oxygen necessary for its combustion must be continually renewed. The smoke and gases released are changing at every moment. And yet the flame appears to be nearly the same over time. The processes of creation, maintenance, and dissolution are simultaneously at work in a flame and in your body.
The Greek poet Heraclitus said you cannot point to the same river twice because new water is always flowing. Like a river, like a library, like a flame, your body may appear to be the same on the surface, but in actuality, it is constantly changing. Rather than viewing your body as a static biological machine, begin to think of it as a field of energy and intelligence, constantly renewing itself.
To grow younger you must change your perception of the body, relinquishing the idea that it is a bag of flesh and bones. Begin to experience your body as the flow of vital energy, transformation, and intelligence, and you will experience the reversal of aging.
Even though the body appears to be material, it is not. In the deeper reality, your body is a field of energy, transformation, and intelligence.
- Grow Younger, Live Longer by Dr. Deepak Chopra
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
In some Asian traditions, such as the Tibetan, energy is often referred to as 'speech'. That's because speech expends a tremendous amount of breath and energy, and unless it comes out in the form of mantras, chants or prayers, speech is usually undisciplined, uneven, and often unnecessary.
The 'motor mouth' syndrome which seems to infect many people in crowded urban environments exhausts energy reserves and can actually lower resistance and impair immunity. As the Tao master and martial artists Chang San-feng said 600 years ago: 'Forget about words and your energy won't scatter.' The Taoist adept and writer Liu I-ming agrees: 'When the mouth speaks, energy scatters.' Unless you have something important to say, it's always best to keep your lips buttoned, because idle gossip and marathon monologues are like leaking tyres: they permit your energy to escape and leave you flat. Silence is an effective way to conserve energy for more important internal uses.As ancient Chinese adage says: 'Disease comes in through the mouth; disaster comes out through the mouth.' The first is obvious: open mouths invite germs, dust, and airborne toxins to enter our systems. The second clause refers to the fact that we often create our own personal disasters by talking too much and too carelessly, thereby offending others, revealing things about ourselves that would be better kept secret, making bad impressions on people, and so forth.
So choose your words carefully, speak softly, and don't say any more than necessary.
- The Complete Book of Chinese Health & Healing by
Daniel Reid
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
The course of our everyday lives requires that we balance the interior process of nurturing the self (Yin) with being engaged in the exterior work of the world (Yang). Our activity in the world fosters our productivity, then we retreat from the business of the day each evening to relax, rest, and sleep in order to accumulate and replenish our store of Qi for the day to follow.
Our contemporary culture encourages constant, often frenetic, activity.
People are so consumed with their productivity that they often neglect allowing enough time for the self to be replenished. To overwork, overexercise, overparty, and overengage in the act of love is to overindulge in Yang, which leads to burnout of Yin. The body cannot for long tolerate consuming more than is replaced. The consequences of this may be muscle, joint, bone, heart, or kidney problems perhaps as serious and sudden as a heart attack.
On the other hand, to be preoccupied with matters of internal health and overly focused on nourishing and protecting the delicate interior of the body could mean an overemphasis on the Yin phase of accumulation. A collector who keeps acquiring more and more good that have potential value is so busy amassing and storing that he has no time or energy left to put his hidden treasures to use in the productive life of the world. The Yin is protected, but the Yang is lifeless. Similarly, a person who is all mass or substance (Yin) and no energy (Yang) is lethargic, inert, and cannot work or play well. Without exercise the muscles atrophy and the cardiovascular system weakens.
The key is to achieve balance, which means being flexible, diverse, moderate, and in harmony with your own rhythms and needs. Chinese medicine makes use of acupuncture, herbs, diet, physical exercise, massage, mental discipline, and the modification of life-style habits as forms of therapy to reestablish the rhythmic swing of the Yin-Yang pendulum.
- Between Heaven and Earth by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
When the mind is calm and stable, the vitality of life circulates harmoniously throughout the body. If the body is nourished and protected by this circulation of vitality, how can it possibly become ill?
From 'The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine' (second century BC)Vitality is associated with the potency of vital bodily fluids such as enzymes, hormones, and neurochemicals, which form a functional bridge between organic matter and pure energy.
Enzyme activity, for example, releases waves of radiant energy which can be measured by scientific instruments, and the activity of neuro-chemicals in the brain is closely associated with the cerebral energy recorded as brain waves by electroencephalographs. Blood carries potential energy in the form of negative ions, which are also stored in the electrolytes of intercellular fluids. Vitality is thus a functional fusion of biochemicals and bioenergies balanced by biofeedback.
One way in which Taoist internal alchemy enhances human vitality is by establishing positive biofeedback between the calming neurochemicals of the parasympathetic nervous system and the rejuvenating, immune-boosting hormones of the endocrine system. The neuro-endocrine balance achieved thereby generates the active vitality associated with organic life.
Vitality is the basis of health and longevity and the foundation of immunity and resistance. However, after the bloom of youth has blown, vitality must be carefully cultivated and conserved in order to continue providing the sort of protection it confers naturally during the reproductive prime of life.
As James Ramholz writes in Shaolin and Taoist Herbal Training Formulas, 'the ideal level of well-being necessitates something
beyond what ordinary diet and lifestyle can offer. Only a significantly strong vitality will prevent health problems. Toward this end, many people employ exercise, martial arts, meditation, yoga, chi-gung, Tai Chi Chuan, etc., to enhance their health, enrich their lives, and to help foster their spiritual development.'
- The Complete Book of Chinese Health & Healing by
Daniel ReidWhat do you think could be added to this list to help with vitality, health, energy and long life?
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If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
Anger causes Chi to rise, joy causes Chi to slow down, grief causes Chi to dissipate, fear causes Chi to descend, surprise causes Chi to scatter, exhaustion causes Chi to waste away, thought causes Chi to concentrate.
What emotions are you experiencing today and how is it impacting your Chi?
If I had to think of an easy way to help you get started and learn EXACTLY how to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most problems… I would tell you to go check out my eBook “Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.”
You can easily learn how your home may be causing these problems and how to correct them with no interior design or expensive decorating required.
You can go here for all the details: Feng Shui Secrets
If you're really serious about overcoming certain obstacles in your life, here is your chance to
work with me one-on-one to transform the areas of your life that are causing you the most challenges.
With love and compassion,
