Wash Your Hands After a Big Decision to Cut Down on Second-Guessing

According to a University of Michigan Ann Arbor study, the physical act of washing your hands can help remove those niggling second thoughts about a decision you've made.

The metaphor of washing your hands of something as washing your conscience (or your mind) clean may have some basis in truth. Graduate student Spike W.S. Lee conducted the study, analyzing how individuals reacted to decisions they made based on the simple act of hand washing. Lee found that when people literally washed their hands after a decision, they felt justified about their choices and felt increasingly better about their decisions. When people did not wash their hands, they were less likely to justify their decision.

For more interesting tidbits on the relationship between hand washing and its effect on the mind, the NPR podcast (embedded below) also offers more food for thought.




Photo by Arlington County.
[Lifehacker]

For info about Feng Shui, go here: Feng Shui Quick-Start Guide

Is Your Commute Hurting Your Career?

Feng Shui is about much more than the place we live. While our house or apartment, back yard and front yard, as well as our place of business, are all important factors in Feng Shui, the principles of Black Sect Feng Shui encompass our entire environment. This includes:

- the houses and buildings around us
- our street
- our neighborhood
- our commute to work, school, or anywhere we travel frequently

These external influences affect our success in life, as well as the way we feel everyday. If you lack energy, feel depressed and dread going to work (or coming home) it could be due to the environment you notice on the way.

Better Commute, Better Career Opportunities
Chances are, even if you don't notice your environment during your commute, it's affecting the tone of your work day. Pay attention to the scenery on your way to work. If the way is dry, dirty, or through run-down areas, can you find a different route? Passing through graveyards, or even dead vegetation, may cause you to subconsciously dwell on death -- your own or that of close friends. You may lose your drive to succeed.

If you encounter heavy traffic on your way to work, you may feel blocked, as if something is stopping you in your pursuit of greater wealth and recognition.

On the other hand, if your daily commute takes you past trees and healthy vegetation, or places of inspiration and growth -- such as schools, universities and prosperous businesses -- you'll arrive at work rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to shine.

What does your commute look like? How do you feel when you arrive at work? Could they be related?

5 Ways Of Dealing With Depression Without Drugs

Feng Shui can be used to help alleviate depression and feelings of being "stuck," which are so common in today's society. Often, an individual just needs a gentle nudge to return to his correct path, where he can be his true self.

I should know; I've battled feelings of depression and low energy. A combination of Feng Shui, proper nutrition, exercise, meditation and re-connecting with nature alleviated my depression and placed me on a path toward fulfillment.

My career has soared. I have a stronger drive for achievement and activity and I am truly grateful and happy. As a result, I've been fortunate to help many others welcome energy, drive and the feelings of joy and gratitude back into their lives. That is my true path.

1. Feng Shui Your Space: A Feng Shui consultation may be the first step in getting "unstuck." A Feng Shui consultant can recommend ways to shift the energy of a person and space, creating amazing transformations.

When I perform a Feng Shui consultation for a client who is feeling stuck or depressed, I pay close attention to the entrance of the space. The entrance should not be blocked, which prevents energy or chi from entering the area.

I'll also take a look at the work environment, specifically under a person's desk. That part of the office should be clean, clear and permit plenty of leg room.

I often introduce life energy into a space. You can do this in your home or office by adding living plants, fresh flowers, raw fruit or moving water.

There are also specific Feng Shui cures and remedies you can employ. For instance, you can use Feng Shui Wind Chimes To Help With Depression.

2. Reconnect With Nature: It's easy to lose your connection with nature and, for many people, this leads to depression.

Don't you feel rejuvenated after spending a day at the beach or a few hours hiking in the mountains? Try to make nature a small part of your life every day. Spend more time outdoors walking, hiking, cycling or simply sitting in the park appreciating the environment.

3. Diet & Nutrition: Chronic fatigue is an indication that the body's "batteries" have run down. Resistance drops and illness or disease may strike.

Often, fatigue is caused by a critical deficiency of active enzymes in the diet and an overabundance of "dead" foods: processed, preserved and over-cooked foods, eaten in incompatible combinations.

Many fad diets literally starve cells of nutrition and energy and permit toxic wastes to accumulate in the tissues. This prevents the body from generating and directing energy for work or play, since all available energy must be used to keep the body alive.

According to The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity, denatured, processed, preserved, canned and cooked foods should compose less than 50 percent of the daily diet. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains to give your body the energy it needs and combat chronic fatigue.

Sun Ssu-mo, the Tang Dynasty Taoist physician who correctly diagnosed and cured the nutritional-deficiency disease beriberi 1,300 years ago, a full millennium before European doctors did in 1642, wrote in Precious Recipes: "A truly good physician first finds out the cause of illness, and having found that, he first tries to cure it by food. Only when food fails does he prescribe medication."

4. Proper Exercise:

"The Tao of nurturing life requires that one keep oneself as fluid and flexible as possible. One should not stay still for too long, nor should one exhaust oneself by trying to perform impossible tasks. One should learn how to exercise from nature by observing the fact that flower water never stagnates and a busy door with active hinges never rusts or rots. Why? Because they exercise themselves perpetually and are almost always moving." (Sun Ssu-mo - Precious Recipes)

In this passage, Sun Ssu-mo succinctly distills the essence of Taoist exercise principles. If we observe nature, we see that rhythmic movement is the foundation for cultivating essence and energy.

Balance and moderation are also key factors. How many times have you started a difficult or time-consuming exercise regime only to abandon it after a few weeks-or a few days? Start slowly so your early success will spark your drive to continue. In addition to structured exercise, look for ways to introduce more physical activity into your everyday life.

The Spring and Autumn Annals tells us: Essence and energy, body and breath, are indivisible: when the body does not move, essence cannot flow; when essence cannot flow, energy becomes stagnant.

Keep your essence moving like a mountain stream by practicing controlled deep breathing balanced with rhythmic physical movement. Body and breath will harmonize and vital energy will circulate to every organ and tissue in the body.

5. Meditation: Meditation purifies the mind and restores the spirit's primal powers by withdrawing all distracting thoughts and disturbing emotions from the mind. Meditation is to spirit what diet and nutrition are to essence - an indispensable tool for cultivating and conserving that treasure.

Emotions are regarded as major causes of disease in Chinese medicine. When unbridled by firm intent, they can cloud our minds and vandalize our precious reserves of essence and energy. To restore conscious awareness, one must empty the mind of all thoughts and pacify all emotions in the solitary silence and peaceful serenity of meditation.

In an article entitled "Mental Muscle" (Omni magazine, June 1992), Kathy Keeton writes:

"When the psychologists Charles Alexander of the Maharishi International University in Fairland, Iowa, and Ellen Langer of Harvard University, taught transcendental meditation (TM) to a group of octogenarians in eight Boston-area nursing homes, 100 percent of those who practiced meditation 20 minutes a day were still alive three years later, while 38 percent of their peers who did not meditate had passed on. This is reminiscent of legends of Himalayan yogis using similar techniques to live more than a hundred years...

Alexander is one of a growing body of scientists who believe that we can muster the power of our brains to stay healthy, to heal ourselves when we're sick, and, quite possibly, to extend our life expectancy."

Combining Feng Shui with proper nutrition, exercise, meditation and time to reconnect with nature will put you on the path to health, happiness, longevity, peace of mind, greater drive and ultimate success.

How many items listed above are you doing? Why not try adding a new one each week for the next few weeks? Please come back and share your results!

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