How To Minimise Seasonal Allergies

We’ve all been eagerly awaiting spring’s magnificent arrival and are being drawn outside by the warm air and beautiful blooms. However, pollen can make outdoor experiences miserable for those of us who suffer from seasonal allergies.

Although there is no cure for allergies, there are several precautions you can take that will help reduce symptoms (sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes) so that you can get out of the house and enjoy the outdoors.

• There are more over-the-counter (OTC) antihistamines and natural antihistamines available than ever before. Try taking an antihistamine about an hour before heading outside in order to prevent some of your symptoms.
• Always remember to check the label and make sure the medication isn’t going to make you too drowsy to work out. If you have tried OTC and natural options with no luck, check with your physician for something more potent.
• Check the pollen count in your region of the country. You can go toPollen.com, enter your zip code, and the pollen forecast for your area will come up. If it is a high pollen count day, consider staying indoors, or doing only light exercise outdoors, such as walking or swimming. When the pollen count is high, avoid intense, prolonged exercise such as running our cycling. These kinds of activities create a lot of wind and cause pollen to blow in your face.
• When you come inside after exercising outdoors, there will be a good amount of pollen stuck to your clothes and hair. To avoid further symptoms, shower and change your clothes right away.
• Avoid exercising outdoors during the time of day during which the pollen count is at its highest. This is typically between 5am and 10am and on windy days. 
• Consider using a neti pot or other sinus irrigation method after excising outdoors. This is a great way to really rinse the pollen out of your nasal passageways to avoid symptoms associated with allergies.

Why Meditate? Science Finds Clues

The Benefits of Meditation

:: by Rachel Brand

Buddhists, yogis and ayurvedic doctors have said for centuries that meditation improves health and well-being. Now scientists are trying to prove the benefits of meditation.
Several clinical studies have documented specific ways that meditating may help people stay healthier, sharpen mental focus and gain more power over their emotions. Some studies even show that the brain of someone who meditates may be physically different from the next guy’s.
Scientists say it’s a very new field of study. But their findings to date offer compelling confirmation to the more than 20 million Americans who meditate — and tell skeptics that those who are getting on the cushion every day might be onto something.

Can meditation make you happier?

When emotions wreak havoc, it helps to “get it out” — ranting to a therapist, friend or spouse, or writing about your feelings in a journal. Sitting down on a cushion to meditate is seemingly the polar opposite of this catharsis. But could it be that the two approaches are helpful for similar reasons?
Talking or writing about your feelings forces you to call them something. And one technique taught in mindfulness meditation is naming your emotions. It’s part of noticing and detaching from those emotions vs. letting them hijack your bliss. Meditation instructor Dianna Dunbar calls it “the mindfulness wedge.” It’s about “helping people develop that pause button,” she says, so they can observe emotions from the outside.
Two UCLA studies showed “that simply labeling emotion promotes detachment,” says David Creswell, Ph.D., a meditation researcher at the university who joined colleague Matthew D. Lieberman, Ph.D., in heading up the studies.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain activity and pinpoint where in the brain it occurs, Lieberman’s team found that assigning names to negative emotions turns down the intensity of activity in the amygdala — an almond-sized sector of the brain that acts like an alarm system: When you witness a car crash, argue with your spouse or get yelled at by your boss, it’s your amygdala’s job to set off a cascade of stress-related reactions.
But if you simply name the distressing event, Lieberman says, you can wield more power over your amygdala’s freak-out. “When you attach the word ‘angry,’” he explains, “you see a decreased response in the amygdala.”
Creswell’s 2007 study supported these findings. His team asked 27 undergraduates to fill out a questionnaire on how “mindful” they were — how inclined they were to pay attention to present emotions, thoughts or sensations. They found a striking difference between the brains of those who called themselves mindful and those who didn’t: Mindful patients showed more activity in the areas that calm down emotional response, known as the prefrontal cortex; and less activation in the amygdala.
Twenty-year meditation practitioner Joyce Bonnie says the UCLA findings aren’t surprising to her. But she says having that emotion-diffusing ability is one thing, and using it is another.
“It’s very challenging to bring what you practice on the meditation cushion out in a real-life situation,” says Bonnie, an independent filmmaker in Santa Monica, Calif. “When you’re actually in that moment — say someone is yelling at you — you have to remember to step back, say, ‘Oh, that’s anger I’m feeling,' and change what you do with that emotion, all in a millisecond. It takes a lot of practice.”
Still, the clinical results “may explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation,” Creswell says, “and suggest why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health.
“For the first time since [the Buddha’s] teachings,” he adds, “we have shown that there is actually a neurological reason for doing mindfulness meditation.”

Can meditation make you healthier?

Thirty-seven-year-old mom Nikki Ragonese has meditated for six years as one way to cope with painful degenerative osteoarthritis. Meditation, she says, makes it easier to accept her pain and the difficult emotions it fuels.
“Often when you feel something, you don’t acknowledge it,” Ragonese says. “And by avoiding that feeling, you perpetuate greater pain. Meditation helps me realize that I create my own feelings. If I’m in a state of frustration and I stop and observe it, I realize there’s another way to deal with the pain.”
Ragonese’s mindfulness meditation instructor in Boulder, Colo., therapist Dianna Dunbar, agrees. “I’ve seen patients who gain a greater sense of awareness of their pain become nonjudgmental observers of their pain,” she says. “They are less irritable, and more able to calm down and relax.”
Science is starting to churn out more evidence echoing Ragonese and Dunbar’s experience, showing signs that mindfulness meditation can help ease symptoms of conditions including psoriasis and hypertension as well as chronic pain.
Meditating also slows breathing rate, blood pressure and heart rate, and there’s some evidence that meditation may aid treatment of anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and a range of other ailments. These are just a few meditation benefits.

Can meditation make you smarter?

The buzz about meditation’s ability to turn out shiny, happy people makes you wonder: Do people who meditate have something different going on upstairs than non-meditators do?
A noted 2005 study by Sara Lazar, Ph.D., an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, aimed to find out which parts of the brain become active when a person practices mindfulness and meditation. Her team studied 20 people who meditate regularly and 20 who don’t.
The results were astounding: Brain regions associated with attention, sensory awareness and emotional processing — the cortex — were thicker in meditators. In fact, meditators’ brains grew thicker in direct correlation with how much they meditated.
The findings suggest that meditation can change the brain’s structure — perhaps because certain brain regions are used more frequently in the process of meditation, and therefore grow.
Lazar says it’s a “huge, huge, huge” leap to assert that meditators’ brains function better. “We really don’t know how meditation works,” Lazar cautions, stressing that scientists are merely uncovering “pieces of the puzzle.”
Yet for anyone accustomed to waiting for a chorus of nods from science before trying alternative methods, these tip-of-the-iceberg findings may be ample proof of what Eastern cultures have been saying for centuries: Meditation is good for you.

For the the original article please click below
[http://life.gaiam.com/article/why-meditate-science-finds-clues] republished courtesy of Gaiam Life. 

Meditation for Healing

5 simple meditation steps and tips for the beginner

:: by Kate Clark

People struggling with chronic pain or other medical conditions can use healing meditation to feel better in body and spirit. Some report dramatic results from healing meditation, while others simply appreciate the reduction in stress that comes from sitting quietly and focusing the mind. Healing meditation often incorporates visualization techniques.

What to expect

While meditation hasn't been proven to cure specific ailments, patients report that it can be helpful when used alongside more conventional treatments. Meditation can help reduce anxiety, for one thing, which can potentially cause positive changes in your body. It's important to be open to the process and have faith that it will help, but be willing to give it time.

Guided meditation techniques

Guided imagery, in which you create mental pictures in response to another person's instructions, is commonly used for healing meditation. For example, if you have cancer, you might be asked to vividly picture your white blood cells fighting and winning against the cancer cells, and purging the bad cells from your body.

Personal healing images

You can use a healing meditation CD, or you can develop your own powerful healing images. For example, you might visualize your immune system as a train chugging steadily up a hill. Try to meditate on your chosen image often, at least once a day. You can also turn to it whenever you need a mental boost.

Preparing for healing meditation

When learning how to meditate, beginners often have trouble finding the best posture for meditation. Don't be afraid to experiment — there's no "right" way to meditate. Prepare to meditate by finding a quiet room without disruptions and take the following steps:

• Turn off your phone and any other gadgets.

• Dim the lights.

• Sit in a straight-backed chair with your head forward, knees bent at a right angle and your hands on your thighs. You can also sit with your legs crossed or, if you're flexible, pretzel your legs into a lotus position. If sitting isn't comfortable, lie on the floor (it's too easy to fall asleep on a bed).

• You can chant a mantra to yourself, such as " Om Mani Padme Hum," a Tibetan healing mantra, or use a simple word like "calm," "one" or "om."

• Close your eyes, or try staring at a focal point.

The best advice for beginners just learning about meditation is to start simple. Quieting your mind for long periods is more difficult than it looks, so just carve out 10 to 20 minutes a day at first. All you'll need is a quiet space where you won't be disturbed.

Benefits of meditation

Regular meditation can help relieve stress, improve your ability to focus and lead to a better understanding of your own thought patterns and processes. Some people use meditation to enhance creativity, reduce chronic pain, treat headaches and even improve athletic performance.

Focus

Although most people meditate with closed eyes, many beginners find it useful to have a point of focus, such as a candle. Concentrating on the flame can make it easier to clear your mind.
When learning how to meditate, beginners tend to get frustrated by the persistence of outside thoughts — all the anxieties, to-do lists and random memories that parade constantly through the brain. Instead of fighting them off, simply observe them as they enter your mind and let them pass. Repeating a mantra to yourself is another good way to maintain your focus.

Meditation techniques for beginners

Breathing meditation and relaxation meditation methods are especially good for people first learning to meditate. With breathing meditation, you simply breathe deeply from your abdomen, focusing all your attention on your breath, inhaling slowly through your nose and exhaling through your mouth.
Relaxation meditation involves consciously visualizing the release of tension from your body, beginning at the head and moving slowly down to the toes.

Meditate in action

"Walking meditation" is another useful way for beginners to learn how to meditate. The key is to concentrate fully on each deliberate step, paying attention only to the present moment. Focus on the rhythmic motion of your legs and the feel of the ground under your feet. Other active forms of meditation include tai chi and qigong (both traditional Chinese movement therapies) and yoga.

Combine meditation With lifestyle choices

A healthy diet, regular exercise and good sleep all enhance the positive effects of meditating. Spending time in nature, getting out in the sunshine, spending time with loved ones and trying to maintain a good attitude should also improve your results.

For the the original article please click below
[http://life.gaiam.com/article/meditation-healing] republished courtesy of Gaiam Life. 

About Full Lotus Posture

Get a leg up on meditation with this common pose

:: by E.C. LaMeaux

Full lotus posture is a traditional meditative pose that originated in the Hindu yoga tradition. Performed with crossed legs, upturned soles and gently clasped hands, the position is named for the shape of an open lotus flower. Statues of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, often show him seated in this contemplative position.

Purposes of the full lotus yoga posture

Many Buddhist monks can comfortably sit in the full lotus posture four hours on end, but you don’t have to be capable of such endurance to benefit from the full lotus. According to the Zen Mountain Monastery, a prominent Zen retreat and training center located in upstate New York, full lotus is among the most stable meditation postures, because your weight is symmetrically balanced. The full lotus posture helps keep your spine straight, which in turn allows for maximum freedom and depth of breath.

Leg position in the full lotus posture

• Start by sitting on the ground.

• Bend your left knee, resting your left foot on your upper right thigh.

• Now cross your right leg over your left, bringing your right foot over your left calf so that your right foot rests on your upper left thigh.

• Your legs should be crossed at the ankles, both of your feet should be placed on your thighs, and your soles should be angled toward the ceiling.

If you find that your knees and ankles resist this pose, don’t go any further. Try using a different meditation posture instead, such as the Burmese position, half lotus position, Seiza position or chair position.

Head position in the full lotus posture

Lower your chin slightly so that your gaze rests two to three feet out on the floor in front of you. Cast your eyes downward, with your eyelids partially lowered to reduce the need for frequent blinking. Keep your lips closed, with your tongue touching the roof of your mouth lightly.

Hand position in the full lotus posture

If you’re right-handed, cup your left hand in your right so that your knuckles, but not your palms, overlap. Rest the back of your right hand on the upward facing soles of your feet. Bring your thumbs together, forming an oval shape. (This hand position is known as the “cosmic mudra.”) If you’re left-handed, reverse the position so that your right hand is on top.

Practicing meditation in full lotus

Breathe deeply through your nose, with your muscles relaxed and your spine straight. Depending on the type of meditation you are practicing, you may wish to count your breaths or practice three-part breathing (dirga pranayama), in which you sequentially fill your belly, then your rib cage, then your chest.

For the the original article please click below
[http://life.gaiam.com/article/about-full-lotus-posture] republished courtesy of Gaiam Life.

8 Proven Ways to Manage Stress

:: by Mayo Clinic Center for Integrative and Complementary Medicine

Racing against deadlines, sitting in traffic, arguing with your spouse .... There's so much in life that can make your body react as if you were facing a physical threat. This is why chronic stress can make you more vulnerable to life-threatening health problems. But there are simple ways you can take control of stress by avoiding some stressors and limiting the detrimental health effects of others.

Effects of stress on your body
In short, stress is a physical and emotional response to a particular situation.

• Headache
• Chest pain
• Pounding heart
• High blood pressure
• Shortness of breath
• Muscle aches, such as back and neck pain
• Clenched jaws
• Grinding teeth
• Tight, dry throat
• Indigestion
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Stomach cramping or bloating
• Increased perspiration, often causing cold, sweaty hands
• Fatigue
• Insomnia
• Weight gain or loss
• Skin problems such as hives
• Impaired sexual function

8 proven ways to minimize stress and limit its health effects

1. Think positively

Studies indicate that optimism or pessimism may affect your quality of life. Optimism enables you to cope better with stressful situations, likely reducing the effects of stress on your body.

2. Change your emotional response

Managing stress doesn’t mean eliminating stressors from your life. It means developing positive strategies for dealing with stress to avoid negative consequences. Think about stress as your reaction to an event, rather than the event itself. This makes it easier to identify healthy ways to manage stress. Even though you can’t control some of the stressors in your life, you can control your response to them.

3. Embrace spirituality

Certain tools to reduce stress are tangible, but there is another tool that helps many people manage stress in their lives — embracing spirituality. Exploring your spirituality can lead to a clearer life purpose and better stress management skills.

4. Protect your time

How does your behavior contribute to your stress? Some people find it hard to say no to any requests made on their time. But saying yes to everything comes at a price — more stress and less peace of mind. Learn how to take time for yourself without feeling guilty.

5. Restore work-life balance

Finding work-life balance in today’s frantic world is no simple task. Spend more time at work than at home and you miss out on a rewarding personal life. Then again if you’re facing challenges in your personal life such as caring for an aging parent or coping with marital or financial problems, concentrating on your job can be difficult.
Whether the problem is too much focus on work or too little, when your work life and personal life feel out of balance, stress — plus its harmful effects — is the result.

6. Try meditation

Different types of meditation techniques can calm your mind and reduce your stress. Concentration meditation involves focusing your attention on one thing, such as your breathing, an image you visualize or a real you look at – for example, a candle flame.

7. Keep you cool

Feeling stressed is normal. And so are setbacks in dealing with stress. If you lapse into your old ways, don’t give up. Focus on what you can do to gain control of the situation.
One easy way to help yourself keep your cool and lighten your load is to remember the four As of managing stress: avoid, alter, adapt or accept!

8. Maintain a strong social network

To help you through the stress of tough times, you’ll need a strong social support network made up of friends, family and peers. This differs from a support group, which is generally a structured meeting run by a mental health professional.
Although both groups can play an important role in times of stress, a social support network is something you can develop when you’re not under stress, providing the comfort of knowing that your friends are there if you need them. A coffee break with a friend at work, a quick chat with a neighbor, a phone call to your sister, even a visit to church are all ways to reduce stress while fostering lasting relationships with the people close to you.

For the the original article please click below
[http://life.gaiam.com/article/8-proven-ways-manage-stress-tips-mayo-clinic] republished courtesy of Gaiam Life.