Know Your Wellness Tools!You CAN create a healthy mindset,
increase wellness and positively improve your lifestyle by using these
simple, easy and practical tools. You may not realize that you
already posses these tools and with it, the power and ability to make
the necessary shifts, corrections and changes in your life that you
want!
These are a few of the most prevalent and proven tools, techniques,
strategies, methods, practices, abilities and wellness attitudes for
creating a successful life and improve your well-being. Allow me to share them with you.
Contact me for coaching or personal
instruction for any or all of these life enhancement wellness
tools!.
1) Focused Relaxation Technique
Developed by Renée Snider CH, a technique that is a combination of
relaxation, guided meditation and focused positive affirmations.
Utilizing this method results in stress reduction, release of
tensions, provides changes in thoughts and habits that promote desired
results or goals. Easily learned and practiced to toss out old habits
and create positive focus. The Focused Relaxation technique is
similar to
Dr. Herbert Benson’s “The Relaxation Response” at Harvard University.
2) Guided Imagery – Creative Visualization
It is a most important and powerful tool for achieving what we desire,
from practicing and perfecting a golf swing, to focusing on increasing
healing in our body. Guided Imagery is the process of forming
pictures, images (sometimes referred to as the language of the mind)
and thoughts in our mind using our five senses to create a “real
mental movie”. The mind perceives real and imagined images just the
same. Your mental images and pictures create emotions that directly
affect physiological responses in the body such as releasing chemicals
into the body. Now, these processes happen whether you are aware of it
or not. When you imagine or create a mental picture in your mind, it
helps to actually create a plan or path for your mind to use as a map
to enable it to create or manifest it in our life. You are using this
tool virtually all the time, everyday, constantly, randomly - aware of
it or not and getting both mental and physical positive and negative
feedback and results. To learn how to use this tool consciously and
with purpose key. Athletes have used visualization successfully to
enhance their sports performance for centuries. Guided imagery is
commonly considered routine in many hospitals, educational
institutions and by individuals everywhere to promote wellness and
increase overall good health. Research shows that
imagery/visualization can lower blood pressure, increase healing,
enhance your immune system, and reduce stress, and decrease pain and
so much more.
3) Meditation
There are many, many types and forms of meditation. Overall, it is a
time to quiet the mind, relax and become centered, focused, aware,
calm and peaceful; to go within oneself. When meditation is practiced
regularly, it is a way to change your attitude towards life.
Meditating can assist you in developing calmness, inner peace and
tranquility. Mind-body researchers found that monks who spent many
years in Buddhist meditation training show significantly greater brain
activity in areas associated with learning and happiness than those
who have never practiced meditation. Mediation has shown by medical
science to be effective in relieving stress and in offering numerous
benefits for physical and mental health, even possibly reversing some
of the effects of aging
4) Affirmations
An affirmation is a thought of a desired condition or thing. A
self-suggestion. Every thought you think and every word you speak is
an affirmation. Even your self-talk, your internal dialogue, is a
stream of affirmations. You are affirming and creating your life
experiences with every word and thought right now at this very moment!
Your beliefs are merely habitual thinking patterns – It is estimated
that a person thinks some 60,000 thoughts each day, many of which are
the same thought, over and over. Affirmations help to establish the
beliefs you desire. Affirmations are in the present tense to describe
conditions as you intend for them to be. You put aside any doubt and
affirm your desire in order to act as if your desired goal were
already a reality. In this sense, an affirmation can be any statement,
act or symbolic gesture that affirms the reality of your intentions.
Through the process of affirmation, we act as if our highest
aspirations are already a reality to help create such.
5) Optimism
A positive thought is one that supports you in being and achieving
your utmost best - thoughts that support you and increase your self
esteem, your happiness, and support the achievement of your goals,
desires, and dreams. Positive thinking creates a healthy mind. One can
think better, feel better and are able to fair what life challenges
with much better. “What we think about ourselves, becomes true for us.
Every thought we think, creates our future” according to Louise Hay,
Author, Counselor and self healed from cancer. Each one of us is
constantly thinking...judging, interpreting and commenting on the
world, ourselves and other people. However, most of us are not aware
that much of this inner dialogue may be holding us back from reaching
our highest potential. Famous positive thinkers include, Norman
Vincent Peale, Dr Wayne Dyer, Napoleon Hill, & Tony Robbins.
6) Gratitude
Gratitude is to give thanks, to be appreciative of all things in your
life such as people, pets, relationships, conditions (good or bad),
tangible and intangible things. Count your blessings! It is not a just
a one time “thank you” it is the practice of being grateful for all
things in your life, and knowing or believing that everything has a
place and purpose. Being thankful for what you have leads to
contentment and satisfaction, but if you always want more, it can
leave you feeling empty, frustrated and perhaps unfulfilled. Having an
“attitude of gratitude” is shown to affect physical and mental
well-being and may even lengthen your life. To quote, in part, an
article from Mid-Columbia Medical Center; “A series of studies show
gratitude promotes physical and emotional well-being, improves one's
ability to cope with stress and bolsters positive interaction with
others. Furthermore, research shows grateful individuals report having
more energy and less physical complaints than their non-grateful
counterparts! Positive emotions enhance heart health by interrupting
the stress response caused by negative emotions.” The practice of
being grateful is one that increases wellness.
7) Breath work – Breath Mastery – Breathing Techniques
Breath is life. The art and science of Breathing or Breath Work has
made its way to the cutting edge and it has found its place at the
forefront of mind-body medicine. Using the breath and breathing as a
tool for health, growth, and change. Breath work can be applied in
order to trigger a cascade of beneficial physiological (chemical,
neurological) responses. Breathing can unleash powerful healing forces
within the mind and body. Breath Mastery can be used to enhance and
accelerate human development and learning on many levels: physical,
emotional, psychological, spiritual, social) Leading medical experts
and authorities agree that breath awareness and conscious breathing
can be successfully applied in the prevention, intervention,
treatment, and recovery of a host of health conditions. The most
simple of breathing exercises and techniques can trigger relaxation
and relieve stress related issues. Just by performing some deep
breathing can have many positive health influences.
8) Forgiveness
The ability to forgive others and oneself is one of the best, but
sometimes the hardest of things to do. To forgive someone, let go of
ill feelings, releasing toxic emotions that consume us, has amazing
results for the forgiver, both mentally and physically. Chronic anger,
resentment, guilt, hurt, and hostility shows to have a debilitating
effect on us. These toxic emotions create an avalanche of stress
hormones. For example, cortisol makes you feel, tense, overwhelmed and
burdened. Over the long run, heightened cortisol levels impact the
immune system. And recent brain research has demonstrated that excess
cortisol levels impair your cognitive ability and damage cells in the
memory centers of your brain. Not necessarily forgetting, but
forgiving and letting go of anger can claim back your own power.
Research has shown that no matter how awful the issue, the ability to
forgive is a technique that can be learned. And health benefits seen
by forgiving include, improved self-esteem, reduced stress, increased
peace of mind, lowered blood pressure, reduced anxiety, sleep
improvement, etc. Clearly proven, forgiveness is one of the most
important things you can do for your long-term health and quality of
life.
9) Self –Hypnosis
According to Dr. David Speigel, associate chair of psychiatry at the
Stanford University School of Medicine, "Hypnosis puts a person in a
trance-like state so that they are more receptive to new suggestion,
and better able to control what is happening to the body or see a
problem from a new point of view." Approved by the American Medical
Association in 1958, Hypnosis is a normal state of consciousness that
you experience everyday like being engrossed in a good book or
television show.
Hypnosis is a state of mind where the conscious mind can be bypassed
and access is obtained to the subconscious to make incredible positive
changes to your thoughts. Unknown to you and the conscious mind are
thoughts in the subconscious that cause you to think, feel, act or
behave a particular way. The subconscious mind controls 95-99% of all
mental abilities and automatic functions of the body, like breathing,
blood pressure, body temp and so on. All your habits and long-term
memories are in your subconscious mind. When the mind is in this
“heightened state of awareness”, suggestions received are 100 to 300
times more powerful than any other time. This is the perfect
opportunity to input some powerful positive suggestions to assist in
changing your mindset for the better. The benefits of hypnosis are so
great and the applications are endless.
10) Laughter- - (now known as humor therapy)
Laughing is a really a most wonderful gift. Not only does it feel
good, but also it heals good. The process of having humor, being able
to see the lighter side of life, keeps one from taking life or
themselves too seriously so all things are manageable. It can put
things into prospective. The process of laughing, a really good, deep,
laugh from the belly can create instant relaxation, boost the immune
system, improve the functioning of the brain, lower blood pressure,
and helps to release negative feelings like anger and fear. Laughter
is also extremely contagious. It is amazing, but the ability to laugh
can change behavior. It increases energy and even enhances our ability
to connect with others.
11) Quantum Focusing ®
A highly successful Mental Martial Arts Program for taking charge of
one’s health and life. It is a specialized designed protocol to help
individuals to help themselves get into shape mentally, emotionally
and spiritually. Quantum Focusing® developed by Dr. Michael Ellner,
D.D., MSH, CHT & Alan Barsky, CHT, MH Especially effective for IBS
symptoms and other chronic conditions, but also successful for many
other issues.
12) Mindfulness
To be mindful is to be living in the present moment: being consciously
aware of and paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and actions
without any judgment whatsoever. You become an “observer of self”. To
notice what you are doing at this moment, forgoing any thoughts of the
future or past and remaining only in this very moment, the now. This
process, although not near as easy as it may sound, proves to be very
valuable in noticing what you pay attention to and focus on which can
allow you to see something that may need to be changed. Paying
attention to the present moment is said to be a great way to “keep on
top of our game”. “To think the thought and not have the thought
think you” from WellCoaches® Mindfulness Coaching. Slow down, be
mindful and live in this moment. The February 2004 issue of Harvard
Women’s Health Watch looked at how learning to focus the mind can help
you manage the stresses of everyday living.
People are readily asking their physicians for information on various
complementary therapies, techniques and approaches. Complementary is
just that, to complement conventional medical care, not instead of,
and used with the purpose to prevent disease and promote wellness.
64% of doctors reported that they have recommended complementary
treatments to their patients, while 36% indicated they have not.
Sixty-three percent would be willing to recommend them under some
circumstances and 65% believe that the National Institutes of Health
should fund research on CAM.
The survey was conducted by HCD Research and The Louis Finkelstein
Institute for Religion and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological
Seminary, during September 1-2, 2005. The margin of error for the
study was plus or minus 3% at a 95% level of confidence.
