Salubrious Life

Do You Need A Spring Cleanse?

     Yes, it is here. Spring!  And it is the time of year to do spring-cleaning.  You clean out your closet, your home and maybe you should consider cleaning out your body.  Spring is the cleansing healing season.  It is the time of year where nature produces foods that have cleansing properties.  It is also the time to take a good look at your life and make a new plan. 

     If you have thought about doing a cleanse but did not know if you really need one, read the list below.  If you have any of the following, you are most likely in need of a spring intestinal cleansing.

     1.  Any disease or malfunction of the body.

     2.  Constipation (less than one bowel movement per day).

     3.  Bad breath.

     4.  Body odor.

     5.  Flatulence.

     6.  Dry and hard stools (they should be soft and break up with you flush).

     7.  Poor complexion.  Acne is a bowel problem.

     8.  Lack of energy.

     9.  Obesity or unusual thinness.

    10.  A history of taking antibiotics.  They completely destroy the friendly intestinal     flora.

     11.  Foul-smelling stools (unless you eat onions an garlic) or off-color stools (they should be light to dark brown).

    12.  Bowel movements that take more than 30 seconds or require pushing or grunting (they should be quick and easy).

There are many different cleansing regiments available.  Please consult with a holistic health counselor and your doctor prior to starting a cleanse program.   

Fitness on a Budget

         Great!! You finally made that decision that you need to obtain some guidance with your fitness and wellness program.  You are on a budget and can not afford a gym membership, or on going personal training or nutritional services.  But, you can afford 2 or 3 sessions of these services.  So what do you do?

          One solution is to find a fitness professional that offers all these services put together.  You want to ensure that the fitness professional is certified to offer training and guidance in fitness and nutrition.  The trainer could design a program for you that could be done at home or in a park.  The trainer can develop 2-3 variations to your workout program so you don’t get bored and your body will continue to get results.  Once you have your program from the trainer, you can get nutritional guidance also.  Usually one session would be sufficient for you to obtain recommendations for your dietary lifestyle.  All in all, this should take no more than 3 sessions for everything.

         If this is still not in your budget, then you could go to the internet and obtain on-line nutritional support and training advice.  A website known for its great results for on-line nutritional guidance is www.anitahasaplanforyou.com.  This site is great in that it offers cost effective ways to obtain nutritional guidance and offers a maintenance program as well.

         If this is still not in your budget, then do the following: jump rope for 20-40 minutes, perform 3 sets of 15 repetitions of push-ups and crunches.  This simple routine done 3-4 times per week will get you in shape and keep you in shape.  After completion of this routine perform a full body stretch.

What happened to discipline at the office?

In an article recently written in the Boston Globe, here were some astonishing research findings:

Office distractions eat up 2.1 hours a day for the average worker.

Employees devote an average of 11 minutes to a project before being distracted.

It takes workers 25 minutes to return to their task, if they return at all.

People switch activities every 3 minutes on average. 

Fifty five percent of 1,000 respondents in one survey said they check email messages either immediately or shortly after the message arrives.

Curbing these distractions in a highly stimulated, technologically advanced society has become overwhelmingly challenging.  It is probably hard for many of us to think back to what we did before we had many of these distractions eating up our work day. The most interesting part about this is that we are voluntarily interrupting ourselves most of the time; Perhaps it is our increasing lack of self-discipline to stay focused on a task for a long period of time, before hastily clicking our personal in-box, making a personal call, chatting with our cubicle neighbors, or doing anything else that may inhibit our work-place productivity. 

Practice Yoga: Find your consistent self

For those of you who practice yoga, you may have heard your teacher say "relax your body and move into the posture slowly with focused attention on yourself."  "Try to relax your thoughts."  "Use your breath as an anchor."  Such words are approaches taken to try and guide a student into creating a better mind/body connection, heightening one's awareness of the importance of the unity between the two in order to achieve better balance, even beyond the physical realm. 

As a yoga teacher myself, one of the most rewarding aspects of a class is viewing the students lying in savasana - trying to let go of the stresses of their day, appearing relaxed, trying to be "still."  While it may appear that the students are in a relaxed state, the teacher is not a mind reader and often the student's inner self is in an entirely different state. The mind has such a powerful influence over our being, it can easily thwart our ability to relax inwardly and enjoy the present moment of relaxation.  Our seemingly relaxed, unmoving outer body (and quite possibly breath) can in fact be the result of a nagging thought we cannot escape from.  It is in the awareness of these nagging thoughts and bringing oneself out of the distraction that is the true essence of a growing journey into the self-improved.

In a recently written article in Yoga Journal titled "Meditation in Motion" Judith Lasater explains, "As I pay attention to what arises, I learn to see myself and my reactions more clearly; as I see myself more clearly, I begin to understand that my reactions are habits that I can let go of. This process is at the core of spiritual practice."

As a consistent student of yoga practice, understanding what arises in any given yoga class and learning to let go, is the most rewarding part of my personal practice.  It can take years of practice to experience even a single class where both the outer self and the inner self are in sync, consistent with each other, and without a contradictory experience.  Take the time, be patient, and find your unified and consistent self.