By Flor Serquina
Depression is a negative mental state, a kind of disease that when left untreated may lead to a chronic situation. For some people, depression is a passing state. But for others, it is a progressive mental disorder that can later lead to serious intent of ending one's life. Knowing how to deal with depression is therefore a very important skill to learn.
Accept Your Situation
Dealing with depression starts with first realizing and accepting that you are suffering from it. It will be helpful to know the symptoms that are manifested by a person suffering from it. You will know that you are depressed when you experience a couple of the following symptoms. You may think that these symptoms are normal and negligible but if they happen to you in combination and they are recurring, it is a sign that you are probably depressed.
Signs of Depression
Physical manifestations of depression include very low energy level and loss of appetite or excessive appetite. You may be losing significant weight or gaining too much. You may either suffer from insomnia or you sleep excessively.
Emotionally, you are always bored and you are no longer feel any pleasure from usual activities that you formerly enjoyed. You have lost sexual drive and the ability to concentrate.
You have the feeling of excessive guilt and extreme worthlessness. You are always indecisive and at worst, you are contemplating suicide or you have the strong desire to do it.
Realizing that you suffer from depression is the first step in dealing with it. You can not start on the path of recovery unless you recognize it and you accept it.
How to deal with depression now that you are aware of the symptoms and you accept that you suffer from it?
Figure out the Cause of Depression
Deep and thorough soul-searching is the second step. Reach down to your deepest self and try to figure out what causes your depression. Depression is always a result of an experience that a person went through. This experience is ugly from his point of view and he does not like it. He hates it. Dig deep down yourself and try to see what this experience is.
Be Forgiving
After knowing the reason that causes you to be depressed, the third step on how to deal with depression would be forgiveness. Forgive yourself and forgive others. Forgive all the persons that have been part of that ugly experience that caused you to feel depressed.
This includes you. Forgive yourself and accept that you are only human, prone to make mistakes and to be a subject of other people's mistakes. You can not control everything and you can not be perfect. Forgive others and forgive yourself for whatever you have done. Accepting that you are only human and forgiving will set you free. It will liberate you from the experience and make you start living a normal life.
Have Fun
The fourth step on how to deal with depression is to have fun. After you realize what caused your depression and after you have forgiven all that needs to be forgiven, go out and have fun. Start living a normal life. Get involved with things that you enjoy and that bring you pleasure. Read a lot, see places, go to see movies and do many recreational things.
Most importantly, reach out to other people and talk to them a lot. You do not really have to tell them your experience although it will make you feel good if you can do it for even one time. You will have a broader concept about life and you will get to experience beautiful things. This is also a way to refresh your mind and free it from all the negative thoughts that haunt you.
If after the third step, you find that you are incapable of doing the fourth step, this is the time that you will need professional help. Seek a psychiatrist. You are already way too deep in your depression state and self-help may not be sufficient to lift you up. Psychiatrists have professional and clinical methods that can help on how to deal with depression.
Flor Serquina is a successful Webmaster and publisher of Facts-About-Depression.com. She provides more information on topics such as how to deal with depression, anxiety depression treatment center and depression warning signs that you can research on her website even while lounging in your living room.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Lose Weight Easy And Quick With Our 5 Top Tips
By Richard Ford
You can lose weight easy and quick with just a few simple tips. It really is not as hard as you might think once you know how.
1. Find someone who has already lost a lot of weight. This person will be able to share with you their tips on how to lose weight easy and quick. Not only that, but they will be able to give you important advice on how to cope psychologically with weight loss. There is plenty of this information that you can read, but when you hear it first hand from someone, it will give you an incredible boost that you simply cannot get from anywhere else.
2. Make a plan. Get a blank piece of paper and draw up a weight loss plan for between now and 3 months time. 3 months really is not a lot of time and will pass by quickly. Set a realistic target weight and work out how much you should be losing every two weeks. By regularly checking in on your progress as the weeks roll by, you will be more likely to lose weight easy and quick.
3. Don't associate food with happiness. Probably many of you are doing this and this is why you are overweight. Food should taste good - this is how nature works - food tastes good to encourage us to eat it. But don't eat food just because you are having an off day and do not feel happy. By realising why you used to eat too much, you can lose weight easy and quick and changing these habits for the rest of your life will make a huge difference in the long run.
4. Eat much more fibre. None of us get enough fibre in our diet and we need much more, especially to ensure good digestion and bowel movements. Fibre is also great because it won't get converted to fat in the gut. If you want to lose weight easy and quick then you must get a good dose of fibre in your diet. My recommendation is to eat something like unsweetened muesli or porridge for breakfast. This is a great way to get some good fibre into your diet.
5. Snack only on healthy food. Snacking is only bad for you if you eat chips, cakes and chocolates. If you carry on like this, you will never be able to lose weight easy and quick. If it is someone's birthday at work (isn't it always somebody's) then avoid eating any of the treats on offers. Remember, you eat healthily now and not the trash that everybody else eats. Instead, keep handy healthy food around such as apples, bananas and raisins. But don't eat too many of them - limit each snack to less than a fist sized portion of each, otherwise this is no longer a snack but a meal.
I hope you find these tips very useful. If you follow them to the letter then you should be able to lose weight easy and quick.
Looking for a way to incorporate weight loss tips into a full, easy to follow, tailored-for-you meal plan? Discover a secret new method at our website, Lose The Fat Quick.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
You can lose weight easy and quick with just a few simple tips. It really is not as hard as you might think once you know how.
1. Find someone who has already lost a lot of weight. This person will be able to share with you their tips on how to lose weight easy and quick. Not only that, but they will be able to give you important advice on how to cope psychologically with weight loss. There is plenty of this information that you can read, but when you hear it first hand from someone, it will give you an incredible boost that you simply cannot get from anywhere else.
2. Make a plan. Get a blank piece of paper and draw up a weight loss plan for between now and 3 months time. 3 months really is not a lot of time and will pass by quickly. Set a realistic target weight and work out how much you should be losing every two weeks. By regularly checking in on your progress as the weeks roll by, you will be more likely to lose weight easy and quick.
3. Don't associate food with happiness. Probably many of you are doing this and this is why you are overweight. Food should taste good - this is how nature works - food tastes good to encourage us to eat it. But don't eat food just because you are having an off day and do not feel happy. By realising why you used to eat too much, you can lose weight easy and quick and changing these habits for the rest of your life will make a huge difference in the long run.
4. Eat much more fibre. None of us get enough fibre in our diet and we need much more, especially to ensure good digestion and bowel movements. Fibre is also great because it won't get converted to fat in the gut. If you want to lose weight easy and quick then you must get a good dose of fibre in your diet. My recommendation is to eat something like unsweetened muesli or porridge for breakfast. This is a great way to get some good fibre into your diet.
5. Snack only on healthy food. Snacking is only bad for you if you eat chips, cakes and chocolates. If you carry on like this, you will never be able to lose weight easy and quick. If it is someone's birthday at work (isn't it always somebody's) then avoid eating any of the treats on offers. Remember, you eat healthily now and not the trash that everybody else eats. Instead, keep handy healthy food around such as apples, bananas and raisins. But don't eat too many of them - limit each snack to less than a fist sized portion of each, otherwise this is no longer a snack but a meal.
I hope you find these tips very useful. If you follow them to the letter then you should be able to lose weight easy and quick.
Looking for a way to incorporate weight loss tips into a full, easy to follow, tailored-for-you meal plan? Discover a secret new method at our website, Lose The Fat Quick.
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Lose Weight Fast - You Too Lazy Top 10 Diet Tips and Facts That Burn Fat
By Norb Czufis
While it's true that many people seem to think that to lose weight fast, has to do with starving yourself or taking the newest diet pill; it's much more complex than that! Those who have tried desperately to get slim quick with these automated 'do nothing' methods will admit to their inefficient results.
The truth is, you need to eat! Even to lose weight quickly, you still need to consume a lot of food on a daily, however it's what you consume that will determine the difference between shedding fat or just adding to it! I'll tell you this: Low fat and low calorie diets don't work. Why? This method actually slows down your bodies fat burning engine, and once you lose that first bit of weight, all efforts will come to what 's known as the 'dieting plateau'. Low carb diets are also popular now, however these often come with very strict and hard to follow routines that the average person simply will not follow.
Weight loss programs usually take the 'slow and steady' approach, and you usually have to buy into meal plans, dietary supplements and again follow a routine that probably clashes with your day to day living to the point where you just give up! Isn't there anything out there that offers an accelerated fat burning diet without side-effects or crazy routines? Ehemm, actually.... there is.
Perhaps you've heard of this product that is making its way around the internet right now, and is eating up (no pun) all the competition WITHOUT the need to fill your head with insane promises or false claims. In fact, this plan boasts a very high success rate, and this is the reason for its continued growth among those that are just dying (again, no pun) to lose weight fast.
Very appropriately titled 'FatLoss4Idiots', this fat filer program takes you on a step by step of how our society eats, consumes the worst things our bodies can handle, and what the necessary course of action is to lose 9 lbs every 11 days. Yes you read that right, the average person that follows this plan actually loses more than 1.3 lbs day, but most importantly-IT'S SAFE! Not many accelerated fat burning diets offer these results without having to include its side-effects (don't you love those new commercials where the side-effects are rambled on for 10+ seconds and seem to outweigh the desired results from the pill/product?) because there are NO side-effects to this, and your weight WILL indeed stay off this time.
So? Do you already eat 3 times a day or more? Good you MUST eat, now let's focus on what you should/shouldn't be doing with those meals, and what to do before and after those meals to make sure you stay the course and achieve that slamming body you've been dying to have! Even Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and the Atkins diet have nothing on the Fat Loss 4 Idiots plan. Why? Due to it's shear 'end results' that thousands can attest to (and that number is growing, while they are all shrinking!).
Stay the course, never give up, and don't wait another second to get your health and body to where it should be! Your future and family depend on it.
Norb Czufis is a Toronto based media producer and digital author for many publications, websites, and media of all kinds. He has worked with various fitness and model pros over the years developing their marketing and campaigning materials. "This has got to be one of the crappiest designed sites out there, however the content and weight loss plan is by far the best!"- I would recommend this to anyone, even my own mom (don't tell her I said that though!) please have a look - http://www.fatfiler.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
While it's true that many people seem to think that to lose weight fast, has to do with starving yourself or taking the newest diet pill; it's much more complex than that! Those who have tried desperately to get slim quick with these automated 'do nothing' methods will admit to their inefficient results.
The truth is, you need to eat! Even to lose weight quickly, you still need to consume a lot of food on a daily, however it's what you consume that will determine the difference between shedding fat or just adding to it! I'll tell you this: Low fat and low calorie diets don't work. Why? This method actually slows down your bodies fat burning engine, and once you lose that first bit of weight, all efforts will come to what 's known as the 'dieting plateau'. Low carb diets are also popular now, however these often come with very strict and hard to follow routines that the average person simply will not follow.
Weight loss programs usually take the 'slow and steady' approach, and you usually have to buy into meal plans, dietary supplements and again follow a routine that probably clashes with your day to day living to the point where you just give up! Isn't there anything out there that offers an accelerated fat burning diet without side-effects or crazy routines? Ehemm, actually.... there is.
Perhaps you've heard of this product that is making its way around the internet right now, and is eating up (no pun) all the competition WITHOUT the need to fill your head with insane promises or false claims. In fact, this plan boasts a very high success rate, and this is the reason for its continued growth among those that are just dying (again, no pun) to lose weight fast.
Very appropriately titled 'FatLoss4Idiots', this fat filer program takes you on a step by step of how our society eats, consumes the worst things our bodies can handle, and what the necessary course of action is to lose 9 lbs every 11 days. Yes you read that right, the average person that follows this plan actually loses more than 1.3 lbs day, but most importantly-IT'S SAFE! Not many accelerated fat burning diets offer these results without having to include its side-effects (don't you love those new commercials where the side-effects are rambled on for 10+ seconds and seem to outweigh the desired results from the pill/product?) because there are NO side-effects to this, and your weight WILL indeed stay off this time.
So? Do you already eat 3 times a day or more? Good you MUST eat, now let's focus on what you should/shouldn't be doing with those meals, and what to do before and after those meals to make sure you stay the course and achieve that slamming body you've been dying to have! Even Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and the Atkins diet have nothing on the Fat Loss 4 Idiots plan. Why? Due to it's shear 'end results' that thousands can attest to (and that number is growing, while they are all shrinking!).
Stay the course, never give up, and don't wait another second to get your health and body to where it should be! Your future and family depend on it.
Norb Czufis is a Toronto based media producer and digital author for many publications, websites, and media of all kinds. He has worked with various fitness and model pros over the years developing their marketing and campaigning materials. "This has got to be one of the crappiest designed sites out there, however the content and weight loss plan is by far the best!"- I would recommend this to anyone, even my own mom (don't tell her I said that though!) please have a look - http://www.fatfiler.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Tips for getting to sleep faster and sleeping better
by Josh
For practically all my life I’ve had trouble going to sleep. I’m not an insomniac…I just think a lot. I’ll lie in bed thinking about what I want to do tomorrow or what I should have done today or how much I love eating cold pizza or how absurdly messy my desk is….you get the idea. And when I say I have trouble going to sleep…I’m not talking 20 or 30 minutes…I’m talking 2 or 3 hours. Because what will happen is after about 45 minutes to an hour of trying to go to sleep, I start thinking about how I’m not asleep but I should be…and thus the cycle begins.
Now, I may be a bit of an extreme case here, but I know for a fact that there are others out there who have trouble going to sleep. So, I’ve pieced together various bits of advice I’ve received over the past few months that have not only helps me get to sleep faster, but helps me get a better nights sleep.
1> Don’t watch TV or even so much as look at a computer screen atleast 30 minutes before you lie down. The light from both a television as well as a computer monitor mimic the same intensity of light as sunlight. This fools your body and brain into thinking it’s nowhere near time for sleep.
2> Drink milk. Milk has an amino acid in it called Tryptophan that increase the levels of serotonin and/or melatonin in the brain which slow down brain activity. It’s science folks.
3> Go to bed when you are tired. Different strokes for different folks here. Just because your wife goes to bed at 9PM doesn’t mean you are ready. You might only require seven and half hours of sleep while she might require ten. If you aren’t tired, do something low-key until you are, like read a book, play solitaire (NOT on your computer), or play with some legos.
4> Reserve the bed for bed things (ie sleep and sex). I for one don’t strictly follow this rule as I’ll read some before I go to sleep, but for some people this is a must.
5> Meditate. No, don’t cross your legs and hum, but focus on relaxing…if that makes sense. Take deep, long breaths. Tense each muscle one at a time from head to toe. Focusing on doing this takes your mind off of other things and you’ll be in lala land in no time.
6> Excercise during the day. I emphasize during the day. Excercising at night just gets everything going instead of shutting down for sleep. But excercising during the day tires the muscles out and makes for a solid nights sleep.
Source : to-done.com
For practically all my life I’ve had trouble going to sleep. I’m not an insomniac…I just think a lot. I’ll lie in bed thinking about what I want to do tomorrow or what I should have done today or how much I love eating cold pizza or how absurdly messy my desk is….you get the idea. And when I say I have trouble going to sleep…I’m not talking 20 or 30 minutes…I’m talking 2 or 3 hours. Because what will happen is after about 45 minutes to an hour of trying to go to sleep, I start thinking about how I’m not asleep but I should be…and thus the cycle begins.
Now, I may be a bit of an extreme case here, but I know for a fact that there are others out there who have trouble going to sleep. So, I’ve pieced together various bits of advice I’ve received over the past few months that have not only helps me get to sleep faster, but helps me get a better nights sleep.
1> Don’t watch TV or even so much as look at a computer screen atleast 30 minutes before you lie down. The light from both a television as well as a computer monitor mimic the same intensity of light as sunlight. This fools your body and brain into thinking it’s nowhere near time for sleep.
2> Drink milk. Milk has an amino acid in it called Tryptophan that increase the levels of serotonin and/or melatonin in the brain which slow down brain activity. It’s science folks.
3> Go to bed when you are tired. Different strokes for different folks here. Just because your wife goes to bed at 9PM doesn’t mean you are ready. You might only require seven and half hours of sleep while she might require ten. If you aren’t tired, do something low-key until you are, like read a book, play solitaire (NOT on your computer), or play with some legos.
4> Reserve the bed for bed things (ie sleep and sex). I for one don’t strictly follow this rule as I’ll read some before I go to sleep, but for some people this is a must.
5> Meditate. No, don’t cross your legs and hum, but focus on relaxing…if that makes sense. Take deep, long breaths. Tense each muscle one at a time from head to toe. Focusing on doing this takes your mind off of other things and you’ll be in lala land in no time.
6> Excercise during the day. I emphasize during the day. Excercising at night just gets everything going instead of shutting down for sleep. But excercising during the day tires the muscles out and makes for a solid nights sleep.
Source : to-done.com
Friday, November 2, 2007
Meditation
Meditation describes a state of concentrated attention on some object of thought or awareness. It usually involves turning the attention inward to a single point of reference.[1] Meditation is often recognized as a component of eastern religions, where it has been practiced for over 5,000 years.[2][3][4] Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual and/or psychophysical practices which can emphasize development of either a high degree of mental concentration, or the apparent converse, mental quiescence.
The word meditation comes from the Latin meditatio, which originally indicated every type of physical or intellectual exercise, then later evolved into the more specific meaning "contemplation."
Eastern spiritual teachings, including meditation, have been adapted and increasingly practiced in Western culture. [5]
More... wikipedia.org
The word meditation comes from the Latin meditatio, which originally indicated every type of physical or intellectual exercise, then later evolved into the more specific meaning "contemplation."
Eastern spiritual teachings, including meditation, have been adapted and increasingly practiced in Western culture. [5]
More... wikipedia.org
Monday, October 15, 2007
Laughter yoga takes fake chuckles and turns them into better health for people from India to Ventura
The best medicine
By Kim Lamb Gregory (Contact)
The candle-scented, meditative Camarillo Yoga Center bursts into what sounds more like a toddler's birthday party on Saturday mornings as yoga instructor Roni Tagliaferri leads a group of adults practicing a modern twist on an ancient practice.
It's called laughter yoga.
"Laughter yoga is a combination of playful laughter exercises and yoga-style breathing, which, in combination, produces laughter," Tagliaferri explained. "We don't use laughter as an emotion; we use laughter as a motion — a physical exercise. And when we do that, real laughter happens spontaneously."
This month marks a year since the Camarillo Yoga Center began offering the free class. It seems to be going well. Bright and early on Saturday mornings — at 7:15 — anywhere from a dozen to two dozen adults ranging in age from 20 to nearly 90 leave their shoes and their inhibitions at the door, then pad onto the polished wood floor intending to act as goofy as possible for the next hour.
There are no neatly spaced yoga mats. Instead, the participants move around the room clapping, breathing deeply and erupting with rhythmic, purposeful belly laughs.
"Ho ho ha-ha-ha!" Tagliaferri led the class in the first chant, instructing them to breathe from the sheet of muscle below the lungs called the diaphragm.
After some clapping and laughing, Tagliaferri had everybody clap and chant a congratulatory, "Veddy good, veddy good!" followed by a "Yay!" as everybody shot both arms in the air and grinned at the ceiling.
At first, the laughter in the group was simulated, with Tagliaferri leading. After about 10 minutes of watching one another march around the room "ho-ho-ha-ha"-ing, the laughter began to bloom into genuine mirth ranging from cascading giggles to throaty guffaws.
"When you do these laughter exercises and you're looking at each other, we wind up laughing our heads off," Tagliaferri said. "There's something contagiously funny about watching adults shedding their inhibitions."
"I thought it would be a little bit hokey at first, but about halfway through the class I'm realizing, Hey, I'm ready to go now,'" said laughter yoga student Andy Barton of Camarillo. "I could now go do a 15-mile bike ride or go for a hike. I was pretty amazed."
The benefits of a belly laugh
The beauty of laughter yoga, Tagliaferri said, is that participants reap the physiological and psychological benefits of laughter, regardless of whether it's real or simulated.
"Your body cannot tell the difference; your body reacts as if it's real," confirmed Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from India who co-founded the practice of laughter yoga in 1995 with his wife, yoga instructor Madhuri Kataria.
Laughter yoga was born out of his own stress, he said. Between editing a magazine and his work as a doctor in Mumbai, India, he wasn't laughing much.
"In my quest for dollars and name fame, I was almost drained out," Kataria said in a telephone interview from San Jose, where he was visiting this month. "In March of 1995, I started writing an article for my magazine about laughter as the best medicine. I thought, Hey, this is what is missing in my life.'"
Kataria remembers exactly when his epiphany struck. "An idea flashed in my mind at 4 a.m. on March 13, 1995," he said. "I could hardly wait for three hours for 7 a.m."
At 7 every morning, Kataria and hundreds of others walk in local parks, which, like yoga, is a mainstream activity in India, he explained. He thought that social venue would be the perfect place to start a spontaneous "laughter club."
"At first people said: It's not a good idea to laugh in a public park. People will call you mad,'" Kataria said. "I got all of five people. We started telling jokes and laughing. In one week we were 55 people."
After a while the group ran out of jokes, and some of the humor took a negative and salty turn. The casual group seemed destined to disband until Kataria got a second epiphany after reading a book on emotions and health.
"There I read something profound about laughter," he said. "If you can't make it, fake it. If you can't laugh, pretend laugh."
It was, he realized, very much like yoga. Just as the physical poses in yoga are designed to pave the way to a deeper sense of spiritual connectedness, the physical act of laughing could lead the way to an improved mental and physical state.
"So, with about 50 people we started Hahahahahaha,' and people started cracking up for real," he said.
The behavior of laughing — without the jokes or humor catalyst — still resulted in an attitude change.
Laughter yoga had begun. Today, more than 6,000 laughter clubs have sprung up in 60 countries around the world. There are centers, such as the American School of Laughter Yoga in Pasadena, that certify instructors in laughter yoga.
Laughter yoga had begun. Today, more than 6,000 laughter clubs have sprung up in 60 countries around the world. There are centers, such as the American School of Laughter Yoga in Pasadena, that certify instructors in laughter yoga.
"(For) people who want to train as certified laughter leaders, there are no requirements except the need to bring a big smile," said founder Sebastien Gendry, who opened his school three years ago.
Gendry said certified laughter yoga instructors train for a total of about 12 hours over two days. Since he opened three years ago, Gendry has trained about 500 people from all over the world.
A physiological boost?
Among the students in Tagliaferri's Saturday class is Marilyn May, 65, of Ventura, who is fighting metastasized bone cancer.
"I came because I realized that my life was way too serious; I wasn't laughing enough," she said.
She found a listing for the laughter yoga class and decided to try it.
"I'm finding more humor in life. I feel more able to play, like a child. I had forgotten how," she said.
She said she believes that an improved attitude may help her both physically and mentally as she engages in the fight of her life. Heck, she figures, it can't hurt.
Tagliaferri had breast cancer 12 years ago and is convinced laughter yoga has helped keep her healthy.
"Cancer survivors need it more than anybody," she said.
There are studies to support the concept that laughter is indeed good medicine.
A 2007 study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore showed that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.
Kataria is in the process of publishing the results of a study he conducted in Bangalore, India, last year among 50 professionals in high-stress jobs.
After they participated in seven 20-minute laughter yoga sessions over 18 days, Kataria saw the participants' average blood pressure drop by 6 percent and the cortisol level in their saliva reduce by about 8 percent. Coritisol, he explained, is a hormone released when the body is under stress.
Told he had little chance of surviving his degenerative heart disease and a destructive form of arthritis, Cousins developed a recovery program based, in part, on a steady diet of Marx Brothers movies. He documented his journey in a book and movie both called "Anatomy of an Illness."
Told he had little chance of surviving his degenerative heart disease and a destructive form of arthritis, Cousins developed a recovery program based, in part, on a steady diet of Marx Brothers movies. He documented his journey in a book and movie both called "Anatomy of an Illness."
"I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and, not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."
Cousins died of heart failure Nov. 30, 1990, in Los Angeles years after his doctors predicted. It had been 26 years since his heart disease diagnosis and 16 years since his arthritis diagnosis.
From left to right
The childlike behavior at the root of laughter yoga, Tagliaferri explained, is designed to get responsibility-laden adults in touch with the right hemisphere of the brain, which houses creativity, imagination and a sense of invention. Paying the bills, getting to work on time and other adult tasks tend to fall to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where functions such as mathematics, reasoning, problem-solving and language are rooted.
One way laughter yoga ignites the right hemisphere of the brain is by speaking gibberish, she said. At one point in the session, Tagliaferri encourages everyone to walk around the room yakking away as loudly and expressively as they can, using any phonetic jumble that drops onto their tongues.
"Ge-DEE-be-duh-dum-doo-bee-blah?" One participant cocks her head at another, obviously expecting an answer.
The other smiles in mock understanding and nods, gushing: "FLAY-boo, wishee kadoom gadohdohdoh!"
"We don't talk real language, because if we talk real language, we're right back in the left brain," Tagliaferri said.
Psychological benefits
English teacher Anne Frankl drives from her Simi Valley home to Camarillo on Saturdays because laughter yoga has changed the way she does her job.
"I had been known probably due to stress as the angry teacher,'" she said. "Now the kids were killing each other to try to get into my classes."
Camarillo clinical psychologist Barbara Morris-Jensen, who also is a regular at laughter yoga classes, says laughter is not a cure for psychological ailments such as depression, but it can certainly help discharge festering emotions which can worsen depression.
"Laughter is the opposite side of anger. If you're someone who yells a lot, laughing can help you release those same emotions and you can find yourself moving out of anger and into happiness."
Laughter yoga enthusiast Raye Gabriel of Camarillo will celebrate her 90th birthday in November. She doesn't know why laughter yoga works, she said; it just does.
"It just opens up my heart really. It makes me feel good," she said. "Brings in the day in a beautiful way."
Source: venturacountystar.com
By Kim Lamb Gregory (Contact)
The candle-scented, meditative Camarillo Yoga Center bursts into what sounds more like a toddler's birthday party on Saturday mornings as yoga instructor Roni Tagliaferri leads a group of adults practicing a modern twist on an ancient practice.
It's called laughter yoga.
"Laughter yoga is a combination of playful laughter exercises and yoga-style breathing, which, in combination, produces laughter," Tagliaferri explained. "We don't use laughter as an emotion; we use laughter as a motion — a physical exercise. And when we do that, real laughter happens spontaneously."
This month marks a year since the Camarillo Yoga Center began offering the free class. It seems to be going well. Bright and early on Saturday mornings — at 7:15 — anywhere from a dozen to two dozen adults ranging in age from 20 to nearly 90 leave their shoes and their inhibitions at the door, then pad onto the polished wood floor intending to act as goofy as possible for the next hour.
There are no neatly spaced yoga mats. Instead, the participants move around the room clapping, breathing deeply and erupting with rhythmic, purposeful belly laughs.
"Ho ho ha-ha-ha!" Tagliaferri led the class in the first chant, instructing them to breathe from the sheet of muscle below the lungs called the diaphragm.
After some clapping and laughing, Tagliaferri had everybody clap and chant a congratulatory, "Veddy good, veddy good!" followed by a "Yay!" as everybody shot both arms in the air and grinned at the ceiling.
At first, the laughter in the group was simulated, with Tagliaferri leading. After about 10 minutes of watching one another march around the room "ho-ho-ha-ha"-ing, the laughter began to bloom into genuine mirth ranging from cascading giggles to throaty guffaws.
"When you do these laughter exercises and you're looking at each other, we wind up laughing our heads off," Tagliaferri said. "There's something contagiously funny about watching adults shedding their inhibitions."
"I thought it would be a little bit hokey at first, but about halfway through the class I'm realizing, Hey, I'm ready to go now,'" said laughter yoga student Andy Barton of Camarillo. "I could now go do a 15-mile bike ride or go for a hike. I was pretty amazed."
The benefits of a belly laugh
The beauty of laughter yoga, Tagliaferri said, is that participants reap the physiological and psychological benefits of laughter, regardless of whether it's real or simulated.
"Your body cannot tell the difference; your body reacts as if it's real," confirmed Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from India who co-founded the practice of laughter yoga in 1995 with his wife, yoga instructor Madhuri Kataria.
Laughter yoga was born out of his own stress, he said. Between editing a magazine and his work as a doctor in Mumbai, India, he wasn't laughing much.
"In my quest for dollars and name fame, I was almost drained out," Kataria said in a telephone interview from San Jose, where he was visiting this month. "In March of 1995, I started writing an article for my magazine about laughter as the best medicine. I thought, Hey, this is what is missing in my life.'"
Kataria remembers exactly when his epiphany struck. "An idea flashed in my mind at 4 a.m. on March 13, 1995," he said. "I could hardly wait for three hours for 7 a.m."
At 7 every morning, Kataria and hundreds of others walk in local parks, which, like yoga, is a mainstream activity in India, he explained. He thought that social venue would be the perfect place to start a spontaneous "laughter club."
"At first people said: It's not a good idea to laugh in a public park. People will call you mad,'" Kataria said. "I got all of five people. We started telling jokes and laughing. In one week we were 55 people."
After a while the group ran out of jokes, and some of the humor took a negative and salty turn. The casual group seemed destined to disband until Kataria got a second epiphany after reading a book on emotions and health.
"There I read something profound about laughter," he said. "If you can't make it, fake it. If you can't laugh, pretend laugh."
It was, he realized, very much like yoga. Just as the physical poses in yoga are designed to pave the way to a deeper sense of spiritual connectedness, the physical act of laughing could lead the way to an improved mental and physical state.
"So, with about 50 people we started Hahahahahaha,' and people started cracking up for real," he said.
The behavior of laughing — without the jokes or humor catalyst — still resulted in an attitude change.
Laughter yoga had begun. Today, more than 6,000 laughter clubs have sprung up in 60 countries around the world. There are centers, such as the American School of Laughter Yoga in Pasadena, that certify instructors in laughter yoga.
Laughter yoga had begun. Today, more than 6,000 laughter clubs have sprung up in 60 countries around the world. There are centers, such as the American School of Laughter Yoga in Pasadena, that certify instructors in laughter yoga.
"(For) people who want to train as certified laughter leaders, there are no requirements except the need to bring a big smile," said founder Sebastien Gendry, who opened his school three years ago.
Gendry said certified laughter yoga instructors train for a total of about 12 hours over two days. Since he opened three years ago, Gendry has trained about 500 people from all over the world.
A physiological boost?
Among the students in Tagliaferri's Saturday class is Marilyn May, 65, of Ventura, who is fighting metastasized bone cancer.
"I came because I realized that my life was way too serious; I wasn't laughing enough," she said.
She found a listing for the laughter yoga class and decided to try it.
"I'm finding more humor in life. I feel more able to play, like a child. I had forgotten how," she said.
She said she believes that an improved attitude may help her both physically and mentally as she engages in the fight of her life. Heck, she figures, it can't hurt.
Tagliaferri had breast cancer 12 years ago and is convinced laughter yoga has helped keep her healthy.
"Cancer survivors need it more than anybody," she said.
There are studies to support the concept that laughter is indeed good medicine.
A 2007 study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore showed that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.
Kataria is in the process of publishing the results of a study he conducted in Bangalore, India, last year among 50 professionals in high-stress jobs.
After they participated in seven 20-minute laughter yoga sessions over 18 days, Kataria saw the participants' average blood pressure drop by 6 percent and the cortisol level in their saliva reduce by about 8 percent. Coritisol, he explained, is a hormone released when the body is under stress.
Told he had little chance of surviving his degenerative heart disease and a destructive form of arthritis, Cousins developed a recovery program based, in part, on a steady diet of Marx Brothers movies. He documented his journey in a book and movie both called "Anatomy of an Illness."
Told he had little chance of surviving his degenerative heart disease and a destructive form of arthritis, Cousins developed a recovery program based, in part, on a steady diet of Marx Brothers movies. He documented his journey in a book and movie both called "Anatomy of an Illness."
"I made the joyous discovery that 10 minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep," he reported. "When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and, not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval."
Cousins died of heart failure Nov. 30, 1990, in Los Angeles years after his doctors predicted. It had been 26 years since his heart disease diagnosis and 16 years since his arthritis diagnosis.
From left to right
The childlike behavior at the root of laughter yoga, Tagliaferri explained, is designed to get responsibility-laden adults in touch with the right hemisphere of the brain, which houses creativity, imagination and a sense of invention. Paying the bills, getting to work on time and other adult tasks tend to fall to the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where functions such as mathematics, reasoning, problem-solving and language are rooted.
One way laughter yoga ignites the right hemisphere of the brain is by speaking gibberish, she said. At one point in the session, Tagliaferri encourages everyone to walk around the room yakking away as loudly and expressively as they can, using any phonetic jumble that drops onto their tongues.
"Ge-DEE-be-duh-dum-doo-bee-blah?" One participant cocks her head at another, obviously expecting an answer.
The other smiles in mock understanding and nods, gushing: "FLAY-boo, wishee kadoom gadohdohdoh!"
"We don't talk real language, because if we talk real language, we're right back in the left brain," Tagliaferri said.
Psychological benefits
English teacher Anne Frankl drives from her Simi Valley home to Camarillo on Saturdays because laughter yoga has changed the way she does her job.
"I had been known probably due to stress as the angry teacher,'" she said. "Now the kids were killing each other to try to get into my classes."
Camarillo clinical psychologist Barbara Morris-Jensen, who also is a regular at laughter yoga classes, says laughter is not a cure for psychological ailments such as depression, but it can certainly help discharge festering emotions which can worsen depression.
"Laughter is the opposite side of anger. If you're someone who yells a lot, laughing can help you release those same emotions and you can find yourself moving out of anger and into happiness."
Laughter yoga enthusiast Raye Gabriel of Camarillo will celebrate her 90th birthday in November. She doesn't know why laughter yoga works, she said; it just does.
"It just opens up my heart really. It makes me feel good," she said. "Brings in the day in a beautiful way."
Source: venturacountystar.com
Friday, October 12, 2007
The 3 step approach to a positive attitude
By Arun Goel
The essence of yoga is to be positive in any situation that we find ourselves in.
When we are positive, we find that our interactions with the world and ourselves become brighter, more productive and perpetuate the ‘feel good’ factor. This in turn makes us healthier and more peaceful.
But how do we develop this positivism. The answer can be found in ‘Attitudinal’ Yoga.
According to this concept of yoga, the path to a positive attitude can be found through a 3-step approach, namely,
Awareness
Acceptance; and
Attitude
Let us examine these three components:
Awareness:
The first step is to be aware of what and how we are thinking. We must train ourselves to be aware at all times of how our mind is working – the thoughts, thinking patterns and tendencies. Make this a habit. If it is difficult, the meditation technique of antar mouna and Yoga Nidra are methods which help us do this. These techniques help in the withdrawing of our senses to introspect.
Acceptance:
Awareness, however, brings about a heightened sensitivity to the issues. We tend to become judgemental and critical of ourselves or of others. This has the danger of sending us into a vicious cycle of negativity UNLESS we learn to accept what we see and understand.
Have an attitude that “it is ok” to think how we are. Just be a witness to this fact and believe that God likes us for what we are. This acceptance leads to a genuine love and compassion, which forms the bedrock of positive thinking.
For example, if you are angry with your partner for not doing something as per your wishes, accept that it is natural for you to face such emotions. Accept that it is because of certain archetypes or ‘samskaras’ that lie embedded in your subconscious. Likewise, accept that it is okay for your partner to behave that way, which is based on his perception and the elements embedded in his subconscious.
With practice, you will find that this helps in surmounting negativity to a large extent.
Attitude:
Once we have accepted what lies within our thoughts, we can actually start working upon how we ‘want’ to look at that particular person, situation or thing. Yoga techniques assist us in changing our attitude. The ‘Sankalpa’ or resolve that we set in Yoga Nidra helps in shaping our mind. This resolve in yoga is always in the nature of a positive statement – such as “I am becoming more positive every day”. Such inputs fed into the mind help in shaping our attitude into one of positivism.
Let us look at changing attitude with the following example. Suppose you have a negative attitude toward someone. So much so that he puts you in a bad mood the moment you see him. For a moment, find just one small thing or quality in him that you do like. Now remember that one positive thing whenever you meet or interact with him. Gradually, you will see that your feelings towards him will become more positive and things start looking up.
Following these three guidelines and you will find yourself becoming more positive. Remember that every thought generated in the mind is also experienced by every cell in the body. That is why on a ‘good’ day you feel yourself exercising better with more flexibility, while on a ‘bad’ day you feel stiff and lethargic.
Ultimately, positive thinking affects the body vibrations in a positive manner. This in turn, affects the vibrations around us, which, in turn, affect the situations around us. This helps in relieving our suffering and leading a harmonious life.
Courtesy: http://www.healthandyoga.com
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