10 Tips for Looking Good Each Day

Some people think that looking good is about being perfectly groomed, as if from a glossy magazine. But some people look a little wild, quirky and dishevelled and yet something about them means they always look wonderful.

Here are tips for looking good each day:

- A ready smile and cheery disposition often feature high. Someone who's warm, friendly and enjoys life will radiate an inner glow and beauty.

- Be ready to say yes, be enthusiastic, join in and be willing to have a go. Attractive people often have a genuine interest in life. Have something in your diary to look forward to.

- Maintain a positive mindset by focusing on the good things that happen each day, even the small things like a stranger's smile, a compliment, the view from your window.

- Don't take things personally. Someone else's bad mood may be about stuff that's on their mind. Protect yourself from external stress.

- Look after yourself. Your health affects how you look. Exercise regularly, with breaks for nutritious food and water. Support good quality sleep; we all feel better when we've slept on a problem. Introduce positive habits; switch off your technology, allow time to relax before bed.

- Forgive yourself your shortcomings and mistakes. Value constructive criticism when a learning point's included. Treat yourself with the same compassion you would another person.

- Engage professional help to deal with any negative patterns of behaviour or issues you may have. A good counsellor or hypnotherapist can support you in becoming stronger and more confident.

- Accept help. Let friends, family or colleagues provide support, ideas and input. It may be appropriate to ask for help sometimes. Communicate regularly and invest time and attention in your relationships.

- Consider your appearance, the impression you give. We may have an everyday 'uniform' in order to dress quickly and look acceptable. Impartially assess your style. Do you need to refresh your image, your makeup? Visit a different hairdresser or barber so you're styled by a fresh pair of eyes.

- Do things that make you happy. Read a book, enjoy a hobby or interest. Listen to music or join a stimulating evening class. Things that make you happy help you to look better.

Looking good comes not just from being clean, tidy and well-groomed. It's also important to invest time and attention in your mental and emotional wellbeing too.

https://ezinearticles.com/?10-Tips-for-Looking-Good-Each-Day&id=9984415

How to Transform Your Life With Affirmations

                

Why affirmations are good for your health

You've probably heard about affirmations and how a mind filled with positive words can contribute to a more peaceful and grounded inner life. But studies have also proven, that people exercising the method of positive affirmations, tend to grow muscles way faster and find it easier to become physically strong in most cases.

Being optimistic and life affirming is directly connected to a greater resilience against stress and all sorts of physical diseases.

At the same time, your face will become softer, wrinkles may vanish and your skin will become cleaner. There will be a gorgeous shine radiating from you. Expect to get more and more compliments for your good looks which boost your self-confidence and self-love even more.

Other health benefits include lower blood pressure, better overall circulation and a much reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

Ever heard about the placebo effect? Patients given some fake medicine have shown to experience healing just by having a thought planted into their minds: They believe in the cure and therefore get cured indeed.

Affirmations work just that way!

Starting your day with positive affirmations is most effective since you can carry that vibrant feeling throughout the whole day.

Also, nourishing your mind with peaceful and life affirming thoughts right before you go to sleep has shown to have a tremendous impact on your welfare.

That way, your subconscious will continue to do the work for you and solidify the message while you are sound asleep. It's that easy.

Affirmations for success

Now we've provided you with some basic information about affirmations and hopefully could plant a little seed of hope and inspiration so you could think of giving it all a try.

But how exactly can you make them work for you and help you succeed in life? At first, it might still feel weird and not right to you, telling yourself nice things. We have been programmed from an early age to be critical, modest and not very fond of ourselves. I say find your own light and let it shine! Unfortunately, our society wants people to fit in for the most part, but what about all of our own talents, interests and passions?

When you find what you truly want and need, nobody can stop you. Just repeat your deepest desires to yourself over and over again. It might be best to start with something that is nourishing to your soul, like saying "I love myself" into a mirror. If that is too hard, just repeat it in your head when you relax on your bed. Make room for the new beliefs you want to have by forgetting about the compromising words you have been confronted with in your life.

Only you shape the perception of yourself and by believing in them, you will let them shine through and affect people around you as well. Collect a few of your most needed or fitting affirmations and put them around your room or house, make little love notes for yourself and repeat them a few times whenever you see one. They will soon sound familiar and like second nature to you, so that your old thinking patterns just vanish like they never existed.

You deserve a life full of positivity and all you have to do for that is invest a little time and be persistent. You are already holding the key in your hand.

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Transform-Your-Life-With-Affirmations&id=8961251

Smile Mindfully: It's Good for Your Health

Babies smile - a lot. Beauty queens smile - on cue. Winners smile - most of the time, in between all that jumping and high-fiving. Smiles are a way of expressing our happiness, our joy, our pride, our gratitude.

More than that, smiles are a way of connecting, of saying - without words - I'm with you on this, I acknowledge you as a fellow human or a delightful animal or a beautiful flower, someone/something I'm in sync with.

All this you already know, but did you know that smiles are really good for your health and well-being? Researchers in the UK used electromagnetic brain scans and heart-rate monitors to measure the "mood-boosting values" for a variety of stimuli including sex, chocolate and money. Their findings are astounding: one single solitary smile can provide the same level of mood-enhancement as up to 2,000 chocolate bars, as stimulating as getting up to 16,000 pounds sterling (roughly $20,000), and smiles are more likely to produce a better short-term high than either sex or shopping!

So if your credit cards are maxing out - try smiling! If you're too hooked on chocolate - find something or someone to elicit a smile from you! Dogs always work for me. Of course so do flower, sunsets and Carol Burnett re-runs.

But here's the thing. We're not talking New Age feel-good stuff here. Smiling has well-documented physiological impact on your mind and body. For example, neurotransmitters relay messages to your body on how to respond and react, given various situations. Dopamine, endorphins and serotonin, known as the "feel-good" neurotransmitters, are all released from your brain into your body when you smile. Not only do these neurotransmitters relax you, and make you feel better emotionally, but they can also lower your heart rate and blood pressure - two significant contributors to your physical well-being. The very act of smiling makes us feel better, all around.

Children smile way more than adults do - the number most commonly given is 400 times a day. As compared to the happy adults 40-50 smiles per day, and average adults 20 smiles per day. Now you may say, well, gee, kids have a lot less worries, and thus a lot more to smile about. True. But just like anything else, you can get better at smiling with practice.

No, I don't mean to affix a phony smile to your face. You can't fool your brain, it knows the difference between the real thing and a fake. Rather, I mean to become more conscious about the many opportunities to smile that you now may let go by un-noticed.

You might think of it as smiling-mindfulness. Because that's really what it is. Becoming more mindful of occasions that - for you - genuinely merit a smile, and allowing yourself to indulge in that very life-enhancing act.

For example, the barista hands you your coffee: add a smile to your "thanks." As a matter of course, any time you say "thanks" or "thank you," add a smile! That includes when you thank spouses, significant others, children and other family members: too often we forget to smile at those closest to us.

Or, the sky is dotted with little puffy clouds, a sight which pleases you: smile. Someone's yard is awash in white roses, your fav: smile. The traffic eased up: smile! There are a gazillion opportunities to smile each and every day.

You may never make it up to the children's' 400-smiles-per-day mark, but for sure, your body and mind will most decidedly benefit from your increased smiles. What could be better?

http://ezinearticles.com/?Smile-Mindfully:-Its-Good-for-Your-Health&id=9721326

Is Your Mind Compromising Your Health?

The last time you had a cold, unspecified aches or pains, or just felt under the weather, did it occur to you that your state of mind might have had something to do with it? You may think "That's a crazy idea - I just caught a bug." And you did. However, there may have been underlying reasons why. Commonly these are:

1. Stress and how you cope or don't cope with it 

2. Your subconscious beliefs about your health and body

Whether we recognize the symptoms or not, stress is a factor of daily life: getting stuck in a traffic jam when you are late; having an argument with a friend; your car breaking down on the freeway; discovering your checking account is overdrawn; a call from school because your child has gotten in trouble again... However, not all stress is caused by external factors. We do a great job of creating our own stress by excessively worrying about something that may or may not happen, or continually thinking pessimistic thoughts.

While we ordinarily think of stressors as being negative - an overwhelming work load, an exhausting schedule or a rocky relationship, any situation that makes high demands on us or forces change can be stressful. This includes positive events such as getting married, buying a house, going to college, receiving a promotion or moving to a new city.

For short periods of time stress can actually be beneficial. It helps you meet deadlines or challenges, and keeps you sharp and focused during a presentation at work or during a sports competition. But too much stress can overwhelm the body and make us sick, both mentally and physically. While our bodies are designed to handle short periods of stress, we are not equipped to handle long lasting, chronic stress without consequences. Prolonged stress raises blood pressure, creates tension in the body and compromises the immune system. Not only does a compromised immune system make you vulnerable to all the "bugs" out there, many other problems can be caused or worsened as well. Some of these include: heart disease, pain, depression, weight issues, auto immune diseases, skin conditions such as eczema and sleep disorders.

Subconscious beliefs play a large role in the state of your health as well. For over 50 years medical professionals have been demonstrating that the mind can heal the body by something known as the "placebo effect." A placebo is a substance that has no known medical benefits, such as sterile water, saline solution or a sugar pill. A placebo is nothing more than a fake treatment that in some cases can produce very real results. The expectation of the patient is key - the more a person believes the treatment will work the more likely it will. Less known is the placebo effect's ugly twin, the "nocebo effect." This is the placebo effect in reverse. If you believe something is harmful it most likely is or will be.

Negative beliefs can be extremely harmful to the human body. According to Bruce Lipton, a former medical school professor, research scientist and author of The Biology of Belief, we are what we believe. What we think we believe is not always the case. True beliefs are buried deep within our subconscious mind. Many of our beliefs were formed before we were old enough to separate fact from fiction, and we internalized whatever we heard and were told. Were you consistently sick as a child and considered to be too frail to have a normal life? How is your health now? Is there a correlation?

Growing up you may have repeatedly heard family members discuss how Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease or some other debilitating condition "runs in the family." If you believe it is inevitable you will succumb too, you are setting yourself up to be a sitting duck. Changing your belief does not guarantee you will never get that particular disease or condition, but it can help prevent it from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How can you use your mind to protect and improve your health? Positive thinking is vital, but it won't change deeply ingrained subconscious beliefs. As Albert Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." If positive thinking alone could keep us well, many doctors would be out of business and hospitals would be much emptier. Both EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and PSYCH-K® (Psychological Kinesiology) work at the subconscious level of the mind and are powerful tools, both for managing stress and changing subconscious beliefs. Rob Williams, originator of PSYCH-K®, explains that this technique "is a simple and direct way to change self-limiting beliefs at the subconscious level of the mind, where nearly all human behavior originates, both constructive and destructive." While appearing deceptively simple, PSYCH-K® is not something to attempt yourself unless you have been properly trained to use it. Find a professional practitioner who can work with you to identify and change negative beliefs that might be sabotaging your health. On the other hand, EFT can easily be learned and practiced any time. Do yourself a favor and learn more about how these modalities might help you prevent illness and maintain good health, especially as you grow older.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-Your-Mind-Compromising-Your-Health?&id=9542668

Complaining Rewires Your Brain for Negativity, Science Says

Steeping yourself in negativity has seriously terrible consequences for your mental and physical health.

Why do people complain? Not to torture others with their negativity, surely. When most of us indulge in a bit of a moan, the idea is to "vent." By getting our emotions out, we reason, we'll feel better.

But science suggests there are a few serious flaws in that reasoning. One, not only does expressing negativity tend not to make us feel better, it's also catching, making listeners feel worse. "People don't break wind in elevators more than they have to. Venting anger is...similar to emotional farting in a closed area. It sounds like a good idea, but it's dead wrong," psychologist Jeffrey Lohr, who has studied venting, memorably explained.

OK, so complaining is bad for your mood and the mood of your friends and colleagues, but that's not all that's wrong with frequent negativity. Apparently, it's also bad for your brain and your health. Yes, really.

On Psych Pedia, Steven Parton, an author and student of human nature, explains how complaining not only alters your brain for the worse but also has serious negative repercussions for your mental health. In fact, he goes so far as to say complaining can literally kill you. Here are three of the ways he claims that complaining harms your health:

1. "Synapses that fire together wire together."

This is one of the first lessons neuroscience students learn, according to Parton. "Throughout your brain there is a collection of synapses separated by empty space called the synaptic cleft. Whenever you have a thought, one synapse shoots a chemical across the cleft to another synapse, thus building a bridge over which an electric signal can cross, carrying along its charge the relevant information you're thinking about," Parton explains.

"Here's the kicker," he continues. "Every time this electrical charge is triggered, the synapses grow closer together in order to decrease the distance the electrical charge has to cross.... The brain is rewiring its own circuitry, physically changing itself, to make it easier and more likely that the proper synapses will share the chemical link and thus spark together--in essence, making it easier for the thought to trigger."    

So let's boil that down--having a thought makes it easier for you to have that thought again. That's not good news for the perpetually gloomy (though happily, it seems gratitude, can work the opposite way, building up your positivity muscles). It gets worse, too. Not only do repeated negative thoughts make it easier to think yet more negative thoughts, they also make it more likely that negative thoughts will occur to you just randomly walking down the street. (Another way to put this is that being consistently negative starts to push your personality towards the negative).

Parton explains how these closer synapses result in a generally more pessimistic outlook: "Through repetition of thought, you've brought the pair of synapses that represent your [negative] proclivities closer and closer together, and when the moment arises for you to form a thought...the thought that wins is the one that has less distance to travel, the one that will create a bridge between synapses fastest." Gloom soon outraces positivity.

2. You are whom you hang out with.

Not only does hanging out with your own negative thoughts rewire your brain for negativity, hanging out with negative people does much the same. Why?

"When we see someone experiencing an emotion (be it anger, sadness, happiness, etc), our brain 'tries out' that same emotion to imagine what the other person is going through. And it does this by attempting to fire the same synapses in your own brain so that you can attempt to relate to the emotion you're observing. This is basically empathy. It is how we get the mob mentality.... It is our shared bliss at music festivals," Parton writes. "But it is also your night at the bar with your friends who love love love to constantly bitch."

The takeaway lesson is, if you want to strengthen your capacity for positivity and weaken your reflex for gloom, "surround yourself with happy people who rewire your brain towards love." If you're looking to deflect others' negativity, here are a few tips.

3. Stress is terrible for your body, too.

All of which sounds like a good argument for staying away from negativity to protect your mental health, but Parton insists that quitting the complaining habit is essential for your physical health, too. "When your brain is firing off these synapses of anger, you're weakening your immune system; you're raising your blood pressure, increasing your risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and a plethora of other negative ailments," he says.

The culprit is the stress hormone cortisol. When you're negative, you release it, and elevated levels of the stuff, "interfere with learning and memory, lower immune function and bone density, increase weight gain, blood pressure, cholesterol, heart disease.... The list goes on and on," says Parton. 

http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-science-says.html

Bad Habits You Need To Quit

We don't need to tell you that bad habits have a negative impact on your life. Often the problem is not identifying bad habits; it is fairly obvious for example, that smoking is not good for you. Addiction can often be the underlying problem, along with escapism. Both are behaviors that everyone partakes in, but eventually your bad habits will become a detriment to your health and happiness. They always do.

For that reason we have identified 7 bad habits that you need to quit; many of them health related, and some of them related to lifestyle and happiness:

1. Smoking

An obvious place to start, smoking has never been attractive, and it has never been good for your health, despite what the early adverts used to say. The dangers of smoking are paramount, and you should kick the habit as soon as possible.

2. Stress Or Binge Eating

Some people like a glass of wine to wind down at night, while other people like a little bit of chocolate, or waffles and ice-cream, or pizza on delivery with too many chips to possibly handle. Binge eating is extremely bad for you, and can lead to cardiovascular problems, and obesity. It can be brought on by stress, so be sure to find a healthier release.

3. Junk Food

Binge eating often involves junk food of some manner, but people all across the world fall for the junk food trap every day, and purchase food from corporations who are known to have low standards of food. Some would say that they are even famous for it (no names McMentioned). A recent study even suggests that junk food operates on the receptors in the brain in a similar way to heroin or cocaine; causing you to want more of the stuff.

4. Excessive Drinking

The effects of consuming alcohol are well researched, and well established as being, well... pretty damaging, beyond a couple of casual drinks. Excessive drinking is definitely a habit you would do well to quit. Drug habits are also not advisable.

5. Involving Yourself With The Wrong People

A little break from the direct bad health habits now, and into your social life. Health and happiness are both important for your functioning, and hanging around with the wrong people is not good for either. You should spend time with people who love and nurture you.

6. Focusing On The Negative

Positive thinking is not just some new-age concept. It has a very real impact on your life, and proven benefits for your health, including the reduction of stress, which a major factor in immune system functioning. Focusing on the negative is another bad habit that you should give up. Focus instead on what you appreciate, and learn to think more positively.

7. Too Much TV

Television is a really wide spread bad habit, that is unfortunately, not getting much better with the introduction of handheld devices. While these marvelous technologies should be appreciated, overindulgence in them causes a lack of interest in life, in the people around you, and in your own health. It can lead to a slobbish lifestyle, with bad diet, and particularly a lack of exercise.

Tony - From Slob To Success

Tony used to indulge in many bad habits. Once upon a time he had genuinely thought that smoking and drinking excessively were not going to catch up with him, but this was not the case. He also ate too much junk found, and Tony struggled with an addictive personality that caused him to overindulge in just about everything. Television provided a haven for him to switch off while he consumed junk food, and all the while he did not have a solid support network around him.

Luckily, Tony realized that he needed help, and spoke to health experts who helped him to get his life back on track, by eradicating the bad habits that were causing him to deteriorate. Tony now enjoys a healthy life, with a nutrition rich diet, plenty of exercise, and a distinct lack of harmful activities. His new found good health has also left him feeling more confident and more able to achieve his goals.

If you want help identifying and giving up your bad habits, then please contact our highly trained and experienced team of health experts. We can help you to make the changes that will improve your life dramatically. Health is something that we should all value, and bad habits get in the way of that. Speak with us today, to start a better tomorrow.

https://ezinearticles.com/?Bad-Habits-You-Need-To-Quit&id=8953469