Prevention Archives - Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Mind-Body Balance + Active Bridge Pose Metaphor

mind-body-balance

I just finished an Ayurvedic series and am starting a mind-body balance series TODAY.

This NEW series on Mind-Body Balance is I believe so important for our happiness. Because our mind-body’s off-ness or imbalance that we can restore, is the cause of why we’re feeling:

…misaligned with the natural season

…distant from our peaceful-joyful selves

…or, lack of clarity that’s different than uncertainty that’s part of this life.

And the good news is we’re able and empowered to restore what’s naturally meant to be ours… and mind-body balance is one of those life benefits.

One sign that we’re on a good track is when we feel mostly clarity…

Clarity defined as grounded in knowing who we are despite daily situations that change and shake us up.

Life situations play out and can put any of us in a funk. That’s a good reason to not take life situations so seriously… and instead, slip back to leaning into our naturally designed groove of being happy and living healthy.

Because if you’re not happy, those undertone feelings show up in and on your body… and preventing this is what mind-body balance is about on a practical level.

The below tips are to help you walk through imbalances and for the next time…

But, before jumping in, I just wanted to mention the next part will be about Mind tips as related to the mind-body equation. And then the last part will be on the Body in the mind-body that you may not have been informed of or thought about in those ways. So you can discover more about you and empowering better outcomes.

…Because you do have a choice in all three: your mind-body, mind, and body life.

If you believe that your happiness exists within you and not your situations, you can have your best season yet.

So clearing the mind is such an important tool to gain clarity on helpful beliefs, feeling better, and making better daily decisions.

Suggestion Reminder Steps to Feel Better

One good step and reminder is to take multiple deep breaths. Taking conscious breaths clears the air instantly…

You get a pause break from active thoughts, and you pump in life-giving new oxygen into your body, while pumping out old air. You get the chance to exhale bad energy and anxious thoughts not grounded in full reality.

You can realize in the moment that your thoughts are only part of the equation in any life situation.

And, maybe you take a few moments for a few deep breaths now to help you with your mind-body health.

Did you do that?

And, the second suggestion is to take a few minutes in silence by yourself every day where all you hear is the white noise in the background. You can do this in a quiet room with a door or at a quiet park. Listen to your mind-body…

Connect with your mind-body where you’re in tune with your heart’s whispers.

The mind-body is interconnected in a deeper way than the physical mind and body (e.g. organs like the brain and skin).

And connect the idea that symptoms on your body show up as outcomes from your carried thought-feelings.

That was revelatory for me years ago because that helped me to grasp how to change thoughts at any moment.

It’s a mental exercise that isn’t visible so it’s not as easy as say, picking up a ball where you don’t have to be as fully mind present.

And it’s one where we can have a block if we never embraced changing thoughts.

We can start by acknowledging that it’s healthy to agree to disagree with ourselves sometimes and exit out the negative thoughts. And we’re healthy wise to do so often!

But our ego tries to sabotage these efforts. And it takes mental power to fight our ego as it fights for us to be right with ourselves.

And most of us don’t have reinforcement backups, as we weren’t taught by our caretakers or teachers to debate ourselves. …Ah, but those old ways are old school.

…And I believe is the cause of us not living our best lives sooner. Until we can get to this more humble place of admitting our minds could be wrong, our outcomes are lesser than they could be.

Of course… this is by no fault of anyone as we were born into this mind and body… but now that we know better, we can do better.

We have to outsmart our programmed machinery.

And for me, that led to awareness, getting past my ego thoughts, and to the root of PTSD thoughts that I previously was oblivious to and then was one day aware (much like someone blindsided).

And you can too can uncover the wounds that need scar healing if you dial back your ego trying to mask imperfection… and if you tune into your deeper mind-body that’ll help reveal blind spots so you can get out of the lesser life and into your peaceful, whole, and abundant life. That’s why quiet time is super helpful.

And in busier moment times, emotional outbursts or displaced anger, irritation, anxiety, and withdrawal sub-feelings and undertones usually mean there are blind spots that need healing.

Blindly in our busy lives, any of us can carry around these past feelings and hurts, that are still presently heavy burdens that disturb our natural mind-body balance.

And if left unattended, they show up as accumulated body stressors that can lead to scientifically-known early aging and chronic diseases.

But you can claim back unnecessary unhappy years and seasons with a little effort on your part…

With humility, openness, and a desire to grow, you will save yourself and open yourself up to better opportunities.

Getting Mind-Body Balanced

1.Being and keeping aware is not overused. It’s imperative to bringing light out of darkness feelings… as is, connecting dots in your past to your present. And consistently flipping the negative thoughts to positives.

…Or said another way, gaining peace of mind, where you have less outbursts and negative reactions. And one day, no outbursts. That’s definitely possible! I’m living evidence 💕

And then, you enjoy more of your day. And you get more out of this life. You meet your higher potential that’s greater than what you originally thought was possible.

You don’t fear uncertainty as you’ve made peace with that, and you worry less (or not at all). You take moments in each day and use them as brand new chances to build off the days before.

And you use your past experiences in a beneficial way. And those new perspectives bring you better outcomes.

And when you believe deeply in your mind-body that all is possible, you speed up your growth and bypass ego’s tricks.

2. Uncover and replace mind-body blockage like that found in PTSD. This means confronting your feelings and questioning why those happen when you feel them. Make them visible.

And if you’re in a temporary funk, call that out. So you can figure it out. Exchange for a loving and life-giving belief.

And one great way to do that is to have a yoga pose that serves as a mind-body reminder.

And habit stack after walking around or whatever your favorite moving activity is. Or do it as a stretch before you get out of bed in the morning.

In the Blue Zones, the living 100 year olds in those concentrated zones do mostly natural activities that use their bodies and not machines for exercise.

And they also celebrate with yoga that’s a natural move in getting up and sitting down. In our younger, modern, and Western societies, we can do that too.

We optimize when we activate our mind-body and are aware that we’re naturally getting up and sitting down, using our body. And that awareness helps to calm us just like active breathwork.

Mind-Body Active Bridge Pose

A natural active bridge is an active body pose in motion. And you can combine with that your deep breaths.

Bridge pose is one you can make active and fun.

Here’s how:

You can use a yoga block to heighten your bridge. You can stack two blocks on the shorter height sides… or use the taller skyscraper building block side as your back support.

You want to place the edge of the block where the top of your tailbone meets your back (and the rest of the block or blocks are toward your buttocks and not your upper back).

Challenge yourself… reach to your outer edge limits!

It’s at that block meeting intersection where your legs take off, bend at the knees, and are grounded by your feet. And the fun comes in when you remove the block.

You can use this as a mind-body balance reminder: where you no longer need a crutch support like a block. And in awareness, you’re removing the yoga block and mental block that could be anything holding you back.

And when you release down, you let go of whatever that is… maybe it’s the how something turns out, control over someone else, past hurts, PTSD, etc. And that can start the process to heal.

And you maybe hold the block (or a dumbbell weight) close to your pelvic area and move your hips up and down.

Use the block as a peaceful symbol that you’re now aware of how what you let go of is easy now to see in front of you, and you know what to do.

…And the block whether it’s under your bridge or in your hands is in your control and helping to build strength in your life. In active moving bridge, you’ll also feel it in your buttocks and upper hind legs (hamstrings), so you have a full mind-body balance pose. 🧘🏻‍♀️

Ayurvedic Series:

Part 1 – Pitta/inflammation

Part 2 – Vata anxiety vs. nervous

Part 3 – Kapha awareness

For a mind-body balance recipe, you can make this star beet granola pan. Beets and cinnamon are good for Vata. Oatmeal is a good meal before practicing yoga. And this is a good snack to help tie you over 🌟

Star Beet Granola Pan

Equipment

plastic wrap

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups oatmeal
1/2 tsp cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/2 cup light olive oil
1/2 cup raw honey
chocolate, melted
beet powder
crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients and then mix in wet ingredients.
Bake granola for about 25-40 minutes at 325°F or until toasted.
To make chocolate topping. Prepare chocolate on display pan you will be using. Take a piece of plastic wrap and put on top. Add melted chocolate and pour onto plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chocolate is hard. After granola is baked and cooled, you can pour into the pan and then add the hardened chocolate ontop removing the plastic.
To make beet heart: take a star stencil or make a star cutout with cardboard. Add beet powder to create star shape. For fallen star effect, use tweezers to pull out the yellow pepper flakes (found in crushed red pepper flakes) to make a fallen line.

When Dental Worry Is Healthy For You

Onions are good for teeth as they’re antibacterial and spinach has teeth remineralizing properties, so chomping on a few leaves is a good thing! 🥬

Have you ever thought about the worse that could happen in a situation like dental worry, but it didn’t end up so bad?… Or end up at all?

…And that’s usually because your worry prevented a bad outcome. Some worry is healthy… it’s built into our DNA human-ness.

But in society, we tend to demonize all worry when it can help us to magnify an area we should focus more on, and then put the thoughts to rest.

Worry is healthy when it prevents growing problems. And worry is healthy when it helps us come up with better solutions.

When it falls healthy short and is outta balance, is when the scales need to tip back to peace and calm.

Don’t let your worry take over your Vata mind and from living life… because long-term stress is an inflammation cause in the mind-body connection that shows up in or on the body as a warning.

When you’re conscious knowing what you’re doing and thinking, you activate your subconscious to help you out in the back of your mind.

…EVEN when you can’t connect the dots.

Your subconscious mind is like your passenger seat helper who’s providing directions even when you’re focused on what’s in front of you.

…So, when I didn’t get to the dentist because of the pandemic and several moves later, I thought I would have a bad report.

A month before I could get into the busy dentist’s office, I did everything to keep my teeth and healthy smile at their maintained best… flossing with multiple flosser types, brushing, rinsing, and even scraping. And if you have teeth and dental worry about your teeth, then you may floss more often.

These days, it’s so much more easy… we have much better dental supplies from convenience stores than we did as kids… or imagine what they did back in the Stone Ages?

And those memories and dental worry kept me magnifying on healthy habits leading up to the Big D-Day…

At that dentist chair moment, time stood still and I was pleasantly surprised with the assessment. I had nothing to dental worry about.

It was a compliment when I heard the word “good” from my new dentist, and was even asked about how I take care of my teeth.

She asked me what I did. And my response was, “I do everything!”

I shared my routine and healthy daily teeth habits that make up for the food and coffee acid, and sugar buildup. Really the best tip is to brush more often softly or with an electric toothbrush. 🪥

…There’s nothing new under the sun. ☀️

But I also told the dentist about teeth healthy foods I ate to fortify the good and diminish the bad. We add back healthy for a more neutral effect.

So often we forget that foods act as secondary toothbrushes when we can’t get to our toothbrush.

You don’t need to dental worry if you brush after eating sugary foods.

And with acidic sources… you can soften the blow. For ACV, use an eyedropper or a straw where you drop the liquid to the back of your throat.

And certain foods are teeth helpers that have Vitamin D, calcium, and other minerals that re-mineralize natural teeth enamel.

That’s double bonus points for bones and teeth. 🎯

Stronger teeth enamel helps prevent common inflammation or an infection spreading inflammation.

Because inflammation or worsened infections in the mouth can cause problems just like inflammation in other parts of the body.

To counteract, they say that flossing can add 4 years and so can eating beans. (They these days are healthy social media sources that’s common knowledge). But at worst, you won’t lose 4 years, so it’s worth the effort gamble. 😉

And if you’re wanting to be more anti-inflammatory and hang onto any wisdom teeth, check out this anti-inflammatory food guide for your easy grocery shopping essentials.

Happy Gut For a Happier Life

Happy gut is something that makes for your healthier and happy life!

Sourdough is one way to get a happy gut and this is how you make can make it so easily at home.

Sourdough is one way to take measures to get a happy gut. And making sourdough is a great experience to learn about fermented foods. In the process, you see how easily bacteria is created.

If you’ve never tried making sourdough, it’s much easier than it sounds. Actually… it’s so easy in steps, that it fits on the small infographic I created (here on my blog).

A happy gut= happy life. There’s a gut – life connection. Over 90% of the happy hormone (serotonin) is made in the gut. So if you have a less-than-balanced gut, then the happy balance in moods and how you feel can run off (or need some restoration).

Our bodies are fascinating and even more interesting is all the nutrition and body science accumulated knowledge. It changes as fast as tech I know, having worked in both fields for years.

We’ll never know everything about our evolving bodies and as our bodies change with the society we’re living in. And those changes get passed down. Like newly prescribed antibodies that some of us are getting.

And in this article, you’ll learn some encouragement to evolve your healthy and happy gut with a few tweaks…

For one, if you want to calm your gut, try fermented foods like the sourdough mentioned, or sauerkraut.

And fermented beverages like kombucha.

Fermenting is an add-on new-old process that makes life smooth. We already established a happy gut is a happy life. 😊

And prebiotic fibers will feed the good bacteria. Foods such as asparagus are abundant in spring. And garlic and onions peak… (see these ones peeking out here 🧅).

Probiotic healthy bacteria will encourage more good bacteria. You can prevent leaky gut, dysbiosis, SIBO, and IBS that you hear more about in young and older people.

Good bacteria are kinda like the positive, loving thoughts we want to crowd out the negative, sour ones in our minds.

That’s the deeper gut-mind connection.

Anything can invade our bodies at any time. We live in a modern petri dish society. And if you ever take a round of antibiotics that most of us in this life have, probiotic supplements plus spoonfuls of low-sugar yogurts with bacteria strains are always recommended. 💊

Because antibiotics destroy the gut microbiome, changing the happy gut flora.

If you think of a healthy gut like a well-run garden (vs. an unbalanced jungle that can turn into weeds), then you have a good mental picture of healthy balance vs. dysbiosis when we need to restore the healthy flora especially until things clear up.

When things go back to normal (and a new normal as our bodies are changing daily), then maintaining a regular gut tuneup lifestyle habit helps.

…And especially since most of us don’t just eat organic foods. A lot of the modern healthy foods we eat today are sprayed with toxins in the process.

Prebiotic and probiotic foods like sourdough help with preventative tune-ups.

You may notice your gut doesn’t feel the same as usual. And the sign is that you feel a sore spot or dull ache discomfort. That’s stress on you and to the body.

Our bodies naturally clean and detox during sleep, but sometimes our stress and wear and tear outweigh our body’s defenses.

What you eat and what you don’t eat matters, and can change everything in healing the gut.

In my own healthy lifestyle journey, I found anti-inflammatory foods matter. They help to restore balance and they’re known to prevent certain common chronic diseases. You can find them in many beverages, spices, and foods when you look around. Many of them are eat from the rainbow foods with colorful polyphenols.

Staying sensitive to sensations in the body is a healthy choice.

…I found the best way to do this is to document or write down what you’re feeling with a dated entry. And that way, you can refer back to factually what has happened, and not just what you think happened.

Another effective way is to take photos to document what has happened in the process. You can show the medical practitioner (if needed) what your situation looked like besides the patient snapshot they see in front of them.

Like this antioxidant-full butterfly 🦋 tea drink… that gradually changes even though it’s still the same drink.

If you keep a daily happy gut, you live comfortably and enjoy and fulfill more each day. That’s something to look forward to! ✨

You can also start your day with a happy prebiotic oat meal with a pear granola crumble you can substitute with apples that’s a divine pairing with cinnamon. Use Ceylon cinnamon for additional anti-inflammatory benefits. 🧡

Pear Granola Crumble

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Ingredients

oats
pear
honey
cinnamon to liking
light EVOO

Instructions

Add your layer of oats. And drizzle honey ontop and a drizzle of light olive oil.
Add your cut pear slices. Add cinnamon.
Add another layer of oats.
Bake until toasted.

The Mind-Body Connection For Mental Health

In America, our culture has noticeably woken up in awareness of this mind-body connection reality.

Your mental health is a reflection of your overall health, showing up in your physical body, through the internal mind-body connection.

If you were born before the internet, this could be a newer idea to you as you didn’t grow up with yoga or meditation practice.

In 2008, I attended yoga studios and classes weekly, but you had to do some research to find a general type of yoga class like Hatha or Vinyasa yoga. Over a decade later, you can find studios everywhere, for beginner and advanced yoga, and every class flavor in between.

This growing popularity of yoga in the western world bridged eastern philosophies that the mind directly affects the body. There’s a fine line between fact and woo, and distinction to spiritual thinking.

The mind-body connection is factually based, and you can find enough supportive evidence without too much effort on just about any credible mental health site. Personally, I’ve been living this out since my Perfect Health mind-body transformative experience.

Why the mind-body connection matters

Living in America, the bottom line to why mind-body connection matters to us are that we want to live our Best Self, so that:

1) we can have a great career, work-life, or business (or all three).

2) we can attract and keep a good relationship, have a happy family and friendships too.

3) we can stay healthy and look good and have the energy to pursue our passions, contribute, and give back.

Our Collective Bodies Today in America

In America, as a whole society, our bodies can get brushed aside unless we prioritize taking care of ourselves. This has stayed steady through the generations and hasn’t changed much from past decades.

It still takes work to maintain our bodies, and how much we do this can depend on our limitations, body, genes, lifestyle, attitudes, and thoughts.

We take care of our bodies, first so we can look good and appear healthy, and we’ll spend the money to invest in ourselves.

No matter what our motivations are, by taking care of our bodies with healthy foods, exercise, and good habits, our bodies are naturally resilient and strong, and we can get back to our normal health with relative ease if we’re healthy.

Like so many, when I was in my twenties I felt healthy enough, so having life longevity goals just wasn’t a top priority (like in other countries around the world).

In some other countries, patients are told they’re physically well so that they think themselves to better health. A healthy mind does good for the body.

In America, health prevention and pacing ourselves is not the way our society is set up. We don’t usually take the time to find out what’s going on behind the scenes in our bodies unless something goes wrong.

If we’re on the toilet too often or not enough, that becomes a mild concern as it’s telling us something about our current health story.

We hope and rely on modern medicine to cure and correct any building-up health problems.

If you go to the doctor’s office, they will prescribe some form of medication even if it’s just a mild pain killer. They won’t usually just send you home with happy thoughts and a list of foods to eat.

Expecting to hear something wrong and how to fix the problem can cause pre-conditioned responses. In thinking that we need medicine to heal or use as a “feel-better” crutch, addictions can take control (over minds and lives) if we’re not careful.

That can lead to hypochondriac thoughts and obsession over the smallest physical symptom that gets worse because of the excessive energy and worry thoughts put towards inflammation or ailment.

These are not good places for our minds to be. We want our thoughts to be happy, positive, and loving so we have healthy bodies (in the mind-body connection).

The thoughts that you agree with will drive your results. Stress eating and unknown caused inflammation that often gets brushed under the rug as minor, are potential signs that a place in your mind isn’t happy.

Practical Mindful Tips for Mind-Body Connection Health

Here, I want to give you some practical mind tips to positively affect your mental health, so you can improve your physical health. These can be wise gems you apply for longevity, overall good health, and a rockin’ body!

Begin with an open mind for what you want to achieve, whether that’s a great physical body or a healthy body, and your intention will help get you there in the mind-body connection.

Continue reading “The Mind-Body Connection For Mental Health”

What to Do In Your Anxiety Attack? 3 Eye-Opening Possible Causes

Anxiety attack

Are you one anxiety attack away from losing joy? When you have to spend your day worrying about the next time anxiety can take over your time and day, that’s not helping you and is not the life you want.

You didn’t sign up for or schedule the setback anxiety interruption in your day.

Where now you can be dealing with any number of physical symptoms. And you may even think you’re being a hypochondriac. If that’s the case you want to rule out all the possible health reasons that caused your anxiety attack.

Dizziness and fuzzy brain could have come from nasal or head congestion and allergies, as your nose is connected to your inner ear that controls balance. And your frontal lobe near your forehead is where you do most of your cognitive, rational reasoning.

So if you can’t think clearly and it shows up around the same time every day, you could have developed seasonal allergies.

Hay fever fall symptoms may be worse in the afternoon than spring or summer morning allergies.

If you don’t eliminate common allergies as a potential cause, then that can lead you to create additional anxiety and worry that’s not helping.

Here Comes the Anxiety Attack

An anxiety attack can leave you dazed and unpleasantly change the course of your day. You may feel you need to take the rest of the day off, suddenly rearranging your calendar.

An anxiety attack can also leave you feeling defeated because you’re working to manage your feelings and thoughts that can spew out into your body like uncontrollable bursts, showing up as heart palpitations, sweaty palms, dizziness, etc.

Similar to an anxiety attack, a panic attack can also come on suddenly. Usually, it’s more serious and from a buildup of stressors in your life. This can shock you. You are no longer the same person you were just a few minutes ago where you were fine.

In a panic attack, the automatic functions in your body are still running but usually are frozen or hindered from taking action physically or cognitively.

When you come out on the other side, you are confronted with your life and have the opportunity to make a change so you don’t have another panic attack (or worse warning symptoms).

For me, that was in my 20’s from a series of life problems and roadblocks. Post-trauma I never dealt with and ran away from in my mind by letting the past stay in the past. The problem with that strategy is that your brain doesn’t work like that. Continue reading “What to Do In Your Anxiety Attack? 3 Eye-Opening Possible Causes”