How To Stay Happier In Your Life

Busy, stressful days take their toll so it is important to remember to slow down and chill out sometimes. If you don’t do this then life can become overwhelming, you become stressed, anxious, unhappy and depressed. If you are starting to feel this is happening to you there are a few things you can do to make your life happier.

Don’t hold onto the past and stop making excuses

If you want to move forward in life you need to be able to let go and forgive the past. This does not mean to forget as the past is a good way to learn what not to do. However holding onto anger, sadness and negative thoughts or feelings just holds you back, weighs you down and stops you from achieving goals and dreams. Most people that are unhappy find that this is a huge part of the reason. Learn to be kind to yourself and treat yourself as you would a best friend. It’s ok to mistakes, it’s ok to fight with someone and get angry and it is ok to be sad and unhappy at times but we need to also remember to move on from these things otherwise we end up making our whole lives a misery. Don’t make excuses – replace them with positive thinking and to help you with that smart people see a counsellor or therapist for new input, to bounce ideas off or to teach them new coping and management skills for their life.

You don’t have to be always right but you do need to take responsibility for your actions

Some people have to always be right and take it personally if they are caught out and considered not right. If you are wrong then you need to own up. It’s ok to say you were wrong. This kind of behaviour is a leftover from our past when we were children and praised for good behaviour. Sometimes if we did the wrong thing we would blame others and not take responsibility for our actions for fear of punishment. In this way as adults we sometimes always try to be right and not take responsibility when we are wrong. It’s a left over bad habit we learnt as a child. A compulsion to always be right and reaction to shift the blame can come from a fear of losing friends, becoming isolated and fear of being isolated and unhappy. Controlling the urge to be right all the time will help stop this from happening. Taking responsibility for your mistakes and own up. This will earn people’s trust and respect.

Lose your unreasonable expectations and limited beliefs

Reaching a goal at work or a promotion in some ways might be more burdening than you think. Are you struggling to get through the work load? This often leads to feelings of self-doubt and a belief of failure when this is not the case. If something is too much for you then you may need to be more practical and step back from the situation as it could be compromising other areas of your life and affecting your happiness. Are you putting unreasonable expectations on yourself? Are you trying to please everyone else? This needs to stop and you need to sometimes put your own happiness first. Or is it the reverse? Are your limiting beliefs telling you that you are not good enough and that is holding you back from something your heart dearly desires? In that case you need more faith in yourself and your abilities and to just ‘do it’. Often you will find you are more capable than you expected.

Eating habits and your health

These have a lot to do with your happiness. If you eat the wrong foods then they will impact on your weight, physical health and moods. A high sugar and fatty diet may give you a sugar rush but it will impact on all three of these. It is therefore important to have a healthy diet of fruit, vegetables and protein and some carbohydrates. It is important to eat smaller meals at least 5 times a day rather than large ones and to not overeat. Drink plenty of water, get enough sleep, exercise a few times a week for about an hour at a time and you will find that on all levels your health and energy levels will improve.

There are many people that will help you put into place ways to make your life happier. See a therapist, a naturopath, a nutritionist, an energy worker, get a massage, fix your back with a chiropractor if you need to, use NLP to change those patterns and get a check-up with a doctor every six months with a blood test. No person is an island. We all need people around us to assist us in our lives. All of these practitioners can make your life easier and happier so every so often consult a professional to help you stay on track with your health and goals.

Advertisements

Feng Shui For Your Energy And Health

Feng Shui is not just about your house. It’s also about your health. Take a look around your house or office. What is around you outside is a reflection of what is happening inside – in your emotions, in your mind and with your connection with your spirit. All of it is linked with the energy and vibe that you have around you. This will of course affect your health so having good health means keeping a synergy between all the different aspects of your life – outside and inside. When we say you will be affected energetically it means that the energy will not be flowing to those organs as well as it could be due to the synergy of ‘as without so within’ and vice versa. So over a period of time, due to lack of energy these organs become lethargic in how they work which could lead to illness. Think of it as if a machine is not getting all the fuel through it so then it cannot function properly.

The front entry

The front entry of the home is important as the energy in this area will affect the rest of the house and everyone who lives there. Some of the features that can affect your health and cause illnesses are if the doorway is split as this can cause the mind to lack coordination and the body to develop energetic illnesses around the midline in turn energetically affecting the brain, heart, stomach, kidneys or the genitals. Fixing the lack of coordination in the brain can be as simple as drawing the eyes to one object bringing the brain back into focus.

The stairs

One area that may affect your stability in your life is your stairway. Stairs can cause instability depending on where they are placed. If you have stairs in the middle of your home it can cause you to become agitated and anxious. You can help counteract this by simply painting the railings green as green is the colour of nature and helps to make the space more peaceful and stable. If you have a split stairway at your front door this can often affect you mentally however there are easy solutions for all Feng Shui errors. All you need to do is to put a faceted crystal ball hanging from the ceiling directly over the railing post of the stairway. Many experts believe that if your stairway doesn’t have railings it can cause tiredness and if the top of the stairs has an empty feel it’s best to put a live plant under the stairs to lift your energy. Stairs in the front entry can drain you and cause your chi to leak out of the house which depletes the midline of the body and affect your heart. A remedy for this is to hang a mirror facing the door, at the top of your stairs so the energy is lifted up the stairs.

Feng Shui fixes

Most Feng Shui issues with any property have ways you can fix them.  If you have a hidden front entrance this can obscure opportunities and isolate people who live on the property. It can also cause a major lack of motivation for people living in the house. Lighting the top of the door with a light anchored to the ground, positioned opposite to the door will help. This light will help even if it is turned off as long as it is in working condition. If your door opens to a wall rather than a room it can affect with feelings of difficulty, despair, and disappointment. To counteract this, hang a clear sounding bell on the door to stimulate your body’s sensors. If there is a wall inside the front doorway blocking you then it also can stop progress and cause struggles, loss of hope and defeat. It can affect the heart and cause breathing problems according to Feng Shui. Hang a mirror on the blocking wall to make the space feel bigger.

As you can see the positioning of objects in a room is not always easy to work out what and where so it’s a good idea to leave it to the experts. Have your energy checked by an expert who can read body energy and have a Feng Shui expert come to the property to help you work out what you need.

Our office can help you with both personal energy scans and to Feng Shui your home or office. Call us today to book in.

Caffeine And Your Health

Caffeine is in a lot of things that we drink. Some people cannot start the day without having a cup of coffee first and coffee drinkers often have quite a few cups a day. Caffeine is also in energy drinks, some soft drinks and to some degree in the teas we drink so you do need to read your labels. It affects everybody differently but mostly it has the effect of making you feel more ‘awake’.

During a workout caffeine can enhance physical performance and at work it can help boost productivity and mental focus throughout the day. Caffeine however, can also have some negative effects on our health when drunk in large quantities, this is why we need to limit our caffeine intake.

We need to not only be mindful of how much caffeine we are consuming but also of when during the day we drink it. This is because caffeine can have an effect of our sleep. Being a stimulant, it can be quite difficult to calm down and fall asleep after drinking caffeinated drinks. Lack of sleep then leads to other health problems such as anxiety and depression. Drinking an excessive amount of caffeine can also trigger anxiety. In people who suffer from anxiety drinking it can cause them to become jittery and may also cause involuntary body movements as well as tremors in the body.

Consuming a lot of caffeine can cause you to gain weight as it causes fat storage in the body. Caffeine in coffee causes a spike in cortisol and this is what makes the body store fat however in tea it is bound with antioxidants which make it take longer to digest which means you don’t get a spike in cortisol therefore it doesn’t cause the fat storage to occur. Sometimes drinking just a small amount of caffeine can help boost your metabolism.

Caffeine can also in some cases have a negative effect on your bones by stripping away calcium thus causing a loss in bone density. It can also often cause high blood pressure. Drinking caffeine is addictive but even though it can cause a lot of problems when drunk in excess there are also some benefits that come with drinking a cup or 2 of coffee a day.

It can boost brain health and help you concentrate better. Some studies also show that it can also help with lowering blood glucose levels. It is important to keep in mind that when you drink coffee to so in moderation so you can enjoy a few of the benefits.

 

 

Food combining to relieve your digestive issues

Food combining has been around for a long time. It is the art of putting the right foods together to help digestion and toxin elimination. There are certain foods that when eaten together can cause problems with digestion. The reason for this is because some foods are digested faster than others so if a food that is quickly digested gets eaten with a slow digesting food, it will stay in the stomach longer that it should. This can lead to food fermentation and this causes bloating and gas. Having these gases can cause tiredness as your organs have to work harder to remove them from the body. Toxic gases often cause irritability, headaches, and bad breath and sometimes inflammation, constipation, high blood pressure and arthritis. If food sits in the stomach or intestine too long and rots it can also mean that we are not absorbing all the nutrients that it has to offer.

Drinking liquids with meals dilutes the enzymes that your body uses to digest protein, fat and carbs. If you drink at least 10 minutes before a meal or at least an hour after a meal can help stop this happening.

Eating protein with other proteins can cause a loss of energy as it is hard for the body to break them down and having them together causes the body to have to work overtime to digest the food properly. Examples of this is bacon and eggs, meat and fish and yoghurt with nuts. If you are eating these together it will help if you also add foods that have a high-water content such as broccoli, lettuce and onions.

Starch eaten with animal protein, such as eating meat or chicken with potatoes and pasta can also lead to gas as the different digestive juices can ferment the carbohydrates and putrefy the protein.

If you combine fruit with a meal, such as salad with berries or apple pie for dessert, the fruit will sit in your stomach for too long and ferment. Fruit is a fast digesting food while meat, grains and even low water fruit like banana and avocados are a slow digesting food. The differences in digestion time causes issues. Fruits should be eaten by themselves at least 30 minutes before a meal.

Some foods eaten with the wrong type of fat such as meat fried in vegetable oil or tuna mixed with mayonnaise can cause problems with digestion because fats need bile salts from the liver and gall bladder to break down. If they are mixed with other digestive chemicals they can cause slow digestion.

If you are having problems with your digestion try cutting out some of these combinations and it will help relieve the symptoms. If symptoms still persist see your naturopath or nutritionist for better advice on what digestive enzymes and probiotics/prebiotics you need. Don’t just pick one off the shelf. These supplements need to be specifically suited to your needs and only a trained natural expert can advise on that not a shop sales assistant in the health food store or even a doctor. It is not their area of expertise. Seek out a good naturopath or a nutritionist.

Funny head – headache – spinning? It’s not funny

Have you had headache issues, sinus issues, a spinning, and foggy head lately? You may describe it as a ‘funny’ head but it’s definitely not funny. It’s debilitating and slows you down. You can’t think. You can’t work properly and it can even affect your sleep. So what can one do to alleviate all this?

First you need to discover where your headache and other head issues are coming from. Is it a migraine? Is it a hangover? Is it stress? Let’s see if we can find some of your trigger points. Could it be your diet? Are you having some emotional issues? How often do you exercise? Even the smallest of habits might be causing you an issue.

 Sensitivity testing

You know who upsets you and whose company you enjoy, what foods bloat you and what you do before a headache or stuffy nose. What are your trigger foods for headaches? It could be dairy, chocolate, MSG, caffeine, onions, citrus fruits, nuts, pickled foods or even meat with preservatives. It could be cheese, fish, red wine – everyone is different— that’s why we do sensitivity testing to find out what you are sensitive to and then we teach you how to be more in tune with your body and develop new tools to handle this. It’s a simple test that we even do on kids and just takes a couple of weeks to come back from the lab with a full report.

Sinus

Often there are unseen triggers for sinus. Is there mould at work that you are sensitive to in the stairwell as you go up and down to other offices? Is there rising damp somewhere in your house? Are you sensitive to dust? All these can make you feel unwell and give you a head spin which is another reason we test for sensitivities when you come to see us. Once you know what you are sensitive to you can go searching for it in your place of work or at home and eliminate it or take some natural supplements to assist your immunity increasing and healing.

Emotional triggers

Pay attention to how you feel after spending time with certain people around you. Are they sapping your energy and making you feel bad? Do some people make you feel drained, dizzy, sick or give you a headache? Obviously if this is a relative in need you just can’t turn you back on them but you can put some boundaries in place to limit your time with them and protect your energy from being zapped. If it’s a situation you can handle which has been ongoing then maybe you need to pull the plug on it and take some action.

Our emotions can be powerful triggers to physical illnesses. If you’re stressed out on a day-to-day basis, it’s time to explore some stress management, meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, aromatherapy oils and once again good old exercise. Do you take on too much? Do you spend your time running round for others and not nurturing yourself? Emotions running high such as anxiety, stress, anger, depression are all causes for a ‘funny’ head which often leads to headaches. Being upset sometimes is normal but if it’s happening a lot and you are feeling negative then there is an ongoing problem that needs attention.

Teeth grinding

Do you grind your teeth when you sleep? This can make your head feel strange in the mornings and give you headaches. Clenching your jaw can give you stiff neck muscles and TMJ. Perhaps you need to investigate wearing a mouth guard to sleep to also save your teeth from grinding down.

Heavy bags

Often in the clinic I can tell which shoulder a woman carries her handbag on. Many people are not aware of it but it affects their posture. How heavy is your bag? Too much pressure on the trapezius muscle can cause back issues and headaches. If you must then swap to a backpack to even out the weight on your shoulders and reduce the strain.

Constipation

Constipation, caused by stress or wrong foods can mess up your blood sugar, cause nausea and trigger headaches. Do you skip meals when you are busy or perhaps you don’t feel well? I get a number of people who just don’t eat regularly and mess up their total digestion. It is important to clear out your bowels every day – at least once. Think of it as food in, food out I say. If this is not happening you need some good digestive enzymes, probiotics and/or prebiotics.

Water

As well as sensitivities it could be that you are not drinking enough water which is affecting your blood sugar levels, dehydrating you and causing you headaches. Some headaches can be caused by the blood vessels in your head becoming narrow in an attempt to regulate your body’s fluid levels. Remember also to drink more water on these hot days we are having lately.

Exercise

It might be difficult on hot days to want to go for a workout at the gym but you need to keep the blood flowing if you want to prevent headaches and increase your productivity. How active have you been today? How many steps have you walked? Do you stretch? Let’s get that blood moving.

As you can see there are many things you can do for that ‘funny’ head. If it persists go and get some tests done at the doctors – some scans. If still nothing comes up get a diagnosis for Meniere’s disease or the like. There are exercises you can do to control Meniere’s disease. So there is always a remedy for your triggers however you must be willing to change your lifestyle, your emotional stressors and learn how to nurture yourself to have the full, healthy life that you deserve.

Positive thinking for 2019

Everyone says ‘think positively’ but no-one really tells you what that means. It can mean different things to different people. Some people who have a lot of bad things happen to them no longer have a definition of what ‘thinking positively’ means anymore. So no matter how hard they try to think positively they fall back into a negative way of thinking. There is a simple way though to begin to build up your tool kit and the New Year is a good time to start.

Exercise

Exercise is a great way to start your year. It could be gentle like be Yoga or Tai Chi. Exercise increases your circulation, gets your endorphins working and your heart pumping. Even gentle exercise. Go for a walk to the local park or round the block if you don’t want to pay for your exercise. No need to join a gym. There are lots of free ways to exercise if you want to get moving and your body and mind will thank you for them. If you are having crippling negative thoughts it’s a good way to shift your attention and keep your mind busy while your body works on releasing the stress. Start your day with a list of things to accomplish that day to make it more productive and even include some time to learn meditation there. That makes a perfect balance for body and mind.

 

Meditation & Journaling

Meditation is one of the key ways to stop those crippling negative thoughts. Always use a guided meditation so when your mind wanders you have someone’s voice to bring your mind back instead of just falling asleep or daydreaming. Couple with your meditation a journal where you write down some of the good things that you can be grateful for in your life. Even little things on this list will help achieve and keep you in a positive frame of mind. What this does is help you highlight the positives in your life rather than focusing on the negative. These little things could be the fact that you arrived at work on time today or that you got that task done that you have been putting off for a while, anything that lets you focus on the positive.

 

Positive people

It is also a good idea to take a look at the environment you live and work in because surrounding yourself with other positive people is important as it helps keep you elevated and positive. If people around you are critical or demanding it will pull you down so if you are in a negative situation in your environment start planning how to change things so you can move on from that situation.

 

Use your energy creatively

Sometimes helping someone out can alter your state of mind. It could be as simple as helping an elderly person with shopping bags or putting someone else’s shopping carts out of the way of the cars in the car park. It could be reaching up onto a shelf for someone or getting your neighbour’s bin off the road. A series of small things will not only make you feel good but other people as well.

 

Affirmations

Negative thinking attracts negative thinking. This is one of the laws of attraction so remember that to stop those thoughts that drag you down. You can use positive affirmations to change your mood. If you wake up thinking you will have a good day you are more likely to have a good day. It’s important to fight those negative thought patterns that are trying to tell you otherwise. These patterns can be undone by a few good therapy sessions. Affirmations such as, ‘I am a beautiful person, I can do this, things will get better and better’ are only three affirmations that will begin to deprogram and reprogram your negative mind.

Never dwell on your negative thoughts, isolating yourself or sulking. Get up, move, exercise, watch a movie, read, walk the dog, phone a friend – anything you like to do, something that is fun. Surrounding yourself with friends and family that also have a positive mindset who can help you look at the things that frustrate you, let you have your rant, get it off your chest and give you good positive motivational feedback is one of the best ways to enlist help in changing those patterns.

The key is to stop those negative thoughts from taking over your life. Get the ammunition to face them and accept them and then move on from dwelling on them and being stuck. Everyone at some point has negative thoughts and it’s the way we deal with them that makes all the difference, so seek help. There is always help out there.

Your toilet tells you a lot about health

Uncomfortable as it is the topic of toilet smells and colour can often tell us a lot about our health. Your liver, digestive system and bowels handle all the toxins in your body from pollution, chemicals and food and if you are eating food that does not agree with you then it will show up in smelly and discoloured urine or faeces. Our choices, good or bad, in food can determine this so it becomes important to take notice what you are leaving behind in your toilet.

Foods affecting urine and faeces smell

Some of the foods that can alter the smell of our urine can be asparagus, which has asparagusic acid in it that our body coverts to chemicals that can vaporise at room temperature, meaning that when we go to the toilet, we are releasing the urine which in turn releases gases that cause a smell. Coffee is another food that causes a bad smell this is because it tends to make us want to go more frequently which means the uric acid, chemicals and vitamins may be more concentrated in the urine, leading to a more pungent odour. Also, insoluble oil released by coffee beans when they’re roasted may have an effect on the odour. Alcohol has a similar affect as it is dehydrating. Other foods affecting urine smell are garlic, brussel sprouts, bananas and salmon. Bananas and salmon particularly are high in vitamin B6 which make that pungent smell.

Infections and bacteria

Another reason could be due to a urinary tract infection and it is believed that sweet-smelling urine can be a sign of diabetes. Colour changes can be due to not drinking enough water and foods such as beets can alter the colour giving it a scary reddish tinge. Sometimes a change in colour can indicate deeper health issues. If it is constantly dark it could be even a sign of hepatitis but you need to check as it could be as simple as what you have had to eat or drink. Nevertheless if the smell and colour change does not go away you should seek medical advice.

Faecal changes

Urine isn’t the only thing that can change colour in the toilet. Different types of faeces can be an indication of health issues as well. If your faeces floats it can be a sign of poor digestion. When the floating stool sticks to the side of the toilet bowl, or an oily sheen appears on the surface of the water, fats in the diet are likely left undigested. Floating, diarrhoea-like faeces that are accruing over an extended period of time can also be a sign of Coeliac Disease.

What to do

If this is the case you must eliminate gluten from your diet. It is important to making sure you empty your bowels at least once a day and check you have smooth faeces without having to strain too much, medium brown in colour that smell fairly neutral. This is a sign that you are healthy and eliminating your toxins properly. The best way to do this is to drink plenty of water (about 2 litres), eat healthy and organic, take your supplements – especially your digestive enzymes and get some regular exercise.