Tag Archives: positivity

Reap the great benefits of meditation

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I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of the word, MEDITATION.

Unfortunately, despite all the great benefits we can get from this technique such as focusing your attention on a specific object, sound, or thought to help you achieve a state of relaxation and clarity of mind, only a few really practice it.

WHY?

Maybe it’s because what we only knew about meditation is sitting still while closing our eyes and trying not to sleep. Trust me, I’m also one of those who’ve got great misconceptions about meditation as well. Nowadays though, I’ve been reaping the fruits of what I’ve learned about how meditation is done and enjoying the great benefits of it which I love, specifically, the clarity of mind.

Let me share with you how meditation is done and how you can do this practice yourself and reap the fruits as well as I do!

Find a quiet and comfortable place: Choose a quiet and comfortable space where you can sit or lie down without being disturbed.

Get into a comfortable position: Sit or lie down in a comfortable position with your back straight and your hands resting on your lap or on your knees.

Set a timer: Set a timer for the amount of time you want to meditate, such as 5, 10, or 20 minutes.

Focus on your breath: Focus your attention on your breath as you inhale and exhale. You can count your breaths or simply observe them.

Notice when your mind wanders: When your mind starts to wander, simply notice it and gently bring your attention back to your breath.

Practice regularly: Consistent practice is key to developing a regular meditation practice. Try to meditate for a few minutes every day, gradually increasing the amount of time you spend meditating.

And like every skill you want to hone, meditation takes time and practice to develop. Be patient with yourself and try not to judge your experience. Over time, you may find that meditation helps you feel more relaxed, focused, and centered.

This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Bohemian Bibliophile.

Interesting facts you need to know about your Gut

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I must be honest, I didn’t know I was this naive about what gut is all about 2 years ago. Ironic as the word “gut feeling” has been part of my usual vocabulary for so long. All along, I thought it was just one of those expressions people often use.

If you’re your age today and like me 2 years ago, then lucky you because you’ll know everything you need about the gut, gut health, and what can you do to make your gut a healthy one all in this blog post! I hope you’re ready, cause I am!

What is the gut?

When you hear someone say “gut”, they usually refer to your gastrointestinal system. This system determines all the types of bacteria in your digestive and intestinal tract. And I guess, this is where I’ll connect that “gut feeling” expression I’ve been using since I don’t even know when.

Believe it or not, your feelings affect the bacteria in your body which makes you feel something “weird” than your normal ones. That’s why when someone tells you, “listen to your gut”, they actually meant trust your feelings. Why? Because it is through that that you can’t really hide what you feel. Remember those times when you sit beside someone you like and you feel butterflies in your stomach? Or that funny feeling in your tummy whenever you need to present in front of a crowd. That’s it!

Why is gut important?

As mentioned, all types of bacteria are dealt with within your gut. And like everything else, there’s the good and bad of it. If your gut is filled with bad bacteria, it can do harm to you.

Since your gut system deals with your digestive and intestinal tract, your gut health can be more crucial than your think. Having an unhealthy gut would mean your body may struggle to absorb some nutrients, store fat, or sometimes regulate blood sugar.

This may cause weight gain or loss and skin irritations such as acne, eczema, and psoriasis. Yikes!

If you find this disturbing, I’m sure you’re curious to know what affects your gut health. You might unknowingly be doing it and not have the slightest idea.

Lifestyle factors that affect gut health

Too much stress. Well, I guess this isn’t something new anymore as when stress is around, your whole body is affected. You’re most probably walking around like a living zombie when you let stress control your life.

And as we know, when we let stress control over us, harmful effects happen to our body. This causes the same with our gut. When we get stressed, our gut gets more sensitive than usual which causes reduction of blood flow and alter the gut bacteria.

Not having enough sleep. Rest is very essential to a human’s body which we often ignore. Believe it or not, sleep deprivation not only makes us restless but also leads to much more complicated diseases such as obesity and heart disease.

And what does this have to do with your gut? Well, our gut tends to be a systematic fellow and once things gets distrupted causing harmful effects to your gut bacteria, hence, leading to an unhealthy gut.

Lack of physical activity. Being a couch potato has never had a good effect on any human being. It’ affects a’s not surprising to know that even our gut gets affected with our lack of movement so that our body could burn energy.

When it comes to having a fit body, we usually link doing some kind of physical activity to make that happen. This burning of energy results to having higher levels of Akkermansia, a bacteria that is shown to play an important role in metabolic health. This also helps from being obese.

Taking too much antibiotics. We all know how important antibiotics are when it comes to medication we need for infections and other diseases caused by bacteria, hence, this might be one of the most taken medicine next to paracetamol.

Like anything too much though, antibiotics, though intentionally taken to heal us could cause harm instead if taken irresponsibly. I’m not going to flood you too much with medical terms as I, myself, isn’t an expert on this. So here I am trying to attempt to explain to you in lay mans term.

Basically, everytime you take antibiotics, it declines some beneficial bacteria and temporarily increase a harmful one. This is why long-term use of antibiotics can cause trouble in our gut. If this doesn’t make you think twice, you must know that there’s one study, that says that it takes up to 2 years for the effects of a single dose of antibiotics to remain in our system. And oh, I thought you must know that the bacteria it affects diversity is one of the most important bacteria.

It’s a big deal! This only means that being mindful on our food choices instead of relying on medicine afterwards could really pay-off not only for the short term but long term as well.

Meal diversity. And since we’re talking about healthy eating, I guess it’s important as well to highlight that making sure to eat a diverse range of food is important. Yes, that pie chart you’ve been thought when you’re young still exist and is very much important no matter how old you get.

In case you forget already what I’m talking about, check out image below. You’re very much welcome!😃

How to take care your your gut health

Know you have a deeper understanding of what gut is all about, why is it important, and what affects gut health. As they say, “precaoution is better than cure”. Here’s some ways to take care of your gut health so you don’t need to go into trouble with your health.

Taking Probiotics. Probiotics are the live microorganisms (good bacteria) that reside in the gut. Probiotics support our immune system, aid digestion and assist with nutrient absorption into our bloodstream. While fresh fruits and vegetable is the best source of probiotics, we must all agree with the kind of lifestyle we are living nowadays, it’s difficult to commit to our food needs.

That’s why, taking probiotics instead is one of the most effective ways to make sure you get all the nutrients you need in a day. That’s exactly what Wellzyme does. With 6 key enzymes your body need specially designed into one, you’ll pretty much headed for a healthy gut in not time!

Wellzyme

Drinking tea. Tea drinkers must attest to having good digestion because of their habit of drinking tea. This Tumeric Chamomile Vahdam Tea is one of my go-to to make sure my digestion is on tip-top!

I hope you find this article informative!

Mistakes to avoid when changing your life

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It’s a new year once again! And like everyone else, we are rooting to better ourselves, our life, and everything in between. I’ve been into goal-setting, resolutions, manifesting, visualizing, and all, don’t get me wrong, they all work…..if you do it right!

Here’s the problem, most of us simply run for our lives head-on. Even knowing what we are doing or let’s just say, not being mindful enough to know what we are experiencing.

Sometimes, we don’t actually need to know where we are going or know what the future would bring us). We didn’t make time to reflect on our experiences. Understand what we have learned from them so as not to repeat the same mistakes.

Planning to make 2023 your year? Here are some things you need to reflect on and avoid making again:

#1 Spending too much planning

I’m all into strategy. As one of Mel Robbin’s podcasts, she said there, strategy is better than willpower. We get so hooked on planning things. We miss reminding ourselves that without action, all the hard work and time spent on planning goes down the drain.

So, this 2023, let’s have a plan, and strategies, go to pros and cons, and start the ride! I promise you, if ever you stumble on something wrong, you’ll be able to find a way to get around things to make your plan work. It’s a problem after all, so there has to be a solution somewhere.

#2 Walk the talk

A bit similar to the first one, talking too much about what you want to do yet not actively doing it is nothing. How many years have you been telling me that you’ll lose weight? I bet all the inspiration you have in you only lasted for a few days and with a bit of help or motivation, you could have lasted for a week. Yet after that, what?

Why not start to do mindful choices when eating? You won’t achieve a fit body in days, or weeks. It is through being mindful of putting more veggies and proteins on your plate than anything else served during dinner but in the long run, these conscious decisions you do actually multiply subconsciously. Without you knowing, you’ve already made a lifestyle change!

#3 Taking it all in

As much as there isn’t any way that one could please everyone, we, as in, most of us, try to do our everyday activities in a way to please others. We listen to fashion trends, diet trends, parenting advice, parents’ advice, friends’ advice, news information, etc!!! Don’t you feel it’s too much?

Sometimes we just need to believe in whatever knowledge we know, trust our instincts, and go ahead and do whatever it is that would make us happy. There are so many rules already to be to live as a good citizen. Lessen your stress and frustrations by simply, doing things your way (the right way, if you know what I mean😃)

And by that, I mean taking advice from someone you know is reliable to help you become the person you want to be. As they say, you don’t need many friends, you just need a few that’s true!

#4 Being a perfectionist

Perfection is an illusion. It only is perfect in one’s eye, and that’s even after all the time and effort you had, has been up. If you’ll be waiting for the perfect timing for you to do whatever you want in life, just because, it isn’t perfect yet, then that wouldn’t come!

I watched this movie (don’t ask me the title because I’m bad at that! 🤪) where they hired a new project manager for this project they’ve been waiting for years and years to launch. They have all the right people in place, and all the best tools and materials too. But, for the past decade, every time they try to launch, they always decide to delay, yet again, for another reason.

Going back to this new project manager, come launching day. Full of anxiousness and doubts, they proceed! When asked what made him finally do it, his answer was simple, you’ve got all the best people and all of them brought an umbrella even if the weather report says it’ll be sunny all day.

Sometimes, you just need to let go of things and trust yourself “fully” that everything will go smoothly. And when it doesn’t, like what I’ve said before, for sure there’s a solution to that because it’s a problem!

#5 Knowing your worth

Knowing your worth can go a long way. It’s actually part of the framework for how your life looks like. The invisible boundaries we set in all aspects of our life. It is where we stop when we know things in our life aren’t where we want them to be. It is because of this that we get this eureka moment where we decide to change the direction of our life and claim what is for us, what is our purpose.

Have you found this helpful for you? Let me know in the comments below.

This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Mads’ Cookhouse.

How to train your brain for better life

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How we live our life, act, move, and react all comes from one source of our body, our brain. It is the machine of our body in-charge of dispersing commands. Luckily, our brain doesn’t work on its own. It is for us to use it to our advantage. If not, let our lives be submissive to whatever life brings us.

It is for us to train our brain to work to our advantage. By doing so, we can reap the good things life to offer like a good life, happiness, and being contented. Having this kind of mindset though can’t be bought though nor inherited. It is worked for or better yet, trained for.

Here are great ways to train your brain for better life:

Take time to meditate

Meditation might not be too foreign nowadays to our ears. I think majority of the population still have doubts of trying to do it despite the great benefits it gives. When doing meditation, we get to get a sense of calmness, peace. There’s much more you can get from learning to staying centered and keeping your inner peace when you meditate.

Write a to-do list daily

This has been one habit of mine that I still continued to do everyday. Even if I may have already shifted career from working in the corporate world to being a Stay-At-Home-Mom. Isn’t it another thing to do and time consuming, others might say. Realise how much easier mentally it would get to simply have a list to guide you throughout your day. Know how much more you gain from that 5-10 minutes you’ve spent to write a to-do list.

Exercise on a weekly basis

You might wonder what does exercise have to do with how your brain works and how could it affect it. Research shows that exercising reduces the level of stress hormones. It also stimulates the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that are the body’s natural painkillers and mood elevators.

Read everyday

There’s no other best way to improve your learnings than reading a book. I know others might not agree with this with all the technology nowadays have to offer. There’s lots of educational videos from YouTube or great podcasts that you can simply tune in. It is only when you read that your brain is able to understand more the context of what you’re reading. That makes the learnings you earned easier to remember later.

Write down ideas

Your brain works 24/7. You might not just notice but there are times when you feel tired despite not doing anything physically challenging. It wasn’t your body that’s tired, it’s your brain, your mind, your mental state. One way of putting out some of your mental load out is through writing things down.

It doesn’t matter whether its your dreams or goals, appointments, each of your family members appointments and deadlines, chores, etc. There’s a lot to do everyday and our brain needs some assistance for it to function as needed. Do your part and grab a pen and paper.

Get out of your comfort zone

Getting out of your comfort zone surely can be daunting. But it is when we put ourselves to challenge, uncertainties, and unfamiliar experiences that we’re able to bring out the best of us that we didn’t even know existed.

I personally have been on a dilemma after I got married. I’ve always been scared of needles. Knowing that part of getting married is starting a family, I wasn’t quite sure how to cope with it. Mentally preparing myself a year after getting married, I told my hubby that I was ready. haha…

Until now, I wonder how I was able to endure giving birth via NVB(normal vaginal birth) to both my daughters. Know that you are greater than you think you are. You will always be surprised of what you are capable of if only you just let yourself try new things.

It’s from the new experiences that we get to learn more and broaden our knowledge and mindset. Go to places you haven’t been, eat new food, try a new hobby, explore!!! Life is too beautiful to simply let yourself be scare.

This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.

Interesting Agreements to Improve your Way of Living

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Communication plays a big role for us to live a better life. Not only does it nurture or break relationship with others but it’s also a way for us to speak out the values we have as a person.

Here are four of the most interesting agreements in life that can improve your way of life unconsciously.

Be Impeccable with your word

When we speak, try being mindful and do it with integrity. Say only the words you mean. Another way of doing it is by avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip on others. This is one that we very often do but not even know it. By using the power of your word in the direction of truth and love instead, you’ll surely be able to improve your life.It may not make sense if you think of it first but as you go along doing it, you’ll notice how much positivity comes in your life that you’re able to do better things.

Don’t take anything personally

There’s nothing that others do could possibly be because of you. It may sound unrealistic but in reality, there’s more chances than we admit that we blame ourselves for the fate of others. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. This is another part where we let other’s opinion cloud our own mind way too much that we don’t see who we really are anymore. It’s good to have boundaries where we are aware how to get immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t make assumptions

It is so important to keep in mind that we all have different perspective on things. Expecting from others to think and do things the way we want it to be done can totally lead to dismal. Find the courage to ask questions and express what you really want is the way to go. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just one agreement, you can completely transform your life. This is very important in every relationship we have no matter if it’s simply within your family, friends, love life, or work-related.

Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment. It will be different when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick. Under any circumstances, simply do your best, and you’ll avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.