Simple Tips for Successful Change

Simple Tips for Successful Change

I don’t know about you, but here it is mid-March already and many of my New Year’s Resolutions are still merely words on a piece of paper. Yikes! How did that happen? I had such great intentions to tackle them all, and because I knew that deep down somewhere inside me resides Superwoman, I really thought I could do it all, be all, and have it all. I mean I did everything right. I spent hours pondering what I wanted to add to the list, I carefully listed the resolutions and prioritized them in their importance, and after thinking long and hard I wrote down all of the action steps necessary so I could finally once and for all create the balance in my life and the abundance of time, health, and prosperity that I desired.

So, what happened? Life got in the way as did my never ending task list. It seems like everything went crazy after the first of the year. My already busy schedule became busier. My "what’s urgent" list grew faster than my "what’s important" list. My aging parents needed extra help, and even my little dog decided that her playing time and her "I need you to love me" time was more important than anything else. What happened is that I, like millions of other people, fell back into the daily routines and the grind that I vowed that I would move beyond in 2012.

However, I just had a good long talk with myself and asked my willpower to step in and help me through this. I asked it not to push me forward with brute strength, so that when I got to where I wanted to be I would not be so tired, frustrated, and mentally wasted that I couldn’t enjoy it. Instead, I asked my willpower to help me, when in the throes of busyness, to keep me focused on what’s important. I asked it to help me see the bigger picture. I asked it to throw me a lifeline when I felt my habits and my past were sucking me down like in quicksand, and I asked it to distract my mind when it fixates on the future. Most important, I asked my willpower to help keep me in the present moment, so I can act on my immediate desires, and subsequently, experience the sense of satisfaction that comes from when I successfully change what has held me back.

As I was dialoging with my willpower, I came to understand it differently than I had been taught to perceive it. I realized that willpower isn’t the inner brute that helps us resist temptation. Instead, it’s our free will and its gift is to help us remember that we always have a choice to do things, either the same way or in a different way. Willpower is our ability to do what we really want to do when a part of us is telling us to do what we really think we should be doing. I realized that willpower is a skill that we can develop and strengthen and I realized that when we do use it as it’s intended, we can make real and lasting change.

Here are some tips that can help you create successful lasting change.

Accept that you’re busy. Time study after time study shows that the pace of life really has increased significantly as has the busyness of life. We’re sleeping less and trying to fit more into a 24 hour day. Part of the reason that we fail to make successful change is two-fold. First, we think that if we get most or all of the tasks off our task list, then we’ll finally have the time to devote to focusing on whatever we want to change. Secondly, is that we imagine our future self as being this efficient person with Herculean powers of self-control that will ensure our success. Instead of getting caught up in these illusions, take action now by taking the first step. It might seem like a baby step, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Choose your hassles. In this day and age there are a lot of them. Whether they’re hassles at work, hassles with other people, hassles associated with temperamental computers or phones or other technology products, and even the hassles that come with trying to maintain or fix all of the things we own. Daily hassles not only eat up a lot of time, they eat us up mentally and emotionally, and they eat us up physically. Simply stated, hassles take energy and they use up glucose, and when glucose levels are low the brain doesn’t function optimally nor does the body. The result is that we get tired, we get low on energy, we emotionally eat, and our brain struggles with decisions. So when feeling overwhelmed with hassles, take a deep breath and prioritize where you want to put your energy. Choose the hassles that are important at the time and let go of the rest. If you can’t decide, ask yourself, "Who really gives a hoot? Is this really worth my devoting time and energy to it?"

Change the scenery. Have you noticed that when your environment, whether home or at work, stays the same, so do your ingrained habits? So when you find yourself in a habit rut and you’ll know it because you get easily distracted and begin to procrastinate, get up and change the scenery. When you change your environment, your habits automatically change.

Start small . Most of us are too ambitious in our goals and unrealistic in our self-expectations. Revisit your resolutions and refine them. Rather than vowing to lose 60 pounds, vow to lose 2 pounds a week by eating the right foods, cutting down on proportion sizes, and walking for 20 minutes a day. Then when you lose the 2 pounds congratulate yourself and up the ante the following week.

Practice self-compassion. The more you criticize yourself the less motivation and self-control you’ll have to create the change you desire. When your mind hears you criticizing yourself it goes into a supportive mode, meaning that it triggers the vicious self-criticism cycle – the cycle of "What the heck difference does it make, I might as well indulge, feel guilty, and over-indulge because it really doesn’t matter. I’ve never been successful before so what makes me think I will be now?" However, when you practice self-compassion, you shift the supportive mode of your mind to helping you remember what you really want and you turn it into a cheerleading machine that will help you keep going even when you want to stop.

Anticipate setbacks. Okay, I want you to say to yourself, "I’m only human." In doing so, you’ll be more patient and tolerant of yourself and it’ll be easier for you to deal with the times when the demands of life override working on your resolutions. If you keep track of your energy highs and lows on a daily basis, you’ll begin to see when you’re motivated and feeling on top of things and when you’re tired and lacking motivation. Do yourself a favor and don’t try to push yourself to work on your resolutions. Especially new ones when you’re in a low cycle. All you’ll do is frustrate yourself, and you’ll trigger that vicious self-criticism cycle. Instead, work on your resolutions when you’re motivated and on top of things every day.

Practice Patience. Patience isn’t something the world encourages or fosters with its need for instant gratification. However, the latest research has found that it actually takes 66 days to form a new habit rather than the 28 to 30 days which was previously believed. Even better, this study showed that a single setback doesn’t predict failure. It is how the person recovers from a setback that ultimately determines how successful they are at creating and sustaining lasting change.

Accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. Take a moment and think about the people in your life. Are they positive and supportive? Or are they negative and critical? It’s tough to make lasting changes on your own, so surround yourself with people who are positive and upbeat, and who’ll encourage your efforts. Nothing is more inspirational than having a buddy or buddies to share those moments of success.

Manage your stress. Stress doesn’t only affect the body, it affects the mind. When the brain is stressed it goes into mental overload due to the flooding of the hormone cortisol. As a result, it has difficulty focusing, concentrating, and making decisions. Stress alters how you perceive the world and affects how you cope with the challenges life presents. It divides your attention, which forces your brain to discard critical sensory signals that influence how you think, causing you to feel emotionally overwhelmed and mentally overloaded. This not only makes it difficult to decide where to put your energy, it makes it difficult to deal with change. If you find yourself stressed, distressed, and pressed give yourself some "timeout" time. This is time away from the household chores, ringing phones, ceaseless emails, work issues, and all of your relationships and distractions. It’s you time and it can be a day, a weekend, or longer. Unplugging from the daily grind does wonders when it comes to inspiring you to move forward with those resolutions. Who knows, perhaps this was even one of your resolutions.

If you would like to learn more about stress and how to manage it using alternative therapies, check out the Your Health downloads on Stress at http://www.ritberger.com/Stress_Teleclass_by_Carol_Ritberger_p/tc-stress.htm

Light & Love,

The Secret of Happy People

According to a 25 year study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the secret to being happy isn’t professional or financial success. It’s about healthy relationships, helping other people, and being involved in church or community activities. This study showed that people who were involved in experiences that encouraged interaction with others and fostered a healthy camaraderie were not only happier, they were less stressed and experienced better physical and emotional health.

The Less You Snooze the More Parts of Your Brain Start to Snooze

Sleep deprivation has many unhealthy effects on the body, but now there is new evidence that shows the less you sleep the more ineffective your brain becomes in performing everyday tasks and the more questionable is it’s judgment. Research found that being sleep-deprived causes a small group of brain neurons to flip over into a sleeplike state. The result is that they become electrically silent, thus causing parts of the brain to become disengaged in the thinking/activity process.

Mindful Medicine

For years, meditation has been known to be an effective way to relieve pain.Finally, we know why. It activates multiple areas of the brain, according to Fadel Zeidan of Wake Forest University. In his study, people’s brains were scanned as they received uncomfortably hot touches to the leg. When they practiced a mindful meditation technique that encouraged detachment from the experience by focusing on their breathing, they reported less pain. It seems that different patterns of the brain emerged from mindful meditation. There was more activity in the brain’s executive centers that evaluated the experience and regulated emotions, and in the lower regions of the brain there was more activity in reducing the pain signals from the body. The conclusion of the study was that focused mindful meditation is an effective pill-free analgesia that can help people suffering from pain.

Take Care of Your Kidneys and they’ll Take Care of You

As comedian, Rodney Dangerfield would say, “Kidneys get no respect.” That’s because most people don’t think about taking care of their kidneys, they just expect them to do their job. Yet chronic kidney disease affects about 23 million adults in the United States, and more than half of those people aren’t even aware that there’s a problem. This is in part because the damage can progress for years without causing symptoms. The primary contributors to kidney disease include obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure

Consider these lifestyle changes to help keep your kidneys healthy:

• Control blood pressure. Reducing sodium intake not only reduces hypertension it helps protect the kidneys.
• Control diabetes if you have it.
• Limit potassium-rich foods such as bananas, raisins, and tomatoes. If you’re taking potassium consider consulting your doctor to monitor your levels.
• Exercise more and eat less. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) has proven kidney benefits.
• Limit using over-the-counter medications that can harm the kidneys. These include NSAIDs such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, and generic) and naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn, and generic) as they’re associated with kidney damage. For pain relief try acetaminophen (Tylenol and generic). If you need to take NSAIDs take the lowest effective dosage.
• Quit smoking.

The Best Self-Defenses for Bladder Infections

If you suffer from an occasional bladder infection or have chronic bladder infections here are some things you can do to get rid of them:

• Drink eight to sixteen ounces of water every 15 minutes at the first sign of burning when urinating. Do this for three hours. That amount of water effectively washes away many toxins and even troublesome bacteria.
• Begin taking D-mannose at the first signs of a bladder infection. This is available in powder and capsule form. D-mannose is a simple sugar. However, it’s not like the sugar that’s associated with glucose. Unlike glucose sugar, D-mannose sugar moves slowly through the urinary tract causing any bacterium to stick to it so it can be carried away during voiding.
• Drink cranberry juice. However, make sure it doesn’t contain sugar. Cranberries are an antiseptic for the urinary tract. Plus, they make it hard for bacteria to adhere to the bladder walls.
• Urinate when you have the need. Don’t hold it in until it becomes uncomfortable.
• Avoid acidic foods such as tomatoes, coffee, and carbonated beverages.
• Take parsley capsules because of their diuretic properties. They can help clean out an infected bladder and flush out infection.

Note: If your symptoms don’t improve in 24 hours seek immediate medical attention. Bladder infections can become kidney infections if left untreated and potentially cause kidney damage.

Make Time to Nap

The perception of taking a nap has changed as new research shows that taking a short nap in the middle of the day is a powerful secret to good health. According to the National Sleep Foundation people who take a 15 to 20 minute afternoon power nap do better on cognitive tests, are more alert, have more energy, and are generally healthier. Napping also reduces stress, lowers pulse rate, decreases hypertension, and generally improves cardiovascular health.

Positive Beliefs about Aging Promotes Better Health

Some people lose strength and vitality when they get old, while others remain robust. Why is this, asked researchers? Is it primarily tied to genetics and lifestyle? Not necessarily so, according the Becca Levy PhD of Yale School of Public Health, and renowned expert on stereotypes related to aging. What Dr. Levy learned is that what you think about aging significantly contributes to how you age.

A Yale asked 500 adults age 70 and older to list five words or phrases that came to their mind when they thought of an old person. Three years later, the people who associated aging with the stereotypes like feeble, senile, and immobile had experienced those qualities to the point that their quality of life had been significantly impacted. On the other hand, the people who associated aging with positive words such as strong, wise, and active experienced better health and were still living independent lives.

So what can you do to change your beliefs around aging and not fall into the stereotyping of getting old? Make it a point to create more positive images of aging such as being active and staying busy, acting youthful, getting involved, engaging in fun social activities, helping others, and sharing the wisdom that comes with aging. Also, spend more time with older active role models paying attention to how they act. Learn more about their strengths and contributions. Things as simple as these can make a difference in how you age.

Carol’s Health & Healing Tip for July 25, 2011

An Apple a Day Really Does Help Keep the Doctor Away
Apples have long been touted as being a healing fruit, but did you why? Well it seems that eating an apple a day can:

• Protect the lungs from cigarette smoke
• Aid in digestion
• Reduce inflammation
• Inhibit the growth of disease-producing bacteria in the small intestine
• Help cleanse the liver and gallbladder
• Soften gallstones
• Remove cholesterol
• Remove toxic metals such as lead and mercury
• Reduce the residues of radiation
• Help stabilize low blood sugar conditions
• Help prevent depression

Carol’s Health & Healing Tip for July 18, 2011

Reduce Inflammation with Strawberries
Chronic inflammation is an indicator of the increased risk for health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and auto-immune disorders. Inflammation is an overproduction of the body’s normal protective mechanisms, and is tied to Metabolic Syndrome. Diets that are high in fats and carbohydrates are known to produce high inflammation and insulin responses after eating. However, a recent research study conducted by the Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois, USA) fed 24 obese men and woman a diet high in fats and carbohydrates and then gave them a natural strawberry beverage. The results were that the inflammation and insulin responses were dramatically lower than the people who didn’t receive the beverage. It seems that strawberries aid in digestion, stimulate the liver’s digestive qualities, and benefit the pancreas by reducing insulin output.