health Archives – Page 9 of 11

Stress? Cut it in 5 minutes or less

May 21, 2016 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Stress is not good. Over time, tension and overloads can seriously harm our health. A constantly stressed person is not a happy one. With unnecessary tension, we age faster. The immune system becomes weaker. Some people say they thrive on stress but they usually mean they enjoy challenges and stimulus. As with most things, balance is the key. Stimulus can be good but we also need to rest our minds and bodies. Here is a wonderfully easy stress-busting technique.

Stress buster – an easy technique to calm mind and body

Anyone can do this. It’s an ancient method and I make no claim for it. It works superbly and it’s simple.

You can do this standing, sitting or lying down but I recommend doing it seated to begin with. In fact, if done whilst seated it can be used as a form of meditation for quietening the mind and is probably one of the simplest, and oldest, forms of meditation.

For the first couple of times you do this, place the flat of one hand on the lower abdomen, just over the navel or a fraction below it, and breathe right out. As you breathe out, you should be able to feel the abdomen draw in slightly. As you breathe in, it should expand. If you find the movement goes the opposite way, it means that you are shallow-breathing. The diaphragm moves up rather than down on the in-breath which results in a shallow breath.

After a few breaths, take the hand away and begin the technique:

Sit up reasonably straight with the hands resting in the lap or on the knees or thighs. If you are sitting in a chair, make sure that the legs aren’t crossed at the knees and the feet are flat on the floor. It’s important to be comfortable but if we slouch, we constrict the energy channels in the body, especially in the back, and we won’t have the same benefit.
Place the awareness on the lower abdomen and exhale, feeling the movement of the abdomen.
Close the eyes and continue to breathe normally, simply being aware of the movements that come with the breathing.

It’s important not to try to control the breath in any way; this is not a breathing exercise and we should be relaxed. If you don’t like having the eyes closed, having them half closed with the eyes downcast is fine.

That, simply, is it. We should sit like this for at least five minutes. Once we become used to it, we can extend it to a ten minute session, which will work wonders. When we find the mind wandering, we simply bring our awareness back to the movement of the breath.

Help the brain, lose stress and concentrate the chi

Call it an exercise, a meditation or a technique. It doesn’t matter what we call it. By engaging in this process, we allow a number of things to happen.

Awareness brings our mind and body together (more on this here)
As mind and body unite with the rhythm of the breath, we enter a state of rest – pulse rate lowers, as does the blood pressure.
This deeper relaxation allows the gradual release of stress and tension.
Brain activity changes – a balancing between left and right hemispheres takes place, resulting in greater coherence.
Chi or energy in our body settles quickly, particularly in the abdomen. With practice, chi can build up in the dan tian. This is an energy area in the lower abdomen. When our chi is settled there, we feel calmer and are less prone to stress.
After our session, we will normally feel some quietness. This is our natural, inherent quietness that gives a calmer and clearer mind.
With practice, we will benefit from less stress, greater happiness, clarity and more energy. That’s what I call a result!

What do you find effective in reducing stress and giving energy?

More on this in The Great Little Book of Happiness which is available now.

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Chi: why it is crucial to your wellbeing

May 15, 2016 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Chi is the key to our sense of inner and outer health

Coursing through our bodies are numerous energy channels that carry our life-force – chi. Chi (pronounced chi breath “chee” and sometimes written qi) is our vital energy, which flows through us, including the organs of the body. Many of the meridians, the main channels, are named after the organs that they influence. Throughout the whole body, there is a very complex network.

When chi is abundant and balanced, then health is good. The body is strong and we feel well. However, when there are blockages in the network, we get an imbalance. If we think of this system as a sort of bio-electrical circuit, we can perhaps imagine that if there is not enough chi flowing, there will be coldness and lack of energy. In other areas, there may be congestion and overheating due to overload.

The mind and chi

As practitioners of chi kung (sometimes written qigong) and the internal martial arts know very well, chi can be influenced or led by the mind. In other words, we can affect the flow of chi by our thinking or by shifting our awareness. For example, if we breathe with our awareness focused slightly below the navel, it is possible with a little practice to feel the energy building up there.

Chi can be led by the mind because there are subtle energies in the emotional and mental layers of our being, as well as in our body. The relationship between these is very close. When we have a thought, there is a movement of subtle energy in the mental layer or mental body, as it is sometimes called. If that movement is strong or maintained, it can significantly affect the flow of chi. In general terms, if the flow of energy is good and positive, the blood circulation will normally also be healthy. We may feel some warmth or light tingling sensations, particularly in the hands.

If we think of the connection between the subtle energies of the mind (sometimes delightfully called the mental winds) with our chi, it becomes easier to understand how any upset in mind or body can create upset in the other. If the mind is disturbed, the energy in the body will be agitated. Similarly, if the body is upset or stimulated, it is likely that the mind will be unsettled too. So when we talk about becoming tranquil, it is not just calming the mind. Both body and mind are interdependent.

Breath, body, mind

The breath is far more than physiological respiration. It is the magic bridge between body and mind. Awareness of the breath is a major tool in bringing about tranquillity and, as a result of that, clarity of mind.

When we feel agitated or upset, our breathing changes. It becomes shallower and more rapid. We then tend to breathe mainly into the top of the lungs. As we inhale, the diaphragm pulls up rather than pushes down. The pulse runs faster, the blood pressure rises and the body behaves as if the most important thing is to maintain a rapid intake of oxygen. It does this because adrenalin secreted into the bloodstream brings the body to a state of readiness for action – the “fight or flight” response. On the other hand, when we are calm the breath tends to be deeper and slower.

More than air

As well as drawing in oxygen, the breath takes in chi from the air. How we breathe also affects the flow of energy in the body. When our breath is shallow and rapid, it tends to bring more chi to the surface of the body, taking it away from the centre where its presence helps to stabilise us. In effect, the chi is dissipated and our calmness and stability disappear. Conversely, when the breathing is slower and deeper, the chi tends to build up in the centre of the body. In particular, this is at an energy centre known as the dan tian, in the lower abdomen just below the level of the navel.

If the chi is settled and stable, the subtle energies it affects – in particular the “mental winds” – will also be more settled. As a result our thinking becomes clearer and our emotions steadier. The advice that is sometimes given to someone who is upset to “take some deep breaths” has its basis not just in physiology but also in the subtle energy system.

Why breathing exercises can be bad for you

There are many systems of breathing exercise but we have to be very careful with them. If the breath were simply about oxygenating the blood and carrying away the carbon dioxide, there probably wouldn’t be any need for caution, other than ensuring that we avoid hyperventilation or perhaps even hypoventilation.

If we concentrate too much or overemphasise a certain aspect, we can create tension and unwittingly cause chi to accumulate and stagnate in a particular area. A person who once attended one of our tai chi classes attempted to do deep breathing whilst practising the tai chi moves. She made herself quite unwell for several hours because she created tension in the body and upset the chi.

So it is important that we are careful. To that end I don’t advocate anyone doing breathing exercises without personal guidance. However, we can still utilise the breath as a vehicle that harnesses the body, mind and subtle energies, enhancing our calmness, clarity and well-being. Next time, we’ll look at a simple but effective method of doing this.

From the chapter Serenity in The Great Little Book of Happiness

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Love everybody – is that possible?

April 20, 2016 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

It is a rare human being who can love everybody. We all want to be happy, but even though loving others brings greater happiness, we don’t love everybody equally.

In energy terms when we feel love, the vital heart centre opens. It is like a flower opening to the sun. It can give us an amazingly deep experience of joy. But sometimes the heart centre is open only a little and can even be shut tight. To love everybody is an ideal but right now we will probably find that although at times we feel loving, at others we don’t feel love at all. If we are honest with ourselves, there is just neutrality or indifference towards the majority of other people.

Why it is difficult to love everybody

There is in essence one reason for our difficulty – we see others as separate from us and as being different in nature. When we love, it is because we recognise in the object of our love something akin to our own nature. When we don’t love, that recognition isn’t there. There is something alien about the other person.

Beneath the veneer of our personality, we all share the same spiritual nature and the purpose of life is to find that nature within us. At times we may see it and we recognise everyone else as exactly the same as us at the very root of their being. Then a resonance occurs that can cause ripples of energy that trigger a sensation of deep joy in the heart.

So often, though, that recognition isn’t there and that lack is the cause of all conflict. Disputes, jealousy, anger and dishonesty all arise from this. All negativity and all indifference stem from this wrong view. Yet the truth is that if I give to you, I give to myself; if I take from you, I take from myself. If I love, I enrich myself; if I feel anger or hostility, I deprive myself.

How this selectiveness affects our happiness and well-being

By failing to see that everyone is of the same nature as us, the heart centre oscillates. It opens and it closes.

The effect of this is that our happiness fluctuates. When love is present, our vitality increases – we radiate energy and our aura expands; if we don’t love, they recede. This happens because love connects us to the universe; when we love, recognise and connect with others, we “plug in” to universal energy, so to speak. At other times, we run on our own batteries, which have limited life and power.

We have choice

By choosing not to love – and whatever we may think, there is a certain amount of conscious choice in it – we restrict ourselves. We decline to engage fully with life. Okay, painful experiences in the past may be the reason for some of that non-engagement; but much of it arises from apathy and selfishness. Love is passionate, fiery and outgoing and its radiance nourishes, increasing our happiness and well-being. By not loving at times, we cut ourselves off from that.

Some might argue that it’s human nature to be selective because we have been conditioned in this way. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. Indeed, we should do something about it because surely our spiritual duty in this life is to improve ourselves as human beings and so help to improve the world.

Based on an extract from The Great Little Book of Happiness available here.

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Detox the mind instead of the body – with love

April 9, 2016 by Andrew Marshall Leave a Comment

Detox is big business. For years, there has been well-marketed enthusiasm about detoxifying the body. “So-and-so’s (insert name of famous person) marvellous 7, 14 or 28 day detox plan will make you feel so much younger, vital, radiant etc. etc.” Bookshops abound with titles on the subject and, inevitably, celebrity-endorsed products are available in shops and pharmacies for us all to spend our cash on.

Perhaps we have moved on a little from one-food fasts and the fashion of colonic irrigation. Instead, now we can buy gadgets that liquidise vegetable matter that no-one would normally eat so that we can pour various green or brown concoctions down our throats without having to chew or taste anything. Who knew paradise would be like this? Call me old-fashioned, but what some people swallow as super-food looks too much to me like the slurry farmers spread on the fields around here.

No doubt some of these plans, diets and so forth work well. Whether it is due to laziness or denial I’m not sure, but this form of self-torture doesn’t appeal to me. I still have my own teeth and I’d like to keep on using them for as long as possible. And if I choose to eat kale now and again, it will be cooked and chewed before I swallow it.

For some folk this strange way of ingesting food as liquid is the bees knees. In the meantime, the makers of the various high-speed blenders, bullets and whatever else are no doubt very grateful. .And in all fairness, it has been proved beyond any doubt that filling the body with toxins and junk food can make us feel pretty awful, so there must be benefits. Please don’t get me wrong – a detox may well do a lot of good.

Detox the mind as well as the body

But life isn’t ruled by the body and we are not just a body, so if we are going to detoxify ourselves, wouldn’t it be good to find something that detoxifies the mind and emotions as well? After all, it is the mind and emotions that govern our thinking, our speech and our behaviour – which includes the act of putting food into our bodies.

If we can look after the mind and emotions, the body will follow suit. It never ceases to amaze me that we humans are quite happy to spend time in the bathroom in the morning so that we look presentable and our bodies don’t get whiffy but very few people are prepared to spend a few minutes preparing the mind for the day ahead.

Some spiritual teachers with considerable insight have said that if we could see the polluting effects of our minds and emotions on the world, we would be shocked to see how devastating they are – far worse than what we normally term pollution.

Love is the greatest detox

Love purifies because it uplifts our mind. The “rate of vibration” of the mind is raised when we express or feel love. In old spiritual parlance, the mind is quickened.

As the mind becomes lighter, so do the emotions and our vitality – we are happier and have more energy. We know this from our own experience. As these aspects of our being become lighter, dross or impurities are thrown off.

Imagine a plate or a turntable that is spinning slowly. Objects on it stay where they are purely from their inertia; their own weight keeps them where they are. Now imagine the spinning action speeding up. The objects start to move towards the edge through centrifugal force. The faster the rate of spin, the closer to the edge they go and eventually they are thrown off.

Something similar happens to our system. Negative thinking and negative emotions start to get thrown off by the lighter, positive energy that starts to flow through us as we love more and become happier. This effect on mental, emotional and vital levels of our being also carries through to the physical level. Those who have a deep love for all around them build up fewer toxins from the environment because the body throws them off far more readily.

So love is a great purifier. No, it’s the greatest purifier we can have. We don’t go around trying to love in order to have a “grand detox”, of course, but it is helpful to understand that love is hugely transforming and has only positive benefits. And it’s free.

Based on an extract from The Great Little Book of Happiness available here.

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Love is a real power so why not zap someone?

April 3, 2016 by Andrew Marshall 2 Comments

Love is real power. Yes, real power. It is energy, not just a feeling. Could we zap someone with it?

Everything in the universe is energy and love is part of it. If love weren’t energy, it wouldn’t affect anything but we know from our experience that it does; it changes things. We know if we love, we feel different, our body feels different, our vitality changes and life is better. It may help us to be healthier and live longer. It certainly improves the quality of life. So love does something.

Cosmic glue

Some ancient wisdom teachings speak of love as being the unifying energy of the universe. It holds things love healing together and provides cohesiveness. It is like cosmic glue. We can see in families and other groups that where there is selfless caring those groups hold together very strongly. Those who have the gift of being able to see energies and auras describe the beautiful colours that emanate from people when they express love. Simply, we radiate energy of a very special kind when we love.

If we think, then, of love in terms of energy rather than simply as a feeling, we can begin to understand that it is a hugely transforming agent. It transforms us and, on an energy level, it can affect others. One of those effects is to heal.

Love as healing power

When we love, we send forth a great wave of positive energy and, because of its tendency to bring about cohesiveness, it heals. Love will heal rifts in relationships of all kinds, we know that; but it can also help to bring about healing of the body and emotions. A person who loves will tend to heal more quickly than someone who is very negative; they will also tend to fall ill less often because the immune system is stronger. This is partly because the happier we are, the more endorphins (“happy biochemicals”) the body produces.

There is also another aspect: the person who loves has less tension and restriction in the body with the result that both blood and chi (the vital energy of the body) flow more easily. So, quite unwittingly, the lover automatically nourishes his or her own body. This provides conditions in which the body will heal more easily. Negative emotions, those feelings that rise up and cause us pain, will arise less often because the positive energy of love will tend to neutralise or at least lessen the impact of them and so, over a period of time, the emotional body becomes healthier too.

Love power: the affect on others

By loving, we don’t just heal ourselves, though. We create a positive energy field around us that affects other people. Unless the other person blocks us off by putting up mental barriers, our positive energy will bring about some effect in their energy field. It may only be a very small effect and perhaps just a fleeting one but some change there will be. If the other person is very negative, the effect will probably be negligible but even so, there are many who recount instances where an apparently negative person has been less so when loving or healing thoughts have been directed towards them. Imagine, then, the effect if the other person is receptive: they will receive a good boost of energy and healing processes will be enhanced by that.

Really successful healers are not those who just “lay on hands”, although that can be an effective method in certain circumstances; no, the really successful healers are those who express genuine loving-kindness, irrespective of who the other person is. Those in the medical and healing professions who truly love their work and care for their patients achieve far more than those who don’t. But we don’t have to be a healer in the traditional sense or in one of the caring professions in order to heal. If we are human and love, we heal because that is one of the amazing effects of this very real power.

So can we zap?

Most certainly! And try this – when you are out and about and see other people (and animals, for that matter) send a wave of good feeling from your heart out to them. Don’t say anything and don’t stare, just silently but consciously project goodness and kindness towards them. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Adapted from an extract in The Great Little Book of Happiness which is available here.

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Stress? Cut it in 5 minutes or less

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