Learn the 7 Ways for Healthy Living and Aging

The aging population in the US is growing larger and living longer. While it is worthwhile to live to a ripe old age, it is even more gratifying if you are aging in a healthy way.

What you habitually do everyday has a significant bearing on healthy aging as opposed to being old and sickly.

In my view, there are 7 Ways for Healthy Living and Aging that you should acquire if you don't have them already.

1. Get a good night's sleep every night. It can be as little as six hours. But, it should be one in which the lights are turned off with the full intention of sleeping and feeling relaxed in the morning,

2. Acquire and maintain a few friends with whom you can share good conversation, enjoy going to events, dinner, etc and giving each other mutual support.

3. Keep the mind active. Find a mental activity that is absorbing and gratifying. It can be learning a new skill, regularly surfing the internet for new learning experiences and the like.

4. Get daily exercise. If you can't join a YMCA or a health club, get an exercise bike and some weights and work out for at least 3 to 5 minutes a day and walk regularly.

5. Eat a balanced diet. It is not necessary to eat three meals a day. Two meals will suffice. However, if you do choose to eat three meals, make them light and nutritious.

6. Control your thinking. Your mind can easily drift into a pattern of thinking that can make you sad and depressed if you are not careful. Think constructive thoughts -- thoughts that are optimistic and forward looking.

7. Go to the doctor less frequently unless you have an illness that need to be monitored. Most doctors are trained to prescribe medications for any type of illnesses, real or imagined, and tests can sometimes give you false positives. 

Study to get to know your own body. Recognize symptoms that can be the precursors to a real illness. Then, when you go to the doctor, tell him specifically what your concerns are. Try not to get addicted to any type of medication.

Acquiring and maintaining these habits will be a great help in assuring a long and healthy life. If you don't already have a lifestyle based on these habits, reread this, and begin integrating these habits into your life. 

Remember any specific action repeated daily and consistently for at least 21 days will become a habit. Do this and acquire good habits.


Have you tried to change any habits lately? Leave your comments below

Take Control of Your Destiny by Breaking Bad Habits

To take control of your life, recognize that habits are response patterns to situations. 

If you are a smoker, you reach for a cigarette when the coffee is served, but not during the soup. 

You don't smoke or even want to in church, in the theater, in a courtroom, or in other places where no one usually smokes. 

Given the right circumstances you will light up.

In order to break a habit, then, you must recognize that you must deal with the source of satisfaction - that is, you must want to change your ways and give up the real or imagined benefits; you must be aware of what you are doing, and, you must take in account the situation that had become associated with the habit.

A number of methods for habit breaking have been proposed by therapists working from different points of views. 

Here I will review some of them and recommend the one that I believe is the most effective.

One method for habit breaking is through negative practice. 
This is deliberately repeating a habit over and over again until you are totally bored with it. This method can be used when you seem to be unaware of when or why you are doing something. 

This procedure calls attention to the situation involved, which makes them recognizable so that preventive action can be taken.

Another method that can be used is the tapering off method. 
This is a long-term process and works only if you are seriously interested in breaking the habit. If the habit is related to a life-threatening disease such as cancer or heart disease your motivation to break the habit can be significantly strong enough so that nothing else may be needed.

Still, another method is to quit cold turkey.  
You may experience significant stress with this approach or you may perhaps experience some joy out of being able to make such a complete break. 

This is not a method, but a decision that you make and are willing to stick with despite the potential discomfort that you will experience.

Finally, in my judgment the best way to break any habit is to follow the five main components of the habit reversal method:

1. Recognize that the habit is a strong or persistent urge that is not rooted in deeper psychological problems.
2. Keep precise record of urges and count the number of times that you actually succumb to them.
3. Develop an awareness of the chain of events that leads to or results in the unwanted behavior.
4. Learn relaxation method as a means of combating the urges.
5. And, substitute a response that incompatible with the unwanted behaviors.

If you really desire to quit any habit and take control of your life, these five easy step process really works.


Your Thoughts. Leave Your Comments Below

Connection Between Spirituality and Mental Health

Spirituality has been defined as the belief and practices that develop based on personal values and ideology of the meaning and purpose of life as part of a larger scheme.

It refers to the belief that there is a power outside of one's own that transcends understanding.

For many individuals, identifying with a religion and having religious beliefs influence their spirituality. However, spirituality is not confined to those who belonged to an organized religion or have religious beliefs.

People can develop spirituality without practicing a particular religion or believing in the powers of a supreme being. 

However, whatever is the nature of their spirituality, many individuals achieve a sense of inner peace and harmony as well as emotional fulfillment by believing that life has a purpose.

In my view spirituality and religiosity are interrelated with religiosity focusing on the external expressions of spirituality or faith. In other words religious practices can foster spirituality while spiritual practices could involve aspects of religious participation.

Nevertheless, a breakdown in spirituality can have a negative impact on one's mental well-being.

The key issue here is that whether changing their lives to improve their mental health or dealing with the recovery from a health problem, people with strong spiritual beliefs benefit from the foundation of confidence and purpose that their beliefs provide.

Now let's look at the three dimensions of spirituality. They are:
a. making personal meaning out of situations
b. coming to an understanding of self
c. appreciating the importance of connection with others.

Spirituality then may be considered a mechanism of social support, positive coping, and decision-making, avoidance of substance abuse, and help in times of stress.


What are your thoughts about spirituality? Leave your comments below.

10 No Nonsense Strategies to Easily Manage Your Time Effectively

When you manage something, you direct or control the use of it. Although you cannot direct time, you can certainly control your use of it.

All of us have the same amount of time, but how we use it, has a significant effect on the success we experience in life.

Time management does not involve any secret principles.

Rather, it involves setting priorities, organizing your life according to those priorities, making a commitment to keeping them, and enjoying the journey along the way with less stress and more accomplishments.

Here are the 10 simple and easy time management strategies.

1. Do it immediately. If a task can be completed in less than a minute, do it on the spot. So instead of putting the glasses and dishes in the sink and walking away, Wash them right away. Get it over with.

2. Organize your documents. Learn how to organize your documents and photos on your home or work computer. Consider the many free photo organizing applications and the organizing features in your word processing applications and use one or more of them.

3. Purge your email of all unnecessary messages. Get serious about it.

4. Organize your bookmarks. Determine the categories that are important to you and set them up.

5. Count to ten when you feel snowed under by clutter and general disorder, Just putting things back in their rightful place including the trash can. And always have a bag ready for thrift store donations.

6. Organize and file your junk email. Establish at least two new email accounts. Use one for all the retail and internet, promotions you want to receive, and for your shopping. The other email account should be for your relatives, friends, and urgent emails. Visited these accounts twice a day and dispatch everything you don’t want to save into the recycle bin.

7. Cook more rice than you need for your today’s meal. Use leftovers for spanish rice, fried rice, red beans and rice, or other good rice recipes.

8. Organize your bookshelves. You may find a favorite book that you just totally forgot to read or that you can benefit from rereading. Others you may just decide to donate.

9. Recycle instantly. Keep waste baskets in strategic spots around your home, and deposit junk mail, and unwanted catalogs in them. Buy a shredder and remember to shred anything with sensitive information.

10. And, finally, start your day smart. Begin your day with a healthy and delicious breakfast. Consider oatmeal, fruit, and raisin toast, an omelet, grits, and wheat toast, a raisin toast sandwich of your choice of jam and cream cheese and a piece of fruit. Or if you prefer something even lighter, how about raisin toast, and cottage cheese with fruit. Reduce or eliminate the amount of meat you eat for breakfast. You’ll then be more alert and have more energy.


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6 Ways to Keep Your Attitude Positive and Control Your Destiny

The dictionary defines attitude as a state of 
mind or feeling with regard to some matter, 
a disposition. 

Here I am suggesting that your consistent 
state of mind should be positive. 

The philosopher and psychologist, William 
James once said that "the greatest discovery 
of my generation is that man can alter his 
life simply by altering his attitude of mind." 

With this in thought mind, here are 6 Ways 
      to Keep Your Attitude Positive:

1. Stretch your feeling capacity. Feelings are at the heart of life. Yet most of us lack the vocabulary to distinguish and describe the subtle nuances of our experiences.

Shades of love include affection, tenderness, admiration, liking, attraction, caring. We may hate, despise, dislike, or feel indifferent. Attraction may take the form of desire, longing, craving, or coveting.  

Hope leads us to anticipate, trust, rely, feel confident. Despair may take the form of desperation, despondency, doubt, suspicion, discouragement, disappointment, defeat, helplessness. Feel good about yourself. Value what you are and what you have.

2.  Next time you feel frightened, try to pinpoint the exact color and intensity of your emotion. Are you Anxious? Apprehensive? Panicky? Scared stiff? Terrified? Aroused? Exhilarated? Worried? Troubled? Disquieted? Uneasy? Appalled? Timid? Alarmed? Petrified? Jumpy? 

As you expand your feeling-word vocabulary, you may be surprised to discover a new depth and richness in your experiences.

3.   Associate with optimistic, successful people. Talk about your good spirits and expectations, because that kind of thinking is contagious. Let your fears rest in  peace. Life  presents us all with an array of problems, many of which we have little or no control over. Don't be obsessed with what might happen. 

4.   Look for the silver linings. Choose to be positive. Every coin has two sides; every experience both a cost and a benefit; every life, an up side and a down side. Consider your spiritual side. Trust in yourself. Trust in your life. Saying, " everything will work out OK in the end," is phony only if you do nothing to help it work out. Laugh rather than complain. Play "ain't it funny" rather than "ain't it awful." Pop mental bubbles with humor.

5.   Practice the attitude of gratitude. To a great extent our attitude determines the kinds of feelings we experience. A cynical, fearful, negative attitude will fill us with negative experience. A positive, hopeful, open attitude will fill us with warmth. 

6.   In your conversations use positive, encouraging words. Concentrate on upbeat adjectives and adverbs; use action verbs. Practice positive speech from morning to night.


What do you think of these 6 Ways. Leave your comments below. 

8 Ways to Know If You Are Goal Directed

A person going nowhere can be sure of reaching his destination. Don't go nowhere. Your success improves when you set goals that are specific, short-term, and challenging. 

The big goal is not a measure of your present status. Rather, it is a target -- something you mean to ultimately realize. 

What you need to focus on are smaller, short range goals which are just beyond your current ability but still within the range of present possibility.

Set Supportive Goals
Your goals should be very supportive and satisfying as they will help you build your winning streak and a foundation for successful activity. 

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is too low and we reach it. Moreover, make your commitments in bite size chunks. A house is built one brick at a time. An artist paints one stroke at a time. And, you also should work in small increments.

Set Challenging Goals
Besides setting supportive and satisfying goals, set challenging goals. Strong interest and involvement in activities are sparked by challenges. Easy to reach goals spark little interest or effort. However, unrealistically high goals can bring failure and diminished self-confidence.

It is also important that your goals are concerns that you want to accomplish and not what you want to avoid. Researchers have found that the choice of avoidant goals is associated with poor performance and distress. 

Here then are the 8 Ways to Know if You are Goal Directed:

1. Do you set long-term and short-term goals?.
2. Do you set challenging goals that are neither too easy or beyond your reach?.
3. Are you good at managing your time and setting priorities to make sure you get the most important things done?.
4. Do you regularly make to-do lists and successfully get things done?.
5. Do you set guidelines and consistently meet them?
6. Do you regularly monitor how well you are progressing towards your goals and make changes in your behavior if necessary?
7. When you're under pressure, do you still plan your day and weeks in a clear and logical manner?
8. Do you set task-involved, mastery goals rather than self-centered or work-avoidant goals?

If most of the descriptions characterize you, than you are likely to be a goal-directed individual. If these statements do not characterize you, then consider ways that you can become more goal-directed.

Planning how to reach your goal and monitoring progress towards your goal are critical aspects of your achievement. 

Researchers have also found that high achieving individuals monitor their own learning and systematically evaluate their progress toward their goals more than low-prescription achieving individuals.

Have you been to a motivational speech, gotten charged up and then felt disappointed afterwards? The key is to try and see if you can internalize it and make it personal through goal formulation.

I'd like to hear from you. Leave your comments below and don't forget to Share it.

Control Your Destiny by Working Smarter and More Efficiently

As a blogger, you must be organized and your computer must be your best friend and assistant. 

Using your computer efficiently, being organized, and working smarter is the key.

If you can't find an important document, if you forget to make an important phone call, or you forget to pay an important bill on time, you will not only waste time, but it can cost you money.

Here are 7 ways to work smarter and keep this type of stress at a minimum:

1. Keep your desk organized.
Keep your files that you are currently working on close to your desk. I use two file crates that accommodate file folders always nearby. One crate has the folders that I am currently working on while the other crate has the research that I need to support the articles, blogs, and letters that I'm writing at that time.

2. Manage your time wisely.
Break your time down into segments associated with tasks. Here's how to do it. Determine what tasks that need to be completed each week. If you are like me, there are certain tasks that are consistent from week to week such as Phone Calls, Copywriting, Operations (organizing, filing, planning), Meetings, and Accounting. You may have other tasks that may not have to be addressed each week. Lay all this out and associate a segment of time to each task, either 30 minutes or more.

3. Learn keyboard shortcuts.
Here are some shortcuts for using Windows Logo: Start Menu Windows; Windows Logo +R: Run dialog box;  Windows Logo +E: Windows Explorer; Windows key +D  Desktop to foreground ; Alt + Tab: Switch to another running program; Alt + F4: Quit Program; CTRL+ ESC: Opens the Start Menu;  ALT+SPACE: Displays the main System menu; ALT+F4: Closes the current window. 

4. Keep adequate supplies available. Don't have your printer running out of toner when you have an important document that need to be printed immediately. The same goes for ink cartridges. Always keep spares on hand.

6. Don't get caught up in playing games or engaging in idle chit chat. I have two adult acquaintances that hold responsible positions in my community who play games on their computers almost from the time they arrive home to the time they go to bed. Personally, I believe in a life time of personal growth. 

In my opinion this is not the way to do it. I don't do idle text messaging, idle conversation (although I do love good intelligent and invigorating conversation) and I prefer to read for both relaxation and personal growth.

7. Read newspapers and articles online. Almost every print publication has an online version. I use Feedly and Pocket for these purposes.Save it and read periodically during the day. But, to each his own. By the way, there are some print publications that I prefer to have as a physical copy to read while I'm traveling.

To work smart requires you to have the proper mindset. Make it a priority and your will have satisfying results

What are your strategies. Leave your thoughts below.

5 Great Success Habits You Need to Have

Let's agree that we first make our habits and then our habits make us. 

From a psychological point of view, habits are well learned responses that are performed automatically in response to some stimulus, often unrecognized by the performer.

If you had to stop and think about anything, it's not a habit.For example, most of us have acquired the habit of using the mouse for navigating the internet, using a word processor, reading, composing e-mails, and so on.

Nevertheless, using the mouse for these tasks and other related tasks are much less efficient and productive than using the keyboard. Once you begin using the keyboard, you'll quickly realize a more effective use of your time and increased productivity.

If you are skilled in using the keyboard, you cannot tell without stopping to move your fingers which finger is used to type "k" or "r". Your typing has become a string of habits too fast for thought but highly desirable for efficiency.

In that you are likely using Windows, here are some simple Microsoft Windows keyboard shortcuts you can be using now: Windows key + D (Desktop to Foreground); F2 (renames a selected file or folder); Context Menu (Right Click); Alt + underlined letter (Menu drop down, Action selection); Alt + Tab (Toggle between open applications); Alt, F +X or Alt +F4 (Exit application); Alt, Spacebar + X (Maximize Window); Alt, Spacebar + N (Minimize Window); Ctrl + W (Closes Window); F2 (Renames a selected file or folder). Getting the keyboard habit is the key to productivity.

It is easier to form good habits than to change bad ones. However, forming new habits requires a daily commitment. Here are some additional good habits that can add to your success That as an independent consultant I have found to be useful:

1. Read consistently at least 15 minutes a day in your chosen field. It doesn't matter whether they are books, articles, or reports.

2. Get to the bottom of the subject or issue to understand the pros and cons and arguments for and against it. The habit of getting to the bottom of things, usually land you on top.

3. Clear your desk at the end of the day. A cluttered desk at the beginning of your day, makes for a confused start and detracts from a sense of focus.

4. Identify six items that can be accomplished by the end of your day, write them down and make a sincere effort to complete all six.

5. Get some file crates. Put them next to your desk and place, in them, the files you are working on for easy access.

Habits are either your best servants or your worst of masters. Make your habits your best servants.

Are your habits your best servants? Leave your comments below.

 

Learn the 10 Business Success Attributes

In my article, "For Personal Development and Productivity - Start with Managing Your Time",  I discussed the three culprits that destroy personal development and productivity efforts. 

Here I will reveal the 10 Business Success Attributes and ask that you will score one for each attribute that you possess. 

Managing your time is one of them, but all are equally important:

___ Strong-Willed Survivor           ___ Opportunity Seeker
___ Fluent Communicator            ___ Information Gatherer
___ Methodical Planner                ___ Astute Money-Handler
___ Disciplined Action-Taker         ___ Self-Motivator
___ Personable People-Mover      ___ Precise Time Manager

A score of 8 or more means that you can be reasonably confident that you are a good candidate for starting and succeeding in your own business. 

Read my article on 10 Strategies for Managing Your Time Effectively after completing this.


What do you think of these 8 attributes? Leave your comments below.

Fun and Beneficial Exercising - A Happiness Habit

Moderate or Vigorous Physical Activities. 

At minimum, you should strive for 30 minutes of moderate physical activity each day. That activity can become even more beneficial if you pump it up to vigorous.

Moderate

Walking briskly (3-4 mph)

Cycling for pleasure or transportation (<10 mph)

Swimming, moderate effort

Conditioning exercise, general calisthenics

Racket sports, table tennis

Golf, pulling cart or carrying dubs

Home care, general cleaning

Mowing lawn, power mower

Home repair, painting

Vigorous

Walking briskly uphill or with a load

Cycling, fast or racing (10 mph)

Swimming, fast treading crawl

Conditioning exercise, stair ergonometer, ski machine

Racket sports, singles tennis, racquetball

Golf, practice at driving range

Moving furniture

Mowing lawn, hand mower

Fix-up projects

Everyone Should Exercise
Exercise can be for everyone, regardless of age. Elderly people who regularly exercise say they have more energy, sleep more soundly, enjoy eating more and report fewer aches. Adult exercisers of any age smoke less, drink less, and handle stress better. Beginning and sticking with an exercise program will lower body fat stores and increase muscle strength and flexibility. The added stress supplied by most exercises can help ward off osteoporosis -- a bane many women over the age of 45 may want avoid.

Now, when you are tired the last thing you may want to do is exercise. But doing just that is really what you need. Here are five reasons to exercise away your fatigue:

1.       Exercise will pump oxygen into your blood and brain.  Your circulatory system and organs will benefit.

2.       Exercise can help keep adrenaline hormones in balance. You’ll be able to deal with stress more easily if those hormones is not swinging wildly.

3.       Exercise will help normalize blood sugar so your body has a steady supply of energy for which to draw. Fatigue and listlessness can result from drops in blood sugar.

4.       Exercise can reduce emotional stress. A workout provides a healthy outlet for venting frustrations, and as your physical condition improves, self-confidence for a job well done should follow.

5.       Exercise releases the body’s natural painkillers. These chemicals, called endorphins, can create feelings of well-being and happiness – – a big perk for a fatigue mind.

If you haven’t done much exercising until now, ease into it. Start exercising and reap the benefits.

Let me know how much you are benefiting. Leave your comments below.