Posted on February 19, 2012
Eating to comfort ourselves often come to us, this is something very normal. Often when we feel stressed, bored or lonely or we just want to cheer ourselves up. Most do it without even being totally aware of it. That temptation to have that extra helping because we've enjoyed the first one so much and taking an extra serving will make us feel better is the main reason why we over eat. However, every time we comfort ourselves with food, we consume lots of extra calories - when we're not even really hungry at all.
Hard Habits to break
We may not realize it, but comfort eating is something that we picked up from the time we were kids.
When we were babies, we cried and our mothers comforted us with their milk. As we grew older we were given treats for comfort or when we hurt ourselves, or when we achieve something great. Thus, we associate food as something that can cheer us up or something that has to be present when we want to celebrate. But, unfortunately for many of us, these comfort eating lessons often come back later in life and cause weight challenges.
To conquer comfort eating we need to change our relationship with food. The main purpose of food is to nourish out bodies, and that's it. Fuel. When we start to think about what food is, and what it contributes to our lives, we start to develop a healthier, more aligned relationship with food. The next time you feel down and want to dive in to that large serving of ice cream, take these simple alternative steps instead:
- Take some time out to pamper yourself with a long comforting bath, a facial, massage or manicure.
- Do something nice for someone else who needs the cheering up more than you do. It makes them feel good and helps you forget about your problems for a little while. You also feel better knowing you have helped out a friend in need.
- Visit or have a quick phone chat with a friend. Go for a walk in the fresh air or visit some nice place.
- Get off your bed or couch and exercise. Exercise takes our mind off things and when we work out our body releases endorphins, the natural feel good hormone.
- Don't suppress your feelings. Cry, and let it all out. You will feel finality when you have let your emotions out. Your head will clear afterward.
- Fill your ears with happy music. Dance like crazy if you want.
Food is our body's friend. But as we associate it with other things in life, in the end, we over eat and food suddenly becomes something to struggle with. By channeling our emotions properly, we can deal with the different up and downs of life without having to eat our way out of the situation.
Posted on January 29, 2012
When I first brought my dog home more than 10 years ago, she was a pretty wild one. As she was badly abused by her previous owners, she was neurotic and a little violent at times. I suffered from bites, scratches and minor injury for the first few months of my life with her. I didn't know how to control her and so I bought all kinds of books on dog training and tried to undo some of the damage she went through in her previous home.
She was obviously not an easy dog to train. I tried all the methods that the books talked about. And the success rates for discipline was only 10%. She would either try to pounce on other people around or she would try to hide if there was a big group of people walking towards us. My whole apartment was wrecked. She bit off a huge chunk of my sofa so there was sponge foam everywhere when I came home one day. She pulled down my curtains and bit all my nice candles, pictures, shoes, anything you can think of. My nicely decorated living room soon became an empty shell filled only with dog toys. Fleeting thoughts of giving up and sending her to the SPCA came to my mind. But I persevered because I believe every living creature deserves a chance. Over time the success rate for discipline, even though it did not go very much higher, did not deter me. After a couple of years she began to tone down on her boisterous behaviour. She was more calm and steady and realised eventually that I was unlike her previous owners. I can't say that her discipline level went beyond 50% but I still felt it was a great success.
Today, the same dog is older and deaf. She is still a live wire at times, and because she is now deaf, the learned ways of disciplining her has been thrown out of the window. We are now starting all over again with new methods of discipline. She has started to steal food off the kitchen counter, she does things she is not supposed to and all commands have been ignored because she can no longer hear. But my motivation to discipline my dog has always been the same - to be sure that she remains safe and harm free.
This experience with my dog has taught me many lessons on perseverance and adaptation.
We all have different reasons why we succumb to addictions and bad habits because we all have different experiences in life. But what we must do in order to break out of any bad habits/addictions is to persevere. Our life's circumstances may change over time and so adapting our methods to master our addictions must be done wisely. What may work yesterday may not work today. But our motivation should remain the same and that is to be liberated and to claim our mastery of self.
Posted on November 30, 2011
Have you ever heard of hypnotherapy? You may not know it but you might have a problem that can be treated using this technique. And that is why it can be worthy of your time to at least read some of the top benefits of hypnotherapy.
Hypnotherapy is the process or technique of utilizing hypnosis to assist an individual to make some positive changes in his life. And those changes can be physical, mental, or emotional. And of course these procedures are administered by a trained hypnotherapist. What it does really is to try to access the subconscious mind which actually has a great effect on our whole self. You alter the subconscious and you will start to see major changes in your life.
In case you are wondering, what is the difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy since they seem to be similar concepts? Understandably both have similarities but they differ in one main thing: hypnotherapy makes use of hypnosis to treat certain problems of an individual. In short hypnosis is the tool.
So here are some of the major benefits of hypnotherapy that you might be interested to know.
It can help you connect your present difficulties or problems with something that happened in the past that directly or indirectly caused you those problems. How can this be useful? If you know about those things then your hypnotherapist can now help fix them for you or at least guide you to the right healing process.
It can actually help in reducing your daily stress level, minimize your anxieties and along the way also help in improving your immune system. And when you are free from stress and your body's immunity is at its peak, less diseases will be affecting you from now on.
Hypnotherapy can also help clear your cluttered mind and as such helps to let out the creative part of your brain. So if you think you are being hindered by something, especially by your thoughts, from achieving your full potential as an artist you should definitely give this a try.
Are you feeling down? Is depression affecting the way you live your life and your relationship with the people that you love? Depression is a very serious problem that can lead to more grave consequences. Therefore before it starts to escalates in its gravity, look to a hypnotherapist to help you out.
Are you suffering from a phobia? Many people have claimed that hypnotherapy was able to relieve them from their phobias. Hypnosis have been known to achieve such healing milestones especially because it is able to reach into the subconscious which is mainly where our phobias reside.
And finally if you are just seeking some inner peace, if you are seeking life's purpose, this procedure can help you find all that. It sets you straight on the right path because it can help you feel more assertive and feel more peaceful.