Yoga Poses For Children – 3 Basic Yoga Positions For Children to Practice at Home

Do you want your child to be healthy, flexible and strong? Would you like your child to know how to calm and relax their minds, to concentrate and focus better at school? Are you concerned that your child does not like exercise and prefers to spend their spare time playing video games rather than mixing with their peers?

As a parent or carer you naturally want your child to be healthy and fit. Yoga exercises, with their emphasis on gentle stretching exercises, joyful breathing exercises and creative relaxation techniques encourage your child to exercise and feel good about themselves.

If your child is anxious and not keen to attend a Children's Yoga Class, you can always introduce them to yoga poses at home, so that when they attend their first class they feel more confident and comfortable.

Naturally, if you are showing your child yoga poses at home, please make sure you practice in a warm environment, ideally practice bare foot on an exercise / yoga mat. Make sure there is sufficient space for your child to move without risk of hurting themselves, keep an eye on them, in fact practice together as it's a lovely way to bond and reconnect with your child; and most importantly have fun and make sure your child stays relaxed and non-competitive.

3 Basic Yoga Positions for Children to Practice At Home

1. Downward Dog Pose. A lovely pose which gently stretches your child's back, strengthens their heart and brings blood to their head which helps to nourish and calm their mind.

a. Start on your hands and knees, with your arms straight and your hands underneath your shoulders. Curl your toes under and breathe out as you lift your knees up and straighten your legs. Keep pressing your heels to the ground, focus on bringing your chest as close as possible towards your legs as you lift your hips back and up. Think of a dog stretching when they wake up and bark and growl like a dog. Hold the pose for as long as you feel comfortable and keep breathing deeply. 
b. To come out of the pose, slowly come down on your hands and rest in the Child Pose.

2. Child / Mouse Pose – ideal to relax your body and calm your nervous system after a hard day at school, or strong yoga pose. Think of a mouse as you kneel on the floor with your bottom on your heels. Lower and rest your forehead on the floor, place your arms by your side with palms facing up. Close your eyes relax and breathe quietly. Stay as still as a mouse or if you feel more energetic, you can "squeak" like a mouse.

3. Cobra / Snake Pose. Your child will love wriggling and hissing like a snake. A great exercise to release tension, stretch a stiff back and open your heart.

Lie face down on the floor / yoga mat and rest your forehead on the mat. Place your palms flat on the floor, elbows pointing up and hands directly under your shoulders. Take a steady breath in and as you breathe out gently lift your forehead and chest up from the ground. Keep your lower abdomen (belly button area) on the mat and press your hands down into the mat. Keep looking straight ahead; relax your shoulders and hissss like a snake. Slowly lower your chest and forehead to the ground. Make a pillow with your hands and rest your cheek on the pillow.

This basic yoga sequence consisting of Downward Dog, the Child Pose and Cobra is ideal to introduce your child to yoga exercise. Join in, make up an Adventure Story using the posts and enjoy spending quality fun time together.

Holistic Cancer Treatment That is Medically Sound

It’s a fact that not every holistic cancer treatment is effective, but it’s also a fact that today’s conventional cancer treatments are physically damaging and far from perfect in their results. As a medical doctor and cancer treatment specialist in Arizona, I have heard plenty of wild claims that make it very difficult for patients to recognize the difference between junk science and alternative medicine cancer treatments that are genuinely defensible and medically sound.

The Problem: Standard Chemotherapy vs. Holistic Cancer Treatment

If you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, you need a treatment that works. In spite of continued treatment advances and innovations, most physicians will tell their patients that traditional chemotherapy is the most effective way to control cancer.

Chemotherapy is a very blunt instrument – it damages healthy cells along with tumors, and it has a long list of harmful effects ranging from hair loss and nausea to liver disease and DNA distortion. Unfortunately, many alternative medicine cancer treatments that avoid the risks of chemotherapy also do not provide an effective cure.

The Solution: Insulin Potentiation Therapy

In the 1920s, researchers developed a way of adjusting standard chemotherapy treatments to limit the dosage and focus the treatment more effectively on the cancer cells alone. Low-dose chemotherapy, or Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT), is a treatment method that grew out of this approach.

• Cancer cells feed on sugar and tend to have a many more insulin receptors on their surface than normal, healthy cells do. As a result, they respond more to insulin, “opening up” and absorbing more from the bloodstream than healthy cells would.
• By using insulin to signal the cancer cells to open up, IPT requires a much smaller dosage of chemotherapy, focusing its destructive effects on the cancer cells and limiting the kind of damage that standard chemotherapy causes to healthy tissue.

Is Insulin Potentiation Therapy Right for You?

IPT isn’t the only option or the best one for every single patient, but it can accomplish a great deal to destroy even highly aggressive cancers. If you’re considering this procedure, evaluate:

• The training of the practitioners. Accurate assessments of your health concerns are extremely important since there are numerous options for chemotherapy, and you want to choose a treatment that will work with your body as effectively as possible. Pay attention to your doctor’s credentials and choose someone who has experience with a wide range of cancer treatment alternatives, including IPT.
• Comprehensive care. Even smaller-scale cancers can affect your body as a whole, so it’s important to attack the problem from all sides to maximize your body’s efforts. Science-based supplementary treatments need to complement the effects of the IPT properly, by encouraging better immune function and helping to limit chemotherapy’s negative effects on the liver.

Signs of Spiritual Awakening – 9 Essential Symptoms of Awakening

Recently on the Internet I discovered a few lists of the signs of spiritual awakening (sometimes also referred to as symptoms of spiritual awakening).  The lists I’ve come across so far are vague and unclear (for example: headaches and body aches, feeling as though you’re on an emotional rollercoaster “for no reason,” changes in energy levels, sleep patterns, jobs, and/or relationships, gaining or losing weight, even an itchy scalp–all apparently for no reason), so I decided to come up with my own list of what I understand to be the most essential and relevant signs and symptoms of spiritual awakening. The following is a list of nine things I experienced during the process of awakening: 

1. Synchronicities that are meaningful to you. (These help point you in the right direction or help spark an important new insight.)
2. Intensely painful life “changes” that you can’t explain or know how you’ll get through. (This assures that you look within for the answers.  Note that “change” is often a polite way of saying “loss.”)
3. All-consuming inner contemplation followed by possible reassessment of beliefs, especially at 3 or 4 in the morning (often triggered by happenings or things you can’t explain using your current belief systems or knowledge).
4. Receiving “secret messages” from people who aren’t aware they’re relaying special messages to you. (If they had known, they may have hesitated, and sometimes spirit just doesn’t want to take chances.)
5. Having the same thing (especially something that’s unusual) happen to you two or three times in a relatively short period of time, like, say, 24 hours. (This assures that you actually notice what your higher self wants you to notice.)
6. Waking up in the middle of the night feeling intense confusion. (This means your beliefs are being re-evaluated. Before you become clear and solid in your new awakened state, you will no doubt find yourself mucking through a period of deep confusion.)
7. Favorable synchronicities that happen regularly. (You can expect these to occur after you regularly follow through with your inner guidance.)
8. Intense, vivid dreams that seem to point you in a certain direction. (The further along in the process you are, the clearer your dreams will be and the more your dreams will help guide you in your daily life. The dreams will be in metaphor form, often in metaphors that make sense to you.)
9. Finding yourself laughing more often. (Sometimes you will wake up in the middle of the night, think something profound that’s also funny, and then laugh your head off. This is not a joke. Your higher self is playful and wants you to have fun while you’re awakening.)

Experiencing any (or all) of these signs means that spirit (your higher self) is trying to get your attention! Also, spirit is playful and wants you to enjoy the awakening process (it’s not all about pain and drama but about enlightenment, about becoming light-hearted). You will also be amazed at the creativity of your higher self.

Remember, the fast track to spiritual awakening does not depend on how much fame or fortune you’re born with (or currently possess), or on how many advanced degrees you have, but on how much you’re willing to (temporarily) forgo your comfort zones for the noble purpose of personal and spiritual growth. This is important because it is your individual growth that is of utmost importance at this crossroad in humanity’s collective evolution.  Remember also that the signs and symptoms you experience aren’t just signs or symptoms; they are designed to assist you in the spiritual awakening process.

Yoga for Health and Fitness – The Seven Major Energy Centers (Chakras)

Yoga is one of the most famous and globally widespread of India’s traditions. It has existed as a system of exercise, breathing, and meditation for over 5,000 years. The word “Yoga” means “to join or yoke together” – bringing the body and mind together into a harmonious experience. The exercises are designed to apply gentle pressure to the glandular system thereby toning the glands and improving total health. The breathing techniques are based on the principle that the “breath” is the source of life in the body. Meditation calms the mind and body and prepares one to handle stress.

The Upanishads (ancient Hindu texts) define Yoga as a state of gokumu jisho “extreme nothing self nature.” Essentially, one’s consciousness becomes himself. According to Tsuruji Sahota: “When the five senses stop their function and the judging mind stops its function as well, people call it the ultimate state. To control the organs of the body is regarded as Yoga.” The organs are controlled and toned by drawing energy up through the seven major energy centers, or chakras. The ultimate goal is to reach the topmost chakra and achieve self-illumination. When certain postures and disciplines are followed, energies that have accumulated and stagnated are moved through the chakras. The practicing of Yoga releases these stagnant energies that would potentially cause various ailments (see below).

THE SEVEN MAJOR ENERGY CENTERS (CHAKRAS)

CROWN CHAKRA – SELF-ILLUMINATION RELATED TO BRAIN, PITUITARY AND PINEAL GLANDS

THIRD EYE CHAKRA RELATED TO EYES, PITUITARY AND PINEAL GLANDS

THROAT CHAKRA (ETHER) RELATED TO LUNGS, VOICE, EARS, NOSE AND THROAT

HEART CHAKRA (AIR) RELATED TO HEART AND CIRCULATION

SOLAR PLEXUS CHAKRA (FIRE) RELATED TO DIGESTION

SACRAL CHAKRA (WATER) RELATED TO GENERATIVE AND SEXUAL FUNCTIONS

BASE CHAKRA (EARTH) RELATED TO GENERATIVE AND SEXUAL FUNCTIONS

Each chakra is related to a specific area of the body, such as the head, heart, sacral area. Some add an eighth Thymus Chakra.

Even though Yoga predates Hinduism by several centuries, it is often mistakenly associated with this religion. It must be emphasized that Yoga is not a religion it has no creed or fixed set of beliefs. One does not need to be concerned about conflicts with one’s beliefs.

The scholar, Patanjali, compiled one of the earliest texts related to Yoga. He devised basic Yoga theories and practices in his text called Yoga Sutras as early as the 1st to 5th century B.C. Most forms of Yoga practiced today are based on variations of his system often referred to as Classical Yoga. Even though Americans were first introduced to Yoga during the late 1800’s, it didn’t become popular until the 1960’s, and then as part of the youth culture. In recent years, many are realizing the value Yoga to manage stress, limber a stiff body, improve health and well-being and better understand oneself.

One can better decide if Yoga offers something of personal benefit by considering the eight steps of Classical Yoga:

1. “Restraint” – Refraining from violence, stealing, lying, hoarding and casual sex.

2. “Observance” – Attributes of purity, contentment, tolerance, remembrance and study.

3. “Physical Exercises” – The actual exercising step.

4. “Breathing Techniques” – Special breathing techniques.

5. “Preparation for Meditation” – Refers to “withdrawing the mind from the senses.”

6. “Concentration” – Being able to hold one thing in the mind for a period of time.

7. “Meditation” – Being able to focus on one thing, or nothing, indefinitely.

8. “Absorption” – The realization of the essential nature of self.

Physical exercise, breathing techniques, and meditation are the core of most modern Western Yoga classes. Yoga practice is non-competitive. You proceed at your own pace. Relaxing the muscles and keeping them warm is very important. There is an old Yoga quote that states: “Even iron will bend when it is warm!”

There are actually over a hundred different schools of Yoga. Some of the more popular schools to consider include:

Hatha Yoga – Based on physical movements, postures, and breathing techniques (most

familiar school).

Raja Yoga – Called the “Royal Road,” it incorporates exercise, breathing, meditation

and study (a well rounded school of Yoga).

Jnana Yoga – The path of wisdom (considered the most difficult path of Yoga).

Yoga is a system of techniques that can be practiced by most adults of any age or physical condition. Even those with physical limitations can benefit from yoga. Women menstruating, pregnant, or nursing should not practice Yoga. Ideally, the best way to start the practice Yoga is to find a qualified instructor. A second alternative would be to purchase a good book or tape. If you’re not sure where to start your search for Yoga classes, check out adult education programs, holistic centers, family YMCA programs, health food or nutrition stores or community newspapers. CAUTION: A qualified instructor is essential to learn proper technique and to prevent injury.

The Difference Between Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy

If you are new to hypnotherapy, you may be confused with the terms hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It actually has a big difference between hypnosis and hypnotherapy. I hope that you could fully understand the true meaning of them after you read.

Hypnosis is the process of act of hypnotizing people. Hypnosis could put you into a state of deep relaxation, narrowed concentration and increased suggestibility. Hypnosis make your mind between sleep and consciousness. In a word you do things according to intuition rather than intelligence. In this process you do what inner voice tell you and your mind lose the control of body behavior.

Hypnotherapy has been used to send message to unconscious mind to find a solution to problem. An excellent hypnotherapist could use hypnosis to help people change a lot. In a word, hypnotherapy is used for remedial purpose.

Hypnotherapist always use suggestion to send message to your unconscious mind to find a solution to problem or achieve your aspirations after using hypnosis to put you into a state of mind that between sleep and consciousness.

The air need to clear is stage hypnosis. Some experts consider stage hypnosis has a negative impact as some people have suffered emotional problems after stage hypnosis. Others do not think so. However, the common acknowledgment of stage hypnosis is just for entertainment, not a therapy as it can not help you find a solution to problem. If you are still confused with hypnotherapy and hypnosis now, please remember that hypnotherapy is a therapy and hypnosis, NO.

Energy Healing Therapy – Reversing the Progression of Chronic Diseases Like Diabetes

When diagnosed with chronic diseases like diabetes, did your doctor tell you …

… that your body needs energy?

… that your body is toxic and needs to be cleaned?

… how much water to drink and when to drink?

Some people perceive natural cures like energy healing therapy to be enemy to western medicine. However, a deeper understanding of energy healing therapy will reveal how they are both complementary and we should practice integrative medicine.

Western medicine looks primarily at the bio-chemical and organic changes that occur when we have diseases. It is a very symptomatic approach in trying to suppress the symptoms that we encounter.

The management of diabetes in western medicine is an excellent example as every attempt is focused on suppressing the elevated glucose levels in the patient. Yes, we know that in diabetes, the body either does not produce enough insulin or it does not properly react to insulin. However, why did this occur in the first place? Natural cures for diabetes have already been known for thousands of years through the practice of energy healing therapy.

Energy healing therapy includes both traditional Chinese medicine and chakra healing which supports an emerging evidence that energy is the root of the problem.

Energy healing therapy conforms to the basic concept that the harmonious balance of energy, called Qi or Prana, is the key to good health. When there is blockage or uneven flow of energy, it historically manifests itself as a disease.

Acupuncture is one of the most widely accepted form of energy healing therapy. Although many people are still skeptical about complementary medicine, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a report in year 2003 describing a list of conditions where acupuncture can be applied. This energy healing therapy has been successfully used in conditions like allergic rhinitis, hypertension, hypotension, headaches, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke and many more.

Besides that, there are numerous emerging evidences supporting the role of energy healing therapy.

Pappas and Tanio, each respectively, performed research to understand the relationship of energy and our health. They have clearly demonstrated that the energy levels in our cells are low when the cells are sick.

The energy healing therapy that most of us are familiar with are acupuncture, crystal healing, reiki, yoga etc. However, energy healing therapy does not need to have involve the use of needles or difficult postures and skills.

Water can be used as an energy healing therapy product and it is widely available to us. Neverheless, we need the right quality of water. Water in its natural state stores energy that absorbs the sun and the minerals that it passes through.

However, most of us in developed countries get clean processed water from the tap. This poses a problem to us as it actually removes the natural energy in water.

Here, the water that we now drink does not provide energy to us. What's worse is that the water we drink is robbing energy from our body to create the equilibrium balance it needs.

Besides being driven of energy, this natural cure is being treated with chemicals like chlorine. It is now documented that chlorine is converted to another chemical called tri halo methane (THM) when it is exposed to sunlight. We now know that THM is carcinogenic. The problem is that boiling or filtering can not remove THM. The energetic memory of it can only be removed with positive energy vibrations.

This is critical to us as 70-80% of our body composition consist of water. Water serves two very critical function of health.

One of the functions is to carry toxins out from our cells. If these toxins are allowed to accumulate in our body, it starts a process called toxemia, which results in chronic diseases.

Another even more important function of water is to provide our body with energy. This natural energy healing therapy ensures that we have a good supply of energy for health.

Here, the Japanese has known about this special property of water and employed specific recipe of using it to cure diseases like diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, gastric etc.

Yoga – The Salute to the Sun

The "Salute to the Sun" is a series of postures designed to limber up, and tone and strengthen the body. It is a moving sequence made up of a combination of Yoga positions.

The Salute to the Sun is also known as Surya Namaskar, from "Sun" and "Greeting" or "Salutation".

The sequence of movements should be transported out in a fluid manner, "flowing" from one position to the next. This will take some practice and familiarity with the postures and positions, but the benefits are worth the effort. The Salute to the Sun is an excellent warm-up to other work, and will warm up the body and mind on its own.

1. Stand upright with spine extended, legs straight and arms together.

2. Inhale, and raise and extend your arms over your head and bend slightly backward.

3. Exhale and reach your arms and fingers up and forward. Bend forward from the hips and place your hands flat on the ground, or as close as your can.

4. Inhale and place your right leg behind you, making a right angle with your left leg. Sink into your right hip and look up.

5. Bring your left leg to join your right leg so that you are on "all fours" with your knees behind your ips.

6. Exhale and lower your chest and forehead to the ground so that you are lying flat on the ground.

7. Inhale and stretch forward and up, raising the front of your body up off the floor.

8. Exhale and lower your chest. Push up and back with your arms and raise your hips to form an inverted "V".

9. Inhale and bend your right leg, and lower your left leg to the ground, as in step 4 above.

10. Exhale and bring your left leg up as in step 3.

11. Inhale and reverse the move into position 2.

12. Exhale, return to an upright "prayer" position, and salute the sun.

These 12 posts or postures are an excellent way to put your body through disciplined series of preliminary stretches. This can form a warm-up to other exercises, or used on its own if you only have a short time to devote to your practice of Yoga.

How To Awaken – An Example of Spiritual Awakening

I have recently written about the two types of awakening experiences and saw the need to delve deer into how to awaken by sharing an example of spiritual awakening, one that is applicable to daily, real life. I have also shared that the second, less common type of awakening experience (awakening to your inner power) incorporating the more common form of awakening (becoming more aware). This means that when you awakened to your inner power, you will also become more aware, almost automatically.

How Do You Awaken to Your Inner Power?

Awakening to your inner power requires that you first reconnect with your higher self (your "real" self, your inner self) and once you recognize that part of yourself, to follow through with your inner guidance. As you do this over time and experience some amazing results, you will become so confident in your connection with your higher self and with the Divine that you would follow your inner guidance rather than those whom even you would consider the experts in their field. (By the way, this is what is required of you if you are to "ascend" or "graduate" from this realm.) I can not stress this enough.) The following is my experience.

A Real Life Example of Awakening

In 2006 when I submitted a draft of my memoir (about my awakening experiences) to a top-rate editor, she suggested I write a "how-to" book on how to awaken rather than a memoir. Her reason was that how-to books are easier to write and, from examining my draft, she did not think I would be able to pull off a memoir. (I did not have a background in writing but in science and engineering and this was my first book.)

I knew I could not follow her advice. I explained that this was a book on intuition and I needed to follow my intuition (which was to write a memoir). She looked at me as if I were naïve and insisted I change my objective.

However, what I knew that she did not know was that my writing flowed when I followed my inner guidance and all kinds of truly amazing synchronicities and insights happened that forward my book daily and if I went against my intuition, the flow would stop and nothing would come. I had tested this a few times (and I share in my memoir the things that stopped the flow).

Well, I went ahead and continued to follow my inner guidance even though that did not please my editor. She told me that in her 38 years of being a book editor, I'm the first person who ignored her advice. (Well, I too was upset, besides being apprehensive about being able to pull off a memoir.)

But this is what's amazing when you get to the point where you follow your inner guidance even when you're scared: I did not know back then that I was actually recording the details of my awakening process by writing my memoir in real time and by doing so, I would be able to help others get through the challenges of thecoming 2012 changes by offering accurate information and advice. (Not my recollection years later of what I thought made things work.)

Also, following my inner guidance my writing style improved and two years later, my memoir became a finalist in the memoir category in a national, independent book award contest.

Furthermore, I could not have written an accurate and complete book on how to awaken your inner power and intuition back then anyway. But I was able to write a how-to book in 2009 – and quickly, too!

This is the power of reconnecting and integrating with your higher self through your inner guidance. Reconnecting and integrating with your higher self is what you must strive for if your world is to be transformed. It's also how you become an "awakened master," the "master of your life," and how you contribute to the manifestation of the Golden Age. There's no better way to raise your consciousness and to create the life you want.

Chakra Meditation – Mastering The 7 Chakras Of The Body

Chakra meditation is a powerful form of spiritual enlightenment which focuses on the 7 specific energy points in the body. Each energy point relates to certain aspects of our lives which can be enhanced and improved through meditation.

Whether you realize it or not, your Chakras are at work within your body constantly. They influence your mental as well as your physical state. By paying special attention to these areas, you can influence them to improve certain aspects of your life. Let us take a look at each of the 7 Chakras in detail and which areas of your body and life they can influence:

The Root Chakra

This is the first Chakra, located at the very base of the spine. It symbolizes the energy of the earth flowing into the body and is the correlation between our physical presence and the material world. The colour synonymous with the Root Chakra is red and it is associated with health, protection and well-being. Meditating on this Chakra or the colour red will enhance these areas in your life.

The Naval Chakra

This Chakra is located just above the Root Chakra, in the lower part of the abdomen. It signifies energies associated with sexuality, happiness, love, compassion, sympathy and understanding. Its corresponding colour is orange. Feelings associated with giving and receiving are tied to this Chakra. Meditating on this Chakra or the colour orange will allow you to control emotions.

The Solar Plexus Chakra

Located above the Naval Chakra just below the chest, this point focuses on willpower and self-transformation. The power of the subconscious mind, discipline of the ego and ability to control one’s self all emanate from this Chakra, which is associated with the colour yellow. Meditate on this one to control your external circumstances as well as your self esteem.

The Heart Chakra

Associated with the colour green, it signifies energy associated with kind nature, forgiveness and unconditional love which extends beyond the physical realm. This Chakra is located in the middle of the chest and centres around perseverance, harmony and patience. Meditating on this Chakra will allow you to heal pain through the power of love.

The Throat Chakra

Located just below the chin in the throat. It symbolizes the power of all forms of communication and how qualities like truth, nobility, character and wisdom can be conveyed with the correct purpose and respect. It is associated with the colour sky blue and also revolves around extra sensory communication. Meditating on this Chakra will allow you to express yourself truthfully at all times.

The Brow Chakra

Symbolizes intuition, insight, instinct and how the mind perceives the soul. Concentrating on this Chakra will give you peace of mind and stimulate your imagination. The colour synonymous with this Chakra is indigo and relates to spiritual guidance and direction. Meditating on it will allow you to access the path to your inner wisdom.

The Crown Chakra

The northern most Chakra in the body, located at the top of the head. It signifies the relationship between the conscious mind and its surroundings. The highest powers of the mind and spirit can be reached by meditating on this Chakra. Its associated colour is violet and it also serves to encompass the entire body within the realms of spirituality.

By concentrating on each of these Chakras in turn, great strides can be made towards empowering yourself with the ability to control the physical and non-physical elements of the body. All of the Chakras absorb and emanate energy. Meditation is the process by which this transference of energy takes place.

When all 7 Chakras have been energized, the body and the mind become one. This is when they can be most influenced to enhance or improve your life, by thinking and meditating on positive outcomes.

Master your inner self through understanding your Chakras, concentrating on each one. Starting with the Root, work your way upwards. Using this form of meditation regularly will help you understand yourself and give your life purpose.

Why You Should Choose Hypnotherapy to Stop Smoking

A quarter of the uk population are smokers and of those around 78% wish they did not smoke. That equates to about 13 million people who are smokers and wish they were not. If you are a smoker who wants to quit smoking you are not alone. Many people who look for help in stopping smoking turn to their GP who invariably puts them on nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) but is this the best way to stop smoking?

The New Scientist Magazine interviewed an meta analysis of 600 studies which covered almost 72,000 people from America, Scandinavia and Europe. Their conclusion was that the right type of hypnotherapy could give you an up to 85% chance of stopping smoking. They found that the best chance of stopping came from having MULTIPLE sessions of hypnotherapy.

If this method can be so successful why do not more people use it? Well, the number of people getting hypnotherapy to stop smoking actually IS increasing but slowly because this is mainly due to word of mouth recommendations rather than government or NHS backing. GP's still see NRT as being the best option despite the fact that it only has a 10% success rate (at the very best). Not many GP's know just how effective hypnotherapy can be, despite hypnotherapy being a recognized medical practice since the 1950's. Even if a GP does know how effective hypnotherapy can be they often do not know how to find a good hypnotherapist.

Many people who try to stop smoking fail. The main reason for this is often because of their mental attitude towards the process of stopping smoking. Very few smokers need to wake up in the night to have a cigarette but ask those same smokers to go eight hours during the day without a cigarette and they would say it's impossible. This shows that the craving for nicotine is mainly psychological rather than physical. With the help of hypnotherapy you can stop smoking by adjusting how you mentally perceiving smoking. It can also help you to think differently about the benefits of stopping. Many smokers who are about to quit smoking start with a feeling of dread, apprehension and fear that they will fail or even worse, that they will succeed! This negative attitude means that very soon they are likely to go back to cigarettes or else spend the rest of their life battling with a psychological craving for tobacco.

With hypnotherapy you can go into the process of stopping smoking feeling optimistic, positive and energetic about relaiming your life and your desires. With this changed attitude you have the very best chance of stopping smoking and staying stopped. When you listen to all those other people out there who say what torture stopping smoking is and how difficult it is to quit cigarettes you subconsciously take on board this belief which can limit your attempts to stop. If however you receive hypnotherapy you can start to realize just how easy it is to stop smoking and stay stopped because you went into the process with the right attitude.

Healing Yourself With Energy Healing Therapy

Energy healing therapy, often referred to as alternative medicine, is increasingly becoming the method of choice for treating more and more ailments. The promise is that since energy is broad and all-encompassing, the energy can be influenced by certain methods in order to restore the natural flow of energy within the body.

The body is an energy container, subject to energy imbalances, such as stress, anger, fear and depression. The body reacts to these disorders with physical and emotional pain. An unresolved emotion that is not expressed fully can get stuck in the body tissue. Energy can not flow through that area creating an energy blockage. Energy blockage is simply an emotion left unchecked.

While the amazing benefits of energy healing therapy can range from pain management, emotional freedom and better functioning of the immune system, the objective is to energize the body leaving you with a better sense of health and wellbeing while enhancing spiritual development.

Energy practitioners and healers are discovering more and more that diseases are universally caused by energy blockages and a slowing down of energy flow. Energy healing therapy tackles mental, emotional and psychological energetic imbalances as well as at the physical level.

How You can Benefit from Energy Healing Therapy

There are many types of energy healing treatments, such as acupuncture, Reiki, reflexology, therapeutic touch, plus new ones are being discovered everyday. As we are all unique, one healing method may work well on one person while a different technique is more beneficial to someone else. For many people, having a trained energy-healing practitioner working with you to help balance your energy will accelerate the process.

There are steps you can take, however, to keep your own energy balance in check. First, is to recognize your problem. See it for what it is and then release it. Surrender it to what you define as your higher power. In other words, let go of trying to control how your life will manifest.

The second involves becoming the most complete and loving person you can be. Make it a conscious effort to do this and see how it ever becomes natural to you.

These steps will naturally dissolve blocked energy that is keeping you unbalanced. This is a direct route to a balanced, healed state of wellbeing.

I believe we are only in the beginning stages for healing the body and the mind. Energy healing therapy is now increasingly being integrated into medicine and psychology as people are becoming more and more aware of the benefits of energy healing. It's time to peel away all the layers of doubt, fear and excuses that have been stealing your energy. It's time to claim your life.

Stress Relief Self Hypnosis – Cope Easily

Stress relief is one of the major things that hypnosis can help with. Before I get into how hypnosis can help with stress, first understand that stress is caused by good and bad things. Having a new baby can be a wonderful thing, but ultimately it brings a lot of stress. You can also feel stressed if a loved one passes away, or you have to start taking care of someone who cannot take care of themselves. Or it can be as simple as getting yourself too emotionally involved with other people and things that are out of your control.

The first biggest benefit in using hypnosis to cope with stress is just hypnosis itself. Many times when my clients enter into hypnosis they experience for the first time how relaxing and wonderful it is. Going into hypnosis is like a mental and spiritual massage. It feels incredible, and none of my stress clients ever want to come out of hypnosis. I have even had clients cry because of how wonderful they felt during hypnosis.

Another factor and probably the biggest factor with stress hypnosis is being able to let go of things that are out of our control. If I had to say one thing that I ALWAYS do with my private hypnosis clients it is doing that. Once I can help someone to let go of things that are out of their control their stress level reduces to nothing. Too many times people let themselves get emotionally invested in other people. This is not typically a bad thing, because it shows you care, or that you are a nice person, but generally sometimes when need to take care of ourselves and just let it go.

Another big benefit of using hypnosis for stress is being able to tolerate other people. Sometimes there are just negative and terrible people in our lives that bring us down. If someone has a boss at work who is intolerable, I hypnotize my client in order to feel comfortable with the way that person is, and to let go of things that used to bother them about that person. I help the client to feel exactly the way they want to toward that person.

Hypnosis can help you to feel exactly the way you want to feel toward anything. That is exactly what hypnosis helps you to do. So if you can think about the way you want to feel toward everything that is going on right now, that is exactly how hypnosis can help you. But you may ask, how does that work? How does hypnosis change the way I feel toward my stress? The answer is the subconscious. It is what controls how you feel. It is the most primitive and underdeveloped part of our brain. It is our instincts. And unfortunately, it controls the way we feel. A good example is the scary movie concept. Think about it. When you watch a scary movie you know you are safely sitting there in the chair and that nothing is going to happen to you. But your subconscious does not distinguish that, and so your heart races, you may sweat, or your hair may raise in the back of your neck. This is an example of how our subconscious effects our feelings. Too bad the stupidest part of our brain controls our feelings! Our experiences we have had in life have the effect of changing the way we feel. But the beautiful thing about it is that hypnosis can help you alter your subconscious to exactly the way you want to feel. Hypnosis is an experience raised to the power of one hundred. And from that experience it has the result in changing the way you feel at all times of the day.

If you are considering hypnosis to cope with stress or for relief you need to know a few things. The first thing is that no matter how good or bad any hypnosis program or hypnotist is out there the simple act of going into hypnosis is a major stress reliever. So you can feel some comfort with that. The other thing you need to be looking for is getting a program that helps you to let go of things that are out of your control. If you can do that then you will be giving yourself tools to create everlasting change and happiness.

Yoga – A Necessity!

Yoga as the holistic health therapy has been used for 1000s of years by Yogis in India. Although it has its root hidden in ancient times, its significance is addressed to the modern people who are living in an ungratified ambience of the fashionable world. Yoga is truly a holistic health center which lays emphasis on the mental and physical balance and brings a serenity of spirit which is very advantageous to a person's health.

Yoga is a holistic health guide which has been educating the people about the deep-seated principles of wellness. It creates an authentic placidity of nature. A human body has the ability to heal naturally. Yoga as a holistic healing supports your mind and body to heal itself. It provides a harmonizing substitute healing method to the standard medication.

Yoga offers treatment for all kinds of ailments in this contemporary world where no one has time to take care of their health. Even the doctors, therapists and researchers recommend yoga for a better life and an alternative of medicines. These days, lot of people practice yoga as the results are simply self stimulating and inevitable.

Yoga is imagination that is articulated every moment. A person who desire happiness in life should take up yoga as a daily practice. It completes a man physically, spiritually and mentally. It is the only science which is capable to answer all questions and offer a great solution for every problem.

Yoga aims at sanitization of the mind, body and soul. It results in liberation from all sufferings and bestows with spiritual wisdom and light. The impurities of mind and body are removed by the continuous practice of yoga. It destroys the apathy of a body and makes it as alert as an active mind. Yoga delivers clarity in intellect, stability in mind and a perfect health.

Various asana, meditation, kriya and pranayama techniques are being adopted and taught in the Yoga classes by the people for a good health in this commercial and sensual world where being fit is almost like a dream!

Mini-Tations: Two-Three Minute Meditations for Mothers

"I do not have time to catch my breath, let alone sit for 15 minutes and meditate." This is a phrase I hear all too often, while lecturing new mothers on beginning meditation.

Some may think I have my work cut out for myself when recognizing that most new mothers are running in so many circles that they become frustrated and possibly a little unreasonable. But reasoning with them is not something I expect to do. All I have to do is present the facts, and add some interesting 2-3 minute 'mini-tations.'

Mini-Tations are quick ways of having a quite moment, lasting only two or three minutes.

As I begin to describe what meditation is, in a no-frills manner, mothers beginning to sit up and take notice. The main purpose of meditation is to eliminate outside thoughts or distractions, in order to still the mind. New mothers are prime candidates for needing to eliminate distractions. It is very important that they stay focused and aware every minute.

Not only do they need to be totally immersed in paying attention to baby's every need, but details of the rest of life need attention as well. The dirty clothes must be washed, the carpet must be consumed, the groceries must be bought, the phone must be answered, dinner cooked, and on and on and on … (somewhere in there comes the attention for a husband, too) .

It would seem that taking care of baby would be a fulltime position. But somewhere along the way, the rest of the chores must be attended to. Even though there is no time to be selfish, taking care of self is of paramount importance.

Many new mothers are also trying to work outside the home at least part time if not back to the full rat race. So when I offer them the chance to take a well deserved two minute reply – that seems to fit into the scheme of things.

Research has been done by various organizations, such as West Oakland Health Center in California, and the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts. It has been found that meditation not only reduces blood pressure and heart rate, but reduces stress and tension. It decreases anxiety, builds self-confidence and allows you to sleep more soundly.

Your mind relaxes to the point that it can deal with problems that arise during the day. A sense of peacefulness comes over you and you are able to make better choices with less up-tight feelings.

New mothers can not afford to not do this!

This is the list of several Mini-Tations that they can do at any time during the day:

1. Focus on your toes. Yes! Your toes. Notice if your shoes are too tight. If so, take them off. Wiggle your toes. Pay attention to how free they feel out of the shoes. Take the bottle of baby powder and sprinkle it on your your toes. Feel how smooth they are with the powder on them. Promise to free them a little later as you slip your shoes on again.

2. Sit comfortably for two minutes. Make sure the television is off. Listen to the sounds around you: the furnace / air conditioner running, the tick of the clock, a breeze blowing in the window, the birds singing, the traffic sounds down the street.

3. Smell the new baby smells: fresh bedding, baby oil, dirty diaper pail.

4. Softly, slowly singing a lullaby to your baby.

5. Rock your baby to sle

How to Open, Balance and Align Your 7 Chakras Using Crystals

Chakras are energy vortexes within the body. The main 7 chakras start at the crown, on the top of the head and run all the way down your spine to the coccyx, the root chakra. When these vortexes are open and any blockage is removed, chakras are balanced and aligned, our vital energy can run smoothly through the body making us feel vibrant and alive.

Meditation on each chakra helps to open it, we can use crystals to help dispel any blockage. The way to do it is to lie down comfortably on your back and put appropriate crystals on each chakra, then starting from the base or root chakra and going up, try to concentrate on the energy you feel coming out of the crystal, let the crystal absorb any negativity in the chakra and help the chakra vortex stabilize. Do this for each chakra until you get to the crown chakra.

Many ask how would I know if a stone or a crystal is appropriate to a certain chakra? The easiest way is to go by colors and one useful color scheme is the rainbow. The seven chakras are associated with the colors of the rainbow as follows:

• base chakra – red,
• navel chakra – orange,
• solar plexus chakra – yellow,
• heart chakra – green,
• throat chakra – blue,
• third eye chakra – indigo,
• crown chakra – violet.

There are various crystals or stones associated with every chakra.

Sometimes during meditation one can feel blockages between the chakras on what is known as the path of Sushumna, which is the path where energy travels up and down the 7 chakras. For example one can feel a blockage between the solar plexus and the heart chakras, or between the heart and the throat chakras.

One way to help with this is to use crystals that incorporated the two colors of the chakras above and below the blockage. For example in the first case a yellow green apatite, and in the second case a blue green tourmaline placed where the blockage is felt would help.

Clear Quartz in all its formations is an excellent conductor of energies. Clear Quartz can be used to enhance the energy of other crystals and stones. Place clear quartz near any other crystal or stone to amplify its effects. Multi-colored stones relate to a combination of different chakras, and hence can be useful to create a combined effect.

It is important to cleanse your crystals frequently by rinsing them under running water, lighting incense around them (sage is recommended), or burying them in clean soil.