Photo-a-Day #2

My beautiful rose bush on the first day of September. 

Free Guided Meditations

Over the last decade, meditation has become a word that is more frequently used and understood. The great news is you no longer have to be a Buddhist or a yoga instructor! It took us thousands of years to get to this point.

When I first heard how beneficial meditation was for mental health I was determined to make it work for me. So I sat there in the scary stark silence and tried to clear my mind and focus on my breathing. I couldn't do it. I couldn't calm my thoughts and felt extremely uncomfortable trying to breathe deep and focus on it at the same time! At this time of my life I was filled to the top with anxiety and having weekly full-blown panic attacks. This is when I found guided meditation. There was now someone there to help guide me to the place I just couldn't seem to get to without previous practice and considering the mental state of stress I was in.

It's hard to relax when you are suffering from anxiety or panic attacks, the body is on high alert mode all the time, or so it seems. Call in the help of guided meditation (sometimes called self-hypnosis) and I promise if you stick to it, it will work wonders on your entire being.

I am now a strong advocate for meditation, so clearly I didn't give up. If you are thinking of trying meditation, keep in mind that it takes time to find your place and when the benefits start creeping in you will be amazed. The mind can produce a hellacious amount of negative thoughts, emotions and physical sensations, BUT it can also produce the opposite! Peace, balance and control.

Everything has an opposite. The flight or fight response linked to high anxiety and panic attacks also has an opposite.... the mighty "Relaxation Response", otherwise known as your new BFF.

Using guided meditation is the easiest way to get your feet wet in the world of meditation.

So what is guided meditation?

Guided meditation usually has some kind of relaxing background music accompanied by a relaxing voice telling you what to do. Guiding your breath, your thoughts and your emotions. There are NO rules. You can sit or lay wherever you want, wear whatever you want and do it anytime of day.

What are the proven benefits of meditation?

• Increasing your intelligence

• Improving your memory

• Enhancing your creativity

• Drastically improving your ability to think clearly

• Improved problem solving abilities

• Decreasing anxiety

• Decreasing & eliminating depression

• Helping to resolve addictions

• Reducing irritability and moodiness

• Reduced muscular tension

• Strengthened immune system

• Accelerated ability to recover from strenuous exercise

• Decreased high blood pressure

• Lowered cholesterol levels

• Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease

• Reduced strain related pain, such as headaches

• Ability to sleep more deeply and restfully

• Improved flow of air to the lungs resulting in easier breathing

• Reduction of free radicals 

• Reduced levels of stress hormones such as cortisol

• Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation

• Improved sense of positivity

• Increased confidence

• Greater ability to give and receive love

• Elimination of panic attacks

• Greater sense of warmth and openness towards others

• A greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives

• Feeling more connected to others

• Improved intuition

• A tendency to “let go” and go with the flow of life

How can you get your hands on some guided meditations?

You can download them in iTunes, buy CD's, listen to free pod casts or listen to free streaming meditations online as well as a huge selection of videos on Youtube. My personal favorite is to download meditation apps and try new ones from time to time for free.

Here is a list of links to some FREE Meditations:

UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center
Tara Brach Meditations
Youtube-The Honest Guys
Fragrant Heart Meditations
The Chopra Center
Meditation Oasis Pod Casts

*Note ( if there is a particular voice you can't stand or imagery you can't connect with, then move on. They are all different and you will find some meditations you will find beneficial and to your liking.)

Namaste

Photo-a-Day #1

Life Goes On

Procrastination

"If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it." ~Olin Miller

In my research on procrastination I have found that I do not procrastinate because I have a mental illness, but because I do have a mental illness means I am more susceptible to procrastination.

Everyone procrastinates from time to time. I find this to be much of a daily challenge for me, so I went off in search of help....

First I wanted to try to figure out why people procrastinate and how is it linked to mental illness.
Procrastination can be made worse by depression. Having depression can make it hard to even get out of bed in the morning, so it makes sense that procrastination and depression go hand in hand. If I didn't feel like getting out of bed, of course I don't feel like exercising, calling the bank or even cooking dinner.

Another factor is perfectionism and irrational thinking. If I can't get it ALL done today exactly this or that way then what's the point? I think we set ourselves up for disastrous procrastination with this thinking. If you don't believe you can accomplish something, you probably won't. 

ADHD can play a role in procrastination as well as self-sabotaging behavior. Or as my mom would call it a "fear of success". Sounds crazy, but it's not. I think some fear that if they happen to finally get things together, achieve order and feel somewhat in control that it won't last and they will ultimately end up feeling like a failure. So how do we prevent ourselves from feeling that way? Don't do it, or find a way to mess it up! Not healthy or functional, but very true and hard to recognize and stop. It's all about comfort and fear.

So what will help? Here are some ideas:

-Break a larger project down into small steps/goals
-Focus on starting, rather than the task itself. 
-Do not focus on how things "should" be, or "should've been". Shoulda woulda coulda
-Create a To-Do list (number it by priority, do the important stuff first)
-Set a time frame for your list. "Pay the water bill by Friday" or "Clean the bathroom after lunch"
-Set a timer for annoying tasks, you never know you might catch motivation fever and keep going!
-Use the "2 minute rule" found Here
-Change your environment
-Minimize distractions
-Call in some help
-Watch your self-talk, are you over-complicating things?


Are there any tips or tools you use? Care to share and drop a comment!

Self-Help: Anchoring

This is not a new technique. Meditation enthusiasts have been using the "anchoring technique" for decades. Anchoring is indeed a form of meditation that can help calm and soothe yourself during peaks of high anxiety, panic and depression. Anchoring seems very simple, it looks as though with everything else.... the major key to success is... practice. (did I mention anxiety and procrastination go hand in hand?)

How to Anchor:

1. Pick out your "Anchor", this can be a peaceful, happy memory of a place in time where you felt the most joy and happiness in your life (the birth of a child etc..) if you do not have a memory in your mind that you attach strong feelings of peace and happiness to, then make one! Many people, including myself like to use water in an anchoring or meditation exercise. Then use your 5 senses: what does it look like, feel like, smell like, taste like, shapes, colors, sounds and even the people.
2. Now that you have your Anchor (your internal reaction), you need to come up with an external reaction to pair with your Anchor. For example squeeze your fist while you Anchor into this moment. It can be anything you choose, tapping your wrist or wiggle your toes! This is to link both together so your mind can recall this situation in times of need.
3. Practice. Practice and perfect your anchor to be exactly what you need it to be, make make a few tweaks here and there.
4. Use it when the time comes.
5. Keep using it, and combine it with belly breathing and maybe even a mantra "peace", "relax", "believe" are all suitable mantras to use in a peaceful anchoring.
   

Let's try this out, and see what happens. It can only help! Let me know it this helps you. For more information on Anchoring this article is full of great information.