Bhastrik International Medical

You’ve read the articles, watched Oprah, and heard it from friends: Meditation is good for you. Meditation is good for the body and soul, it is used as an aid to healing in hospitals across the world, is responsible for lowering stress and high blood pressure, increasing creativity, and a host of spiritual benefits as well. And while this all sounds great you may be wondering: How can I learn to meditate when I can’t keep my body or mind still for more than a few seconds?

The solution is Active Meditation. When most people think of meditation they picture someone dressed in loose, earth-toned clothing, sitting cross-legged on a mat in the middle of a forest while they chant vowel sounds for an hour. And while sitting in this manner and speaking a mantra is certainly a common method of meditation, known as transcendental meditation, it is certainly not the only method. Active meditation allows for body movement, in fact, it requires some movement as part of the meditation process.

Tai Chi, walking meditation, and GGGG a Japanese writing meditation are all samples of meditation practices that use simple body movements to bring about a meditative state. And while I personally have enjoyed walking meditations and Tai Chi, my preferred method of active meditation is coloring. Any art form that you are comfortable with can bring about relaxation and meditation.

I have a friend that is an amazing artist and she told me that when she paints she goes into a state of complete peace; she says everything around her becomes clearer, even the most mundane things like the colors of vase she may have had for years become bright and vibrant. Isn’t it worth giving active meditation a try knowing that such peace and happiness exists for you too?

The following is a coloring meditation reprinted from my latest book 30 Minute Celtic Mandalas Coloring Book: Easy Meditation through Coloring. If you wish to follow along you can download a free coloring page off my website www.30minutemandalas.com and give active meditation a try.

Following are the basic steps involved in coloring meditations. Even if you don’t adhere to these steps exactly, you will still enjoy the relaxation that coloring provides. So, set some time aside to experience the wonderful healing power of 30-Minute CELTIC Mandalas.

Step One: Gather your coloring pencils or markers and your 30-Minute CELTIC Mandalas Coloring Book; then choose a comfortable place where you can be quiet for approximately 30 minutes. (Note by adding details, shading, or even coloring outside of the design you can make this meditation stretch beyond 30 minutes. If you have the extra time, I highly recommend it.)

Step Two: Smile. Holding a light smile on your face will help put you in a receptive mood for the meditation. Don’t skip this step just because it sounds a little silly. Science has proven that smiling, even when you are not happy, can raise the level of endorphins (mood enhancing chemicals) in your brain. So, start smiling!

Step Three: Flip through your coloring book and pick the first design that peaks your interest. Don’t dwell on it, just accept your choice and move on.

Step Four: Choose your first pencil or marker and then begin to color. No need to over-think the colors, in fact I’m always amazed at the color combinations I come up with during a meditation and how wonderful they look together. I often find myself using colors I would normally ignore and then loving the end result. Whenever possible let the colors choose themselves.

Step Five: Watch the design take life with every stroke. Allow your self to experience the movements, hear the sounds of pencils on paper, or feel the markers as they glide across the page. As thoughts or pictures pop into your head (and they will) simply acknowledge them and then return your focus to the coloring. The coloring will always bring you back. With a little practice you will find it increasingly easy to get into a deeply relaxed, almost detached state.

Basic Principles of Complementary/ Alternative Therapies

JUST AS MAINSTREAM MEDICINE has a fairly consistent approach to illness, so does al-ternative medicine. Most prevalent in alternative medicine are the six naturopathic principles. In one form or another, these principles are revisited again and again throughout Section Two of this text. The following principles are described by Dr. Catherine Downey and excerpted from her chapter on naturopathic medicine.

1. The Healing Power of Nature (Vis medicatix naturae)

The body has the inherent ability to establish, maintain and restore health. The healing process is ordered and intelligent: nature heals through the response of the life force. The physician’s role is to facilitate and augment this process, to act to identify and remove obstacles to health and recovery, and to support the creation of a healthy internal and external environment. In short, give the body the appropriate tools and it will heal itself.

2. Treat the Whole Person (The multifactorial nature of health and disease)

Health and disease are conditions of the whole organism, involving a complex interaction of physical, spiritual, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental, and social factors. The physician must treat the whole person by taking all of these factors into account. The harmonious functioning of all aspects of the individual is essential to recovery from and prevention of disease and requires a personalized and comprehensive approach to diagnosis and treatment.

3. First Do No Harm (Primum no nocere)

Illness is a purposeful process of the organism. The process of healing includes the generation of symptoms, which are, in fact, an expression of the life force attempting to heal itself. Therapeutic actions should be complementary to and synergistic with this healing process. The physician’s actions can support or antagonize the actions of the vis mediatrix naturae; therefore methods designed to suppress symptoms without removing underlying causes are considered harmful and are avoided or minimized. Therapeutic actions are applied in an ordered fashion congruent with the internal order of the organism.

4. Identify and Treat the Cause (Tolle causam)

Illness does not occur without cause. Underlying causes of disease must be discovered and removed or treated before a person can recover completely from illness. Symptoms are expressions of the body’s attempt to heal, but they are not the cause of disease; therefore naturopathic medicine addresses itself promptly to the underlying causes of disease, rather than symptoms. Causes may occur on many levels, including physical, mental-emotional, and spiritual. The physician must evaluate fundamental underlying causes on all levels, directing treatment at root cause rather than at symptomatic expression.

5. Prevention (Prevention is the best “cure”)

The ultimate goal of naturopathic medicine is prevention. This is accomplished through education and promotion of lifestyle habits that create good health. The physician assesses risk factors and hereditary susceptibility to disease and makes appropriate interventions to avoid further harm and risk to the patient. The emphasis is on building health rather than on fighting disease. Because it is difficult to be healthy in an unhealthy world, it is the responsibility of both the physician and patient to create a healthier environment in which to live.

6. The Physician as Teacher (Docere)

Beyond an accurate diagnosis and appropriate prescription, the physician must work to create a health-sensitive, interpersonal relationship with the patient. A cooperative doctor-patient relationship has inherent therapeutic value. The physician’s major role is to educate and encourage the patient to take responsibility for health. The physician is a catalyst for healthful change, empowering and motivating the patient to assume responsibility. It is the patient, not the doctor, who ultimately creates or accomplishes healing. The physician must strive to inspire hope as well as understanding. Physicans must also make a commitment to their personal and spiritual development in order to be good teachers.

If you talk to the average person about dieting, they’ll usually assume it’s about deprivation and misery. It may be difficult to reign in some of your nasty habits at first, but it doesn’t have to be a miserable experience in the long run. And you certainly don’t have to deprive yourself of good tasting, satisfying foods. It’s just a matter of a few simple substitutions, and you will be well on your way to weighing less.

The following are 10 food substitutions that will save you thousands of calories over the course of a year, and not be bland or boring in the process.

1. Instead of chocolate, try carob. Chocolate is first on the list because it’s first on most people’s list of guilty pleasures. I’m not here to tell you to do away with anything forever. Moderation is key to lasting health.

In fact, dark chocolate has gotten good press in recent years for having potent antioxidants that fight free radicals, destructive molecules that are connected to heart disease and other ailments. But if you like to do more than dabble in chocolate’s decadent sweetness, try to substitute the little known carob, a Mediterranean tree that produces pea-like pods that produce the sweet concoction.

It’s not that carob is superior nutritiously, but it has a couple things going for it: Carob has 51 calories per ounce to cocoa powders

98. But even more significant is that carob is naturally sweeter than (or, perhaps more accurately, not as bitter as) chocolate, so you don’t have to use as much sugar with it in recipes.

2. Instead of white bread, switch to whole wheat. I grew up on white bread, but have spent most of my adult life exclusively buying whole wheat. Once you go whole wheat, you wonder how Wonder Bread ever tasted like bread to you. Since it’s whole grain it has more nuanced and substantive taste. White bread is bleached flour (does that even sound close to healthy?) and is enriched with things like high fructose corn syrup. Whole wheat bread is unprocessed, so your body has to spend energy (calories) digesting it.

Be a wary shopper, because not all wheat breads are created equal.

Manufactures will try to trick you with fancy word plays on wheat. Make sure that the first ingredient is a “whole” grain.

3. Instead of a salad dressing, try vinegar. Salad dressings are a great way to kill a perfectly healthy salad with hundreds of useless calories. Use a balsamic vinegar and it will add nary a calorie to your salad.

4. Drop the dip and use salsa. Tomatoes, cilantro, onions, maybe garlic… have you heard anything that sounds unhealthy? Then I think you know why salsa is a much better choice than most chip dips. Chips aren’t exactly a healthy snack, but if you’re going to indulge now and again, the least you can do is cut out the fatty processed creamy dips.

5. of those aforementioned chips, you should try more air-popped popcorn. Do you know anyone who doesn’t like popcorn? Either do I. You’ll also like that a cup of popcorn has about 30 calories compared to 140 calories in an ounce of tortilla chips. And we all know an ounce of chips isn’t going to be where you stop.

6. Bacon… any way you slice it, turkey is better than pork. Bacon is probably the single biggest reason many of us can’t be vegetarians.

It’s a fatty vice that’s hard to quit. Purdue turkey bacon has about 50 calories in 2 slices and 1 gram of saturated fat, where some regular pork versions can have 14 times the saturated fat and more than twice the calories.

7. Turkey burger instead of beef. Turkey shows up again on our list, this time in place of your usual beef burgers. Since there’s less fat, some people may miss the flavor it adds. But even the most stubborn of beef backers can grow to love the lower fat turkey version. Once you put on all your favorite toppings (lettuce, pickle, tomato) the difference is really negligible.

Don’t assume that all ground turkey is leaner than beef. Some are packaged with dark meat and even fat-laden skin. As always, be a smart consumer and read the nutrition labels.

8. Instead of a full-fat creamer, go nonfat. It won’t take long for you to get acclimated to the non-fat version, and if you have a couple coffees a day those calories can really add up.

9. Sack the soda and try sparkling water. I know, you’re thinking… water? But if you spike it with a few twists of lemon or lime it becomes a flavorful drink. Besides saving calories, you also avoid some of the other soda ingredients (sugar, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate) that may cause long-term health issues.

10. Instead of salt, spice food with herbs. The preference for salt is a learned behavior. Which means you can unlearn it. If you are adventurous in the kitchen, try using garlic, oregano, pepper, sage, tarragon, turmeric, cinnamon, and other herbs and spices. If you want the easy way out, Mrs. Dash comes in all kinds of no-sodium, no-calorie combinations.

Using these tips you can limit the amount of diets and your time spent on diet reviews. Don’t forget to check out the diets in review diet blog for more healthy tips!