We know that Complementary Medicine is practiced when conventional medicine is used in tandem with Alternative Medicine methods. So perhaps you have also heard of Dean Ornish, M.D. – physician extraordinaire. This doctor has been able to prove through his patients that a combination of dietary changes, meditation, and exercise can effectively halt and even reverse the progression of instances of heart disease. This is the first research program that has been able to prove such claims.

Ornish, a holistic cardiologist who is a former student of Swami Satchidananda, has been so successful at preventing heart disease from progressing in his patients over the past 25 years that he was able to convince Medicare to shoulder the expenses of the patients who took part in his program. Ornish commented that the fact that the program could reap savings for Medicare was more convincing than if he had informed Medicare that the participants aimed to become one with the universe. This shows that though Western health care systems are oriented towards the bottom line, they may still be convinced of the efficacy of alternative forms of medical care.

Ornish has been working at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute to prove that even patients with severe cases of heart disease stand to benefit from his highly-effective program. The program emphasizes changes in diet and lifestyle that go beyond what was previously recommended by medical practitioners before. Ornish and his colleagues at the Institute opted to devote their efforts towards heart disease since it is the leading killer of people in the US alone. But his research on the positive impact of lifestyle changes can help not just people with heart disease but patients who have other life-threatening conditions as well (such as arthritis, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.) The program may also be able to reduce the risk for participants to become victims of various forms of cancer (like prostrate cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer.)

One interesting aspect of Ornish’s beliefs is that he considers love to have a relationship with the healing of a patient. He thinks that one’s survival hinges on the love one experiences from the people around him. Sustaining love comes from the community. In short, no man is an island, no man stands alone. This is why the Ornish program has a support group component integrated into it. Ornish cited other research that show it is more likely that people who have feelings of loneliness and depression will become ill and die early compared to individuals who enjoy caring and ties with their community.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As humans grow older, their metabolism gets slower. This affects one’s health, diet and also their hygiene. That is why it is important to know some tips on how to speed up this body process.

What is Metabolism?
When you eat, the cells in your body convert the fuel in the food into the energy that you need in order to perform your everyday tasks, from simply waking up to doing chores, thinking and growing.

The human body works like a machine, it needs to be recharged and maintained to be able to keep up with its duties. Metabolism enables your cells to grow and reproduce, keep them healthy and able to adapt to its environment. Such process is important to all life forms, if it stops, it would cause the life to end.

The Metabolic Rate
The term is synonymous to the rate your body burns calories. It is important to have more muscles in the body to have a higher metabolic rate.

Thus, explains why men, especially with the muscular body type, have higher metabolic rate than women. And it also proves why the metabolic rate slows down as people age.

Get Active
Letting your body work out, move and being active will surely help you develop more muscles that would, in turn, boost your metabolism.

There are days when you feel the need to be a bit indolent but you could keep up with your metabolism rate by getting into exercises to sweat it out and build up those needed muscles.

Being active will not only help one’s metabolic rate, it would most be useful for a person to be energized and ready for each day’s tasks.

Keep up with the coming rigorous days by staying fit while bearing in mind the importance of a higher metabolic pace.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bodybuilding involves more than just lifting weights. It pays to have an understanding of human kinetics. How do muscles work?

Muscles develop by making them work. Muscles can only work when the body is in motion. They work extra when we are in full motion. Thus, to develop the muscles to the maximum, we must make them work to the best of our abilities. Hence, the bodybuilding principle of “No Pain, No Gain.”

You can’t grow your muscles by doing nothing. You have to move around a lot. The only thing that will grow in points of inertia, if you remain stationary, is your weight. If you want muscle growth and power, you must work your body methodically. Muscle training is called a workout.

Muscles can be toned (or conditioned) by regular activities like brisk walking, jogging, and doing other slightly heavy works. But toning muscles will not grow them in size and beauty. You have to do more —lots more — to have stunning muscles. You have to workout. By the very term “workout,” you can have a good idea of what it takes to grow muscles.

Bodybuilding procedures using weights and other heavy-duty activities are the best-known muscle growers so far. You have to devote your life into this if you want extra visible muscles on you. You also have to do away with vices like smoking, drinking liquor, eating junk foods, etc.

Muscles grow in size only when they are moving. Try to be still in front of a mirror and you’d see no sign of any bulking muscle taking shape. Now, clench your fist hard, and muscle evidence will show at least on your forearm.  This simple principle illustrates the potential of muscles being developed through repeated and graduated motions. As muscles are subjected to repeated exertions that gradually increase intensity, they grow and toughen.

The more intense the muscle activity, the better and faster the muscle is developed. Hence, a systematic muscle development program incorporating increased muscle stimulation builds more muscles effectively. If your exercise features no such system of increasing efforts and challenges to your muscle strength, your muscles can only grow so much. Some exercises do form muscles, but only to a certain extent. The muscles built only become regulating muscles that enable you to perform normal tasks effectively. But they cannot exceed in performing beyond such tasks.

On the contrary, a fully developed muscle does not only allow you to do normal tasks; it is calibrated to reach its full potentials — far beyond what regulating muscles can do. Bodybuilding helps you develop your muscles to the extreme.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The wise say the first enemy to defeat is the self. When the self rules, any form of success is devoid of meaning. Indeed, many success stories are spoiled by even the slightest show of bad behavior.

You may have the best product in the world, but if you sell it with arrogance, people would rather buy the next best product than buy from you. Many excellent executives miss company promotions brought about by behavioral considerations.

However, some have mastered the art of switching behaviors on short notice. They have trained themselves to change attitude as easy as switching the light on or off. Most of these people get to top positions when it comes to human relations. So how do they do it?

How easy is it really to change your facial expression? It’s relatively easier to turn your face from sweet to sour, than to turn it from sour to sweet. In other words, it’s easier to get angry than be happy. Simply put, it is easier to be unattractive than to be attractive. You’d rarely find people paying big sums in a parlor to be ugly.

Being able to switch off a bad mood and switch on a good one is very possible for anyone, but it takes practice to master. You have to give up a lot to make this thing work.

For instance, you have to give up self-importance. That’s a high price to pay. If you hold on to your self-importance, you will never switch off anything negative in you, or switch on anything positive in you, ever. For sure, your self-importance will always get in the way.

Self-importance, and any other hindrances to positive attitude switching, are conquered by mind training. If you train your mind to take over your whole personality, attitude switching will become a piece of cake.

The mind should realize that good manners and right conduct are not only proper — they give you a pleasant personality. They make you look beautiful. They make you look agreeable to be with. These are the traits of a winner. The mind must be fully convinced of this and be practical about this.

After the “indoctrination” comes the empowerment. This practical mind must be able to exercise tremendous power over the will and the emotions. When this is done repeatedly in true-to-life situations, then the mind is ready to switch things in your personality on or off. At just the turn of the “switch,” according to how the mind has decided at the spur of the moment, the will and emotions immediately obey, and the body acts accordingly. The moods, tempers, and actions change to make you look better. This process is reinforced by the operation of rewards and punishments. When you look and feel good so that everything turns out right, you are rewarded. When you look and feel bad so that everything turns to chaos, the punishment will give you a lesson to try better next time.

Popularity: 2% [?]

You have been the resident object of “fat” jokes for as long as you remember. In every gathering, intimate or otherwise, your humungous build has drawn knowing glances and discreet smirks of numerous guests. Now, you want all that to change!

You want to be healthier, sexier and more confident. The problem is, you just can’t seem to jumpstart your exercise routine. You ask yourself, “Are there game plans to get lean the easy way?” Well, surprisingly, there is.

It was built in such a way that you wouldn’t have to castigate yourself by enrolling in a punishing gym program, only to drop out a few weeks later. This “get lean the easy way” habit is sure to trim those flabs in a painless manner. Want to know more? Read on.

1. Chuck guilty pleasures. Nicotine, caffeine and chocolates are the big three in the list. Yes, smoking is stimulating. It is the nicotine which makes it so addictive, but it has a major drawback. It constricts your blood vessels, thereby making it more difficult for you to tolerate physical workouts. Another bad guy is caffeine. Taken in excess, it can disrupt your body clock leading you to stay awake for an extended period of time. The longer your peepers are open, the more you realize you are not doing anything productive so you turn to your comfort food for gratification. However, do not discontinue your coffee intake abruptly. Do it gradually to avoid the so-called withdrawal syndrome. The third enemy is the sinfully delicious array of chocolate bars. They should be taken in moderation, at most two bars in one week. They are not meant to replace the lunch you missed earlier in the day.

2. Choose healthier options. Instead of munching on junk food loaded with calories, reach for tasty fruits and vegetables like apple, banana, celery sticks and cabbage. Contrary to popular misconceptions, eating vegetables or salads will not turn you into a goat. In fact, you will feel fuller much longer because they are fiber-rich. This is an effective technique to get lean the easy way.

3. Try water therapy. The importance of being constantly well hydrated can never be overemphasized. The requisite 8-10 glasses of water should be the norm in your everyday life. Some studies even show that most people tend to equate thirst with hunger, causing them to pack on excess pounds.

So there you have it! Apply these three “get lean the lazy way” tips and you are on your way to fitness.

Popularity: 2% [?]

As humans grow older, their metabolism gets slower. This affects one’s health, diet and also their hygiene. That is why it is important to know some tips on how to speed up this body process.

What is Metabolism?
When you eat, the cells in your body convert the fuel in the food into the energy that you need in order to perform your everyday tasks, from simply waking up to doing chores, thinking and growing.

The human body works like a machine, it needs to be recharged and maintained to be able to keep up with its duties. Metabolism enables your cells to grow and reproduce, keep them healthy and able to adapt to its environment. Such process is important to all life forms, if it stops, it would cause the life to end.

The Metabolic Rate
The term is synonymous to the rate your body burns calories. It is important to have more muscles in the body to have a higher metabolic rate.

Thus, explains why men, especially with the muscular body type, have higher metabolic rate than women. And it also proves why the metabolic rate slows down as people age.

Get Active
Letting your body work out, move and being active will surely help you develop more muscles that would, in turn, boost your metabolism.

There are days when you feel the need to be a bit indolent but you could keep up with your metabolism rate by getting into exercises to sweat it out and build up those needed muscles.

Being active will not only help one’s metabolic rate, it would most be useful for a person to be energized and ready for each day’s tasks.

Keep up with the coming rigorous days by staying fit while bearing in mind the importance of a higher metabolic pace.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Thoughts are very powerful. People have been known to withstand pain through sheer thought. People have achieved what they have always wanted through the power of the mind. And people also bring themselves into emotional cesspits because of thoughts.

Depression starts with pervasive thoughts of inadequacy and self-blame, among other things. A lot of the time, depression is triggered by a devastating event or an ill-thought-out decision that had disastrous results. Depressed people wallow in their self-pity and self-blame, slowly losing their will to live, slowly descending into a world where even the air is colored gray.

But there is a way out. Cognitive Therapy, which is used by psychotherapists and psychiatrists to treat depression, is a highly effective method that has brought people “back from the dead,” so to speak. It is very effective; but it’s actually a simple process you can do on your own.

What happens in Cognitive Therapy is that the patient is made to talk about a certain issue, especially the trigger of his/her depression, or the stress he/she is currently undergoing. When the patient blames him/herself or makes sweeping generalizations to prove what a miserable wretch he/she really is, the therapist disputes that and corrects the patient by asking questions to prove the negative thought and to encourage rational thinking.

You can do this on yourself too. Say you think, “I’m the fattest girl on earth”. Catch yourself with reality. Ask yourself: what is your weight? What is the weight of an officially obese person? If you do qualify for obesity, remind yourself: even 400-pounders have gone down to normal weight. So can you. If you need proof to tell yourself that it’s really true, you can research on success stories.

And this method applies across topics and across disciplines too. If you think you can never get that raise, ask yourself: “Never?” Then research, stack the cards, and arm yourself with truth. Dispute the veracity of your thoughts through cold, hard facts. If the facts agree with you, don’t despair. You have other options. The world has never run out of choices. You can get what you want, just keep a rational, open, and optimistic mind.

Cognitive Therapy and its principles has been a big help to so many people. I know it will help you, too. Just read more to show yourself how.

Popularity: 2% [?]

No one on this earth is devoid of inner conflicts. True, there are a lucky few who have escaped having parents who screwed them up, but they still have inner conflicts nonetheless. It is a common notion in sociology, history, and even in modern psychobabble that the past affects the present. But is it really just psychobabble? Does Psychodynamic Therapy really work? Would it work on you?

Psychodynamic Therapy was developed as a modified version of Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis was developed by the oft-mentioned and highly notorious Sigmund Freud. You may have heard of him when people refer to sex drives, but his theories were more than that.

Psychoanalysis is the process where the therapist lets you talk and talk and talk, while he probes and tries to understand you and tries to let you understand for yourself how the events in the past shape your inner climate in the present. The only difference with Psychodynamic Therapy from Psychoanalysis is that Psychodynamic Therapy does not involve a heavy emphasis on dream analysis and symbolism.

Yes it’s true that the past experiences influence your current attitudes. You may have a pattern of tuning out your wife when she nags because she reminds you of your mother when she does that. Or you may be overly affectionate with your sons because your father never hugged you when you were young.

When we were in our teens, we experienced a lot of conflicts because of the changes inside us. It became worse for us when our parents would offend us in their attempt to discipline us. This hurt, this pain, sometimes get locked in the deepest corners of our mind in a process called repression. This is what Psychodynamic Therapy seeks to recover and eventually make you understand, with the ultimate goal of freeing you from toxic emotions and unhealthy patterns.

Psychodynamic Therapy does not stop the moment you understand yourself. That is only the start. The goal of the process is to use this understanding to bring yourself to a place of healing. Understanding is step one. Accepting that these happened is step two. Processing your feelings, reconciling yourself to these events and making steps to change your patterns form the rest of the equation.

Psychodynamic Therapy may not be recommended for everyone by the therapists, but I believe that taking the concepts within the theories behind it and applying it for self-healing can be an enriching experience. To be able to metamorphose into a better person, you must know and understand yourself. Psychodynamic Therapy can show you how.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The metabolism process may be viewed as complicated by some people, but nothing is complicated if you know how it works.

Detailing the Process
When a person eats too much, the body will gain more calories. This will cause one’s metabolism to slow down, especially if not acted upon.

Let’s look at this scenario. You are eating your favorite chocolate, may it be a cake, ice cream or a bar. This is a good source of energy because a chocolate bar contains more calories than an apple. The energy that you get is good for the body and for your health.

But it can become bad if you eat too much and the calorie intake is more than what is required to develop one’s muscles. The latter is needed to keep up with your metabolic rate and daily energy needs. The extra calories would then be converted into fat.

The unwanted fat not only causes the metabolism to slow down, it also causes the body weight to increase. This is the reason why a person should always be careful as to the food that he/she puts inside the body. It is best to opt for rations that would help increase one’s metabolic rate.

Spicy Food
Not everybody would want this type of food, but are you willing to try if you’ll know that this will help your body speed up its metabolism?

There are many spices available in the market. Chili, for example, can boost your metabolic rate by up to 50 percent in about three hours after you’ve eaten such. The reason for this is because eating chili will increase you heart rate and, auspiciously, will cause you to sweat that is vital when your aim is to get rid of those unnecessary fats and likewise, increase your metabolism.

It is just imperative to note that some spicy foods contains fats and calories, so you better check out the content of each supplement before swallowing them in.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The metabolism process may be viewed as complicated by some people, but nothing is complicated if you know how it works.

Detailing the Process

When a person eats too much, the body will gain more calories. This will cause one’s metabolism to slow down, especially if not acted upon.

Let’s look at this scenario. You are eating your favorite chocolate, may it be a cake, ice cream or a bar. This is a good source of energy because a chocolate bar contains more calories than an apple. The energy that you get is good for the body and for your health.

But it can become bad if you eat too much and the calorie intake is more than what is required to develop one’s muscles. The latter is needed to keep up with your metabolic rate and daily energy needs. The extra calories would then be converted into fat.

The unwanted fat not only causes the metabolism to slow down, it also causes the body weight to increase. This is the reason why a person should always be careful as to the food that he/she puts inside the body. It is best to opt for rations that would help increase one’s metabolic rate.

Spicy Food

Not everybody would want this type of food, but are you willing to try if you’ll know that this will help your body speed up its metabolism?

There are many spices available in the market. Chili, for example, can boost your metabolic rate by up to 50 percent in about three hours after you’ve eaten such. The reason for this is because eating chili will increase you heart rate and, auspiciously, will cause you to sweat that is vital when your aim is to get rid of those unnecessary fats and likewise, increase your metabolism.

It is just imperative to note that some spicy foods contains fats and calories, so you better check out the content of each supplement before swallowing them in.

Popularity: 2% [?]