Best Mental Health Articles

Losing weight and going on a diet can be quite challenging! As someone who has lost over 50 pounds, I will share a bit of my “dieting wisdom” with you.

1. Throw Out that Scale! Of course we all want to keep track of our progress, but stepping on that scale everyday isn’t the way to do it. In fact, it can keep us from focusing on what we really should be focusing on. A preoccupation with what the scale reads can cause us to become dependent and depressed. Instead, keep close attention to how you feel–lack of energy and tiredness could be an indication that you are failing to loose weight in the healthiest way. On the other hand, increased energy could be a sign that you are becoming healthier. Focus on what your body tells you–monitor how clothes are fitting you. This is a much more positive way of monitoring your weight loss. Save the scale for regular doctor’s checkups or occuasional, periodic use.

2. Set Realistic Goals. Trying to “loose weight fast” is often times not only impractical, but also dangerous. Set goals that you know can be feasibly integrated into your daily routine. Not only are quick weight loss attempts often difficult to maintain, but they can also be hazardous to your health–causing you to ruin your metabolism and rapidly regain the weight as soon as you stop your diet.

3. Expect Fallbacks. We all have our bad days. Being hard on yourself for breaking your diet and falling back on your weight goals is part of the process! Frustration can make it even harder to get back on track. Instead, look forward and decide ways in which you can be more dedicated to your goals. Keeping a journal can help.

4. Praise Yourself Often. Remember, attaining your weight goals is just as much a mental process as it is a physical one. For this reason, it is important to keep yourself motivated. Think of ways to positively reward yourself. For example: get your nails done or have a guys-only night out. There are all kinds of ways to pamper yourself without spending too much money. Be creative!

5. Be Open with your Doctor. If you are struggling in acheiving your goals, don’t keep trying to do it alone! Contact your doctor. He/she may be able to help you customize your goals or refer you to a nutritionist or other professional trained to help patients mentally and physically stay on track when loosing weight.

Above all, remember that loosing weight does not mean foregoing fun and ignoring what your mind and emotions tell you. In fact, paying attention to your mental state can ultimately mean far better results. Forget about the scale, be realistic, reward yourself, and, if needed, seek professional assistance. With the right mindset, you will already be well on your way to reaching your weight loss goals!

Amie Gerlowski writes for Weight Loss Guide, an online resource about diet pills such as Hoodia.

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You just put in a good 10 hour day in front of your computer screen, and the last thing you want to do is exercise. Let’s see, exercise, and improve your fitness level, or sit down with a glass of wine and watch your favorite evening television show. What would you do?

Seventy percent of individuals know they should exercise, but
choose the wine and the television program instead.

Do you know this simple daily decision can end up being detrimental to your health? According to the USCDC, 54.1% of adults don’t do the minimum level of exercise or physical activity recommended for wellness. The slogan “use it or lose it” has never been more true.

The simple innocent choice of not exercising has shown, in studies, to promote 10 serious health conditions you don’t ever want to develop. The bottom line is physical inactivity has a lot of unhealthy implications even at our bodies cellular level. At the cellular level, inactivity decreases
the ability to transfer oxygen from your blood stream to your cells, and also decreases the number of power activating mitochondria. However, the worst cost of not exercising or being physically active can result in the following 10 devastating conditions:

1. CANCER - Studies have shown that fitness enthusiastic men and women who are physically active have a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of colon cancer compared to individuals who are inactive.

2. DIABETES - Studies show lack of regular physical exercise increases insulin sensitivity. Diabetes is considered the “sedentary disease” which is striking people at an alarming rate. If it is not controlled, it can destroy the body’s organs.

3. HEART - Lack of consistent physical activity, over time, decreases the function of the heart muscle, affects the blood vessels, including the large aortic artery to the veins and small capillaries. According to many studies, scientists have good reason to believe that regular exercise protects the
heart.

4. STROKE - Regular exercisers are 25% less likely to have a stroke than their sedentary counterparts. Being fit lowers blood pressure, raises HDL cholesterol, and reduces the risk of blood clots.

5. BRAIN - People who are physically active, according to solid evidence, are at lower risk for cognitive decline and dementia.

6. MUSCLES - If you don’t exercise on a regular basis, you are at risk of losing some 6 percent of your muscles mass every decade of life from the age of 30 on. This also translates into a 10 - 15 percent loss of strength per decade. Once again, if you don’t use the muscle, you will lose the muscle quickly.

7. OSTEOPOROSIS - Fragile bones cause more than 1.5 million fractures each year in the U.S. Bone is like muscle, if you stress it, it responds. If you don’t, you gradually lose its strength, and increase your chances of breaking them. Regular weekly strength training can help prevent osteoporosis, and decrease your chances of breaking a bone.

8. MENTAL HEALTH - People who don’t exercise on a regular basis are more prone to develop depression. According to a recent study, people who were more active were nearly 20 percent less likely to be diagnosed with depression over the next five years than less active people. Fitness conscious individuals also generally display an improved self esteem, or self image.

9. WEIGHT - If you are inactive, year in and year out, you will eventually gain weight and lose fitness which increases the chance of a heart attacks, and diabetes.

10. IMMUNE SYSTEM - Moderate amounts of exercise reduces the
risk of upper respiratory infection. Regular exercise may boost
immune function.

Now I would like to ask that same question I asked above. What
would you do? Wine and television, or physical activity?

Now for the good news! In as little as 30 minutes of exercise or
fitness work each day, you can significantly decrease your chances of developing any of these horrible conditions mentioned above. This is the best “medicine” any doctor can possibly prescribe!

I hope I have encouraged you to become more physically
active today, and beyond. Your quality of life depends upon
it. Consider these the most important words you will hear
today!

Remember, you have a choice. Make the fitness choice.
_______________________________________________

For information on how to develop a fitness program
which delivers twice the results in half the time, visit
Wellness Word Multimedia Newsletter at http://www.WellnessWord.com
________________________________________________

*** Attention: Ezine Editors / Website Owners ***
Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine, Blog, Autoresponder,or on your website as long as the links, and resource box are not altered in any way.

Jim O’Connor, Beverly Hills celebrity fitness consultant, has conducted thousands of personal fitness consultations with celebrities, business executives, and highly motivated
individuals throughout Los Angeles. He is the Chief Exercise Physiologist for Wellness WORD, LLC, a health, fitness, and nutrition promotion company. Jim is the author of a well
known, world wide multimedia newsletter called Wellness WORD, published online every other week promoting the health and fitness truth. He also is the author of a popular
ebook called Home Gym Shopping Secrets. Get The Wellness WORD “Multimedia” Newsletter delivered every other week for NO CHARGE to your inbox, and find out what the neat multimedia tricks Jim uses.

http://www.WellnessWord.com
http://www.HomeGymShoppingSecrets.com

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There is an illness all around me in modern society that seems to be spreading like the Black Plague once did in Europe so long ago. It’s called depression, have you heard of it? Has it affected you? The more I look, the more I see it in so many people in my life, including myself. Depression sucks. It’s a real drag, and I mean real drag. It is different from the feelings of unhappiness that all humans have to deal with in their lives. It is being in a solitary prison where you are the only one who can see the walls; you are the jailor, the guard, and the prisoner all rolled into one. Sounds like fun huh? Well, we better become more aware of it because there are certain aspects of contemporary life that are causing more and more souls to lock themselves up, some believing that they have no hope of ever finding the key out.

If you look up depression on the Internet through a Google search query you will find a lot of different ways and means to manage or treat the problem. There are Eastern and Western approaches, psychological and spiritual; today there are 15,400,000 links about the subject. It seems to be on everybody’s mind and yet we don’t give it the general social awareness that we do for other illnesses. This is probably because there are so many stigmas around faults with the human mind. Broken bones and cancer we can understand or at least think we do; but we touch on a soft spot when we find a problem with that infinitely complex, helpful, magical device we call the brain.

Recently I went to a public talk by a world famous Psychologist named Dorothy Rowe who was selling her new book, ‘Depression: The way out of your prison”. I’m not going to tell you that she has all the answers, but I did like the different approach that she took to the illness. She’s not against modern medication, but she feels that it can be only part of the solution. Of course there are types of intense clinical depression that need certain chemicals to rebalance the brain to a ‘normal’ working order, but for all depression she feels that the focus could be shifted from a management to a prevention paradigm.

Dr Rowe focuses on the assertion that depression comes when one’s structure of interpreting the world around you has been affected by some deeply negative occurrences (usually in one’s youth). Her theory suggests that if a certain event happens to one hundred people, they will all probably interpret the experience in an individual, different way; the perceived ‘reality’ having been a resulting construct from one’s life experiences. For example: Let’s say you get fired from your job. Just about everyone is going to feel a general unhappiness and grieve over the subsequent period. However, many people have built positive, optimistic ways of seeing life and will just go on and feel as though the layoff was another necessary step or a momentary setback on the way to their life’s goals and dreams. “Whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” is a common sentiment from this type of personality.

However, a person who is prone to perceiving the world around them as threatening and dangerous (maybe their parents never gave them positive affirmations as a child, or even put them down emotionally) may believe that the loss of this job is a relative ‘destruction’ of their world, their safety, their confidence. This is where the illness of depression can dig its sharp teeth in. This is a pretty mellow analogy; in reality some people have gone through hellish childhoods filled with abuse, neglect and addiction. When this type of person then has to deal with the loss of a loved one or relationship break-up, you can imagine that they would be much more prone to perceiving the experience as deeply negative. Dr. Rowe believes that these constructed structures of perceiving what happens to you can be altered, thus giving rise to a new way of seeing reality. The main idea is based around the idea that we must learn to change the ways in which we see ourselves.

If we can learn to accept ourselves with all our faults and imperfections, and realize that if we are doing our best to be a loving and giving person everyday, then we can see ourselves as being worthy, and that all is well. Then if someone else treats us badly, ignores us, or says we aren’t good enough, we can know and acknowledge that they are the person with the problem and that we don’t necessarily need their affirmation or acceptance. We can then wait for positive people to come into our lives, as like attracts like. Soon enough we will find that there is a group of people that will stand by our side and support us when things get bad because we do the same for ourselves and for them.

One of the most powerful insights I had from this experience was the sheer number of people in the room for Dr. Rowe’s speech. Each and every one had been or known someone close who had been depressed at one time in their life, thinking that they were completely alone in the world. When you see a big group of people together whom have all felt alone, you might just see into the true paradox of reality? If everyone who got depressed realized that it is a common occurrence, and connected to others in similar cases, it definitely could be a step towards healing. Could the Internet take a leading role in this process?

Jesse S. Somer
http://www.m6.net
Jesse S. Somer has been locked in a prison of his own mind. The way out was within.

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