7 Steps To Reduce Insomnia

I was fascinated by the NY Times' two recent articles on sleep. One is about how to get more of it so you'll be more beautiful, featuring spas, sleep products and a barely perceptible nod to useful skills like meditation and relaxation. The companion piece is about makeup to hide the ravages of sleeplessness. Really?

Sleep deprivation causes irritability, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, weight gain, medical problems, cognitive deficits, impaired work performance, car crashes and a host of other ills beyond the toll it takes on physical beauty. Makeup is not going to solve these problems.

Clouding the issue by suggesting a cosmetic fix, spa products or pills, ignores the fact that sleep problems are often easily remedied without medication or costly solutions.

Since it's summer, why not send yourself to sleep camp? In sleep camp you have daily activities, just like volleyball and swimming in summer camp. If you despised summer camp you can think of it more like soccer or tennis camp where you're trying to improve a skill set and you know it's going to take dedication, practice, tweaking and repetition.

Here's how sleep camp works: 

1. Start a sleep journal. 

Read more here...

Enhance Your Well-Being With 5-Minute Mindfulness Practices

How would you like to reduce stress and emotional reactivity, and increase focus and well-being? You can improve your health while you're at it. What if I told you that cultivating mindfulness can bring these rewards? There are even more benefits. Research suggests memory gains and relationship satisfaction are also associated with mindfulness practices.

There are as many ways to become more mindful as there are people, so here are my suggestions for cultivating your mindfulness. You have to try them out, and see what fits for you.

Breathe mindfully, by taking slow breaths that start in the abdomen and work their way up to the top of your head, exhaling as slowly as you breathe in. Spend 5 minutes a day breathing this way. Try breathing into your stress, be it a stressed muscle or a stressful thought.

Notice your thoughts without judgment. This means just noticing, not questioning, editing, criticizing or controlling your thinking. Observe your thoughts nonjudgmentally for 5 minutes each day.

Experience what you're feeling in your body without trying to change it. Take 5 minutes daily to do a body scan. Start at your toes and work your way up to the scalp, just noticing what's going on in your body. Simply be aware of places you're tight, loose or neutral.

Focus on what you're doing with awareness. Whether you're walking (feel the air on your face and your feet hitting the ground), eating (notice texture and taste) or sitting (attend to body temperature and heart rate), try noticing all the perceptions and sensations you experience during a 5 minute period.

Meditate daily. Choose a type of meditation that suits you. There are many options. Do it daily for 5 minutes on your own, or find a meditation center or group where you can practice and learn. Many people find that practicing with a group deepens the experience.

Practice loving kindness toward yourself and others. This is a meditation in which you wish for things like safety, health, happiness or freedom for yourself. Then you extend that wish to your loved ones, to acquaintances, and finally, to your not-so-loved ones, for 5 minutes of your day.

Practice an ancient healing art like yoga, tai chi or qi gong by spending 5 minutes a day on it. Taking a few classes will teach you the basics. Simple poses can be learned in no time on-line. You can practice alone. As with meditation, sometimes practicing with your kids, partner or a friend is a nice change.

Pick a time you can practice one or more of these daily. Work it into your schedule. As your daily mindfulness practice becomes routine, you will notice that an increase in awareness and a decrease in judgment begins to permeate other aspects of your life. Control over your thinking and behavior becomes easier. It all comes together to reduce stress and enhance well-being. I'm not saying five minutes will bring all the rewards, but I suspect that once you start doing five, it will turn into 10, then 15, and who knows how much well-being you can attain?

Try some Iyengar Yoga Music to get in the mudra.

Originally published at YourTago.

The Key to My Heart: Relationship Tips

When things are going reasonably well, we tend to take relationships for granted.  There are a number of things we can all do to improve our relationships, in good times and in bad.  Based on the Gottman’s work on marital satisfaction, here are a few of the keys. 

1.  Ask lots of questions and talk a lot, so you can know one another better.  Isn’t it cool when you learn something new about your partner after 5 years?  10 years?

2.  Be positive!   Notice what your partner is doing right and comment on it.  Show positive affect by keeping your tone positive, smiling, using humor and affection, especially in conflict situations.  Use compassionate communication by being clear about your needs and wants, nonaggressively.

3.  Turn toward your partner literally and figuratively.  Accept requests for more intimacy and contact and ask for more yourself.

4.  Take a time out.  When you are in conflict and you feel yourself getting hotter, agree to take a time out to cool off.  Then get back to the calm discussion.

5.  Share.  Share time, share ideas, share rituals, share hobbies, share vacations, share meals and create positive memories together.

For better and for worse, in sickness and in health, it’s always key to love and to cherish (I’m not so sure about the honoring and obeying part).

Higher & Higher, Jackie Wilson

Moving At a Snail's Pace

Happiness experts agree that we must slow down and smell the flowers. Taking more time for things allows us to savor, enjoy, calm ourselves and regain composure. All of this, in turn, allows us to be happier, more satisfied and more fulfilled.

I’ve worked on this myself for quite some time. The famous 59th Street Bridge Song phrase, slow down you move too fast, is one I use as a reminder and have mentioned before. I’ve been working on a running meditation practice. Although I’ve long been familiar with the walking meditation, this running meditation is new to me. I must admit the multitasking (running plus meditation) aspect of it is very appealing. It also means running without my iPod. It’s difficult at first, and later as well, but somewhere in the middle it seems like it might be working.

I returned home the other morning thinking, as I walked the last stretch, of all the things I had to do before zooming out to the office. As I turned up my driveway something caught my eye. A snail making its way slowly, very slowly, across the drive. Hmmmm. A bit odd. Then as I continued up, still in thinking/planning mode, I saw another. Now this really got my attention. I had to stop and take a closer look.

Having taken an appreciative inquiry class not too long ago, and now coupling it with a visioning class, I saw the snails as signs. No, I’m not getting all woo woo. Not cosmic signs that the universe is sending out to me. Just signs of something I’ve been working on myself. Signs to remind me to slow down and smell the roses, listen to the woodpecker and get ready that morning without doing every single thing on my to-do list for the day. Now I have the snail image as a reminder. And yup, I even took the time to get my camera and take a few pics, before moving on my more deliberate, measured way, to work.

Breathing, Relaxation and Meditation

This is just a quick how-to-find guide to breathing, relaxation and meditation. These topics have been coming up a lot lately in my work and with friends.

Breathing, you ask? Yes. Absolutely all relaxation, meditation and yoga techniques rely on correct breathing. Okay, there’s no right or wrong to yoga and meditation, but abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing certainly helps the relaxation response. The particular approach doesn’t matter. It’s whatever works best for you. Try:

• abdominal breathing

• or yoga breathing

Then consider relaxation. It’s always good to practice a new relaxation exercise 2-3 times a day. Once learned you can use it when you need it, i.e., when you’re stressed out. Try these two videos:

• The Relaxation Response 

• Mini Relaxation Break 

I also like a couple of iTunes downloads:

• Mini-relaxation break
  
• 8 minute power meditation

An alternative to relaxation is meditation. It’s similar, but less structured and a little more woo woo. If you can be a little woo woo, try one of these free guided meditation apps:

• Insight Timer
• Headspace
• CALM

As always, the key is to find something that works for you. That is to say, something you feel good about, something you can find the time for and something you can stick with. Remember, no matter what is recommended, 5 minutes of breathing, relaxation or meditation is better than no minutes. You can’t find 5 minutes in your day…really.