We all know that migraine headaches are something that are extremely frustration and they can actually affect your day overall.  While there are some prescription medications that are supposed to help your headaches, there are other ways that you can get rid of them naturally and that is exactly what we are going to explore in the next two blogs.

One of the first things that you want to do is discuss natural treatments with your doctor.  You never want to move forward with anything without your doctor’s permission, as it could do more harm to you than you anticipated.

Also, do not just jump into anything; make sure that you do some research on it before discussing with your doctor, that way you can ensure that you are going to have some knowledge to back up why you want to go natural.  We will discuss the actual herbs that will assist you in the next blog!

While it is pretty obvious that lowering your stress levels is very important, so is keeping your body and mind sound.  That is the entire motto of what Zen is exactly and while most people just believe that you can practice Zen in your garden or via meditation only.

There are actually a few different ways that you can incorporate Zen into your lifestyle and begin practicing it.  First and foremost though, you need to understand specifically what Zen is and what you need to do in order to achieve it.

Well folks, Zen is a way of life.  Honestly, it is one of the most peaceful ways of life and if you are looking to make a change in your lifestyle and how you handle stress, this is going to be it.  In the next few blogs we will explore specifically what Zen is and how it can help you!

While many people simply assume that meditation is for the new age fruity’s that are just trying to push their values on them, there is actually proof that if you meditate a few times a day (just for a few minutes), you will notice not only a decrease in your stress-level, but also a boost to your mood!  Don’t you want to be in a better mood all the time?  Well, meditation can help you connect to yourself on a deeper level and assist you in lightening up your mood!

Firstly, if you have never meditated, you may need to learn how.  It is super easy and honestly, it works to lower those ever-so-high stress levels!  So first, you want to pick a place to meditate that does not have a lot of distractions and is quiet.  It always needs to be quiet in order to meditate for you are going to be concentrating solely on your breathing and nothing else.

Now that you have found the location, go ahead and take a seat anyway that is comfortable and then focus in on your breathing.  Deep abdominal breaths are probably the best, and take them without any force.  Force yourself to relax a little bit and this is where you will begin to see the ever-changing effects of meditation.  As soon as you have concentrated solely on the breathing and are now in a trance-like state, you are mediating my friend!  Now just watch your stress level drop and your mood increase!

In this day and age, it is very hard not to be stressed out.  Everyone is scared for their jobs, people are constantly worried about money and there is a whole host of other things that people are stressing out over.  The important thing you need to learn is how to control your stress levels.  There is nothing but health problems that can come out of getting overly stressed out, as soon as you learn to control your stress levels, you will feel better.

The first thing you will need to do is identify what is stressing you out.  While obviously some of the stress in your life can not be helped, but if you are finding a lot of little things in your life that are stressing you out a great deal … calm down.  Simply taking a deep breath throughout your day can sometimes lower your stress level.

If you are finding that your job is too stressful, a simple chat with your boss might be in order.  No one is superman or superwoman, so if you are feeling overwhelmed at work all of the time, take to your manager and see what you can work out together to help manage your stress.

Finally, a simple meditate session once a day will do wonders for your body!

Will keep you posted of my progress!

Meditation Can Help You

Many people start meditation because they want to reduce the stress in their lives. Modern life is stressful to an incredible extent. A sociologist on the radio said that with the use of satellites, television and computers, you and I receive more information in 1 day than our ancestors of several generations ago used to receive in 1,000 days. That means our brains have to process as much input in 24 hours as our brains used to process in 24,000 hours. This results in an overload – 75% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related disorders.

A list of some of some of the mental and emotional signs of stress include:

• An agitated mind
• Depression
• Sleeplessness
• Feelings of Inadequacy
• Apathy
• Increased Irritability

Some of the stress related diseases include:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Asthma
• Diabetes
• Migraine Headaches
• Stomach Ulcers
• Arthritis
• High Blood Pressure
• Obesity
• Impotence
• Respiratory Diseases
• Chronic Low Back Pain

The Definition Of Stress

What is stress? Webster’s Dictionary says that stress is “any mental or physical tension or strain.” The real problem is that our physical response to stress was developed over hundreds of thousands of years and remains the same as in the cave people days. If you were a caveman walking down a path and a tiger ran in front of you, your body immediately readied itself to either fight of flee with the following reactions:

• The heartbeat increased to pump blood throughout the body with greater speed
• Blood pressure went up
• Breathing became rapid and shallow
• Adrenaline and other hormones were released into the blood
• The liver released sugar into the system to meet the increased energy needs
• The eyes dilated to let in more light
• Muscles tensed for movement
• The digestive system shut down to allow the blood flow to increase to the major muscle groups
• The hands and feet became cold from lack of blood circulation
• The body perspired to cool itself

Now all of this was a wonderful adaptation for the caveman; he could fight or run away and “use up” all the physical changes that had occurred. But what about us? Every time someone swerves in front of our car; every time our boss or co-worker yells at us, perhaps every time the phone rings, our bodies go into the stress reaction mode and we can’t fight our run. Instead, many of us stay in a perpetual state of stress.

Meditation Can Help You Manage Stress

There have been many scientific studies on meditation and stress that have proven that meditation “works” in reducing stress. In fact, researchers indicate that Meditation produces a reaction that is the exact opposite of stress: there is an intensification of alpha waves, decreased perspiration, decreased heart rate, increased peripheral blood flow, decreased respiration rate and volume, and decreased blood lactate levels.

There are many other benefits of meditation besides stress reduction. Meditation enables you to:

• Focus
• Make conscious choices in your life rather than reacting on automatic pilot; on old habit patterns
• Open to your intuition or inner knowing
• Solve life problems
• Live joyfully in the present moment.

Here’s a joke I heard recently. A co-pilot of a large airline approached the pilot and told him “I just saw the red warning lift under Landing-Gear Malfunction flashing on and off” “So what did you do”, quickly asked the pilot. “I unscrewed the light bulb” answered the co-pilot. Doesn’t sound funny or realistic? Actually, it’s the way many of us are living our lives. How often do we address the symptoms and not the a problem? Meditation goes to the root of the problem.

Meditation will work for everyone. The only question is – are your ready for it? Do you want to change? Are you willing to put in the effort required? You can’t just read books or come to classes, take notes and “get it.” What you learn are methods that you must apply to your daily life.

Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is with you, what is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.” It is up to you.