You Name It and Exercise Helps It

I found this excerpt in the NY Times today, from an article by Jane Brody.

In the February/March issue of ACE Certified News, Natalie Digate Muth, a registered dietitian and personal trainer, emphasized the value of a good workout for people suffering from depression. Mastering a new skill increases their sense of worth, social contact improves mood, and the endorphins released during exercise improve well-being.

“Exercise is an important adjunct to pharmacological therapy, and it does not matter how severe the depression — exercise works equally well for people with moderate or severe depression,” wrote Ms. Muth, who is pursuing a medical degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Healthy people may have difficulty appreciating the burdens faced by those with chronic ailments, Dr. Nancey Trevanian Tsai noted in the same issue of ACE Certified News. “Oftentimes, disease-ridden statements — like ‘I’m a diabetic’ — become barricades that keep clients from seeing themselves getting better,” she said, and many feel “enslaved by their diseases and treatments.”

But the feel-good hormones released through exercise can help sustain activity.

“With regular exercise, the body seeks to continue staying active,” wrote Dr. Tsai, an assistant professor of neurosciences at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She recommended an exercise program tailored to the person’s current abilities, daily needs, medication schedule, side effects and response to treatment.

She urged trainers who work with people with chronic ailments to start slowly with easily achievable goals, build gradually on each accomplishment and focus on functional gains. Over time, a sense of accomplishment, better sleep, less pain and enhanced satisfaction with life can become further reasons to pursue physical activity.

“Even if exercise is tough to schedule,” Dr. Moffat said, “you feel so much better, it’s crazy not to do it.”

Here is a link to the full article.

Your Inner Compass

You may have noticed by now that not ALL of your inner thoughts are helpful or even remotely truthful. If we listen to and follow every thought and feeling, our daily lives, future, and inner peace are precarious indeed.

You have an inner compass, an inner "truth detector" that can allow you to navigate through life with greater peace and confidence. With practice, you can identify what is truth and what is not as clearly as you can tell daylight from darkness. It is one of the great tools that we each have access to.

Truth comes as a feeling or a sense. It is a whisper, and caresses so gently that if you are preoccupied you may not feel it at all.

There is a sure way that you can know if what you are thinking or feeling is true. Ask yourself: Does it persuade me to do good? to rise? to stand tall? to do the right thing? to be kind? to be generous?

You can always recognize truth by the fruit that it bears--if it enlightens, builds up, leads you to better thoughts and better words and better deeds, it is truth.

Begin now to work on developing and enhancing your innate ability to discern truth by practicing with the following MP3. It contains statements of truth. If you listen with more than just your ears, you will feel impressions within you.

As you listen, pay attention to how you FEEL inside as you hear and repeat each statement to yourself. How does it feel PHYSICALLY? That feeling, that place within you where that feeling lies, is your inner compass. In order to do this best, take just a few moments to be still. Inner stillness is vital to being able to FEEL truth.



MP3 File

Truth creates a unique FEELING within each individual. For some it is a feeling of inner warmth and strong emotion. For others, it is a quickening of the intellect and an inner stirring. As you begin to recognize what it feels like in you, you will soon have an anchor to come back to, letting you know when you are on track . . . and when you aren't.

Hard at Work as a Human Have-ing?

Ever felt that in order for life to work that first you have to HAVE something, before you can DO something, before you can really BE something? Like you had to HAVE money so you can DO the fun things in life that you want to do, so that you can BE happy?

It is the other way around, you know. You and I are better off BE-ing first, so that we can DO, so that we can HAVE.

HAVING is a natural by-product of BE-ing.

BE forgiving.
BE non-judgmental.
BE accepting.
BE loving.
BE grateful.
BE caring.
BE understanding.
BE happy.
BE willing to admit you don't know everything.

BE the best you can BE in every moment.

BE efficient.
DO your best work.
HAVE the best pay.

Life works better this way.
I'm just saying.