What Does Your Self-Talk Say About You?

Anything you say out loud to yourself, or to someone else about yourself, or about anything else, is part of your self-talk and represents how you feel about yourself. Also, what you say when you are speaking makes up an important part of the pictures and directions you are feeding to your subconscious mind. It makes sense that if what you say when you are speaking paints the wrong pictures or delivers commands which give yourself counterproductive information, the end result will be that your brain will act on the information in a way that could work against you in any number of ways.

Telling a friend that you don’t like your job cannot possibly help your job. You may make yourself feel better by getting it off your chest, and in most forms of therapy, that technique is used with some success. But how much better it would be if you were to change your attitude by changing the programming you were giving yourself, especially in those circumstances when the job (or any situation) isn’t going to change just by complaining about it.

Your self-talk is at the heart of something we call “acceptance.” There are times in life when all of us feel compelled to put up with a bad situation. But it is completely up to you whether you let that situation work against you, or make a mental decision to see it in a different way. Your self-speak, and other forms of self-talk, are the determining factor in whether the real you, the inside you, wins or loses.

We make hundreds of comments or statements in any given day. It might not seem all that important to phrase each of the many things you say each day in some positive way. But consider that each of those statements is a directive to your subconscious mind. Then add up those comments and statements over a week, a month, or a year. They add up to tens of thousands of minor but very important subconscious self-directives. They’re important all right; they have a whole lot to do with what you accomplish, how you feel, and who you become.

The easiest way to determine which of the people around you are the real winners at life and which are not, is to listen to their self-speak; what they say when they talk about anything. Winners use self-speak to build an attitude that produces winning results. It doesn’t mean that “winners” don’t have problems. It doesn’t mean that every day for them is a perfect day. But look at their average scores in winning at life over a few months or a few years. The better their self-speak, the better their score. The more positive their approach, the more successful the results. In time, positive self-speak becomes as much an automatic habit as walking, moving, eating, or sleeping. And when positive self-speak becomes a habit, so do the successes which the self-speak creates.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Are You Financially Insane?

It’s a lot easier to avoid trouble than to get out of trouble. Yet most of us go to great extremes to invite trouble into our lives. Mishandling money is one of our favorite ways to get ourselves into difficulty. We seem easily to forget that each spending choice we make determines how much money we need in our lives and how much we have to work for.

Unfortunately, money is more often misused and abused than it is used intelligently. Most people haven’t figured out how to use money wisely to truly enhance their lives. Most, it seems, act rationally with their money only when they can’t dream up any more irrational ways to spend it.

The problem is that our spending habits do not reflect our deepest values and desires. We waste our funds on questionable material possessions at the expense of things that we cherish, such as freedom and financial independence. We may save meticulously for a sabbatical or a retirement, for example, but then, after a year or two, blow the entire $10,000 in a moment of weakness on a new stereo system, which we hardly use, because we don’t have time for it.

Alternatively, we may buy a new wardrobe that will be out of fashion in just one season. If you believe that you are over and above irrational behavior with money, you are probably in denial about the issue. Perhaps a strange and confusing relationship exists between how hard you work to earn your money and how easily you spend it at times. You may pinch pennies when buying food at the market on payday, but later blow what’s left on gadgets that you could easily do without. In fact, many people spend most of their paychecks on the best junk money can buy. Worse, they tend to buy this junk with money they haven’t yet earned.

Will Rogers stated it well: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like,” Although we don’t want to admit it, each of us exhibits at least a little bit of this insanity. Money, unfortunately, brings out the eccentricity in each of us. An occasional quirk or peculiarity in our spending habits is normal. But consistent irrational behavior with money is detrimental to our personal and financial well-being. We end up working long and hard hours to earn money but don’t experience much happiness and satisfaction from the things we buy.

Behind every irrational spending urge is a profound emotional need that requires attention. That need can be for power, status, fame, freedom, revenge, respect, security, or self-respect. It can even be for love. We must be able to deal with these needs head-on, because in most cases, the purchase won’t make things better.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Organizing Your Grocery Shopping & Cut Your Time In Half

Most people I know find themselves running to the supermarket at least two or three times a week, and many shop more often than that. Think about how you could simplify our grocery shopping chore and made it a goal to cut by at least half the two or three hours I spent shopping each week.

Type up a list of all the food items you might possibly buy. Then arrange them in the order they appear in the aisles of your favorite grocery store. Run off a couple dozen copies of the list, and keep in one of the kitchen cabinets so a fresh one is there when you need it. It can easily be updated as your eating patterns change.

Before I go shopping, I sit down at the kitchen table and draw up a quick meal plan for the week. Then I go through my computer list and check off the items I’ll need. Since I’m right there in the kitchen, I can quickly see what we’re out of, and note those items on the list.

The entire process, from making the list to doing the shopping to putting the groceries away, takes a little less than an hour, and I almost never have to run back to the store during the week for items I’ve forgotten. Just by keeping a list, we’ve substantially cut our monthly food expenditure, and created more free time for ourselves.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Vitamin E: A Miracle Brain Food

Vitamin E is a very multi-talented nutrient that aids a healthy mind. As an antioxidant, vitamin E helps minimize free-radical damage. Since it is fat soluble, it is stored in the fatty parts of your cell membranes; thus, it is uniquely capable of preventing the fat molecules so abundant in brain tissue from turning rancid. Vitamin E protects both the fatty outer membrane and inner membrane of your nerve cells, thereby increasing your brain’s ability to transmit messages from cell to cell, and create energy within the cells.

Vitamin E also reduces free-radical damage to your artery walls, helping to protect you against cardiovascular disease and its choking effect on blood flow to the brain. Numerous studies show that vitamin E supplements reduce the risk of stroke by 53 percent. It also reduces the inflammatory effects of pollution toxins, allergies, and infections, which can eventually reach the brain and wreak havoc there.

Autopsies have given us visible evidence that vitamin E deficiencies cause the delicate axons of nerves to degenerate. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies show that low levels of vitamin E in the blood are associated with brain damage due to impaired blood vessels in the brain or free-radical assault. In these studies, subjects ranged in age from forty-five to seventy-five, and those with the lowest levels of vitamin E had seven times the damage of those with the highest levels. An amazing study of 341 patients with Alzheimer’s showed that 1,000 IU of vitamin E slowed the progression of the disease in more than half the people who took it - the vitamin had even better results than the Alzheimer drug it was being compared to. In a Chicago study of 633 people sixty-five years or older, ninety-one people developed Alzheimer’s. But none of the twenty-seven people who were taking vitamin E supplements (200-800 IU per day) developed it. Statistically, researchers would have expected four of them (15 percent) to have developed the disease by, the end of the four-year study.

It’s no wonder so many brain researchers are taking vitamin E themselves. And it’s no wonder that the American Institute on Aging believes vitamin E shows such promise as a brain saver that it has launched a study to investigate its effects. The study involves 720 Americans aged fifty-five to ninety who have what is called mild cognitive impairment (MCI); the study is designed to determine if vitamin E will delay further memory loss and prevent or delay Alzheimer’s in these people. About 75 percent of those with MCI are expected to progress to Alzheimer’s. Even if vitamin E supplements only cut this rate in half, it will be a significant step toward reining in the occurrence of this devastating disease. The best food sources for vitamin E are cold-pressed vegetable oils, whole grains, nuts, dark green leafy vegetables, and legumes.

Popularity: 24% [?]

4 Secrets Of A Sexy Marriage

Sexual desire in every relationship fluctuates between both partners. Some stages are of course predictable. For example, the following times are when sexual moods and patterns of lovemaking may shift: when you first marry, after your child is born, when the kids leave home, or when there is career pressure.

Knowing this, and being confident enough to talk about it, makes intimacy stronger. Those marriages that maintain sexual desire, strong intimacy, heated emotional bonding, and erogenous attraction all take part in the following actions that contribute to the “secret” of their marriage:

1. Sexual marriages do not keep affection inside of the bedroom only. Couples whose sex lives bring them the most happiness tend to eroticize their lives. In other words, they give affection both physically and verbally throughout the day. They do this in different ways. They touch, hug, kiss, and flirt. Whether it’s reassuring or frantically passionate, touch makes the difference between making love and having sex.

2. Married couples who always seem to have passion in their relationship make it a habit to make time for love. Sexy wives know that lovemaking is a habit: The more you do it, the more you like it, and the more you like it, the more you will do it! Lovemaking is a top priority, and if that means that sex has to be scheduled, then so be it. Just because it is planned does not make it any less exciting for these couples. They feel that sexual excitement feeds on itself, so they just do it.

3. These steamy couples also make it a point to talk everyday. Even if it is just ten minutes in the morning and a few more minutes at night, they voice their love for each other continuously. In taking the same behavior patterns from these kinds of couples, your duty is to voice your own love for your spouse in any manner that pleases you. Call each other pet names, remember to always say goodnight or goodbye when you leave. Just be sure that you don’t fall into the mind-reader trap of assuming your partner knows or should know what you are thinking and feeling just “because he loves me.” Those sexy couples in marriages make a point of expressing their feelings and their attraction to each other on a routine basis.

4. Kissing is also at the top of the list of priorities for the passionate couple. We’re not talking about a perfunctory peck on the forehead but rather a deep, sensual, teasing kiss that is given with passion. Many longtime couples rarely kiss at all, going straight to intercourse when they have sex. Don’t you remember the backseat? How about making out in the movie theater? Keep this up, steal a kiss!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Internal Memory Techniques: How They Work

Internal memory techniques are very powerful ways to learn and remember information. Let’s look at how they work:

* They force you to focus attention on what you are trying to learn. When you apply an internal memory technique, you are forced to concentrate. In fact, just using a technique makes it impossible not to pay attention. And we already know that we absorb something we want to remember more effectively when we attend to it.

* They give meaning to what you are trying to learn. Internal memory techniques are successful because they give meaning to something you want to remember. This works in two ways: In many cases, we can find meaning inherent to the information we are trying to learn. Or we can impose meaning on material that doesn’t necessarily have that meaning to make it more memorable. And something that is meaningful is more memorable.

Some of you may believe internal memory techniques are simply too complicated for you. If so, think again. Chances are you already use some of these methods without even knowing it. Take a look at these examples:

1. What year did Columbus sail for America? Did you say 1492? That’s correct. Chances are you got there by reciting the following rhyme: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Rhymes such as these are a popular internal memory technique.

2. How can you remember the correct spelling of the word “stationery”? Well, if in fourth grade you learned the saying, “Stationery is for a letter,” you were given a way of connecting the correct spelling of stationery with another word you already knew the proper spelling for. English teachers loved these connection techniques for learning proper spelling.

3. Here’s one from the history books. Need to remember what happened to the wives of Henry VIII? Perhaps someone taught you the following rhyme for recalling their fates: Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived.

4. Trying to remember the colors of the rainbow? Consider the following first letter association, which my son learned in his kindergarten class: ROY G. BIV. This name is made up of the first letter of each color in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

You can see from these examples that internal memory techniques are really part of our everyday world. So don’t be afraid of these methods. They can be simple to learn and use, and can help you remember better. The goal of any memory technique is to help you learn an internal memory technique that you like and will use.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Positive Communication Encourages Positive Behavior

We can become more capable and successful in relating to others when we choose to develop “proactive” rather than reactive communication. Proactive responding facilitates communication while reactive responding inhibits communication.

Proactive responding is the ability to listen to the other person’s feelings and empathize without taking responsibility for those feelings. Taking responsibility for someone else’s feelings creates undue emotional and mental stress. Ultimately, you’re more apt to respond in a reactive way, projecting your pent-up frustrations or hostile feelings on others. Reactive communication blocks freedom of expression of others. When freedom of expression is blocked, it’s like being submerged in water and drowning. When you fight to reach the surface and take a deep breath, first you’re relieved and then your body relaxes.

Reactive responding is unrewarding and discourages further communication. When you cut off communication, it’s like slamming a door in the other person’s face. If you’ve ever had a door slammed in your face, literally or figuratively, then you know it is not a pleasant feeling. Reactive responding creates conflict and resentment often leading to distrust and hostility.

Defensive communication may be a reaction to being held back or repressed in some way. Defensive, reactive communication erects barriers and creates resistances that close off and terminate communication. Trying to speak with someone about commitment in a relationship when the person is unsure about his/her feelings is difficult. When the person is noncommittal, your choice is to either act, or react. When someone finds it difficult to speak with you, you might react by blaming him; “It’s his fault,” “He’s acting in a childish way,” and so on.

Reactive communication constructs walls and roadblocks preventing us from understanding ourselves and others. A reactive response discourages and blocks further communication. Non-defensive communication allows you to express yourself in an open, honest and straightforward way. When you communicate to others in & proactive way, you become more responsive to the needs of others. Proactive communication helps to break down the walls and barriers that prevent us from communicating more effectively. When you’re proactive, you communicate with empathy. Communicating with empathy encourages mutual feedback and shows genuine enthusiasm. Listening to feelings and responding congruently to others are two of the best ways to develop healthier communications and behaviors within relationships.

Positive communication encourages positive behavior. A compliment can positively motivate you to risk responding in an interested, rather than a disinterested way. When you’re interested, you’re motivated to make positive contact with others. Responding to others in a ‘proactive way allows them the freedom to respond, or not respond, to you. You, as a proactive responder, can give this message: “I’m listening to you, and want to respond to you, and have you respond to me. However, if you’re not ready I’m willing to postpone my need to communicate and continue our conversation at another time.”

Popularity: 27% [?]

4 Ways In Which Memory Occurs

1. Registration: The type of information you’re receiving determines which region of your brain is active. For example, words are initially processed in the language regions of the brain, pictures initially in the visual regions. This is where your memories are “registered.”

2. Immediate memory: When information comes into a region, it comes in as a pattern of nerve cell activity. This nerve cell activity normally persists for just a short period of time - seconds or less. This is of course what we deem “Immediate” memory

3. Permanent (long-term) memory: If the information in this temporary pattern of activity is to be permanently stored (and most is not) it will be saved within the same regions of the brain. Saving the patterns of activity consists of changing nerve cell connections so that the pattern of activity can be called forth again, at some later time. To do this, some nerve cell connections are strengthened, while others may be weakened. These changes are relatively permanent, although the changes may take weeks or months to completely solidify.

Even though the solidification occurs in the regions of the brain that contained the original activity, the signal to make the solidification occur came from other regions. The best known of these regions with such signaling functions are the hippocampus and the thalamus. The hippocampus is on the inner side of the temporal lobe; the thalamus is located deep within the center of the brain.

4. Memory access: Remembering what you’ve learned may be a simple matter of just reactivating a latent memory - for example, by seeing a picture again and recognizing it as familiar. In this case, the memories get reactivated in the region of the brain where they were first stored. The measurement of familiarity - the sense of how familiar something is, or how recently you learned it - seems to be done in parts of the temporal lobe, particularly in or near a structure called the amygdala, which sits just in front of the hippocampus.

This simple memory retrieval operates very quickly. You can decide that a picture is familiar to you or not in less than one-half a second, measuring from the very start of the time you see the picture to the start of when you say “yes” or “no.” Once the picture has been registered in your brain (which takes about two-tenths of a second), it takes you about two-tenths of a second to actually make the decision, and about another two-tenths of a second to say your answer. The total time it actually takes you is a little less than the time you spend on each stage, because some of these stages can overlap. You start deciding a picture is familiar or not while the image of the picture is still developing within your mind.

Popularity: 20% [?]

How Stress Happens

Each of us experiences some level of stress in our life. We feel stressed when dealing with situations we perceive as problems within our family or with people in the workplace. We often also feel stress when experiencing financial challenges. Or, sometimes being stuck in traffic is enough to create a pile of worry in our mind. These situations cause us to experience challenges in our life that we perceive as a threat to our overall well-being.

Whether you are live with a lot of stress or even just a small amount of fear or worry – anxiety - it is easily within your ability to resolve these issues before they accumulate stress. Your ability to ‘let go’ of stress can have a great effect on every aspect of your day to day living. Having the ability to enjoy a healthy mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being, all depends on your capacity to relieve stress.

For most of us, it is difficult to break away from stress altogether. That’s because we’re actually somewhat attached to it. Stress in itself is not a bad feeling at all. In fact, stress is a very natural process to experience. Stress is an natural response to environmental stimuli, present in all living creatures as a means of survival.

Wide ranges of both positive and negative feelings produce stress. When you feel danger or fear, you experience stress. Any situation such as an anticipation, worry, or nervousness will produce a level of stress that signals your body to respond. Even positive experiences in life can cause a form of stress; things like having a baby, getting a new job, or starting your own business. These are all examples of “positive related” stress.

Your body responds by gathering up all its necessary resources that cause both physical and psychological reactions. The response depends on the type and amount of that particular challenge or expectation. If the situation is not perceived as a threat or danger, you may experience very little response.

But if a particular challenge or expectation is perceived as dangerous or a threat to both your physical and mental well being, you will experience what is called “high stressed mode”. During high stress mode, your adrenaline is pumped, you feel tension in your muscles and your breathing accelerates.

You may feel sick in your stomach and tightening in your chest. Once you deal successfully with the challenge and no longer feel any danger or fear, you begin to calm down and your systems will return to its’ normal balance.

Prolonged stress can cause health problems by placing increased strain on your body. And even short term stress can effect your ability to effectively make clear decisions – even make poor decisions that result in overeating, alcohol abuse, relationship conflict – even depression.
That’s why it’s a vital important skill to learn how to ‘let go’ and to recognize the root cause of stress. The best way to do thing is to learn what is called “The Release Technique”. I’ve arrange a free five lesson course that explains the details of what stress really originates from – and what you can do about it. Life becomes much easier – much lighter and more enjoyable when you can prevent stress from accumulating by simply learning to “let it go”.

To claim your free five-lesson course, visit http://www.stress-free.com

Popularity: 14% [?]

Sleeping Your Way To Being Stress-Free

Coping with stress typically means that there are multiple causes that are rooted to the issue. However, one of the best things that you can do to help beat stress is to sleep your way to a healthy mind. Below are five tips for a better night’s sleep. Use them to help get the rest you need to help keep stress out of your life.

1. Make it a point to go to bed at the same time each night, preferably about half an hour before you plan to fall asleep.

2. Never use your bed as a desk. If you have paperwork to be done, sit up at a proper desk area. Forcing yourself to stay alert while lying on your bed further reinforces bad sleeping habits

3. Have a warm drink at bedtime. However, avoid caffeine or alcohol.

4. Leave your work problems at work and leave your home problems at the bedroom door.

5. Strive for “success” in responding to stress. As you approach excellence in your body and stress management, you will be able to sleep more easily.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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