How to Beat Stress and Feel Great.....Naturally

Stress is the most prolific cause of dis-ease in our times, with 90% of Australians reporting having suffered from stress (and the other 10% probably in denial!). What's more whilst stress reduces quality of life it also has a more sinister side, ongoing untreated stress is the catalyst for a range of serious illnesses from anxiety and depression, to hypertension and chronic immune related illness.

The main causes of stress according to the report which surveyed 1,382 people aged 18 and over were said to be difficulties at work and financial stress. So presumably if we could afford to have more holidays we'd all feel much better! Talking of holidays, I'm sure you have experienced the same increased sense of peace and clarity of mind that comes from a relaxing holiday as I have. Problems that seemed insurmountable before you go away suddenly have obvious solutions. Projects you have been putting off for a while now get completed. You laugh and smile more, life is more fun. Why does this happen? Being on a relaxing holiday allows your  your sympathetic nervous system (the entity that goes into overdrive when you're stressed) to quieten, and it increases output by your parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes feelings of ease and emotional balance.

So the question is: can we switch this mechanism on without needing a passport and a flight to a tropical island? Can we give ourselves and our nervous systems a regular mini-holiday. The answer is of course you can and if you read on I'll give you several tools you can start on today that will make a profound difference to the way you feel. The first of these is the breath.

Breathe

If you regularly feel stressed and want to transcend an anxiety-ridden existence, I encourage you to give the following tip a try:

Every hour, or even more frequently if possible, close your eyes and breathe deeply for a full minute. Do your best to focus on nothing but your breathing.  Feel your abdomen go in and out as air enters and leaves the deepest corners of your lungs. This simple exercise has a powerful effect on your nervous system. If you keep your eyes closed as you focus on deep breathing it works much better as the less stimulation your nervous system has to process the quicker you relax.

This tip is simple and free, which means that most people are likely to underestimate the effect that it can have on their health over the short and long term. If necessary, post highly visible reminders around your work and/or living spaces that will help make this breathing and relaxation exercise an unbreakable habit in your daily routine.

Rest

When you body is upright your nervous system is relatively alert, when you're horizontal your nervous system prepares itself to go into stand-by mode. So lying down increases the effectiveness of most relaxation tools, except if you want to prevent going to sleep. If you are tired, and if you're stressed its likely you are also suffering from some level of exhaustion, so its probable you will fall asleep as you begin to relax. Over time as you continue to make time for a daily period of relaxation you will find you can stay in the delightful in-between state of deep relaxation that comes before sleep. The two best times of the day for resting are lunch time or when you first get home from work. If you do fall asleep try setting an alarm for 30 minutes for a very effective power nap.

Sleep

Talking of sleep, your sleep is an excellent barometer of the health of your nervous system. If you can fall to sleep easily and stay soundly asleep during the night then you already have a huge advantage in tackling stress. If on the other hand you lie awake for an hour or two, thinking about the day you've had or worrying about the next day; or if you are woken frequently during the night then the time when your body should doing its repair and revilalising is being lost.

Seek Help

Our bodies are designed to have regular periods of relaxation and long periods of sleep, however many of us have allowed our nervous systems to become chronically overstimulated. Like a run away train, an overstimulated nervous system is takes some slowing down. Symptoms of exhaustion, tension, anxiety, depression and anger are just a few possibilities.

At this point I would suggest taking the folowing actions in addition to the hourly breathing exercise described above:

• begin a daily relaxation practice of at least 20 to 30 minutes. Click on the link at the end of this article for a podcast (recording) of one of my guided breath awareness relaxations. Practice this technique lying down for enhanced effectiveness.


• begin taking professionally prescribed herbal remedies to nourish and support the nervous system therby making it much more able to switch off.


• have weekly sessions of acupuncture to retrain your body and mind in how to relax.

 I hope you find these tips on stress and relaxation helpful, as always I love to hear your thoughts.

Wishing you the best of health and happiness

Wesley

FREE 7 MINUTE MINI RELAXATION RECORDING
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7 Minute Mini Relaxation

Spring - Time For A Clean Out

First a disclaimer, I'm not much into 'diets', so today's topic: Spring and nature's invitation to cleanse is a challenging one for me. Which is to say if you, like me, love food and the thought of depriving yourself the pleasure of fine food is enough to have you switching off already, relax, its going to be ok, I'm on your side. What we're exploring today is a way to tap into more energy than you currently have. How about if you could do that in a way that doesn't involve anything too demanding, wouldn't that make life easier?

In my 20's I explored a number of interesting approaches to eating, from macrobiotic (including periods of fasting by eating only brown rice and water) to being vegan (anyone for tofu 'cheesecake') and have more recently tried various Yogic cleansing rituals which involve using copious amounts of salt water in ways that are not for the faint hearted! I'd like to think that my adventures and mishaps helped me reach the more mellowed approach I advocate today.

To get us started lets talk about why and how to cleanse and why now is the time of the year to do it. To understand why we need to explore some of the concepts that are so eloquently described in Chinese Medicine.

In Chinese Medicine, the tradition I trained in, we understand that the seasons have a deep effect upon us. The transition from winter to spring sees the bursting forth of new growth as the slumbering energy of winter is awakened. You only have to walk outside and see the previously bare trees covered with blossoms and leaves to bathe all your senses in this expansion of energy.

Spring is also the time of the renewal of hope, it bursts forward with optimism, offering change after the stillness of winter. It brings to life the potential inherent in each dormant seed. There is a sense that life is full of new possibilities as nature is expressing itself. The Chinese see spring as the time when the Liver energy is most buoyant, enabling us to bring about new ideas and growth, providing energy to move forward, to change who we are, to be assertive, to make decisions and to have vision and optimism for our future. Sounds like a party you don't want to miss out on doesn't it and here's the carrot; to allow spring to work its magic you need to consider how to make life easier for you Liver.

The Liver does the majority of detoxifying for the body, the idea with modifying your diet is to make life easier for the liver and reduce the effort it has to expend on daily cleaning up. If you do that the liver, fuelled by the energy of spring, can catch up on its mundane chores and when it does you'll feel energised, you'll sleep better, your digestion will work better, your skin and eyes will start to shine. Not only that you'll feel better emotionally and you'll more easily tap into the the expansive energy of spring, helping you move forward in your life.

The guidelines are simple and I'm borrowing them from Dr Sandra Cabot who wrote 'The Liver Cleansing Diet', and her website is a great resource for anyone wanting more information. My version of the guidelines are to:

Replace meat with other protein sources such as pulses/tofu/nuts/seeds.

Replace dairy with soy or nut milks and avoid cheese.

Eliminate alcohol and coffee (or dramatically reduce your consumption).

Reduce wheat (bread/cakes/pasta) and substitute with other grains (rice/corn/barley etc).

Eliminate refined sugars, if you need a sweetener use honey sparingly.

Eat more raw foods such as salads and vegetable juices.

Try adding a 'green' supplement to your diet such as barley grass or spirulina.

Drink more water.

I would suggest a four week program, one week of transition as you start to swap over from your normal diet to the new regime, and then two weeks of liver cleansing and then a week of reintroducing some of your regular foods. Its not a life sentence! You may even find your tastes have changed and you want to keep using some of the principles of the diet for the long term, either way even a modest 4 week program is enough to be a big help to your liver.

I hope you are inspired to try for yourself, if you are set a starting date, go shopping for anything you don't have in the house already and go for it. If you have any questions, advice or stories of your own please add them to this discussion for other to share or you can email me personally at info@wesleysmith.com.au.

May Spring inspire you to live well!

With warm wishes

Wes

When Trying to Quit Smoking Doesn’t Work

If you or someone you love is a smoker then it’s likely that quitting smoking is the single most important step to improve health and vitality, not to mention avoid serious illness. There’s enough evidence of the health risks associated with smoking that you could easily ask: why does anyone smoke?

The short answer: because it makes you feel good… at least temporarily, and that’s reason enough to keep smoking if you, like 15% of Australian Adults, are a smoker. If choosing to smoke was logical decision nobody would do it, but feeling good never has had much to do with logic!

The crucial thing that's so often not understood and why quitting often doesn’t work is because of the failure to understand and then address the need to feel good in ways other than smoking, and feeling good ideally needs to be established before you stop smoking.

For me when I’m working with someone who wants to quit, I like to discuss and then implement three stages to the process.

Stage One: or the Vitality Project…

If we look at smoking from a vitality perspective, what smoking does is temporarily boost your vitality. Smoking stimulates the production of lung energy or ‘chi’ and in Chinese Medicine the lungs are known the ‘masters of chi’, so smoking temporarily and artificially provides you with an energy boost. As your energy is boosted you may also feel a temporary easing of unwanted symptoms of depleted energy including stress, anxiety, nervousness, depression and tiredness. Avoiding these unwanted symptoms is often at the very forefront of a smokers mind!! As the artificially boosted energy inevitably collapses you begin to feel terrible and your body starts to crave for its next hit and so the cycle of addiction is perpetuated. What’s worse is the continuing to artificially boost the lung chi actually causes a further depletion of real energy, so the long term smoker has very depleted reserves of vitality which therefore has made smoking an even bigger energy crutch.

To break the cycle of addiction the body needs an alternative source of energy, luckily you were born fully equipped with your own power supply, our task is simply to get it back into working order! Initially you need the support of acupuncture and herbs to restore normal function to an exhausted nervous system… this stops your precious vitality being constantly drained. Just like a leaking bucket will continually drip an exhausted nervous system is typically constantly overstimulated. Once the leaks are plugged the next priority is to re-establish the body’s natural ability to generate its own energy. Depending on how depleted you are this can take one to three months. The great thing is you’ll know when this happens because you start to feel good. Not only do you start to have real energy, your mood becomes naturally buoyant, you are naturally much more resilient to stress and and life becomes a whole lot more enjoyable. Once you reach this point you are ready for….

Stage Two: Joining the ranks of the non-smokers

By now life’s a bit easier, smoking is no longer the crutch you relied upon to make yourself feel good, it’s more simply a habit a ritual, something you associate with time out, with socialising and perhaps with your self image. Now the time has come to join the ranks of the non-smokers. This stage is now so much easier because you have addressed the underlying need to smoke, you may still have a want to smoke but that you’re no longer pitting your will power verses your cells cry for energy. It’s now more simply a matter of resolve.

At this point its important to consider the carrot and not just the stick… you have successfully completed the vitality project but there’s much more vitality potential for you once you are no longer both poisoning yourself and depleting your natural energy on a regular basis. So in your resolve include the reasons you would like to have more energy and feel better within yourself, perhaps you’d like more energy to be able to play with your kids, to have the energy to take a class after work in glass bead making or thai cooking?! Make your list of reasons personal, it’s the ‘why’ that will sustain you when your resolve is tested.

When you do quit its important to do it with support especially for the first two weeks because as your body is detoxifying and withdrawing so you’ll have some side effects. These can be easily countered by acupuncture, two or three treatments in the first week, the one or two in the second week. Once you’ve quit, you guessed it…

Stage three: Living Well

By now you feel so much better than you remembered was possible. You have real energy, you’re body is no longer under chronic chemical assault, your immune system is smiling and your nervous system is purring. Remarkably some people make it to this point and take up smoking again!! Most probably they haven’t followed the process I’ve described here and have not established a real foundation for their vitality. They may have just shifted their addiction to cigarettes to nicotine patches or to food and consequently also gained weight. (Either of these options is preferable to smoking but not a great solution!)

So its important to start with a solid foundation of improved vitality and to invest this new found energy into vitality sustaining and enhancing things... in other words things that make you feel happy. Here you have infinite scope, from things that get your energy going like exercise, yoga, tai chai or martial arts, or take up sports you love, or dancing. Or perhaps you need something that transports you into a more creative space such as painting, sculpture, writing or cooking or reading. I would highly recommend you make time for daily relaxation (such as listening to recorded guided relaxations) or learn to meditate as it’s the most effective way to recharge your batteries.

So I hope I have given you some food for thought if you want to quit or if you know someone who does please forward this blog to them and ask for their feedback. If you’d like to share your story or your challenges or your questions please add your comments below. Tell us why you smoke if you're a smoker and whether what I've described here is similar to what you experience.

Wishing you the very best of health and vitality

Wes

For more information to help you get well, stay well and live well please visit: www.livewellnaturally.com.au

Why it’s Healthy to Feel Anger, Jealousy, Shame and Fear...

Have you ever felt really angry or afraid, embarrassed or lonely? Of course you have, they are just some of the common side effects of being alive! What's interesting is that whilst we may answer YES when asked directly, we may still expend enormous energy trying to not feel these common emotional states when they arise. Why is that? Well its a good question, one that I'd like to explore here and in doing so we will cover one of the most helpful concepts I've ever come across, one that's made a huge impact on my life.

Emotions are like the weather

One of the most helpful lesson I have learned from Yoga philosophy is that emotions are like the weather; they are very changeable (a concept that I grasped easily having grown up in ‘four seasons in a day’ Melbourne) but more significantly emotions are BEYOND OUR CONTROL. We have no say in whether it rains or is sunny today all we can do it adjust the way it is, if its cold we rug up, if its raining we take an umbrella. No amount of effort will change what the weather wants to do! If its sunny and we want rain….too bad!

When it comes to emotions, most of us want it to be sunny all the time, we prefer “positive” emotions like love, joy, happiness, contentment and gratitude to so called “negative” emotions like fear, sadness, anger, despair and bitterness. The problem is at some stage or other we experience all emotions, every day a hundred or more emotional states arise within us. If we like some and don’t like others we’re going to try and hang on to the one’s we like and push away the ones we don’t like…the result is tremendous tension and guaranteed misery.

Letting go

Before I understood the idea that emotions were beyond my control I had been suffering under the illusion that I could make myself feel only enjoyable emotional states if I tried hard enough. If I felt bad, sad or mad I thought I must have done the wrong thing, I should have meditated more, should have exercised more, should have thought different thoughts or eaten different foods! In truth, I could have done everything "right" and yet be visited by sadness, confusion or fear. When I truly understood emotions come and go of their own accord it was an immense relief, for I could begin to accept how I felt. It was the start of a journey away from trying to make circumstances fit how I wanted them to be and towards a state of more ease with how things are.

Having a War With Reality

Yoga teacher and author Steven Cope describes the battle between how we want things to be and the way things are as our “War With Reality”. Fundamentally whenever we are suffering the root cause is this war between how we want to feel and how we actually feel. The result of denying or suppressing the unwanted feelings we have is we lose the opportunity to feel ok with how things are.

Remember the weather analogy, if its raining we’re sad, if its sunny we’re happy and even though we know its not going to last we spend our days chasing this temporary happiness and running away from (or suppressing) a temporary sadness. It’s exhausting and futile and we end up being anxious about not just how we feel but also who we are and how our life is.

Acceptance

What heals the dissatisfying gap between how we want to feel and how we actually are feeling is the practice of acceptance. Remember no amount of wanting the sun to come out when it’s raining is going to make a difference, so its time to stop fighting a loosing battle. A good starting point is to become curious, just like meeting new people is interesting, meeting these previously shunned feeling states is fascinating. What we find is that these yucky feelings are really not that scary when we consciously choose to be with them rather than run away from them. Some states are more challenging than others, who really wants to feel ashamed or lonely or full of dread, I’m not saying this is always fun or easy necessarily but it’s a relief to really FEEL what’s been there all the while. Each time you feel an uncomfortable emotional state without running away you start dismantling the tension built up around trying to avoid feeling it. The experience is like being able to welcome all these feelings that are just different parts of yourself, no part of you need be in exile anymore, all of you is welcome.

Welcoming

So the theory is very simple, feel whatever arises, whether it’s a pleasant or unpleasant emotion. I would suggest starting with a daily practice of quiet observation for 2o minutes. In that time sit or lie somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, close your eyes and take your awareness inside your body and feel what’s present. It’s a bit like sticking your head out the window to see what the weather’s doing but this time your taking a look inside of your self. Ask yourself how you feel. Is its sunny and warm and peaceful in there or is there a storm raging with wild winds or something in between. The crucial thing is to not judge what you find but practice welcoming what you feel. Imagine you are opening the door to a dear friend, as you open the door you don’t know if she is elated and smiling or upset about something and in tears, either way you welcome them in. Extend the same courtesy to yourself and welcome what you find no matter what state you’re in.

If you find it hard to feel anything, try mentally visualising the events of the day in one hour blocks and see whether it triggers any emotional states to observe. With practice you can check in with your emotional state throughout the day, it only takes a moment to stop take your awareness inside and feel what’s going on in there. In time you’ll be able to stay aware of uncomfortable feelings as they’re arising even in really challenging situations.







Important Tips:

Avoid the Story

Try to avoid getting involved in the story of WHY you feel how you feel, for our purpose of making friends with your feelings the why is not important, it can easily become a distraction from feeling which is our goal.

Acceptance is not the same as being passive

Accepting how you feel from moment to moment isn’t the same as being passive and accepting circumstances in your life that you need to change. For instance your may observe a feeling of frustration arising frequently. Really feeling the frustration and accepting its presence (without wishing it was wasn’t there and without creating a story about why it’s occurring) lets you be comfortable with observing the feeling in yourself. Once we tap into and accept our true feelings they can be a catalyst to change and growth as we are no longer numb, no longer in such conflict with ourselves. Feeling frustration arise regularly and accepting its presence may lead to embarking on a new path, perhaps more in accord with your deep desires in life. Interestingly the more we can open to feeling the uncomfortable emotions like fear and loneliness the more open we are to feeling the enjoyable emotions like love and contentment.

You’re not alone

You’re never alone. If you feel overwhelmed by grief for example, imagine all the billions of human beings around the world, and in the very same moment that you are grieving many thousands of others are also in that exact same state. We’re all human, we all have the same challenges and experiences, that can be a comforting thought.

Sometime this work brings up sensations and feelings that are very powerful and challenging. If you feel overwhelmed and scared find a professional to support you as you do the work, such as a psychologist, or counselor.

I hope these ideas and practices help you as much as they have helped me over the years. Its an ongoing task but one that is well worth the effort.

Wishing you the best of health and happiness

Wesley

For more information about emotional health please visit  www.livewellnaturally.com.au

7 Wellness Secrets To Help You Stay Well This Winter...

So you don't want to get sick this winter? Great, join the wellness club! Knowing these 7 winter wellness secrets will help you stay well even when others around you are not.

Winter Wellness Secret #1
Colds and flues are our body's way of enforcing rest. You can override your body's signals to rest for only so long (depending on your health and constitution) before your body pulls rank and gives you an enforced period of rest. So if you don't want to get sick - listen to your body - if you're exhausted lighten your load and make some space for rest in your day/evening or weekend. Its as easy as having an early night, or canceling a meeting or two, getting take away and a DVD or going to bed with a book and relaxing for an evening. Ahhhh it feels better already doesn't it!

Winter Wellness Secret #2
Not many people know this but according to Chinese Medicine your LIVER has a major role to play in keeping your immune system buoyant. We know that poor diet choices like eating too many refined foods or junk food, as well as too much alcohol are not good for the liver. If you tend to overindulge then consider going on a liver cleanse for a few weeks (get a copy of Sandra Cabot's Liver Cleansing Diet for some simple guidelines).

Winter Wellness Secret #3
If you want to have resilient good health you need a strong immune system, one of the major cause of immune dysfunction is mental and emotional stress. Knowing this is a huge advantage when you want to stay healthy. So what can you do about that? If you're not happy or you're perpetually stressed don't ignore it! Seek help (counseling, acupuncture, herbs, massage) or self help (exercise, holidays, let people know you need support) but don't just soldier on. Look out for my upcoming blog all about STRESS and what to do about it for more excellent tips.

Winter Wellness Secret #4
Even though its tempting to hibernate when the weather turns cold, if you can maintain some exercise in your weekly routine you'll fair much better. As well as improving our mood, exercise helps keep the lymph system healthy. The lymph is the immune system's courier for wastes (the familiar aches and pains of a cold or flu are from all the lymph nodes swelling with debris) and unlike the blood which is pumped by the heart the lymph is moved by our movement. So walk, jog, swim, do some Yoga, Tai Chi, weights or anything active that takes your fancy...and feel the difference.

Winter Wellness Secret #5
Learning to relax and the importance of sleep. Sleep is a good barometer of your nervous system's health. If you get to sleep easily and generally wake feeling refreshed then all's well. If not, chances are you need to learn how to wind down and put your mind and body into a state of rest. Easy relaxation exercises such as simply observing your breath, without trying to change it, as you lie in bed in the evening can help initiate the switch from doing to simply being mode.

Winter Wellness Secret #6
If catching a nasty bug was all it took to get sick we'd all constantly have the sniffles. A very useful folk medicine principle is that cold can actually penetrate the body's defenses, if we don't take care, and lead to the body getting a 'chill'. Now your grandma probably knew that and that's why she said don't go out with wet hair! So take care not to get a chill, especially be careful to protect the back of your neck (wear a scarf) and don't walk on cold floors with bare feet as both the neck and the soles of the feet are particularly vulnerable to cold.

Winter Wellness Secret #7
The big secret is that there is no real secret just common sense if you want to avoid getting sick! Rest when you're tired, eat well (or cleanse if you need to), don't ignore stress and unhappiness and include some regular exercise in your week. Learning to relax is an essential skill that everyone needs to master. The trick is making these simple habits part of your life, if you do that you'll not only avoid getting sick you'll actually be on the path to excellent health.

I hope you enjoy making these wellness secrets part of your life.
Best wishes
Wesley

For more information to help you get well, stay well and live well please visit: www.livewellnaturally.com.au