Stop Thinking & Start Living by Richard Charlson

I picked up this book during my last vacation a month back and started reading it throughout the last few days, and I found it to be a true eye opener, it made me feel incredibly better instantly. the Author Richard Carlson who's fame traces back to the year 1997 when he published the bestseller 'Don't sweat the small stuff', he walks the reader through a profound, simply written list of rationally common sense concepts as he redefines certain beliefs you have about yourself, people, life and the world. I so far learned, I am not a victim of unhappiness, no matter what the validations i may present myself with are. I am merely happy becouse I choose to be. I am experiencing a remarkable feeling, I did'nt even finish the book yet. My next read will be the the original 'Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff'.



*From Wikipidia: Richard Carlson Ph.D. (May 16, 1961 – December 13, 2006) was an American author, psychotherapist, and motivational speaker, who rose to fame with the success of his book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff (1997), which became one of the fastest-selling books of all time and made publishing history as USA Todays bestselling book for two consecutive years. It also spent over 101 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was published in 135 countries, and translated into Latvian, Polish, Icelandic, Serbian and 26 other languages; thereafter Carlson went on to write 20 books.

How to lead a well-balanced life?

Martha Beck - Insights on how to lead a well-balanced life.

Secret Causes of Summer Stress

Summertime…and the living is easy—right? Well, not always.

While we tend to expect a more relaxed lifestyle during summer, and the season definitely has its perks, summer can bring its share of unexpected stress. The following are areas of hidden stress that affect many of us during the summer season:
•Ever-Present Kids
For virtually all parents, the advent of the summer season is inexorably linked with three months off of school for their kids. While it’s nice to have kids around more often, and a relief to have a break from all the class projects, school fundraisers, and other events that go along with the school year, summer presents its own list of demands. Keeping the house clean, taking kids to various summer activities, preventing excessive bickering between bored siblings and, for working parents, finding alternate child care are just a few of the main issues that arise, each demanding its own set of solutions. Because there’s no standard answer that most parents choose, coming up with the right answer for your individual family’s needs can provide added stress.

•Vacation Expectations
While vacations are important—in fact, necessary—for your health and happiness, they often bring additional unanticipated stress. The planning and execution, the possible financial strain, and task of shifting around your workload at your job are just a few of the logistical stressors (along with stopping the mail, getting a pet-sitter, finding someone to water the plants, and the list goes on). Today’s vacationing worker is much more likely to get a call from the office or from other people than in the days before computer access and cell phones, making it much more difficult to leave daily life behind—which is usually the whole point of going on a vacation! And if you’re taking small children on this vacation, well, you get the idea.

•Covering Co-Workers
If you skip the vacation (as many people do), you may still experience stress from vacations that your co-workers take. With a significant number of people in a given workplace taking time off, the regular operations of the office can be disrupted. Even when vacations aren’t taken, when people become distracted by the fun times of summer, often work slows down.

•Too Much Fun?
Much like the holiday season, summer can bring lots of excitement, social opportunities, and high expectations that can bring both excitement and stress. With the extra hours of daylight, people tend to cram more fun activities into their week. While this can make for a great time, it can also create a much busier schedule, which can lead to more stress. While we tend to think of traumatic, frustrating or otherwise negative experiences as the primarily stressful ones, even positive experiences that require effort or change can count as a type of stress, which can add up and take a toll.

•Bathing Suits, Heat and Mosquitos—Oh, My!
Aside from these higher-impact sources of summer stress, there are several smaller sources of stress that simply come with the change of season: the stress of discomfort in a hotter climate (or financial stress from cooling expenses); the flies, mosquitos and other pests that come with the weather; even the stress of finding skin-baring clothing that’s both comfortable and flattering (how many people truly enjoy swimsuit shopping?), and other minor hassles can all create stress in their own way.
Because many of these summer stressors are experienced by many people, and because many people experience several of these at once, it’s important to take specific steps to safeguard your sanity from summer stress. The following summer stress tips can help.

http://stress.about.com/od/situationalstress/a/summer_stress.htm?nl=1

5 Minutes Stress Relief Strategies

By Elizabeth Scott, M.S. , About.com Guide
http://stress.about.com/od/lowstresslifestyle/a/stress_relief.htm


Stress comes from many areas of life, and stress relief comes in many forms. While some people like using one favorite tool for stress relief, many experts feel that the most efficient approach to stress relief is one that attacks stress from several different directions, utilizing an overall 'plan of attack' for stress relief.
An important first step in this stress relief plan is to have one or two quick stress relief strategies that can help you relax your physiology or de-stress your mind, to reverse your body's stress response so that you can think clearly and avoid the negative effects of chronic stress.

The following are some quick and effective stress relief strategies that can help you do just that: these stress relief activities, once mastered, should enable you to de-stress in under 5 minutes so that you can move on to the next steps in your stress relief strategy or immediately face the stressors at hand.

Here are several strategies to try:-

Breathing Exercises
Stress relief breathing is one of the most popular ways of calming down quickly for good reason: breathing exercises can be done by anyone, at any time, with little training, and at no expense! Breathing exercises can also be combined with other stress relief techniques (such as guided imagery or meditation) for added benefits and ease of use. Learn more about breathing exercises and learn a quick stress relief breathing technique.

PMR
Progressive Muscle Relaxation, or PMR, is a technique you can learn that, with practice, enables you to completely relax all of the muscles in your body quickly, thereby releasing tension from stress. Like each of the techniques that are mentioned in this article, PMR helps you to reverse your body's stress response quickly. It can also be done at virtually any time or place, once you've learned the technique and practiced it. (It's especially useful for when you're trying to get to sleep.) Learn more about how to practice PMR.

Mini-Meditation
Meditation is gaining status as a stress management mainstay because it brings so many wonderful benefits, including (after consistent practice) resilience against future stressors! Many people shy away from learning meditation because they think they don't have the ability to learn the technique or the time to practice regularly. Actually, meditation can be very simple to learn, and even 5 minutes of meditation can make a difference. Learn more about the benefits of meditation, and how to practice 5-minute meditation.

Aromatherapy
As far as ease of use goes, aromatherapy is about as easy as they come! Studies show that certain types of aromatherapy can be effective for stress relief, and once you have the aromatherapy going, it's passive stress relief--you don't have to do anything except go about your regular activities as you normally would! (Combining techniques can provided added stress relief, but isn't necessary.) Learn more about the research on aromatherapy and find ways to use aromatherapy for stress relief.

Quick Burst of Exercise
Exercise is an excellent stress relief technique because it's great for your whole body and brings physical benefits other than those experienced because of a reversed stress response. Exercise can provide distraction, endorphins and an outlet for frustration. Unfortunately, it's not always practical as a 'quick' stress reliever, as the full benefits of exercise are often not achieved until sustained exercise has occurred, and that can leave you sweaty; therefore, you may not use it in a class or at the office, or when you're meeting with clients and under stress. However, in situations where it can work, even a quick burst of exercise (like a quick run up several flights of stairs, or several sets of push-ups) can be useful for stress relief. (Always check with your doctor before starting any exercise program, of course.) Learn more about the benefits of exercise and how to use exercise for stress relief.

Have a Good Laugh
Maintaining a sense of humor can relieve stress in several ways. First, there are specific benefits that you get from laughter that can help you relieve stress and even stay healthier in your life. Also, laughter connects people, and social support is good for stress relief. More, it's hard to stay stressed when you're laughing. And maintaining a sense of humor reminds us that our stressors may not be as menacing as they seem, and probably have solutions, too. For these reasons, laughing in the face of stress can help you feel better in a matter of minutes. Learn more about the benefits of laughter and how to maintain a sense of humor in the face of stress.

How To Make Naan Bread Recipe (Indian)

How To Make Naan Bread Recipe (Indian)


One of the ways I recently found out to overcome my weekends anxiety is to pre-set an activities plan to be followed and looked forward to every weekend.

Amongst the weekend's activities is baking and since I'm a newbie I kept on stumbling across a lot of recipes all over the internet, but I finally choose making bread, Naan and tortillas and see how it goes.

It turned out to be a clever idea since you're constantly apt to missing up something or the other, so the trick lies in keeping your expectations reasonably low and being open to all kinds of failures.
The end result turned out yummy and my son enjoyed the process while watching me fight with the dough.

Getting to Know My Howlite Better

When I started talking a lot lately about gemstones and their mystical properties after attending an Introduction to crystal energy for emotional wellbeing WORKSHOP by Julie Lomas I started gradually discovering the true beauty of these magnificent creatures, and to my surprise after being mocked by a number of people over going on and on about the little beauties; my brother approached me one day with a howlite in his hand> I as usual surfed all over Google to read whatsoever relates to it and found pretty much exactly what I've been looking for.

Mystical Properties:
Howlite is known for it's strong associations with self-awareness, creativity and improving ones emotional attitudes. It enhances character building, and a sense of decency; in encourages desirable personal attributes. Howlite aids in dispelling anger, resentfulness, selfishness and allows one to look inside for answers, aid in communicating the negative emotions with a clearer emotional expression, which will result in calmer confrontations.
It decreases the over critical mind, rudeness and offensive behavior, increasing subtly, decency and tact. It is also quite helpful for those who tend to procrastinate.
Meditating on a piece of howlite can assist one in journeying outside the body and gaining insight from ones past lives. Place upon the third eye, it opens memories of previous times and lifetimes.

And as I suffered bad knees recently what I found about its healing Properties came in extremely handy; as its said Howlite is predominantly a calming stone, it will aid in sleeping, calming the overactive mind, eases insomnia, dreaming, dream retention and stress relief. Physically it calms the whole body and releases muscle tension. It eliminate pain brought about by stress, and is said to aid in healing stress related injuries such as ulcers, heart problems and rashes.
It is helpful in balancing the calcium levels in the body as well as strengthening teeth and bones.
Along with my beloved Citrine; Howlite is quickly becoming my favorite.

Happily Living The Moment

Being quite new to the optimism family, I got into the habit of goggling happy terms such as relaxation tips, breathing techniques, mindfulness and flowing; that’s what I would cheerfully describe as swaying with the day's events like a misty leaf of an enormous tree. Having undergone several phases where I faced depression, resentment, lake of patience and rage, I'm now finally capable of assigning a name to what was going on inside my head. I was somehow unhappy, craving more of life, constantly craving the next success once I gain what I've been stumbling all over the rat race in order to achieve.
The good news is that I found enough resilience in myself to halt and take a look back. What I found out shock me back to earth, I've been wasting the now either wasted in the past's regret or the unexplained fear of future.
My child needed me, I could imagine him envying other children being actively involved (emotionally present and enjoying their moment and reaping its fruity, strawberry scented rewards).
That’s how I'd describe time spent with my child now being blessed with the moment's tinniest joys.
I found great help from various breathtaking places to reprioritizes one's life and relearn how to actually live.
Martha Becks graceful daily tip makes my day every day http://www.marthabeck.com/
I can't thank you enough Martha, love you ;)