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Feeling exhausted, tired and listless?

A lot of it might have to do with the foods you eat or the lack of nutrients you are getting from them. Depletion of soils, acidic rain and long storage times or even cooking in microwave ovens is robbing good foods from essential nutrients. The following graph dramatically illustrates what has been happening even to our so-called “power foods” that our cells need to function properly.

This simply means that a lot of the groceries you are buying in your supermarket aren’t really nourishing you. We are going back to planting our own vegetable garden;)

Source: 1985 Geigy. 1996 and 2002 Food laboratory Karlsruhe/Sanatorium Oberthal, Germany. 

A growing number of companies are realizing that the mental health of their employees is a real issue on a competitive market, demanding maximum output and performance.

I have just come back from a creative brainstorming session with a group of people involved in corporate health management. There are really interesting developments out there.

Burnout and other psychological and social stress factors at the work place are a complex issue. But companies and individuals can do much to boost their stress resilience. So how do we deal with stress?

What is generally described as burnout often comes at the end of a long period of having to deal with the same stress situation, like having to work in a dysfunctional team. Some of us in high-powered jobs have become so accustomed to a stress situation that we have lost touch to the needs of our innermost being, the basic physical need for a rest or time-out.

Prior to a burnout, patients often withdraw behind a protective wall as they stomp the work treadmill, cutting themselves off from family and friends.

Neurological research has found, that those grey brain cells in the prefrontal cortex of our brain, that is also responsible for feelings such as empathy, are greatly affected during stress. Certain regions of the brain and body are literally switched off to mobilize all resources to combat a perceived fear or threat.

Several researchers such as molecular biologist Jon Kabat-Zinn and neuro-psychologist Rick Hanson have looked at ancient Buddhist mindfulness training techniques. What Buddhist monks have practised for centuries can be a most effective way to boost your stress resilience and train your mental state of mind to be more content and happy.

Zinn has developed from Buddhist practises his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) technique. The good news is that even though stress causes a reduction of brain cells in such regions as the prefrontal cortex, techniques that make you relax enable the brain to regenerate completely. Relaxation techniques such as meditation can even help you develop new mental capacities .

It starts with self-compassion and loving yourself and your body. By treating yourself with respect and loving care, you will be more mindful of others and your surroundings. Developing more self-compassion is a powerful tool at staying mentally healthy. But in order to overcome mental patterns that have formed barriers over many years it is necessary to keep up a regular training routine. Try out the 40 day method which I wrote about in one of my recent blogs. An effective mental training routine can be followed over three steps:

• Relaxing: Yoga, Taiji, or Qi Gong exercises help the body to relax. Especially if these exercises are accompanied by a mental image. “I feel all the weight of my mind flowing out of my head through my body and into the ground…”

   

• Focusing: Sit down in a meditation position, focusing all your attention on your breath, observing what feelings and emotions come to the surface without being judgmental to yourself about them and wanting to change them, for example: “Ah, there is anger, or fear or sadness or joy.”

   

• Loving meditation: With the third step you focus all your attention on yourself as an outside observer wishing you all the best of health and happiness in your life. Then you move on thinking of a special person in your life who makes your heart glow with loving warmth. Send this person all your love and good energy. Then send all that loving energy to a stranger you don’t know or might have just spotted on the subway. After that comes the hardest part, sending all that loving energy to a person you don’t like or has done you harm. End the meditation by focusing again only on your breath inhaling and exhaling. Then open your eyes and start your day.

 More information on the Five Elements in my book “Yield and Overcome”

Rick Hanson: Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom 

On a rational level most of us are aware that we have our health under control by exercising regularly, eating the right foods and avoiding negative stress.

So why do we have such great difficulty in just doing what makes us feel better mentally and physically in extending our lifespan and overall quality of life.

Let us look at 54-year-old Harry. His wife has chased him to a doctor after many hours of persuasive argument. The doctor does some check-ups and tells Harry. “Look your cholesterol levels, blood sugar level and blood pressure are way above average. You need to change something…”

Harry of course ignores the doctors warning. “You only live once. We all have to die some day. You won’t stop me from having my smoke, enjoying my Big Mac and a good beer after work.” Some years go by. At the age of 60 Harry has double by-pass surgery to his heart and is diagnosed with diabetes. Two years later he has a stroke, is confined to a wheel chair and is forced to go into early retirement with his poor wife also having to give-up her job to take care of him.

All of us know at least one such scenario in our own family or among close friends. The food we eat, the amount of exercise we give our bodies and the balance we find between activity and rest will especially determine the quality of life you lead as you get older. So how do we motivate ourselves to do that which makes us simply enjoy life a lot more. In my previous blog I referred to the phenomenon of self-mutilation that seems prevalent among so many young folk these days. Well older folk don’t seem much better in the way they treat their bodies like machines that just need to function. If the body starts faltering, you just take some pills to keep going.

So lets get to the point. Some religions have the tradition of fasting over 40 days to detox the body both physically and spiritually. They found that such a timespan is necessary to feel a significant change taking place. In some Buddhist traditions Mantras are recited every day at a certain time over a 40-day period.

Most people have great difficulty and find they need enormous self-discipline to integrate an exercise programme in their daily routine, especially if you come home in the evening with everyone from the dog to the children demanding attention. Here are some ways of getting around those barriers:

• Find a fixed time during the day where you are really alone and undisturbed to do your exercise routine. My wife Alyce and I have found the ideal time at 6 am in the morning. That hour of exercise in yoga, taiji and meditation gives us much more energy for the day’s challenges than that extra hour of sleep.

   

• Choose an exercise routine that fits your personality and that you really enjoy.

   

• Choose your food wisely. We are really what we eat. Without going into any dogma a good mixture of vegetables, fruit and a little meat or fish will do it. Ban white sugars and industrial salts from your diet.

   

• Find a friend, a family member, colleagues or an exercise group so that you are not alone. We are social animals and can give each other enormous motivational support.

   

• Try and keep up the routine for at least 40 days. It is the time your body needs to adapt to the change. After this time you will feel a change taking place.

   

   

You will start feeling a positive mental and physical change taking place. You will become a lot happier because you simply will start feeling much better in your body.

More information on the Five Elements in my book “Yield and Overcome”: http://goo.gl/TXSgw0

What is the Dan Tien: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dantian