Paul McCartney Teaches Eye Yoga!

Begin Getting into Shape Strategies: PART 1

A few years ago, I was in quite bad shape. When I was younger I kept to a regular, almost daily, routine of exercise, over the years, I let it slip. So I was leading quite a hedonistic lifestyle where I would binge drink at least once a week, not sleep much, work all through the night until the mid-afternoon without eating, then eating vast quantities of fast food and drink lots of coke. Needless to say, my body became a mess, and I ended up with all kinds of allergies and disorders with my digestive system. This is from someone who worked hard to maintain my health and fitness, and then a few bad habits repeated frequently can destroy all that effort in just a few years. I gained a lot of weight, and if I ran down the street, my lungs would feel like they were burning for ten minutes afterwards.

When my business took off, I decided to spend less time on it, and concentrate on repairing my mental and physical health. My allergies were gradually getting worse, to the point where everyday I had hives and rashes on my skin, and it hurt to inhale causing my breaths to be short, and I would easily get out of breath. So this made me wake up that I had to do something or end up dying from ill health. I could keep going along the road where my quality of life would decline, or I could make a choice to improve my quality of life - after all, if you're going to live life, you may as well live it well.

So the first thing I began doing was quite simple - getting enough sleep, and going to bed early. Having a refreshing night of sleep benefits the mind aswell as the body. Getting your mind fit is fifty percent of the battle for a healthier and fitter body, because as the brain is able to function right, it is able to make informed decisions and drive the body to a better state. Next is eating correctly, nutrition is vital, because if your body lacks any vitamins or minerals, then your organs will not be able to perform its functions efficiently, and the most important funtion is performed by your skin and liver which help export toxins out of the body. Toxins in the body make us feel sluggish and also cause rapid ageing, therefore we want all the vitamins and minerals which enable optimal liver function. Drinking plenty of water is important for the kidneys which filters the blood into urine - if the kidneys do not receive enough water, then they become less effective at doing their job, forcing the liver to do some of it - and the liver is responsible for breaking down body fats and converting them to energy. Someone who is not drinking enough water can suffer kidney failure, and because their liver is busy doing the job of their kidneys, then warning signs could be weight gain and lethargy from lack of energy.

When you have cut out all the junk food from your diet, the next thing to do is isolate other food sources which could interfere with the body's normal functioning. Milk is one of those foods which appear innocent, but can contain a cocktail artificial hormones which are injected into cows to enable them to produce enough milk to meet the demands. If you must drink milk, then it is best to stick to organic milk. The hormones found in dairy is responsible for early pubescence in children, and leading to obesity in later life. By cutting out milk, you'll give your body the chance to eliminate these hormones, which can lead to infections from a weakened immune system if not dealt with. Also, many people use milk as a substitute for water when they are thirsty - when you are thirsty, it is your body's way of telling you that it requires certain minerals, vitamins or just water - the adult body does not need milk, and therefore milk is unable to quench a thirst, therefore it is easy to keep drinking milk with an insatiable need.

The next step of my new regime, was to begin taking longer and longer walks. Before, I would spend most of my time in front of a computer, back and shoulders tense from trying to meet my own production deadlines. When I'm trying to get the work done quickly, at the same time my adrenaline is also pumping - although mentally it is easy to deal with stress, it does not go unnoticed by the body, and when adrenaline is released into the body, it has to be worked off physically or it creates problems like heart disease and cancer. The benefit of going for long walks instead of sitting in front of the television or reading a book, is that it absorbs enough of your concentration to avoid snacking, and it straightens out your posture. Most headaches are caused from tension in the back (if not by slight dehydration), by walking, it flexes the spine, and releases tensions in the back muscles. The other important function of walking is to help blood pump around the body, helping move toxins to the organs which can take care of them, and also allow your lymphatic system move and distribute fats around the body - the lymphatic system does not have an automatic pump system unlike the heart of the cardiovascular system, so it uses gravity and or the contraction of the muscles to aid it. Fats that are not properly distributed in the body can cause blocked lymph nodes leading to cysts, but usually trapped fats is visible as cellulite.

Getting healthy and fit is not something that happens overnight. Most people who want to improve their physical condition have unrealistic expectations of results after just a few weeks, and hence they give up. Although all these paid fly-by-night diet and fitness courses might say otherwise, one should not expect major results nor be even thinking within a short timespan. The most successful people who maintain their fitness after achieving it think in the long term, and really it is the ability to think in the long term that ensures any type of success in whatever you do. There are adverts that promise a six pack in just three months, while it is possible for one in a hundred people, for the majority it doesn't work like that, and besides, what is the hurry that a six pack needs to be achieved in three months? What difference really is three months to the person who has had a beer gut for many years! Then what happens when the objective of a six pack is achieved after three months - do they stop and let it get flabby again? These are things that people forget to think about when they are presented with the potential rewards, all rationality goes out of the window and they enter fantasy land. Getting fit and healthy should be thought about in terms of a life long habit, a maintenance routine just like brushing your teeth and sleeping - once this idea is accepted by your subconscious, then you're almost there.

Exercise Motivation that Works from the Mind

I cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain good physical fitness and health. Exercise is as important as getting enough sleep or drinking water, but many choose not to do it, in the same way that children don't eat their vegetables. As part of a healthy lifestyle to maintain one's body function at optimum efficiency, exercise is not a choice, but an essential regime.

People do not value their bodies enough until it is too late, and partly the problem is to do with their perception of exercise. Children will not eat greens until the adult explains that their growth will be stunted if they don't eat vegetables. In the same way, adults can delay beginning a healthy exercise routine by creating all kinds of excuses in their heads. Once again, we're dealing with psychology, it has nothing to do with the starting physical condition of the individual, it has nothing to do with willpower, it is all about how one perceives the tasks at hand.

The task of exercising can often be seen as daunting, an enormous vehicle to overcome. People who don't exercise and want to start, generally set their goal too high. The goal exists as an image or phrase within the individual's mind, but when the bar is set too high, then one's morale may start to wane after a few weeks. So the trick is not what the goal is but rather, how one sets the goal. Whether through imagery or linguistically, the goal can be set so it is an easily accessible target for the body and mind to achieve and gain satisfactory results each time. It is common to say, "I want to lose weight", instead this can be rephrased, "I want to become lighter" - the use of the word 'lose' often comes with negative connotations; nobody wants to lose something. So once we begin to apply these newly reworded goals, the tasks magically become easier and more doable.

The other problem is time; in this day and age, with all our modern technology and devices, we're spoilt for instant results, we expect to get trim and fit in just a few weeks rather than thinking in terms of years. Also modern advertising is partly to blame, as many ads for weight loss and gym programs claim big results within a month, but these claims are false, as the companies that produce these adverts often place a disclaimer in small print at the bottom of the screen or poster to say that it won't for everyone. Time and patience is another topic I will cover in more depth later on, but in terms of exercise and fitness, you won't see results very quickly and because of this there is little incentive to keep going or even start. Most people are stuck in the process of preparing for the day when they 'really need to start' but by then it is too late.

Routines are important, and there are many routines that we perform (naturally and unthinking) on a daily basis that don't provide any immediate benefits. A daily routine that most people perform is washing their hands after using the toilet. We cleanse our hands of bacteria invisible to the naked eye, we can't see the bacteria yet we wash with soap and water with the knowledge that it helps remove the germs. We have such confidence in this routine because in our mind, we envision getting some heinous stomach bug and sitting on the toilet with cramp for hours if we were to ignore it. Brushing our teeth is another one, I do not know many people who don't brush their teeth, and the longer we delay to clean our teeth the more we envision our teeth slowly rotting and decaying right inside our mouths - I think it's hard for many people to skip brushing their teeth for long, even after a couple of days, there might not be any sign of visible decay, but the thought and the fear is there, enough so we're willing to take some time out of our daily schedules to take preventative measures. This is something that has been hammered into you from the day you learnt to brush your teeth and learnt about teeth hygiene, and it stays with you because you know that negligence leads to black rotting teeth which you have seen photos of.

So exercise, what are the consequences of not exercising? We already know what they are - weight gain, heart disease, premature ageing, high blood pressure ... the list goes on, but why are they not enough to shock most of us into exercising regularly? The answer is simply that we cannot imagine those things happening to us in the time frame that those things usually occur, we're talking maybe decades. Teeth decay is a different matter, we've all lost teeth, it's a part of growing up, so it is something that we can relate to, thus we continue to perform our teeth brushing, and we're taught that when we aren't brushing our teeth the decay is occurring all the time. Now we should think of exercise in the same terms, people are more motivated to prevent loss than to work towards gain. Someone may be quite reckless in their life, taking risks like drink driving, but if someone pointed a gun at their head, they may view their life differently, most people are not as response to gain as they are to loss. You could tell someone that by exercising, it will improve their looks, but that might not be the type of gain that they're interested in, but if you say instead that they will lose their looks by not exercising, it might be a more persuasive suggestion.

So we learn that in order to motivate ourselves to become better, we should keep in sight the pit that awaits us should we decide to ignore the advice. Think that each day you delay, you are losing your health, the opportunity to preserve your youth, your overall fitness. We do not need to think in terms of years, because you can wake up tomorrow morning with an extra wrinkle, because each day we fall apart, our bodies are continually decaying when we are not servicing them, this is a reason to begin today, for each hour provides an opportunity to preserve what you have, and tomorrow you can be better than without.

Motivation: Work Hard Vs Play Less

Motivation, or the art of getting things done is a subject that goes beyond simply telling yourself repeatedly to do something, and there are other factors involved such as psychology, upbringing, environment and peer pressure. There are numerous websites out there that claim that they can teach you how to be motivated and succeed in life, but they never question whether the motivation is right or suitable for the individual. These sites will motivate you to 'get rich' (for a one time fee), and they'll tell you how and what to do, although I doubt that they really work because such website prey on the vulnerable and the desperate whose minds are already open to suggestion - I suggest that one avoid these type of 'get rich motivation' schemes at all costs.

First of all, let's try to understand what motivation is. For a start, everyone is motivated, people are naturally motivated to pursue happiness, and happiness may be sought in various ways. The mistake is to believe that money is motivation, although money can be a by-product of motivation, money itself is just paper -what you do with the money can be motivation, although it shouldn't be because there are more ways to make money than one can possibly conceive of. If money itself were motivation then there would be many prostitutes standing on every street corner of the world, and some financial professions could be considered to be a type of prostitution.

When we were growing up, our parents and teachers will often tell us to 'work hard'. This is part of a global cultural meme that has been passed down generation to generation without questioning whether it is valid advice or not. There is a difference between 'motivation' and 'self-motivation', 'motivation' itself does not guarantee success (success in the sense of achieving one's goals), one needs to be self-motivated. If we take the example of the farmer and the workhorse who pulls the plough to cultivate the land, the farmer is motivating the workhorse to pull, and the workhorse works hard to do the farmer's bidding, yet left to its own devices, the workhorse would not have the self-motivation to pull the plough by itself, but would probably rather be relaxing and eating hay. This concept can be seen everyday in society, in our cities, where the workhorses are the office workers and the motivators are the bosses.

As I already stated, everyone is self-motivated, we're self-motivated to eat when we're hungry, we're self-motivated to explore, have fun, laugh, be creative. Most of these self-motivations are a natural part of being human, and everyone is gifted with these natural abilities. Think about that most things in life are quite pleasurable or fun to do, but we've been taught to separate fun and work, when actually, and ideally, they could become one and the same thing for everyone. Our educational systems teach us that we must 'work harder' towards goals that we don't want, we are like the workhorse who just wants to eat hay, but the farmer drives us forward with his riding crop, achieving his goals rather than our own.

So how do we begin to be self-motivated? First we must discover in ourself for ourself what we want. Usually the things we want most are those things that we pursue when we are not working, ie. our hobbies and interest, these pastimes that become the manifestations of escape from our tiresome work routines. I mentioned in the previous post, that I do enjoy writing, as much as I enjoy the sound of the keyboard when I tap the keys, it is a pleasurable experience for me - I'm also listening to music as I type this, all these factors combined, the writing experience itself is its own reward and therefore motivation for this piece. Some people may see this as hard work because it is not for them, others may think about it, and realize, 'hey you're right, I'm just as self-motivated to continue reading as you are writing!' - now we are beginning to establish a relationship here, and if everyone could alter the way they think about work, we could have a perfect and efficient society where everyone had fun and did their best work without feeling as if it hurt them.

Often than not, some of those things that require self-motivation may not be too pleasant to do, but they may be needed in order to fulfill our overall happiness plan. This is the most psychological part of self-motivation, and that is our perspective on how we look at things. Exercise is something that is essential to our lives as sleep to maintain our health, yet it is one of those things that many people find it hard to build up the self-motivation to even get started. How we change the way we look at something can often make all the difference. In the same sense as looking at deciding whether the glass is half empty or half full, we can apply that linguistic approach towards how we set our goals in our mind. Self-motivation exists as a constant stream of internal dialogue in our minds, and how it appears inside our head, is how we deal with it, and depending on our character, we can either see it as a challenge, a new experience or an insurmountable barrier.

The human mind has an internal dialogue, a debate rages on inside your head to decide whether you do something or not. You throw some words into the debate, like danger, or pain, and the question is quickly resolved. The brain usually responds to a little coaxing with words that it likes. If we tell ourselves to 'work hard' then for most people those two words immediately conjure up images of sweat, exertion and pain; instead, an alternative choice of words that could be just as effective are 'play less'. Instead of 'lose weight', how about 'gain confidence', 'stop smoking' becomes 'breathe more fresh air'. In order to convince ourself and others, we avoid using negative words or phrases, and replace them with positive terms.

Later on, I will go back to some of these topics like exercising, and cover them in more depth. The point I want to make, is instead of 'forcing' or somehow 'coercing' yourself into doing something, as many of these websites and books will teach you how to do, focus on what you want, and what you want to achieve. If you want to achieve a healthier body, and that is what you really want, the motivation to do that is already inside you, you just have to tap into it, and phrase it to yourself in the correct way, and it will be done. Also, self-motivation comes easily to the things you are interested in, turn your hobbies and interests into your job and earn money from it! You do them anyway, why not think of a way to turn that hobby into an investment, and get paid to do something you enjoy.

I will cover the topic of motivation again in the future. In the meantime, avoid those motivation websites and books, the only thing that they motivate is the author's bank account.