This is a guest post by Victoria from ratelines. Her contact details are at the bottom of the post, which I encourage you to click on. I hope you like it, Evan.
Between work, family, and life in general, it’s no wonder that a majority of people suffer from high levels of stress. While experts agree that a healthy lifestyle with exercise and plenty of sleep at night can help lower stress levels, many don’t realize that a healthy diet can ease the amount of stress we feel on a daily basis. A healthy diet should consist of three balanced meals and two mid-meal snacks.
For breakfast try a whole grain cereal with blueberries. Many cereals are fortified with vitamin B and folic acid which are known stress reducers. Skim milk offers vitamins and nutrients such as B2, B12, protein and calcium. These not only fight stress, but add to bone health as well. High in vitamin C and rich in antioxidants blueberries are also high in fiber. These components make this fruit a valuable stress reducing ingredient to any breakfast.
Try snacking on a handful of almonds mid-morning. These nuts are power packed with vitamins B2, and E, magnesium and zinc. They aid in the secretion of serotonin which is the hormone that induces a feeling of well-being. In addition to fighting stress, vitamin E aids in the prevention of stress related diseases such as cardiovascular disease.
For lunch try a healthy and light tuna salad. Instead of heavy mayonnaise use a light mayonnaise or one of the newer ones made using olive or canola oil to save on calories. Tuna is high in vitamins B6 and B12 which are great for stress relief. Tuna is also an excellent choice for low-fat protein.
A great afternoon pick-me-up is bananas. This fruit is high in potassium and stress fighting vitamin C, the natural boost received from eating bananas can’t be beat.
Wrap up your day with a healthy dinner of lean beef and steamed or grilled asparagus. Both of these nutrient rich foods are great stress busters. Beef contains iron, zinc, and B vitamins, perfect for the stressed out family. Asparagus contains mood stabilizing folic acid.
Food is such an essential part of living. Why not eat so that we can lower our stress and live a better, longer, happier life.
Provided by Victoria of Ratelines sources for money market rates and insurance rates.
Tags: food, stress, stress relief
I have a guest post on the Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life blog. It is called Mirror Games: Confusion When We Influence Our Environment.
It is about that difficult time in relationships when we aren’t sure who is influencing who and who is responsible for what, and it is awfully difficult to know what to do. I guess we have all been in that kind of situation. I offer some suggestions for what to do when we are in that kind of situation. I hope you like the post and find the suggestions useful, Evan.
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: projection, Relationships
The Pilgrim sets out on a journey. And the pilgrim knows where they are going. They may know that the way will be difficult – and sometimes this is a meaningful part of the pilgrimage, but in a sense both the way and the destination are known.
There may be surprises on the pilgrim’s journey but these are secondary. Being on a pilgrimage may be enjoyable but the enjoyment is not the point. There is a difference between a pilgrimage and a holiday; between a pilgrim and a tourist. For the pilgrim there is a purpose and to depart from this purpose is to stop being a pilgrim.
The pilgrim sets out on a pilgrimage for a known purpose – to pay a debt, to express penance, or to seek a blessing. A pilgrimage in this sense is a closed loop – it can be planned, a pilgrim is not open to any experience but chooses among experiences. A pilgrimage has focus and perhaps even a touch of austerity. A pilgrim does not take our everyday concerns and involvements with complete seriousness – they are moving on.
To be immersed in the everyday, involved in our normal relationships, fulfilling our usual roles, is not compatible with a pilgrimage. Pilgrimage may not be a lifestyle, it can be limited in time, but it relies on the everyday – the pilgrim is sustained by their own past and others current work. Just as in modern life our holidays rely on the work that we have done and that others do.
Modern Pilgrims?
The pilgrim is an old archetype; it comes with a quite medieval flavour. There are of course millions of people on pilgrimage every year. In this sense there are lots of modern pilgrims. But there are figures that feel much more modern to me – the worker, the tourist, even the scholar.
What feels different to me about the pilgrim is the sense of time involved. In some sense the pilgrim is set apart from the everyday; the pilgrimage is a time apart from ordinary time. For me, the modern doesn’t have this sense of a different time – time in the modern world feels all the same. It is simple duration marked off in seconds, or days or years. Time is not qualitative in the modern world, it is always the same. A time of mourning in the modern world can have the sense of a particular amount of time, rather than being a time devoted to a task and characterised by particular feelings.
I think the pilgrim doesn’t quite fit with our modern time sense – with our measurement and precision. And I wonder if this modern time sense isn’t in some senses a loss. If pilgrimage was an honourable and important part of our lives I don’t think we could be so clock driven. There would be a sense of a different order, a sense in which clock time is judged and evaluated – and by more than efficiency.
In brief, I think what I’m reaching for is the sense that, for the pilgrim time can have meaning; it is not only a quantity.
I’m wondering if you have been on a pilgrimage, or, perhaps have the sense of being on one? Do you have the sense that some times are more special than others for you? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments on this post.
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: meaning, pilgrimage, time
If you don’t know what an autoresponder is, it is a device where people put their name and email into some boxes and receive a newsletter periodically afterwards. They are very common on blogs.
I am investigating MailChimp because the price is right (ie. they have a free option for 3,000 emails a month). I don’t know if the same applies to Aweber and other options.
The trap I have found is that it is difficult to cut and past from a word processor into the autoresponder. So, if for instance you have been doing newsletters for a while and want to change to sending them via an autoresponder, instead of sending the emails manually, you are encouraged to type the text of the newsletters into the autoresponder. This may mean re-typing the newsletters you want to send in the autoresponder. If you have over 90 newsletters, as someone of my close acquaintance does, this is an awful lot of typing.
I am seeing if I can cut and paste them onto Notepad and then cut and paste this into the autoresponder. Not sure if this will work at the moment.
Moral of the story: if you are a blogger who wants to send a newsletter and think you may want to use an autoresponder to do this sometime – start with the autoresponder, otherwise there may be lots of work to do down the track, Evan.
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: autoresponders
We all have reasons for what we do (most of the time). Once we know what other people’s reasons are for doing what they do, then they become less puzzling. There are also some things we do which are puzzling to ourselves and others.
I have a guest post on the Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life blog about the ‘good reason’ we have for doing what we do. It is called Good Reason. I hope you like it, Evan.
Coming soon: habits for authenticity
I have a couple of friends who always seem to be processing the same issue at the same time. It may be intimacy or friendship or establishing an income. The issues have been quite varied.
This happens even if they haven’t been in touch much in the time in between. They are around the same, different genders. They have similar interests but quite different values on some things.
These are the only two people who I know this happens to. I’m just wondering if anyone else has this experience for themselves or if you know other people like this.
Let me know in the comments if you do. I’d be fascinated to hear.
Coming Soon: Habits for Authenticity
Tags: Relationships
I think habits are here to make our lives easier. Habits, like walking, allow us to focus on doing other things – like getting to our beloved quickly, without worrying about how we do it. We can just relax and let our legs do the walking (or running perhaps).
I think a good life consists partly in developing good habits. Habits like checking in to see we are being authentic and listening to others.
So, I’m developing a new course and website. I think we can develop the habit of checking in to see whether we are in touch with our authentic selves or not. I think having a daily reminder each day for 30 days can help people do this. Which will be my next online course. I think if we develop the ‘habit’ of authenticity we will have much more satisfying lives.
At the moment I am writing the course and the landing page. It should be ready to go in the next month. Watch this space, Evan.
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: authenticity, habits
I think repetition can get a bad press. But actually it can be fun (we play that same game over and over with those same rules) and has an important role in learning (technically known as ‘practise’).
So in this post on the Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life blog I’ve tried to rescue repetition from the bad press that it tends to get. I hope you like. It’s called Repetition Repetition Aids Aids Learning Learning.
Would you like to feel less stressed?
Could you do with more joy in your life?
The answer is living authentically. Buy the book or sign up for the course now from my Living Authentically website.
Tags: fun, learning, repetition
