Slowing Down Life
« Previous Articles10 Best Ways to Avoid Migraines
The problem with migraine prevention is that because there are many factors that can contribute in getting a migraine, isn’t hard to find one easy fix to this problem.
You see, there are very many triggers for migraines, and there is no way any migraine sufferer can avoid them or else it would turn into a real exercise in becoming a hermit.
Seriously, who wants to spend the rest of their life living in a cave just to avoid headaches? That being said, there are a few things you can do to avoid migraines that aren’t that complicated.
10 Best Ways to Avoid Migraines:
1) Cut the caffeine: Migraines and high levels of caffeine are linked hand in hand. Here’s the other big issues with caffeine and migraine sufferers … they’ll suffer from a migraine when they drink too much caffeinated products, but they’ll also suffer from caffeine withdrawal if they cut out caffeine cold turkey. It might be wiser to cut back coffee slowly.
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The anti-aging power of meditation
Mediation is an activity that I started three-and-a-half years ago and I would never give it up for anything in the world because it’s helped me cope with so many stressful challenges in my life.
It took me a while to grasp how to properly meditate, but now I’m able to meditate for one hour every single morning when I’m at home. I won’t lie, when I’m on vacation or when I’m travelling, I don’t meditate because it does require a sense of comfort which I find is difficult to get when you are staying at a hotel or at friends’ homes. Mediation should be a quiet time and I can only find that type of solace in the comfort of my own home.
In my experience, meditation is one of the best ways to ensure that your mind and body are better able to manage daily stress. I’ve said it time and time again, unless you are living on top of a mountain in the Himalayas, it’s impossible to get away from stress. A certain amount of adrenaline is important to keep up going, but when it turns into stress, that’s when it becomes counterproductive to good health.
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31 stress-reduction tips and tricks to slow down life
I think that it’s going to be hard to eliminate stress completely from your life, but there are a few simple things that you can do to help yourself cope when times are difficult and unpredictable.
I’ve interviewed a few medical experts who have confirmed that since October 2008, they’ve seen a spike in the number of patients who come in with symptoms that are a results of this “new recessionary” economy.
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If you’re not sleeping well at night … it might be time to visit a sleep doctor!
***This is a really incredible interview***
A few months ago I met with sleep expert Dr. Colin Shapiro. Before even getting into all the amazing things I learned from my meeting with Dr. Shapiro, I think it’s really important to look at his amazing pedigree.
Dr. Colin Shapiro is a professor of Psychiatry and Ophthalmology, University of Toronto, director of Neuropsychiatry at the Toronto Western Hospital, director of the Sleep & Alertness Clinic & Sleep Research Laboratory at the Toronto Western Hospital and director of the Youthdale Child & Adolescent Sleep Clinic. He’s been involved in sleep research for over 25 years. He was trained in medicine in South Africa and earned a PhD in sleep physiology at the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Shapiro has written over 200 publications in the subject of sleep, including “Fighting Fatigue and Sleepiness”, Working the Shift” and “Who needs to sleep anyway”.
I’ll be honest, I had no clue that there was such a thing as a “sleep doctor” until meeting Dr. Shapiro. It was Eleni (our resident product reviewer) who suggested that it would be a great topic to tackle for women in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s who are dealing with so many changes in their lives that affect their sleeping pattern.
Taking vacation time away from work should be a priority on your list!
Did you know that American employees leaving 460 million vacation days used?
Repeat after me: 460 million days of unused vacation time! I mean how many years of vacation is that anyways?
When I read that article in Marketing Vox magazine, which revealed that Americans only take 14 days of vacation per year, I immediately remembered the post I wrote a year ago after spending a summer in Europe.
You can still read it here: If you want to age well, you need to take vacation
Every time I read stories of North Americans being chained to their desks or being slaves to their smartphones for the sake of productivity, I always think these stories are completely insane … and then I take stock of my own life and realize that I’m as North American as they come and I DO NOT take enough time off and I surely don’t take the breaks I should take.
I always find this difficult because as a beauty and aging-well expert, I always tell my readers to eat well, slow down, sleep and take breaks from life, but here I’m the one researching a new beauty trend at 1 a.m. or running multiple new product launches in one day.
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The Hilton Hotel in Barcelona is offering Siesta Suites!
As if stress wasn’t a serious issue in the past, the latest financial turmoil is causing more and more people to lose sleep.
Stress and lack of sleep are two of the surest ways of aging quickly and women (and men) of all ages need to be mindful of both of these detrimental bad habits!
I’ve featured a few companies who were in the “napping business” and it seems that there will be more and more companies targeting sleep-deprived individuals. The weight of this unstable economy is preventing so many people from having the kind of restful sleep that would help them function at their maximum capacity.
You can read my two other reviews on companies that specialize in the “napping business”:
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Sasha Xarrian is offering her book on self-confidence!
There is no doubt that people who have a lot of self-confidence have a very different life from people who lack self-confidence and those who have low self-confidence.
One thing is certain. Without self-confidence it is impossible to achieve great results. High self-esteem is so powerful that it can literally open any door for you. Confident people have loads of CHARISMA, a personal magnetism and charm that is highly contagious.
I think that a lot of women suffering from low self-confidence are willing to settle for less in their career, in their relationships, in their friendships and in every other aspect of their lives because they don’t believe they are worth it or they simply don’t have the courage of their convictions and the confidence to stand up to others.
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10 simple things you can do to manage your stress on a daily base
People of all walks of life have one thing on their mind these days: the fledging economy!
You cannot go to the water cooler, the gym, a dinner party, a meet-up with friends or simply browsing at your favorite store without someone mentioning the falling stocks and their shrinking life-savings.
People usually go to the gym to relax and get into shape, but I’ve noticed lately that people have been huddling in small groups with somber faces and shaking heads at the news of a world-wide recession. People are still sort-of-smiling, but you can tell it’s that forced smile where the corner of your lips curl up, but your eyes aren’t smiling one bit.
It’s true that most of us are changing our buying habits, but that’s not enough to make up for years of careless over-spending.
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We’re all running after time and we’re all really stressed out about it!
I think it’s safe to say that most of us have experienced stress in 2008 in a way that had been unforeseen in our lives. If you are lucky enough to have great-grandparents or grandparents who were alive during the 1929-1930 depression and who are able to recount their sad memories of those dreadful years, then maybe the events of this past October and November 2008 might not seem so foreign to you.
For most of us, it’s been a very shaky and bumpy ride filled with a lot of drama. Many people have been dealing with a deluge of bad-luck – losing their homes, losing their jobs, seeing their retirement money vanish into thin air, dealing with crisis at a level that is so elevated that it has left them in permanent state of constant stress.
Most of us were running after time and we were stretched thin because of the recent stock market and real estate bubbles, but now most people can spell stress in every possible language without batting an eyelash because it’s almost impossible to get away from it these days.
To cope with the uncertainty of the current situation many people have stepped up the expediency of their lives just to try to juggle everything without dropping a ball.
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Loving yourself more SHOULD be a New Year’s resolution!
If anyone would tells that “my New Year’s resolution is to love myself more”, you’d probably look at that person and think they’re off their tree! It might seem odd to have “love myself more” as a New Year’s resolution, but the reality is that unless you love yourself more you WON’T think that you are worth having a slim body at a healthy weight, you won’t think that you are worth finding the love of your life, you won’t think that you are worth having a better education, without self-love you won’t think that you deserve to get paid $10,000 or $25,000 more for your expertise than what you are getting right now.
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The smart girl’s guide to curing the holiday blues: Loyalty and air miles point programs equal luxury!
I think this post submitted by Shannon, one of our readers, could not have come at a better time. I’d suggest that we all take her advice because I think we really all need to little bit of “R & R” (rest and relaxation) time given the current daily string of bad economical news!
Post submitted by reader Shannon Melnyk
Ah, the Saturday morning paper; a universal symbol of weekend lingering, indulgence and slow, lazy breakfasts. But something is different, have you noticed? My intrigue in the fashion page has waned. I don’t care what Karen Von Hahn has to say, and I find myself rushing through the features to clip coupons. And instead of the crossword puzzle, I mull about in a grim haze trying to see just how many times I can circle the word economy on the front page. I’ll spare you from my most recent findings.
Have you always wanted to make your New Year’s resolutions come true?
***I’ve included a pretty cool video at the bottom of this post***
Do you want to make 2009 the best year of your life? Would you like proven tools that can shut out all this bad news about the economy and transform your life?
Do you want to become debt-free, stop smoking, lose weight, discover the career you can feel passionate about or make the changes that actually last? Do you desire a new outlook on your life?
If you want more than you’ve ever had before, you’ll want to see what I have to share with you. But first let me ask you a candid but very important question:
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The holidays can very stressful and depressing for many of us: 14 tips to live by during the holiday season
The holidays are here! It’s the time of the year where you have to fight with crowds to get your kid the latest “it” toy, stand in long queues to buy two shopping carts worth of food for the parties and dinners you’ll be hosting, bake until the wee hours of the morning, and drink and eat far more than usual.
Yes, “Tis the season to be stressed and depressed”.
Stress and depression have long been associated with the holidays. The most common triggers of stress and depression during this gift-giving season are normally:
1) Relationships (mostly family)
2) Finances (some people spend several thousand dollars at this time of the year)
3) Physical exhaustion (between the power-shopping and the power-partying … most people put so much pressure on themselves during the month of December)
Here are my 14 tips to live by during the holiday season to avoid stress and depression:
1) Don’t feel obligated to do it all: You DON’T have to buy gifts for everyone, you DON’T have to go to all the parties, you DON’T have to spend more than you can afford to impress anyone, you DON’T have to eat everything you see, you DON’T have to drink so much that end up with a bad hangover. You really DON’T have do to any of this … you have the power to make those decisions.
Steve Pavlina reveals the secrets to Personal Development for Smart People
Steve Pavlina has a very colourful and interesting past, but what’s most interesting about him is the fact that he’s put to the test most (if not all) of the personal development tips and techniques he features on his blog. I guess, he’s quite accurate in his statement when he says that:
“Personal development is hard work. If you’re looking for shallow quick fixes, you’ll need to look elsewhere.”
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I’m doing the 100 Day Challenge!
In my quest to find a more balanced life, I came across this goal setting challenge I had highlighted on the site a few weeks ago.
I think that sometimes, you need some help in getting to where you want to go in life and in some cases it might mean hiring the services of a Life Coach.
The problem with that solution is that it’s a very expensive proposition, but it’s a sure-fire way to be accountable for your outcome.
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5 Tips to Sleeping in on Weekends Video Review
A few days ago, I wrote a post on how I allowed myself to sleep in over the weekend and I was so transformed by the experience of having the luxury of two extra hours of sleep that I created a video.
You can also read our original feature here: Slowing Down Life: 5 Tips to Sleeping in on Weekends
You can watch it below:
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