by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 5, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
It’s 2025. At your routine physical, the doctor takes your blood pressure, checks your cholesterol level, and asks a standard health question: How’s your love life? Sound too personal?
In the future, it may be common sense. It seems that some of the best medicine for good health doesn’t come in a pill. It comes from love. “When we have love in our lives, we get sick less frequently and recover more quickly from illness,” says Steven Dubovsky, M.D., professor of psychiatry and internal medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. “Just as we require food and water, we need affection to be healthy human beings.\”
Just how does love get into the body and influence biological processes? Because research in the field is very new, doctors admit they don’t yet have all the answers.
One thing is clear, however. While love is undoubtedly the granddaddy of all emotions, it is a physical wonder as well, resulting in concrete metabolic and biochemical changes. And many of these changes have health-boosting benefits. Just about any kind of deep devotion and caring will do. From the heady high of a new romance to spending time with treasured friends and family members, here are the newest findings about how this crazy thing called love can help keep the doctor away.
6 Ways to Boost Love’s Benefits
Try these tips to get the optimum wellness rewards from your relationships.
- Get touchy-feely. Hugging, cuddling or holding hands lowers stress hormones and elevates oxytocin, a hormone that appears to improve cardiovascular health.
- Make each day Valentine’s Day. Don’t wait for a holiday, birthday or anniversary to offer gifts of love. Giving romantic cards, flowers or heartfelt presents, as well as saying words of endearment, positively impacts the body’s metabolism.
- Seal it with a kiss. Planting a kiss on your sweetheart, child or even close friend awakens nerve endings and releases health-boosting oxytocin.
- Resolve conflicts with kindness. It’s human nature for us to occasionally argue with people we love. But hostile spats can cause blood pressure and heart rates to soar. Discuss problems calmly. If things begin to heat up, say something nice. You’ll be amazed at how soon would-be fights fizzle and a feeling of relaxation returns.
- Take part in child’s play. Pitching in with the school play or peewee soccer team helps you feel closer to your child and expands your social network. Children are a wonderful ticket to meeting new people, which benefits psychological health.
- Pet your pooch. Stroking and talking to animals has a calming effect on the body. Studies show that pet owners have lower blood pressure, stress and cholesterol levels.
Reblogged from jansheehan.com
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Feb 2, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I recently had a bout with jealousy. I started to compare myself to someone else and just kept coming up short. Everything this other person excelled at was something that was in my wheelhouse but not my gift. I started to feel the pain of being “less than.”
I know that there is a way out of this bind. So, I spent some time and got some support in coming back to a place of love. Because, in this place of love all the rest gets put in perspective.
This time of year many people think about the state of their relationship, their love life, and the like but love is much more than dinner dates and flowers. It is much more ever-present than your last crush or even your long term relationship.
Love is quite simply the most powerful tool you have in your toolbox. Because, love can burn everything else away –everything that does not serve you that is.
I think that it is a force more powerful than any other. Mystics have spoken about it throughout time. They have tried to teach us that if we can connect to our hearts and return to this space of love then we have the ability to move mountains and part seas.
But, what does this mean for you and me?
When you are faced with a situation –maybe it is a coworker, a lover, or a friend—where you are at odds with someone else, see if you can return to a place of love. This might seem like a foreign concept to many people. It might bring forward thoughts like, “How the heck do I do that?” So, here is one way you can do it:
Take a few minutes for yourself. Get comfortable. Close your eyes… Actually, no!! Scratch that. That could be a method but I think it is time to approach things from a new angle!
What secret negative longings do you have? Take an inventory. If you can figure out your negative intent then you can clear it. When you clear it it is that much easier to return to a place of love.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 25, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
The time has come to write. I feel this on an almost cellular level. Why? Because I\’m sitting in my writing chair, wearing my writing glasses, chewing my writing gum. Now, I could sit in this chair, wear these glasses, and chew this gum while knitting tea cozies, juggling jelly beans, and husking corn (just not at the same time). But I wouldn\’t. See, I write at home, and I\’ve learned the hard way that unless I strictly divide my writing time from everything else, my work bleeds into my home life. Then I can never relax, because, just like an ax murderer in a horror movie, my work is always lurking.
These days almost all of us work at home to some extent. Maybe you spend evenings brooding over spreadsheets from the office. Maybe you\’re in the house all day doing the hardest work imaginable: caring for the young, the old, or the ill. Or maybe, like me, you have a job—sort of—but no official physical workplace. All of which is to say that when I talk about \”home\” versus \”work,\” I mean the activities that replenish your energy versus the ones that drain it. In an age when bleed-through is the new normal, it\’s more crucial than ever to separate the two. Here are some strategies that help me.
1. Establish a replenishing inner \”state of home.\”
Some people spend years in an office cubicle without ever feeling the energetic involvement of real work; others do brilliant, inspired work without ever leaving their bed. This is because both work and home are first and foremost states of mind. So to begin separating your work life and home life, we\’ll concentrate on creating a mental \”state of home\” inside your head.
To do this, focus on memories that feel relaxing, nourishing, replenishing—in a word, homey. Remember baking with your grandmother, or talking with your sister, or snuggling in bed with a loved one (fabulous sex is an excellent way to feel at home, as is cuddling with your beloved collie—just not at the same time).
If you don\’t have many homey memories, your mental state of home may feel tepid at first. Persist! Remember the most comforting times and places you can: the branches of the tall tree where bullies couldn\’t reach you, Uncle Joe\’s bomb shelter, the warmest corner of the prison yard. (Ideally, you\’re looking for a sense of joyful replenishment, but happy relaxation is nearly as good, pleasant neutrality will do, familiar boredom is better than nothing, and defensible concealment—well, you get the idea.)
Once you come up with three memories that qualify, hold in mind the feelings they bring, while silently repeating, \”Home. Home. Home.\”
Read step two in tomorrow\’s!
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 23, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
You have 1440 minutes between right now and this time tomorrow. Only 1440 minutes. How will you use that time? One percent of that time is about 15 minutes. What, you ask, is so important about 15 minutes? It is a block of time that\’s small enough to make room for and large enough to get something significant done.
My most important strategy to get more done every day is simply to always be ready. When you are ready, you have what you need when you need it. This means you can use \”found time\” productively to move your business forward.
I can hear you asking: \”What is \’found time\’\”? Have you ever been to a meeting that didn\’t start when planned? Far too many meetings start several minutes late. When you are ready to use those \”found\” 15 minutes, you can effectively make a dent in all you need to get done each day.
For example, when I have magazine articles I want to read, I tear them out of my magazines and carry them with me for a day or two. Then when — not if — \”found time\” appears, I use it to read those articles. This helps me stay in touch with what\’s happening in my industry, making me more effective with my clients.
In my experience, many people use \”found time\” to check their email. While this may seem productive at the moment, it doesn\’t always move you forward on your long-term goals. When you really look at your goals, there are often tasks that would help \”get you there\” that take between 15 to 45 minutes to complete. Get clear about what tasks you can accomplish in 15 minute chunks. Then, always be ready with what you need to accomplish that task. You will immediately become more productive.
A good exercise is to make a list of 20 to 30 tasks you can accomplish in less than 15 minutes. I keep and update this list in Evernote all the time. This is not a list of to-dos, but rather the extras. Then set yourself up with the supplies or information you need to complete those tasks. Make sure the needed items are with you when you go to meetings, leave the office or otherwise suspect you might have a bit of extra time. By being ready, you can take advantage of these windows of opportunity.
One of my favorite uses of \”found time\” is to write thank you cards. Watching for people to acknowledge and thank also makes my day better. Plus, thank you notes touch people in a unique way. In fact, I write at least one thank you note each week. This means I send a minimum of 52 hand written — yes, always by hand — thank you notes a year.
Of course, I accomplish this by always having note cards, envelopes and stamps with me. When a meeting is late, I can quickly jot a note of thanks, pop it in the envelope and send it off. Expressing gratitude is a fabulous use of \”found time.\” Plus, saying \”thank you\” makes the recipient feel valued, sets you apart from the crowd and leaves you feeling good.
So my favorite strategy to being more productive is to always be ready. Take time to figure out how your day is likely to unfold and make sure you have the supplies you need with you. When you are always ready, you can truly get more done each day.
Jason W. Womack is founder of The Womack Company, a productivity-training firm based in Ojai, Calif. He is author of Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More (Wiley, 2012).
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 21, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
When it comes to being successful, high achievers have a number of habits in common. But that doesn\’t mean you can\’t be right up there with them.
Here are three qualities all successful people share and how you can make them your own:
1. Say \’no\’ to distraction. Every. Single. Time. Successful people make better use of their time because they are disciplined goal-setters. I’m referring to those high performers who experience no down-time. Sure, there are vacations and time spent with the family, but that comes after success has been achieved.
Successful people have that same list of tasks to accomplish as anyone else, but the difference is they make time to get them all done with no excuses. They may not enjoy it, but that is irrelevant. What matters is that it gets done. They are disciplined in planning their work and sticking to their plan.
Even when you’ve achieved that level of success, the work doesn’t stop. I am always on the lookout for a great, profitable investment. I might be out with my family, but my brain is always aware of business opportunities around me. I don’t just shut it off when I’m not at work.
2. Read something new everyday. Successful people read constantly, find mentors who can teach them and value new information that can help push them forward. Whatever field you are in, you have to learn before you earn. Learn your product, customers and competition. And then: keep learning.
3. Flaunt your failures like a champ. Fail as many times as you can. Everyone fails. It’s part of life. Too many people take failure as a sign it\’s time for them to give up. Those people don’t get very far. What sets successful people apart is the ability to get up and give it another go with a better plan for how to be successful the next time around.
If you want to embrace the habits of successful people, you’ve got to make the change within yourself first.
Reblogged from Entrepreneur Online.
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by Dr. Heléna Kate | Jan 19, 2014 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog
I don\’t know who you wound up hanging out with in high school, but it seemed to me that the Artists were heavy on imagination, vision, and dreaminess while the Jocks were about results, goals, and action. As I look at the people I work with now, I can see this classic high-school saga play out — the vast majority of either group rolling their eyes at the other. The Artists are weird. The Jocks are stupid.
Truth be told, I work with more artists than jocks. Artists tend to dream big and forget to wake up, get a cup of coffee, and take some action. Quite honestly, some artists get lost on the way to the coffee pot, never to be heard from again. When I start to talk goals or plans with them, all of a sudden they look at me like I\’m in an athletic uniform on the other side of that cafeteria — like I just don\’t get them or I am not one of them. In their mind, Artists do not work that way.
Jocks, on the other hand, might be very successful in their lives, but they feel empty on the inside. They got the job done, they scored the goal, and their team is giving them praise, but it just isn\’t giving them the same thrill it used to. When I start talking about vision, dreams and life purpose with them, they start noticing that I am dressed a bit funny and think that maybe I am a little too flaky to help them out.
However, what rarely happened in high school needs to happen in our lives. The Artists and Jocks need to hang out together — and even enjoy hanging out together. This needs to happen or we are not going to be able to bring our dreams into reality. If we have vision and no action, we eventually have frustration. If we have action with no vision, we also get frustration. When the Jock and the Artist figure out that they really make a great pair, we have some of our favorite high school movies — satisfaction.
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