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Showering Every Day? Here’s Why You May Want To Stop…

July 12, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Since birth, we’ve been programmed to shower or bathe daily, but should we really be cleaning ourselves that often? Beauty and health industries spend billions per year trying to sell us products we think we need to stay hygienic and clean, and unfortunately, a lot of their marketing techniques have been successful thus far. We’ve been fooled into thinking that washing ourselves daily will make us cleaner, healthier, and more desirable and appealing to others, but showering or bathing each day can harm our skin and overall health.

While showers can help you relax after a long day or feel fresh and clean after an intense gym session, you don’t need more than one or two showers per week, with maybe a quick sink-wash daily to freshen up. Shocked? Read on to find out exactly why taking daily showers isn’t the best idea, according to science.

Here’s Why You Need To Stop Showering Every Day

According to dermatologist Dr. Ranella Hirsch in an Essence article, showering daily does NOT do a body good. Not only do showers use an enormous amount of clean water, they also strip the skin of healthy bacteria, dry out the skin, nails, and hair, and weaken your immune system.

“We over-bathe in this country,” says Hirsch. “That’s really important to realize. A lot of the reasons we do it is because of societal norms.”

1. You’re Not As Dirty As You Think

If you don’t work out every day or have a physically demanding job where you sweat for hours, you don’t need a daily bath or shower. According to Dr. Casey Carlos, assistant professor of medicine in the division of dermatology at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in an article on today.com, many soaps dry out the skin because they strip valuable oils from it. Plus, most people use soap where they don’t need it. Carlos says that the skin does a great job at cleaning itself, which means we don’t need to wash up as much as we thought.

If you think about it, back when we lived in nature, we just washed off in a river or creek without using any soaps or harsh cleaners. So, why do we think our bodies need these products today?

2. It Washes Away Good Bacteria

In an interview with BuzzFeed, two dermatologists revealed that washing your skin daily washes away good bacteria essential to our health. Plus, frequent showers can create small cracks in the skin, opening up your body to infection (especially with lower amounts of that good bacteria we all need).

3. You’re Drying Out Your Hair

Just like the skin, washing your hair daily will strip it of naturally occurring oils, giving it a dry, damaged, frizzy look. According to Andrea L. Hayden, Director of the International Association of Trichologists, you shouldn’t wash your hair more than once or twice weekly (including just getting it wet). Even if you don’t wash it every day, you can still condition your hair on the days you don’t wash to lock in moisture.

4. You’re Drying Out Your Skin

Taking too frequent hot showers can dry out the skin, leading it to peel or flake. If you haven’t caught on yet, washing our bodies so often, no matter what part, leeches moisture and oils from the skin dries it out. Many doctors recommend taking no longer than 10-minute showers if you do shower each day and putting the water on cold so you don’t dry your skin out.

5. You Will Ruin Your Nails

Hot water makes your nails expand, making them chip and crack. Once again, the nails will lose moisture and oils, which means dry, flaky nails galore.

Read about fifteen ways to stop wasting water.

6. You Waste Water

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average family of four uses about 400 gallons of water daily! If everyone in the family showers daily, much of that water usage goes toward showers since a ten-minute shower uses a whopping 60 liters of water. According to Stanford University, you might think bathing will conserve more water since you don’t have it constantly running, but baths use almost three times more water than showers.

(C)Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

6 Behaviors That Create Spoiled People (And How to Avoid Having Them)

July 12, 2016 by Power of Positivity

A spoiled child normally grows to become a spoiled adult. This will affect them in maintaining a steady job, keeping friendships, having a spouse, and experiencing a healthy life. Spoiled people are selfish and self-centered. But, how do you know if they are spoiled? How can you help them see how destructive their behaviors are to others?

Here are 6 behaviors that create spoiled people (and how to avoid them):

“Spoiling doesn’t prepare your children for anything but heartache later in life.” – Laying Down the Law

1. Giving into everything.

Spoiled people have never known boundaries. Parents and friends cater to their every whim. These are the children who, with every tantrum, get exactly what they want. As adults, they have louder and more volatile tempers that implement the same behavior. “I want what I want when I want it.” Because they are used to getting what they want, they will torment anyone who doesn’t give into their demands. They border on mental illness because they can’t see reality from the delusional state of desires.

You can’t return to their childhood. You can, however, establish boundaries of what you will tolerate. The word “No” can anger these individuals. But, being consistent in your pursuit to help them recognize their behavior is important (and vital for their mental health). They might not stick around. If they do, know you have accomplished a beautiful task!

2. Reinforcing negative behavior.

Spoiled people trampled on anyone who gets in their way. They take what they want. They have zero concept that the world doesn’t revolve around them. They’ll make their way into an office and step on anything that prevents them from moving up the ladder of success. They will also use people and relationships quickly and then dump them without a single ounce of regret.

In order to disarm their behavior, you must use positive forces. For every negative action, you will need to establish several positive ones. So if you have witnessed the selfish behavior of someone who has been nasty to another to get what they want, you may want to let them know that the behavior can (and will be) returned in the same manner. Nothing upsets the spoiled person more than believing they will get punished. They don’t know what it is like to set limitations.

3. Picking fights.

A spoiled person will create drama to get attention. They will pick fights to deviate from what they want and then stab you from behind. It’s manipulation at its finest. They’ll devalue your opinion and turn around and utilize it for themselves. They truly don’t care how they get what they are after. They are determined to get it to all cost.

Pick your fights wisely. Not every argument needs to become a battle of wits to feed the ego. You stand your ground. Keep your boundaries. The spoiled person will soon forget what you were trying to accomplish. They are off on their next tantrum.

4. Destroying your image through manipulation.

People who are spoiled are narcissistic. They will manipulate through abuse, degrading, and control. They’ll make you feel horrible for not participating in the things that they want. They feed off your weaknesses or insecurities to get you to do things for them. These people don’t care how they hurt you as long as they get what they are after.

A spoiled person doesn’t accept that they have any weaknesses. It’s not about pinpointing those insecurities to them, but about turning the tables so they can see that things hurt when you are vicious. They have their weaknesses. Stay humble and use humility as your armor when dealing with these master manipulators. Stand your ground. Show them forgiveness but also discipline. Do not let them abuse you with their anger.

5. Rewarding poor actions.

Spoiled people brag about how they got that new job or the new girlfriend. They will create these stories with Oscar-winning talent. They want the attention even though it’s toxic. Rewarding poor actions and behavior encourages the self-centered and spoiled person to continue doing these things. It’s permitting them to get what they want regardless of the consequences.

Create incentives for good behavior. As a parent does with a child, you must reward positive actions. Become a positive role model in this person’s life. You don’t need to brag about your actions, but allow them to witness compassion, goodwill, and empathy through your examples. Let them know that receiving is just as beautiful as giving.

6. Lack of consideration.

Spoiled people have no consideration for the feelings of others. They are aggressive in behavior. They will bulldoze over anything to get attention. Their actions are sneaky and premeditated. These folks plot and scheme to con anyone into doing anything. The famous Cuban poet Jose Marti said, “A selfish man is a thief.” He will steal your heart, your money and your livelihood if you let them.

We have been taught to satisfy our needs however we can. The spoiled person takes it on a completely different level. You do not have to satisfy their needs. You don’t have to participate in everything they want. Once again, boundaries are important. Show this person love. Most spoiled people are missing structure in their lives. They didn’t have set rules growing up. Everything was supplied to them. Now as adults, they don’t understand why the world has to be so structured.

Spoiled, selfish people are everywhere. You can deal with them in a healthy manner that won’t suck you into their drama. You don’t have to entertain them and give into everything. Instead, you can use your awareness and knowledge to teach them little by little what it is to be a functional adult with healthy behaviors.

11 Lemon Water Benefits You Didn’t Know About

July 11, 2016 by Power of Positivity

How we begin our day usually sets the stage for how the rest of it will unfold. Many of us rush through our mornings and entire days, not giving a lot of thought to how we treat our bodies or what we put in them. Starting each day hydrated can make a huge difference in how your day goes, however, as eliminating toxins can allow your body to become rejuvenated and feel lighter. Better yet, adding lemon to your water will only increase the benefits you feel from nourishing and hydrating your body properly.

Lemon contains a lot of antioxidants and can repair the immune system naturally with vitamin C, bioflavonoids, citric acid, calcium, magnesium, pectin, and limonene.

Warm lemon water hydrates and oxygenates the body while also balancing our pH levels.

Adding lemon will also improve digestion, which will further help to eliminate toxins. Experts recommend drinking half your weight in ounces of water each day, but unfortunately, most people don’t drink near enough water for their age or weight.

Drinking lemon water may improve your relationship with water, since it will make each glass refreshing and add flavor to an otherwise tasteless beverage. Just make sure to add half of a freshly squeezed lemon to your water each morning, and continue this habit each time you have a new glass of water.

Adding lemon to your water will also provide nutrients like vitamin C, iron, calcium, potassium, and fiber.

On another note, have you been trying to give up coffee? Warm lemon water might just serve as a suitable replacement, as many people who have tried to give up coffee have done so successfully by replacing it with lemon water. So, as if that isn’t enough to make you want to drink lemon water, we have some more benefits listed for you below!

11 Lemon Water Benefits You Didn’t Know About

1. Lemon water can lower your risk of having a stroke, according to the American Heart Association

2. It will give you clear skin and reduce signs of aging, including wrinkles

3. Detoxes and cleanses the system according to a study on lemon water’s ability to improve the liver’s functions

4. Lemon water can boost your mood due to the plentiful antioxidants and nutrients present

5. Brings your body’s pH levels back into alignment

6. Relieves pain in the joints

7. Alleviates hangovers

8. Keeps you satiated longer

9. Improves digestive health

10. Lemon water freshens the breath

11. Improves respiratory health

Here are a few more benefits, if you still need more convincing:

can prevent UTIs.
improves adrenal health
regulates metabolism
enhances brain power
strengthens immune system
cleans the sinus cavities
improves intestinal health
eliminates high fevers
prevents kidney stones
improves breathing
alleviates headaches and migraines
can help with weight loss

Here are a few more interesting facts about lemon:

Lemon is among nature’s top seven potassium sources. The mineral potassium promotes mental clarity and healthy blood pressure. If you pair lemon with something salty, it can help to regulate the body’s water balance.
You can use lemon as an insect repellent.
It can be used as a mouthwash; just add hot water.
A tablespoon of lemon juice only contains four calories

During this time period on Earth, many people have started waking up to nature’s amazing healing powers, and have substituted old habits for much healthier, wholesome ones that actually improve their vitality. Drinking lemon water is just one of many ways to improve your health, and you can use lemon in a variety of other ways as well, such as in a salad dressing, sprinkled on a fruit salad, or even frozen to make healthy popsicles!

Many people want to improve their health, and luckily, they don’t have to look much further than their own kitchen to do so. What you eat can either promote sickness or health, so why not do your mind, body, and soul some good and opt for health instead of the disease?

The smallest habits we form can inspire the greatest change, and adding a little lemon to your water in the mornings doesn’t take much time or effort. The hydration from the water plus the nutrients and antioxidants from the lemon makes this drink a powerhouse when it comes to improving your health. Let us know how you like it!

(C)Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

5 Things Passionate People Do Differently

July 11, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Passion is a life force that pushes us to accomplish those things that bring us joy. With vitality and gusto, passionate people are fueled by much more than just the love of something. They believe in themselves. Furthermore, they are moved by the ideas and feelings that sustain them in creating and allowing moments. They follow their awareness and believe that success comes in many forms.

Psychologist Robert Vallerand at the University of Quebec, Montreal, has researched passion and what makes us passionate. He writes about his findings: “Harmonious passion originates from an autonomous internalization of the activity into one’s identity while obsessive passion emanates from a controlled internalization and comes to control the person.”

Here are 5 things passionate people do differently than most:

1. Passionate people get easily excited.

They don’t wonder if the glass is half full or half empty. They are seeing the possibilities of what they can do with the liquid inside. Passionate folks get excited about the challenge, adventure, and journey they travel. Passion is a spark of hope and grace. They know there’s something larger than what they can see and feel. They follow that joy and excitement, oftentimes, without really knowing what the final destination will be.

2. Passionate people are brave.

Bravery arrives through vulnerability. Passionate people aren’t afraid or ashamed to ask for help. Their courage moves them to continue in spite of any failures or set backs. The difference between a person who lives in victim mode and that of a passionate person is the courage they carry in their hearts. They are survivors. They have no hang-ups about what has happened in the past. Passionate people know that those scars heal and they utilize them to learn and grow. They become great mentors because of their courageous hearts.

3. Passionate people are self-motivated.

They are their own cheerleaders. They believe that failure is when you fall and just stay down. Passionate people get back up and try a different way of accomplishing what they aim to do. They know that success requires doing things differently to achieve the final result.

Thomas A. Edison said about failure: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Passion ignites certainty even at the moments that are filled with tremendous doubts and obstacles. When you follow your heart, there is no failing.

4. Passionate people are blissful.

They live in a state of joy because they are following their bliss. They are content with how they choose to live. That’s because they have created the life that suits them. They enjoy life. Most of them have chosen to live outside of the box of what society tells them to be. They are the entrepreneurs, philanthropists, inventors, artists, musicians, salespeople, and professionals who have taken chances and believe that it isn’t the value of things that make happiness but rather the joy that comes from the journey. They cherish their times alone and with others. Passion is contagious, and these folks bring out the joy in others who magnetically connect with them. They don’t take life too seriously.

5. Passionate people believe that love creates the world.

You cannot speak of passion without returning to the source of love. Passionate people love themselves and others. They move through love and share it with the world. They are those who believe in humanitarian causes and fight till the end. Because of this, they make this earth a better place. They come into this life ready to make changes, and nothing stops them. Love is the ultimate motivator for the passionate soul. They know that without the innate desire to change and evolve, there is no doing. Love is the match that lights passion.

Passionate people don’t sit around feeling stuck. They are the trailblazers, doers and movers, the leaders, the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, that all unite to make this place a better haven for the rest of us. These people don’t wait to be told what to do. They are moving a mountain one teaspoon of dirt at a time. They are patient, determined, and generous. The best habit that a passionate person owns is knowing that this life is here for us to make the most out of it. They know that in order to be happy, successful and loving, there must be desire and the will to see past anything in the future. This is what separates the passionate person from those who do not follow their hearts.

“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping… waiting… and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir… open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us… guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love… the clarity of hatred… the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we’d be truly dead.”~ Joss Whedon

This Simple Mind-Body Exercise Reduces Negative Thoughts And Improves Health

July 11, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Knowing how to control your mind, which can lead to positive health changes in your body can improve your health, and the training to be able to do this is fairly simple. In this article, we will explain how the mind-body connection and training yourself to control it is a way for you to take charge of your health.

This Simple Mind-Body Training Can Improve Your Health

Training yourself to control your mind-body connection is a process of relaxation and self-hypnosis where you make suggestions to yourself about lowering your heart rate, blood pressure, reducing pain sensations or anything that is beneficial to your body to heal itself.

In a study of early stage breast cancer patients who were experiencing stress over their diagnosis, researchers found that autogenic training helped the women to show an improvement in their measures of anxiety and depression. The study also showed that women who could achieve a meditative state as opposed to a relaxed state were found to have an increase in their immune responses.

A meditative state helped with T and B cell markers, which give an indication of changes in immune system responses. These results are pretty remarkable, and they demonstrate the power of the mind-body connection.

Health Problems That This Simple Mind-Body Training Can Improve

Researchers who looked at multiple studies of the autogenic mind-body training found several health problems that can be positively impacted when people practice and learn these skills.

Physical problems helped by mind-body training:

Tension headache
Migraine
Mild to moderate hypertension
Coronary heart disease
Asthma
Pain
Cancer
Raynaud’s disease

Psychological problems helped by mind-body training:

Anxiety disorder
Depression
Insomnia

Other problems helped by mind-body training:

Negative mood
Negative thoughts
Poor quality of life

Relaxation Is Not Meditation

Relaxing is a great way to reduce stress in your body, but it is not the same as meditation. For example, when meditating, your brain achieves similar brain wave patterns to those seen in stages of sleep. You are in a type of trance state.

To achieve this meditative state and be able to make the mind-body connection, the best method is to listen to a recording of a person’s voice guiding you to meditate and do the exercises for the training.

How You Can Learn This Simple Mind-Body Training On Your Own

As you try autogenic training, distracting thoughts will come into your mind. Try to acknowledge the distracting thoughts and let them slip away as you focus on the mind-body training.

As you talk to yourself through this training, you will be practicing teaching yourself how to create sensations in your The sensations that you can learn to feel in your body are:

Heaviness
Warmth
Heartbeat changes
Breathing changes
Coolness
Calmness

You may want to ask someone to read this aloud to you as you relax and pay attention to the words and sensations that your body is experiencing. Alternatively, try an autogenic mind-body training video to help you as you learn to control your physical body and your health.

The Mind Body Training Script

An autogenic mind-body training script from Karen Urbanek follows. For each body part that you focus your attention on, Karen recommends that you repeat each body part relaxation phrase four to six times.

My right arm is heavy
My left arm is heavy
My arms feel completely calm
The right leg is heavy
My left leg is heavy
My legs feel completely calm
The right arm is warm
My left arm is warm
My right leg is warm
The left leg is warm
My legs and arms feel completely calm
My arms are heavy and warm
The legs are heavy and warm
My heartbeat is slow and relaxed
My heart feels calm
Breathing is slow and relaxed
Breathing is calm
My stomach is warm
It is relaxed
My stomach feels completely calm
My forehead is cool
The scalp is relaxed
My whole body is calm
My whole body is relaxed
I am calm and relaxed

The repetition, relaxation, and words that focus your attention on feeling sensations in your body all combine to help train you to make changes in your body. The words that are used are focused on creating feelings of peace and calm in your body.

This can also be used as a relaxation technique or meditation, not just for mind-body training purposes. You can further add positive affirmation statements for anything that you are personally working on, for example, if you want to control feelings of anxiety you can add, ‘I release my worries and I trust my inner voice.’

6 Signs Your Child Is An Old Soul

July 10, 2016 by Power of Positivity

An old soul travels through many dimensions and places in time, taking lessons with them as they go from place to place, and passing down this wisdom to those willing to listen. Many people have identified as an old soul, and children can certainly fit into this category as well. Parents get to experience one of the greatest joys in life, that of raising a little human being and getting to watch him or her grow, play, laugh, and learn.

Children normally have a playful, carefree nature, but what if your child displays unusual characteristics for someone his or her age? How should you react or deal with the situation? Truthfully, no two children have the same personality traits anyway, so don’t let this alarm you. Maybe your child would rather spend time alone than with others, and maybe they find it hard to fit in with people of their age group. Maybe they just seem more ‘mature’ for their age, and have a complex, intuitive, and contemplative personality.

Your child is complicated, difficult, a bit distant, and hard to read. They seem to have skipped childhood altogether, and have mentally entered adulthood long before they even arrived here in their human form.

If this sounds like your child, you definitely have an old soul on your hands. Maybe you felt like an old soul as a kid as well, which would give your child a higher likelihood of being an old soul as well. If you would like more about old souls and figure out how to understand your child better, read on for more information.

6 Signs Your Child Is An Old Soul

1. They live in their own world.

You try to get their attention, but their mind is elsewhere. You try to get them to focus on an activity, but they flit from one thing to another. They do things on their own terms, and would rather be left alone in their own quiet world. If your child prefers to spend time by themselves and create from their imagination, they are probably an old soul.

2. They have an intense personality.

Other kids their age might enjoy doing lighthearted activities, like hopscotch or playing sports, but your child prefers to sit on the sidelines and just observe. Other children have a loud, outgoing personality, but your child is more introverted, quiet, and pensive.

Your child seems to take things more seriously than other kids, always delving deeply into their emotions to try and figure out the world in a way that works for them.

3. They don’t fit in with other kids.

They might try to follow the crowd, but they stand out like a sore thumb. The other kids might bully or pick on your child, as they don’t understand his or her personality and perspective. Your child just seems more mature, and can’t be concerned with petty gossip, small-talk, and useless conversation. They’d much rather avoid the other children than pretend to be someone else just for the sake of fitting in.

4. They make and follow their own rules.

Old souls don’t just blindly follow authority; they question everything and go over the logic in their own minds before they comply. In school, they likely cause “trouble” just because they speak up more than the other kids, and would rather follow their own path if something doesn’t make sense to them. Old souls have a great wisdom about life, so they don’t understand all the complex rules and laws we have created here. They see things as having simple solutions but struggle to comprehend a world so unjust and cruel.

Basically, they follow rules if they make sense to them, and might be given the label of a “troublemaker” at home or in school because of their demeanor.

5. They like spending time alone.

Old souls have heightened sensitivity to their inner world and the world around them, so they would rather spend time alone to avoid the uncomfortable feelings they get from too much noise. Old souls have an amazing connection to the natural world, and would much rather spend their time immersed in nature than in the ‘modern world.’

6. They are extremely curious.

An old soul will ask tons of questions until they get the necessary answers. They don’t just accept things where and what, and all the other questions and answers in between. They have tons of interests and live to gain understanding and wisdom.

“Sometimes, out of the blue, a witty interjection, or incisive question will arise from your child if they are an Old Soul. The best way to describe your child’s wisdom beyond years is that they sound like a “little old man or woman” unexpectedly giving advice and counsel.” – Aletheia Luna

(C)Power of Positivity, LLC. All rights reserved

These Things Happen To Your Brain When You Don’t Drink Enough Water

July 10, 2016 by Power of Positivity

Whether or not you drink enough water is very important to your brain, because what happens when you don’t can be like a mild form of the cognitive impairment that is seen in early forms of Alzheimer’s disease, according to neuroscientists.

Foggy thinking can happen to even the most intelligent person when they are distracted, tired, or don’t get enough nutrition, but the same is true about your thinking abilities when you don’t get enough water for your brain. Slower memory, vision problems, and even reasoning abilities are possible when your brain is dehydrated.

Just like a piece of dehydrated fruit, your brain and other bodily tissues can loose their natural shape and dry out as cells reduce in size when you don’t get enough water to keep them full of liquid. Water is essential to keep your cells fat and happy and functioning at the optimum brain processing speed.

Here’s What Happens To Your Brain When You Don’t Drink Enough Water

There are many mental and physical symptoms when your brain doesn’t get enough water. Let’s look at some of the negative health affects of dehydration and also what it means to get enough water in the day.

Why Does Your Brain Need You To Drink Enough Water?

All of your cells need water, so your brain is not the only part of you that is affected by not getting enough of it. But being the control center for the rest of your body, having a poorly hydrated brain will make your day a lot worse than it would be if you get enough fluid to drink.

Dehydration of the brain’s tissues can cause:

* Headaches

* Dizziness

* Foggy thinking

* Confusion

* Lack of energy

* Frustration and negative mood

Researchers studying dehydration of the brain found that not getting enough water causes shrinkage of brain tissue and this particularly affects the ventricular volume of the brain, which is where the cerebral-spinal fluid is contained. The cerebral-spinal fluid is important for the brain to get nutrients and to flush waste away from the brain as well.

When you don’t get enough water, the study showed that you will feel like it takes more energy to do the same mental task that you could do if you were fully hydrated. This same effort is something that the study researchers could see on an MRI scan of the brain and the study also verified that the brain weighed less when dehydrated.

The study showed that the brain is working less efficiently when it is dehydrated. The study asked participants to do some strenuous activity where they had significant water loss due to sweat and then asked them to do a cognitive test. The MRI scan of the brains found significantly more brain heat and activity in the frontal and parietal areal of the brain when the dehydrated participants had to think about the task. They say that a ‘reduced water intake may adversely impact executive functions such as planning and visuo-spatial processing.’

The Brain Problems You Experience When You Don’t Get Enough Water

In another study of the grey matter and white matter volume of the brain before and after dehydration, researchers found that several areas of the brain experienced shrinkage in volume when the body is dehydrated.

There was a significant decrease of grey matter and white matter volume associated found in ‘temporal and sub-gyral parietal areas, in the left inferior orbito-frontal region, and in the extra-nuclear region.’

This study also found that there was a change in cerebral spinal fluid volume in the brain. They say that these changes are similar to ones that have been reported in studies of ‘mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease during disease progression.’

So if not getting enough water is like having a mild form of Alzheimer’s disease, getting plenty of fluids is important. So how do you know if you are fully hydrating yourself and your brain?

How Much Water Is Enough For Your Brain?

There is such a difference in sizes of human beings that giving a specific amount of water in ounces is difficult. Most medical professionals agree that making sure that you urinate and have a light yellow color urine about every 2-3 hours means that your body is well hydrated.

The quantity of water that you should drink is approximately 2 liters or 68 ounces, which is roughly a half-gallon of water. Your body and brain also need sodium (salt) and potassium to absorb from the water, so make sure that you are eating foods with some salt content throughout the day or that your drinking water has minerals in it naturally.

Silence Negative Self-Talk With This ONE Easy Trick

July 10, 2016 by Power of Positivity

We all deal with negative thoughts and judgmental voices in our heads from time to time, but what if you could learn to silence that negative self-talk with one easy trick?

The exercise we will share with you in this article can help you to achieve a peaceful state of mind, while also balancing your emotional health. Our minds often run on autopilot, and we don’t really tune into the thoughts playing over and over again until they become self-destructive. This exercise can help you to pinpoint the negative thoughts as they happen, and deal with them directly.

Silence Negative Self-Talk With This ONE Easy Trick

NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, can help you to manage those negative thoughts, and even reform them into more positive ones. It helps you to change the way you look at the world by first dealing with HOW you interpret it through your mind. Developed in the mid-1970s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, it’s used in many different fields, such as trauma recovery and sports coaching. By utilizing the foundations of the exercise, Bandler and Grinder believe that anyone can achieve personal excellence and heal from a variety of conditions or phobias.

How does NLP work?

Basically, it involves connecting neurological processes, behavior, and language in order to change certain aspects of your life through reprogramming pathways in the brain. The founders believe that this set of techniques can work for anyone, as it simply involves removing processes that don’t help you achieve your goals, modifying existing programs, and installing new ones if necessary.

If you think of your brain like a computer, you will understand why this exercise works so well. Just like a computer, you can reprogram your mind based on the software that you put into it. Of course, the software is simply what thought patters you replay in your head each day. We either knowingly or unknowingly program our minds every day based on what we think, so you can easily reprogram your brain in order for it to function at its best.

A computer program helps us to do certain things, such as use Microsoft Word to type a document. So, think of the computer program as helping us to achieve a goal of typing, editing, and saving a document. In the same way, the thought processes we “install” in our brains can help us to achieve a goal as well, or they can actually hinder us from reaching the goal.

Basically, NLP involves having the perfect programs running in the brain in order to achieve maximum results, so if something doesn’t produce the desired result, we can simply “uninstall” it from our minds. Today, we’ll talk about modifying an existing program, however, to give you an idea of how you can transform negative thoughts into positive ones.

NLP Technique for Transforming Negative Self-Talk

1. Picture someone you love talking to you in a compassionate, understanding voice. How does that make you feel?

2. As you think about this, notice everything about how the voice sounds – the pitch, tone, rhythm, and volume. Become aware of all the qualities of this voice.

3. Now, put that on the back burner, and turn your thoughts towards the negative self-talk you sometimes notice in your mind. How does this voice sound, and how does it make you feel? Simply listen to it without judgement for a second…

4. Now, as you replay this voice in your mind, try to imagine these things being said in the compassionate voice of a loved one.

5. Now, replaying the destructive words again, imagine them being said in a silly voice, like that of a cartoon character.

6. Notice that just the tone of the voice in your mind can change your perspective, even if the WORDS themselves still seem negative.

7. Keep on adjusting the voice in your mind so that you can try out different perspectives.

You could switch from celebrities to cartoon characters to a loved one to anything else that you want – just keep in mind that you must play with the qualities of the voice in order to achieve the desired results.

8. Once you feel yourself having a positive breakthrough, you can then listen to the voice and see if it seems as negative as before.

Final Thoughts on Decreasing Negative Self-Talk

Chances are that your thoughts will have at least slightly transformed just because you repeated them so many times in different voices, and you know now that the voice plays just as important a role as the words being said.

This type of exercise can allow for the release of toxic thought patterns and emotions, as it draws awareness back to our minds and bodies. Once you recall the negative voice, try to see if you remember it the same way. Since you changed the voice so often, you probably won’t remember the original voice, which means your perspective changed since the beginning of the exercise. If you feel less upset than the first time you heard the negative self-talk, then that means you have made progress in transforming your negative thoughts to positive ones.

5 Ways to Protect Yourself From Negative Emotions

July 10, 2016 by Power of Positivity

You can protect yourself from the negative health effects of emotions like fear, anger and emotional pain, just as easily as you protect yourself from sunburn with sunscreen. Negative emotions are just one part of what makes us human. Yet experiencing too many of them can be overwhelming to our physical and psychological health.

In this article, we will look at some of the ways that negative emotions impact your health. Also, we will discuss how you can learn to protect yourself.

5 Ways to Protect Yourself From Negative Emotions

1. Create a protective psychic shield

In his book Psychic Development For Beginners, William W. Hewitt explains the Law of Being by saying that whatever is in your consciousness must be brought into being and ‘nothing can happen for you or to you if it is not programmed into your mind. Therefore, it makes sense to program yourself with good, beneficial goals and thoughts’

By focusing on the positive, not negative thoughts, we can create a psychic shield that can protect us from negative emotions. Creating a psychic shield is as easy as visualizing it during your meditative practice.

Hewitt suggests that as you relax and you are in a meditative state, picture your body surrounded by a glowing light and say:

‘This powerful, positive light is my psychic shield.’
‘This light will repel all negative energies from programming my mind’
‘The shield will allow only positive thoughts and emotions to pass through it.’
‘This protective shield will be with me always, even when I am not focusing on it.’

2. Focus on the positive emotions of self-control

Some negative emotions, like guilt, arise from our lack of self-control. For example, if you overeat and you know that it is unhealthy for you, you may feel guilt about it later. When you are able to successfully resist temptation, that action helps you build your personal defenses against negative emotions.

You know that you can avoid undesirable activities, like drinking too much, because you have avoided it in the past. Rather than the guilt associated with the ‘bad’ behavior, focus on the positive emotions you will feel when you successfully resist. Pride, a sense of accomplishment, and reassurance in your abilities are the positive ways to look at resisting a negative behavior.

3. Use awareness training

Meditation, yoga, and awareness of the physical sensations of negative emotions are all ways to use awareness of the present moment to learn to protect yourself from negative emotions. Researchers studying the role of awareness of bodily sensations in the experience of emotion found that Vipassana meditation, a type of meditation focusing on bodily sensations, helped people to learn the relationship between mentally feeling an emotion as a response to something negative in the environment and how the body responded to the emotion.

Once you can feel the negative emotion in your body, you can understand that your body’s response does not have to have a label associated with it. These are just sensations of heart rate, breathing, and perspiration, which you can then control by relaxing. Naming the emotion ‘fear’ only negatively affects what your body is experiencing.

4. Learn to comfort yourself in healthy ways

Psychologists believe that our ability to self-comfort is something we learn early in childhood, as we become separate people from our parents. A healthy person is able to comfort him or herself when they feel sad, scared or frustrated.

Self-soothing behavior starts out as thumb-sucking or other repetitive, relaxing behavior in childhood, but as adults, we can identify that a walk on a sunny day helps us to release negative emotions just the same way. Think about a few things that you know are healthy for you and that give you a positive emotional boost. Keep this list of suggestions available the next time you need to protect yourself from negative emotions.

5. Detach from negative emotions

Your negative emotions are not you and you are not your negative emotions. Do not blame yourself for feeling negative emotions. Instead, act as an impartial observer and see yourself as another person would see you. Say to yourself ‘It looks like I am experiencing anxiety right now. Although that might usually bother me, I choose to not be affected by it.’

You can also choose to physically detach yourself from the situation that brought on your negative emotions rather than stay and continue to feel negatively. For example, at a social gathering where you feel anxious, make a choice to leave if you are not able to switch to a positive emotional mindset.

Leaving a bad situation so that you can avoid negative emotions should not be something you feel defeated about. Instead, see it as you making a healthy emotional choice for yourself to focus on your well-being.

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