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Avoiding the stresses of Many Mother's Day, Natural Relief for Tension Headaches, Alternative Medicine and Therapies in your Everyday Life, What is NLP?, Can't Sleep?  15 Tips you can try, One Question to Reduce your Stress, Less Stress by Loving What you Do, Nutrition and Stress.

Avoiding the Stresses of Many Mothers' Day           

 Health Center Psychologist Offers Balancing Tips

Sisters, aunts, grandmothers, friends, step-mothers, mothers-in law and mothers are celebrating Mother’s Day. For mothers with an extended family of mothers, it can be a day of stress. Balancing time, expectations and emotions can make the day special, as intended.

“It's more complicated to manage the demands of such a holiday when we are part of blended families, or have in-laws, grown children who have moved away, and grandchildren,” she Karen Steinberg, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry at UConn Health Center. “Try to find a balance and maintain perspective. If something doesn’t go your way, don’t blow it out-of-proportion – not everything is an indication of our worth or importance to others,” she said. ”It can be very stressful to respond to multiple demands from different family members and to deal with complex emotions that may rise up from past unmet expectations, past experiences or recent losses,” she said.

Communication can save the day. Don’t expect your husband and children to read your mind, said Steinberg. Tell them how you’d like to spend the day, and tell them about plans you may have that include others, such as an invitation or visit to your and your spouse’s mothers.

The more complex and extensive the family structure, the more confusing and demanding the day can seem. “All you really need to do is recognize and thank the women in your life who have influenced you. A simple card or phone call will do the trick,” said Dr. Steinberg. “You will both be the recipients of good feelings.”

“Mother’s Day should be yours. Be sure to do something for yourself and tell the members of your immediate family how you’d like to spend the day,” said Dr. Steinberg. “It’s an occasion for celebration – have fun, express affection toward those you love, take care of yourself, and for a change, ask for things from others.”

The University of Connecticut Health Center includes the schools of medicine and dental medicine, John Dempsey Hospital, the UConn Medical Group and University Dentists. Founded in 1961, the Health Center pursues a mission of providing outstanding health care education in an environment of exemplary patient care, research and public service. To learn more about the UConn Health Center, visit our website at www.uchc.edu.

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Natural Relief for Tension Headaches
By Ananga Sivyer

Tension headaches are those dull achy headaches that often start to develop around mid-day. They are often stress or anxiety induced, and are usually dealt with by taking non-prescription pain relief drugs. However, recent surveys show that many of us aren’t comfortable taking a tablet as soon as pain strikes and would rather be dealing with them naturally.

Here’s a simple and effective self-help massage routine you can use to chase away tension headache pain...

sit up straight and place your fingertips behind your earlobes at the back of your head

begin to massage slowly inwards around the base of your skull until your fingers meet in the hollow where the base of your skull and the top of your neck meet - at that point use the index and middle fingers of one hand to massage in a small firm circle

lean back into your fingers and breathe deeply as you keep massaging for a minute or two

now take the index and middle fingers of each hand and find the hollow on either side of your neck just under the base of your skull  and again lean back into you fingers and breathe deeply as you massage the area

turn your head as far to the left as you can, and repeat to the right

raise your shoulders up towards your ears and then lower them as far as you can

look left and right again

finally, take a deep breath and have a stretch

Additional tips for a headache free day:

- Start the day with a cup of hot water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
Try this as a gentle morning detox to start the day feeling fresh and clear-headed.

- Take regular breaks during the day to stretch and walk around.
Many headaches can be avoided by taking regular short breaks to move and stretch. Often tension accumulates in the head due to eyestrain or intense concentration when driving or working on computers. A quick stretch disperses accumulated tension in the head before it builds to uncomfortable levels.

Ginger & Lemon Headache Reliever
2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons for fresh ginger juice*

1 cup of boiled water
mix in a cup with honey to taste and sip when cooled
*to extract ginger juice - grate the ginger and squeeze the juice from the pulp

Ginger has anti-inflammatory properties that are effective in easing headache pain. Another popular way to take ginger is in its crystallized form, which can be found at most health food shops.

Ananga Sivyer is a contributing editor and health consultant for LifeScape magazine and the author of the self-help workbook: The Art & Science of Emotional Freedom

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Alternative Medicine and Therapies in Your Everyday Life
By Evelyn Lim

Those of us who claim that we do not practice any form of alternative medicine or therapies have missed out considering all the simple remedies that we apply at home.

Consider the following examples:-

- Do you massage your neck at the back when you have a splitting headache?

- Do you put an ice pack on a sprained ankle?

- Have you not ever used some aromatherapy for your room?

- Have you not ever take some honey when you are having a bad throat?

- Have you not ever taken chamomile tea for cooling and for de-stress?

- Do you drink your mum’s traditional herbal chicken soup home brewed for 10 hours meant for strengthening and warming your internal body?

In fact, these represent just a few out of the many simple remedies that we use in our everyday life.  When we think of alternative medicine or therapies, we conjure images of some out-of-the-ordinary practices.  Of course, alternative medicine and therapies can range to the more “unconventional” ones like hypnotherapy, past life regression, energy healing, etc. But mostly, they are not.

Here comes some surprising statistics. The World Health Organization estimates that between 65 and 80 percent of the world's population (about 3 billion people) rely on traditional (read: "alternative") medicine as their primary form of health care. It further states that when these traditional medical treatments are introduced into Western culture, they are seen as complementary or alternative.

Most of us tend to fail to factor in these alternative everyday remedies, but choose to think that we are believers of conventional medicine versus alternative medicine.  After all, conventional medicine is very much backed by well documented research, statistics and proven theories; whereas alternative medicine is not. Still, having the benefit of practicing some of these home remedies, there is no denying that they do help in providing some form of relief and treatment.  In addition, they don’t cost much in terms of money and time, and most importantly, have few or little side effects.

It is therefore, a good idea to spend some time to get to know more about these alternative therapies and remedies and apply them more diligently to our everyday life. We may choose to include massage therapy, aromatherapy, eating a healthy diet, practicing yoga and relaxing breathing techniques.  In the end, our spending on drugs and doctor’s bills is likely to be less and at the same time, we will be adopting natural methods to heal ourselves.

Evelyn Lim owns an article directory site on health and wellness.  Her site is a growing archive of information spanning more than 100 topic categories on all aspects of health; including alternative medicine, health and medical conditions, wellness, natural remedy, cancer, health insurance, fitness, weight loss, diet fads, etc. To submit an article, please visit http://www.HealthandWellnessCentral.com today!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Evelyn_Lim

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What is NLP?

“A Surefire Way To Manage Your Fears 
While Leading A Happier, Healthier Life”

© Colin G Smith - All Rights reserved
http://www.NLPToolBox.com
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Imagine discovering a way to get rid of your fears in a
quick and painless manner. In fact it can even become fun!

Did you know only two of all the fears you have are innate:
The fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Most of
your fears were learned in early childhood and then in later                    
life under stressful conditions.

Traditional therapeutic approaches would probably have you
trying to figure out where your fear originally came from.
Maybe they'd have you digging around in your childhood
memories, recalling times you ate the next-door neighbours
purple Tulips. This type of approach tends to associate the
client into reliving unpleasantness and can take a long time
to achieve useful results. Personally I think this style is
way out of date and bordering on torture.

You'll probably be glad to know we're not going to be doing
anything like that. The truth is you can easily and quickly
undo the learnings that created specific fears and change
your responses to something much more useful.

So just how do fearful feelings occur then? Well lets use a
common example: Fred wants a raise and he's been wanting to
ask his boss for months. Finally he decides to go and ask.
BUT when he starts the walk down the corridor he starts to
feel certain sensations in his body. Weird stomach feelings.
His breathing is constricted. Slight sweating on parts of
his body. His vision is effected. Fred decides to turn back
and then sits down feeling slightly annoyed with himself.

His body started producing 'fear chemicals.' What happened?

“Well it was because he defied his Dad one time when he was
four. Let's explore those forgotten memories....”

NO! NO! NO! Let's do something much smarter and definitely
more fun.

Hey Fred come over here I want to show you something really
cool! O' come on, pick your lip up.

You know how before you got up to go and ask the boss for a
raise, you felt OK right? So between the time you got up and
started walking something happened. Something triggered
those feelings in you. Here's a fact for you: You either
made a picture in your head or talked to yourself in a way
that created those fearful sensations and that happened at
an unconscious level out of your awareness.

“OK Colin that might be true but so what, what's your
point?”

Well the point is by changing the internal sounds, pictures
and voices in your head you can begin to gain control of
your emotions.

“Fair enough but how can I do that so when I'm in a similar
situation I automatically make useful pictures, sounds and
voices in my head so I remain in a resourceful state?”

Good question, here's just one way you can achieve the 
results you want using a simple and powerful tool from the
field of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)


Soothing Movie Music
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1.Think of a situation where you feel fear.

2.Dissociate: See yourself in the situation like you would a
movie with you in it.

3.Imagine running the memory from the END of the fearful
situation, BACKWARDS to the START. Do this very fast in less
then 1 second!

4.Think of some music that makes you feel the opposite of
fear. For example soothing classical music makes you feel
relaxed. Perhaps certain rock or dance music makes you feel
energised/courageous etc.

5.Now hear the music, nice and loud, inside your mind whilst
looking at yourself going through the situation from START 
to END.

6.Break state. Now think of the situation you choose in Step
1 and notice how your fearful feelings have diminished.

7.What will you see or hear just before you want this new
feeling to set in?

GET YOUR FREE NLP COURSE HERE!!

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CAN'T SLEEP? 15 TIPS YOU CAN TRY

by Connie Saindon

In animal sleep, a sloth sleeps 20 hours a day while a porpoise sleeps half a brain at a time. Birds do not sleep and rabbits and squirrels sleep 10-14 hours a day. People need a wide variation of sleep and can range from 1-10 hours a day. There is more need for sleep at birth, while as we age our sleep needs are less and lighter.

Sleep problems are a common symptom for people who are recovering from traumatic events. One's usual methods for falling asleep may no longer work. Disturbing thoughts of reenactment, rescue or reunion may interfere with one's sleep cycle. Nightmares and sleep terrors occur in response to adjusting to shattered realties.

Practice "Good Sleep Hygiene." Here are some tips for you to try:

1. No reading or watching TV in bed. These are waking activities. If your insomnia is chronic, it is not a good thing to do, says Dr. Alex Clerk, head of Stanford Sleep Disorder Clinic in Palo Alto.
2. Go to bed when you're sleepy-tired, not when it's time to go to bed by habit.
3. Wind down during the second half of the evening before bedtime. 90 minutes before bed, don't get involved in any kind of anxiety provoking activities or thoughts.
4. Do some breathing exercises or try to relax major muscle groups, starting with the toes and ending with your forehead.
5. Your bed is for sleeping, if you can't sleep after 15-20 minutes, get up and do something relaxing.
6. Have your room cool rather than warm.
7. Don't count sheep, counting is stimulating.
8. Exercise in the afternoon or early evening, but no later than 3 hours before bedtime.
9. Don't over-eat, and eat 2-3 hours before bedtime.
10. Don't nap during the day.
11. If you awake in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep within 30 minutes, get up and do something else.
12. Have No coffee, alcohol or cigarettes two to three hours before bedtime.
13. If you have disturbing dreams or nightmares add an ending that you want.
14. Schedule a half-hour writing about your concerns and hopes in a journal every night to free up your sleep from processing your dilemmas as much.
15. Listen to calming music or a self-hypnosis tape for sleep.

If sleep problems persist, contact your physician or mental health professional. Let them know what is happening in your life. Your problem may have either organic or psychological contributors. Sleep disorders are classified as chronic if they persist more than one month. There are two major categories of sleep disorders. They are Dyssomnias -- when there are problems with the amount, quality or timing of sleep and Parasomnias -- when there are abnormal events occurring during sleep stages.

Sleep difficulties can mean that there is an underlying problem that needs treatment. J. Christain Gillin, M.D. states that most patients that have a sleep disorder have an underlying psychiatric disorder. The different kind of sleep disorders include insomnia, hypersonmia-excessive daytime sleeping, Nightmare Disorder, Narcolepsy-irresistible attacks of sleep, Sleep-apnea and Sleepwalking. Let us know if these tips help you and also if you have one that works for you and is not listed here.

References:

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition.

Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman, M.D. Ted Rynearson, M.D., Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Washington.

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