Quick! Meditate!

Meditation is the luxury of celebrities or those who have lots of time to waste,   a lot of people think. We know that monks do meditate and have been for centuries. Most people know that it is beneficial but they worry about the time it takes to shut out the world have a little "me" time. Is it really luxury? Is it really selfish to find 15-30 or even 60 minutes a day to meditate? 

Not until something forces you to do, like a serious health challenge. If you are lucky enough to meet someone who teaches you to meditate like I was when I was twenty something and participated in a yoga class or someone inspires you to go on a spiritual journey, you life will change forever.

What are the benefits of a few minutes daily meditation, you could ask.

• It helps you to reduce stress
• Slows down ageing
• Adds more hours to your day. You become more efficient, more organised and focused. 
• Helps you appreciate life and relationships more
• Helps you to be more connected
• Increases your attention span
• Increases immunity and helps you fight diseases
• Improves metabolism and helps you normalise your weight and to keep it like that
• Helps you have a good night sleep
• Improves functioning of the brain
• Ideas, solutions, inspirations and visions might come to you during meditation
• Emotional relief can happen, sometimes in a form of crying during meditation
• Makes you and those around you happier

With meditation, the physiology undergoes a change and every cell in the body is filled with more Prana/Chi (energy). This results in joy, peace, enthusiasm as the level of Prana/Chi in the body increases.

On a physical level meditation

• Lowers blood pressure
• Lowers the levels of blood lactate, reducing anxiety attacks
• Decreases any tension-related pain, such as, tension headaches, ulcers, insomnia, muscle and joint problems
• Increases serotonin production that improves mood and behaviour
• Improves the immune system
• Increases the energy level, as you gain an inner source of energy

Meditation brings the brainwave pattern into an Alpha state that promotes healing. The mind becomes fresh, delicate and beautiful. 

With regular practice of meditation:

• Anxiety decreases
• Emotional stability improves
• Creativity increases
• Happiness increases
• Intuition develops
• Gain clarity and peace of mind
• Problems become smaller
• Meditation sharpens the mind by gaining focus and expands through relaxation
• A sharp mind without expansion causes tension, anger and frustration
• An expanded consciousness without sharpness can lead to lack of action/progress
• The balance of a sharp mind and an expanded consciousness brings perfection

Meditation makes you aware - that your inner attitude determines your happiness.

Here I included a simple, short, 7 minutes morning meditation to put you on the path. 

Enjoy the Morning Meditation to set good intentions for the day!

Improving lower back problems with Toe Tapping

Most abdominal exercises, such as the standard floor crunch, work your abs through an active contraction -- the muscles contract, or shorten, to perform the movement. The toe tapping exercise that is a simple Chinese exercise and is part of Dahn Yoga, is a basic abdominal movement that works your abs isometrically, or statically. Your abdominal muscles are not the primary movers, but they do engage during the toe tap exercise.

Toe tapping is an ancient practice that helps balance the energy between the body and head while it dramatically stimulates energy flow in the legs, allowing you to become connected to the larger energy field of the earth. Because of this, I found this exercise extremely helpful with lower back pain, back tensions and with serious case of stenosis. Don't get disheartened if when you try this simple exercise first time that every healthy person can do hundreds of them right away, you can't even move your feet, your lower back goes into spasm right away and can't move or your legs get so stiff when your try this simple repetitive movement that you only can do 2-3 of the tapping. Even that is just a pathetic effort of what you supposed to do... This is how I started! Just trying it again every other day. This is how I worked my way up to 150 taps within two weeks! So there is hope! Don't give up!

Do not do this exercise if you have had a recent knee or hip replacement or if you are pregnant.

Find a comfortable place on the floor.

The legs rotate from the hips, like windshield wipers on a car. Lie flat on your back. Allow your hips and legs to rest easily, hips loose and feet apart. Rotate or rock your legs and feet, in and out from your hips, leaving your heels in one place on the floor. Roll your legs, first tapping your big toes together and then letting your legs and feet roll back out. Keep your legs straight.

The faster you tap, the easier it will be to do this exercise, because you will be using momentum from the previous tap as well as the rotator muscles in your hips and thighs. Continue the tapping for five minutes at first, then work up to longer periods. The demonstration video I included later is fantastic, the music is great, very rhythmical and easy to work with! Once you stop, rest on your back. Notice how you feel and relax in this position for a moment.

Watch and use this video to develop your daily routine of Toe Tapping

How does Toe Tapping work:
Your abdominal muscles do not actively contract, or shorten, during the toe tap movement. The iliopsoas, or hip flexor muscles, are the primary movers. These muscles connect your hip bone to your thigh bone and are responsible for pulling your thighs toward your hip. The rectus abdominis, your main ab muscle, isometrically contracts to stabilise your torso during the toe tap movement. Your ab muscles contract without a significant change in length.

A variety of factors can impede the flow of energy, such as stress, lack of sleep and dehydration. As you tap your feet together, the Liver Meridian, Gall Bladder Meridian, Bladder Meridian, and Spleen Meridian as well as various acupressure points may be stimulated. These are part of an invisible network of pathways within the body through which Chi energy travels. Toe Tapping helps open these pathways to clear any blockages that may be affecting the balance and flow of energy in the body.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine we should have cool head, neutral heart, and a warm pelvis. And in our culture, we’re flipped: we often have a cool pelvis, neutral heart, and a hot head. As you tap your toes together, fire energy is drawn downward and your natural state of a cooler head will be restored. This desirable state is known as “Water Up, Fire Down.” This means that any tension and stress induced energy in the head area is directed down into lower parts of the body to help energise the circulation of both blood and energy throughout the whole body as it also strengthens the lower body. The tapping of the toes will stimulate some meridian points to bring energy up, and also it opens the hips.
Dr Chiasson writes that "I can teach it to just about anybody, because people who can’t get out of bed can do it; I’ve even taught it to hospice patients. It also works extraordinarily well for some of the things that we’re not very good at, like restless leg syndrome, peripheral neuropathy. It’s very, very simple. And kids do it naturally. I was teaching it the other day to a group of older people, and they were laughing, some of them were saying, “Oh, I do this sometimes without even thinking about it.”

Toe Tapping for Pain Relief
Toe tapping also comes with a variety of physical benefits. It can relieve headaches and lower back pain in addition to easing irritation in the hip joint. This is particularly useful for people who spend much of their day at a desk and, in effect, suffer from stiffness and soreness in the back, neck, shoulders and other parts of the body.

The exercises helps to relax the entire body and allows energy and blood to flow, thus raising the body temperature for optimal body function and healing, and offer new confidence for creating positive change in your life. Give it a try.

Toe Tapping for prevention
The tapping method was described by Ann Marie Chiasson, MD, of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine. For her own patients with high blood pressure, Dr. Chiasson has adapted a tapping technique that is part of the ancient Chinese practice called Qigong.

Qigong involves simple movements, including tapping on the body’s meridians, or “highways” of energy movement. These meridians are the same as those used during acupuncture and acupressure treatments. According to a review of nine studies published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, qigong reduced systolic blood pressure (the top number) by an average of 17 points and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by an average of 10 points. Those are big reductions! In fact, they are comparable to the reductions achieved with drugs—but the qigong had no unwanted side effects.

Though Dr. Chiasson has not conducted a clinical trial on her tapping protocol, she has observed reductions in blood pressure among her patients who practice tapping. The technique she recommends also could conceivably benefit people who do not have high blood pressure if it reduces stress and thus helps lower the risk of developing high blood pressure.

Conducting Toe Tapping Exercises at Work
You can practice toe tapping while sitting at your desk to find relief from stress and pain associated with sitting at a desk. To conduct this Dahn Yoga exercise, follow these steps:
Start in a seated position with your legs extended as much as possible while still keeping your feet on the ground.
Put your heels together and keep them touching throughout the exercise.
Tap the big toes together.
Open your feet by rotating the heels until the little toes touch the ground. The motion should resemble a butterflies wings flapping.
Repeat the movement as fast as you can 100 times. Use music if you prefer!

The more you practice toe tapping, the more you'll notice the benefits of this Dahn Yoga exercise. You can increase the number of motions each time to enhance the benefits slowly. Toe tapping may be low-exertion, but it can help to improve circulation in your legs and relieve tension and soreness throughout the body. It even has the ability to calm your mind and provide a better night's sleep. This wide array of benefits can, in turn, work to improve your job performance, as you find yourself feeling more awake, aware and vibrant throughout the work day and ready to take on new and challenging tasks.

More on Meridian Tapping and Energy Flow Techniques: http://www.holistic-mindbody-healing.com/meridian-tapping.html

Shaking the bones

How do you deal with stress? What do you daily, to get rid of any negative impact that we all get knowing or not knowing it? 

Keeping your home fresh by allowing fresh air to circulate, sun light enter and a Himalayan Salt Lamp to clean the air and allow negative ions to do their cleansing is a common method to keep your home a peaceful, relaxed space. But how do you deal with the stress in your body? One of the daily activity is to have a cleansing shower and remove the impurities that we are exposed all day. However, we all carry tremendous amount of stress in our body. We all carry it in different part of our bodies. Some have clenched jaws, tight butts, shortened hamstrings, painful shoulders, tension in their necks, have frequent migraines and pain behind the eyes. But how do you deal with these issues and get rid of them every day so they don't accumulate and become chronic pain, is the key here. 

Unfortunately, we are so not in touch with simple, ancient methods of getting rid of tensions but instead popping pills, get surgery or just put up with tension, stress and pain as normal part of life that it is ruining people's lives. 

“Shaking the bones” is an ancient Chinese exercise. Watch video demonstration with Dr Chiasson.

It could not be more simple and can be done anywhere. Once you see it done, you probably recall seeing it as part of American Indians, Africans, Aboriginals or other 'primal' tribes' rituals and dances. It even appears in one of my favourite romantic movie starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal. Bouncing, shaking and chanting, all leads back to the same roots. 

You just stand in place and bounce up and down at the knees while shaking your whole body like a rag doll.

Let go of the stresses of the day by shaking them out. Release tensions and revive yourself. Shaking seems simple (and is) but is actually a powerful, effective Qigong technique. It relaxes and warms all of the muscles, organs, joints and fascia of the body and even the multitudes of cells of your body. Whole-body shaking is an excellent way to exercise and detoxify every cell of the body. Besides being an effective warm-up, Shaking the Body can make bone marrow strong, strengthen the spine, and support the kidneys and adrenal glands. In fact, every organ and tube in the body is enhanced by Shaking the Body. Lymph flow is enhanced so that more gunk is cleared out and your immune function improved. Blood flow increases and hormonal secretions will benefit your skin. Bouncing up and down like this also adjusts the magnetic field, organising and balancing it. Shaking can strengthen cells through the quick, extra force each shake places on the cells. It adds a sudden dollop of extra-gravitational force, creating a need for all of the cells to buck up. It can help sagging tissues regain or hold their tonicity.

It is highly recommended that you do it daily for at least for 5 minutes. It helps move the physical and mental energy through your body and get it where it needs to be. Put on your favourite music and shake those bones and enjoy!
Watch video demonstration with Dr Chiasson.

That admirable true Aussie spirit

Australian are very well regarded in the world for their good work ethics, easy going nature, friendliness, the "she will be right" attitude and good sense of humour. These qualities, although the way they were delivered many times were new to me, made me feel at home and comfortable when I moved to Australia.

In the last twenty-one years, my love and my admiration just grew for the true Aussie qualities and how Australians approach life. This absolutely does not mean that I am less "Hungarian" than I was or I don't respect and love my birth nation's qualities. Many times I wish, we could mould together the best of these two nations' best but that's a dream. Maybe, some of us will manage to come close to that.

I love working on how our daily mindset influences our view on life, the outcome of our days and activities. I know, how far myself I have come since moving to Down Under. It bothers me to see how even my own countrymen and women behave, talk and treat other people. How pickiness and constant criticism ruins their/our good time. How lack of kindness, lack of smile or lack of gratefulness or appreciation of another person's efforts is present in our contact with people. When I experience this, it makes me embarrassed and makes me apologise after, when I meet those same people again.

Certain individuals behave like they have the right to treat others disrespectfully, like they were born with more privileges and rights but with fewer or no duties. No wonder, people in frustration respond to them with racist-sounding comments and send them back where they or their parents and grandparents came from. I am not defending anyone. However, a whole nation needs to protect the true Aussie values and the true Aussie spirit.

Recent sport events in Wimbledon made me feel embarrassed. The childish and nasty tantrums thrown by our top tennis players like Nick Kyrgios's, bouncing his racket into crowd, picking and commenting on the umpire and displeased with the noise his Aussie supporters made was not Aussie temperament. It rather reminded me of a little boy who absolutely not in charge of his emotions and moods. Swearing and throwing the ball out of court in his frustration shows that he does not have a way of coping with the pressures of a game and he is not in control of his emotions. While his talent is unquestionable, certain aspects of his appearance right at the beginning demonstrated that we are dealing with a unique and strong individual, who needs and wants attention. Unfortunately, he has been attracting lately the wrong type of attention. All those fans, who excitedly followed his every move at the Australian Open, now turned away from him disappointedly. His behaviour even attracted an unfortunate comment from a well-respected olympic star, Dawn Fraser. While that comment came out racist, maybe it was a good thing for our young Kyrgios to realise that he was behaving badly and not making Australians proud. Even the sport is turning away from him.

Similarly, Novak Djokovic was loosing his cool and was yelling for towel at the ball girl in a moment of total destress. Bernard Tomic was not coping better with Wimbledon's pressures either. You could ask, what's going on with our Aussie tennis stars?

While I love sports, always watch the Australian Open, the Olympic Games, especially swimming, I rather do things than watch things on TV. I have a real issue with Australians being so obsessed with sports and with their athletes. I believe their are massively over-paid and elevated to celebrity status. In my opinion they do not contribute to society that much to deserve it, especially when you compare with other areas of our society when it comes to work, pay, respect and contributions.

It bothers me terribly that our TV news and all the newspapers also represent this view. Half the news and the newspapers are sport sections. It would be highly welcome I believe from a big part of our society if sport section would reduce in size and importance, giving way to the Arts, Science and community news.

Normally, I would stay away from expressing my thoughts publicly. However, this incident made me think. I was wondering, why did these incidents upset me so much that I came to write about it on my blog?

I feel that people who have certain privileges in life need to live up to that position. They owe society and the people who elevated them to that position to show a good example. Top athletes enjoy a lot of privileges in life. They are celebrities with elevated social status, lifestyle, connections, access to things the average citizen doesn't (for example a team of experts, top health care and special treatments), renumeration equivalent or more than the Prime Minister's and much more. It also proves that wealth and intelligence, especially emotional intelligence has no relations with each other.

When citizens were asked what professions they respect the most, after doctors and military officers came firefighters, scientists, followed by nurses and engineers. When you consider i,t money has nothing to do with it.

Those people who are constantly in the public's eye and unfortunately, due to media attention and our obsession with sports, our athletes, politicians and our celebrities have become the point of attention. These people have become the example of the younger generation, just because there is no better in the media and on Internet. In a way, it is a little sad world for those who don't have real passions and all consuming pastimes that introduces them to celebrities, away from the media attention. Artists, scientists, researchers, explorers and ordinary people who do extraordinary things in life. People who work hard and stay humble to serve the nation and the world. People, who not always earn a fortune or live their lives in the limelight. But they are around us, we just have to open our eyes and view the world with different eyes from how it is being presented to us by the media.

Work hard and stay humble. She will be right, mate!