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If you have been following this series on the health benefits of meditation, then hopefully you have given meditation a go by now, and as you meditate and relax, you may well have asked yourself ‘What is actually happening here?’

What is happening is this – The Relaxation Response is kicking in, thanks to your Parasympathetic Nervous System, which is the opposite of your Sympathetic Nervous System.

When you meditate, or rest effectively, the Parasympathetic Nervous System takes over and gets to work reversing the ‘flight or fight’ stress response, counteracting its effects, relaxing the mind and taking your body on a healing journey back to a balanced state of homeostasis.

This is the Relaxation Response. It is proven scientific fact.

This is the single most tangible thing that beginning a regular practice of meditation can do for you and your health. Meditation can be of great help if you are a person who has trouble switching off the mind and unwinding. Even if you are a fairly chilled-out person, you will still benefit from the deeper levels of relaxation, and the healing that this will encourage.

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Image courtesy of Striatic

Have you ever entered a chatroom and found yourself sharing things (that you could never discuss face to face) with a bunch of strangers? Have you ever poured your soul out on your blog, writing about your deepest fears, most powerful dreams, or secret shames? Have you ever stayed up long into the night, chatting to people online – without even knowing their real names, ages, genders or anything about them?

You’re in good company; most other internet users have done the same. Online space acts as a disinhibitor; like alcohol, it encourages us to be more sociable and less wary than we would be normally.

“Cyberspace is a disinhibitor. … People from many cultures find that online they are more open, more chatty, less reticent than they are face-to-face or even on the telephone.” - Kate Fox, Watching the English (book), pg 226

If you’re a shy, reserved person, but find yourself opening up to the world online, this explains why. It can be a huge delight – but also a danger. Here’s how to make sure you avoid the problems that can arise from the lack of inhibitions you feel online – and how to make the most of it instead.

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There’s a lot of talk about what you should do to become successful, but I would argue that it’s more about who you are that makes the biggest impact.  It’s the decisions we make on a daily basis, the habits we naturally form in our lives that determine the level of success we can achieve.  Who we are determines how we react to life, even when we’re not consciously in the act of ‘being successful’.

So here are 10 traits that I’ve seen as essential for obtaining lasting success in any endeavor.

1. An Independent Nature

If we rely too much on those around us for assistance and/or support we will be setting ourselves up for disappointment in the future.  This is not to say that we shouldn’t look to others for help when the time is right, but crafting our pursuits in such a way that requires the intervention of another is like handing over the keys and getting in the back seat.  Our friends and colleagues may help open the doors of opportunity, but it is our own responsibility to take the wheel.

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Image courtesy of Sir Mervs

The only reason people ever really do anything is due to motivation.  It may be our work, our hobbies, our relationships or even our chores, but one way or another, there is motivation that drives us to do the things we do.  This article is about finding out where this motivation comes from and how to develop it internally.

Two types of Motivation

There are only two types of motivation. You can label them whatever you like, but one type is positive and one type is negative.  I’ve learned to consider them to be even more basic than that: pain and pleasure.   EVERYTHING we do, think and believe has some kind of foundation in pain and pleasure. 

Each person has, of course, a completely different view of what pain and pleasure is. But the same factors exist to steer and motivate us based on what we think we can get out of it.  Most of these associations with pain and pleasure are buried in our subconscious minds and, unfortunately, most people never realize this. Instead, they go through life on autopilot.

Despite this, you can easily learn to shift the associated pains and pleasures in your favor and put more attention to the ones you want to change.  So, how you do that is important to explore…

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As infants, we’re presented with a strange new world to discover. And with nothing else to do, we dive in headfirst, devoting all our time to learning how to use our five senses. At first we appear completely hopeless, not even realizing that our arms and legs are parts of our body. But soon enough, we start figuring some things out. Within a few months, we learn how to recognize faces better than a computer can. Our rate of learning in those early days is truly extraordinary if you think about it.

As kids, the world is our classroom. First we learn some basics like how to sit Indian style, how to hold a crayon, how to cross the street, and how to share. Not to mention learning thousands and thousands of words. We get older and learn about Romeo and Juliet, World War II, and photosynthesis. Every year, we can look back on ourselves the year before and be amazed at how much we’ve learned. In college, things get a lot more specialized, but we’re still continuing to learn all that we can.

And then, we just stop.

42% of all college graduates never read another book again. Ever. But continuous learning is vital to making the most of what the world has to offer. You could say that it’s what separates us from the animals. And there is evidence to suggest that it plays a role in staving off mental diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Here are some ways to make sure you don’t break the habit of learning that most people abandon after graduation.

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Image courtesy of Mugley.

Right now, the news coverage is overloaded with stories about the economy.  This is completely understandable, because recently there have been some very interesting developments in the global economy.  What’s unfortunate about the media coverage is that the majority of it is focused on trying to “make sense” of the current situation. Sadly, that approach just seems to be causing more and more confusion and panic. Personally, I believe in the concept that one should focus 10% on the problem and 90% on the solution.

Crystal Ball Gazing

We have “experts” looking at the past, comparing it to the current situation and then extrapolating what this will mean for the future.  I find this approach very interesting because almost every financial prospectus comes with the fine-print warning that past performance does not predict future results. Just because something happened in the 1930’s does not mean that it is directly relevant to our present-day situation.

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Image of a defibrillator courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Lists of seven ways to improve yourself are popular on the web. Here is a seven-item list that could save lives. But first a little background.

A few days ago in Russia, one of the most promising young hockey players in the world, Alexei Cherepanov, died when his heart stopped working during a game in the Russian elite Continental Hockey League. Apparently there was one non-functioning defibrillator in the building.

How may people know what a defibrillator is and how to us one? A week ago I didn’t. Now I do. Here is my story and I hope it helps someone some day.

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It is a common occurrence when someone is trying to take a step up in terms of their diet or exercise regime for unexpected saboteurs to appear. Most often the source of the sabotage is those who we had expected the greatest support from. This includes our partner, our mother or our best friend. Usually they do have our best interests at heart. Regardless, they often advise against what may appear to them to be an extreme or unusual path that we have chosen.

The result of this sabotage is doubt. We begin to question our own decisions. Perhaps I shouldn’t push myself quite so hard when I exercise. Maybe it is ok to break out of my dietary plan every now and again. Do I really want to continue with this fast? I’ve seen it happen and experienced it myself on numerous occasions. The disapproval of others, particularly those closest to us, however misguided and uninformed, can take the wind right out of our sails.

While this issue rears its head most often along the path of physical health it is also not uncommon on the journey of personal development. If you have experienced this problem you should know that you are neither alone nor is it a new problem. The ancient philosophers in their love of wisdom (the definition of philosophy) observed its occurrence in their own time.

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Meditation promotes good health by fighting off the adverse effects of stress – but what is stress anyway?

Stress is the response to a situation that motivates us to perform an action – whether that be fleeing from an attacker, worrying, or just mowing the lawn.

How Your Body Reacts to Stress.

If you become stressed (even mildly) your Sympathetic Nervous System works to cause you to act appropriately. Hormones like adrenaline and others kick in; we get excited or anxious; muscles tighten; blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate rises. We use up more energy. This is the “Fight or Flight Response”.

Whether it be a small event or a life-threatening one, our bodies respond to stress in a similar way. The difference is that the level of response adjusts to meet the perceived level of threat.

This system can get out of whack and people may find they are overreacting to some of the smaller stressors of life.

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Sometimes simple stories have deep lessons. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” is a popular story for children, but it also has a hidden productivity lesson for all of us.

We all know about Goldilocks and the porridge. When she tried the first bowl, it was too hot. When she tried the second bowl, it was too cold. And of course, the third bowl was just right. It was perfectly obvious, even to her, that “just right” is what any reasonable person should be after.

Maximum sustainable output

There’s a concept in economics known as the maximum sustainable output. A country’s maximum sustainable output is the highest level of output it can sustain in the long run. It’s not a hard limit on output, and in fact a country can easily raise its output above this level. A common situation for this is during wartime, when a country may ramp up production dramatically to support the war effort.

However, if the maximum sustainable output is exceeded, the output has to come crashing down at some point (after all, by definition, that level of output is not sustainable). After this happens, the country has to slog through a long period of low output. The worst part is that the bust is always bigger than the boom.

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