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The needle in the haystack: The Nutrition Source from the Harvard School of Public Health

5/5/2013

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Searching for useful and reliable nutritional information is like hunting down a needle in a haystack. 

In my experience, sifting through diet fads and way too many "superfood" ads for reliable scientific guidance on how to nourish my body so it will look good, feel good and perform to a high standard has been tedious and often frustrating . . . until I discovered The Nutrition Source, a free online resource from the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. 

Here's the web address: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/ 

The Nutrition Source is a valuable resource from one of the world's most reputable primary sources of scientific and empirical information. 


No single resource that I've come across provides similarly accurate and comprehensive core nutritional information. 

The central feature of The Nutrition Source is The Healthy Eating Plate, which provides fundamental information for creating a nutritionally complete meal, as well as some tips on common unhealthy food choices.
Healthy eating plate, Harvard Nutrition
Some of the website's additional features include simple explanations of the essential nutrition components, such as carbs, fat, protein and vitamins and minerals with more useful information on how to select healthy sources of each. 

The Home Cooking section helps you bring these ideas off the page and onto your table with breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes. 
There's an equally useful section explaining the ABCs of achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight. 

Another extensive section on proper exercise explains the requisite time and intensity for producing noticeable fitness benefits and gives practical tips for creating an active lifestyle to preserve and add to the fitness gains you've already achieved.

The Frequently Asked Questions section is useful for both the nutritional novice looking to learn the basics and the food fanatic looking to micro-manage their diet for optimum health. The Nutrition Index expands the FAQ section by providing insights into many other nutrition issues that might have piqued your interest or generated concern. The site also provides links to equally reliable books, research, reports and news related to health and fitness for further learning. 

The bottom line is this: Your time is precious and it should be enjoyed. 
Good health is wealth. It's a currency you can spend on acquiring the experiences you want most in life. 

The PATH² exists to help you do that by distilling the confusing and often contradictory information about health (and other aspects of quality of life) in the media down to an essence of the most valuable – accurate, practical and concise –  information for creating a life you love to live. 

This post represents a limb on the tree of a healthy, happy life that will branch out over the next several weeks. Subjects such as the nutritionally complete meal, essential nutrition components, home cooking and achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight will be unpacked in a clear, concise way for you to easily incorporate into your life as it presently exists. So if you don't follow the links in this post you won't miss anything if you keep reading the Good News. 
 
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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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Values: the key to contentment

4/28/2013

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Values are what matter most in life.

They are the notches on the yardstick we use to measure the success of our own lives.

When our lives reflect our values, we experience contentment. When our lives and our values are in conflict we experience stress, or even distress if they’re far out of alignment.

We don’t think about our values in day-to-day life. They can seem abstract, whereas ordinary life is usually practical. But that doesn’t mean that we should lose sight of them.

Have you ever gone through the process of identifying your individual values in order of importance?

Awareness always precedes effective action. In order to create greater harmony between your life and your values, you first have to be aware of your values. 

If you are already keenly aware of what matters most to you, have you successfully incorporated those values into your daily life?

In the quest for greater contentment the aim of action is to fill your time with valuable experiences. Because a life that embodies your values generates massive contentment.

To achieve that you must first be aware of how your time is used now. 
Then you can compare that to your most authentic life, the ideal life that enables full expression of your values. Knowledge of how your reality and your ideal differ enables you to consider practical ways to close the gap. Finally, you can act on your insights with a plan to begin making the necessary changes to increase your quality of life.

I have created a Values Hierarchy Exercise (VHE) out of my research and experience to serve as a guide for this whole process. I’ve used it several times and it’s invaluable for illuminating those deeper aspects of quality of life. I recently revised it into the Values Hierarchy Exercise 
– Expanded Edition to make it an easy to use tool for you to use, too.
When you complete this exercise, allow your mind to be free of limitations and acknowledge the importance of your feelings. The VHE is an exercise of becoming reacquainted with your deepest self. Don’t hold back. Be honest. Be thorough. Be excited about your future. 
The PATH² Values Hierarchy Exercise – Expanded Edition
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File Type: pdf
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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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This part of you is eternally perfect

4/22/2013

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Normally, the feeling of perfection exists only in moments.

But there is a feeling of sustained perfection to be found within you.

This feeling is very similar to what would normally be described as perfect. But it’s different to what we call perfection in that it doesn’t depend on anything external (victory, accomplishment, someone else) and that it lasts indefinitely.

While I imagine there are various ways to experience this, the only one that I am familiar with is meditation.

There’s a point in meditation where the physical boundaries of your body disappear. It might be similar to being in 98.6° water. The feeling of where your body begins and ends, where it is separated from your environment, literally disappears.

Likewise, there’s a point in meditation where the mind effectively disappears. At the beginning of meditation practice the mind is full of thoughts, as usual. If the stream of thoughts passing through the mind is like water flowing from a faucet, the act of meditating effectively closes the tap and the thought flow becomes a trickle, then a drip. The spaces separating droplets of thought continue to increase until thoughts stop flowing altogether.

When the body and the mind disappear (not objectively, but relative to your perception) a feeling of absolute completeness emerges from the void.The feeling is one just like perfection experienced through action or engaging your senses with the world, but this feeling lasts longer than a fleeting moment. The feeling is accompanied by the realization that while you could open your eyes, get up and go do something, nothing you can experience “out there” will compare to the experience you are having “in here.”

You can experience this sustained perfection whenever you like because it’s a permanent part of you. Just as you are a physical body and a mind with thoughts and emotions, you are also this extremely subtle, yet unquestionably real essence.

It’s there right now, as always, but it’s hidden under your thoughts and sensations. Every time you go deep inside you’ll find it the same; perfect.

And when you experience it enough you’ll know that it’s as much a part of you as your hands are a part of your body and your personality is a part of your mind. You’ll know that a part of you is perfect.

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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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One Love

4/17/2013

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We were made to love. To want and need to give and receive it. 

Love is an infinitely renewable resource. Giving love produces love. Receiving love produces love. 

Love, as opposed to lust, is also a feeling of connection. It's gratitude for the existence of someone or something. And it's the source of a selfless wish that all will be well. 

Only when we lose the love of ourselves can we begin to hate each other. Love is lost to ignorance of our inherent perfection and unity in life. 

Try hard to nurture love whenever it can be found like an ember you can delicately coax into a flame that will grow into a warming glow for everyone to gather around. 

Strive to periodically return to the peaceful stillness underneath your thoughts and actions where love waits to refresh your spirit. 

Be curious about yourself, the world and the people you share it with and you'll invariably discover something that pulls on your heart strings. 

Try to lose your sense of individual self by doing something altruistic, however big or small, and you'll find the great connection among us all. 

However it speaks to you, act upon "A five-word sentence that could change the world tomorrow [which] is 'What would love do now?'"  – Neale Donald Walsch

Read the classic, The Art of Loving, by Psychologist Erich Fromme for an insightful description of the history and variety of the greatest human emotion and how to cultivate it to enrich your life and the world. 

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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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Flow: The perfect experience

4/14/2013

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Britney Spears once expressed a truly brilliant insight (seriously!) that applies to us all: “I wanna get in the zone.”

The Gatorade commercial from the 1990s featuring Michael Jordan that had people saying “I’d like to be like Mike” was sensationally popular because it tapped into the same thing: our desire to get in the zone, which during that era was embodied most visibly by MJ on the basketball court.

Likewise, the comparably popular Nike golf commercial where a diverse group of people spoke the same line “I am Tiger Woods” targeted exactly the same psychology. Tiger dominated the game of golf so thoroughly in the early 2000s that he single-handedly made golf cool
 – almost. No mean feat. So how did he do it? Because in Tiger Woods the golfer we saw someone completely in the zone, dominating not just the golf course and the field but also the apparent limitations of body and mind.  It's a deeply alluring trait.

The zone, known as flow in psychology circles, is so attractive that we will happily live vicariously through someone who we see in it, like Tiger or Michael. Flow liberates the spirit from the confines of the body and mind so completely that people often describe the experience as out-of-body and as being unconscious. The result is nothing short of euphoria. Even when the experience is second hand we still feel it and love it.

But we don't have to rely on others to feel that thrill. Everyone can get in the flow, not just ultra-elite performers. In fact, there are as many entry points to the flow as there are individuals.

Enter flow by following your passion. Search your past and identify an activity you have found so engaging that minutes passed like seconds or hours like minutes. It will have involved these four elements: 1. your skills, 2. values, 3. interests and 4. a challenge. 

Finding your entry to the flow is that simple. However, there aren't very many qualifying experiences. That scarcity contributes to its value, so appreciate it. 

    Where Flow Lives

Picture
Then commit 100% to experiencing it again. Eliminate distractions. Focus intensely. Look for that elusive, magical quality in the details of whatever it is you’re doing and you’ll find it. 

For more insights from science and experience read Flow: The Psychology of Optimum Experience. 

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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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The difference between mindfulness and meditation

4/10/2013

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These two words, mindfulness and meditation, are often used interchangeably, but they are not synonyms.

Both involve heightened states of awareness. Both are beneficial in myriad ways. And that’s where the similarities end.

Mindfulness is about noticing the interplay between you and your environment, whereas meditation is about immersing yourself in the world deep within yourself.

The aim of a mindfulness practice is to notice what’s happening now, as opposed to thinking about the past or the future. You can practice mindfulness while you’re doing other things like driving, conversing and eating.

Developing a mindfulness practice is as simple as focusing your attention on one, some or all of the following:
  • What do you see, hear, smell and feel around you? 
  • What sensations do you feel on the exterior and the interior of your body?
  • What thoughts are flowing through your mind? 
  • What feelings do you have about your surroundings, sensations and thoughts? 

Do that and voila! You’re practicing mindfulness.

You can know that you’ve developed a strong mindfulness practice when you find yourself in the flow and can return there often.

The concept of flow, i.e. being in the zone, is a deep form of mindfulness that we’re probably all familiar with. Whether it’s playing an instrument, a sport, or something else, nothing exists outside of the flow, not the audience or the noise in the arena. Not even the arena. Flow is complete absorption in the task at hand. That’s as close as mindfulness comes to meditation.

When it comes to meditation there is no task.

A quick, but important mention about the word meditation: It’s Latin for “deep contemplation.” Compare that to the Sanskrit word dhyana, which is a state of consciousness beyond the thinking mind. I’m actually speaking about dhyana, here. But I don’t want to complicate an already subtle subject, so I’m using meditation, instead. 

The practice leading to meditation is about stilling the mind. Activity, even if it can be performed without concentrating, such as something habitual like walking, engages the mind. Therefore, the practice leading to meditation is a solitary one. You can’t meditate while you’re doing other things, either physically or mentally. That’s why it often happens seated in silence with eyes closed.

Yet even sitting crossed legged with your eyes closed is no guarantee you’ll enter a state of meditation. If you’re noticing your legs aching and the wind whistling through the trees you’re not meditating. But you are practicing mindfulness, which is actually good preparation for the practice leading to meditation.

More specifically, this is how a mindfulness practice can evolve into a meditation practice. First, practice mindfulness to develop your ability to focus. It doesn’t matter what on. The aim is to restrain the mind from roaming boundlessly. Next, narrow the focus of your attention by concentrating on an object. Begin with a physical object. Try selecting one with either a positive connotation or none at all. When you can concentrate for a sustained period of time, switch the object of your attention to something subtler, like a sound or a simple concept. Next, remove that focal point and focus on either your ability to focus or nothing at all. After focus becomes both the subject and the object of your attention, relinquish the effort to focus at all. Eventually, subject and object merge into One.

When your attention dissolves in a formless, timeless realm that “feels” complete you’re in meditation. That state can’t easily be described with words because words are a tool of the intellect and meditation is a state beyond the intellect. Nevertheless, you’ll know when you’re there.

Practice mindfulness and you'll eventually experience meditation, which yields profound enjoyment of the gift of simply being alive.

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BODY – MIND - SPIRIT

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Who am I? When was the last time you asked yourself?

4/7/2013

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Many spiritual teachers and philosophers have emphasized the value of finding the answer to this question, or at least seeking to answer it.

Some have even said that within the answer to this question lie the answers to all others.

If you haven’t sought to answer it, the world has probably attempted to answer it for you. But the only label that really matters is the one you give yourself. 

Usually our label or identity speaks to the way our bodies look and the things it can do, or our minds – our personalities and ideas, and/or our relations to others.

In defining ourselves we rarely consider our spiritual identities. That's because it's just not practical. Or is it?

Unlike a body or mind-centered identity, which reinforces the idea of separateness and individuality, having a strong spiritual identity expands the notion of who we are.

Spirit has an ethereal quality that permeates the fibers from which the sense-based world is woven. It is the underlying essence of all that appears to be real.

Connecting with this makes us also feel more connected to each other and the rest of creation. It helps us to appreciate that some part of us is also a part of everything else. 

Experiencing life through the lens of a spiritual identity helps us understand Ramana Maharshi, a spiritual luminary, when he said, “There are no others.” He is directing our attention away from our apparently separate existences to point out that we are just different leaves on different branches of the same tree of life. True separateness is merely an illusion.

What does this mean in day-to-day life? There can be no loneliness, even in times of being alone. There are no true adversaries. There is only unity in diversity, a common ground from which we’ve grown and are sustained.

If you want a rational, Western explanation of the Self as spirit, I highly recommend Fritjof Capra’s classic, The Tao of Physics.

Or connect with some of your contemporaries to learn their thoughts and feelings on the matter. TED Conversations: The Age Old Question: “Who am I?”

So who are you?

I’d love to hear how you answer that question. 


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BODY – MIND – SPIRIT 

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Quiet your body and mind to hear the whisper of your heart

4/3/2013

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This Electronic Age is one of hyper-stimulation, which often leads to technostress.

Our minds were built with a tendency to roam back to the past and ahead to the future, grabbing fistfuls of random information from the thought atmosphere along the way. That’s nothing new.

But due to the relatively recent availability of 24/7 Internet access via the array of digital devices many of us have, we are constantly exposing ourselves to an endless supply of increasingly vivid sensory stimulation. 

With a helping hand from caffeine, the world's most widely used psychoactive substance, our mind's appetite for stimulation has grown increasingly voracious and difficult to tame.

We have faster, longer and more intense cycles of information consumption. Our mental activity is nearly incessant and leaves residual internal background noise that means more and more of us are losing the ability to turn the volume down and enjoy inner peace and quiet.

Long ago, our ancestors identified this problem and also developed a solution: seclusion and quiet contemplation. Wise people have been relying on it for centuries as a way to slow the world down to a manageable speed, clear out a crowded mind and gain clarity and insight. And it works as well now as it has in the past.

Unplug from the world whizzing around you for a short time and enjoy the experience of a self-imposed power outage. Turn off your phone. Yes, it does have an off button. It’s the one that looks unused. Let the caffeine wear off (as a bonus, the next coffee or soda you drink will feel extra strong). This will help quiet your mind.

Then listen for the silence underlying all the sounds around and within you. You will be able to hear the whisper of your heart. It’s a sweet sound. And it carries a very nice message that’s worth listening to.

Try it and tell me what you hear.

BODY – MIND – SPIRIT

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The mind is a tool with its inherent limitations. Its domain is relative reality. Go beyond the mind to know absolute reality.

4/1/2013

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“I think therefore I am.” –  René Descartes

Descartes wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t totally right, either. You are much more than you think.

Thinking is a function of the intellect and we are capable of much more.

We’d all agree that an open mind is a good thing, right?

The more open it is, the wider our view of the world and the richer our experiences.

The extreme of an open mind is meditation. Meditation is not the process of sitting cross-legged with eyes closed. It’s the result of the process of opening your mind.

Sometimes we think the world is full of darkness. But that’s because we have our hands covering our eyes. As we spread our fingers a little light makes it through, but the view between them is obscured and confusing. Meditation is a view of the world that we attain when all obstructions are removed.

BODY – MIND --> SPIRIT 

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Top 5 positive actions to increase your happiness

3/27/2013

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"The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal." The United Nations

From The Happy Planet Index

  1. Connect with loved ones. Spending time sharing in other people's lives and allowing them to share in yours satisfies our innate human need for positive social interaction. 
  2. Be physically active, especially outdoors. Fresh air and vigorous movement rejuvenates the body and releases hormones that improve mood. 
  3. Notice. Heightening your awareness of the present moment helps draws your attention to the numerous little blessings you're graced with that otherwise go overlooked.
  4. Keep learning. Do this all life long. There's strong evidence that curiosity, not even necessarily formal learning, helps maintain mental health, particularly as we age. 
  5. Give. Altruism in all its forms - thoughts, words and actions - is pound-for-pound the greatest investment you can make in your happiness. Read my recent post about all the benefits here.

Do you like to be happy? Would you like to live in a happier world? Then join the tribe that's ushering in that new reality. 
And . . .

Watch Nic Mark’s TED talk about the Happy Planet Index and why it's advancing the movement to replace Gross Domestic Product with Gross National Happiness as the standard by which our nations set development policy and judge progress. 

Read the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's remarks about the urgent need to replace our singularly economic standard of development and progress with a humanitarian standard that acknowledges the basic human need and desire to love the lives we live. 

Follow The PATH² to attaining total health and happiness. 

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