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Creating Empowering Daily Rituals
“Through the ancient teachings of yoga, we know that our thoughts lead to actions; our actions become habits; our habits form our character; and our character determines our destiny. Daily ritual is the act of taking positive thoughts and putting them into action.” Transform Your Life With the Power of Ritual By Bhava Ram (www.chopra.com) Our hectic lifestyles often leave us stuck in a cycle of stress and overwhelm. We perform daily tasks mindlessly as we let life just happen around us. It becomes difficult to make any life changes because we are physically and emotionally disconnected from our true self. As a result, we can no longer tap into our innate ability for personal growth and healing. Rituals are a vibrational expression that activate our inner power. We create them in order to shift our energy towards a greater connectedness to ourselves. They are a set of specific actions performed daily that have strong personal meaning for us. What separates rituals from habits is intention. We become consciously aware of each action we take and what meaning it has for us. Habits are usually performed unconsciously but are just as important because they provide safety and structure to our [...]
The True Essence of Holism
Holism is from the Greek word holos, which means "all, whole, entire. Holism is a philosophy of life that relates to viewing the body and its properties as a whole system and not the sum of its parts. If you remember, the life wheel includes the physical, emotional, social, career, creativity, and family aspects of our life. These are the different properties of a whole person. The term holistic health and holistic medicine are often used interchangeably to describe a system of care that integrates all these properties and does not focus solely on the part of the body that is not well. However , his is often not the case. The phrase holistic health is often misused. Many believe that if we use a complementary modality or an unconventional approach to an illness, we are being holistic. But we are still focusing on a single problem and not the whole person. Holistic health is not the type of modality, but rather the approach. In his article Holistic Health and Medicine in the 1980's, David Teegarden, MD wrote "In aiming to foster the natural healing process, holistic does not espouse to foster one method over another, but rather encompasses all safe methods of diagnosis and treatment-including medication [...]
Free Medication Manager
At home medication errors have endangered the lives of thousands of people each year resulting in ER visits, hospitalizations, and even death. For a variety of reasons, people forget or misuse their medications. It is important that you become good self managers of your total health care. We want to provide you with the rights tool and resources that will help you better understand what your health care needs and how to take care of them. Taking medication properly can make a significant difference in your health outcome, and the quality of your life. This is very important to us and therefore Health Promotion Associates is providing you with a free medication manager. Go to www.healthpromotionassociates.com and sign up to receive your free medication manager.
The Role of Self-Efficacy in Health
Hidden away in our subconscious are the beliefs by which we live. We make decisions every day based on these beliefs without thinking about them. What happens when these beliefs are challenged? Do we shy away from a challenge because we doubt our abilities, or do we welcome the challenge and rise to the occasion? What is Self-Efficacy Self-efficacy is a person’s belief, or confidence, in his or her ability to be successful in certain situations. The concept of self-efficacy, a core aspect of social cognitive theory, originated from psychologist Albert Bandura. According to Bandura, self-efficacy has an impact on all aspects of our lives; emotional, psychological, motivational, and is a strong predictor of behavior change. Self-efficacy beliefs, or self- perceptions, provide the foundation for well-being, personal accomplishments, and life choices. A person with a high sense of self-efficacy approach tasks as a challenge rather than a threat to be avoided. They set challenging goals, maintain a strong sense of commitment to them, and recover after setbacks or failures attributing these failures to lack of knowledge and skills which can be acquired (Bandura 1977). Overall, self-efficacy is concerned with people’s beliefs in their capabilities to exercise control over their functioning [...]
The Art of Self-Management: What is it and Why you need it
With an average of 15 minutes allowed for a medical office visit, most of a person's health care happens outside the doctor's office. Self-management is a key component in effectively managing health, whether preventing disease or managing a chronic illness. Self-management goes beyond traditional health education that focuses on disease-specific self-care interventions. As a multi-faceted approach to health, self-management builds skills in self-monitoring, problem-solving, self- efficacy, decision-making, and communication, and then actively applies them to health-related situations. Practicing self-management improves the exchange of information between the person and their health providers. The person becomes their own health advocate to get the best and most appropriate care for themselves, which improves health outcomes. The aim of self-management is to empower an individual to take control of their health. Using self-management techniques, a person can detect changes in their health and take the necessary action to prevent it from becoming a chronic condition. Practicing self-management improves the ability of a person to manage a chronic illness, making cognitive, emotional, and behavior changes necessary to improve their quality of life. It means being an active participant by asking questions, appointing a health advocate and taking them with you to your appointments, understanding your medications, learning about your chronic illness, and [...]
How Often Does One Plan for Health?
Contributed by Laura R. Novakowski Why is our health always the last consideration? It seems that most often we plan vacations and parties. Next, we plan for schools, careers and retirement? However, studies too numerous to mention indicate that most people don't proactively plan for health until they are struck by a disease. Now, consider this… Building a Well Workplace: Six Reasons Why Health Promotion Makes Good Business Sense Source: WELCOA - http://www.welcoa.org/wellworkplace/index.php?cat=1&page=1 REASON #1: Although we spend more dollars on health care than any other industrialized nation, our citizens are not the worlds healthiest. REASON #2: Much of the illness in the US is directly preventable. REASON #3: Healthcare costs are an issue of significant concern. REASON #4: The work-site is an ideal setting to address health and well-being. REASON #5: Recent empirical research validates that health promotion programs can improve health, save money and even produce a return on investment. REASON #6: More and more companies are building world-class wellness programs. Finding the Right Tools Finding the right resources, products and services now seem significantly more important. The right tools don't have to be costly. In fact, the costs of them are significantly lower than the cost of hospitalization, rehabilitation and medications. [...]