1. Turn a salad into "dinner" by adding a protein-rich food. This balances the carbohydrates in the salad and helps stave off hunger for hours. It can be as easy as:

• Adding leftover chicken, shrimp, salmon, or lean steak from last night's barbecue.
• Opening a can of beans (kidney, garbanzo, or black beans).
• Dicing smoked or baked tofu or adding cooked edamame (green soybeans).
• Tossing in diced, reduced-fat cheese (try reduced-fat Jack or cheddar, part-skim mozzarella, fresh mozzarella, or soy-based cheeses).

2. Boost the smart-fat quotient by using canola oil or olive oil in your dressing. Canola oil is pumped with monounsaturated fats, and has more healthy omega-3 fatty acids than other cooking oils. Olive oil contains mostly monounsaturated fat, and also contributes helpful phytochemicals. If you're using a bottled dressing, check the label to make sure it uses either canola or olive oil.

3. Lighten up your homemade dressing by substituting a flavorful, liquid-type ingredient for half (or more) of the oil. Try fat-free sour cream; plain yogurt; fruit juice or fruit nectars; tomato, carrot or V-8 juice; honey or light corn syrup (eliminate any sugar called for in the recipe if you use these); wine, champagne, or nonalcoholic beer; or low-sodium chicken broth.

4. Lighten up regular (that is, not light) bottled salad dressing. Just blend a tablespoon of the dressing (per serving) with a tablespoon of any of the oil substitutes listed above. For example, whisk 1/4 cup of Gerard's Caesar Salad dressing with 1/4 cup of apple juice or champagne. Or blend 1/4 cup of raspberry or Italian vinaigrette with 1/4 cup raspberry or cherry juice.

5. Try some new salad recipes instead of the traditional, mayo-drenched coleslaw and potato salad. Pesto sauce blended with condensed chicken broth, fat-free sour cream, or fat free half-and-half makes a fun and different dressing. Bottled or homemade vinaigrettes can be used as dressing for pasta and potato salads and coleslaw.

6. When you DO make a mayonnaise-based salad, lighten it up by mixing regular or light mayonnaise with your favorite fat-free or light sour cream. I like to use about 1 tablespoon of regular mayonnaise with 3 tablespoons of fat-free sour cream, or 2 tablespoons of light mayonnaise with 2 tablespoons of fat-free sour cream.

7. Perk up pasta and rice salads by tossing in crunchy veggies. They'll add fiber and nutrients without a lot of calories. Snow peas, cherry tomato halves, broccoli or cauliflower florets, green onions, bell peppers ... they all work great.

8. Try the new whole-wheat pasta blends for your pasta-salad recipes, and brown rice for your rice-salad recipes. You'll increase the fiber, vitamins, and minerals and phytochemicals just by making this adjustment.

9. Use dark green lettuce for your green salad. The darker green the lettuce, generally the more vitamins and phytochemicals it contains. Two of the best choices are spinach and romaine lettuce. And while it isn't dark green, cabbage is also a good choice. As a member of the cruciferous vegetable family, it contributes important protective phytochemicals such as indole-3-carbinol.

10. Kick the flavor up a notch with high-flavor (but lower calorie) ingredients like dill pickle relish, fresh herbs and spices, spicy mustard, flavored vinegars (such as balsamic vinegar), green onions, or a handful of toasted nuts or a tablespoon or two of chopped green olives (a little goes a long way).





The Benefits of Meditation

Meditation can help most people feel less anxious and more in control. The awareness that meditation brings can also be a source of personal insight and self-understanding.

Enjoying Life:

Dr. Borysenko notes that "meditation may lead to a breakdown of screen memories so that early childhood abuse episodes and other traumas suddenly flood the mind, making the patient temporarily more anxious until these traumas are healed. Many so-called meditation exercises are actually forms of imagery and visualization that are extraordinarily useful in healing old traumas, confronting death anxieties, finishing 'old business', learning to forgive, and enhancing self-esteem."

"Meditation frees persons from tenacious preoccupation with the past and future and allows them to fully experience life's precious moments", says Daeja Napier, founder of the Insight Meditation Center and lay dharma teacher of insight meditation in suburban Boston.

"Many men and women tend to live in a state of perpetual motion and expectation that prevents them from appreciating the gifts that each moment gives us," says Napier. "We live life in a state of insufficiency, waiting for a mother to love us, for a father to be kind to us, for the perfect job or home, for Prince Charming to come along or to become a perfect person. It's a mythology that keeps us from being whole.

"Meditation is a humble process that gently returns us to the now of our lives and allows us to wake up and re-evaluate the way that we live our lives," says Napier. "We realize that the only thing missing is mindfulness, and that's what we practice."

Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are hallmarks of depression-the nation's most prevalent mental health problem. Meditation increases self-confidence and feelings of connection to others. Many studies have shown that depressed people feel much better after eliciting the relaxation response.

Sometimes anxiety becomes paralyzing and people feel (wrongly) that they are about to suffer some horrible fate. Panic attacks are often treated with drugs, but studies by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester and director of the medical center's Stress Reduction Clinic, show that if people who are prone to panic attacks begin focused, meditative breathing the instant they feel the first signs of an episode, they are less likely to have a full-blown panic attack

The longer an individual practices meditation, the greater the likelihood that his or her goals and efforts will shift toward personal and spiritual growth. Many individuals who initially learn meditation for its self-regulatory aspects find that as their practice deepens they are drawn more and more into the realm of the "spiritual."

In her work with many cancer and AIDS patients, Dr. Borysenko has observed that many are most interested in meditation as a way of becoming more attuned to the spiritual dimension of life. She reports that many die "healed," in a state of compassionate self-awareness and self-acceptance.

"It doesn't seem to matter what type of medical condition brings people to the Stress Reduction Clinic," Dr. Kabat-Zinn observes. "Over the eight-week program, they usually report a reduction in symptoms."

The Power of Positive Thinking

Positive Thinking

Avoid negative thoughts of powerlessness, dejection, failure, and despair. Chronic stress make us vulnerable to negative suggestion. Learn to focus on positives.

* Focus on your strengths
* Learn from the stress you are under
* Look for opportunities in a stressful situation
* Seek out the positive - make the change

Here is one way to get out of the destructive negative thinking habits. All possible situations we face can be classified into two categories:

One: Situations where we can do something about to change the outcome. In this case, don’t just sit there and worry about it. Go ahead and take care of it. You have control. Procrastination is the root cause for many stressful episodes.

Second: Situations where you have no control on the outcome. In this case sitting and worrying will not make any difference on the outcome. So, don’t worry about it. Let the situation resolve by itself; you cannot do anything about this anyway.

Dean Ornish talked about how our culture teaches us to dwell on the high stress activities. He gave this example: Two Arabs took their Mercedes car out for a spin in the desert. Although there probably was not another car in the 10-mile radius, these two guys managed to have a head-on collision. Now, if this happened in the USA or many other parts of the world, the drivers will be getting out of the car and showering each other with abuses, threats and remind the other person how stupid he was to cause the accident. What did the Arabs do after they had their cars totaled? They rush out of their cars, run to each other; hugs and says, "This is great! Allah, wanted us to meet."

The key to moving on is forgiveness--of self and others. Although it is a waste of energy to worry about future events over which we have no control, it is human nature to do so. Plan and prioritize as best you can, and then be easy on yourself'. The future hasn't happened, and the past is not going to happen again. In the words of Ram Dass, "Be here now." You can start by recognizing and accepting when a situation is beyond your control.

And keep on practicing. Pythagoras said, "Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. Custom will soon render it easy and agreeable. "Just as patterns and habits can trap us when we let them, we can make them our well-worn path to happiness and satisfaction.

The "Serenity Prayer" of theologian Rheinhold Niebuhr, adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, reflects this so well:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference-

living one day at a time;

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardships as the pathway to peac

Another important sense is the sense of humor. In breathing new life into the old wisdom that "laughter is the best medicine," the late Norman Cousins transformed his own experiences into a message of healing and hope for millions.

Drink Your Water!!!!

In addition to exercise, it is important that your body gets enough water. Water is necessary for our body to operate efficiently. Water is vital to the body in temperature regulation, nerve impulse conduction, circulation, metabolism, immune system, eliminative processes, sensory awareness and perceptive thinking.

Americans, on average, drink only eight ounces (one cup) of water per day. The rest of the water the body needs must be extracted from other liquids or foods that we eat. Not enough water is a real threat to the system. Many chemical reactions inside the body will not occur without the right amount of water.

It only takes a one percent fluid loss in the body to become dehydrated. This generally happens prior to any conscious sensation of being thirsty. Very small shortages of water can dramatically change and disrupt biochemistry. Water is considered by exercise physiologists as the single most important variable in peak performance. Your muscles can lose up to ten percent of their contractile strength and eight percent of speed from only a three percent dehydration.

A small change makes a big difference when it comes to water. If you do a lot of travel by air, you can lose as much as two pounds of water in a three to four hour flight. Stress, alcohol and caffeine all influence the amount of water and the speed in which your body loses it. Any of these factors, alone or in combination, could cause a small but critical shrinkage of the brain. This small shrinkage will impair neuromuscular coordination, decrease concentration, and slow thinking.

The average amount of water loss per day is two cups through breathing, two cups through invisible perspiration, and six cups through urination and bowel movements. That is a total of ten cups lost per day without taking into account perspiration from exercise or hard work, excessively dry air, or alcohol and caffeine consumption.

To maintain efficient operation, you want to drink the following:

Deep Breathing In Detail

Deep breathing can be accomplished sitting down in a meditative posture such as lotus posture, sitting down on a chair with your spine straight or standing up with your spine held straight. If you haven't done so, read the section on learning to breath correctly.

First check your posture. The spine should be straight, the head erect, hands on knees, mouth closed. Now concentrate on the pharyngeal space at the back wall of your mouth and, slightly contracting its muscles, begin to draw in the air through that space as if you were using a suction pump. Do it slowly and steadily, letting the pumping sound be clearly heard. Don't use the nostrils; remember that they remain inactive during the entire respiration process. When inhaling let your ribs expand sideways like an accordion-beginning with the lower ones, of course. Remember the chest and shoulders should remain motionless. The entire inhalation should be done gently and effortlessly. When it has been completed pause for a second or two, holding the breath. Then slowly begin breathing out. The exhalation is usually not as passive as the inhalation. You use a slight, a very slight, pressure to push the air out-although it feels as though you pressed it against the throat like a hydraulic press. The upper ribs are now contracted first, the nostrils remain inactive and the chest and shoulders motionless. At the end of the exhalation, pull in the stomach a little so as to push out all the air.

Congratulations! You have just taken your first deep breath.

Do not try to take too full a breath at once. Start by breathing to the count of four. Then hold the breath, counting to two, and start slowly exhaling, again to the count of four. Breathing in and out to an equal number of beats is called rhythmic breathing. You allow four beats to fill your lungs, two to retain the breath, and four to breathe out. The respiration should be timed in such a way that at the end of the four beats you have completed the exhalation. Don't just stop at the end of the count when there is still air to be expelled. You should adjust your breathing to the timing. Repeat, but do not take more than 5 or 6 deep breaths at one time during the first week. You shouldn't do more even if you are enjoying it.

Be careful not to overdo the breathing, especially inhalation, as this may lead to unpleasant results such as dizziness, nausea, headaches, even fainting spells due to hyperventilation caused by a sudden, excessive intake of oxygen. By practicing complete breathing, you will be able to enlarge the lung capacity so that, after practice, you can inhale more air than you did before. But this increased capacity should come gradually rather than by force. By repeating such a complete breathing too often or too rapidly in succession, you may absorb too much oxygen and become dizzy. You may continue to employ all of the muscles and all portions of the lungs in breathing without expanding the lungs to their maximum extent each time you inhale.

Proper yogic breathing employs all of the muscles and all or most of the lungs. But the extent of expansion and the rate of breathing may be progressively reduced to suit the body's needs for oxygen consumption under the conditions of exercise or rest which prevail. As your cycle of breathing involves an increasingly larger lung area, your respiration may be decreased correspondingly while the amount of oxygen available for use remains the same-or even increases. Slower, deeper breathing not only stimulates the lungs into healthier action, and brings more of the body muscles into play, but it has the effect of calming the nerves. Although other factors must be taken into consideration, the slower your respiration rate the calmer you feel. You can deliberately reduce this rate for beneficial effect. However, you can maintain this only if you breathe more deeply.

A complete breath involves the following steps:

1. Inhale slowly until your lungs are filled to capacity. Some recommend that you begin with abdominal breathing, gradually move into middle breathing, and finish filling the lungs with high breathing.
2. A pause, short or long, should occur at the end of inhalation. This, too, should not be forced at first, though deliberate experiments with extending this pause play an important part in successful yogic practice.
3. Exhale, also slowly, smoothly and completely. Again, some recommend beginning exhalation with high breathing, proceeding gradually to middle breathing, and ending with abdominal breathing and use of abdominal muscles to expel all air from the lungs.
4. Another pause, short or long, should occur at the end of exhalation. This too should not be forced at first, though this pause may prove to be even more significant than the first as a stage in which to seek and find a kind of spiritual quiescence that can be most powerful in its relaxing effects.

As we have explained before, each cycle of breathing, usually thought of as merely a single inhaling followed by a single exhaling, may be analyzed into four phases or stages, each with its distinct nature and its traditional Sanskrit name. The transitions from inhaling to exhaling and from exhaling to inhaling involve at least reversals in direction of the movements of muscles and of expansive or contractive movements of lungs, thorax and abdomen. The time necessary for such reversals can be very short, as may be observed if one deliberately pants as shortly and rapidly as he can. Yet they can be long, as one may notice if he intentionally stops breathing when he has finished inbreathing or out-breathing. The effects of these pause specially when they become lengthened, at first deliberately and then spontaneously-seem remarkable. Thus in our analysis of the four stages of breathing we shall pay special attention to these pauses, how to lengthen them and how to profit from them.

1. Puraka (Inhalation):

A single inhalation is termed puraka. It is a process of drawing in air; it is expected to be smooth and continuous. If a person should pause one or more times during the process of a single inhaling, the process might be spoken of as a broken puraka rather than as a series of purakas.

2. Abhyantara Kumbhaka (Pause After Inhaling) Full Pause:

Kumbhaka consists of deliberate stoppage of flow of air and retention of the air in the lungs, without any movement of lungs or muscles or any part of the body and without any incipient movements. A beginner may experiment by using some force to keep such pause motionless. Quite elaborate instructions and techniques have been worked out for this purpose.

3. Rechaka (Exhalation)

The third stage, exhalation, is called rechaka. Like inhalation, it too should be smooth and continuous, though often the speed of exhaling is different from that of inhaling. Normally, muscular energy is used for inhaling whereas exhaling consists merely in relaxing the tensed muscles. Such relaxing forces air from the lungs as they return to an untensed condition. However, a person can force air out with muscular effort; so when he sits or stands erect and has his abdominal muscles under constant control, muscular effort may be used for both inhaling and exhaling. Especially if one deliberately smoothes the course of his breathing and holds the cycles in regular or definitely irregular patterns, he is likely to use muscular energy at each stage, including the pauses. However, in a condition of complete relaxation, one should expect effort to be needed only for inhaling.

4. Bahya Kumbhaka (Pause After Exhaling) Empty Pause:

The fourth stage, the pause after exhaling, is also called kumbhaka, especially when the stoppage is deliberate or prolonged. The fourth stage, the empty pause, completes the cycle which terminates as the pause ends and a new inhalation begins.

Arrested and Resting Breath

Since the two pauses have great significance in yoga, we will examine them further. Four aspects of the problem, and the significance of arresting breathing, will be explored briefly. They pertain to

1. length of time during a pause
2. techniques for holding breathing,
3. suggestions concerning practice and
4. the nature and benefits of kevala kumbhakara or "perfectly peaceful pause"

A pause may be very short, even only a fraction of a second (eg., quick puffs) or it may be very long. As an illustration, try holding your lungs full of air and see how long you can do so. You will find that you can retain it for several seconds and even, perhaps, for minutes. If you happen to be fatigued and if your body needs constant replenishment of oxygen, you may be unable to hold your breath very long. But when you have become rested and relaxed and when your body is already well supplied with oxygen, you may hold your breath much longer. Practitioners of yoga extend the duration of a full pause by first breathing regularly for some time until the body becomes oversupplied with oxygen and then taking an extended pause without discomfort. When you try this, please remember to quit the practice when you fell the discomfort.

Advanced practitioners of yoga are said to be able to stop breathing for an hour or more without discomfort. Some of them eventually can remain almost completely motionless for days, even having themselves buried for such periods in order to demonstrate ability to survive without food, water or very much air. When buried, they do not stop breathing entirely, but their inhalations and exhalations become so long and slow and their pauses so prolonged that almost no energy is consumed and very little oxygen is needed. Even their heartbeats become so retarded that only a minimum of oxygen is needed by the heart muscles. Their cerebral activity almost ceases, so very little energy is needed to support the voracious capacity of the nervous system.

There are some significant ways of attaining relatively complete relaxation by use of these pauses between breathing. One cannot retain his breathing for an extended duration as long as he is nervous, anxious or fatigued. So, in pursuit of extended pauses, he will have to do what is required to attain a state of rest. When you have attained full state of rest, it will result in the reduction or elimination of nervousness. It is an extremely powerful technique to incite relaxation response.

Techniques or Aids To Prolong Pauses

There are some traditional techniques or aids available to prolong the pauses. These involve deliberate attempts to block breathing passages in such a way that air does not escape of its own accord when chest and abdominal muscles become relaxed. These aids are called bandha. Bandha is a Sanskrit word related to our English words "band," "bind," "bond" and "bound." Each of the bandha employed for prolonging breathing pauses binds air in our lungs or closes and locks the air channels so that no air can escape or enter. We will look at four important bandhas. The parts of the body mainly involved are the (a) lips and palate, (b) glottis, (c) chin and (d) diaphragm. The first two seem more important in prolonging full pauses and the last two more necessary for retaining empty pauses.

a. Bandha involving Lips and Palate:

This is a technique used by swimmers. Closing our lips tightly so no air can escape through the mouth. Pressing lips against the teeth may aid in tightening them. If your nostrils are clear, simply lift your soft palate against the roof of your pharynx and close the passage into the nostrils. This may be done deliberately or you may learn to allow this to happen automatically after some training. A little air pressure from your lungs may aid in holding the palate in such a closed position.

b. Bandha involving Glottis:

You can prevent air from leaving your lungs by closing your glottis. Your glottis closes automatically when you swallow. All you need to do is to stop your swallowing movements at that point where your trachea is closed. This may be difficult to do at first, since an automatic reflex pattern has been built into your autonomic nervous mechanisms. But a little effort at trying to attain voluntary control over your involuntary processes should give you mastery of this technique. Of course, you may combine both the lips and the palate closure with the glottis closure to produce a still tighter lock.

c. Jalandhara Bandha (Bandha involving Chin):

The jalandhara bandha or "chin lock" consists in pressing the chin close to the chest and dropping the head to help in maintaining immobility of muscle and air movements. This position is very useful in holding an empty pause, for the pressure of the chin against the chest pushes the base of the tongue and the larynx up into the pharynx and against the palate, thus providing aid in resisting the pressure caused by the vacuum in the lungs.

d. Uddiyana Bandha (Bandha Involving Diaphragm)

A fourth bandha, uddiyana bandha, involves raising the diaphragm and keeping it immobile during an empty pause. The abdomen must be drawn in and up as far as possible. Expel all air before using this bandha. In order to attain complete control and more comfort, one may put forth some effort in one or more mock inhalations, without admitting any air, before assuming fullest relaxation possible during this pause. You may combine both chin lock and raised diaphragm techniques in retaining an empty pause. Both of these techniques can be employed in either a standing or sitting position and they are commonly employed together during sitting postures. These two bandhas appear to serve as strenuous and circulation-stimulating exercises rather than muscle- and will quieting attitudes, though they do aid a person in attaining thorough mastery over his respiration cycle.

The problem of prolonging the duration of a pause should be approached with caution, patience and practice. Gradually lengthen the duration of a pause by counting. Use your fingers to count the duration of a pause. After each successive pause, add one unit of pause to the rest. If you try to attain a prolonged pause on the first attempt, you are very likely to overdo it, suffer some discomfort and feel no beneficial or restful effects. Whenever a series of increasingly extended pauses reaches the point where you feel the need to exert effort in order to hold the pause longer, stop immediately. By repeating such a series once a day for several days-or even several times a day for several days-you can observe a gradual increase in the length of the pauses which may be held with comfort. The progress you make is mainly an individual matter. Some persons can do this much easier than others.

Kevala kumbhaka (perfectly peaceful pause) involves not only complete cessation of movement of air and muscles but also of all awareness of such movement and tendencies. The state experienced is one of complete rest. Urgency, interest, motive, will, desire, etc. all disappear momentarily along with the disappearance of specific interests and anxieties, such as those of hatred, fear, ambition, love, hunger and thirst. You will also feel detached from tendencies such as to hate specific tasks, to fear particular persons, to demand specific rights or to zealously force oneself or others to attain indicated goals. During such a peaceful pause, quiescence is experienced as perfect. For anyone writhing under the pressures of multiple anxieties, the experience of the utter peacefulness of kevala kumbhaka even for a moment, provides a very restful and blissful moment.

The experiences of kevala kumbhaka helps in retarding progressive over-anxiety that is common in our society. Suicides and suicidal tendencies, which result from the development of unbearable anxieties, may be retarded and prevented by sufficiently assiduous practice of yoga. The automatic mechanisms which spontaneously induce inhaling and exhaling, as well as heartbeats and hunger and thirst, can be modified and inhibited for short periods.

The experience of kevala kumbhaka is self-terminating and, in spite of some slight reversal of anxious tendencies, one is soon again immersed in the more usual anxieties. The experience must be repeated again and again, and even then, although it may aid in temporary reversal, it cannot be expected to overcome or counteract the much more powerful drives which nature, culture and individual ambitions have established so deeply within us. Yet, its pacifying effects should not be overlooked by anyone who has become over-ambitious and overanxious.

The power of kevala kumbhaka and the breathing exercises are effectively tapped by combining it with the benefits of undertaking the other elements of yoga such as asanas. Although breathing can be undertaken independent of asanas and vice versa, the combination is many times more effective than doing each one of them separately. The beauty of this technique is that it is available to everyone – regardless of age, sex, occupation, religion or kind of ambition. It may be convenient to do this in the morning and evening; but you can do this at your place of work. Performing it is more relaxing than going for a cup of coffee or going to the water cooler or going for a smoke.