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Meditation

Surfing Our Emotions

As much as I meditate, seek to communicate consciously, and strive for balance and wellness in my life, I’m still human and my emotions swallowed me up like a big wave over the past couple of months – tumbling in the churning swirl as I sought to get more solid footing and figure out which way was up.

And I know I’m not alone. Even before the pandemic, in the United States we were having a mental health crisis – with almost half of adults experiencing a mental illness during their lifetime.…

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12 Ways to Stress Less For The Holidays

Stress Free Holiday
1. Prepare food ahead of time

It’s a busy time of year and plenty of goodies are around, making it easy for us to grab something that may not be the healthiest choice. I find I do best when I plan my meals ahead for the week – or at least for the day. Even if you are planning on ordering food for delivery/take-out plan ahead so that you can choose something that will be yummy and nourishing and not just fast and easy. If you’re having a hard time resisting temptation or just want to start t…

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Regain Calm & Stability with Meditation

Meditation

Has your head been spinning lately? Unable to shut off your thoughts and perhaps spiraling into obsessive worrying? Meditation is one tool that can help you to regain your sense of calm.

Meditation is a practice that helps calm the mind and allows us to be awake and aware, yet detached from our incessant thoughts. Many meditation techniques exist and studies have shown a multitude of health benefits with a regular meditation practice—from enhancing brain structure and function to turning on…

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Just Breathe

Breathe

Most of us pay little attention to our breathing and may habitually have shallow breathing, which can add to chronic stress, tension, and even decreased cognitive function and brain fog. With our breath, we inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, removing acidity from the blood.

Breathing also affects our parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest part of our nervous system), regulates heart rate variability (which is a measure of stress), influences the microbiome, and changes in…

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Sleep Audio

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Struggling with insomnia or poor sleep quality? Dr. Valencia Porter shares a step-by-step progressive relaxation meditation to help you fall asleep faster and wake up refreshed. This hypnotic technique uses progressive muscle relaxation and breathing to calm the mind and body for restful sleep. Follow along with the guided audio to melt away stress and anxiety and drift off to a restorative sleep.

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Top 7 Tips for Managing Stress

Struggling with stress and feeling over-whelmed?  Incorporate these 7 tips into your regular routine to get your body and mind back on track.

  1. Meditate.  Learn and practice a meditation or relaxation technique on a daily basis.  Breathe deeply.  As a start, check out my guided So Hum meditation.

  2. Exercise. Integrate flexibility, strength building, and cardiovascular activities into your daily routine.  Even if you can only fit in 15 minutes of walking, it is worth it.

  3. Eat well. Favor an anti-inflamma…

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