December 18, 2021

Techniques Of Zen Meditation

Author By - Debbie Gobin Categories fitness health meditation mental health therapy zen meditation
Meditation

Zen meditation is a branch of mediation that is associated with spirituality. In this form of meditation, one needs to be in sync with the authentic nature of his mind. It involves decoding the true powers of your mind. The purpose of this form of meditation is to clear the mind of evils such as anxiety and depression by providing you with the actual perspective of how the human mind functions. Zen meditation has originated from the Tang Dynasty of China that existed during the 7th century. It is a Buddhist practice but with time, it spread to several parts of Asia such Japan and Korea. “A special teaching transmission outside the teachings; not established upon words and letters; directly pointing to the human heartmind; seeing nature and becoming a Buddha” are the words of Bodhidharma, a Buddhist master while he described Zen meditation. It does not simply involve the reduction of stress and anxiety, but it is connected to the deeper questions of life that often have no solid answers. These questions are explored to find out the nature of the mind. Some techniques of Zen meditation are mentioned below. 

  • Silent Awareness 

A very important aspect of Zen mediation is to just let the mind be. This is called “shikantaza” in Japanese that refers to “just sitting”. In this practice, you would have to allow your mind to simply be a passage wherein thoughts flow in and out, instead of reacting to them. You would have to let the thoughts pass without any sort of judgements, either positive or negative. You would simply have to refrain from any sort of feeling. Your goal would be to be free of all judgements and practicing meditation. This is important if you want to know how clear your mind can truly be and how freely can it function. 

  • Observing The Breath 

You would be expected to sit on a cushion, chair or mat while you are performing this meditation. You would have to hold the Seiza pose, Burmese or half-lotus before channelizing all your energy on one particular aspect of the meditation process, namely, breathing. You would have to focus all your attention on your breathing and the completion of inhalation and exhalation with your belly playing an important role. The more accurate your effort is, the faster would you notice desirable results. The motive of this is to make your mind feel more alert and attentive, thus regulating your emotions better. 

December 18, 2021

What Is Individual Counseling?

Author By - Asmita Bhattacharjee Categories counseling health individual counseling mental health professional help therapy
Individual Counseling Session

Personal or individual counseling refers to a private session between a professional and an individual who seeks help on matters of personal or professional interest. It’s a one-on-one conversation with an expert and you can talk to them about things that concern you or have been troubling you. Moreover, you can also ask for their advice on things or situations that are significant in your life. More often than not, the expert would engage in a friendly conversation with you to be aware of the circumstances that might be going on in your life. They would try to understand and analyze your issues and instruct you on ways that would help you get rid of your problems. In this article, we’re going to talk about how individual counseling can help you. 

  • Coping Well With Situations 

Mental illnesses like anxiety and depression cannot be treated in one day. It requires regular effort. Once you begin individual counseling sessions, you would learn a lot about the actual causes of your problems. In this way, you would be able to stay away from them in a conscious manner. Whenever you feel disturbed, the instructions given by your counselor would help you cope with the situation and act in an organised manner. Even if you’re not able to fully control your emotions, you would have the basic idea about how to deal with them gradually. This is one of the major advantages of individual counseling. 

  • Unhindered Attention 

One of the main pros of individual counseling is the aspect of getting one-on-one attention of the counselor. This helps immensely in the process of curing mental illnesses because most of these result from or worsen because of the lack of having someone who would listen. If you’re suffering from a mental illness, you would always want to talk to someone who would listen to you and understand you without judgement. This is the exact role played by a counselor. You get the unhindered attention that you crave for. Moroever, since the person sitting right in front of you doesn’t know you, there’s scope for developing new perspectives and dynamics that you’ve not encountered before. Quite often, you would be surprised how newer perspectives can solve your problems way easily than you had expected.

  • Improving Relationships 

When you’re not fine mentally, it directly or indirectly affects your relationships. However, when your problems tend to subside as a result of the individual counseling sessions, you would automatically be in a position to fix your relationships and improve them. Moreover, you’ll also learn to deal with them in a better manner, despite all the issues that you might be facing. 

December 15, 2021

What Is Power Yoga?

Author By - Asmita Bhattacharjee Categories fitness health power yoga yoga
Practicing Power Yoga

Yoga is an umbrella term for a wide plethora of fitness regimes, each having its own procedure and goal. Power yoga is one such form. As you can well understand from the name, power yoga is associated with developing power and strength. It was essentially designed for getting rid of calories from your body and promoting muscle power and cardiovascular endurance. It is the opposite of what yoga is conventionally thought to be. Power yoga does not include slow movements and postures. Instead, the movements of power yoga are extremely rapid and the key is being able to make the shift from one movement to another swiftly. The main distinction lies in the fact that the approach is not on individual poses but what matters is the flow with which one can move from one pose to the next. It is a part of Vinyasa yoga that has originated from Ashtanga yoga that is prevalent since the 20th century. However rapid power yoga might be, you need to remember that concentrating on your breathing and being mindful would still be important. Some of its vital benefits are as follows. 

  • Promotes Cardiovascular Health 

Studies have shown that since power yoga is swift, performing the poses effectively can increase your heart rate and keep it stable. This is extremely helpful for sustaining your cardiovascular health. This is because, if your heart rate rises while performing any kind of physical activity, there would be better blood circulation in your body and your muscles and organs would receive the oxygen that they need more effectively. In this way, your body functioning would become more efficient and your overall health would improve. Moreover, it would also help in keeping your heart strong and lungs stable. Controlling blood sugar levels, blood pressure levels, and cholesterol levels of your body are also important benefits of power yoga. 

  • Burning Calories 

This one is yet another essential benefit of power yoga. Since power yoga is associated with rapid moves, it gives you a cardio workout that is vital for burning extra calories and weight loss. Moreover, since it is also responsible for improving the efficiency of muscles and organs, it would continue the process of weight loss even when you are not working out. Also, if you have been unable to workout or involve in any kind of exercise for a while now because of your joint and back-related issues, power yoga would help solve those as well, thereby making you more active. What are you waiting for? Its time you begin power yoga and tread closer towards your dream of achieving a toned body.  

December 14, 2021

3 Yoga Asanas For Beginners

Author By - Asmita Bhattacharjee Categories fitness health meditation power yoga restorative yoga yoga yoga asanas yoga poses
Tree Pose Or Vrkshasana

If you have just begun yoga, you would soon notice its benefits such as muscle balance, flexibility, etc, as well as the reduction of stress and anxiety. While there are several exercises and postures to begin with while you are starting out, in this article, we are going to talk about some common and popular exercises for beginners that are recommended by experts for a holistic development of your mind and body. Read along to know more!

  • Cat-Cow Asana

If you have issues with your lower back, chest or shoulders, the cat-cow asana is going to be extremely beneficial for you. It helps awaken the spine and get rid of back and shoulder ache. All you have to do is sit on your knees and hands, with the fingers rested wide apart. Your weight should be distributed evenly between your both hands. Next, take a deep breath and push your back upwards while bringing your chin towards your chest. You would be able to feel the stretch right from your neck muscles to the end of your spine. Complete the posture by exhaling and lowering your back gently to form the shape of a scoop. Your head should be tilted upwards before releasing it back. With regular practice, you are going to notice a considerable difference in the flexibility of your spine. 

  • Vrksasana or Tree Pose 

This is one of the most effective postures of yoga. Start by standing straight with your hands on your sides. Next, move your hands upwards and join them above your head to form the prayer position. Keep one leg stable and tilt the other leg upwards to rest your feet on the inner thigh of the fixed leg. Hold the position for about 30 seconds before repeating the same with your other leg. This is a great stretching exercise for your whole body. It would help stabilize your body and maintain body balance. 

  • Sukhasana

This is one of the easiest yet beneficial asanas for relieving your stress and refreshing you both physically and mentally. You would simply have to sit straight with your legs crossed. Place your hands on your knees, palms facing upwards. Next, close your eyes and do deep breathing. This is a very essential part of meditative yoga as well. You can start by holding the asana for a duration as short as 10 minutes. With time, you should extend the duration of the meditation for better results. This would have a positive impact on your body and mind as a whole.

December 12, 2021

Mental Health Benefits Of Chamomile Tea

Author By - Debbie Gobin Categories chamomile tea fitness health mental health
Chamomile Tea

Chamomile herb not only has immense benefits as far as Aromatherapy is concerned but has uses when utilised as an ingredient for making tea. It has an extremely soothing odor and the plant has beautiful white flowers as well. There are a lot of physical health benefits of chamomile tea such as treating stomach issues. However, not many people are aware of its profound mental health benefits as well. Before we talk about these benefits, let’s talk about the process of preparing chamomile tea. 

If you want to make chamomile tea at home, you would first have to dry the chamomile flowers. Next, you would have to brew the dried herbs in boiling water and strain the mixture in a cup. Before serving, simply add some honey to complete the procedure. Now, let us discuss the mental benefits of this tea. 

  • Aids Sleep 

Insomnia or not being able to sleep is one of the main symptoms of a number of mental health issues like stress, anxiety, depression, etc. However, studies have shown that if you make it a point to sip on chamomile tea regularly before going to bed, your insomnia is going to disappear and you would experience sound sleep. This happens because chamomile tea is known to contain an antioxidant named apigenin. This is responsible for promoting sleep, thereby relieving your mental illnesses. 

  • Reduces Stress

Stress leads to a lot of negative emotions that can further disturb us. It can lead to restlessness, excessive fear or nervousness, and lack of concentration as well. However, there are a lot of evils in our daily lives that lead to stress. These can range from lack of self-belief, fear of the unknown, overthinking, etc. If you have been facing similar situations, chamomile tea would surely rescue you. Studies have shown that drinking chamomile tea would not only refresh your mind but it would also help you stay away from thoughts and assumptions that might cause stress.

  • Reduces Menstruation Anxiety 

It is known that before menstruation begins and while menstruation, menstruators face a lot of bodily as well as emotional issues. Rising stress levels is one such issue. This mainly happens due to the hormonal imbalance that characterizes the process of menstruation. The anxiety caused can turn out to be extremely problematic for menstruators because it hampers their overall well-being. However, according to experts, menstruators can reduce their levels of anxiety if they consume chamomile tea. Apart from this, chamomile tea is also known to relieve menstrual cramps before and during periods. Thus, chamomile tea is an essential for menstruators. 

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