Wellness - Page 2

Top 5 Vacation Spots for a Meditation Retreat

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Meditation Retreat

For vacations to be truly rejuvenating, it doesn’t always need to be about going off to an exotic island for an adventure. Sometimes, the best vacation you can have is the most laidback—the one that will help you rejuvenate from within. Vacations that are packed with activities can be stressful. Such vacations can ruin the purpose of a holiday, which is to rest and relax.

To truly relax, you can take a different kind of a vacation—one that can quiet your mind and open your heart. I’m talking about going to a meditation retreat. We’ve picked some of the best ones you can consider for your next vacation. Here are our top choices:

Rolling Meadows Retreat, Brooks, Maine

Rolling Meadows offers city slickers that chance to unplug from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Silent retreats are held year-round and are designed to quiet the mind and increase awareness. Guests can join a series of meditation and yoga sessions and free time can be spent for reflection, solitude and in exploring the breathtaking beauty of the land.

Stillpoint Lodge, Halibut Cove, Alaska

With short boat ride or plane trip through the magnificent Kachemak Bay, you’ll find the secluded Stillpoint Lodge located in enchanting village of Halibut Cove. The lodge offers guided meditations, yoga and rejuvenating walking meditations in Alaskan wilderness. The lodge also features a poustinia, a silent meditation space that’s open 24 hours a day. Guests also get to see local wildlife as well as dine on organic meals using local ingredients.

Ala Kukui, Maui, Hawaii

Literally translated as “Path of Enlightenment”, Ala Kukui is ideal for those in search of spiritual renewal and creative awakening. Located in the beautiful land of Hana, Ala Kukui offers stunning views of Haleakala as well as the Pacific Ocean. The center offers different types of retreats including wellness retreats, corporate retreats, family retreats, and even retreats for veterans struggling with PTSD.

Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California

Surrounded by majestic mountains and blue ocean, the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California offers an amazing location for meditation, yoga, wellness, spiritual renewal and relaxation. The lodge sits on 120 acres of lush property where guests can bathe in hot springs overlooking the ocean, meditate, practice yoga, go hiking, and volunteer in its organic farm.

Feathered Pipe Ranch, Montana

Situated in the heart of the Montana Rockies, the Feather Pipe Ranch is an oasis of peace. Here, guests can go on a personal retreat, reflect, and connect with nature. Accommodation choices include tepees, yurts, and tents as well as deluxe rooms. Guests can join in meditation, yoga and chakra sessions, as well hike in the forest, canoe, and swim in the lake.

A meditation retreat can provide you with an entirely new perspective on life. It can help you de-stress by removing the pressures of daily life. It can also help you rediscover joy and peace and will teach how to sustain it in your life.

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3 Powerful Ways Meditation Can Benefit your Mind and Body

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There’s no point in doing something if it doesn’t benefit you, right? This is something many people consider when they contemplate starting up a meditation routine. They consider it to just be sitting down and being quiet…not much else is involved with meditation, right? 

Wrong. Meditation has never been a holistic hoax, and that still stands. While some benefits of meditation are very superficial, there are actually a variety of important mental and physical benefits that practitioners of yoga experience when they meditate.

What are those benefits? There are honestly too many to mention in just one blog post. However, there are three powerful benefits that any meditation skeptic should know about:

Meditation is great for anxiety and soothing the physical soul.

Your nervous system is the gateway to all of your bodily functions. From how you think to how you move, your nervous system is an amazing thing…and meditation can greatly affect how it functions.

Being specific, meditation activates your parasympathetic nervous system. This directly relates to your rest response — or how calm and relaxed you are physically and mentally. While many people associate rest with a mental state, it can also affect how your body functions overall. This relates to your heart rate, blood pressure, immunity, digestion and blood pressure. Meditation also helps to lower your stress hormones through this system as well.

Similarly, meditation can also help you sleep at night. While it obviously relates to your body physically shutting down, meditation also calms your racing mind, making it easier to turn in at the end of the night.

Meditation improves your creativity and productivity.

A clear mind is a mind that comes up with great ideas. When you have a bunch of thoughts racing around your brain, it can be hard to settle on one idea and fully realize it. Meditation helps to clear away these thoughts, making room for your creativity to shine through.

Think about your mind like a cluttered desk. What can you do with a cluttered desk other than clean it or walk away? Meditation is the process of cleaning it, allowing work to actually be done at the desk. This is the perfect illustration for how meditation makes a person more productive. A clear mind is a mind that gets things done.

Meditation makes people happier.

Meditation is calming, and being calm leads to being happier. When someone meditates, they let the weight of the world fall away from them and they experience a small taste of enlightenment. Meditation helps a person to process thoughts, get rid of negativity, and clear their mind.

The fact that meditation relieves stress is one of the biggest benefits of meditation, but not just because of this obvious relaxation benefit. A relaxed person with little stress in their life will obviously be happier than someone who has a life filled with stress and minimal downtime.

One final benefit of meditation — it’s a great way to take some time out to focus on yourself, not the clutter of everyday stressors and irritants. Take some time out of your day to meditate. You’ll be glad you did.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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The Benefits of Endurance Training and How You Can Start Today

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Benefits of Endurance Training

There are various types of fitness. Some of us like to focus on long-distance running, others are all about quick cardio boosts or cross fit. One form of exercise training that I find to be very effective and rewarding is endurance training.

What are the Benefits of Endurance Training? According to Wikipedia, endurance training can be defined as “the act of exercising to increase endurance. The term endurance training generally refers to training the aerobic system as opposed to anaerobic.” Aerobic exercise refers to exercises that get your heart pumping — swimming, skiing, running. Exercises that work out your heart and your lungs.

Now let’s ask another question: what exactly are the benefits of endurance training?

● Obviously, endurance training is a health benefit. Training your body for endurance means you’ll have to make lifestyle changes to take up the cause. No more drinking, smoking, excessive eating, and fatty foods. You need healthy lungs and healthy blood to get the full benefit of endurance training.

● By training your muscles and growing them, you also develop your bone density. This is also helped by changing up your diet and eating better.

● When you train your body, you train your immune system. You may not know it, but being unhealthy in a variety of ways can also make you more susceptible to diseases and bacteria.

● Have you ever complained about your metabolism? Your metabolism isn’t something you have to just live with. Endurance training enhances your metabolism, making it easier to burn fat and build muscle.

● If you have diabetes, endurance training helps you improve your insulin sensitivity. If you don’t have diabetes, The Benefits of Endurance Training can help to prevent its onset.

● Finally, endurance training gives you…endurance! The more you train, the easier exercising becomes. This also applies to all forms of exercise because your muscles build and your lung capacity grows.

How to Get Started on an Endurance Training Journey

Now you know the incredible benefits of endurance training…now how do you go about making it work for you?

● First, get used to drinking lots of water. You’re doing to need it if you want to begin the Benefits of Endurance Training.

● Start small, then work big. You won’t be running a marathon after only a month of endurance training.
● Warm up before you exercise. Stretches, squats, jumping jacks, lunges…they all help prepare your body for harsh training.

● Get the right wardrobe. You don’t have to spend lots of money — just make sure you have the right footwear and clothes that help you stretch and stay cool.

● Also focus on strength training. See those weights up above? You’re going to need those to regularly train your muscles to be strong and flexible.

● Endurance training isn’t a game of working out three times a day. It’s about the quality of your training and the longevity of your training program.

● You’ll also need to add more protein and carbs to your diet. These promote energy, and you’re going to need a lot of it.

The Benefits of Endurance Training sounds sort of intimidating, doesn’t it? Don’t worry — while it’s a commitment, and certainly not easy in the beginning, the results are certainly worthwhile.

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The Best Ways to Stay Hydrated During Your Summer Fitness Journey

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Summer is here, and so is the heat! The hotter it is and the more you exercise, the more likely you are to get dehydrated. That means staying hydrated in the summer is more important than ever.

You already know that you need to drink lots of water when exercising, but the necessity is two-fold during the summer, when you’re likely to sweat more when exercising outside and in general. However, drinking enough water every day is difficult enough as it is. How do you stay hydrated during the summer when you’re also someone who exercises a lot?

First, understand WHY hydration is so important. When you exercise and don’t stay hydrated, your ability to exercise is compromised and your body gets tired more quickly. As you lose fluid in your body through sweat, your heart rate increases exponentially. Sweat is also how your body cools itself, so without ample water you’re very likely to overheat.

Pre- and Post- Workout Water

There are certain rules that are suggested to be followed, like drinking three cups of water before and after your workout. But who actually measures out their water into cup-sized rations?

A good way to make sure you get the water you need is to either buy bottled water or a self-filled water bottle in comparable size. Drink one water bottle or a full self-filled water bottle serving before you allow yourself to workout. Afterwards, drink another bottled water or the same amount of water that you initially filled your own water bottle up with before you get out of your workout clothes.

Eat Your Fruit

Most fruits have a very high water content value. They aren’t called juicy for no reason! When you bite into a pear or apple, the moisture you feel inside is the water naturally contained within the fruit itself.

It can be tiring to have to drink glass after glass of water every day, but you have other options. Fruits like kiwis, berries and watermelon all have high water concentrations that can’t replace your entire day’s water needs, but they can supplement them. Other fruits with a high water concentration include grapefruits (and other citrus options), plums and cantaloupe.

Start Eating More Soup

It’s a pain to have to eat hot soup when it’s already so hot outside, but trust me — soup is a great way to stay hydrated. Cold soups are also a great option if you want to go with a dinner option that’s cooler than steaming broth.

Unlike water, broths and soups come pre-packed with nutrient value, include sodium that can help stabilize your levels in moderation. Depending on the soup ingredients, you’re also getting those added nutrients as well.

Dress Up Your Water

Finally, you don’t have to drink straight water all day long. Using lemonade or tea mixers in moderation can add some variety to your daily drinking while still giving you a lot of water that you need for exercising and hydration. For added health benefits, look for drink mixers that don’t contain calories or artificial sweeteners.

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How to Stay Mindful When You’re a Busy Entrepreneur

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Entrepreneurs live very busy lives. They go, go, go and never find the time to fully come to a stop. If this defines your own life, consider this: you can be just as productive while still having inner peace and a way to put your mind at ease when you do find some downtime.

Many entrepreneurs might think this is ridiculous. A way to stay busy while still being able to relax when you need to? Preposterous! The truth is that it’s entirely possible thanks to one helpful technique: mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the ability to focus entirely on the present, and that’s in the most literal sense. Not the current day or the current week instead of a far-off to-do list. No, mindfulness means focusing on each second as it passes; being utterly and completely in the moment. It’s unrealistic to say you can always tune out your busy day, but practicing mindfulness gives you a place to escape when it’s time to put work down for the night.

But…how can you stay mindful and practice mindfulness when you have such a busy schedule to adhere to? I have a few tips that can make it work for you, no matter how packed your schedule is.

Skip the evening…go for a mindful morning.

Many entrepreneurs feel the pressure to practice mindfulness during the evening, right after they (maybe) finished up their to-do list. While this is the time when it’s most helpful to be mindful, don’t leap into mindfulness right after you round out your day. Instead, practice mindfulness when it’s easiest — during the morning.

In the morning, it’s a lot easier to clear your head. Right after you wake up, you haven’t thrown yourself into the thick of the day. At night, you’ve already got a ton of work thoughts swirling around in your head.

Set aside time for short breaks.

It’s not to say that you need to take whole 15-minute chunks out of your day to practice mindfulness. Instead, set aside little bite-sized pieces of time (like three to five minutes) to let go of all of your thoughts and slip into being in the moment. This can help to keep your mind sharp and focused during the day, and it also keeps your brain from going 100 miles per hour non-stop throughout the day.

Indulge the senses.

One of the most important aspects of mindfulness is, well, being aware of your mind and what it’s feeling. The best way to do this is to directly stimulate the senses as much as possible.

A great opportunity for this that doesn’t interrupt your schedule is your lunch break. Put aside your phone and focus only on your food. Savor each bite and catalog the flavors, smells, and textures of what you’re eating. Is it cold? Is it crunchy? Does it make you feel nostalgia or bring up a memory?

Master Mindfulness doesn’t have to be difficult

Being in the moment means truly feeling every emotion and sense that passes through your body. Once you’ve mastered this, you’ve truly mastered mindfulness.

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4 Calorie Burning Cardio Exercises You Can do Every Day

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It’s a well known fact that cardio-centric exercises should be a part of every workout routine, but do we truly know why cardio is so good for us? There are some obvious standard lines of thought you likely go to, like “it can help me lose weight” or “it’ll help tone my body,” but cardio exercise is much more than a diet supplement. Cardio activities can help to lower stress, strengthen your heart and lungs, help promote better sleeping habits, relieve anxiety and depression symptoms and reduce the chances of heart disease and cancer.

What if that’s not what’s really holding you back from cardio, though? You know the benefits, but you just don’t have time for lots of running or going to the gym for fitness training. The good news is that cardio exercises are actually quite simple, which makes them easy to do every single day — whether you’ve got 15 minutes of time to spare or a full hour.

These four cardiovascular activities are easy to do, don’t require lots of equipment and don’t take up much time. Do as many or as few as you can and you’ll still be on the right track to heart health and a slimmer waist.

Aerobics

The best thing about aerobics is that as long as you aren’t incorrectly stimulating your muscles, there aren’t many rules. In general, aerobics is simply movement that gets your heart pumping continuously, and there are a variety of ways to make that happen. Something like dancing can be considered an aerobic exercise, or step aerobics if you want something more simple. The point is that 15 minutes of continuous movement that gets your pulse elevated can be considered a cardio workout.

Kickboxing

Kickboxing is best done in a classroom environment, but the beauty of the Internet is that you can learn pretty much anything online. Find some credible workout videos on a fitness site or YouTube and get to practicing! Kickboxing is an excellent form of exercise that can tighten your core, build up your upper body strength and can be used as self-defense in sticky situations.

Jumping Rope

Remember that playground game you used to love as a little girl in school? There’s no age limit to jumping rope, especially considering how great it is for your health. Put on some music and get on a flat, outside surface. No need to get fancy and play Double Dutch — just have fun jumping for a few minutes at a time. You’ll be amazed by how invigorating it actually is!

High Knees

You can get all of the cardio benefits of running while you stay inside — and in the same place! High knees only require that you lift your legs up as high as they can go while jogging in place. This exercise helps with flexibility, heart stimulation and builds up your leg muscles. It can be exhausting, but the long term results are well worth it.

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How Practicing Mindfulness Can Change your Life

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No one is ever entirely free of stress…or are they?

Stress is something that we consider a standard in life. Sometimes stress is direr than it is simple. We stress as teens studying hard for tests and as adults stressing over how much money we need to make to break even. Stress creates a very cluttered mental space, which then begins to impact other areas of life, like productivity and health. In short, stress is something that we don’t want but that seems almost inevitable, especially as professionals.

This is where mindfulness comes in. You may have heard the term in passing, but are you familiar with what it is and what it can do for you?

What is Mindfulness?

To keep things simple, mindfulness is being very aware of the world around you on a moment-by-moment basis, as well as accepting it simultaneously. People assume that this is simple — aren’t we all already living and experiencing every moment of our lives? Experiencing something and actually being 100% aware of it, however, are two different things.

While it’s true that we are physically present for all of our lives, we aren’t always mentally present. The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, or essentially running on autopilot. Many people don’t fully understand how much of their life is spent lost in thought, avoiding outside stimuli.

Say that you’re walking down a busy city street. What are you doing? Are you keeping your thoughts to yourself, running through your daily to-do list? Are you listening to music from earbuds, lost in the sound and not paying full attention to the world around you? Both are examples of clogging our minds with something in order to avoid being cognizant. Someone who has embraced mindfulness is fully living in that moment, noticing things, and taking them in.

What Can Mindfulness do for you?

Mindfulness is often associated with total positivity; it’s something written off as a new age, existentialist way of avoiding life’s problems. However, it’s exactly the opposite.

Let’s look at stress and mindfulness. When someone who is used to mindlessness is confronted with stress, the negative emotion, and thoughts of the future cloud their vision. Anxiety gets in the way of productivity. Someone who is mindful, however, fully accepts the stressful stimuli and then formulates a plan based on their acceptance of their current predicament.

Practicing mindfulness can help reduce the harmful repercussions of stress, like panic and anxiety. Realize that stress is a state of being, an emotion — it isn’t a situation itself. When someone is mindful, they don’t experience stress because they experience a situation, not the harmful emotional side effect that comes with it.

Thus, mindfulness is growing in popularity as a way to increase productivity. When we are mindful of our surroundings, our emotional state and what we must do, we are much more likely to seize the day and get things done with no negativity involved.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Positivity Fun Facts; How it Really is the Best Medicine

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Facts about positivity

We hear all the time that it pays to be positive, but is that really true? How does positivity impact our lives, and what is the point of being so upbeat all the time? If positivity is so rewarding, does that mean there’s a consequence for sadness all the same?

Despite sounding like such a simple concept, positivity can be truly mystifying. How do we find happiness? Can I have positivity without happiness, and vice versa?

While it’d be impossible to condense all that we know about positive psychology (which yes, it has its own subset in the psychology world), we do have four fun facts or tidbits about positivity that may brighten your day.

  1. Positivity lengthens your life.

If you Google “Nun Study” you’ll find a very prolific scientific research project about aging and Alzheimer’s — that’s not the study we’re talking about here. This study is instead by Danner, Snowdon, and Friesen from the University of Kentucky and is strictly about Catholic nuns.

These researchers found that based on the nun’s own writings, those that expressed more positive sentiments lived longer lives. Look it up for more concrete and fascinating stats.

  1. Positivity boosts sales.

Many believe that the secret to happiness is success. That once you’ve finally found your place in life, happiness is just around the corner…and if that’s not true, then what is? Is it possible that this assumed standard is false?

According to Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, the opposite is actually true. This creates a bit of a chicken vs. egg scenario, but Seligman is sure that optimism comes before success. Based on an optimism test Seligman designed for MetLife, those who were positive based on the test results were almost always likely to outperform those who were negative.

  1. Positivity helps counteract stress effects.

Stress is a part of life and it’s one you’ll likely never fully be able to run away from. If you figure out how to live a life 100% free of stress, tell us your secret — we’d like to know.

Still, just because stress is a natural phenomena, it doesn’t mean it’s one we have to take lying down. There are a million different teas on the market meant to combat stress and its side effects, but what about something like positivity?

Many credible studies focus on how positivity helps to combat stress, but mostly how our own negativity leads to a majority of stress. While a catalyst may be the biggest source of stress, self-doubt and blame often contribute to our negativity more than the original problem.

  1. Positivity broadens your horizons.

From a young age, we learn to be positive. Most children are not born pessimists but are instead taught to be negative based on those around them and their life experiences. Children play, grow and learn while basking in that positivity. At this stage of development, their world is infinite.

This is how positivity can affect all of us every day. When we open our minds to possibilities and positivity, we see our worlds as they can be — not as they are.

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The Fitness Don’ts That You Probably Fall Victim to Every Day

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We all have dreams of getting fit, or we may even already be on an amazing fitness journey. No matter what step of the path you’re on, we all have ideas about what it takes to be fit. Some fitness myths are more well-known than others, like dieting alone isn’t how you become healthy. Others, however, are much more specific and not as discussed.

Whether you’re currently on your fitness journey or considering your options, keep these fitness don’ts in mind – in fact, you may have already feel victim to a few of them!

Never Skip Breakfast

Ironically, the most important meal of the day is the one we most often take for granted. We get up late, grab a granola bar and then don’t think about food again until a late lunch break. Those trying to lose weight may skip breakfast to fend off a few extra pounds, and it’s easy because it’s a meal you can almost sleep through.

This is a big no-no. Breakfast is a meal where we get most of our daily energy, and it’s actually the perfect opportunity to load up on carbs and nutrients you need for energy.

Don’t Aim too High

If you’re new to fitness, setting a realistic goal like walking 30 minutes every Saturday and doing 10 crunches before bed during the work week is actually a good thing. We sometimes feel like in order to get fit or lose weight we have to go to extremes and exercise until we pass out. Instead, building strength and falling into a routine are two of the biggest components of fitness.

Also, setting your expectations too high is a good way to fast track yourself to failure. You’re more likely to become disappointed and give up when you don’t meet your goals, but the truth is you never could have met them in the first place.

Don’t Focus On Pounds

Most reality shows about weight loss put a big emphasis on losing a certain amount of weight in a set span of time. This is actually very unhealthy – don’t do it. If your doctor tells you to lose 30 pounds, that’s fine; but your workout routine shouldn’t be a question of a math equation. Work on promoting better habits and changing your lifestyle instead of picking out a target weight number. Otherwise you might make it to that number and quit because your only motivation is out the window.

Don’t Compare Yourself

Everyone’s fitness journey is different, just like everyone has a different body type and weight threshold. You may not ever fit into a size 4 because your hips or big, or maybe your weight gain is a bad medication side effect – simply put, we all have different setbacks and experiences.

It’s important that we don’t look at others and measure ourselves based on their successes and appearance because we aren’t them – and we never will be. Fitness is something that’s very personal, and your failures and successes should be measured by your own merits, no one else’s.

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Incorporating Fitness into Your Everyday Schedule

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Incorporating Fitness

One common excuse you’ll hear people make for not exercising is that it simply doesn’t fit into their schedule. The fact of the matter is that this is exactly what it sounds like – and excuse. The reality is that you can always find time to exercise, but you have to be able to incorporate it into your schedule.

It’s possible to be fit at all times while still having a busy day, and just because you’re always busy doesn’t mean you’re being fit. Not eating and sitting at a desk all day won’t make you lose weight, and it certainly won’t make you healthier. The trick to being healthy and working is moving and eating right.

The following are quick ways to incorporate fitness into your everyday life while you’re at work, at home or anywhere in between.

  1. In general, move more. If you don’t want to concern yourself with actual legitimate exercises, you’ll have to find ways to be more active without them. Walk the long way around the office, job home instead of driving, or do leg exercises while you’re sitting. If you can find a way to be more mobile, go for it.
  1. Start planning a regular mobile activity. This can be 30 minutes of walking or 15 minutes of cardio. No matter what kind of activity it is, you can easily squeeze it into your schedule.
  1. If you don’t want to give up Netflix night so you can commit to your exercise evening, combine the two projects. You can easily do yoga and watch the latest episode of Narcos. Find exercise methods that still allow you to watch TV or enjoy your other hobbies you’d miss out on otherwise.
  1. Don’t commit to exercises you don’t like. If you hate burpees, don’t do them. There are tons of exercises out there that work every part of your body – enough to substitute one for the other. If you don’t enjoy an exercise, you’re likely to fall off the wagon with committing to it.
  1. If you’re looking to exercise more to lose weight, that’s a noble cause – but your main focus should be on being healthy. When it comes to your schedule, you shouldn’t focus your routine around a certain number of days or sessions in order to lose 10 pounds. You have to make working out and being mobile a commitment that’s long term in your appointment book.
  1. You have to focus on more than one area of exercise. For one day, schedule cardio. For another, strength training. Space these days out and schedule them so that you can have rest days for easier movement in between your harder days.
  1. Always try to get involved with fitness groups. Usually fitness classes have a set time that they occur, and this can make scheduling in a workout easier and more of a commitment than just picking a random time to do some sit-ups in the kitchen.
  1. Choose a time of day to work out and stick to it. Whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, keep your schedule routine so you’re more likely to work out when you say you will.

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