Balancing Body and Mind: 6 Essential Activities

[akanetuk]

Life is indeed made up of two parts, the body and mind. The distinguishing features of these two is that we can see, touch, and feel the body while we receive warning, and ministration from the mind. In reality the body and mind are all-inclusively connected. Health isn’t merely the absence of disease or symptoms; it is a state of optimal well-being, vitality, and wholeness. To achieve the state of optimal well-being, we need to balance our activities with our body and mind. The two need to agree in everything otherwise there will be re-occurring disturbance from one part.

Activities that can help us achieve balance are:

Meditation

Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for restoring balance to our mind and body. During meditation we let the mind screen, search, and eliminate wasteful energies and attract new energy to face new challenges. In the silence of awareness, the mind lets go of old patterns of thinking and feeling and learns to heal itself. Scientific research on meditation is accelerating with the growing awareness of meditation’s numerous benefits, including a decrease in hypertension, heart disease, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and addictive behaviors.

Eat well

Eating is our most vital bodily function and to create a healthy body and mind, our food must be nourishing. Ideal nutrition comes from consuming a variety of foods that are appropriately prepared and eaten with awareness. One way to make sure that you are getting a balanced diet is to include the six tastes (sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, and astringent) in each meal. In addition to including the six tastes in each meal, focus on eating a variety of fresh and freshly prepared foods, while eliminating or at least limiting items that are canned, frozen, microwaved, or highly processed. These are “dead” foods that weaken health and accelerate aging.

Engage in daily exercise

Exercise boosts energy, improves mood, and combats health conditions and diseases.

Take time for restful sleep

Restful sleep is essential key to having health and vital energy. When you're well-rested, you can easily renew your energy level. Human beings generally need between six and eight hours of restful sleep each night. Restful sleep means that you’re not using pharmaceuticals or alcohol to get to sleep but that you’re drifting off easily once you turn off the light and are sleeping soundly through the night. The quality of your sleep directly affects the quality of your waking life, including your productivity, emotional balance, creativity, physical vitality, and even your weight. No other activity delivers so many benefits with so little effort! Without enough hours of restorative sleep, you won’t be able to work, learn, create, and communicate at a level even close to your true potential.

Release emotional toxins

One way of releasing emotional toxins is through forgiveness. Forgive yourself and forgive others a well. Forgiveness enables us to move on when we are aggrieved. You can begin by asking yourself, “What am I holding onto from the past that is no longer serving me in the present?”

Once you have identified what you want to release, spend some time journaling about how your life will be different when you change. Then you can do a specific releasing ritual that declares to yourself and to the world that you are letting go of whatever it is you’ve been holding on to.

Cultivate loving relationships

Research shows that a good social support network has numerous physical and mental health benefits. It can keep you from feeling lonely, isolated or inadequate and if you feel good about yourself, you can deal with stress better. Friends and loved ones can be a good source of advice and suggest new ways of handling problems.

[Library]

This is also called living healthy