Stress Reduction Technique

The body’s natural relaxation response is a powerful antidote to stress. Relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, and yoga can help you activate this relaxation response. When practiced regularly, these activities lead to a reduction in your everyday stress levels and a boost in your feelings of joy and serenity. What’s more, they also serve a protective quality by teaching you how to stay calm and collected in the face of life’s curveballs.

Starting a relaxation practice
A variety of relaxation techniques help you achieve the relaxation response. Those whose stress-busting benefits have been widely studied include deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, meditation, visualization, yoga, and tai chi.

Learning the basics of these relaxation techniques isn’t difficult. But it takes practice to truly harness their stress-relieving power: daily practice, in fact. Most stress experts recommend setting aside at least 10 to 20 minutes a day for your relaxation practice. If you’d like to get even more stress relief, aim for 30 minutes to an hour.

Getting the most out of your relaxation practice
Set aside time in your daily schedule. The best way to start and maintain a relaxation practice is by incorporating it into your daily routine. Schedule a set time either once or twice a day for your practice. You may find that it’s easier to stick with your practice if you do it first thing in the morning, before other tasks and responsibilities get in the way.

Don’t practice when you’re sleepy. These techniques can relax you so much that they can make you very sleepy, especially if it’s close to bedtime. You will get the most out of these techniques if you practice when you’re fully awake and alert.

Choose a technique that appeals to you. There is no single relaxation technique that is best. When choosing a relaxation technique, consider your specific needs, preferences, and fitness level. The right relaxation technique is the one that resonates with you and fits your lifestyle.

Hot Cocoa

Hot cocoa is a deliciously warm and comforting drink that I like to serve with lots of little white marshmallows floating on top. Unlike hot chocolate that combines milk with semisweet chocolate, Hot Cocoa starts with good unsweetened cocoa powder combined with sugar and just enough milk or cream to make a smooth paste. Then hot milk (skim, 2%, or whole) is added to this cocoa paste and stirred until it is thoroughly blended. Sometimes I like to place the hot cocoa in a blender (or you can use an immersion blender) to make it nice and foamy. Finish your hot cocoa without a large handful of marshmallows (store bought or homemade) or else a dollop of whipped cream.
You may not know it but cocoa powder was invented back in the early 1800s by a Dutchman named Coenraad Van Houten. He made a press that could extract the cocoa butter from the chocolate liquor, leaving a dry cake. This cake was further dried and processed to become unsweetened cocoa powder. Van Houten then went on to discover that if the unsweetened cocoa powder was treated with an alkaline solution it produced a cocoa powder that was darker in color and softer in flavor than what he began with. It became known as 'Dutch-processed' cocoa powder. The reason I tell this story is Dutch-processed cocoa powder is what I use to make my hot cocoa. While you could use regular unsweetened cocoa powder I find the flavor of Dutch-processed makes for a mild yet flavorful drink. Droste is the brand I use and you can sometimes find it in grocery stores, or else at specialty food stores or on line.

Hot Cocoa: Place the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it is nice and hot.

Meanwhile in your mug or cup, make a paste with the cocoa powder, sugar, and cream. Pour the hot milk into the cocoa paste and stir until combined and smooth. You can place the hot cocoa in your blender (or use an immersion blender) to make it nice and foamy.

Garnish with marshmallows or softly whipped cream.

Makes 1 - 8 ounce (240 ml) serving.


Hot Cocoa Recipe:

3/4 cup (180 ml) milk (skim, 2%, or whole)

1 tablespoon Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I use Droste of Valrhona)

1 tablespoon granulated white sugar

2 tablespoons of cream or milk

For Garnish:

Marshmallows or softly whipped cream

Sources

Bigelow, Fran. 'Pure Chocolate'. New York: Broadway Books.: 2004.

Bloom, Carole, 'All About Chocolate'. New York: MacMillan, Inc.: 1998.

Rinzler, Carol Ann. 'The Book of Chocolate'. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977.

Yoga Baby

No doubt yoga has many benefits. Not only adults can do yoga, your baby can do it. Mom can do yoga along with the baby. This activity creates a great time and fun for both mother and baby, also remain at a healthy, fresh. Es''darle better quality and time of fun, right?

Basically, yoga use all of our body. Baby Yoga with many advantages, as it is helping to develop knowledge and physiology of the baby. Yoga can:

a. Improve the body's digestive system
b. Improve breathing system
c. Improve blood flow and circulation system
d. Improving the system of autoimmune
e. stimulate the development of the nervous system
f. receptors stimulate baby's skin cell growth and
g. baby develop muscles strong and flexible
h. promote increased sleep and relaxation to your baby
i. baby's developing character, self-esteem
J. promote and strengthen parent-child relationship.

Some preparation must be taken before doing yoga. Here are some tips to prepare a room cozy and comfortable:

To clean the environment and traffic management room air
Driving or room lighting, not too light or too dark
turn or soft music and light
Use to clean, soft mattress

On the other hand, have the baby use a soft and light, with fewer buttons. Give the circulation.

Having a good coach with experience of yoga also is very important. Yoga good coach will help parents to understand the background and benefits of each movement with the baby. Do not play with your baby at home if you have attended a baby yoga class.

YOGA FITNESS

Finding peace within

It is said that yoga is as old as civilization, but there is physical evidence that supports this claim. The earliest evidence of yoga comes from archaeology: stone seals with depict figures of Yoga Poses were found and they place yoga's existence 3000 years B.C.

Scholars, however, have a reason to believe that Yoga existed long before that and traced its beginnings in Stone Age Shamanism. Both Shamanism and Yoga have similar characteristics particularly in their efforts to improve the human condition at that time. Also, they aim to heal community members and the practitioners act as religious mediators. Though we know Yoga as focusing more on the self, it started out as community-oriented before it turned inward.

Yoga can relieve stress from work

The minute you step out of your house on your way to work, your stress meter rises dramatically, no thanks to the unpredictable weather, rowdy commuters, traffic, dirt, and smog. Tired and irritable you have difficulty focusing. Each incident in your day only adds to your distress and irritation, further upsetting an already stressed-out you.
Before you burst a blood vessel, why not check out the power of yoga? You may find out that all you will ever need to achieve calmness and peace of mind is you.

What is yoga?

Yoga is philosophy that aims to achieve a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility. It started some 5,000 years ago in India, where legend says people are gods who forgot to be godly because of all the comforts of the world. Nowadays, yoga is widely known as a system of exercises involving breathing, posture, and meditation- all with the goal of allowing man to find inner peace.

Yoga has since evolved into many branches and forms, the most popular worldwide being hatha yoga. "It is the branch which requires the most physical effort, and which draws results that can be felt immediately. It is one of six branches, the others consisting of raja, karma, bhakti, jnana, and tantra yoga. Although these are distinct branches, they often overlap," writes Yuliya Geikhman in "An Introduction to the Major Branches of Yoga.

Yoga is a personal discipline, a form of exercise that encourages discipline within you. A branch of hatha yoga developed by Bikram Choudhury and a Los Angeles-based U.S. company.

How can discipline answer my stress problem? You may well ask. It helps guide my action throughout the day even when I'm not practicing yoga. From a mental stand point, it's a way of thinking and a way of living if you want it to be that way. Defining yoga may go beyond words as it can have a different meaning and value for each practitioner.

Calming effect

Yoga teaches you to breathe calmly, which enhances the proper distribution of oxygen throughout the body and its organ. When you breathe calmly, your muscles and body are relaxed, and no adverse chemical reactions are set off in your body. So if you respond to situations that would normally stress or anger you with calm breathing, then you won't get stressed and you won't start the domino effect of all those chemical things that lead to serious health problems.

What exactly happens to our body when it is under pressure? When you are trapped in a stressful situation, your body naturals reaction is to produces cortisone and adrenaline, (steroid hormones released by the body in reaction to stress) to support an expected physical activity. But if you are just sitting stewing in you car during a traffic jam or at your office desk struggling to beat a deadline, the hormones do not get utilized. The hormones stay in the blood stream, stick to the arterial wall, and in time may lead to serious medical problems. The same goes for sugar, which is released when the brain senses that the body is about to take in physical tasks. Utilized sugar in the body may lead to diabetes.