Keeping Your Life In Balance
We all want to be happy in life, to be calm, confident and relaxed. We all want to be in complete control of every aspect of your life. Just as a car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster when the wheels are in perfect alignment, every individual performs better when his or her thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals and values are in alignment.
Nature demands balance in all things. You see balance all around you, from the most distant stars in the universe down to the individual cells of your body. Each of your billions of cells contain hundreds of chemicals, each of which is carefully regulated and kept in balance by your autonomic nervous system to ensure health and longevity.
Balance is the norm your life. Your body has natural bias toward health and energy. It"s built to last for a hundred years and to perform smoothly and efficiently for most of that time. It"s only improper maintenance and incorrect operation that, in most cases, cause your body to get out of balance and lead to disease and pain, rather than relaxation and pleasure.
Emotionally, you also have a natural tendency toward happiness and enjoyment. In fact you have an inner voice that automatically tells you when you"re doing the things that are just right for your unique personality and temperament. This inner voice or intuition is manifested in your level of peace of mind.
Whenever you feel at peace with yourself and the world around you, it means that you"re doing the very things that you"re meant to do and that your inner and outer worlds are properly balanced and in alignment with each other.
The normal, natural and healthy state of being in life is that of happiness, experiencing joy in laughter in most of what you do. How often you laugh at what is going on around you is a good measure how in balance your life actually is. The degree to which you have a positive mental attitude toward yourself and the normal ups and downs of life is also a good measure of your mental health.
People who are pessimistic and negative, and who only see the dark side of things that happen to them, are often found to be suffering from some form of mental illness. If a person is negative too long, that negativity becomes a habit pattern of thought and action, and he or she tends to see the whole world through lenses tinged with negativity and unhappiness.
There are two major areas of balance that you need to be concerned with on a daily basis. They are the physical and the emotional.
You need to adjust your behaviors in such a way that you can enjoy high levels of physical health and energy most of the time. I"m sure you"ve heard this saying many times before, "You can have all the money in the world, but it means nothing if you don"t have your health."
You need to guard your health like a sacred object. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to be at night, you need to think about the things you can do to assure that you live a long and healthy life, free from the diseases and debilitating illnesses that are causing health-care outlays in the United States to be the highest in the world.
Medical studies almost uniformly identify seven ways to help ensure good physical and mental health throughout your life.
1. Eat regularly but lightly. Cut down on your intake of fat, sugar and salt, while adding more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean sources of protein to your diet.
2. Don"t snack between meals because the introduction of new food interrupts the ongoing digestive process and leads to drowsiness and improper food digestion.
3. Don"t smoke because it has been found to cause more illnesses alone than all the other environmental or hereditary factors put together.
4. Consume alcohol moderately or not at all. Studies show that if you do drink alcohol it is best not to have more than one or two drinks per day.
5. Get seven to eight hours of sleep every night. Not getting the proper rest at night causes your immune system to break down and makes you susceptible to a variety of illnesses, including colds, flu, and even pneumonia.
6. Exercise on a regular basis. Even moderate daily exercise daily can help you to feel better, digest better, sleep better and be a happier and more positive person.
7. Practice deep breathing every day. This helps to improve your digestion, increase the amount of oxygen going through your brain, and enable you to relax into a constant state of being alert and ready.
Deep breathing causes you to relax and makes you feel more confident and more in control of yourself and the situation. It brings your inner world into better alignment with what is going on around you.
Whenever you face a stressful situation in your external world, you can better prepare yourself to deal with it by taking a few moments to breathe deeply before you say or do anything. When you prepare yourself in this way, your words and actions will be far better considered and more effective than they would if you had just reacted when the situation came up. You will feel more in balance.
You can achieve a greater sense of balance by, first of all, determining your values in each area regarding your health, your relationships, and your work. Next, you examine your behaviors and identify the things that you"re doing and saying that are not consistent with bringing your behaviors into alignment with your innermost convictions and eliminate them. Once you do this, you"ll start to feel happier and healthier.
Just as a car with perfectly aligned and balanced wheels runs more smoothly down the highway, you also will run more smoothly down the highway of life when you take the time and make the effort to bring everything that you do and say into balance and alignment.
Copyright 2007 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and success coaching programs. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in career coach training. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many businesses around the world, on the subjects of leadership, achievement, goals, strategic business planning, and marketing. Joe is the author of three books, Starting Your Own Business, Finding Your Purpose In Life, and The Guerrilla Marketing
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