Posts tagged The Well Daily
Wellness Wednesday: Share with Flair
Jul 25th
I wish there was a way to share digital recipes in a playlist like you do music on Spotify. One way to keep all your favorite recipes available and accessible to family and friends is to copy them onto a shared folder in Evernote. Not the pretty cookbook format you might be looking for, but it works!
xoxo,
Sukey
So you made a vow to spend less in 2012 than you did in 2011, eh? Even if all the flash sales have distracted you from your budget, get back on track by picking up a digital sharing habit. Making sharing part of your lifestyle will save you money and you’ll get to know your friends a little better too!
Here are a few simple ways to start sharing online:
- Swap ebooks with your friends by enabling lending on your eReader. Similarly, check to see if your local library will allow you to borrow ebooks.
- Share playlists with your friends on Spotify. (Don’t worry, you can keep your 80s hair band playlist private.)
- Learn new things and share what you know on Slideshare. Browse fascinating presentations by topic, then upload your own.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Bee the Breath
Jun 27th
Nothing calms a buzzing mind faster than a quick breath check. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget you’re breathing! My breath always brings me back home. Whether I am sealing my ears with my fingers and making sounds like a bee or just taking a big belly inhale, I return again and again—back into balance, back into grace, back to my better me. Until, of course, I forget again.
xoxo,
Sukey
Keep the buzzing mind at bay with a practice to get you in a meditative state: the Humming Bee Breath—named after Brahmari, meaning bumble bee. This practice is touted for its anger-reducing abilities. It calms the mind, reducing stress, anxiety, insomnia and even blood pressure.
The Humming Bee Breath gets its name from the sound made while exhaling and inhaling in the throat. The sound is similar to the chanting of Om, minus the O. The sounds should be deep, steady and smooth.
- Start in any cross-legged position in which the body can be relaxed and the spine is erect.
- Begin inhaling through both nostrils, then start creating a long Om sound (minus the O) while you exhale.
- Start with a 4 second nasal inhale while Oming, then exhale for 6 seconds through both nostrils. Practice this for about 5 minutes.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Happy Quotes
Jun 20th
My sister-in-law gave her sister a massive book filled with quotes from all of her favorite books and poems for her 40th birthday. I was struck by how thoughtful a gift it was—all the lines outlined just for her birthday; the care, the time, the love…what an intimate and touching gift! I want someone to make me a quote book!! Maybe when I turn 50? Hint hint. I’m already collecting quotes for a special someone in my life.
xoxo.
Sukey
Milestones: weddings, birthdays and graduations frequently leave us frustrated when searching for that perfect gift. So instead, make an impression by giving inspiration. Enter: The Wisdom of Others, a website that creates personalized quote books.
It’s especially perfect for those lacking in the DIY department or for those who start every morning off with one of Joyful Heart’s Daily Joys—all you have to do is supply the quotes yourself or with contributors (friends, family, coworkers) and let The Wisdom of Others handle the rest! Your options are endless from the designs to how your book is printed (print, PDF, or Epub for those Kindle readers). All it takes is 4 simple steps:
- Create an account.
- Select a design from the options available.
- Invite others to contribute with quotes via email, Facebook, Twitter, or URL.
- Review, click order and sit back and relish in the time saved in finding the gift of all gifts!
Jump start your quote search with a few from our very own, Sukey and Jackie, as well as a few from our Expert Wellies, or any of the hundreds of Daily Joys you can find here on the Joyful Heart Blog.
- Sukey: “Draw a crazy picture, write a nutty poem, sing a mumble-gumble song, whistle through your comb. Do a loony-goony dance ’cross the kitchen floor. Put something silly in the world that ain’t been there before.” —Shel Silverstein
- Jackie: ”Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of that candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” —Buddha
- Alejandro Junger: “If it has a solution, why worry? If it has no solution, why worry?” —Ekhart Tolle.
- Karen Erickson: “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” —CS Lewis
- Elizabeth Lesser: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.” —Howard Thurman
- Sharon Salzberg: “Hatred will never cease through hatred, it will only cease through love.” —Buddha
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Operation Exfoliation
Jun 6th
My weekday mornings are way too crazy to think about exfoliation, so if I can get an hour to myself on a Sunday afternoon, I lock the door and turn my bathroom into a mini spa. In fact, since it’s my only private spot in the house, I’m thinking about having it painted and moving my meditation cushion in there.
xoxo,
Sukey
We all know that when it comes to dry and itchy skin, sometimes lotion just doesn’t cut it and even the fanciest moisturizer is no match for clogged pores.
The solution? Exfoliation. The best way to do it? Yourself.
Our favorite recipe smooths the skin with a sweet ingredient straight from your kitchen cabinets: brown sugar. Just as effective as expensive beauty bar products, the brown sugar exfoliates while the olive oil moisturizes, leaving your face and body soft and supple. Make sure to use organic olive oil—you only want pure goodness for your precious self.
What you need for sweetly smooth skin:
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- zest of one lemon or zest of a small orange
Combine all the ingredients and keep your scrub in an airtight glass jar for up to two weeks. Use it in the shower as often as you need to stay smooth; it’s especially good for rough areas like elbows and knees. Once weekly, apply the scrub to your face and neck, using gentle, circular motions and concentrating on the T-zone—your forehead, nose and chin.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness byby signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Update Your Failure Resume
May 23rd
“When I started my first business, my partner and I started what we called our Wall of Shame. We’d look back on that wall of not-so-great decisions and have a good laugh and then think, ‘Wow, look at how far we’ve come.’”
xoxo,
Sukey
Thomas Edison failed a thousand times before he invented the lightbulb. “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” a reporter asked. “I didn’t fail 1,000 times,” Edison responded. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”
Living in a world full of risk and failure, it’s inevitable that we’ll come face-to-face with it; it’s what we learn from confronting failure that matters most, which is why we love Tina Seelig‘s introduction of the idea on the failure resume.
- What is it? A failure resume is like any other resume, only this one lists your failures—both personal and professional—and the lessons you’ve learned from each experience.
- Why do it? By seeing our failures written down, we can view it from a different perspective and can begin to extract the important lessons learned from them.
- How to do it? Start with the five biggest setbacks in your life and see what came out of them. Be creative! It doesn’t matter how you write it, just as long as you do it!
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, a website and free daily email for all things yoga, meditation, nutrition and wellness. The Well Daily’s simple mission: be well, do well, live well—for yourself and others. Join thousands of others seeking more health and more joy by following The Well Daily on Twitter and Facebook and by subscribing for your daily dose of wellness.
Wellness Wednesday: Happy Videos
May 16th
The Internet is great. My favorite resources are videos. If I don’t know something, I can quickly learn from an 18 minute presentation. A Google time-suck can uncover gems to make me smile, help me find tools and stoke my creativity, so don’t feel guilty; get lost in a video. There are so many good teachers waiting to find you.
xoxo,
Sukey
Revelation: Brené Brown on Vulnerability Brené shows us just how worthy we are of love or that promotion.
Cultivation: Your Friends Can Make You Happy On how contagious happiness when near friends and friends of friends.
Inspiration: Alice Dancing Under the Gallows An inspiring story of an ex-concert pianist and oldest holocaust survivor on her positive outlook on life since the concentration camp.
Celebration: Christian the Lion: Reunited A story of a lion reuniting with his childhood owners—he even introduces them to his wife!
Dance-nation: Rita Hayworth is Stayin’ Alive Watch Rita Hayworth boogy down in 5 minutes of dance footage!
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Be Good To Your Bones
May 2nd
My mother has always been pint-size, clocking in at 4’11.’’ When we saw her slowly shrinking in size with age, we knew it wasn’t because she stopped wearing heels. Mom was never an athlete and never caught the wave of the aerobics generation, but the woman could dance. Moving her body in any way not only lifts her spirits but also helps her build bone mass.
xoxo,
Sukey
Did you know that after around age 30, bone mass begins to diminish? And without proper care, our bones can become more brittle, which in many cases, can lead to bone disease. Make no bones about, maintaining bone health is just as important to our life as breathing is.
See how small changes in your diet can prevent the onset of osteoporosis and other degenerative bone diseases:
- Catch some rays: Enjoying the sun not only boosts moods, but nourishes your body with vitamin D that can prevent fractures and is integral in the absorption of calcium.
- Befriend fat: Healthy fats are rich in essential fatty acids (nuts, seeds and fatty fish). Their role in calcium and vitamin absorption make them a key nutrient for bone health.
- Sack the sugar: Refined sugar, alcohol and caffeine, and processed foods—think bacon—deplete the bones of calcium and minerals. Instead, replace them with calcium-rich foods and healthy fats.
- Get crafty with calcium: Calcium is a critical element to good bone health. Give dairy a break and mix it up with other calcium sources: veggies (cauliflower, sweet potatoes, kale) and seafood (seaweed, soft shell crab, sardines).
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!
Wellness Wednesday: Change Your Story
Mar 28th
One of the benefits of meditation is that it forces me to slow down. Sometimes I’m running so fast trying to keep up with my kids that I miss many opportunities to feel and learn. But this past weekend I stopped in my tracks and felt a shift in perspective. It was 8am on a Saturday in a community center gym in New Jersey. I was holding my son’s smelly sneakers when he shot me a smile as he finished tying his wrestling shoes. My husband was a wrestler, and I’ve got all these stories about wrestling in my head: ‘Why do men feel this primal need to fight? This isn’t very yogic. I don’t like seeing people in pain.’ But, suddenly, in that gym, I could see (even if he couldn’t) what my son was learning: humility, strength and discipline. It’s these meditative moments that can unlock habitual mind patterns that help us all broaden our perspective and rewrite that old story.
xoxo,
Sukey
We hear it all the time: “change your story, change your life.” Sounds so simple, but it can be an overwhelmingly tall order if you’re stuck in a rut. What if instead we were to focus on the minor narratives—the small-but-significant stories we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that we don’t even think of them as stories, but as second nature? Stories that we picked up somewhere along the way and ran with: I’m not athletic enough to work out or I’m not creative enough for a project like that.
But here’s the thing: once you start to change the little stories, suddenly the big picture begins to shift too. Here are three ways to start from scratch and rewrite your whole story.
- Get on the cushion. Nothing shifts the focus like meditation. Oh, but you’re not a meditating kind of person… or is that just your story? If you’re not ready to change it just yet, simply take a minute to breathe.
- Write it down. Get a journal, start a blog, send a letter to someone you love—one of the best ways to make a positive change is to literally write down your goals—spell it out, and mean it.
- Take a risk. If you’ve always labeled yourself the shy one, step out of your box: take a class, talk to a stranger or ask a coworker to coffee. Aim to surprise yourself.
Tap the Well: Infuse your thought patterns with positivity with the Gratitude Stream app. Record your positive thoughts and watch a stream of others from all over the world in real time.
For more tips on living well, visit The Well Daily, your ultimate guide for creating health and happiness. Get the best wellness techniques, products, recipes and general goodness by signing up. Make sure to follow The Well Daily on Twitter and like it on Facebook too!