lifestyle – Page 3

Kiteaboarding as conscious evolution. Another view

This is another view on kiteboarding as a conscious evolution. Another kiter and spiritual practitioner, another insight, but pretty similar feelings. Guess why? Yes, right: because when you are open to receive the Universe is open to give…

This is the second article of the series about kiteboarding. We are open for contributors.

One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.

― Leonardo da Vinci

I give thanks for the vitalizing forces that come from deep within this body, that reside in the ‘dan tien’ as my mentor calls it.

Have you felt being so immersed in a activity that you ‘lose’ sense of time? Yet, felt being one hundred percent connected to every element, every breath, move and sound?

This is a state of Oneness or meditation: a dive into our most creative, playful, powerful self. And the more we practice, the easier it gets to go into ‘flow’.

Like a Samurai learning the art of the sword, the Yogi mastering the mat, the surfermerging with the wave, my journey is about finding oneness in kiteboarding, and everything else. I feel most disciplines use form / technique to prepare the body (vase) and the mind to receive the teachings and, as our progression deepens, the technical aspects can be integrated into the refined art of relaxation, contentment and ease (sthira & sukha in the yogic language).

With purposeful practice and feedback from our mentors, the sport becomes so engrained in our cells, that we can shift into a ‘No mind space’ and enter a state of unity.

I remember my first yoga training.. ‘Embodiment of yoga’ was the subject. I just couldn’t get it back then. Years later, there’s an integration happening from within that am stoked to share!

So today’s Recipe..

Get out there as much as you can. Go, go and go. Practice makes master
Kite in your joy and ecstasy, in sorrow, loss and everything in between. Celebrate you’re flying, and pray for the parts in you that are dying .
Meditate on loved ones, not so-loved ones, allow yourself go through your battles chanting, and dancing on water.
Don’t take yourself so seriously, we’re not that important
Rejoice with the simple act of riding with different conditions.
Be courageous

My prayer for us:

Lets become souls with Stamina, less selfies in ‘higher jumps and fancier tricks’ ( These come along as perks), but more about gathering our total focus, determination, and commitment to return to the ocean together as a collective

We can make Oneness happen. – The way of the wild warrior, the crazy/ creative/ wise soul living inside each one of us awaits to be freed !

May you expand our capacity to enjoy where we are, as we are, no matter what.

In the sun, rain and rainbows – we ride.

See you out there !

Denise

https://soulsonfireblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/blog-post-title/

Peanut butter-banana healthy muffins. Recipe from bikini-fitness champion

Since Fit&Treat production kitchen in London was closed November 2016 I received hundreds of emails from our customers and followers asking me to share recipes we used to cook their loved healthy meals. So I decided It would be at least selfish to keep a secret. From this moment i’m going to publish bit by bit all Fit&Treat’s healthy recipes created in Fit&Treat’s kitchen and gathered from best industry experts for years of my bikini-fitness expurience.

Starting the series with healthy muffins.

Personally, I’m not a big fun of muffins but my Fit&Treat’s customers and followers, my family and friends simply love them.

Peanut Butter & Banana Muffins – happy school days flesh back.

These muffins taste exactly the same way as traditional school days snack but far lighter in terms of nutrition. I swaped all heavy and sugary ingredients on healthy substitutes and here we go! Try to make this fantastic snack to spoil your loved ones. Peanut butter-banana healthy muffins could be a great idea as a pre-workout snack or breakfast. Let me know if you liked it.

with love

Tatiana Dmitrieva

Macros:

Calories: 135

Protein: 4 grams

Carbs: 23 grams

Fat: 4 grams

Ingredients:

1 cup white whole-wheat flour + 1 cup oat or whole grain flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 3/4 cup mashed bananas (about 4 large bananas)

2-3 Tbsp. of stevia or any other sweetener (i never use refined sugar in my recipes)

2-3 Tbsp. of honey or agave nectar (optional for those who have a bigger sweet tooth)

1 Tbsp. coconut melted oil

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup creamy peanut/almond butter

1/2 cup unsweetened almond/soya milk

Yield: 15 MUFFINS; prep time: 15 min; cook time: 20-25 min; total time: 37 min

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Line a muffin pan with paper liners and set aside.

3. Whisk together hard ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

4. Mash bananas until smooth. I use mixed but fork is also an option. Add stevia, honey (optional), coconut oil, egg, vanilla and beat everything together. Add in the peanut/almond butter. Add the flour mixture and milk. Mix until smooth.

4. Fill muffin liners half full. Bake about 20 min. until toothpick inserted into muffin centre comes out clean. Cool. I like to serve the muffins with peanut butter and berries. You can store them in room temperature for up to 3 days.

You can also freeze and use when needed just reheat in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

Bon appetit

What the Rest day does to your body. Shocking inside

How many days a week do you actually work out? How many days should be devoted to rest? Do we really need a rest day? Some people believe that the more you exercise, the quicker and better the results. What’s the ideal ratio of rest to workout days in order to maximise the outcome of your exercise?

Workout days are simple to follow: you just follow your routine. Then, on your “rest days”, you feel like a lost duckling. It is always so tempting to fill them with “other physical activities” up to the top. Do you run on the treadmill? Or maybe do lighter weights? A bike ride on a unicycle up a mountain sounds nice. How about this: try actually letting your body rest.

“Rest” Is Often Misunderstood

There’s a reason rest days are intentionally woven into workout programs. In fact, rest is necessary for progress. When you exercise—particularly when you do really intense stuff like training for a marathon or lifting heavy weights—you’re damaging your muscle fibers. And it’s really the rest and recovery that let you repair muscles, and get fitter.

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) defines a rest day as a non-training day, where you’re not challenging your body at all. Some people interpret it as a license for a cheat day or just do nothing—the latter of which I actually encourage if you already work out too much. I used to work with people who took rest days to mean activity that was the exact opposite of resting. They might go for a “quick run” that ended up being eight miles; or do high-intensity interval training right after squats and deadlifts. That’s on top of training five to six days a week, sometimes twice a day. Those are pretty stressful rest days. Of course, these are extreme cases, but the urge to be extreme in fitness is more common than you think.

Refusing to Properly Rest Hurts You in the Long Run

You’ve heard the saying: “No pain, no gain,” or “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” If you work out intensely every day, you run your body ragged. Ideally, your fitness cycle should be: Work out, recover, profit, repeat. The recovery part is necessary for you to keep up this cycle over and over again and be able to see those results in the long run.

But remember, you’re (probably) not only exercising. You’ve got a life, a job, a family, Game of Thrones spoilers, and so many other stressors. These will all impact your ability to recover from your workouts.

And let’s not gloss over the fact that fitness is 50 percent physical and 50 percent mental. I know I spend a lot of time thinking about how to crush my workouts, what to do to get the most out of them, the “right amount” of reps and sets, what glorious thing I’m going to eat afterward, or whether the stripes on these socks match the color of my shorts. All of these stressors will have rippling effects on not only your workout performance but on other areas of your life, too. A little extra strenuous activity here and there isn’t a big deal.

But by the time you really do need that rest, it may be too late: you’ve burnt out. As a result, your motivation and energy levels will get hit hard; you’ll get lackluster or no results; you’ll make yourself more prone to injuries; or worse, you’ll start to see exercise as a chore.

Some fitness practitioners believe (and I share their opinion) that over-training causes massive water retention. At first glance it may resemble gaining fat. However, just a few days of complete rest could solve the problem, and is sufficient time to shed up to 2-3 kg of retained fluids in men and up to 5 kg in women.

Rest Doesn’t Have to Mean Doing Absolutely Nothing

At the same time, plenty of people have told me that deliberate rest would be too disruptive to their “hot” workout streak. That is, they’re stuck on this idea that if they take some time to rest, it’ll mess up their momentum and be much harder to get crackin’ to work out again.

If that’s you, you don’t have to stop entirely. Instead of being completely still, you can do what’s called “active recovery”, where you’re still moving, just letting your body recover. Many coaches advocate engaging in some sort of movement, but advise that it should be easy on the body.

Here are some ideas on what that might look like:

Do some mobility work: Mobility refers to how well your joints and body move. If you sit at a desk all day, you can probably work on your mobility to improve your posture and range of motion (like in your upper back and hips). Besides, better mobility can translate to better performance in the gym, too. Your rest days are the perfect opportunity to fit in light mobility and flexibility work. Yoga or foam rolling can be part of this regimen.
Practice technique: Whether you’re learning a new weightlifting move or trying to improve your running stride, use your rest day to practice. If you’re practicing a weightlifting move, I recommend using a broomstick in place of a barbell. A lot of repetitions even with just the barbell could tire you out.

Do cardio (only if you want): You’re probably told to just do cardio on the exercise machines on your rest days. You can, but don’t feel like you need to, especially if you’re already pretty active. Do it only because you want to and it’s actually a way for you to feel relaxed.

Take your activity outside: Hike, jog, bike, play catch, swim, prance, or do anything you enjoy. When you spend all your time working out indoors, it’s nice to be able to mix it up with doing something outside. Recreational sports are great, but sports like soccer, football, basketball, Ultimate frisbee, and so on can also be really intense. If you’re playing at a competitive level on a regular basis and feel beat, talk to a coach who specializes in your sport about designing a proper in-season training protocol.

When you feel really run-down and lack the energy and motivation to work out, it’s a dead giveaway that something needs to go. Obviously, you can’t just easily toss aside many of your life’s obligations, but you can always cut down on your activity. Instead, you can spend a day preparing your meals on your rest day. Heck, if you want to, you can sit on your ass to play video games or read a book at the park. You should take at least one day of rest like that.

Doing too much exercise is counterproductive. Being fit and healthy requires the interplay between rest and exercise, which in turn bring you results and all those other health benefits. So, take care of your body. That’s why you’re working out in the first place.

Stephanie Lee

Source:

http://vitals.lifehacker.com/stop-working-out-so-much-on-your-rest-days-1778354349

8 Questions To Ask Yourself To Feel Better

Ask yourself great questions and have a great life. Ask yourself bad questions and have a bad life.

Questions are really powerfull and determine your descisions, focus, mindset.

Ask yourself a question and your brain will find the right answer.

Here are some questions that will put you in a better state.

What’s really hilarious about this right now?

Why is it so easy for me to get excited about my life?

What am I greatful for?

Why am I so awesome?

What do I find really interesting right now?

What are the 3 best things I love about life?

What is the best thing that happened in the last week?

What is the best thing ever that happened to me?

Why do I love myself so much?

Don’t just read them. Really answer them and your state will change.

The trick here is to ask yourself questions that allready implies awesomeness. Questions like that will make you look at things from different angle and mindset. That’s the key. To look at life differently.

Now get out there and feel great!

https://dopelifey.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/8-questions-to-ask-yourself-to-feel-better/

How to improve your memory

Draw it to remember it. Good trick to know.

Here’s the Memory Trick That Science Says Works — You draw it

Jeffrey Kluger | April 22, 2016

If the brain could brag that’s pretty much all it would do. It’s easily the most complicated organ in your body, and, more than that, the nimblest computer that has ever existed. But the brain has a bug and everyone knows is: memory. No matter how powerful its operating system becomes, its storage system stinks.

Even in childhood, when the brain is as clear and uncluttered as it will ever be, memory is still imperfect, given to random failures, depending on how rested we are, how attentive we’re being and a range of other things. Now, a new paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology suggests an unusual strategy for improving it: drawing.

As long ago as 1973, investigators were studying the memory-boosting advantage of so-called dual-coding—the way that a combination of both thinking about an object or activity and drawing a picture of it can make us remember it better. Research did show that the strategy worked, but the studies were both sparse and flawed, failing to account for the mere fact that it takes longer to draw a picture than, say, write a word, and whether writing the word in a more time-consuming way—using elaborate calligraphy, for example—would thus boost recall too.

In order to tease out those and other variables, a group led by psychologist Jeffrey D. Wammes recruited sample groups of students and ran seven different trials of essentially the same experiment on them. In all of the trials, the scientists started with a list of 80 simple words—all nouns and all easy to draw, such as balloon, fork, kite, pear, peanut and shoe. A random series of 30 of those words were flashed on a screen along with instructions either to draw the object or write down its name. After the 30 words, they would perform a filler task—listening to a series of tones and identifying whether each was low-, high-, or medium-pitched. That task had nothing to do with the study, except to get the subjects’ minds off of what they had just done, so that the memories could either consolidate or, just as often, vanish. Finally, they would write down a list of as many of the objects from the first test as they could.

In most of the trials, the subjects got 40 seconds to draw their picture, but in one they got just four seconds. In another variation, they would draw the object or write the word or, as a third option, list its descriptive characteristics. In another, the third option would be to visualize the object. In yet another, they would write the word as elaborately and decoratively as possible.

But no matter how many variations of the test the researchers ran, one result was consistent: Drawing the object beat every other option, every single time.

We observed a significant recall advantage for words that were drawn as compared to those that were written. Participants often recalled more than twice as many drawn words.

said Wammes in a prepared statement.

Just why this is so is not clear. One past theory had been that drawing requires what the researchers call a deeper LoP—or level of processing. But the trial in which the subjects were required to list the characteristics of an object went pretty deep too, and it didn’t make a difference. Another theory had been that drawing simply takes longer, but the four-second trial appeared to debunk that.

For now, Wammes and his group are speaking only generally, concluding that drawing encourages

a seamless integration of semantic, visual and motor aspects of a memory trace,

as they wrote in their paper. It will take more work to put flesh on those theoretical bones. For now, however, they only know that the technique works—providing a long-awaited software patch for the computer inside your head.

https://pragmasynesi.wordpress.com/2016/04/26/draw-it-to-remember-it/

What is the connection between Music and the Brain?

Music is a powerful tool for the brain. Classical music has been studied for many years for its influence in the brain. Scientists have come to a conclusion that music is a valuable therapy for many diseases.

Norman Doidge has talked about Mozart music therapy in his book. He says it is a very useful therapy for Autism. Other studies have proven that music therapy is helpful in stress reduction and improvement of literacy skills in children.

Music has a harmony and frequency. These two attributes are important for the brain. The brain likes to hear certain frequencies at certain moments. When we are happy we can hear loud music and enjoy it. When we are angry we only accept to hear certain frequencies. Experiments show that in angry moments we like to hear classical music as it calms the brain down. It is very interesting to see the brain scans before and after listening to music, and the way they change. In a brain scan the red areas are the ones with a higher blood circulation, that show more stress. When a person listens to music these areas are reduced.

In his book Norman Doidge says that Mozart music can improve the symptoms of Autistic children. He mentions a physician who uses Mozart music as a therapy for healing Autistic children. He changes the frequency of the music a bit to make it more approachable to his goal. The therapy lasts and in certain days children listen to a certain frequency.

The frequency that the brain likes to hear the most is 90Hz to 110Hz. Norman Doidge thinks this therapy can be used for many brain illnesses as anxiety or depression.

The music therapy helps to make the myelin cover in n axon thicker, which helps to improve the firing of neurons faster, and releasing all toxins. After the therapy the scans of the brain showed that there was small amount of stress and anxiety and the person’s brain was healthier.

In conclusion music is a therapy for the brain. It helps the brain be more efficient. It helps the literacy and auditory skills in children if they are exposed to music in early years of their life.

https://myscience94.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/what-is-the-connection-between-music-and-the-brain/