Good habits are essential in being able to live the lives we desire. Still, we tend to approach willpower not as something we can build up and strengthen but, instead, as an innate characteristic that we either have or don't. We further perceive bad habits as reflective of our lack of willpower. But, as many know, it's not so easy to break bad habits or to start new ones, like regular exercise or a daily meditation practice. Too often, attempts to change habits fail. Repeated failures can create the unintended pattern of failing, which leads to losing hope and believing we're incapable of change. So, the first consideration in changing habits is to establish the habit of success! How can you get started? Treat Willpower Like a Muscle The will is like a muscle that needs training to be strengthened. Imagine if you began weightlifting by trying to press 200 pounds! You would certainly fail. But most people set self-improvement goals that are similarly much too…

"What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe and the personality that you portray." - James Clear, author of the New York Times bestselling book Atomic Habits You find yourself falling into certain patterns day in and day out. These are your habits, whether you realize them or not. Some support you toward your goals, while others, it seems, get you bogged down in less-beneficial behaviors. Our habits define us, but what exactly are habits? Defining "Habit" A habit is formed when we perform a certain behavior repeatedly over time because it rewards us in some way. This continual repetition literally etches neural pathways in our brains, so that eventually we respond to a given trigger automatically and mostly unconsciously with that behavior. For example, triggered by a feeling of thirst, we seek out water or some other beverage to drink. Triggered by entering a dark room, we swi…

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Will Durant, summarizing what Aristotle had to say on the subject of habits What does it mean to develop good habits? What does it mean - and what are the effects of - having a "bad" habit? Let's start with a more personal perspective: It was decades ago, an unseasonably hot spring day in a high school chemistry class. Along with my fellow students, I was already having trouble concentrating on the droning voice of our dour teacher, Mr. Barkley, when a loud motorcycle came roaring to a stop right outside our window. Eager for distraction, we rushed to the open window and saw a cyclist dressed from head to toe in black leather. He'd stopped to pick up, of all people, a nun in full traditional garb. As she hopped on the back of the motorcycle, and it sped away, we students were amazed and delighted to hear Mr. Barkley sigh and remark in his usual dry monotone, "I guess it's all right as l…

Have you tried to establish a regular meditation practice, but found it difficult to sustain over time? Join the club! Or better yet, join a group! Support systems, from classes to a workout partner, have long been a strategy to help people stick with an exercise routine and ultimately begin a new habit. Incorporating meditation into your daily life isn't any different. New habits take practice, dedication and establishing a pattern, and encouragement in varying degrees helps get you there. In both scenarios, one thing that may be getting in your way is a lack of social support. Although you can read about all the great things meditation can do for your health, energy and emotional equilibrium, and even experience benefits when you try it, if the people around you are totally uninterested in meditation, it's easy to get discouraged and begin thinking it's not worth the effort.Most Buddhists belong to religious communities called sanghas. Like any other religious community, the sangha p…

Whether through burnout or emerging as cardiovascular or other health issues, chronic stress takes a toll on the body. Recently, we've been focusing on the importance of balancing activity with rest and relaxation for sustaining maximum energy and efficiency. R&R is also essential for combating the negative effects of stress. Today we'll be giving you a "quick fix" through a breathing exercise to help you shift quickly from stress mode to "rest and relax" mode. The Relationship Between Stress and the Nervous System As you may remember, central to the topic of stress versus rest is the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the part of our nervous system that controls involuntary actions like breathing, digestion, the heartbeat, etc. The ANS has two complementary halves, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which control stress and relaxation in our bodies. The SNS responds to challenge or threat with the classic "fight o…

You never feel like you have enough time. Your day seems like it just doesn't have enough hours, or you're too tired to tackle everything on your list. However, rather than attempt to speed up your pace or try another time management technique, consider addressing your sleep - specifically if and how much restorative sleep you're getting in each night. What Is Restorative Sleep?To operate at top energy and efficiency, getting a good night's sleep - seven to nine hours of "restorative sleep" that leaves you waking up feeling rested and refreshed - is essential.The body is self-healing, self-repairing and self-detoxifying - but only if it gets enough rest and sleep, because all this healing, repairing and detoxifying work is done when the body is at rest.To put it straightforwardly, when you wake up feeling alert, rested and ready to start your day, you've had a night of restorative sleep. Restorative sleep applies to the period lasting from deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM), durin…

Life tends to feel like you're always on the go: You're reaching for a new goal at work, attempting to squeeze in more time for your family or hobbies, and then you address your health by going to the gym or another form of physical activity. Even if you do it all, the hectic pace catches up to you, and you notice how exhausted you feel over time. But why should it be either-or? Rather than pull back or surge forward while ignoring your health, understand how to effectively balance rest and activity. This year, Beyond Health is focusing on maximizing energy in order to do all the wonderful and amazing things you want to do with your life. But to maximize energy, you first need to balance activity with deep rest and relaxation, to give your body a chance to settle and become quieter, and to heal and regenerate.Understanding Balance in the BodyIn Chinese medicine, there are two principles that govern all life, yang and yin. Yang is dynamic, active, hard, brilliant, quick, courageous and…

Although Americans need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, the food gurus these days aren't pushing fruits as much as they once were. That's because more information has come out about fructose, the sugar in fruit. While fine in moderation, in excessive amounts, fructose can be toxic. That's why at Beyond Health, we've always recommended not exceeding more than two pieces of fruit a day. But one fruit the experts still recommend is berries, including strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries and raspberries. Why? Because no fruit offers so much nutritional value for the calories and fructose it delivers. Berries for Disease Prevention Berries are chock-full of phytonutrients (translation: nutrients in plants) that are some of the world's most powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. Since oxidation and inflammation are fundamental processes in all disease, it's not surprising that scientists have been finding that berries help to preven…

Colorful, fresh fruits and vegetables do more than delight the eye and decorate our plates. They keep us feeling light and energized. Numerous studies have shown that they protect our bodies from all kinds of disease by maintaining systemic alkalinity, reducing inflammation, supporting detoxification, providing needed fiber and strengthening immunity.However, the main problem in our busy lives is finding ways to get enough of them. For good health, 1½ to 2 cups of fruit a day and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables are recommended. If you want maximum benefits, aim for two pieces of fruit and 5 cups of vegetables.Since including more fruit isn't as difficult as getting more vegetables, last week we gave you some ideas on how to include more vegetables in your life - like making them the centerpiece rather than a side-dish in your meals; becoming inspired by the superior taste of fresh and organic vegetables; becoming more imaginative in creating salads; and making your own vegetable snack chips.…

Have you been to a local farmer's market lately? By being outside in the fresh air, surrounded by nature's colorful bounty and the good people who spend their lives tending farms and growing nutritious produce, you already feel healthier and inspired to include more delicious fruits and vegetables in your diet. Using your recently purchased produce to make lunch when you get home is a reminder of how much tastier (and healthier) fresh fruits and vegetables are. Health exists along a continuum, from near-death all the way to bursting-with-energy optimal health. Including more fresh fruits and vegetables in our diets is a major way to keep moving along that continuum towards greater vitality, strength, endurance, mental clarity and optimistic mood. Still, getting in fresh produce each day and adhering to a plant-based diet can feel like a hurdle. Including more fruit isn't hard - just remember to buy it and keep it where it's visible and handy. Fruit is the original…

"Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." - Hippocrates Do your meals leave you feeling light and full of vitality, or do they weigh you down, making you feel sleepy and dull? Although all food supplies calories, how well your body utilizes those calories to provide you with energy depends on the "life force" in the foods you eat. And foods vary widely along a continuum in this respect, from producing vitality, rejuvenation and healing to sapping your energy, adding unwanted weight and contributing to premature aging and disease.Food also influences mood and mental abilities, from raising your spirits, making you optimistic and heightening your awareness and mental function to bringing you down and dulling your brain.A number of factors determine a food's vibration or life force. Overall, foods are most energizing and health-promoting when they're consumed raw, or as close as possible to their natural state. This gives pride of place to the multicolored fruits and vegetable…

It never seems like you have enough time - or motivation. You think your dreams and aspirations are within your grasp, but no matter your efforts, they always feel just out of reach. Don't give up or think of your efforts as futile; instead, you might ask yourself, how do you get the energy to achieve your goals and manifest your dreams? What fuels you? To start, the goals and dreams themselves, if they speak to your heart and soul, energize your spirit. But you also need physical health to manifest them. To be a human dynamo, you need to go beyond "health" as simply the absence of a disease diagnosis. True health is a condition of vigor, stamina and exuberant energy that is rare in today's world. True health means every cell in your body is bursting with vitality! That is the vision for you that drives us at Beyond Health - to go beyond conventional definitions of health and beyond what you may have imagined for yourself. No matter where you are now, we know…

It's not that easy for a virus to take hold in the body. Should it gain entry, it must first attach itself to a cell, then pass through the cell's outer membrane, and, once inside the cell, take over the cell's machinery to replicate itself. The immune system can intervene and abort this hijacking of the cell at different points along the way, and a strong immune system can make short work of an intruding virus, nipping it in the bud before it can do any damage or even produce symptoms. Ultimately, it's the strength of your immune system that determines whether you get sick. If you do get sick, how sick you will get and how soon you will recover is the real question.But we need to help our immune systems to function optimally. While other factors, such as avoiding toxins, eating a good diet and getting appropriate sleep and exercise are also important, there are four crucial supplements that we suggest focusing on at this time: Vitamin C, Vitamin D3, Quercetin Pro and Zinc. How Your Im…

Neurodegenerative disease occurs when nerve cells in the brain or nervous system lose function over time and ultimately die. Alzheimer's disease, which affects as many as 6.2 million Americans, is the most common neurodegenerative disease, but there are hundreds of others, including other dementias, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease and Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS). All have potential to affect an individual's quality of life in varying degrees - be it changes in personality, performing daily tasks, maintaining employment or remembering current and past information. Development of one of these conditions often requires significant modifications, medical treatment and, long term, extensive care from family members or professionals. Although conventional medical treatments help relieve some of the physical and mental symptoms associated with neurodegenerative diseases, there is currently no way to slow disease progression and no known cures.Light Therapy Interve…

Patients living with Parkinson's disease (PD) may be steered toward levodopa to manage symptoms. Presently, levodopa remains the most common PD drug. However, as with many medications, levodopa can create nutrient deficiencies with serious side effects when taken over time, with decreasing amounts of vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 being among the concerns. What Is Parkinson's Disease? PD is a progressive neurological disease in which brain cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine gradually die off. Low levels of dopamine cause various movement and non-movement related dysfunctions. The drugs that treat PD either replace or enhance dopamine, and central among these drugs is levodopa. What Is Levodopa? Considered the strongest medication available for managing PD and Parkinson's-like symptoms, levodopa was introduced in the 1960s and is currently classified as a central nervous system agent. Once taken, levodopa is converted into dopamine in your body. It is usually combin…

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurological condition. Although it may start out with something as simple as a tremor in a single finger, it can progress over the years to complete disability. Its hallmark is the dying off of brain cells that make the neurotransmitter dopamine. Without sufficient dopamine, movement becomes increasingly difficult and finally almost impossible. PD's non-motor symptoms include anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia and other sleep disorders, hallucinations, cognitive impairment and dementia. Although dopamine replacement and enhancement drugs can control motor symptoms for a while, they don't reverse or stop the underlying disease process. When these medications lose their effectiveness, a surgery may be done to control symptoms. But again, because the surgery doesn't address the underlying disease process, it too becomes less effective with time.However, a novel therapy addresses both symptoms and the disease process. Using Thiamine (…

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disease in which brain cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine gradually die off. The result is an increasing loss of control of motor functions and other non-motor symptoms. Although it doesn't usually show up until after the age of 60, PD can afflict younger people, too. A case in point is the popular actor Michael J. Fox, who noticed the first signs of PD when he was only 30 years old.What Is Parkinson's Disease?PD is a progressive neurological condition often starting with tremors. With time, the body can experience a combination of uncontrollable shaking, stiffness and slower movement and difficulty with balance and coordination. Speech, meanwhile, may start to sound slurred or softer than usual. These physical developments may be accompanied by changes in mood, memory, sleep and energy. These symptoms occur due to decreased amounts of neurons transmitting dopamine to your brain and tend to first be noticed after the…

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disease second only to Alzheimer’s as a thief of brain cells and quality of life.Although everyone’s PD journey is different in terms of the appearance and intensity of symptoms, and how quickly the disease progresses, the central feature of PD is that brain cells responsible for producing the neurotransmitter dopamine begin to die off. The resulting dopamine deficiency produces PD’s characteristic symptoms, including tremors, rigidity, posture and balance problems, slowed movement and difficulty initiating movement, and non-motor symptoms such as depression, anxiety, fatigue, insomnia and other sleep disorders, cognitive impairment and dementia. Allopathic medicine manages PD motor symptoms by replacing or boosting dopamine production. Most PD patients will need these drugs because by the time PD can be diagnosed, 60-80% of dopamine-producing brain cells are already gone. There is also a surgery called Deep Brain Stimulation that…