ALL ABOUTS BEETS.

Beets are really unique healing vegetables.  Their nutritional value is kept both raw and cooked. In ancient times, Hippocrates viewed beets as a medicinal plant. Throughout centuries beets were used to treat many diseases. Beets has been used  in the treatment of blood disorders such as iron deficiency – anemia. Beets contain a lot of iron, of all plant products iron content of the beets is the second to garlic. And the iodine content of the beets is the second to Kale. Beets not only provide your body with important nutrients and stimulate your metabolism but also saturate the body with powerful  powerful antioxidants that are prevalent in red beets.

Reasons why you should include beets in your diet

• Beets contain polyphenols and betalains which reverse the effect of free radical damage and oxidative stress in people.

• Beets contain various vitamins: B complex vitamins, PP which strengthen capillary walls.

• Beets contain a lot of minerals – potassium and folate, which aid in healthy heart; magnesium, which aids in bone health; iron and phosphorus which produce energy;  copper, which destroys free radicals; iodine which is involved in the biosynthesis of thyroid hormones, and magnesium.

• Beets contain cobalt which  promotes the formation of vitamin B12 (which is synthesized by intestinal microflora. Without this vitamin and folic acid the  formation of red blood cells would be impossible.

• Beets rejuvenate our bodies due to folic acid, which contributes to the creation of new cells.

• Beets remove toxins from our bodies due to betalin pigments.

• Beets contain betacyanins, which inhibits the growth of cancer cells.

• Beets improve digestion due to the dietary fiber.

• Beets stimulate metabolism.

• Beets help digest Vitamin D in our bodies.

• Beets help prevent dementia due to high concentration of nitrates which transformed in the mouth  into nitrites. Researched have showed that nitrites  open up the blood vessels in the body which increases blood flow and helps oxygen to get to to oxygen lacking areas.

• Beets contain pectin which is in greater numbers than in carrots or apples. Pectin deals  with  excretion of radioactive and heavy metals from the body. In addition, pectin also inhibits the spread  of harmful intestinal bacteria and prevents the development of a whole range of diseases.

As you can see beets possess a plethora of medicinal and healing properties which  also include  lowering the amount of cholesterol, blood pressure, strengthening capillary vessels, providing anti-sclerotic effect and improving brain and live function, and  help improve fat metabolism.

Rewiring Your Brain

Research shows that most people complain once a minute during a typical conversation. Complaining is tempting because it feels good, but like many other things that are enjoyable -- such as smoking or eating French fries for breakfast -- complaining isn’t good for you. You can’t blame your brain. Who’d want to build a temporary bridge every time you need to cross a river? It makes a lot more sense to construct a permanent bridge. So, your neurons grow closer together, and the connections between them become more permanent. Scientists like to describe this process as, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Repeated complaining rewires your brain to make future complaining more likely. Over time, you find it’s easier to be negative than to be positive, regardless of what’s happening around you. Complaining becomes your default behavior, which changes how people perceive you.
And here’s the kicker: complaining damages other areas of your brain as well. Research from Stanford University has shown that complaining shrinks the hippocampus -- an area of the brain that’s critical to problem solving and intelligent thought. Damage to the hippocampus is scary, especially when you consider that it’s one of the primary brain areas destroyed by Alzheimer’s.
Your brain loves efficiency and doesn’t like to work any harder than it has to. When you repeat a behavior, such as complaining, your neurons branch out to each other to ease the flow of information. This makes it much easier to repeat that behavior in the future -- so easy, in fact, that you might not even realize you’re doing it.

Complaining is also bad for your health

While it’s not an exaggeration to say that complaining leads to brain damage, it doesn’t stop there. When you complain, your body releases the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol shifts you into fight-or-flight mode, directing oxygen, blood and energy away from everything but the systems that are essential to immediate survival. One effect of cortisol, for example, is to raise your blood pressure and blood sugar so that you’ll be prepared to either escape or defend yourself.

All the extra cortisol released by frequent complaining impairs your immune system and makes you more susceptible to high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. It even makes the brain more vulnerable to strokes.

It’s Not Just You...

Since human beings are inherently social, our brains naturally and unconsciously mimic the moods of those around us, particularly people we spend a great deal of time with. This process is called neuronal mirroring, and it’s the basis for our ability to feel empathy. The flip side, however, is that it makes complaining a lot like smoking -- you don’t have to do it yourself to suffer the ill effects. You need to be cautious about spending time with people who complain about everything. Complainers want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. Think of it this way: If a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers.

The solution to complaining

There are two things you can do when you feel the need to complain. One is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude. That is, when you feel like complaining, shift your attention to something that you’re grateful for. Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California,  found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood and energy and substantially less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels. Any time you experience negative or pessimistic thoughts, use this as a cue to shift gears and to think about something positive. In time, a positive attitude will become a way of life.
The second thing you can do -- and only when you have something that is truly worth complaining about -- is to engage in solution-oriented complaining. Think of it as complaining with a purpose. Solution-oriented complaining should do the following:

1. Have a clear purpose. Before complaining, know what outcome you’re looking for. If you can’t identify a purpose, there’s a good chance you just want to complain for its own sake, and that’s the kind of complaining you should nip in the bud.
2. Start with something positive. It may seem counterintuitive to start a complaint with a compliment, but starting with a positive helps keep the other person from getting defensive. For example, before launching into a complaint about poor customer service, you could say something like, “I’ve been a customer for a very long time and have always been thrilled with your service...”
3. Be specific. When you’re complaining it’s not a good time to dredge up every minor annoyance from the past 20 years. Just address the current situation and be as specific as possible. Instead of saying, “Your employee was rude to me,” describe specifically what the employee did that seemed rude.
4. End on a positive. If you end your complaint with, “I’m never shopping here again,” the person who’s listening has no motivation to act on your complaint. In that case, you’re just venting, or complaining with no purpose other than to complain. Instead, restate your purpose, as well as your hope that the desired result can be achieved, for example, “I’d like to work this out so that we can keep our business relationship intact.”

Bringing It All Together

Just like smoking, drinking too much, and lying on the couch watching TV all day, complaining is bad for you. Put my advice to use, and you'll reap the physical, mental and performance benefits that come with a positive frame of mind.

6 Health Benefits of Yoga

Yoga can often be quite esoteric to explain. Concepts such as prana, chakras and koshas are not necessarily the most straightforward to express.

For those who are more scientific-minded, explaining the many benefits of yoga can be difficult. Many people who are skeptical about the practice may also be skeptical about the many mysterious, “feel-good” benefits such as “opening the heart center” or “calming the mind.”

However, more and more Western scientific research is studying the very tangible physical effects of a yoga practice on the physical and mental bodies. The following is a list of scientifically researched, studied and proven health benefits of yoga.

1. Increases Flexibility

One of the most obvious side effects of a yoga practice is a lengthening and loosening of the muscles and the connective tissue (such as fascia) of the body.
As you stretch and move within your practice, you undoubtedly improve your level of flexibility. You may notice as you lengthen the hip flexors that your lower back pain starts to decrease, or as you stretch and relax the neck, your headaches seem to disappear.
Yoga is a perfect teaching of unions, and it reminds you that the entire physical body is connected and that all of this is also connected to your psyche.
You cannot isolate tight hips without having them “pull” on the lower back, creating tension, tightness and potential pain there. Nor can you isolate your bad mood from the tension it creates in your physical body. So, the practice of yoga works to connect all of these elements to increase flexibility in both the body and the mind.

2. Builds Muscle Strength

Strong muscles work to protect the body and (ideally!) keep it free from injury. Muscle strength helps prevent conditions such as lower back pain or arthritis.
For example, strong muscles help your body to align the skeletal system keeping space and integrity in the vertebra of the lower spine. The beauty of yoga is that as you build strength within the muscles, you simultaneously create flexibility.
This simple balance of strength and flexibility helps to keep your body safe to maintain longevity in your practice as well as in your body’s overall health.

3. Improves Posture

As just noted, yoga builds equivalent strength and flexibility within the body. This action creates a more aligned stacking of your bones in their natural and intended positioning.
As a result, this lengthens and extends your spine back into its meticulous configuration, recreating the natural curvatures of your whole spinal column.
Not only does this action make the load of your body weight much easier for the muscles to bear (and thus creating less tension, tightness and strain), it also improves your ability to breathe fully and deeply.

4. Increases Lung Capacity

A major component of a yoga practice is pranayama, or breath work. These different exercises teach the practitioner to deepen and lengthen the breath.
With the ideal stacking of the skeletal system, lung and diaphragm capacity can work to its maximum intended reach. Practices such as deep diaphragmatic breathing and inhale and/or exhale retention systematically teach the body to increase the lung capacity and the intake of oxygen spread throughout the bloodstream.

5. Protects Bone Health

It is well documented in Western science that weight-bearing exercises increase bone stability and strength. The physical yoga practice is chock-full of weight-bearing poses in which you use your own body weight to strengthen and train the bones.
Poses such as Plank, Chaturanga, Down Dog, Up Dog, Handstand and many, many more, are weight-bearing postures that help to strengthen the bones (particularly within the arms where we don’t normally bear weight) which may also help to prevent osteoporosis.

6. Maintains Joint Health

Healthy joints all have one thing in common: they are often used and moved. Movement within the joints stimulates the production of synovial fluid (a viscous liquid that lubricates the joint, removes debris and reduces the friction between the articular cartilage of the joint).
Without the production of synovial fluid, the cartilage within the joints can be worn down, causing deterioration and pain. A well-rounded yoga practice moves the body through the full range-of-motion within the major joints of the body.
These actions within the body stimulate the production of synovial fluid to keep the joints safe, mobile, and stable to be able to maintain a lifelong practice.

Yoga is a beautiful practice that teaches practitioners to work from the inside out. It draws your attention inward and teaches you to focus on the breath. The physical practice works and moves the body in intelligent ways to strengthen and lengthen, which (hopefully) also transcends to the mind.

3 Breathing Exercises That Will Change Your Life

One of the biggest benefits yoga offers actually has nothing to do with asana or poses. Instead, it’s all about learning to work with your breathing to quiet the nervous system and hone your focus.
Pranayama is the science of yogic breathing. “Prana” is the Sanskrit word for the energy that permeates all life, and pranayama means “the expansion of life force.”

Why Practice Pranayama?

When you inhale deeply, the lungs expand and the chest wall stretches, stimulating the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain down into the chest and beyond. The pressure on the vagus nerve triggers the body’s natural “relaxation response,” a physical state of deep rest that:

• Slows your heartbeat
• Slows your breathing
• Decreases blood pressure
• Increases levels of nitric oxide which relaxes blood vessels to increases oxygen and blood flow

Pranayama helps shift your awareness away from the busyness of the mind, and helps you feel in tune and reconnected to your body. And over time, practicing breath regulation will give you the skills and confidence to self-regulate in many other areas of daily life.

3 Breathing Practices You Should Try

Here are three pranayama practices from my latest book, Holistic Yoga Flow: The Path of Practice.

1. Victorious Breath (Ujjayi)

Ujjayi breath is generated by allowing the flow of breath to pass gently along the glottis, the base of the throat, creating a soft but audible sound.
The sound should be consistent and even on both the inhales and exhales. Ultimately, this sound vibration gives the mind something to sink its teeth into.
Tip: Inhale for four counts with ujjayi sound. Exhale for four counts with ujjayi sound. Repeat ten rounds.

2. Even Breath (Sama Vritti)

In this practice, the inhales and exhales should be even so the same amount of energy that is drawn in is then recycled back out.
Practice tip: Inhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Exhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Repeat ten rounds.

3. Alternate Nostril Breath (Nadi Shodhana)

Nadi Shodhana balances the right and left channels of our system.
Practice tip: Start by emptying the lungs on an exhale. Close the right nostril with the right thumb, and breathe in through the left nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts.

• Inhale for four counts and hold for two counts. Exhale for four counts and hold for two counts.
• Repeat ten rounds. Seal the left nostril with the right ring finger and breathe out through the right nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts. Breathe in through the right nostril for four counts and hold for two counts.
• Seal the right nostril with the right thumb, and breathe out through the left nostril for four counts. Hold for two counts.
• Repeat the cycle eight times.

108 rounds Maha Mrityunjay Mantra

7 Reasons to Meditate In The Morning.

When is the best time to meditate? For millnia, mystics, sages, and teachers have told us that early morning is the most conducive time to meditate. But why is that?
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I’ve tried meditating at all times of day. I once sat for 48 hours straight and I used to frequently meditate from midnight to 6 A.M.

Of course, those experiences were rich and incredibly rewarding in their own ways. But after 20 years, I’ve found from my own experience that there are some outstanding reasons to meditate early in the morning.

On Morning Meditations

I always meditate first thing in the morning after a small cup of coffee. That’s how I start my day and I love it. It’s not for everyone, but I do find it’s an extraordinary way to enter your day.

If you are thinking of starting a regular meditation practice, I highly recommend you try it for yourself.

And after extensive field research, here are my top 7 powerful and life-affirming reasons to meditate in the morning.

1. The world is still and quiet.

The way I think about it, when you wake up early in the morning, the mind of your “village” hasn’t stirred yet. So there is little friction or activity in the psychic space of the world around you.
The inner and outer worlds are calm like a tranquil lake. Your mind and body respond to this serene atmosphere. And for that reason, it’s a wonderful time to hit the cushion and commune with the silence.

2. Your mind is at rest.

our mind is like any other machine. The more stimulated it is, the more it speeds up and churns out thoughts. In the early morning, your mind has been in retreat from the world of activity, motion, and stimulus.
And relatively speaking, your mind is still at rest when you wake up. That makes it a very conducive time to practice meditation. Once you are in the active flow of your day, your mind is busy making billions of connections so you can function at a high level. Not so in the morning.

3. Start the day with a clean slate.

We get a fresh start with every dawn of day. As much as it might feel like it, no two days are the same. You wake up renewed and refreshed, having taken a break from the momentum of your life.
That’s another great reason to meditate in the morning. You have a clean state and you can let go of yesterday’s problems. You have a chance to embrace the world with a fresh outlook.
That’s what meditation is all about—letting go of the past and the future and meeting every moment like a new day.

4. Create a positive momentum.

Practicing meditation puts you in touch with the still, calm center of your being. It’s there where you start to find a deeper connection to life.
Within each of us, there is a place that is always fresh and untouched by the world. Immersing yourself in that calm center restores your faith and confidence in the goodness and positivity of life.
Like a plant unfurling in the fortifying light of the sun, we receive this soul-level nourishment in the depths of silence.

5. Move from the center.

Meditation helps you root yourself in the present moment. It erases the distance between you, yourself, and life.
When you practice this present moment awareness in the morning through meditation, it creates a powerful momentum for your day. With practice, you’ll learn how to stay rooted in that center all day long and you’ll respond to life and the complexity of the day from your truest and best self.

6. Cultivate focus that lasts all day.

Starting the day with meditation gives yourself an advantage. Meditation is the best way to train and exercise your awareness. Think of it as physical fitness for your awareness.
Through the act of focusing on one thing—say your breath—and then bringing your attention back to that object of focus again and again, you’re building your capacity for focus.
Doing this first thing in the morning will improve your focus all day long. It will keep you from getting distracted, help you stay on task, and you’ll be more productive, less divided, and happier as a result.

7. Experience the sacred.

More than any other time, the early morning is when I experience something I could only call sacred.
I’m not religious, but sometimes when I meditate in the early morning, I am touched and moved by a quality of silliness and silence that evokes a powerful sense that all of life is holy. The echo of those experiences lasts for a long time.
Their impact cuts across all aspects of my life and my humanity feels renewed and empowered.
If you are new to meditation, I encourage you to give it a try. Maybe you aren’t a morning person, and that’s totally fine too. But for the record, I’ve also seen people who aren’t fans of the early morning get “converted” because of the incredible benefits that come from meditating in the wee hours.