Source: http://greatist.com/live/most-common-regrets?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

Want to hear the strangest thing on earth?

Death is perhaps the most constructive fact of our existence. Being aware of death throughout your life can beget the healthiest attitude: one of perspective.

Countless people throughout history knew this too. The ancient Greeks used to “practice death every day,” and the Toltecs would use death as “fuel to live and to love.” The constant reminder ensured they would live more boldly, more kindly, and with less fear.

The Good News About Death

Here’s how the morbid subject can actually benefit us: Our limited days on earth are the ultimate impetus to live with less fear and more intention.

The majority of the time, many of us live as if there will be no end to our days. We stay in unfulfilling careers. We remain in unhappy relationships. We will travel the world “one day.” We fail to tell people how much they matter to us. We hide our real truth, gifts, or talents from the world because we are scared of being judged and criticized.

Losing a parent when I was young made this much more real for me. I felt blessed to come to the realization of how precarious and precious life is while still in my younger years. But you don’t need a loss early in your life to take advantage of the wisdom that awaits you. Learn from people who know.

One of my favorite books is Bronnie Ware’s international bestseller The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Ware was …

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/Z8dZojy10wE/

“We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us—how we can take it, what we do with it—and that is what really counts in the end.” ~Joseph Fort Newton

Life is messy. Sometimes it’s so beautiful that I feel blinded by the glory I have the privilege of bearing witness to. Other times, I have felt such deep despair that I thought my tears would never end.

Unfortunately, my husband and I endured the deepest despair we could possibly imagine immediately following what should have been our happiest memory—the birth of our son.

After he was born he could not take his first breath and we almost lost him. Our beautiful little boy that I had nurtured in my belly, prepared for, sang to, and dreamed about for nine months was struggling to hang on to life before our very eyes.

He was resuscitated and could not breathe on his own for a number of hours while we waited with baited breath and mostly in silence, praying that he would be okay. Thanks to the brilliant nurses and our amazing hospital, our little miracle took his first breath on his own.

When the immediate shock was over and he was stable, emotional pain crept in as if it was waiting for the right moment to pounce on us.

In the days following his b…

Source: http://www.foodpolitics.com/2016/02/sponsored-research-down-under-alcohol-and-violence/

Thanks to my friend Jocelyn Harris of Dunedin, New Zealand for forwarding this editorial from the Otago Daily Times of January 16.

The editorial notes that a recent report finding no linkage between alcohol consumption and violence among Australians and New Zealanders was sponsored by Lion, a leading supplier of alcoholic beverages.

The report is Understanding Behavior in the Australian and New Zealand Night-Time Economies: An Anthropological Study.  Its author, anthropologist Anne Fox, lists these key findings:

Alcohol-related violence is just one aspect of a culture of violence.
There is no direct relationship between per capita levels of consumption and rates of violence.
A drinking culture is both a part of and a reflection of the culture as a whole.
Efforts at alcohol control will be ineffective if not related to changes in the macho culture of violence.
Scapegoating alcohol as the sole cause of violence merely diverts attention from violent men and the maladaptive cultural norms that allow their behaviour to develop and proliferate.

Her recommendations focus on the behavior of individuals behavior.  They largely dismiss the value of approaches such as limitations on alcohol marketing, the times alcoholic beverages can be sold, or the ways beverage companies create local cultures of drinking.

In a nutshell, the central point of this whitepaper is: it is the wider culture that determines the drinking behaviour, not the drinking. You can…

Source: http://romanfitnesssystems.com/articles/bigger-biceps/

One of the biggest fallacies in recent training lore is that you don’t have to directly train your arms for them to grow.

If you want massive arms, all you need are some rows, a few presses, and you’re good to go, right? 

It’s like how you don’t have to hit the brakes for your car to stop. You can just hit whatever the hell’s in front of you, and that’ll do the trick.

Current gym culture says that if you’re one of the fools who do train their arms (or God forbid even enjoys it), then they’re a newb and an idiot.

Well, call me a newb and the biggest idiot in town because I love me some direct arm training.

If you want to build some massively impressive arms like every gym goer out there, you’re going to have to do some direct arm work. 

In fact, any time you want to improve a lagging body part, the best thing you can do is give it direct attention, i.e. specific exercises that target those specific muscles.

Building Bigger Arms

When you’re in pursuit of the biggest arms in North America, you can’t get caught up on just training the biceps.

Although they seem to be synonymous with arms training, they’re actually just one of many of the muscles involved, and they may even be the least important when it comes to creating visual size. 

With your biceps brachii, you have the brachialis which is a very small muscle located underneath your biceps, next to your triceps. The …

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/M9iC-MOMshE/

“How thankful I am today, to know that all my past struggles were necessary for me to be where I am now.” ~Unknown

Ten years ago when I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, my first thought was “Why me?” and it was this thought that followed me throughout my journey. It wasn’t until I was well enough to look back that I realized how much of my life was shaped by my anorexia. But not in a bad way.

Today, I am thankful for the struggles I endured, for the deepest lows I dragged myself through, and all the places my illness took me, good and bad. If not for this experience, I believe I would not be who I am or where I am today.

Today I am happy. I am happy with the life I live and the people I surround myself with. I am happy about my body and my eating habits, and I am happy to have survived. I didn’t think I would.

Being thankful for our past experiences, our struggles, and our demons can be a hard thing to do. We sometimes wish events in our past could be erased so we could start anew. But without these events, we wouldn’t grow, learn, and change. 

The day I realized this I was sitting in a small church that I had just started attending with my boyfriend at the time (who I asked to join me).

The preacher’…

Source: http://www.sonima.com/meditation/songs-to-fall-asleep/

For 50 to 70 million Americans, the sleep struggle is real, reports the National Institute of Health. It’s more than just losing precious shut-eye, which is the case for a third of Americans who get fewer than 7 hours per night. The problem is also falling—and staying—asleep. If you’re up late at night three times a week for a month (or longer), you may suffer from acute or chronic insomnia, a common sleep disorder affecting about 30 percent of adults, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

One way to help remedy this sleep crisis and catch more zzz’s is to listen to soothing music in bed. That’s what 40 women reported in a study comparing sleep-inducing songs, including artists like Mozart and Coldplay, according to 2011 research from the Mindlab Institute. One track in particular, however, made them all extra drowsy. The eight-minute snooze-fest called “Weightless” by the British band Marconi Union, made in collaboration with sound therapists, was specifically engineered to decrease stress, blood pressure, and resting heart rates using beautifully arranged harmonies featuring the guitar, piano, and the electronic samples of natural soundscapes.

The British Academy of Sound Therapy called “Weightless” the “most relaxing song ever” and Time magazine named it one of the best inventions of the year. Since its release on SoundCloud, more than 6 million have tuned in and probabl…

Source: http://greatist.com/live/why-am-i-not-happy-with-life?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed_http–greatistcom-

I used to spend long nights wide awake, wandering around our huge house, wondering what I was missing in my life. I blamed myself for feeling this way. How could I be ungrateful when I had it all—a beautiful family, an amazing career in journalism and politics, a successful business, and even the perfect house (white picket fence included)?

I grew up with the conviction that my studies, my job, and my perfect future family would make me happy. I gave my all to becoming happy and successful. I made sure to be the best girlfriend, the best mom, and the best daughter I could be. I lived like a robot, trying hard to live up to my own and others’ expectations.

My story is not unique. We live in a world filled with demands and expectations—what’s right and wrong, good and bad, what will show success and not failure. There are many voices telling us what to wear, what to eat, how to exercise, whom to marry, and what we should achieve. Even our bodies are great targets for judgment. In our quest to fit in and do the right thing, we create stress, anxiety, exhaustion, and depression. Not feeling great, or even well, has become the norm for many.

Then I made an amazing discovery: I realized I had been living someone else’s life. Other people’s. Society’s. My family’s. Anyone’s but my own.

What was missing in my life wasn’t another promotion, a higher salary, or a more perfect man. What was missing was me.

Today I no longer …

Source: http://www.sonima.com/videos/guided-meditation-for-gratitude/

Watch video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUDn6SuSOeQ

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.”
—Brother David Steindl-Rast, Austrian-American author and Benedictine monk

One way to bring out feelings of devotion and gratitude is through a meditation, specifically this style formerly known as the “mentor tree,” which involves some visualization. Sit comfortably, close your eyes and follow this guided meditation with John Campbell, Ph.D., an Ashtanga yoga teacher and professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. Take the time to reflect on and pay homage to your lineage, which may represent the height of goodness—from your family to your teachers to historical figures who have inspired you. Enjoy the flood of feel-good emotions that come with these warm thoughts.

Related: 100 Most Influential Yoga Teachers in America

The post A Guided Meditation for Devotion and Gratitude appeared first on Sonima.

…

Source: http://www.fannetasticfood.com/2016/02/15/valentines-weekend-adventures-2/

Hey friends! I hope your weekends were great, whether you are back at work today or enjoying the federal holiday!

A couple weeks ago, Matt and I were booking a trip for later this spring and randomly decided while we were at it to book ourselves a little Valentine’s Weekend getaway in our favorite spot, the Shenandoahs. Because – why not? We’ve both been super busy lately with work and social stuff, so we were looking forward to a little quality time together.

As you guys know, Matt and I have stayed at a ton of bed and breakfasts in the area around Shenandoah National Park. It’s kind of “our place” – we started hiking there back in 2005 when we were first dating and have gone at least once every year since. We even got engaged on the top of a mountain in the Shenandoahs back in 2011. <img src="http://www.fannetasticfood.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/simple-smile.png" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" style="height: …

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/02/15/466567647/a-cluttered-kitchen-can-nudge-us-to-overeat-study-finds?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=thesalt

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Hunger is not the only reason we eat sweets.

Often we eat as a way to celebrate, or sometimes we reach for food when we’re sad or bored.

And a study published this month in the journal Environment and Behavior points to another factor that can nudge us to eat: clutter.

“The notion that places — such as cluttered offices or disorganized homes — can be modified to help us control our food intake is becoming an important solution in…