Another way of saying what I am saying is that if you put "junk food" in your body, you know you will end up with a junky body eventually. What most people don't realize is that if you have a lot of junky thoughts, you will, also, have a junky body and, as well, as end up with junky experiences in your life.

Whatever you focus on, you end up experiencing in life. Whatever you are looking at, you see. That is just the way it works. The purpose of explaining all of this is not to turn you into a meditating junkie or a guru or have you go off to the Himalayas, take your clothes off and wander around eating berries. I mean unless that is your idea of a good time. It is not mine, I might add. Eating berries are OK, but I would rather buy them at a grocery store.

What I am suggesting is that when you were a child you knew how to breathe correctly and you knew how to relax. Kids know how to find the "zone." But as time went on, you acquired patterns that taught you that "thinking" or "doing" or "worrying" all the time somehow was good.

Now am I saying here; "Don't think?" No, not at all! Am I saying don't be proactive? No, not at all! What I am saying is that this organ, the mind, is meant to slow down periodically or to go into neutral. Just like your car does. If your mind does not take periodic breaks, you don't sleep well at night. It is, also, why you may feel jittery and can't focus. It is very likely why you overeat. As well, it has many other negative ramifications.

This is Part VIII of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

But even though what you were worrying about doesn't actually happen to you, you still physiologically have the experience as if you did. You may have been taught if you worry about things, they won't happen or you will better anticipate what to do. But worrying all the time really wears your body down because of all the catabolic hormones you release into your body.

I would suggest that if you proactively come up with a plan for something that you think might happen, let the plan sit and don't worry or think about it again. This way you will not be wearing your body out with stress hormones. When the time comes to act, you will know what to do and you will do what is best for the situation.

But if you "awfulize" all the time, you then send stress hormones throughout your system and catabolize or breaking down your system. So, worrying all the time will eventually trigger whatever genetic weaknesses you may have to come to the surface. If you are not doing all this "awfulizing and catastophyzing", then the genetic predispositions may never surface or may surface in a way that is not significant.

So we don't choose the genetic predispositions we inherit, but we do choose, to a greater degree, which ones are triggered and to which degree they are triggered by our mental and emotional behavior, as well as our diet.

So, it is so important to understand that meditation is an integral and essential component in attaining wellness. It is as important as diet and exercise in terms of physiological well-being. Most people don't associate meditation with being physiologically well. But the connection is essential.

This is Part VII of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

Before we get to the meditation exercise, I would like to share the following regarding the physiological value of meditation. There are studies showing that just mediation by itself can actually help to not only prevent heart disease but to actually reverse it. It has been found that by meditating regularly plaque can actually be sloughed off of the arteries. This can occur because when you meditate you release hormones into your body that heal and repair--that is, anabolic hormones. When you are having stressful, negative thoughts your body does not release these hormones. It releases, instead, catabolic hormones that tear down your body.

Your body is always striving to maintain and attain homeostasis or balance. If you stop creating tension, you give it a chance to find this balance and healing.

When a rhinoceros is charging, you need to run or fight, in other words, the fight or flight response. And so, when under stress, you release hormones that give you the energy to run like the dickens or fight to the death, but in the process you are tearing your body down from the inside-out.

Also, it is interesting to note that modern science has discovered that whatever we imagine, we experience physiologically. So, if you just imagine something negative, your body responds physiologically as if it is having the negative experience. So that is why worry is totally useless and detrimental to do because 80% or 90% of what worry about does not even happen.

This is Part VI of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award-winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

As well, please note that you can do the breathing meditation/exercise that I will share with you later on with your eyes wide open, while you are standing in line at the bank or a grocery store, while attending a boring meeting, etc., in any setting where you don't need to be putting your complete attention on anything in particular. You don't have to sit for hours in meditation to get its benefits.

You can even do this while driving your car with your eyes open, of course. No, I'm not crazy! You can do this while driving. I always do it. As I drive to teach a class or to any destination, for that matter, instead of thinking about the hundreds of things that I may need to do, I choose instead to just BE, to be present and conscious with myself, with my body and with my breath. This way I am more relaxed while I am driving and as a result of being more relaxed, I am much more alert.

So, instead of incessantly thinking, I give myself a break from all that "thinking" and "doing" and just consciously breathe all the way to my destination. As well, I do this as often as I can in as many other settings as possible.

Again with regard to driving, you really are much more alert when you are relaxed. Accidents occur when you are distracted and usually you are distracted because you are overly caught up in some emotional or mental drama in your mind. By doing this technique, you will actually be much, much more alert and relaxed while driving and you also will be much more relaxed when you reach your destination. You will respond more effectively to any stimulus that occurs while you are driving and you will be aware of a lot more of what is going on than you would be if your mind were overly cluttered and distracted by too many thoughts.

This is Part V of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

So, meditation can help you to learn how to slow your mind down enough so that you can consciously and proactively choose what you think about and how you feel. Yes, there are stressors or "buttons" that will get pushed, and will cause you to "loose it;" that's called "life." But one can still choose how one reacts, no matter what is happening or has happened. You can choose to "loose" it completely or just step back and be objective with regard to what is going on.

So, the key here is to learn how to bring forth the relaxation response more and more often during your day instead staying stuck in a constant state of overdrive, of over-thinking. In other words how can you minimize being hyper during the day? How can you minimize the fight or flight response?

You can minimize it by creating many little mini-breaks during your day to help calm yourself down. All you need is three minutes at a time. I will outline a breathing exercise shortly that will change your blood chemistry from one that is overloaded with stress hormones to one that is full of healing relaxation hormones. All you need is three minutes. And in those three minutes you will have affected a profound physiological change in your body and you will feel quite different.

The whole point of teaching you this breathing meditation is to help you to remember to take regular breaks from your incessant "thinking" and "doing" so that you can give your mind a respite and your body a breather, physiologically.

This is Part IV of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award-winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

Our bodies were not built to live under the mental stresses of this age nor were they meant to be sedentary. Now, I am not suggesting that you go into a cave, eat wild berries, roam the forests and meditate for the rest of your life, and forget all of your responsibilities.

But what we can do is to learn how to lessen the intensity of the over-stimulation that we experience. Our bodies are not capable of handling this over-stimulation for long periods of time without significantly breaking down, be it physiologically or emotionally.

So, what meditation does, and it has been around for many millennia, is to help you to slow down and to feel physiologically and emotionally better and more balanced. This is the incredible gift that meditation freely offers anyone willing to experiment with it.

What we do not realize is that our minds do not think on their own; we choose what we think about. It may seem at times that we don't choose our thoughts and that we don't choose our emotional reactions and that our minds and emotions have a "mind of their own." But, in fact, you can learn to choose what you think about and you can learn to choose how you feel.

You can choose to "awfulize" or you can choose to see the best in yourself and your situation.

There can be a big difference in how you experience an event. It depends on whether you see the cup half-empty or half-full. How you choose to perceive an event determines how you physiologically and emotionally experience it.

This is Part III of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award-winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

Negative or intense thoughts release stress hormones and relaxing, happy thoughts release relaxation hormones. The hormones have more complicated names than that, but so be it in this kind of a presentation.

So, as your mind slows and calms down, so does your body. And not only does your body slow and calm down so that it is not as tense, but, as an added benefit, the relaxation hormones you are now releasing are "anabolic," that is, they actually build up or heal your body.

In contrast, when you secrete stress hormones, you create a "catabolic" effect; that is, an effect that breaks down your body. So when you are stressed you are creating an environment within yourself physiologically that is literally breaking you down (catabolism). That is why there are a lot of stress related illnesses. Some experts believe that nearly 80% of all doctor visits are stress related.

So, therefore, in order to be as fit physiologically as you can, it really is important to learn how to master your mind. You need to learn how to allow your mind to go into a neutral state more often than it does now. [By the way, there is nothing wrong with multi-tasking. It is a very useful function. But the problem occurs when you are multi-tasking all or most of the time.] Our human bodies have been around a very long time and there really is only about a 1.0% difference between the makeup of a Neanderthal's body and ours.

So, we were created to function optimally by being, as our ancestors were, physically active. As well, we are not made to be as mentally over-stimulated as we are with all the data and information and "doing" and "thinking" we engage in in this modern technological age.

This is Part II of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award-winning book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm

Most people discount meditation when they speak of getting fit. They usually think of fitness solely in terms of doing exercise and eating a proper diet. From my point of view it is not only physical fitness that we want to aim towards, but there is also a mental and psychological or even a metaphysical fitness that I personally believe is primary in attaining well rounded health and wellness.

What meditation really helps one learn how to do is to slow down and quiet the mind. Of course, you might well ask, "What good does that do?" Actually slowing the mind down is a very valuable skill to learn because every thought and feeling that we have gets expressed in every cell in our body.

This happens because every thought and feeling we have creates synaptic exchanges in our brain which then creates a hormonal response. So, a hormone of some kind, either a stress or relaxation one, is released as result of the kinds of thoughts and feelings we have. These hormones, courtesy of our cardiovascular system, are then pumped throughout our whole body and bathe all our cells. So that when you are angry about something, the cells in your big toe are bathed in an anger hormone and you now have an angry big toe, so to speak.

So, too, with being uptight or anxious, when you are uptight or anxious it is not just something that is going on in your mind, it is something that also is happening in you physiologically--in your body. So the kinds of thoughts and feelings you have determine whether a stress or a relaxation hormone is released into your bloodstream and that then determines what your body is experiencing.

This is Part I of a twenty-two part blog.

Please go to the following link if you have interest in my award-wining book on Meditation and Intuition: http://www.MagicalKeystoSelfMastery.com/

As well, if you have interest in my Meditation CDs, please go to the following link:
http://www.LearnMastery.com/AudioTapesByYanni.htm