Gabby Bernstein’s mantra meditation for tough times

Dr. Gundry Talks CORONAVIRUS And How To STAY HEALTHY! | Lewis Howes

5 Happiness Apps to Help With Anxiety

The Partridge Family sang, "Come On, Get Happy." But that's easier said than done right now in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Isolation and fear can make us struggle with our mental health. On top of that, stay-at-home orders can complicate getting help in more traditional ways.

But thanks to technology, apps are available to provide help with anxiety and depression at your fingertips. With that in mind, I'm sharing some happiness apps meant to help calm nerves and help you live a happier life, even during these difficult times.

Happify

A few years ago I tried the app Happify. It caught my attention. For one thing, the name is catchy. Plus, although I want to be happy, I'm also cheap at heart, and the basic version is absolutely free.

The idea behind this app is that all it takes is a few minutes a day and you'll be on the road to breaking free of negative thinking. You'll learn to cope with stress and develop positive life-changing habits with some fun exercises and games.

According to the app you can strengthen basic happiness skills like: savoring the moment, thanking those who matter, aspiring to meaningful goals, eliminating dead end thinking, empathizing with others, reducing stress and negative thoughts, and improving your relationships.

After you download the app and create an account, Happify will score your happiness based on a questionnaire. Then, the app provides you with a series of tracks that you can use to start living a healthy, stress-free life.

Next, you choose a "track" to get started. A caregiver for my mother at the time, I thought I'd start on the one for reducing stress and anxiety. My first assignment: list three things I'm grateful for - and the kicker that really helped me - explain why.

This app rates high on many lists of best happiness apps and I can see why.

Headspace

This is another app I've tried and love. Headspace provides tools and resources to help you stay mentally strong, reduce stress and anxiety, live healthier, breathe properly, sleep better, and have a happier life.

They offer a free two-week trial, after which you'll auto-enroll in their $69.99 a year plan. At the time of this writing, if you're unemployed, you can get a free year of Headspace Plus to help you get back on your feet.

I discovered this app while enrolled in Weight Watchers (WW), which offers it free as part of their program. I suffer from insomnia and their sleep meditation exercise helped me quiet my thoughts, breathe slower, and relax my body to ease me into sleep. I also used their "Take a moment to pause" exercise to help me stop for a few minutes when I felt stressed and refocus.

Calm is a similar app for sleep, meditation and relaxation to help you lower stress through guided meditations, sleep stories, breathing programs, stretching exercises, and relaxing music. Calm offers a 7-day trial, but after that you'll be automatically enrolled in their $69.99 a year plan.

Real Life Change

The app Real Life Change is meant to be a portable life coach, designed to take your social interactions, moods, decisions, discoveries, and emotions that you experience each day and provide you with meaningful, actionable feedback to help you live a better and more mindful life.

The basic plan is free. This app is available only on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

Track Your Happiness

Track Your Happiness is a free app used with your smartphone. You spend about 10 minutes answering questions, then you're contacted by e-mail or text - you choose how often you want the app to prompt you - and are asked to report what you're doing and how you're feeling.

A customized happiness report tracks your moods so you can learn what makes you happy, who makes you happy, and where you feel the happiest.

Super Better

Super Better has made building happiness a game with short easy activities you complete as you go on quests to build happiness-boosting skills like resilience.

Their site claims that millions have played SuperBetter to achieve goals and tackle challenges including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and more. The Original Super Better is available for free.

Need more than an app? You may want to check out Talkspace which allows users to connect virtually with a licensed therapist. For $49 per week, you'll have private access to a therapist via text, audio or video chat, as often as daily or multiple times per day.

I'll let you make up your own minds. Find what works best for you and your life. There's many more apps available than the five I've listed. Who knows? A happiness app just might prove to be useful to you and provide feedback to brighten your day during these stressful times.

Julie A. Gorges is an award-winning author and journalist writing about life after 50. Her blog, BabyBoomerBliss.net, was selected as one of the top 50 baby boomer blogs to follow in 2019 by Feedspot. Her books, including her latest "Ten Secrets to Losing Weight After 50," are available on Amazon. To learn more about Julie, visit her author website at juliegorges.com.

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Six More Quick Tips to Reduce Stress

Stress affects us all in different ways at different times, to different degrees and for different reasons. It could be something relatively trivial or due to a more significant cause. Either way, it is important to try to reduce stress otherwise it can get out of control and affect your health. Here are six quick tips which can help to reduce and manage stress. I hope you find them useful.

Tip 1: Have a You Day

This may sound obvious - we all need some alone time for ourselves to try to get away from things for a while.

Life is tough enough with all the demands it places on us which in turn can cause stress as life gets on top of us.

Make a conscious effort to split yourself of some time for YOU.

No distractions, turn off the laptop, turn off the mobile - your you time is for YOU - nobody else.

Then do whatever you feel like doing that makes you feel happy and less stressed.

That might be reading a book, listening to your favourite music, generally chilling out.

Find the time to switch off for a while and you'll feel better for it.

Tip 2: Your Happy Place

Another quick stress reduction tip is when the going gets tough to imagine yourself in your happy place.

We've all got one (or perhaps more than one) - imagine you are there and how it makes you feel.

This is sometimes known as guided imagery and has been around for hundreds of years.

If you want to get in to it seriously there are guided imagery therapists and practitioners you could see.

Or you can buy up guided imagery books and CDs.

And of course there's good old YouTube for videos.

Guided imagery goes hand-in-hand with meditation which is another technique to help with stress reduction and management.

Tip 3: Clean and De-Clutter

A clean and tidy home (silly as it may sound) can help with stress reduction and management.

Sift through everything you have and identify what you do need/has value to you and what does not - be brutal - what can you live without.

Anything you can live without or no longer need you may be able to sell online or donate to charity.

Next clean the house - not necessarily all in one go (you can if you want to of course) - perhaps a room at a time.

Just the exercise involved in cleaning will stimulate hormones which help to make you feel good.

To help pass the time whilst you clean put on your favourite CD.

A clean and tidy home makes you feel better too doesn't it?

Tip 4: Digital De-Clutter

Now you have de-cluttered and cleaned the house, it's time to do the same for your digital life.

Emails, social media, the pressure for instant replies, more likes, more Twitter followers and keeping on top of all that can be stressful in itself - right?

So have a digital clean up and de-clutter.

Remove yourself from email lists you do not need to be on.

Turn off notifications, alters and similar which you do not need.

Set aside specific times of the day to check your emails instead of constantly (may not apply to work emails of course).

And turn everything off (or at least on silent) before bedtime because you don't need to be awoken throughout the night with emails pinging in and social media alters popping up.

Tip #5: Relaxing Sounds

This stress reduction tip ties in with the happy place tip we looked at earlier.

The right sort of sound can help you to relax and de-stress.

Just like closing your eyes and going to your happy place, listening to a relaxing sound for a while can have the same effect.

It might be bird song, waterfalls, gentle waves breaking, whale song and similar - whatever works for you.

Any number of relaxation sound CDs, streaming and downloads available everywhere.

Plug yourself in, listen, relax and feel the stress leave you.

Tip #6: Meditate

A spot of meditation can help tremendously with stress reduction and your state of mind in general.

This can be a simple as sitting down, clearing your mind and doing some repeated deep breathing.

In for four seconds to fill your lungs, hold, breathe out slowly and repeat for a few minutes.

Not unlike being in your happy place we touched on earlier.

If you fancy getting in to meditation and you have a smartphone there are any number of meditation apps to download.

And of course any number of books, videos etc.

In addition to helping reduce stress, meditation can help with anxiety depression and high blood pressure.

Start now. Take some action. One step at a time. Do not procrastinate

There is no right or wrong order in which to try these stress reduction tips. See which work for you.

You may be interested to explore stress reduction techniques further in more depth. To do that, here is a video course containing nine stress reduction action plan s. It is available on Skillshare and you can access it today by clicking here.

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MEDITATION - A Pathway to Self-Discovery

Most people have the wrong concept of meditation. They think that you have to sit like a Yogi on a mountain top or in a quiet place and adopt a specific position or posture to meditate. Well, I am going to show you here how easy it is to meditate anywhere and anytime. You can be at work, at home or driving in your car. You will get instant benefit from this exercise and wonder why you did not learn it before.

There are many systems of meditation invented, but not many people understand the purpose of meditation. They use various techniques to calm their mind, but when they go back to their routine, their minds go back to their tortured state and confusion. There is no real peace, understanding or enlightenment in the individual.

Meditation is not about concentrating on one object and blocking out the rest in mind. It is not just about calming your mind and acquiring some peace. It is not about religion or religious beliefs. In my mind, the real purpose is to discover the timeless dimension where there is eternal peace. It is also learning about yourself, how you operate in your mind and harmonise your inner and outer worlds. It is a pathway to self-discovery.

Now you may not realise it, but the timeless dimension is just as real as the time dimension we are living in, where we have the past, the present and the future. It is eternal, peaceful, and always in the present. The only thing that separates you from the timeless is your perception.

Most people experience the timeless when they are away from any man-made structures out in the countryside, on a mountain top or in the bush. There, the eternal dimension is so overpowering that one can feel the time stop. It is a spontaneous occurrence. The mind becomes alert and still without a single thought to disturb it, where the observer in mind, and what is being observed becomes one phenomenon. One becomes part of the universe. What one experiences is real and beyond words. It is not imagination. It is only when the stupid ego utters some inane words such as " Oh what a beautiful sight this is... etc." that the magic spell is broken.

Here you did not realise that you had stepped into the timeless dimension, but uttering those words brought you back to your present time zone. Please understand the ego. It is a great survivor and is afraid of disappearing from the mind. It uses the thinking process to travel in time by using words and sentences. If you did not verbalise, you would find that your thoughts have no substance.

Thus thinking is an acquired habit we use to fill our mind with thoughts. One thought ends and another one begins. When we are not thinking, we are always doing something else. We may be listening to music, watching television, playing sport or taking part in other escapist activities. One fears that if one stopped thinking, one might disappear from the mind. The thoughts go round and round like a squirrel in a cage. The mind is never empty. This constant stimulation of the subconscious mind makes it grow restless and turbulent. One yearns for peace.

While soothing music can help us calm our mind, it is meditation one should turn to for acquiring real peace and tranquillity. Meditation should be fun and a constant learning process. It is a path to enlightenment. You do not have to adopt a specific position or posture.

Please understand that meditation is not about focusing on one thing and excluding everything else. In my mind, it is an all-inclusive process and initially requires a bit of practice. Here is a simple way to meditate and discover the timeless, anywhere and anytime. When we contemplate this way, life becomes an eternal meditation.

It does not matter where you are. You may be at work sitting at a desk or sitting at home in your lounge watching TV. Look at the picture in front of you. Look at all the objects in front of you without saying a single word in your mind. You can recognise and know all the objects in your view without naming them or focusing on any particular one. Now broaden your vision to take in the whole picture of the room, except the back of you. Do not say a single word. You now have a panoramic view of the entire room except the back of you. There is an observer (the ego) in your mind observing the whole picture, fully alert and in the present. If you watch closely, you will notice an ethereal stillness in the room. At the same time, please note that you have not disappeared from the mind. Your mind is not blank. You are trying to understand the present.

While doing this, please become aware of your habit of thinking trying to interrupt your observations. Do not try to control your thoughts. Let them flow freely. Note how words activate your thinking process. If you did not say or use names (verbalise), the thoughts have no life in them-the same thing with emotions. Become aware of the feeling that might be disturbing you. Stay with it. Note that if you put words to your feelings, you intensify them. If you do not verbalise, the feelings evaporate.

Also, please become aware of the words you use in your mind. Train yourself to replace negative words with positive words, even if you do not mean it. Our subconscious mind responds reflexly to words, not their meaning. For example, if you are driving in a hurry and under tension, say this "Relax, slow down. What is the rush? There is plenty of time". You will be surprised to find yourself relaxing and slowing down.

When you practice meditation this way, you will soon come to recognise the phenomenon of the observer and the observed, becoming one in your mind. It is a spontaneous occurrence. When this happens, you are experiencing the timeless dimension. You will soon realise that you are an eternal part of this universe. You will understand what peace of mind is and what eternity is.

The timeless dimension is like 3D-picture. At first, it looks flat. But if one keeps looking at it, the depth (the third dimension) appears. Most of us are looking at reality with a tunnel vision, focusing our attention on a small area. With the simple method described above, you will soon be able to look at the picture with a panoramic view.

Do you still think it is difficult to practice meditation this way? Try it; it is easy. First, look at a distant object. Then broaden your view to take in the whole picture except the back of you. Now you have a panoramic view. Doesn't this technique alone give you instant relief of tension in your facial muscles? Develop this good habit. Soon your perception will change. When you look at the picture in front of you with a panoramic view, you will feel instantly relaxed. You will not be developing any new wrinkles on your face. Practicing meditation every day the way I have described above, will keep you mentally young and refreshed. You will not have to worry about Alzheimer's Disease. It will also slow down the aging process.

If you wish to learn more about how your mind works, read the "The Enchanted Time Traveller - A Book of Self-Knowledge and the Subconscious Mind". It will help you to understand your subconscious mind, and how you can manipulate it. Visit Website: http://theenchantedtimetraveller.com.au.

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