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Learn about the different types of yoga and how it can be used as a tool to help you stay healthy.

Like yoga, the osteopathic approach to wellness focuses on your bodys natural tendency toward health and self-healing.

The purpose of yoga is to build strength, awareness and harmony in both the mind and body, explains Natalie Nevins, DO, a board-certified osteopathic family physician and certified Kundalini Yoga instructor in Hollywood, California.

While there are more than 100 different types, or schools, of yoga, most sessions typically include breathing exercises, meditation, and assuming postures (sometimes called asana or poses) that stretch and flex various muscle groups.

As an osteopathic physician, I focus a lot of my efforts on preventive medicine and practices, and in the bodys ability to heal itself, says Dr. Nevins. Yoga is a great tool for staying healthy because its based on similar principles.

The relaxation techniques incorporated in yoga can lessen chronic pain, such as lower back pain, arthritis, headaches and carpal tunnel syndrome, explains Dr. Nevins. Yoga can also lower blood pressure and reduce insomnia.

Other physical benefits of yoga include:

Aside from the physical benefits, one of the best benefits of yoga is how it helps a person manage stress, which is known to have devastating effects on the body and mind. Stress can reveal itself in many ways, including back or neck pain, sleeping problems, headaches, drug abuse, and an inability to concentrate, says Dr. Nevins. Yoga can be very effective in developing coping skills and reaching a more positive outlook on life.

Yogas incorporation of meditation and breathing can help improve a persons mental well-being. Regular yoga practice creates mental clarity and calmness; increases body awareness; relieves chronic stress patterns; relaxes the mind; centers attention; and sharpens concentration, says Dr. Nevins. Body- and self-awareness are particularly beneficial, she adds, because they can help with early detection of physical problems and allow for early preventive action.

Because there are so many different kinds of yoga practices, it is possible for anyone to start. Whether youre a couch potato or a professional athlete, size and fitness levels do not matter because there are modifications for every yoga pose and beginner classes in every style, says Dr. Nevins. The idea is to explore your limits, not strive for some pretzel-like perfection. It is a great way to get in tune with your body and your inner self.

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Benefits of Yoga | American Osteopathic Association

What is yoga?

Yoga is a spiritual tradition that began in India about 5,000 years ago. Historically its practices have been adopted by such religions as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. However, the practice of yoga is compatible with any religion, as well as atheism.

The word yoga means union in Sanskrit. Many of the yoga traditions believe that the practices of yoga lead to union of a person with his or her true nature, or with God or the universe (however one wishes to conceptualize it). How this is interpreted and the means employed to get there differ in the various yoga traditions.

Patanjali, author of the classic yoga text, the Yoga Sutra, defined yoga as the quieting of the fluctuations of the mind. From a yogic perspective, the mind, and its ceaseless internal monologue, is the source of suffering. The various yoga practices serve to calm the mind. From a wellspring of relaxed concentration-the hallmark of yoga-comes inner peace, heightened creativity, and awareness of our essential nature.

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Yoga | Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing

Arnie Cooper profiles the life of social thinker, visionary and activist Barbara Marx Hubbard

If I did not know lifes larger purpose, how could I know my own purpose?Many Americans remember 1984 as the year Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to run for Vice-President. They may not realize that another woman, Barbara Marx Hubbard, was also a vice-presidential candidate.Now 76, this public speaker, author and social innovator laughs as she recalls speaking at the Democratic National Convention. As the guard escorted me to the platform he said: Honey, they wont pay attention to you; youll be saying this to the universe. Little did he know that Hubbard was a deeply spiritual person whose life work involved communicating her vision to an audience that extended far beyond the walls of any convention hall.When he mentioned the universe, my feeling was one of mystical reality. His comment helped me overcome my sense of doubt and sense of disappointment that no one was really paying attention. It also let me focus on the notion that thought creates.One such thought was the creation of an office of the future and a Peace Room. The goal was to match the sophistication of the Pentagons war room, not only in Washington D.C. but in every other world capital. But instead of tracking our enemies movements and working to defeat them, the Peace Room would track successful projects, initiatives and individuals from every sector of society.This idea had been welling up inside Hubbard ever since the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Though she was only fifteen, the event caused Hubbard to turn to deep philosophical questions. What is the meaning of our new technological powers? What is the purpose of Western civilization? she wondered. To find the answers, she immersed herself in the work of Greek and Roman philosophers. She also read the existentialists like Sartre and Camus as well as the materialists who viewed the universe as nothing but matter. Unsatisfied by what she found, Hubbard became a metaphysical seeker. If I did not know lifes larger purpose, how could I know my own purpose?, she said.As a Bryn Mawr student doing her junior year in Paris, Hubbard finally heard an answer that satisfied her. Sitting in a cafe on a cold November day, she began talking with a young man. As Earl Hubbard took a drag on his cigarette he said: I am an artist. My purpose is to seek a new image of humanity commensurate with our power to shape the future. She ultimately married him.But being married, even to someone with the answers was not enough. Hubbard began reading the Christian mystic, Teilhard de Chardin, who wrote about a new kind of human on the earth who was attracted to the future. However, later, as a mother of five, living in Lakeville, Connecticut Hubbards interest in the future made her look neurotic. Said the local psychiatrist. Theres something wrong with you Barbara, because you think you need to connect and youve got more to do. Youre 32 years old, youve got 5 kids and a great husband, how could you be thinking this? Youre sublimating; your libido is off, he told her.The Evolutionary CrossroadsSuburban Connecticut in the 1950s wasnt exactly the place to dialogue about humanitys path. Most of Hubbards contemporaries at the time were trying to escape from such ideas. She soon felt like the ugly duckling in the swamp, and was compelled to find others who were also drawn to emerging paradigms.Then Hubbard met Jonas Salk and told him about her unconventional ideas and how everything was wrong with her. He told her This isnt whats wrong about you, its whats right about you. You are a mutant. Salk wasnt being funny; he was referring to his belief that, unlike most people on the planet, Hubbard embodied the characteristics needed by evolution to help bring humanity to the next level. He introduced her to three men: Al Rosenfeld, science editor for Life magazine, Dr. Joel Elkes, director of the department of psychopharmacology at Johns Hopkins and Louis Kahn, the architect who was working on the Salk Institute. Hubbard was finally able to connect with other evolutionary souls. More than that, she had found the path to her life work.In 1968-69 Hubbard published The Center Letter, one of the first newsletters on evolutionary transformation. She was also one of the original contributors to the Salk Institute. The following year, in Washington, D.C., she founded the Committee for the Future, which used her work to develop the New Worlds Educational and Training Center.After her brush with politics in 1984, Hubbard went on to co-found the Foundation for Conscious Evolution with Sidney Lanier in 1992. As she points out in her book of that title, Conscious evolution is a worldview that looks at the natural process of evolution in the past, and attempts to understand and guide our own period of transformation now. It acknowledges that humankind has attained unprecedented powers to control and change the evolution of life on Earth.Indeed, Hubbard believes that the human family has come to an evolutionary crossroads. Its obvious that if we continue doing what weve been doing, including overpopulating, polluting, fighting with this degree of violence that we are heading to a point where we could actually destroy our own life support systems, she says.Words that chillingly resonate as the world recently watched the war in Iraq. Still, Hubbard remains optimistic. A consciousness is rising on earth against war. And no matter what, the consciousness wont stop. I think we will see an increased uprising against the militaristic attitude and a real need to mobilize and organize for a better way. In any case, were going to be challenged to take greater leadership, not just to protest but to join together to build a world.In reflecting on the many challenges we face, she notes, Were now seeing the tail end of egoic based dominator structures, which happen to be in power in the most powerful nation in the world. Not that she looks to political activists for solutions. Sure, there was a time when you might have thought that one party or the other was the answer, but now I think something of a far more transformative nature is wanting to happen. The dysfunctionality in our current power structures will be revealed resulting in the emergence of a new politics of synergy, attraction and creation. It will be irresistible because its actually life-oriented, but it cant happen, she says, until that which is new-functional matures and connects.Hubbard is now helping to create a new social system to connect the growing movement of individuals working toward a sustainable future. In fact, nearly two decades after she spoke to the Universe in San Francisco, her Peace Room initiative is coming to life, through her Gateway for Conscious Evolution, a six-month online educational program that guides individuals through self- and social evolution.Visitors to her web site http://www.consciousevolution.net will see the idea graphically represented in the form of an operating hub divided into 12 major areas. Categories like Communications & Media, Science & Technology, Environment & Infrastructure and Learning & Education are just some of the initiatives.The Peace Room, means peace through co-creation, through the full expression of human creativity in cooperation with nature, with one another, and with the deeper design of evolution.Though it currently exists on the Internet it will eventually have a physical presence in locations around the world. And sometime within this decade, Hubbard envisions the first Global Peace Room hosted by the United Nations. Says Hubbard, we will move beyond our current confusion and see that the purpose of our crisis is to activate our newly emerging capacities...to restore the earth, free ourselves from illness, hunger and war and build a future equal to our vast potential.This year Hubbard will host a live Internet radio program through her web site. Live from the Peace Room will feature a dynamic scanning for the breakthroughs and innovations and showing them as a continuous process for the emerging world.Hubbard is the author of five books, including her recently published Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence, which offers a ten-step process to help individuals climb the evolutionary ladder to become universal humans, a state that will allow us to actively participate in the process of creation.No doubt, Hubbard is on a mission to stretch our species beyond its self-imposed borders. Yet what distinguishes her from others concerned about our future is that she is not only striving for changes within our institutions; shes also working to help individuals find the power to surpass themselves. Hubbard believes that if we are to address our many challenges, we must first move beyond our egoic existence.Arnie Cooper, a freelance writer based in Santa Barbara, California writes about nature, spirituality and the impacts of the media and technology. His work has appeared in various magazines and literary journals including The Sun, Mother Jones, Orion and Ascent. He also teaches Media Literacy and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Barbaras International Programs. He can be reached at abcooper at cox.net

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A Profile Of Barbara Marx Hubbard: - ru

Book Christophe Barriere-Varju as your keynote speaker for your upcoming conference or event.

Having competed in the gruelling and most dangerous 10,000kms off-road race on earth both in Africa and South America Christophe knows a thing or two about Mission Impossible and taking things to a higher level.

His latest event was immortalised in 7x Award Winning Film Dream Racer, watched by audiences in over 145 countries. An incredibly inspiring story internationally acclaimed by viewers worldwide.

But Christophe is not just about racing the Dakar Rally or Dream Racer or becoming a legend of one of the toughest motorsport event in the world. MBA educated and having worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York he is a unique blend of adventurer/business man who advises Government Agencies and large Corporations at his own consulting firm BvW Global.

The gist of it is that Christophe loves a challenge, in fact he is addicted to them, so much that he spends his time turning his and peoples dreams and ideas into reality. The keys he says is learning how to learn and using challenges, failures and the fear of the unknown into developing your own self-inspiring mindset.

For additional information or to book Christophe, please contact us.

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Personal Performance - Inspirational Speaker Christophe ...

The four primary components (also known as the components of health related fitness) that are important to improved physical health are as follows:

Cardiorespiratory capacity is the ability of the body to take in oxygen (respiration), deliver it to the cells (circulation), and use it at the cellular level to create energy (bioenergetics) for physical work (activity). In fitness, we also refer to cardiorespiratory capacity as aerobic capacity. This capacity includes aerobic endurance (how long), aerobic strength (how hard), and aerobic power (how fast). Some of the long-term adaptations of cardiorespiratory training are: decreased resting heart rate, decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, improved endurance, increased stroke volume and cardiac output.

Muscular capacity refers to the spectrum of muscular capability. This includes muscular endurance (i.e., the ability to apply force over a long period of time or to complete repeated muscle contractions); muscular strength (i.e., the ability to generate force, or the maximum amount of force that a muscle can exert in a single contraction); and muscular power (i.e., the ability to generate strength in an explosive way). Some of the long-term adaptations of improving muscular capacity are increased strength, improved muscular endurance, increased basal metabolic rate, improved joint strength, and overall posture.

Flexibility is the range of movement or amount of motion that a joint is capable of performing. Each joint has a different amount of flexibility. Some of the long-term adaptations of improved flexibility are decreased risk of injury, improved range of motion, improved bodily movements, and improved posture.

Body composition is the proportion of fat-free mass (muscle, bone, blood, organs, and fluids) to fat mass (adipose tissue deposited under the skin and around organs). Some of the long-term adaptations of improving body composition are decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, improved basal metabolic rate, improved bodily function, and improved BMI.

The secondary components of fitness (also known as the components of performance based fitness) are involved in all physical activity and are necessary for daily functioning. Athletes experience different levels of success depending on how well these secondary fitness components are developed. Although the primary components of fitness are thought to be the most important, we should not ignore the secondary components because of their importance in the completion of daily tasks. The secondary components include the following.

Balance is the ability to maintain a specific body position in either a stationary or dynamic (moving) situation.

Coordination is the ability to use all body parts together to produce smooth and fluid motion.

Agility is the ability to change direction quickly.

Reaction time is the time required to respond to a specific stimulus.

Speed is the ability to move rapidly. Speed is also known as velocity (rate of motion).

Power is the product of strength and speed. Power is also known as explosive strength.

Mental capability is the ability to concentrate during exercise to improve training effects as well as the ability to relax and enjoy the psychological benefits of activity (endorphins).

Health is a dynamic process because it is always changing. We all have times of good health, times of sickness, and maybe even times of serious illness. As our lifestyles change, so does our level of health.

Those of us who participate in regular physical activity do so partly to improve the current and future level of our health. We strive toward an optimal state of well-being. As our lifestyle improves, our health also improves and we experience less disease and sickness. When most people are asked what it means to be healthy, they normally respond with the four components of fitness mentioned earlier (cardiorespiratory ability, muscular ability, flexibility, and body composition). Although these components are a critical part of being healthy, they are not the only contributing factors. Physical health is only one aspect of our overall health.

The other components of health (Greenberg, 2004, p. 7) that are just as important as physical health include the following:

Social health-The ability to interact well with people and the environment and to have satisfying personal relationships.

Mental health-The ability to learn and grow intellectually. Life experiences as well as more formal structures (e.g., school) enhance mental health.

Emotional health-The ability to control emotions so that you feel comfortable expressing them and can express them appropriately.

Spiritual health-A belief in some unifying force. It varies from person to person but has the concept of faith at its core.

Wellness is the search for enhanced quality of life, personal growth, and potential through positive lifestyle behaviours and attitudes. If we take responsibility for our own health and well-being, we can improve our health on a daily basis. Certain factors influence our state of wellness, including nutrition, physical activity, stress-coping methods, good relationships, and career success.

Each day we work toward maximizing our level of health and wellness to live long, full, and healthy lives. The pursuit of health, personal growth, and improved quality of life relies on living a balanced life. To achieve balance, we need to care for our mind, body, and spirit.

If any of these three areas is consistently lacking or forgotten about, we will not be at our optimal level of health. We are constantly challenged with balancing each of these three areas throughout life.

As fitness professionals, we have a responsibility to guide and motivate others to improve their level of health and wellness. We can promote a holistic approach to health (mind, body, and spirit), not just encourage physical activity. As good role models, we should demonstrate positive health behaviours that assist in improving our own health and the health of others. If our focus is strictly on the physical benefits of exercise, we are doing a disservice to our clients and we are not fulfilling our professional obligation.

As fitness professionals, we spend a great deal of time inspiring and assisting others in their pursuit of improved health. Education is an important aspect of this. We must promote the benefits of regular activity and help people understand why they should be active.

Figure 1.2 will help you educate your clients about the benefits of activity and why each of these benefits is important to long-term health.

Health Canada introduced Canadas Physical Activity Guide to Healthy Active Living to help Canadians make wise choices about physical activity as a way to improve health. Scientists say you should accumulate 60 minutes of physical activity every day to stay healthy or improve health. The recommendations in the Physical Activity Guide are as follows:

Endurance-On 4 to 7 days a week, perform continuous activity for your heart, lungs, and circulatory system. Time required for improvements depends on effort.

Flexibility-On 4 to 7 days a week, perform gentle reaching, bending, and stretching to keep muscles relaxed and joints mobile.

Strength-On 2 to 4 days a week, perform resistance exercise to strengthen muscles and bones and improve posture.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has also developed activity guidelines for improving health:

Perform 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on most days of the week for cardiovascular health. The 30 minutes need not be continuous.

Performing 1 set of 8 to 12 repetitions of resistance training for the entire body is necessary to maintain and develop muscular strength and endurance.

Flexibility training should be performed daily, including stretches for all major muscle groups, in order to maintain mobility.

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The importance of health, fitness, and wellness

To be your happiest and healthiest self, we bring you a wide selection of health facts from fitness to food to hydration.

These top tips and random health facts provide you with information to keep you fighting fit.

These health facts cover a range of topics to provide you with knowledge and insights into how you can better take care of yourself and information about health around the world.

Its easy to forget how important our mental health contributes to our wellbeing. Just like all muscles, the brain needs to be exercised and cared for to ensure you are performing and feeling your best.

While swearing, participants reported less pain and were able to withstand the pain longer.

Our bodies need food to survive, but all foods were not created equal. Read through these facts about food and vitamins that you can incorporate into your diet to boost your health.

For a healthy body and mind, general fitness and moderate exercise are crucial. We hope these interesting health facts encourage you to move!

A study of adults over the age of 65 found that walking at least four hours a week reduced their risk of cardiovascular disease hospitalizations.

A similar study at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that moderate intensity walking and vigorous intensity running has similar reductions in risk levels for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and even potentially coronary heart disease.

Water is the bodys natural elixir. Below weve compiled ten good reasons why keeping hydrated contributes to good health.

Not only that, but a study by the Endocrine Society found that drinking 500ml of water increased the metabolic rate (in both men and women) by 30% within 10-40 minutes of drinking water.

Here are few general hints and tips to keep you feeling healthy and to ensure youre taking good care of your body.

The Academy of General Dentistry recommends waiting at least 30 to 60 minutes.

Elements such as dust, mold or cleaning supplies can contaminate the air, resulting in poor indoor air quality.

As a result of poor indoor air quality or lack of ventilation, irritation to the eyes, nose and throat is common and with long-term exposure can lead to some respiratory diseases.

The final ten facts cover a broad spectrum, but you can use this intriguing information to impress your friends.

Foot pain, ranging from general soreness at the end of a long day, to a more serious condition, is common.

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70 Quick Health Facts: Food, Fitness, Hydration, Random (Fun!)

Health and Fitness Magazines from Amazon.com

From perfecting a headstand in yoga class to learning the tastiest vegetarian recipes and finding the best fitness routines for your needs, health and fitness magazines can help you explore, experiment, and exercise in new and exciting ways. No matter the subject youre looking for, subscriptions to health and fitness magazines can help you improve your techniques, and stay up-to-date on all the trends and changes in your preferred health and fitness zones.

Whether youre looking for health and fitness magazines for men or for women, Amazon.com offers a wide range on a variety of topics. If youre interested in mens or womens health, you can choose from magazines like Mens Health, Womens Health, Shape, Muscle & Fitness, and more. If youre looking for nutrition or alternative medicine options, you can select everything from Vegetarian Times, EatingWell, Spirituality & Health, and more. We also offer a range of magazines about relationships, psychology, beauty and fashion, and weight loss as well.

When you subscribe to health and fitness magazines, you can keep up-to-date on all your subscriptions by using the handy subscription manager Amazon.com offers. Plus, you can even give gift subscriptions, so whether your intended prefers to stay abreast on yoga changes or different diets, you can find magazines like Yoga Journal, Outside, Cooking Light, and more all right here. Simply include the name and address of your intended recipient, and Amazon.com will ensure they get the latest issues of their gift subscription on time.

Our selection of health and fitness magazines can help you do everything from improve your fitness to explore alternative health and fitness styles, and more. With alternative selections like Qi: Journal of Traditional Eastern Health & Fitness, and contemporary favorites like Health, you can find all the news you need for your favorite health and fitness activities.

With health and fitness magazines from Amazon.com, you can find all the articles you need to get your heart rate up and get your brain inspired.

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Amazon.com: Discount Magazines: Health, Fitness & Wellness ...

Health and fitness is the key to a long, active and enjoyable life. It is correctly stated that Health is the actual Wealth that a person can retain. Teachers assign this topic to their students to enhance their knowledge about staying healthy and fit, and create awareness among others as well. It also results in the development of a healthy lifestyle for children.

Students need to realize the importance of staying healthy and fit. Also, being the future generation, they can play a vital role in creating awareness and maintaining a stable health regime.

Here we are providing you some useful articles on health and fitness under various categories according to varying words limits. You can choose any of them according to your need:

Being healthy and fit in simple terms means taking good care of the body. We should remember that a healthy mind resides only in a healthy body. Good health of both mind and body helps one maintain the required energy level to achieve success in life. All of us must strive to achieve wholesome health.

Protecting your body from the intake of harmful substances, doing regular exercises, having proper food and sleep are some of the important instances that define a healthy lifestyle. Being fit allows us to perform our activities without being lethargic, restless or tired.

A healthy and fit person is capable of living the life to the fullest, without any major medical or physical issues. Being healthy is not only related to the physical well-being of a person, it also involves the mental stability or the internal peace of a person.

Generally, a healthy diet consists of taking a proper and healthy food which includes eating green and fresh vegetables, fruits, having milk, eggs, minerals, proteins and vitamins essential for a humans lifestyle. Practicing Yoga including regular exercises in your daily routine also help you maintain your desired fitness, blood sugar and immunity level.

Healthy habits improve your physical appearance, mental stability, ability to perform activities in a better way, which help you lead a stress-free lifestyle, maintaining happy moods, high energy levels, etc. Each individual should take of ones health on a priority; no single day should be skipped for making efforts on maintaining physical and mental fitness. Being happy is directly related to boosting your mental strength and health, so happiness can be considered as the result as well as the part of a healthy and fit lifestyle.

Conclusion: Health is the most important thing that a person should take care of. Leading a healthy lifestyle leads to happiness, success and achievements.

Health can, generally, be measured on major three parameters: Physical, Psychological and Nutritional. Physical health means the physical appearance of a person; Nutritional health means the presence of essential nutrients in the body to fight diseases with immunity. Psychological health means the ability in a person to maintain patience, calm and composure in all circumstances of life.

Health professionals consider cancer, diabetes and several other mental and physical health issues such as depression, lethargic attitude, etc to deficiencies in fitness and well-being of a person. Unhealthy and unfit lifestyle of a person also results in premature death. Obesity and lack of physical fitness in young generation sets the stage for diabetes, heart disease, and other serious health problems.

Walking, running, cycling, playing, swimming, gardening, skipping, weight-lifting and Yoga are some of the important activities which help us maintain fit and healthy lifestyle. A person who is fit both physically and mentally is strong enough to face the ups and downs of life, and is not affected by drastic changes in the circumstances.

One should also spend time outdoors in the sun, inhaling fresh air and taking part in healthy activities. Staying active makes you stay energetic.

Out of the several components that affect ones health, following are the seven key physical components to ensure the overall good health, fitness and mental well-being:

Eating healthy and nutrients rich food, exercising, taking sufficient sleep, avoiding intake of harmful substances are just few simple ways to stay healthy and fit. These are directly related to our mental, physical and emotional health.

Fitness and mental well-being are essential parts of a healthy life. The benefits of an active and healthy lifestyle are undeniable by all means.

Whether you decide to increase your activity levels slightly or develop and participate in a thorough fitness plan, it will pay you off in the long run.Exercise is good for your health of various organs of your body and makes you feel stronger.

Nutrition and fitnessare essential for ahealthy living. Not only we look and feel good, but by eating the right nutritional food and doing the right amount of exercise, we could also lower the chances of getting some pretty serious life-threatening diseases.

Things to be done for maintaining balanced healthy and fit lifestyle:

Conclusion: Sound health not only means keeping a health body but it also includes a healthy mental condition. Our health depends upon several factors such as food, pollution, regular sleeping habits, fresh air, water, sunlight, and healthy mental condition. Morning walks and physical exercises are very helpful for ensuring the fitness of our mind and body.

Good health helps a person to live ones life to its fullest potential without being physically or mentally unfit. Unhealthy lifestyle results in deterioration of ones wellbeing. Staying healthy and fit is very important for each generation. Exercising and eating healthy are the best ways to retain your health both physically and mentally.

People, who take their health seriously and are serious about maintaining their fitness, do exercises on a daily basis, eat a healthy diet, and sleep well on time for adequate duration.

Being healthy and fit allows you to stay active and further increases your confidence and concentration power. By staying healthy and fit, one can set an example for others and slowly help others increase their health, nutrition, knowledge, and consumption of sustainably produced foods.

Major reasons that lead to the deterioration of health are as follows:

Natural phenomena such as pollution, etc also make us unhealthy and unfit. Proper preventive measures must be taken to defend ourselves against adverse natural environment.

Following are the things that lead to maintenance of a healthy and fit person:

Staying healthy and fit is not difficult if taken as the foremost priority. By following the above-mentioned simple steps, each one of us can lead a healthy, fit and fruitful life. Maintaining balance of thoughts, nutritional diet, rigorous exercise, Yoga, optimum level of sleep are actually the main contributory factors for our wellbeing and a healthy and fit lifestyle.

Conclusion: We create the conditions that lead to an unhealthy and unfit lifestyle. Thats a fact. So, we should develop good habits, and become capable of taking the required measures to lead a healthy and fit lifestyle.

Health is a dynamic process. It keeps on changing as we change our lifestyle, our eating habits, our sleeping routine, our thoughts, etc. Each day we should work towards maximizing our level of health and wellness to lead long, full, and healthy lives. Our defined aim should be planning our day in a manner that maintains balance of our physical and mental usage. We can make a huge difference in our lives by staying fit and healthy.

Among the most crucial reasons for decline in health today is the lack of proper amount of vitamins and minerals. Improper intake of vegetables, fruits and dairy products leads to absence of minerals and vitamins in our body. Lack of minerals and vitamins lead to all kinds of diseases as nutrients are essentially required to build and repair the blood, tissues, muscles and bones.

Good health not only means a state of absence of diseases in the body but a complete physical, mental, social as well as spiritual wellbeing of an individual.

Being healthy means having a healthy brain, flexible movements of body, more energetic, happy moods, peace and patience, etc. Fitness does not only mean your physical wellbeing, it is a combination of physical and mental health of a person.

Stress, anxiety, mood fluctuations also represent unhealthy traits of a person. Health refers to the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of a person.

Every generation should take care of their health and fitness. Since childhood, it is easy to focus on this aspect of life as dietary habits of childhood are difficult to change afterwards. For this we should refrain from overfeeding the children. Some important tips of good eating habits that one should follow are:

In children, the requirement of sleep is high, around 12-14 hours and a normal adult requires 7-8 hours of sound sleep daily.

Maintaining healthy and fit regime requires simple efforts, a few of which are listed below:

Health and fitness is determined by what we eat, how we live our lives, our choice of leisure pursuits and what we do to keep ourselves physically fit. Keeping fit is about how we choose to live our lives as individuals and the levels of fitness we aspire to. Maintain your health and fitness to keep your body look and feel good, but also maintain a level of physical fitness which will enable you to manage and enjoy your daily lifestyle.

Conclusion: The way towards Healthy and Active wellbeing is to focus on making the healthy choice at any given moment, rather than postponing the things that are must to be done in the long term.

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Article on Health and Fitness Long and short articles ...

Transhumanism and posthumanism

Transhumanism goes beyond simply crushing death and aims to allow humans to overtake the limitations of their bodies through technology. Slow Darwinian evolution, working through millennia, has very little chance to compete with Moores law in terms of speed (the yearly doubling of computing capacities) and there is a very good chance that technology could allow the human kind to evolve faster than natural selection would.

This rapid change in the transhumanist community will probably give birth to a new humanity which is difficult to imagine today much like it would have been challenging for Turings contemporaries in the Second World War to picture the computing power and capacities of todays smartphones, just sixty years down the road.

As previously stated, predicting and even picturing the result of exponential change through time can be challenging. Todays transhumanists will first look just like the next person, before things fire up exponentially. Besides the prospect of a limitless lifespan, yours truly cannot tell you what other changes might have occurred with your regular transhuman two centuries from now (but maybe we can bring it up again then.)

Some scientists believe that people alive today could end up living for a thousand years a figure commonly used because of its striking effect, and because it is a fair estimate of a regular French person spared by the effects of aging.

On that matter, no scientist can give a definite answer as of today unless Calico, Googles eternal life pet project, or any company versed in biotechnologies are keeping secrets from you. However, just like some organisms dont age because their DNA repair system doesnt get damaged with time, I assume that in the future, humanity will unveil aging mechanisms and stop them. Our 21st century is undergoing such technological convergence and acceleration that it could one day bust open the locks that keep us from living a forever healthy, limitless life. This convergence of technologies is called NBIC convergence (Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, IT, Cognitive science).

As for the timing, however, it will be a question of will, financial means and serendipity.

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Transhumanism - Work for human longevity

is elated to Celebrate the Life of this awakened female soul, one who began tracking her own self-evolution at a very tender age of 18. Devoting her life to the universal question of life, What is the meaning of our power that is good? Making an internal decision to trail a path, researching cause and effect, studying all scripture, struggling through depression and more her journey seeking the meaning of life began.

Yet the hunger of Eve awoke in me. I realize now it was the hunger for union with the divine, but that I could not tolerate that image of the Divine as the mythic God.

Born a Jewish agnostic, her father was toy maker Louis Marx. In her youth she attended the Dalton School in New York City. She studied at LEcole des Sciences Politiques at La Sorbonne in Paris during her junior year of college, and received a B.A. cum laude in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College in 1951. I believe my start, born of a Jewish, agnostic secular father, was good.

When I asked him what religion we were, he said, Youre an American. Do your best. I interpreted that to mean that everyone has potential and being an American means finding the way to realize that full potential. He was a Horatio Alger type, and I was imbued with indomitable hope. One of the pressures within me was to find out what I was hopeful about!

After the bombs were dropped on Japan, I asked the question which has guided my life: What it the meaning of our new power that is good? What are images of our future equal to this new power?

I couldnt find the answer in philosophy or religion until I read the New Testament.

Thats IT, I thought. Ill join the church. I went down to the local Episcopal Church in Scarsdale, New York and asked the minister: Is any of this true? Did Jesus really ascend? Will we be able to do the work that he did and greater work, really?

I saw he did not know. He enrolled me in Sunday school!

Learning the Biblical story of the image of the jealous and violent Lord God Yahweh and Eves supposed guilt for wanting knowledge, and even for being attracted to the Tree of Life, the tree of the gods, deeply repelled me. I felt that Eve was right and that this story was fundamentally wrong. I left the church.

Yet the hunger of Eve awoke in me. I realize now it was the hunger for union with the divine, but that I could not tolerate that image of the Divine as the mythic God.

This left a vacuum of meaning.

Then I tried being an existentialist in Paris during my junior year abroad for Bryn Mawr College. I tried to believe that the universe had no meaning except what I personally gave it, and that it was inevitably going down to a heat death. I became depressed.

In 1952 she was invited to the White House (through her fathers connections) where she famously asked President Eisenhower: What can I do for you, young lady? he asked casually. Mr. President, I said, I have a question for you. What is the meaning of our new powers that is good?

He looked started, shook his head, and said, I have no idea.

Then we better find out, I thought.

I realized later that every religion is coded with such an image of a radical new quality of life, but it had to be encoded in the metaphysical or mystical realm. With the advent of awareness of our new capacities and our potential for conscious evolution, I see now that what has been intuited, as life after death, may indeed be life after this stage of evolution.

Not as some perfect Utopia, but as a state of being that normalizes direct apprehension of the divine, of the implicate order, and that sees ourselves as expressions of that unfolding pattern of creation, cocreative with it.

(The Flower of Life)

When you put together our full potential spiritual, social, and scientific/technological you see a quantum jump, a new species, a universal humanity that in fact may embody many of the characteristics of spiritual visions of life beyond this world a new heaven and a new Earth, a new Jerusalem, beyond sorrow, beyond death, the former things passed away

Perhaps we are indeed coming to the end of this world, to the end of civilization, the end of separate self consciousness as we have known it. And this is good. We are being instructed by Failure the failure of war to win, the failure of consumerism to satisfy, the inevitable rise of the seas in response to global warming brought on in part at least by human destruction of nature. All of these evolutionary drivers may indeed be the impulse needed to jump our species to a higher order, or to self destruction.

But this is getting ahead of my developmental path.

Gradually, I began to realize that our image of reality and of the future affects our reality, affects what we do. I began another study of images of the future and their effect on cultures. This made of me an active meme seeker.

She married the artist Earl Hubbard, whom she met while in Paris, that same year. I had five children and felt lost and depressed until I found the memes I needed to awaken my evolutionary consciousness. As of 2012, she is the mother of five and grandmother of six.

The Voice: The combination of frustration, depression, innate hope, and a profound yearning for life purpose, for what to do my best at, pressed me forward. I began to hear an inner voice.

Its first signal was: I wont let you die. (I have 162 volumes of Journal tracking self-evolution, started at the age of 18.).

It started with reading Maslows Toward a Psychology of Being. He said that every self-actualizing person has one thing in common: chosen vocation they found intrinsically self-rewarding. Here was a great clue to conscious evolution. It is the need to find innate life purpose that transcends mere selfish desire to prevail. Vocation is a vital way of directly experiencing the Life Force of evolution.

Then came Teilhard de Chardin. This was the real opening. I could tell from his Law of Complexity/Consciousness the understanding of God in evolution rising to higher consciousness, freedom and more complex order, that my own impulse to grow, to be more, to realize my potential was not the musings of a neurotic housewife, but rather, it was the universe unfolding in me as me.

This was the next key. Our own impulse to create and evolve is the direction of God in evolution, not just a human need, not just a blind effort to survive or reproduce, but in fact an implicate order of growth, the urge to self-evolve.

I realized that each of us is the universe in person. Our motivation to evolve is the soul of evolution experienced as our subjective desire for self-evolution, for communion with others, with nature and with Spirit.

Then came Buckminster Fuller who told us that we have the resources, technologies and know-how to make of humanity a 100% physical success without destroying our environment.

I began to develop a vocation. At that time I called it An Advocate for Humanity. I felt that the current philosophical and art worlds (in the 1960s) were giving us a deathly image of our self that could in fact destroy us. My husband was an artist. And together we began breakfast dialogues seeking our new story and a new image of humans that comes forth out of the evolutionary story.

Then I read Sri Aurobindos great work, The Life Divine. He was the great Indian sage that fixed evolutionary consciousness within me. I realized that what he called the Consciousness Force is the dynamic, progressive aspect of God, or the supramental intelligence of the universe, leading to a new kind of human, a gnostic human, he called it. He saw that man is a transitional species.

I remembered Teilhards description of Homo progressivus. He wrote that some of us had a mysterious sense of the future, a flame of expectation, a sense of the future progressing toward the unknown. He said if even one person had that flame in a crowded room he would be drawn to that person, and no difference of age, background, color, religion, or class could keep them separate.

I realized that I was a Homo progressivus. But I had never met another. I felt so lonely.

Then I got a call from Dr. Jonas Salk. I had written something to Jerry Piel, editor of the Scientific American about Jonass idea of a Theater of Man. Jonas had read an article I had written and was moved to meet with me. He explained that he felt I was among several visionaries of the postWorld War II generation who were filled with a mysterious sense of the future and a desire to give their best for the good of all. Jonas was emphatic that people like me were needed for humankind to evolve to its next level. This recognition from Jonas started me on my path as an evolutionary woman, learning that we are all part of the greater process of creation.

He said to me, Mrs. Hubbard, you and I are two peas in the same genetic pod. May I take you to lunch?

Those words reverberated in my soul. It was the first voice of an evolutionary that I had ever heard, and I knew intuitively that something momentous was about to happen.

As we talked I told him all the things that were wrong with me. My desire for the future, the sense of something great coming, the yearning to connect, etc. Barbara, he said, That is not what is wrong with you. That is what is right about you. You combine the characteristics needed by evolution now. You are a psychological mutant. I will introduce you to a few others.This started me on the path.

Within a few months I was transformed. My daughter drew a picture of me as a horse hit by the lightening of inspiration!

This led to many things, but the key next step was the next question I asked.

It came from all my reading but it had not yet become a gestalt within me.

It was February 1966.

I asked the universe a question: What is Our Story? What on Earth is comparable to the birth of Christ?What I meant by that is the Gospels were such an amazingly effective story. What could be our story comparable in power to that?

In one instant my minds eye shot up into outer space, I become a universal being for a moment. I had an out-of-earth experience and saw us all as members of one living body.

The planet was like a Disney film, speeded up. We were struggling to coordinate, running out of energy, etc. Suddenly there was a moment of shared pain. We all paid attention, and there was a mass opening of the heart. Resonance. Love flashed through our nervous systems, like pent-up love in the heart suddenly released. People poured into the streets, like on VJ Day at the end of World War II.

I felt mass healings occur. It was ecstatic. The media was healed by covering people being healed.

Suddenly, all systems were shifting political, economic, education, etc. All the innovations now under the surface of the current systems were being coordinated by the same power that brought atoms with atoms and cells with cells. I saw a few frames ahead in the movie of creation. I felt the coming together of the planet as one living body. I felt light surround the planet the light that mystics see. The light was both beyond us and within us. I heard a tone, a harmonic. I felt that the light was intelligent, but that we were still too young to understand it.

It was a kinaesthetic imprint of a planetary birth experience, a collective awakening.

I heard the words coming forth from the cosmos:

What Christ and all the avatars came to Earth to reveal is true.We are all members of this one body.

GO TELL THE STORY OF THE BIRTH OF A UNIVERSAL HUMANITY, BARBARA.

That was it. The vocational signal I needed. The experience I longed for.In the next few minutes I saw conscious evolution as the next stage of evolution itself. It is the evolution of evolution from unconscious to conscious choice. I realized that we are literally in a crisis of birth of the next stage of our evolution. We are outgrowing the womb of self-conscious humanity and planet-boundedness.

We can learn to restore the Earth, free ourselves from scarcity and move forward into an immeasurable future as a co-evolutionary cocreative species.

Like a newborn infant, we innately know how to do this. when we have the right story to guide us.

Once we know that our crisis is potentially the birth of a new human and a new humanity, we can move forward through any difficulty.

This wonderful experience transformed my life.

I dedicated myself to learning the story and to telling it in every way that I could.

Maslow is right.

A true vocation is a key to participation in conscious evolution.I see vocation as the enfolded implicate order, the process of creation localizing and unfolding in each of us as our own passion to create. Once that happens the Consciousness Force internalizes and we enter the process of conscious self-evolution. We become conscious evolutionaries.

I call it the birth of the universal human. This is a human connected through the heart to the whole of life, and awakened from within by Spirit to express unique creativity for the good of the self and the whole community and the whole world. This human has been gestating for thousands of years, but the crisis we are facing is bringing us forward en mass. Each of us is coded with some image of the future, and some impulse to express unique creativity.

This motivation is as powerful as the drives for self-preservation and self-reproduction. It is the drive for self-evolution. It is suprasexuality, the yearning to express our unique creativity out of love, through joining not our genes to have a child, but our genius to give birth to our full potential self and our work in the world. This passionate drive to self express, to fulfill lifes potential within us, is, I believe, the wellspring of the life force on earth, the passion that, in response to the crises and opportunities we face, will carry us toward the next stage of our evolution.

Many wonderful events follow which I wont describe in detail here, many of which are recorded in The Hunger of Eve, my autobiography.

We formed the Committee for the Future in Washington, DC, and invented a new social synergy conferencing process called SYNCON for synergistic convergence. People meet in a wheel-shaped environment based on functional interests, such as Health, Education, Environment, Government, seeking common goals and matching needs and resources in the light of the growing new potentials of the whole system. We took walls down between sectors. Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, who attended one of the SYNCONs, said that if we had had a spiritual Geiger-counter, it would have gone off the charts. The experience felt like a mini-version of the actual experience of the planetary birth, in that it allowed the coordinating process of nature to connect us in a new whole system as we sought common goals and matched needs with resources.

I ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1984 on the themes given by Fuller, Maslow, and Teilhard, calling for the establishment of a new social function in the office of the VP a peace room as sophisticated as our war rooms to scan for, map, connect, and communicate what is working in America and the world. Over 200 delegates signed a petition to have my name placed in nomination for the vice presidency along with Geraldine Ferraro.

I discovered a plan as to how to run a political campaign, which can model synergistic democracy, and work for the transformation of the American presidency. I believe this is possible by 2012 and am seeking to give this idea to the next VP candidate on the Democratic ticket.

I co-founded The Foundation for Conscious Evolution with Sidney Lanier, and become an evolutionary educator with a myriad of projects to bring forth the templates and practices of conscious evolution now. See Gateway to Conscious Evolution at http://www.evolve.org.

I am developing a Chair in Conscious Evolution for Wisdom University, in an effort to cocreate the new field of conscious evolution.

I am producing a series of DVDs called Humanity Ascending: A New Way through Together. The first is called Our Story and is now being sold all over the world, a seed story of our emergence as a universal humanity (www.humanityascending.com).

My own cutting edge is in the realm of evolutionary spirituality. I have co-founded a Communion of Pioneering Souls and have co-produced with Carolyn Anderson a new book called 52 Codes for Conscious Self Evolution taken from the universal consciousness, to guide us on the new developmental Path of the cocreator.

It feels as though evolutionary consciousness itself is deepening and that the unfolding Implicate order is arising as our own intuitive guidance as to how to navigate though the great period of transition to the next stage of human evolution.

(Its made available by permission from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious; the full video is available here.) This weeks inspiring video excerpt above is just one example.**

As I look around our movement, it is clear to me that many of our leaders who are birthing a transformed world are feeling a new sense of passion.

Every now and again messengers come to us, and they leave us with a profoundly different way of thinking. Letting all of us know that Something will effect our lives for the duration, and gives us hope that we will do just fine in this breakthrough..This is nice.Andrea

In 1945 the United State dropped atomic bombs on Japan, and the world caught its breath.This pivotal event deeply impacted the young Barbara Marx Hubbard, who found herself asking President Eisenhower, What is the meaning of our power that is good? Barbaras 40+ year inquiry, and the answers she has found, offer invaluable assistance to us all at this time in our history. Despite the state of the world, we are truly on the threshold of great possibility, of our own conscious evolution.

ACE Mentor Retreat was yet more evidence of leadership arising, as Stephen Dinan notes below, as are the new weekly Hub Support Calls announced in this issue which represent a new level of leadership and collaboration.. And all this has inspired us to improve our hub support for you as you will discover in the coming weeks!

She was also featured in the 2011 film Thrive.

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In the wake of the Vaticans harsh rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), we talk with Barbara Marx Hubbard, the keynote speaker at the LCWRs recent Assembly.

In The Book of Co-Creation she writes: Out of the full spectrum of human personality, one-fourth is electing to transcend . One-fourth is destructive [and] they are defective seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a natural death. Now as we approach the quantum shift from the creature-human to the co-creative human the human who is an inheritor of god-like powers the destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body . Fortunately, you are not responsible for this act. We are. We are in charge of Gods selection process for planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are the riders of the pale horse, Death.

Lord help us all if this de facto Brain Trust of diabolical misfits, murderers, megalomaniacs, terrorists, and tyrants succeed in establishing their new world order, their new global civilization. Source

Barbara states today As you know, I have intuited all these years that our crisis is a birth and that we are called to gentle the birth toward a planetary culture, or undergo even worse catastrophes. It has always seemed to me that an actual Planetary Birthing Experience,celebrating what is working, loving and innovative is vital to our emergence now. Finally, the time has come. I am working with Stephen Dinan of the Shift Network to celebrate this process by convening, Birth 2012 on December 22, 2012, a live multi-media global celebration of what is working that we would like to invite everyone to contribute their energies and creativity toward to help create a new civilization. Please join me tonight for this Activation Day call.

Continued here:
Barbara Marx Hubbard WOMAN of ACTION