Alcohol Self-Help News

News and commentary for mutual-help/self-help in the addictions

Archive for the ‘Relaxation’ Category

Sexual Satisfaction

Posted by fredjoiners on November 5, 2009

Sober Sexual Satisfaction.

 

Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes “good recovery sex”, experiencing sex and their own sexuality in unique ways.

Posted in Emotions, Recovery, Relaxation, Sex Addiction, Sexuality, men, women | Leave a Comment »

10 Steps to Happiness

Posted by fredjoiners on June 6, 2008

Happiness is; Small waterfall into stream Ten Keys to Happiness By Deepak Chopra

Physical well being is inseparable from emotional well being. Happy people are healthy people. The wisdom traditions of the world tell us that happiness does not depend on what you have, but on who you are. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what really creates happiness in us.

The following ten keys, gleaned from the wisdom traditions, may give us some insight.

  1. Listen to your body’s wisdom, which expresses itself through signals of comfort and discomfort. When choosing a certain behavior, ask your body, ‘How do you feel about this?’ If your body sends a signal of physical or emotional distress, watch out. If your body sends a signal of comfort and eagerness, proceed.
  2. Live in the present, for it is the only moment you have. Keep your attention on what is here and now; look for the fullness in every moment. Accept what comes to you totally and completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it, and then let it go. The present is as it should be. It reflects infinite laws of Nature that have brought you this exact thought, this exact physical response. This moment is as it is because the universe is as it is. Don’t struggle against the infinite scheme of things; instead, be at one with it.
  3. Take time to be silent, to meditate, to quiet the internal dialogue. In moments of silence, realize that you are recontacting your source of pure awareness. Pay attention to your inner life so that you can be guided by intuition rather than externally imposed interpretations of what is or isn’t good for you.
  4. Relinquish your need for external approval. You alone are the judge of your worth, and your goal is to discover infinite worth in yourself, no matter what anyone else thinks. There is great freedom in this realization.
  5. When you find yourself reacting with anger or opposition to any person or circumstance, realize that you are only struggling with yourself. Putting up resistance is the response of defenses created by old hurts. When you relinquish this anger, you will be healing yourself and cooperating with the flow of the universe.
  6. Know that the world ‘out there’ reflects your reality ‘in here.’ The people you react to most strongly, whether with love or hate, are projections of your inner world. What you most hate is what you most deny in yourself. What you most love is what you most wish for in yourself. Use the mirror of relationships to guide your evolution. The goal is total self-knowledge. When you achieve that, what you most want will automatically be there, and what you most dislike will disappear.
  7. Shed the burden of judgment you will feel much lighter. Judgment imposes right and wrong on situations that just are. Everything can be understood and forgiven, but when you judge, you cut off understanding and shut down the process of learning to love. In judging others, you reflect your lack of self-acceptance. Remember that every person you forgive adds to your self love.
  8. Don’t contaminate your body with toxins, either through food, drink, or toxic emotions. Your body is more than a life-support system. It is the vehicle that will carry you on the journey of your evolution. The health of every cell directly contributes to your state of well being, because every cell is a point of awareness within the field of awareness that is you.
  9. Replace fear-motivated behavior with love-motivated behavior. Fear is the product of memory, which dwells in the past. Remembering what hurt us before, we direct our energies toward making certain that an old hurt will not repeat itself. But trying to impose the past on the present will never wipe out the threat of being hurt. That happens only when you find the security of your own being, which is love. Motivated by the truth inside you, you can face any threat because your inner strength is invulnerable to fear.
  10. Understand that the physical world is just a mirror of a deeper intelligence. Intelligence is the invisible organizer of all matter and energy, and since a portion of this intelligence resides in you, you share in the organizing power of the cosmos. Because you are inseparably linked to everything, you cannot afford to foul the planet’s air and water. But at a deeper level, you cannot afford to live with a toxic mind, because every thought makes an impression on the whole field of intelligence. Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the Earth.

Deepak Chopra

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Posted in Brain, Eating Problems, Emotions, Health, Higher Power, Just for today, Recovery, Relationships, Relaxation, help, spiritual | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Chocolate Lowers Blood Pressure -Yahoo!

Posted by fredjoiners on April 25, 2008

Chocolate trifles Cocoa, but Not Tea, Lowers Blood Pressure

More happy justification for chocolate lovers: blood pressure responds favorably to cocoa, but not tea, a new analysis suggests.

Authors of the study say that while both products are rich in polyphenols, the study findings suggest that phenols in cocoa may be more active than those in tea. The study appears in the April 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Products rich in cocoa may be considered part of a blood pressure lowering diet, provided that the total energy intake does not increase,” lead investigator for the study, Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, from the University Hospital of Cologne in Cologne, Germany, told heartwire. “I believe that cocoa is healthier than other sugar confectionary or high-fat dairy products.”

Cocoa Beats Tea for blood pressure

In the cocoa studies, cocoa consumption was typically flavonol-rich chocolate in the range of 100 g per day; in the tea studies, consumption was in the range of 4 to 6 cups daily.

In the cocoa studies, blood pressure dropped; however, in the tea studies, no differences were seen in blood pressure. The authors point out that while the 2 substances contain similar amounts of polyphenols, the components of these polyphenols differ between cocoa and tea: cocoa is particularly rich in procyanidins, whereas black and green tea are rich in flavan-3-ols and gallic acid. It may be that the polyphenol components in cocoa are more bioavailable, Taubert and colleagues propose.

According to Taubert and colleagues, the effects of cocoa on blood pressure were comparable to those achieved with antihypertensive drugs. “The magnitude of the hypotensive effects of cocoa is clinically noteworthy; it is in the range that is usually achieved with single doses of medication,” they write.

“At the population level, this level of reduction of blood pressure would be expected to substantially reduce the risk of;

  • stroke (by about 20%),
  • coronary heart disease (by 10%), and
  • all-cause mortality (by 8%).”

Research article published in the Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:626-634.

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Posted in Eating Problems, Health, Just for today, Recovery, Relaxation, Research reports, Stress | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Most Popular Articles December 2007

Posted by fredjoiners on January 13, 2008

 

Posted in ACOA, Al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, Brain, Cannabis, Co-dependency, Eating Problems, Emotions, Families, Gambling, Just for today, Marijuana, Recovery, Relationships, Relaxation, Self-help, Sexuality, Youth, addiction, alcohol, alcoholism, spiritual, women | 1 Comment »

Mind guide to relaxation

Posted by fredjoiners on December 21, 2007

 

Learning how to relax improves day-to-day living, and can be a valuable tool for coping with stress of any kind.

Suitable for anyone in recovery from alcoholism, addiction, ACOA, co-dependency, compulsive gambling & etc.

This booklet explores why people have problems trying to relax and how to resolve them. It explains how to introduce more relaxation into your everyday life, and how to take it further. It is not designed to go into specific deep relaxation techniques.

Topics in this article include;

Available at; Mind guide to relaxation

Posted in ACOA, Co-dependency, Recovery, Relaxation, addiction, alcoholism | 2 Comments »