Piano for Body, Mind and Soul Healing!

Piano for Body, Mind and Soul:-

There has always been a recognized trinity between the mind, the body, and the therapeutic qualities of music. And the piano, specifically, has been a long-recognized source of remedy for those seeking escape and creative expression. But recent years have also offered a wealth of scientific studies that demonstrate our instincts have always been correct playing the piano offers proven benefits from physical and intellectual to social and emotional to people of all ages.

Let’s Get Physical:-

The physical benefits of piano playing are even more far reaching. Mitchell Gaynor M.D., in his book Sounds of Healing, demonstrates that music has therapeutic physical effects including reduced anxiety, heart and respiratory rates; reduced cardiac complications; lowered blood pressure; and increased immune responses.

Keys to Better Thinking:-

In a study conducted by E. Glenn Schellenberg of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in 2011, researchers split 132 first-graders into four separate groups for after-school activities. One group was given singing lessons, one was given drama lessons, another piano lessons, and the last was offered no after-school instruction. All of the students’ IQ’s were evaluated at the end of the year. Those who participated in the piano lessons saw an IQ increase of 7 points, while the other groups saw an increase of 4.25 at most. The researchers concluded that the fact that piano education requires one to be focused for long periods of times contributes to the greater IQ gains in the piano-playing group.

Striking a Contented Chord:-

Barry Bittman, MD, of the Body-Mind Wellness Center in Meadville, Pennsylvania, created a study to gauge stress levels among 32 volunteers. The volunteers were put through a stress-inducing activity attempting to assemble a difficult puzzle while incentivized by a monetary prize and then were told to “relax” afterward using a variety of different methods, including reading magazines and playing keyboards. The volunteers also gave blood during the study, and the blood was tested for the activity of 45 stress-related genes. In the group that played keyboard to relax, the results showed a significantly higher reversal in the markers for stress-related genes than in the other groups.

“With ongoing research,” Bittman concludes, “recreational music-making could potentially serve as a rational stress-reduction activity, along with other lifestyle strategies that include healthy nutrition and exercise.”

Add to this data the other benefits that come from piano playing—increases in work ethic, diligence, creativity, self-reliance and perseverance and the result is a veritable symphony of good news for your body and your soul.

Reduce Stress Job Healing Art!

Many of us make job stress worse with negative thoughts and behavior. If you can turn around these self-defeating habits, you’ll find employer-imposed stress easier to handle.

1:-Resist perfectionism:-

No project, situation, or decision is ever perfect, so trying to attain perfection on everything will simply add unnecessary stress to your day. When you set unrealistic goals for yourself or try to do too much, you’re setting yourself up to fall short. Aim to do your best, no one can ask for more than that. 
2:-Clean up your act:-
If you’re always running late, set your clocks and watches fast and give yourself extra time. If your desk is a mess, file and throw away the clutter; just knowing where everything is saves time and cuts stress. Make to-do lists and cross off items as you accomplish them. Plan your day and stick to the schedule—you’ll feel less overwhelmed. 
3:-Flip your negative thinking:-
If you see the downside of every situation and interaction, you’ll find yourself drained of energy and motivation. Try to think positively about your work, avoid negative-thinking co-workers, and pat yourself on the back about small accomplishments, even if no one else does. 
4:-Don’t try to control the uncontrollable:-
Many things at work are beyond our control—particularly the behavior of other people. Rather than stressing out over them, focus on the things you can control such as the way you choose to react to problems.

Long Life Friendshipe Tips!

When it comes to our physical and mental health, friendship may truly be the best medicine. An Australian study (link is external) showed that strong social networks may lengthen survival in elderly men and women, with good friends being even more likely to increase longevity than close family members.

Healing Art! bellainnocent.blogspot.com

Think about what kind of friend you want to be, as you consider these five tips for keeping your friendships strong throughout the years:

1. Be Honest:-

Relationships built on false build-ups or phony facades are only as good as their foundation. Superficial relationships often fizzle over time. To achieve a solid friendship, you have to be honest with each other. Being able to offer and receive feedback from someone you trust is a gift that can easily be overlooked. Setting aside your ego and being willing to let someone know you and ask questions of you is invaluable. Friends are likely to ask the tough questions—“Why do you think you’re attracted to that person?” or, “Do you think you might be feeling jealousor hurt in this situation?” Having a friend who can tell it to you straight will help you know yourself better. Being able to reciprocate further challenges you to live with honesty, directness, and integrity. There is no way to feel more connected to someone than to open yourself up to them. Plus, keeping an honest dialogue helps prevent you from building up cynicism and boiling over in a moment when you feel triggered.

2. Repair Misattunements:-

When you know someone well, you’re familiar with their strengths as well as with their weaknesses. And so, just as you know how to cheer them up, you know exactly how to tear them down. In moments of tension, we can let things slip out that are far more hurtful to our closest friends because they come from us. No one is perfect. We are all sure to mess up at times, but when we do, we have to set pride aside and repair the situation. Being honest shouldn't be about being cruel. Finding a balance where you can say what you think without being parental, defining, or judgmental is important to keeping a level of trust between you and a friend.

When you make a mistake, apologize for it. Make sure the friend understands that your intention is not to hurt or punish. Explain where you went wrong and what you mean by saying sorry. And don’t be afraid to be the one who reaches out; we all have either been part of, or known pairs of friends who’ve stopped speaking for months, because neither individual would come forward to admit fault. Time is precious and not worth wasting, especially when it comes to the people who make us happy.

3. Make Time and Show Appreciation:-

The familiarity and comfort we feel with another person can sometimes leave us crossing lines or forgetting to show gratitude. As with a spouse, partner, children, or family, we have to find time to make real contact with friends in order for the relationship to flourish. Slipping into routine can leave us more likely to take friends for granted. Make sure to express how you feel, and take actions that show how well you know and care for them. Generosity is the key to happiness. A good friend shows interest in who we are and what we struggle with, but it is important not to let the relationship become one-sided or to become self-centered in your focus.

Be sure to engage in acts of kindness and consideration that are focused on your friends. Do the things that they would perceive as caring. Consider their interests and passions when planning a way to say thank you. A woman I know used to plan over-the-top birthday parties for her best friend. After years of this, her friend quietly confessed to her that these lavish affairs made her feel uncomfortable and shy and that she’d much rather go out to a casual dinner with a few friends. The revelation led the friend to realize that her party planning had always been more about her than her friend. She wasn’t truly considering her friend’s feelings when planning an act of acknowledgement.

4. Alter Your Expectations and Don’t Make Assumptions:-

In any relationship, we can start to impose certain expectations on others that set us up to feel hurt or disappointed. Don’t be quick to pick apart your friends. Accept that they are human and that they will make mistakes. We may show our friendship in one way, whether through affection, favors, or gifts, but we shouldn’t necessarily expect the same from them. Don’t assume what your friends are thinking; check it out instead. And accept that you could be wrong about their viewpoint—every individual possesses a sovereign mind and their own perceptions of the world. They may, in turn, have a very different way of expressing their feelings, or showing that they care. A close friend of mine, whom I’ve known since we were kids, rarely remembers to buy me a gift on my birthday. It would be easy to use this fact to feel bad, to build a case that she’s forgetful or just doesn’t care about me the way I care for her. But that would be far from the truth. She simply shows warmth in other ways, often bringing me books she thinks I will love, picking up my favorite tea, or sitting to talk with me for hours when she suspects I’m not feeling my best.

5. Choose Compassion Over Cynicism:-

A good rule of thumb when it comes to our relationships is to care more about doing what’s right than being right. When you get to know a person, you get to know their worst traits, and it’s easy to become cynical toward those negative aspects of their personality. It’s far more preferable to be compassionate. Compassion keeps us vulnerable instead of tough and guarded, or seeing the world through a negative lens.Compassion, then, is its own reward, as it leaves us feeling good within ourselves regardless of how a friend may be behaving. Being honest and straightforward without being cynical is perhaps the most important quality of a good friend.

Ways to Heal a broken friendship!

1. Take a breath, step back and PAUSE. Vowing to write them off in the heat of

emotion is never a win-win. The 30 second rule (OK, sometimes it may take 30 minutes) to gather your thoughts and process the situation can save hurtful words being said in anger.

2. The thoughts in your head feeding your fear and insecurity only help to keep you stuck, confused at not at all empowered. Ruminating and playing the tapes of the circumstance over and over will certainly lead to more frustration - do something; see a movie, go for a run, do a long yoga practice - turn off your head for while to clear space for rational thinking.

3. When I am wounded, lost or feel neglected, I turn now to those men and women who love, support and nourish my soul - they remind me I’m OK; surround yourself with people who fill you up and can be a objective and grounding.

4. Big egos and big voices can be impressionable, but the one with the strongest character will come away the better person. The issue may be too deep to just glaze over, but if you act with graciousness, humility and objectivity, you can remain pleasant and generous no matter the outcome.

5. If for whatever reason after much dialogue your friend is still not moving past the incident, embrace where they are with the situation, let them know you accept this, will adjust and adapt, and that they are valuable to you on whatever terms. Often hurt can take others longer to heal - respect that and be with them at any level.

6. As trying as it can be, when you choose authentic, truthful and unconditional love for the other person and bring your heart to the situation, this hard time will strengthen you beyond anything you could imagine. Regardless of the weight you bear, come to the relationship with only wanting clear, clean communication.

7. Communal negativity is dangerous and will suck you into a empty hole of doubt and insecurity; if you share the situation with someone else and they opt to speak unkindly of your friend, you have just become a conduit to fear - stop the negative interaction and choose to keep the matter to yourself.

8. As the popular character from Seinfeld, George Costanza would say “Do the opposite.” Release your wounded feelings and go out into the world and speak graciously and kindly about your friend. Each moment you start to replay the those ego tapes in your head, call, email or text someone something really positive about this friend - you will feel lifted immediately for doing so.

9. This one is short and sweet; apologize with sincerity, ask for their forgiveness and accept the response, Respect the decision, do not regret.

10. Own your participation in this mishap; acknowledge whatever part you may have played (yes, even when we are the ones that have been hurt or wronged, we brought something to the situation that led us to the matter) and openly, without judgement speak to that place in your friends heart where they intrinsically love you and your words will be received authentically and with clarity.

My dear friend and I have had many a challenging situation, cross words and emotions flying due to impatience, insecurity. Whatever it may be at that time in our long relationship, I can tell you that I would do anything for her and I know her for me and that is worth holding onto, and worth any amount of lessons I might learn in my own growing as HER friend. Be engaged and proactive in resolving broken relationships, strive to have respect and maturity of heart to come to the situation realistically and with the intent to heal and bloom that friendship once again.

Happy life healing Mind & Body!

Establishing a healthy dialogue between our thoughts and our molecules helps us shift from imbalance to balance. And when we’re in an optimal state of dynamic balance, we naturally tend to listen to our body with love and reverence and make choices that support balance, happiness, and wellbeing.

1.Take time each day to quiet your mind and meditate.
Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for restoring balance to our mind and body. In meditation, you experience a state of restful awareness in which your body is resting deeply while your mind is awake though quiet. In the silence of awareness, the mind lets go of old patterns of thinking and feeling and learns to heal itself.

Meditation brings us home to the peace of present moment awareness and gives us an experience of profound relaxation that dissolves fatigue and long-standing stresses. 

2.Each day eat a healthy diet that includes the six Ayurvedic tastes and a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables.
Next to breathing, eating is our most vital bodily function. To create a healthy body and mind, our food must be nourishing. Ideal nutrition comes from consuming a variety of foods that are appropriately prepared and eaten with awareness.
A simple way to make sure that you are getting a balanced diet is to include the six tastes (sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, and astringent) in each meal.The pungent, bitter, and astringent tastes, on the other hand, are anti-inflammatory and increase metabolism. These tastes are found in food such as radishes, ginger, mustard, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, tea, lentils lettuce, etc.

3.Move your body: Engage in daily exercise.
Regular exercise offers incredible benefits for your body and mind. The powerful effect of exercise on many of the biomarkers of aging, including muscle mass, strength, aerobic capacity, bone density, and cholesterol.
tasks.Exercise can reverse the detrimental effects of stress and lift depression.
A complete fitness program includes exercises to develop flexibility, cardiovascular conditioning, and strength training. Find an aerobic activity that you enjoy and will be able to three to four times each week for twenty to thirty minutes. After your body is warmed up, spend five to ten minutes stretching. Be sure to include strength training in your program to systematically exercise the major muscle groups of your body. The key is to start off slowly, find physical activities you like, and do them regularly. You will be surprised how quickly you increase your endurance and enthusiasm for moving and breathing.

4.Take time for restful sleep.
Restful sleep is essential key to having health and vital energy. When you're well-rested, you can approach stressful situations more calmly, yet sleep is so often neglected or underemphasized. There is even a tendency for people to boast about how little sleep they can get by on. In reality, over time, inadequate sleep disrupts the body’s innate balance, weakens our immune system, contributes to weight gain and depression, and speeds up the aging process.
Human beings generally need between six and eight hours of restful sleep each night.

5.Release emotional toxins.
Many of us harbor emotional toxicity in the form of unprocessed anger, hurt or disappointment. This unprocessed residue from the past contributes to toxicity in our body and needs to be eliminated. You can begin by asking yourself, “What am I holding onto from the past that is no longer serving me in the present?”
Once you have identified what you want to release, spend some time journaling about how your life will be different when you change. Then you can do a specific releasing ritual that declares to yourself and to the world that you are letting go of whatever it is you’ve been holding on to

6.Cultivate loving relationships.
Research shows that a good social support network has numerous physical and mental health benefits. It can keep you from feeling lonely, isolated or inadequate and if you feel good about yourself, you can deal with stress better. Friends and loved ones can be a good source of advice and suggest new ways of handling problems. But they can also be an excellent distraction from what's bothering you. If your network of friends is small, think about volunteering, joining an outdoor activities group or trying an online meet-up group to make new friends.

7.Enjoy a good belly-laugh at least once a day.
From the scientific perspective, laughter is an elegant mind-body phenomenon that reduces the production of stress hormones and boosts the immune system.

Spending Time Alone Healing!

In today's constantly connected world, finding solitude has become a lost art. In fact, Western culture tends to equate a desire for solitude with people who are lonely, sad, or have antisocial tendencies. But seeking solitude can actually be quite healthy. In fact, there are many physical and psychological benefits to spending timealone. 
Benefits of Seeking Solitude:-

1. Solitude allows you to reboot your brain and unwind:-  
Constantly being "on" doesn't give your brain a chance to rest and replenish itself. Being by yourself with no distractions gives you the chance to clear your mind, focus, and think more clearly. It's an opportunity to revitalize your mind and body at the same time.

2. Solitude helps to improve concentration and increase productivity:-
When you remove as many distractions and interruptions as you can from your day, you are better able to concentrate, which will help you get more work done in a shorter amount of time.

3. Solitude gives you an opportunity to discover yourself and find your own voice:-
When you're a part of a group, you're more likely to go along with what the group is doing or thinking, which isn't always the actions you would take or the decisions you would make if you were on your own.

4. Solitude provides time for you to think deeply:-
Day to day responsibilities and commitments can make your to-do list seem as if it has no end. This constant motion prevents you from engaging in deep thought, which inhibits creativity and lessens productivity.

5. Solitude helps you work through problems more effectively:-
 It's hard to think of effective solutions to problems when you're distracted by incoming information, regardless of whether that information is electronic or human. 

6. Solitude can enhance the quality of your relationships with others:-  
By spending time with yourself and gaining a better understanding of who you are and what you desire in life, you're more likely to make better choices about who you want to be around. You also may come to appreciate your relationships more after you've spent some time alone.

Despite knowing these benefits, it can be a challenge to find time alone in a world that seems to never sleep. Here are a few ideas to help you find more time to spend with yourself.

1:-Disconnect:-
Set aside some time each day to unplug from all the ways you connect with others. Turn off your cell phone, Turn off your Internet. Turn off your TV. If you use your computer to create, such as writing, then write without all the bells, dings, and beeps that come along with being connected to the Internet. You'll be amazed at how much more you can get done when you're not distracted.

2:-Get Up or Get In Early:- 
 Wake up a half hour or an hour earlier than everyone else in your house and use that time to create, produce, problem solve, meditate, or whatever makes you happy. This strategy also works if you can get to work before everyone else arrives and the phones begin to ring.

3:-Close Your Door:- 
 It's simple, but can be very effective. A client who owns a community-based magazine puts a sign on her door when she doesn't wants alone time. The sign reads "I'm editing or writing. If the police are here, the office is on fire, or stops by, you can interrupt me. If not, please hold all questions until my door opens." She said that she decided to put up the sign after she realized that her presence in the office was a stimulus for questions. "Whenever I was in the office," she said, "it seemed like there was one question after the next. I was constantly getting interrupted, and it was hard to get my work done. Then I noticed that on the days I was working on a story outside the office, my phone hardly ever rang, even if I was out the whole day. Apparently, whatever questions came up somehow got handled without me. It made me realize that just by being in the office I was a magnet for questions. So I put up the sign and it works like a charm."

4:-Use Your Lunch Time:- 
 Don't spend your lunch time working at your desk. Don't spend it running errands. And if you regularly go out to lunch, don't think that it always has to be with others. Once a week or even just a couple of times a month, commit to spending lunch with yourself. Walk. Sit in the sun outside. Go to a park and eat. Enjoy the time you have alone.

Schedule solitude:- 
 Literally. Mark off time in your day planner or calendar for spending time with yourself. If you can make time for all the little extras you fit into your day, like stopping at Starbucks or picking up something at the mall, you can schedule time in your calendar for solitude. It doesn't have to be long. Any time that you can spend alone with yourself to reboot, meditate, focus, relax, create, produce, and/or think deeply is better than no time.

In my next post, Why You Shouldn't Feel Guilty about Stealing a Little Time for Yourself, I talk about ways to negotiate alone time with friends and family and how to avoid feeling guilty about it. And if you have effective strategies you use to steal a little time for yourself,

Reduce Holidays Stress Simple Tips!

1. Change Your Mindset:- 
Of course, the holidays are a special time of year meant to celebrate friends and family, but we're not talking about a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence here. Christmas may come but once a year, but it comes every single year without fail. If you're too busy to participate in every party or family tradition this year, don't worry. There's always next year! This same kind of thinking can also help you make healthierdecisions when it comes to holiday eating. Yes, your aunt's gingerbread cookies are delicious, but you can enjoy a couple every year instead of feeling like you have to eat the whole tin all at once. Sweet talk her into giving you the recipe, and, even if you never get around the baking them, you'll know that you can have your favorite treat anytime you want.

2. Practice the Power of No:-
The word no is extremely powerful and liberating. It's tempting to say yes to every invitation and every opportunity to volunteer during the holidays. But you'll enjoy the parties and other events more if you pick and choose the ones that are closest to your heart. There's no need to lie or to explain why you can't participate. Simply say, "I'm sorry. I already have plans for that time." Whether your plan is to make time for exercise or simply to get some needed rest, don't feel obligated to take on more than you can. This can be quite challenging, though. Force yourself to practice saying no in small ways. For example, try politely refusing a cookie from a well-meaning coworker.

3. Simplify Your Celebration:-
Holiday traditions are wonderful and help create lasting family memories, but there's no reason why you can't choose to create new traditions that better fit your current lifestyle. Do you really need to cook a meal for your entire extended family? Instead, could you roast the turkey or make another main course and ask everyone else to bring a side dish or dessert? Do you really need to buymultiple gifts for everyone? Instead, could the adults in the family draw names to create a smaller gift exchange and save other gift giving for children? 

4. Focus on Others:- 

Instead of getting wrapped up in gift giving, baking and other holiday obligations, find a way to give back to your community this year. You might choose to volunteer at a toy drive for underprivileged children or help out at a local food bank. Instead of fightingcrowds at the mall, you could be doing good for others and for yourself. There are many benefits to giving back for your own health and well-being.

5. Choose a Charity Gift.:-
Another great way to avoid the mall or hours of online shopping is to give charity gift cards to friends and family. You can buy cards and certificates from sites like Tis Best, Just Give and Network for Good that allow the recipient to donate the money to the non-profit of their choice. That way you and your family can feel good about supporting causes that are important toeach one of you.

6. Don't Skip Your Regular Workouts:-
It's easy to find extra time in your schedule by cutting back on gym visits or afternoon walks, but because exercise is such an effective form of stress relief, all you'll be buying yourself is exhaustion and added worry. By the same token, don't try to beat holiday eating by ramping up your workouts to unrealistic levels. Instead, enjoy holiday treats in moderation and focus on sustainable fitness goals. If you want to add some extra calorie burn to your regular cardio (in a short amount of time), try some high-intensityinterval training.

7. Boost Your Immune System:-
There's nothing more stressful during the holidays than coming down with a cold or the flu. To protect yourself during the winter months, make sure you're getting ample fruit and vegetables in your diet, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep and washing your hands regularly. And get a flu shot to protect yourself from the most common strains of the flu virus.

8. Be Flexible:-
Instead of trying to pack multiple family celebrations into a single day or weekend, create your own schedule for festive gatherings when it's more convenient for everyone. For example, if you celebrate Thanksgiving with one side of your family, invite the other side over a few days later to celebrate leftovers day. Everyone can bring leftovers or a new dish to share. You can eat up all the extra food while it's still good and spend time with the people you love in a less formal setting than a sit-down dinner.

9. Take a Day Off:-
Rather than trying to fit all your holiday errands in on the weekend, use one of the vacation days you were saving for the holidays for some stress-free mid-week shopping. The mall will be less crowded and you'll be able to zip through all the tasks on your list. And you'll also get more done on that day you're alone in the office without any interruptions from coworkers. Not being greeted by an overflowing email inbox on January 2 will be a huge stress reliever, too.

10. Get Out of Town:-
 Need a fool-proof excuse for skipping out on holiday obligations? Book a vacation. It can be just you and your significant other, or you can bring your immediate family along. Use the money you would have spent on gifts to fund your trip and accumulate memories instead of stuff. Who knows, maybe winter travel is a new family tradition that you can pass on to the next generation--the gift of a totally stress-freeholiday season!

11. Take a Deep Breath:- 
 If you find yourself feeling too stressed out and overwhelmed to even consider any of the suggestions above, pause for five minutes and take a few cleansing breaths. Then get a piece of paper and write down all the tasks that are swirling around in your head and driving your crazy. Consult a calendar and allot specific time periods to spend on each item on your list. Once you have a plan in place, you can focus on checking off tasks instead of worrying about how to juggle everything. (Discover 10 simple ways to de-stress in five minutes or less.)