How to grow love and kindness for yourself and others . . .

You may face situations that are challenging

and perhaps even overwhelming each day.   You may be "tested" at the expense of your inner peace and personal resources.  Illness, the loss of loved ones and simple everyday experiences like bumper to bumper traffic can provoke feelings of pain, sadness, anxiety and anger.  Such experiences not only produce painful emotions, they are also very damaging to your body.  

While practicing different forms of relaxation, skills like progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing or receiving massage therapy are effective in helping you to reduce your stress; new research suggests that cultivating and practicing Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) provides you distinct benefits that go beyond managing your stress.   

Researchers at Emory University have found that LKM may improve your physical and emotional responses to stress.  Consistently practicing LKM every day for as little as 10 minutes helps you to reduce feeling of stress and depression,  reduces physiological inflammation, illness, and chronic pain as well as enhances your empathy and feelings of social connection to others, self-acceptance, and physical resilience and well-being (i.e., increases the vagal tone and changes the neural circuitry of the insula and temporal parietal junction in the brain).^{1, 2,3,4}

Having a LKM practice is simple and easy.  To practice, visualize and generate positive,  loving feelings towards yourself and others by gently repeating the following phrases:  

• May I be filled with love and kindness.
• May be I safe and protected.
• May I love and be loved.
• May I be happy and contented.
• May I be healthy and strong.
• May my life unfold with ease.
• May I be a person of joy.

After visualizing and sending love and kindness to yourself,  follow by visualizing and then generating and sending these feelings to the following: 

1. someone who you love deeply (e.g., your husband, mother, son). 
2. a good friend.
3. someone who is "neutral"  who you have neither very positive or negative feelings towards (e.g., the cashier at your grocery store).
4. someone who you do not like who may have hurt you and provokes feelings of discomfort or pain (e.g.,  your boss).
5. all beings everywhere alive.

You may also listen to a free guided LKM practices offered by the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.

To your health,

Dr. Sandoval

To learn more about how working with a psychologist and holistic health coach can help you to enhance your health and well-being, call or email Dr. Sandoval to schedule a free consultation.

1. Carson, JW, Keefe, FJ, Lynch, TR, Carson, KM, Goli, V, Fras, AM and et al. “Loving-Kindness Meditation for Chronic Low Back Pain: Results From a Pilot Trial” Journal Of Holistic Nursing. (2005). 23: 287-304. 
2. Fredrickson, BL, Cohn, MA., Coffey, KA, Pek, J, and Finkel, SM. “Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  (2008). 95(5), 1045-1062. 
3. Hutcherson CA, Seppala EM, and Gross JJ. “Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness.” Emotion. (2008). 8(5):720-4. doi: 10.1037/a0013237. 
4. Lutz A, Brefczynski-Lewis J, Johnstone T, and Davidson RJ. “Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise.” PLoS ONE. (2008). 3(3), e1897. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001897.

 

The information, published and/or made available through the www.fullofradiance.com website, is not intended to replace the services of a physician, nor does it constitute a physician-patient relationship. This blog is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information in this post for diagnosing or treating a medical or health condition. You should consult a physician in all matters relating to your health, particularly in respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.  Any action on the reader’s part in response to the information provided in this blog is at the reader’s discretion.

How to nourish your body and cut your cravings for sugar . . .

If your like many people this time of the year, you are

anticipating the beginning of the fall and holiday season.  Whether you are a kid at heart  and look forward to celebrating Halloween or spending time with your friends and family for Thanksgiving, you can have fun, celebrate the love in your life and boost your immune system to avoid getting the flu or feeling run down by adopting simple guidelines in the foods that you choose to eat most of the time and HOW you eat.

Sugar in soda, lollipops, cakes, ice cream and other processed foods replace the calories and nutrients you could get from eating more nutrient-dense and mineral-rich real foods.   When you consume sugar, you deplete your body of essential vitamins and minerals.  As an example, your body needs 54 molecules of magnesium to be able to process every molecule of sugar you eat.  Sugar is such a problem that it is now recognized by many health experts, that sugar and not fat is the leading cause of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease and several digestive disorders.

Eating real, nutrient dense  foods is simple and the most effective way to nourish your body, avoid having cravings for sugar  and reverse numerous health problems like diabetes and heart disease. When investing in the foods that you prepare and eat at home most of the time (i.e., 80% of meals that you cook), strive to eat a variety of real, unprocessed, whole foods. 

Real Whole Foods

• Grass fed, pasture raised meats, poultry and wild caught seafood all are great sources of essential fatty acids and many of the minerals and fat soluble vitamins, like vitamins A, E, D and K2 that regenerate your cells, help you to build your brain,  stabilize your blood sugar levels and support your immune system.

• Organic dark, green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and berries like kale, bok choy, mustard greens, collard greens, Brazil nuts,  pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, as well as tubers like potatoes and sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin,  strawberries, raspberries and blue berries provide many nutrients like magnesium, potassium, selenium, fiber and folate that are essential for your body. 
• Cultured and fermented foods like sauerkraut, kim chi, miso, chutney and kefir are all great foods rich in beneficial bacteria and yeast that support and enhance your immune system, digestive health and help you to reduce your craving for sugar. 

When you are invited or go out to celebrate and enjoy a holiday party, you'll also want to use the following suggestions to help you slow down and enjoy your experience.  Before attending a celebration or going out, make sure that you are fully hydrated and fully nourished.  It's inevitable that whether you're attending your friend's Halloween party or partaking in a holiday meal with family, there will be several opportunities to overindulge if you do not remember WHY you are celebrating and have not nourished your body with real, unprocessed, whole foods that provide your body with the nutrients that you need.

When you are present and enjoying the company of the people and festivities of the celebration, focus on the people who you love to spend time with, love and "make contact" with your experiences (i.e., get out of your mind so that you notice the sounds, colors, smells and tactile sensations as you greet, hug, dance and listen to music, talk to your friends and family using your 5 senses.). If you choose to eat, allow yourself to relax and savor every bite that you ingest.  Notice the colors, shapes, aromas or smells of the food, notice the sounds and texture of each morsel as you chew your food mindfully.  Chew your food slowly to allow the salivary enzymes in your mouth to coat the food that you are eating and embody your eating experience so that you can observe and allow your body to signal when you are satiated (i.e, you want to chew each bite of food at least 20 times to enhance your digestion and have your stomach produce sufficient stomach acid). 

While your cravings for sugar may be challenging, it may simply be an indication that you are wanting a deeper connection with people or fear of being judged.  Many times your challenges around food are your body's innate wisdom speaking to you.  Perhaps, you need to venture out, socialize more frequently  and love yourself first.  By nourishing your body with nutrient rich foods and changing HOW you eat, your craving for sugar will diminish. 

 

To your health,

Dr. Sandoval

To learn more about how working with a psychologist and holistic health coach can help you to enhance your health and well-being, call or email Dr. Sandoval to schedule a free consultation.  

The information, published and/or made available through the www.fullofradiance.com website, is not intended to replace the services of a physician, nor does it constitute a physician-patient relationship. This blog is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information in this post for diagnosing or treating a medical or health condition. You should consult a physician in all matters relating to your health, particularly in respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.  Any action on the reader’s part in response to the information provided in this blog is at the reader’s discretion.

Why mindfulness meditation can help you to transform your life . . .

If you struggle with feelings of anxiety and

depression, you very likely also are your own worst critic, judge yourself harshly and negatively compare yourself to other people.  You may engage in this behavior believing that this is an effective way to motivate yourself to do better, as a habit that you picked somewhere in your past or simply because we live in a culture that reinforces the message that demanding more of yourself is the way to move ahead in world.  If this sounds like you, you probably also do everything that you can do to run away and avoid difficult and painful feelings (e.g., watch TV, smoke, drink alcohol to “numb out,” or  binge on food), experience guilt or shame when you do not do as well as you wanted to and have a difficult time expressing your emotions to people.

While short term many of these behaviors do provide relief and pleasure, in the long run they are not sustainable and adversely affect your health.   By ignoring your emotions and avoiding your difficult thoughts and emotions, your “fight or flight” (i.e., amygdala and adrenals) and PIN systems (psychoimmunoneurology, the study of how your thoughts and emotions interface with your immune and neurological systems) get ramped up, which damage your body by releasing more stress hormones like cortisol and inflammatory cytokines.

On the other hand, when you express yourself and “talk it out” with your friends and family or practice affect labeling (i.e., simply labeling and mentally acknowledging your experiences), you activate a region in your brain (i.e., right ventrolateral frontal cortex) that helps you to process your thoughts and emotions and mitigates the damaging effects of running away from your experiences.^1,2  By talking to other people, you’re likely to also receive caring and loving words of support and affection that increase the amount of the “bonding hormone” (i.e., oxytocin) and feel good and pain relief chemicals (i.e., endogenous opioids) that your body produces.

Learning and practicing mindfulness meditation will lead to and produce many of these same beneficial effects.  Research suggests that cultivating self-compassion and mentally noting your experiences (i.e., an essential aspect of mindfulness meditation), help to significantly down regulate your “fight or flight” and PIN systems.^3,4,5   These practices will also help you to produce more feel good and pain relief chemicals.  You can practice mentally noting your experiences and cultivate self-compassion by simply labeling your thoughts and emotions (e.g., each time you experience any unpleasant or painful thoughts or feelings of anxiety, gently repeat “fear” or “tension” and affirm “It’s okay.”).  

To your health,

Dr. Sandoval

To learn more about how working with a psychologist and holistic health coach can help you to enhance your health and well-being, call or email Dr. Sandoval to schedule a free consultation.

1. Nakazawa, DJ. (2013). The Last Best Cure: My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life. 
2. Lieberman, MD, Eisenberger, NI, Crockett,MJ,  Tom, SM,  Pfeifer, JH and Way, BM. “Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli .” Psychological Science. (2007). 18(5), 421-428.  doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916. 
3. Leary, MR, Tate, EB, Adams, CE, Batts, AA, Ashley; and Hancock, J. “Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. (2007). 92(5), 887-904. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.887 
4. Neff, KD and McGehee, P. “Self-compassion and psychological resilience among adolescents and young adults.” Self and Identity. (2010). 9 (3), 225-240. doi:10.1080/15298860902979307. 
5. Creswell, JD, Way, BM, Eisenberger, NI, Lieberman, MD. “Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labeling.” Psychosomatic Medicine. (2007). 69(6), 560-565.

The information, published and/or made available through the www.fullofradiance.com website, is not intended to replace the services of a physician, nor does it constitute a physician-patient relationship. This blog is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use the information in this post for diagnosing or treating a medical or health condition. You should consult a physician in all matters relating to your health, particularly in respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.  Any action on the reader’s part in response to the information provided in this blog is at the reader’s discretion.