Online Games & Quizzes

Printable Games & Puzzles

Wellness Coloring Book

To rest your mind and take a visual journey to a peaceful place, consider listening to soothing sounds.

vacation almost anytime with soothing sounds. Consider music such as relaxation CDs or tapes to help you unwind. To rest your mind and take a visual journey to a peaceful place, consider choosing one of the following:

• Spoken word. These CDs use spoken suggestions to guide your meditation, educate you on stress reduction or take you on an imaginary visual journey to a peaceful place.
• Soothing music or nature sounds. Music has the power to affect your thoughts and feelings. Soft, soothing music can help you relax and lower your stress level.

Try several CDs to find which works best for you, since no one CD works for everyone.  When possible, listen to the soothing music and spoken word samples in the record store to help you decide. Also, consider asking your friends or a trusted professional for relaxing music recommendations.

Perform progressive muscle relaxation daily to reduce the tension in your muscles.

muscles. First, find a quiet place where you’ll be free from interruption. Loosen tight clothing and remove your glasses or contacts if you’d like. Tense each muscle group for at least five seconds and then relax for at least 30 seconds. Repeat before moving to the next muscle group.

• Your face. Squint your eyes tightly, wrinkle your nose and mouth, Clench your teeth, and pull back the corners of your mouth toward your ears, feeling the tension in the center of your face. Relax. Repeat.
• Neck. Gently touch your chin to your chest. Feel the pull in the back of your neck as it spreads into your head. Relax. Repeat.
• Shoulders. Pull your shoulders up toward your ears, feeling the tension in your shoulders, head, neck and upper back. Relax. Repeat.
• Upper arms. Pull your arms back and press your elbows in toward the sides of your body. Try not to tense your lower arms. Feel the tension in your arms, shoulders and into your back. Relax. Repeat.
• Hands and forearms. Make a tight fist and pull up your wrists. Feel the tension in your hands, knuckles and lower arms. Relax. Repeat.
• Chest, shoulders and upper back. Pull your shoulders back as if you’re trying to make your shoulder blades touch. Relax. Repeat.
• Stomach. Pull your stomach in toward your spine, tightening your abdominal muscles. Relax. Repeat.
• Upper legs. Squeeze your knees together and lift your legs up off the chair or from wherever you’re relaxing. Feel the tension in your thighs. Relax. Repeat.
• Lower legs. Raise your feet toward the ceiling while flexing them toward your body. Feel the tension in your calves. Relax. Repeat.
• Feet. Turn your feet inward and curl your toes up and out. Relax. Repeat.

Perform progressive muscle relaxation at least once or twice each day to get the maximum benefit. Each session should last about ten minutes.

Another way of relaxing your muscles is through massage. Massage is a method of pressing and kneading different soft tissues in the body (muscles, tendons, and ligaments). Massage offers many health benefits: pain relief, relaxation, improved muscle tone, stimulation of circulatory and lymphatic systems, and more efficient elimination of waste throughout the body. Although a single massage will reduce fatigue, relax you, and provide mild stress relief, the effects of massage are cumulative. A course of massage treatments will allow you to reap the most benefits. Ultimately, massage can rejuvenate you physically, mentally, and spiritually. Massage rates can vary between $50 and $125 per hour, depending on the massage therapist and the location where you receive your massage. For example, you will pay more for someone to travel to your home to provide massage therapy. Fortunately, many chiropractic centers offer massage therapy as part of their services.

To find your mantra you can go to a peaceful place, sit in a comfortable position, and focus on a word or phrase that you find relaxing.

relaxation, you repeat words or an idea in your mind to help you relax and reduce the tension in your muscles. Find a peaceful place where you’ll be free of disruptions. Then follow these steps:

• Choose a focus word, phrase, or image you find relaxing. Examples of words or phrases include “peace,” or “I am peaceful.” This is called a mantra.

• Sit quietly in a comfortable position.

• Close your eyes.

• Relax your muscles, starting at your head, working down your body to your feet.

• Breathe slowly and naturally, focusing on your word, phrase, or image.

• Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. If your mind wanders, that’s okay. Gently return your focus to your breathing and the word, phrase, or image you selected.

• After time is up, sit quietly for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Open your eyes and sit in silence for a few more minutes.

Relaxed breathing, also called diaphragmatic breathing, can help you relieve stress.

typically causes rapid, shallow breathing. This kind of breathing supports other aspects of the stress response, such as rapid heart rate and perspiration. If you can get control of your breathing, the spiraling effects of acute stress will instinctively become less intense. Relaxed breathing, also called diaphragmatic breathing, can help you relieve stress.

Practice this basic technique twice daily, and whenever you feel tense. Follow these steps:

• Inhale. Keep your mouth closed and your shoulders relaxed, inhale as slowly and deeply as you can to the count of six. As you do that, push your stomach out. Allow the air to fill your diaphragm.
• Hold. Keep the air in your lungs as you slowly count to four.
• Exhale. Release the air through your mouth as you slowly count to six.
• Repeat. Complete the inhale-hold-exhale cycle three to five times.

Relaxation is an effective way to offset the effects that stress has on your body.

deadlines, conflicts, and demands on our time and money, take a huge toll on our health and well-being. Just as a chain tends to break at its weakest link, we seem to exhibit stress and strain in the weakest areas of our bodies. Stress basically comes in three forms of overload. We encounter physical stress, emotional stress, and chemical stress. In fact, we are subject to all three stress factors at the same time. When we overload, it always manifests in symptoms at our weakest link. Stress can provoke ulcers,  migraines, low back pain, insomnia, and other illnesses.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to remove all of the stress from life, however, safe all-natural and effective stress reduction strategies can  help offset the bad effects that stress produces. This  strengthens the function of the nervous and immune systems at the same time, so you can make stress your friend, not your enemy. After decades of research, it is clear that the negative effects linked to stress are real. Although you may not always be able to avoid stressful situations, there are a number of things that you can do to reduce the effect that stress has on your body. The first is relaxation. Learning to relax doesn’t have to be hard. Here are some simple techniques to help get you started on your way to tranquility.

Controlled Breathing

Find Your Mantra

Muscle Relaxation

Soothing Sounds

Our most important relationship is the one with ourself because it is the basis of intentional living.

as they say wherever you go there you are. Wellness begins with “being” well first and then is about “doing” things to be well. If you do not deal with who you are being than just doing things will not make you well. A simple way to remember this is that we refer to ourselves as human beings, not human doings.

Dr. Sue Morter, a wellness expert and one of the developers of Morter Health Systems teaches about self esteem and healthy thinking in an extremely effective and practical manner. She explains how the body is the caboose of our self. It is who we are, how we are thinking and the story we have about our life that impacts our physical health and well-being. Her inspirational high-energy seminars begin by asking the simple question “Are you living well?” “Yes, I AM” the audience proclaims in an effort to understand that living well begins with making the self-declaration that I choose to be well. Her powerful message is conveyed beautifully through simple stories that explain insightful metaphors for attaining things that are important for us to have in our lives. For example, if you were going to a party that you knew would not have the food or drink you wanted what would you do she asks? Just “bring it” the audience responds. That too, is what you do to begin the process of “being” well you bring it forward in your awareness.

If the idea of our thinking affecting our health seems far fetched, there is a really simple way to illustrate how this is true. If you opened your hand and then closed it into a fist you would be illustrating exactly the same concept of how your mind or your thinking causes your body to move and to function. Perhaps you may think that is too simple, so imagine if someone showed up on your door step and told you that you had just won the Discover Wellness, How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich sweepstakes grand prize of $100 million dollars, do you think then your breathing would change? Might your heart rate change at least a little bit? How about your blood pressure? That’s because your awareness or consciousness affects your physical body and it works both for you and against you. Most people don’t realize this cause and effect relationship and therefore reverse it by determining what they should think based on how they feel. I AM so sick and tired of all this, people exclaim. I AM in pain, I AM angry and so on. It is completely up to us to establish what we choose to be and choose to feel and those choices are at the cause of how our body responds.

Based on this understanding of how health and wellness come from within, who else can we expect to manifest it for us in our lives? she asks. It is our personal conscientiousness to become self aware or as Dr. Sue once again so simply puts it, “We must be present to win.” We must live in the present in a state of gratitude and appreciation for our lives and circumstances in it. Our relationship with our self is our responsibility and the basis of intentional living. By having a positive relationship with yourself, you can manifest innate wellness.