Sunday Healing

MSN Health News

When You're Young

Who knows what goes wrong through the years from child to adulthood, but very often we need to allow ourselves time to heal from the daily stresses of modern living, and try to get back to the child inside of us.

This will not only keep us healthy, but keep us young, too.

A list was compiled last year by washing powder company Persil to encourage children to experience different types of play without the worry of getting dirty. Though the company is obviously using it as a promotional ploy, the list stands on its own merits as an excellent childhood checklist.

Parents should pin the list up on their fridge and tick off the activities as they spend quality time with their children carrying them out. Not only is it fun, but they'll have started their children off on a pretty good footing towards adulthood.

But arguably the list is not only for children. Adults should carry out the activites too, and let loose the child that is inside us all.

Things Kids Should Do Before They're 10, Adults Should Do Often

Some of the things on the list may not be known by all, but half the fun is finding out. The list isn't exhaustive either, and people should feel free to add their own ideas.

Click here for list »

1. Make a mud pie
2. Collect frogspawn
3. Bake a cake
4. Feed a farm animal
5. Pick some strawberries
6. Grow cress on a windowsill
7. Make a papier mâché mask
8. Build a sandcastle
9. Climb a tree
10. Make some bread
11. Make snow angels
12. Create a clay sculpture
13. Make your own modelling dough mixture
14. Make a den in the garden
15. Make perfume from flower petals
16. Make a painting using your hands and feet
17. Organise your own teddy bears' picnic
18. Roll on your side down a grassy bank
19. Have your face painted
20. Play with a friend in the sand
21. Take part in a scavenger hunt
22. Camp out in the garden
23. Play pooh sticks
24. Recognise five different bird species
25. Find some worms
26. Ride a bike through a muddy puddle
27. Make and fly a kite
28. Plant a tree
29. Build a nest out of grass and twigs
30. Find ten different leaves in the park
31. Grow vegetables
32. Make breakfast in bed for your parents
33. Make a mini assault course in your garden/the park

Healing Yourself

Discovering the child inside is not the only way to keep us young and healthy. Adding a holistic approach to keeping fit, with a combination of Eastern methods of combating illness plus the latest discoveries in health psychology and medical science seems to be the guideline for future well-being.

Taking regular exercise, even if it is only walking for just 10 minutes a day and following a healthy diet including large quantities of organic food and vegetables, replacing red meat with oily fish or organic white meat, drinking water and herbal tea and restricting alcohol to one glass of red wine a day, are some of the general guidelines to sustaining good health.

Try only using natural products on your skin, for example using handmade soaps that look like cakes and are made from 100% natural ingredients are not only fun, but good for you.

Being careful with the products you put in and use on your body is important, however, the mind must also be utilised.

It's already scientifically acknowledged that almost 40% of all medical conditions are curable by the power of the mind alone. So the brain is absolutely central to the functioning of the body and is key in helping people deal with illness.

The subconscious mind is responsible for repairing damage to your body, and regenerating it - for instance we grow a complete new skeleton each year. That's a powerful force which can help us work towards health.

In "thinking fit", people can become their own doctor as a safeguard to disease, and make the job of real doctors that much easier.

When you are feeling down, or have a cold, try this exercise and see if it speeds up your recovery. Construct a short story about yourself and conclude it with a positive outcome, such as your complete health recovery.

Be selective about the words you use to describe your illness as this can affect your subconscious. Avoid negative words such as 'hopeless'. Instead of saying 'I don't want to be ill' substitute 'I will be well'.

You might be surprised at the speed of your recovery.

Mind Exercises: Thinking Fit

A series of mind exercises will condition our immune response, and can greatly enhance our powers of recovery and help our general health. Repetition is key because it creates a conditioned response that allows our subconscious mind to deliver a greater sense of well-being and an actual state of improved health.

Below are some examples to try over the next three months:

Click here for list »

Food

Choose a healing power fruit such as apples, dried apricots, grapes, kiwi fruit, prunes, oranges, raisins, strawberries or tangerines. Make this a staple of your diet and a snack food to eat regularly every day. When you eat the food you need to repeat a healing word, and should choose one in the language that connects strongest with your brain, and which represents your intent such as 'health'.

Love

Studies have shown that supportive human relationships have genuine healing properties. Sit comfortable with your healing fruit close to hand. Recall a time when you felt completely loved and in love. Focus on the positives and recall who was there, where you were, the sights, sounds, colours and smells and try to conjure the same physical feeling you enjoyed then.

When the feeling becomes all-consuming eat your healing food, say your healing word. Repeat this visualisation 10 times but only eat the food when you feel the sensations of love in your body. Repeat this exercise every day for three months.

Laughter

Laughter has been shown in studies to raise antibodies which fight disease. Choose something that always makes you laugh. Watch it and every time you laugh eat your healing food and say your healing word. Only consume the food after laughing. Repeat this exercise with a different comedy each day for five successive days, and after that continue the exercise frequently over the next three months.

Music

Listening to music can help people reduce the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to research. You must interact with music in one of three ways - dance to it, sing along or drum to the music.

Select a CD and make sure the music is 'positive' and suggests well-being. When the music is playing, get in time, and when you feel you are completely in harmony with the music, say your healing word and eat your healing food. Repeat this 10 times for the next five days and continue frequently over the next three months.

Prayer

Practise this exercise through your own religious faith. If you don't follow a religion simply call on your own higher consciousness. Find a time when you can be alone and undisturbed. Place your healing food in front of you and with intense focus concentrate on the specific healing wish that you want embodied in the food.

Visualise with such passion you see the healing manifestation taking place in your head. Now hold your hands over your food and close your eyes and visualise healing energy coming through your body and flowing into your healing food.

If you wish, pray and call for divine assistance with your healing wish. Now say the healing word and eat your healing food with the sense that the healing wish is passing through your body. Repeat this exercise 20 times over the next 10 days and continue each day for the next three months.

Pictures courtesy of MSN Health News and Ayrshire Art.

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