How to Relax: Slow Down

 

Consciously decrease the pace at which you walk. Take up activities like Tai Chi or yoga to learn how to slow down. Sketch a picture. Lay on the grass. Sing in the shower. Do something that requires your full attention (like drawing, to the best of your ability, the flower next to you) so that you can slow down without even realizing it. When you fail to slow down, you similarily fail to develop perspective and form deeper ideas about yourself and those around you. Isn't that, ultimately, what the most successful people have?

How To Relax: Procrastination

 

It's inevitable. But tell yourself you'll spend just 5-15 minutes beginning that item you're putting off. You may actually get into a groove after a minute or two and end up finishing it. Ask yourself if you "have other things to do" simply becuase you're trying to avoid doing something altogether.

Entering the Yoga Mindset

 

I love yoga. And not because it is becoming popular in our Western society and not because I think it might make me lose weight, or some other superficial reason. Yoga (among many other things) has helped me through some tough times and I have only just begun. If I had my way, I would practice yoga daily but 18 units in college is extremely time consuming. However, One of my best friends Travis introduced me to myyogaonline.com which is a great resource for doing yoga at home. My goal, once I get through this quarter of school, is to get some yoga in every day. Yoga Journal recommends beginning your day with at least 15 minutes of sun salutations. I think that is appropriate considering we must be ever thankful that we get to see the sun another day, despite whatever may be going on in our lives. What a precious gift! I don't mind saluting the sun in that case. I could go on and on about yoga's benefits and how it makes me feel but it is one of those things that everyone needs to discover on their own, in their unique way, much like many things in life

How to Relax: Reflect on Time Management

 

For a week, log your usage of time in a journal. Are you wasting ten or twenty minutes every few house engaging in truly trivial and unstimulating activities (for instance, Faceboo)? Look at all the things you do and see if you cdan delegate, give up, or stop when they are good enough. Through dissecting how you spend your time, you can see why you don't have time for yourself to begin with.

How to Relax: Consider WHY you need to relax.

 

I write for a magazine called Total Wellness at UCLA and we write about that: total wellness. Physically, emotionally, but not so much spiritually (we'll leave spirituality alone). The last article I wrote which should be in print in a month or so was about how and why you should be gentle with yourself and learn to relax. I am going to present the article bit by bit over the next week or so. Here's the first suggestion:

Appreciate the benefits of Relaxation: Relaxation lowers cortisol levels, the stress hormone that wreaks havoc to the body (impairs cognitive performance, raises blood pressure, lowers the immune system response when present in abnormal levels). Relax to reduce your risk of stress-related illnesses. Ultimately, you can get more done when you are working because you have rejuvinated your mind during your time of rest. So if you're someone who cannot stand to sit still or feel "unproductive" if you aren't doing something, remind yourself that you will be able to focus more easily on your work days if you take a day off a week. Just like when we work out, we need to take at least a day off a week in order to allow our muscles to repair themselves and give our cardiovascular systems some down time. It is the same with our brains and emotions. Allow yourself to power down once a week.

Spring at JCrew

 
 
 

I love luxury. Who doesn't? While my interests vary (I love sports and hiking and being outdoors), I can be very girly. And JCrew is my thing. But because I'm a poor college student, JCrew doesn't fit into my lifestyle at the moment. Thus, I blog about it. The flats are gorgeous. What is important about clothing is how it makes you feel and these would make me feel done up in an instant. The outfits are casual but classy at the same time: perfection. Enjoy.

Inspiration

 

Someday I hope I can take photos as beautiful as these. And that I can experience a proposal like the one this photographer was able to capture. The bliss and happiness the couple must feel is something I am, in a way, familiar with. The description of the moment is so full and rich, the way love is supposed to be.

http://fromparriswithlove.com/2009/12/new-york-engagement-photography/

Social Issues: Prisons or Schools?

 

Prison overcrowding is a huge problem in the state of California. While I love California and wouldn't live anywhere else, it has it's issues. Currently there are 1.96 million incarcerated in United States prisons, the largest prison population in the entire world. In California, there are 170,000 living in prisons designed to hold half that many. The state is also spending $14 billion on keeping the convicted in prison. This is ten percent of the state budget. Thus, in 2009, California legislature considered letting 27,000 of them go. Due to harsh laws that send people to prison for things like petty theft and the possession of drugs, California prisons are overflowing. As a UCLA student, I have been feeling the strong aftershocks of budget cuts from the public school system. The education and prison systems are competing for the state budget. Which system do we give the money to? I firmly believe that education is the answer to many of our problems and that like health care, obesity, and prevention, keeping people out of prisons starts when children are young and impressionable.

What bothers me when I read about things that are wrong with the world is the fact that writers don't give you a way to help or change things. So how can you get involved in this issue from the grassroots level? Volunteer with Books Not Bars. Books Not Bars is an action center that promotes urban peace and hopes to replace juvenile prison with rehab centers and community support groups. Chatting with a friend who had grown up in an inner city neighborhood and had been to prison, I learned that children grow up idolizing the men around them who usually had been to prison before. In many rough neighborhoods and especially gangs, going to prison earns you respect. What kids need is someone to show them that committing crimes and doing drugs is not the way to gain respect. I am going to apply to UCLA's mentorship program in the fall so that I can continue working with the underprivileged that attend UCLA’s UniCamp, a program that I am a counselor for. Consider mentoring a child and leading them to the right path. Mentors have huge impacts on their mentee’s lives and often times the mentees attend college because their mentor encouraged them to apply. This problem can be solved but we cannot sit around and blame legislators and whine and complain because the state seems to be going down the drain. Action is the only way to a solution.


For more information on prison overcrowding, visit http://www.takepart.com/lists/the-basics-prison-overcrowding/53623

Philosophy: The Socialization of Guilt

 

Neuroscientists say that we are always being conditioned. Our whole lives involve conditioning of some sort. Freud had the idea that we are socialized in a way that creates guilt when we do things that are not acceptable to the society we live in and that this guilt, when we are very enmeshed in our culture, affects the thoughts we have. We can become so efficient at functioning in our Western society that we will even feel guilty about thinking things that are not acceptable. I am positive that we all feel this way at times. Sometimes it gives me a feeling of imprisonment. The privacy of mind is there but is also so heavily affected by what is expected of us, whether we realize it or not, accept it or not. Furthermore, grief is another aspect of human life that creates a great feelings of guilt at times. We inhibit ourselves from smiling because it might mean we don't miss that person. But what we must remember is the miracle of human resiliance and that we were created to smile. A smile is a universal symbol of happiness or pleasure. It goes a long way. Which reminds me, Neda and I have been meaning to watch Pay It Forward. Until then, I will brood and hopefully look as awesome as Freud does in his cigar photo.

Inspiration

It is interesting to me how the ones we love give us gifts to lift us up and keep us strong when they leave us. K'Naan's "Wavin' flag" is one of those gifts to me. He sings,

"When I get older, I will be stronger,

they'll call me freedom just like a wavin' flag

and then it goes back, and then it goes back, and then it goes back, oh...

Out of the darkness, I came the farthest, among the hardest survival.

Learn from these streets, they can be bleak,

accept no defeat, surrender, retreat.

People give us gifts all the time. Sometimes we aren't aware of them. We must find meaning in the experiences some people call "coincidence." Things in life happen to wake us up. Gifts come when we need them most. And acceptance is the calm awareness of these truths.