However, in the midst of our journey, we tend to forget that the basic propellant that gets us to the next stage is not intelligence and strength, it is peace. Peace is the major cause of all things in humans that has gotten us this far. It is also the core of what drives us efficiently.

Peace has to pervade our very fabric if it is to make any difference in our lives. To attain peace, we have to stand above everything, even ambition. It’s a paradox, but peace requires having to let go. For those who are yet to understand this, peace can be attained through resolute meditation.

Meditation

Meditation is often misunderstood as the ability to void the mind of all thought and focus on one thing. Well to a certain extent that can be true, but it’s not the way to peace. Meditation is about allowing all the thoughts to go through without it affecting you. Meditation is about being a part of the thought energy rather than silencing it. It’s about allowing the thoughts to continue without affecting what you know to be important.  Only with this kind of meditation can you attain peace.

Why Peace

From meditation, flows peace. From peace flows an elevated appreciation of life. A total surrender that yields to everything but succumbs to nothing. Peace is the center of vibration that energizes everything. Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is not the pursuit of justice. Peace is about the vibration that sets us at pace with the universe.

The fabric that binds all life is an energy that is not sensed by our five physical senses. If eyes see light, the ears hear sound, it is peace that feels the energy that propels us. Without this peace, we will not be able to feel the energy coursing through us and without the benefit of this energy we will not be able to rise to the next level. Peace and energy form the cosmic dance that propel us through the daily harmony of life. To evolve, to advance and to reach our potential, we only need peace.

1)      Remove, reduce or disseminate the things that cause stress to your life

2)      Change your point of view and attitude towards situations that induce stress

3)      Practice healthy ways to manage and tackle stress

The following tips will help you deal with stress in each one of the ways listed above:

1.  Do not concentrate and waste your time on meaningless minute details which are only temporary and are not part of your long term goals in life.  Prioritize and concentrate.
2. All changes, irrespective of whether they are positive or negative in nature, need ample time and energy for you to be able to adjust and cope with it.  Do not plan stressful events such as the change of job, wedding, a move or a child all at the same time.
3. Remember, you cannot satisfy everybody all the time.  Practice saying “NO” when you already have enough to handle.
4. Take a 10 or 20 minute break in between each day.  Do not be accessible 24 x 7.  Take vacations that will relieve you from stress and avoid those that will give you more stress.  At least take a day off during the week and plan no activity at least one or two evenings every week.
5. Change your outlook towards events that produce stress and accept situations that you cannot change or have no control over as they are.  If you have trouble dealing with a person, imagine that he or she has a terrible physical handicap that is causing that person to behave in that manner.
6. If you find yourself in a no-win situation, get out of it for sometime or change the atmosphere which is causing the situation.
7. Look deeply in to the things that are causing the stress and analyze:

A)Ask yourself “Am I worrying about something that is actually existent or am I worrying about something which is very rare to happen?”

B)“Is this situation within my control or not?” If the answer to this question is “yes” then do all that you can to change it and then let go.  If “no”, then there is nothing you can do and hence stop worrying about it.

8. Exercise daily.  The body’s harmful chemicals and hormones that are responsible for stress are burnt while we exercise.  Further, exercise is a natural tranquilizer that gives you a sound sleep and helps your body to relax completely.
9. Develop your spiritual component which will help you attain calmness and inner peace.  Give yourself a massage, sauna, heat, sunlight and biofeedback to relax yourself.
10. CRY – Do not hold back your feelings.  While crying the body releases certain chemicals which reduce stress both emotionally and physically.

All the above tips are simple and easy to do but we usually forget about their existence.  Keep these tips handy and practice it as often as possible.

Men produce sperm in the testes. The sperm cells are combined with seminal fluid to make semen, which is released during ejaculation. Poor quality sperm, which cannot swim well enough to reach the egg, or which are unable to penetrate it when they do reach it, are a major cause of male infertility.

Although there are a number of ways to improve the quality of the sperm produced, it would be best to consult with experts such as the Queensland IVF group to help determine potential male fertility problems and suggest solutions to improve fertility and aid in succesful natural conception.

The amount of sperm you produce and the quality of your sperm are partly dictated by genetics. Also, male fertility naturally declines after age 40. However, lifestyle also plays a significant role. The following lifestyle changes could have a positive impact on male fertility.

• Eat a healthy, balanced diet
Your diet should contain wholegrain carbohydrates, lean protein, and plenty of fruit and vegetables. Zinc and selenium, which are found in dark meat, fish, brazil nuts, beans and eggs, have been shown to improve sperm mobility, which allows sperm cells to reach the egg for fertilization to take place. There is also some evidence to suggest that vitamin D, which is found in oily fish, and folate, which is abundant in green vegetables and fortified breakfast cereals, are important nutrients for male fertility.

• Maintain a healthy weight
Men with a BMI above 30 often have lower quality sperm. As well as impacting your overall health, carrying extra fat around your abdomen, hips and legs can mean that your groin area is kept at a higher temperature than is optimal for sperm production.

• Cut down on alcohol consumption
Heavy alcohol consumption (more than 4 units per day) suppresses testosterone levels in the body, which means that less sperm is produced.

• Quit smoking
Smoking reduces the number and quality of your sperm. Kicking the habit is one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of natural conception

Be confident – Relax! And be confident in yourself when meeting new people. Being confident in yourself and in who you really are as a person is a very attractive quality to have.

Don’t be afraid to break the ice – Start up a conversation with a person that may seem like your type and keep it going from there. Let the person know you are interested in them as a friend and how it would be nice to talk with them more often.

Find things that you have in common – Do you both like going to the same place? Or reading the same books or like the same movies ? Suggest that you two go do some of those things sometimes.

Be nice and receptive – You want the person to know that you will make a great friend and they will want to be around you.

Stress steps from the pressure that we feel in life. It could be that we are pushed by our work or really any task that puts us under pressure. The human body automatically deals with this pressure by releasing adrenaline, our blood pressure rises, as well as a number of other negative changes and/or effects.

An example of a negative effect from stress is anxiety. It can be combined with physical symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, and shortness of breath as well. Not everyone will experience stress in the same way – and not everyone will find the same things as stressful as others. Research indicates that women with children, for example, have higher levels of stress related hormones in their blood than women without children. Although this doesn’t mean that women without children don’t experience stress, it does mean that women without children just may not experience stress as often, or to the same degree as women with children do.

The feeling of anxiety is much different than the feeling of stress. Anxiety is more a feeling of unease. For some people, anxiety interferes with normal life. Excessive anxiety can also be associated with other psychiatric conditions such as depression. Doctor’s usually consider anxiety abnormal when it is prolonged or severe, or if it occurs with the absence of a stressful event, or when it interferes with everyday activities such as going to work or school.

There are physical signs of anxiety as well. You may experience some, all, or none of them.

• Diarrhea
• Dry Mouth
• Heart palpitations
• Insomnia
• Irritability
• Unable to concentrate

Symptoms of anxiety can also be triggered through the use of some drugs – both prescription and recreational. Such drugs consist of caffeine, nicotine, decongestants, some antidepressants, cocaine, amphetamines, some diet pills, and ADHD medications to name a few. Poor diet can also contribute to both stress and anxiety.

Sometimes, when a person suffers from anxiety and stress, their body will react to the situation. Panic attacks can be characterized by the following:

• Heart palpitations
• Pounding heart
• Sweating
• Sweating
• Shaking
• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain
• Nausea
• Numbness or tingling sensations
• Chills or hot flashes

Though your body is trying to tell you to relax, it is often very difficult to relax while suffering from any of those symptoms. It’s estimated that approximately 5% of people in the United States suffer from some type of anxiety disorder and it could be anything from an occasional bout from a certain situation – like public speaking – to much more frequent bouts that prevent people from functioning in their lives.

If you experience a panic attack, the first thing you must do is try to recognize that it is only a panic attack and try to relax. Concentrate on your breathing and focus on making every breath even and steady. As your breathing slows down, so will your heart rate, and then the panic will dissipate.

If you’re concerned that your stress or anxiety level is abnormal, speak to your doctor!

One of the first steps in building self-esteem is to shift focus. Rather than noting all personal aspects that lead to a negative perception, individuals should see all accomplishments as a list of victories. This doesn’t necessarily mean substantial successes like trying to win a marathon or beginning a successful business out of the basement, but the small, everyday tasks. If, for example you’ve finally learned to use a software program for filing taxes after spending an exorbitant amount of time studying, don’t fret on how long it took to figure it out; instead, allow yourself to feel accomplished for overcoming this small task. As you begin to build confidence in the small things, remember to reward yourself. If you’ve finally paid off a credit card that just seemed to be looming around, go out and buy that new HDTV that you’ve always wanted.

If you feel plagued by feelings of worthlessness, you should begin to explore. Not just exploring new places, but new possibilities in life. Try new things every day and see which ones you may be good at. Let your personal interests guide you in your quest, a process that will reveal new tasks you will excel at while also helping you realize just how cool of a person you are. You may also come across others that share similar interests who are prepared to help you grow as a confident person.

Speaking of others, this brings up another important tool in your journey for self-improvement: people. By surrounding yourself with a strong social circle, you can gain confidence from the feedback provided by others. Just be sure to stick with individuals who generally exhibit a positive attitude and avoid those who seem to want nothing more than to cut others down.

Associating within a strong, positive social circle will also bring about a new confidence-booster: helping others. When you become involved with others and help them grow as confident individuals, you’ll see that self-perceived faults aren’t all that unique. No human is perfect, and that couldn’t be more evident than when helping others overcome their challenges in life. And as you help friends better themselves, you will have achieved a major victory in the quest to improve your own self-esteem.

After a couple minutes of silence, he turned towards me and said: I am going to quit smoking you know, not now, but pretty soon.

My face lit up, and I cringed a little. I felt the same feeling that I usually get when I come into contact with a 130lb teenager wearing extra large sweat pants.

Yes, that was his plan of action: quit smoking at some point. It’s genius, right? I mean, why trifle with what is for some reason considered to be such an amazing goal plan?

Long story short, I ranted for about 45 minutes. 25 of those minutes had me preoccupied with the fact that he was SMOKING while I was trying to create his goal plan.

Anyways, to the point. There was a lot of useful information in regards to goal setting explained during my rant. I feel as if people will truly benefit from my “jibber-jabber”. Here are the main points that were covered.

Perception of time- A lot of people tend to think of time in terms of, well, I don’t even know to be honest. Waiting, procrastinating, plummeting into the cesspool of slowly burning acid, same thing, right?

“I am going to do this”; Ugh… Admittidley, I once spoke like this as well. Waiting will accomplish nothing. If you are in the right mindset at the time of declaring a goal, why not just start then and there? If you procrastinate, chances are you will move on to another goal by the set time in which you decided in regards to your previous goal. The endless cycle continues. It is understandable if there was something stopping him from starting the goal, like personal or physical issues, but there wasn’t.

Metaphorically speaking, I like to think of life like a very slowly moving treadmill. There is no standing still, you must keep moving forward in order to prevent yourself from moving backward. Spend the time that you have accordingly in order to achieve your goals.

What is my perception of time? Well, I view time as an opportunity. Take advantage of any positive emotions that you may feel at any given time. If you are in the right mindset, apply “Do it now” logic.

Rewarding yourself is integral- Reward, It’s what pushes us through school, work, and everything in between. Think about it, would I push myself through 4 years of university, only to receive a pie to the face? No, not even if it was apple. Inevitable reward, it’s what drives us.

Simply Apply the same concept to your goals. Make sure you have a system set in place that rewards you at the end. In regards to my friends nicotine addiction, I reminded him about how much money he was going to save. Here’s what we did.

We pooled up all of the cash that he is saving, about $75 dollars a month, and growing based on how quickly he cut back. That money is to be spent on a new bicycle. The one in particular is turquoise and pink. No, I am not joking. Ive actually lost sleep due to my preoccupation with the thought of a grown 165lb man riding a bright blue and pink road bike.

Now he has something to look forward to. Whether it be to write X amount of articles, eat organic foods daily, or anything business related, I am always sure to clearly define what I will be rewarded with.

Always substitute accordingly- Only refer to this section of the article if you are trying to quit or cut back on an activity or substance.

Smoking, it made him happy and reduces stress. Let’s pretend he were to just suddenly stop. The short term dopamine increase within his brain that results from smoking the cigarettes would disappear. The brain would write an instance like this off as a loss, and addiction would increase dramatically.

So what did we do?

Think, Dave, think… Something that is both enjoyable and reduces stress. Hmm…

Initially, my idea’s of an activity for him basically consisted of team sport’s and your stereotypical, “read a book”. Those didn’t seem to hit a chord, so I just told him to buy roller coaster tycoon 3 and build the biggest theme park ever.

At this point, we were just talking over each other. I went on a separate side rant based on how I enjoy chasing all of the visitors out of my theme park through the use of pandas, and lions. He was trying to explain to me the fact that I was way to old for that madness. He called me a nerd, I called him a nerd, and we basically just settled on the fact that we were both nerds.

Moving on…

After a few moments of silence, I found the answer. I had a closet full of board games, some of which I had never even touched. We decided to get together every second day, listen to some music, talk and play a few games. Perfect! Both enjoyable, and it will give us a chance to De-stress and talk about what’s going on in our lives.

If you are about to lose, always make sure to gain in return. This will even out the playing field and give the brain a chance to use this imaginative “score” to its advantage. I used this technique in order to stop drinking coffee. I ended up replacing it with a healthy alternative -matcha tea.

Be specific- As we continued our conversation, we began to set up his “plan of action”. This was pretty simple, it was just for him to smoke one less cigarette every 2nd day for the next 3 months until he had completely quit.

Call me captain obvious, but some people do create unspecific goals. Ive seen this happen many times before. An unclear definition of success will result in a half baked goal that you’ll just give up on.

It’s always important to keep track of your goals, give them physical presence, and create milestones in order to reward yourself based on your accomplishments. If you are specific with your goals, this will help to streamline all of that.

I know, this is an obvious one. However, it is also very important, so please take this into consideration.

Talk- Well, we have reached the end of my rant, but not the end of our conversation.

This is the part that, well, how should I put this, it just stuck with me.

We began to reflect back on how much my advice had helped him. And that reminded me of how his advice had really helped me at times. Half of my advice was based on the advice of others. I believe that conversation in terms of self improvement is the true shortcut to success. You learn so much in the space of so little time.

My ego had become my worst enemy. Due my perception of superiority, I assumed that there was no need to listen. Perhaps my friend is actually more knowledgeable then I, just because of his ability to listen. I now stay true to the belief that open-mindedness along with a healthy amount of confidence is key.

We said goodbye, My friend thanked me, and I thanked him. I left with an odd feeling that is unexplainable. I suppose I had a lot to think about.

I now talk and listen as much as possible. Learning is a part of growing, and maturing. And I have a lot of catching up to do.

Alright folks, it’s time to summarize.

Goal setting, it’s a structure held together by four pillars, along with bricks in between them. The bricks are easily found. As for the four pillars, they are -”Do it now”, “reward yourself”, “substitute accordingly”, and “be specific”. Once the structure is complete, talk to people, immerse yourself in their world, let them inspire you and begin to build a foundation.

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I am a blog owner from BC Canada with a passion for writing about what is important and sharing with others.

1:) Family Dinners- The last time I checked spending quality time with your family didn’t cost very much money. The art of conversation around the dinner table, from talking about each others day, to topics such as politics, economy, religion, and sports, all has been lost to recent generations. From the early 1900′s through the 1970′s the family dinner was the cornerstone for most families, their time to bond. In recent years much of that has been lost due to households with two working parents, play dates, soccer practice, business trips etc. etc. We have become a generation where the art of communication has been lost to the most recent electronic gadgets. So, set a certain time each day for the dinner hour at least four times a week, turn off the cable television, take the ipod speakers out of your children’s ears, turn off the video games and talk. Talk about your family, what is going on in their lives, what is going on in the world, you will have a happier family with less stress in these difficult times.

2.) Spend time with your family doing family activities. Ever since the invention of radio families have gathered around to spend family hours together. In the 1930′s the radio provided Jack Benny, Amos n Andy and many other programs where it was not only a must for families to listen too but entire neighborhoods as well, they formed a bond in the community. With the invention of T.V., shows like Milton Berle’s Texaco hour and Sid Caeser’s Show of Shows were events the family planned and looked forward too the entire week. And then came the Ed Sullivan show that ran for twenty three years every Sunday night, and most of America never missed it. If you talk to people of this generation it is still their fondest memories of childhood. Today, you can go to Blockbuster and rent a movie your entire family can see for about three dollars. Plan a night or two a week for family night, rent a movie, play video games, or go retro to games like monopoly or scrabble. There are many forms of free or cheap entertainment that is good for the whole family, and most important you do it together. I think you will find in these trying times these ideas can make a rough ride a little easier.

Stay Warm!

-Ririan