Looking After Yourself

The Body – About your body and how special it is.
Improving Your Health – Ideas for healthy living.
Exercise And Health Plan – Exercises that you can do to improve your body structure and stamina.
Learning To Relax – About how to relax and why.
Walking, Meditation and Relaxing – Walking and breathing exercise.
Only Your Brain Can Save You – You cannot think without a good brain, success depends on it.
Your Appearance IS Important – About what you wear and how you feel wearing it. Tips and ideas.
Have The Courage To Say No – About not giving in to weaknesses.
Have The Courage To Say No

The Body

The human body in all its glory is just a machine, a machine that is useful in many ways. And without it running in good order you would have many problems. As a biological machine it does what it should, but unlike manmade machines the human body is never the same as another modal. Two cars of the same make and modal can be very nearly identical, but not so with the human body. This well-oiled, smooth running, human machine has the ability to run for many years with reasonable care. Its looks are in many ways not important, what is important is that we accept that the body we have is ours to keep for the duration of our life, so we should look after it at all times.

No human body is perfect, we all have physical imperfections and we need to learn to live with our imperfections in the best way that we can. Physical imperfections should never cause us to be unhappy, and as the famous saying goes “There is always somebody worse off than us”. The sooner we can become comfortable with our own body the sooner we can be happy with ourselves in many ways.

Some people may have gone through life being ‘picked on’ for having physical imperfections and now they have a ‘hang up’ with this imperfection. These people can grow to hate themselves.

Your human body is a gift, without it you would never have been born. Your body can do many useful things and you would do yourself a lot of good to remember this simple fact. Your body may not be as good as somebody else’s body, but your body is alone in its uniqueness. Your body has got you to where you are today and it will get you much further if you continue to appreciate the worth of your body and look after it.

Like many teenagers I never thought I was good looking, or that I was physically attractive, but I learned to live with myself. And now that I am in my forties I have learned to really like myself and my physical body with all its faults. I have some serious physical problems like a permanent back problem that sometimes limits what I can do, at its worst I cannot walk because of the severe pain that shoots down my right leg. Often I just get sharp pains which I have learnt to live with, I take no pain killers for the problem unless it gets to the serious stage of not being able to walk on it properly, or not being able to walk at all. I have one leg shorter than the other, which in turn caused the back problem. But the important thing is that I don’t dwell on this problem and neither should you dwell on problems like this.

To really enjoy yourself and learn to love yourself as a person you would do well to learn to live with any imperfections that you believe you have. As far as worrying about whether anyone would ever love you because of your imperfections, please consider this: the world is full of people who appear to have these physical imperfections and they are happily married to someone who learnt to look deeper into that person and find a loving human-being who truly needed to be loved, someone that they wanted to be with and love. It may take time for you to find the special one who doesn’t judge people, but I truly believe that as long as you are good you will find that special person. Have faith and it shall be done.

Improving Your Health

Drink lots of clean water, be sure that it has no chemicals like fluoride in it. Water cleans the bodies systems of all the toxic impurities that gather over time. These toxic impurities are collected from all the different drinks and food that you eat. Many products that can be brought today at the local supermarket have additional chemicals added to them for coloring, extending the life of the product, and adding taste to the product. We shouldn’t neglect to mention genetically engineered or genetically modified products simply because we do not know what has been put into these new-fangled food wonders.

Do you drink lots of coffee or tea? Try to drink more of natures fruit drinks, like orange, black currant, apple, grapefruit and the like, they are more healthy for you, more natural and more tasty. Check to see if the manufacturer has added chemicals and sugar. Mankind was never meant to be lazy and the best food or drink is always the one that you make at home, it always seems to taste just that little bit nicer and it is so refreshing. Please always drink coffee and tea in moderation.

If you are trying to cut down your weight, try this healthy way. Make your meals smaller and eat an apple or two before dinner. You can eat any type of fruit that you like. What we are trying to do here is partially fill up your stomach before you eat your dinner with something that is natural and good for you. This is a good idea if you are intending to go out and eat fast foods which are in general fatty and not good for you. Some people have a drink of water before they eat as well. You can use your imagination and eat other healthy snacks. Here is another idea, fill a cup halfway (or fill it to the top) with fruit salad and eat it with a spoon. You know, those canned, chopped mixes of fruit! Put something good inside you before you try something fatty.

It is highly recommended that you eat only vegetables and fruit for an entire 24 hours at least once a week. So for that one day eat no meat at all, this clears out the body system and it is said to help (to a great degree) to limit your chances of getting cancer. You will be taking in lots of good fiber, which is good for you. You can also try eating fruit and vegetables for an entire week, so for one week a month don’t eat meat at all. This will not harm your health at all because you will still be getting your regular intake of meat for the rest of the month.

Can’t think of how you could survive on fruit and veggies? It is easy! Use your imagination (hey, it’s time to be creative!) to come up with interesting salads, vegetable dishes and snacks. To help you further in your quest for a better, healthier lifestyle get down to your local library or book store. I prefer to buy recipe books as often as I can, then they will be at my fingertips when I need them. I recommend that you get yourself some vegetarian and vegan recipe books, the variety will am,aze you.

And the best that I can recommend is for you to consider growing your own vegetables. Seeds don’t cost much at all and sometimes you can buy them in bulk, so look around and ask people where they buy their vegetable garden seeds.

Your local library will have books about:

Growing gardens in small (tight) spaces
Vegetable gardens
Herb gardens
Flower gardens (maybe you could sell flowers too)
Many new, modern forms of gardening like Hydroponics.

As long as the soil is in reasonable condition and you are willing to put some effort into maintaining the garden it should do well. Regular weeding and watering is needed but that’s a small price to pay for fresh, scrumptious healthy vegetables. Remember: Not enough water means a dead plant and too much water means rot, practise makes perfect and for the part in the world that you live in only you and your neighbours will have a good idea how much watering your plants need. Don’t be disappointed if you have some dud seeds or weak limpy plants, these things sometimes happen, keep at it and reap the rewards!

Many people have made wonderful comments about my cooking and baking. Most people seem to think that I have some super ability to create lovely cakes and biscuits, but they have no idea about the many cakes and biscuits that I have thrown away because they were failures and were not fit for human consumption. I love baking and cooking so I keep at it and wow the people I know with food that they think is exceptional, I won’t say no to the compliments, and don’t you either – remember, stick with it and don’t give up!

If you smoke cigarettes then it is time to place some restrictions on yourself. You can try this suggestion, if you smoke all through your home, what about restricting your smoking to only one room in the house? This means that no matter what you are doing in other rooms in your house you will always have to go back to the smoking room. This will be a hassle to you over time and you will smoke less if you stick to this idea. Your house will also be healthier for others who live with you. Or you can smoke outside.

Exercises And Health Plan

When it comes to fitness humans are just like the animals of the world, we all need some exercise to keep our bodies trim and healthy. Watch any animal for a length of time and you will see that this is the truth. When we (humans) don’t get much exercise we are risking our health.
Health and fitness are very important on your road to recovery. There is a strong connection between physical fitness and mental fitness, if both are well looked after then a person tends to find life much easier to handle. We want to lose weight, if you are overweight, and build up that body and get it trim and healthy. Even if you have a thin build you still need to improve your fitness especially if you have not played any sports or do not do regular exercise. Contrary to some peoples belief thin people do die of heart problems. Many people who work in offices live on junk food and coffee, these will have to be removed from your diet or limited to a reasonable level. You don’t necessarily need to give up coffee but it would be good if you could drink less of this addictive drink and replace it with other, more healthier liquids, such as water and fruit juices.

If you are a cigarette smoker then the first thing we want you to do is smoke less and then give the cigarettes up completely later on. You will smoke less with the time that you put aside for physical fitness.

The idea was to exercise to get fit and feel better about myself without buying any expensive equipment. Thankfully many years ago I was in Karate so I had a reasonable idea about what I wanted to do. Physical fitness is important to any persons recovery and confidence.

Although a doctor means the best from the knowledge that he or she possesses, I prefer to think of the doctor as an advisor and I make my choices from the doctors suggestions. I have found over the years that I have made only a few small mistakes in this area of thought. What your doctor suggests should be very carefully thought out and if the need arises there is no harm at all, except possibly to the doctors pride, in getting a second opinion from another doctor, possibly a doctor out of your town or city. Always consider that the doctor has many years of experience in his or her occupation and should have (at the very least) enough general knowledge about your mental and medical complaints to offer suggestions that should be close to the answer that you need as the doctors patient.

You can do many exercises without it costing you a cent, or if you join clubs for fitness in many cases only a small monthly fee is charged, although this depends on where you are in the world.

If you feel that at this time you are unfit and you want to start off nice and slow, you can write a list of the exercises that you want to do at home and then set aside a morning to try and see what you can do. You may make up a list of ten of everything – ten press ups, ten star jumps, etc. If you find that ten press ups is to hard for you at the moment then just try four or five press ups and when you feel that those are easier to do, then add another press up and do 6 press ups and so on… Do this with all the exercises on your list. Doing it this way will slowly but surely bring you up to a fitness level that will be good enough for you to join fitness clubs and the like. Do these in the privacy of your own home and when you feel that your fitness and confidence have grown to a degree that makes you feel comfortable, then move on to a fitness class or just keep up your regular exercise at home. We are not trying to turn you into a top athlete, we are just trying to get the ball rolling.

Only you know your real limits. When you have spare time on your hands, even just a few minutes, you can use that time to do some stretches or jog on the spot, a couple of press ups, maybe a few star jumps, maybe lift some small weights while you are watching television. It all adds up and you will be all the fitter for the small efforts that you put in.

Here are some simple, easy-to-do exercises to help you get going:

Stand at the end of a bed and lean on the end of the bed with your hands and do press ups, you can also do the same thing on the front of your car, a table or another object of the same height or lower.

If you have a swing for your children and you can reach the top bar that holds the swing in place, grab the bar and do pull-ups, you can also do the same with low branches, or door frames. If you try this with a door frame you will have to make sure the frame can handle your weight, you can always reinforce it if you have doubts.

Go to school or town playgrounds which normally have bars for the children to play on, use these for pull-ups and other exercises.

Find something heavy that you can use for weights to build up muscle. I used to use a cars engine head for this purpose for many years. An iron bar would work as well.

Running up and down steps or stairs is thrilling exercise, but watch your step as you go.

Lifting large vases that have a narrow top and are filled with sand or dirt are good ways to strengthen the fingers, arms and hands. Grab the narrow top of the vase and carefully (bending your knees of course and using the correct method for lifting heavy weights) lift the blocks until you are standing upright and then walk ten feet and turn and walk back. You can extend the distance as you progress. Be sure to pick any weights up correctly so that you don’t hurt your back.

Jogging around your back yard.

Jogging forward twenty feet and then jogging backward ten feet, twenty times.

Use a rope or buy a skipping rope and use it daily, morning and night. Or ask your children if you can borrow theirs. Create a fun competition with your children. Please never give up an opportunity to play with children, they can exhaust the average adult in no time at all, but the exercise is wonderful and eventually you can get up to their speed and match their pace and distance. And they will love you for it as well. Sport is good bonding time between child and adult.

This is what I recommend in the home for morning and afternoon exercise:
(You will need to add stretches and warm ups)
If you feel that the list below is a bit more than you can do then just start with 10 of everything until you can do better.

A good long walk of maybe an hour in duration.
100 Star Jumps, you can do them in small increments until you get fitter.
One to two minutes jogging on the spot, you can increase this time as you get fitter.
50 to 100 Punches in the air.
20 Press ups.

Punches:
I am not attempting to get you into violent sports by suggesting punches, and by attempting the punching method that I describe below you will find it a good way to warm up and lose weight and improve your muscle structure and flexibility. By punching with your right and left hands you are exercising your hands, arms and chest area and if you twist at the hips with each punch you are also exercising that area. If you have a punching bag by all means use that, if you don’t then you have a few options. You can make your own punching bag by getting a sack and filling it with dirt or sand, tying the top and hanging it from a beam, the roof or ceiling.

To stop you from hurting your hands when you punch a bag you can strap your hands with bandages, or material. You can cut old material into strips for this purpose. You can also buy or borrow some boxing gloves if you can. If you decide to do it the hard way and use your bare fist then you will find that over time the skin will toughen up and you won’t need gloves or any sort of covering to protect yourself. This is what martial arts people do, they toughen the skin because they know that if they have to protect themselves with their fists they will have to use their bare fists and it won’t hurt so much hitting a hard object like a persons head or chin.

This is how you make a proper fist (Without boxing gloves) so that when you hit the bag you won’t hurt yourself. Hold your arms at your side and straighten your fingers, make sure your fingers are touching, now roll your fingers up tightly until you have made a fist. Bring your thumb over until it is in front of the first two fingers and press it down tightly. You use those two fingers to hit the bag. You have a tight fist so that your knuckles don’t move and make a crunching sound, you also protect your fingers this way and they won’t break if you are doing it right. If you are unsure even after reading the instructions here contact a martial artist and ask them to help you.

Your Stance:
Stand in front of the punching bag with your feet ‘shoulder width apart’, this means spread your feet until they are apart by the same amount as the width of your shoulders. Face the bag and reach out with one of your hands and lay the palm of your hand flat on the bag, this puts you at a good distance from the bag. Make fists with your hands as described above, drop both hands down to your waist so that your thumbs are facing upwards and outwards. Your hands should now be close to your hips.

Shadow Punching:
You can also aim at an imaginary spot on the wall and ‘pull your punches’, in other words don’t hit the target. This can be done the way that boxers punch or the way I described above. You can do this to warm up before exercising.

Swimming:
If you have a swimming pool or beach near to your home then I suggest running and walking in the water and swimming which is known to work most of your bodies muscles due to the resistance of the water when a person moves in the water.
If you have problems with your knees, ankles and hips, walking slow and fast in water can help build the muscles around the bones to strengthen the joints. Go at your own pace until you feel the strength in these areas improving with time.

Old Sport Equipment:
Do you have any old sport equipment in your garage? Have a look and you may be surprised what can accumulate in a garage after a few years. During my period of recovery I took up tennis again. Mind you, it is not normal tennis. Let me tell you the rules, you never know, you may find it the challenge that you need. I also started using our Total Gym 1000 that my family purchased about 4 years ago.

My family and I play 1 to 30 points with hardly any rest between serves, maybe a couple of seconds. We don’t have any serving rules. The object is to serve to the opponent, after that you can hit the tennis ball anywhere you like. We find that we get a lot more exercise that way. It is all designed to be fun. All your competitive sports should be played for the fun of the game, especially while you are learning a game or recuperating from a stressful life. Many people have tried to lose weight or have that rule that they ‘hate to lose’ embedded in their soul and they compete in a new sport with the efforts of a ‘Pro’ and the result is sometimes a heart attack or they hurt themselves because they are not used to that sort of exercise. Take is easy, you have only one life to lose. Be good to yourself and the results will be what you want.

I had an idea that I had playing around in my mind for a while about losing weight and gaining muscle in an easy yet linear way. Currently I am employed writing this book so I spend lots of time at my computer typing, looking after my children and home schooling. I needed a way that I could add muscle, lose weight and feel good about what I was doing while not ripping muscle or hurting myself physically any other way. Here is what I came up with. Remember our goal here is to trim down that fat and build muscle where it used to be, this does not have to be bold muscle mass, a good layer of muscle will help your body move in an easy manner, plus you will be stronger and feel good. If you want to build muscle like a body builder you could still use the same technique below but obviously you would do more muscle building exercises than a beginner would.

It is wise to add a “base of muscle” (thin layer of muscle) on yourself before you start on heavy weights. So a few months doing light weights can be a good idea. Then when that layer of base-muscle is there you can now start on the more heavier weights and gaining more bulk muscle.

Many years ago I used to work on a farm. Mostly sheep were found on this vast expanse of lush green paddock land, which was in reality for them a fenced off prison, which kept those vicious sheep from escaping their happy home built by their friend the sheep farmer. Ungrateful little furry creatures that they are. Anyway when I first took on this desirable position of the general work of toiling in mud and sludge, dragging sheep out of trenches, docking, dagging and shearing these loving balls of live wool. I found that I was physically unfit for this type of work and it was a struggle. But I did learn something of great value. And that was that if you start hard work even though you struggle through it, if you have the motivation to keep at it, you will eventually be able to easily handle it. The day I started the job I struggled through it and went home in pain, sore right through, but I was motivated by the fact that I had a job and that I had money to spend come that glorious day we all wait for – pay day. Nothing was going to stop me getting up each morning at a ridiculous time to be with my fellow sufferers and our little furry friends.

So I stuck to it and suffered all the pains and gains of such physical hard work. Working gave me pride, I had done a stint on the benefit system and while it gave me a small amount of money to spend it was dreadfully boring having nothing to do all day. I also had no car, but that wouldn’t have mattered much because on the benefit system I wouldn’t have had enough money to buy petrol or keep the car road worthy anyway. By having a job I could keep busy and my fitness would improve, and along with these benefits I was also able to purchase items that I had desired for many years while I was at school.

With constant sweat on my brow it didn’t seem to take that long before I was used to the work I was required to do on the farm, maybe a few weeks or so. This brings me to the point that I am making, which is that if we keep at something, we will make it if we have a good enough motivator. But I have some very good news for you, you don’t have to half kill yourself to be fit and trim. You can do just as I did with much less work. We all need to find a way to be motivated to succeed and have the fitness we require to be happy.

You will need “stay with it power”, how can you get this? All I did to motivate myself to lose weight was to tell myself often that I wanted to be trimmer and healthier. I expect to have a new partner to share my life with sometime in the future and I don’t want her to put up with a grouchy middle aged grump who was not happy with the way he looked or who was limited by his lack of fitness. Plus I love to challenge my teenagers to battle with a game like tennis and I need to be fit to keep up with them.

This is my plan. Set aside some simple exercises for you to do, make sure they are not too hard to start of with. Pick an hour in the morning, in my case I picked 9:00 am. At this hour do these exercises, this shouldn’t be to hard for you to start with (forget the “no pain, no gain” talk). Do these exercises every hour of the daytime. Simple plan isn’t it? If we set aside a period of time every hour we will gradually build up the muscle and burn off that horrid clingy stuff called body fat. I can guarantee this system works, I have been using it for a while now and the results look good. But the secret is to keep at it, you can take a few days off as you require, but time and effort will bring you the results you are wanting.

Keep to this fitness exercise diligently, don’t let up unless… If you find that your exercise pattern is harder than you thought then do less exercises – but don’t stop doing them unless you are hurt in some way. You may find that, like me, you can’t exercise after a meal – that is fine, just start again the following hour. This has to work for you, not against you or your schedule of life. So keep at it and watch the results with amazement. The results will be noticeable if you have chosen some good exercises and you are motivated. You don’t have to look like Godzilla, The Muscle Monster or The Hulk, just look the way that you think is you. Always do good warm ups and stretches.

If you work during the day or do shift work then you can do your exercises when you are not at work in the afternoon or whenever it is suitable for you. Maybe you can do these exercises at work if your boss allows you to, most bosses prefer their workers to be fit.
I do exercises until I feel a certain level of strain (note I didn’t say pain), and when I feel this strain I stop exercising and wait an hour and do them again. This system keeps me going without my body getting hurt. This is important – if you get hurt then you have to normally wait a few days until you can do your exercises again, sometimes even weeks. Be patient, you will see and feel the results with constant easy effort.

This system would be good for people with heart problems (as long as they consult their doctor first) as it keeps pace with what the person needs to do and not what a trainer wants them to do. You can easily use this system at home and people of any age can do it. Obese people could use this system to carefully and slowly work away at their overweightness with time. Always consult your doctor if you think you may not be allowed to safely do exercises. Please note that if you are trying, then you are doing much better than those who are not trying.

When you find that the exercises are really easy, then please do more, just a few more and when you can cope with them, do even more. With time and an easy constant effort you will be happier and fitter for your concentrated efforts.

While trying to put this idea into practice I came up with some interesting ideas about how to warm up before exercising and at the same time I got some work done around the home. At ten minutes before each hour I would go outside and work in the vegetable garden, digging, weeding, raking or whatever needed doing, I preferred vigorous work which would get my arms and leg muscles warm. If there was nothing to do in the vegetable garden I would work on the flower gardens and then move onto working around the yard doing anything that needed doing. This completed two tasks, getting warm before exercises and fixing up the yard at a good pace. As everyone who owns a home knows there is always something to do somewhere and if there isn’t I could always play with my children, a good game of catch or other sports would always be a good way to warm up as children have boundless energy, and if you have grandchildren you can also do the same.

Learning To Relax

Your current lifestyle may be very tense and that will make it harder for you to relax. Relaxing is an art, an art worth learning about. The modern schooling systems fail miserably by teaching students how to work their brains and bodies but they don’t teach the students how to relax their thinking and relax the body and soul. Some people may not even know what the word relax means due to the very negative and disheartening life that they are currently trapped in. You may find yourself saying, “Relax! How can I possibly do that!” or “My life is in total turmoil, I feel as if my brain is burnt out, I can’t even remember what the word relax means anymore.” These people need help and they need it fast. People are dying of heart attacks all year round because they have never been taught or just cannot find the time to relax.

In order to relax we often need to remove ourselves from our current circumstances. This is not an easy task for many people. Once we become more organised we should have more time to relax and do things that we like to do. If your life is full of hustle and bustle your thoughts are also hustle and bustle. You will need to clear your mind of all this garbage and thoughts of no value, and by this I mean you need to empty your mind of its contents for a period of time. There are many ways to achieve this. One is meditation, another is relaxing walks, walking along the beach, relaxing music, etc.

We all have different things that make us relax. Relaxing is calming the soul, mind and body, and this in turn clears your thoughts and helps prepare us for the day or the hours ahead. There are many books on the market devoted solely to this topic and you would be wise to go to a good book store and see what’s available and see what you think will suit you.

Some people think that reading a book or driving a car is relaxing but they are not totally relaxing because you still have to use your body and/or mind to do things. With television and reading your mind is still being used, and with driving you have to control the car so that you don’t crash. Think of this, if you were totally relaxed you wouldn’t be able to input the words that you read in a book into your brain when trying to read, and you would crash the car if you were totally relaxed while driving. Also peoples eyes get tired when they read or drive and tired eyes means that you have been concentrating on something which is really the opposite to relaxing.

If you are very frustrated and tense, and your life is full of dismay (or at least it looks that way to you because you are right in the middle of it) you will find it hard to relax, you may also find it hard to ‘find the time’ to relax. A suggestion I could make is that you first get yourself away from your current situation, this does not have to cost you any money, just time and exercise. Do you have a dog? If the answer is yes then take the dog for a walk once or twice a day. You can go for a walk, preferably where there is lots of nature around you. Breathing the fresh air and viewing nature is always a great way to relax and get your mind off your current problems.

Your family or other people may find it a bit difficult to comprehend what you are doing but they should soon get used to your daily excursions. They have no choice if you need to change. What is good for you will be good for them in the long run.

Your local library will have many different books on this subject as well. You will need to make the choice of what type of relaxation you want to try, you may try a few variations to get a feel for what may suit you. Remember this is about you and if this is good for you then it is good for others who know and love you.

You can purchase relaxing music and I highly recommend that you listen to some even if you have never tried this type of music before. I personally have a great liking for Tony O’Conner’s music.

Walking, Meditating And Relaxing

When I go on walks I do this to relax (If you are going on long walks then this would be something that you may want to do at the start of the long walk, it will fill your lungs with much needed oxygen and relax you as you walk). As you walk breathe in for six steps, make sure that you are walking at a brisk pace. When you breath in try taking the air in through your nose. At the end of the six steps breath out through your mouth slowly, take six steps to complete the breathing out process.

When you breathe in or out it shouldn’t be a hard task, breathe slowly and easily. You can increase or decrease the speed of your walking so that you can be comfortable in this exercise. You can also increase the amount of steps to either breathe in or breathe out.

After doing this for a while you will find that you are more relaxed and you find that this relaxed feeling can last for a long time. I do this so often now that it is pure habit and it should be your aim to make it habit as well. I often do this exercise for at least ten minutes at a time.

This exercise would be very helpful for people who have to walk to appointments or job interviews. Walking will also give you a chance to think about the interview and what you will say.

Only Your Brain Can Save You

The only way that you are going to eliminate your problems is to have a clear head. Many people are sadly taking to drugs to “take away the reality of their problems” and in some countries there is an alarming amount of people choosing this course of negative action. The results are obviously negative for the country as a whole not to mention the negative affects on their families and workplace’s. The logic is simple; to try to hide from your problems is to be scared of life, it is a cowardly action. To face life’s problems takes courage and a willingness to forge forward. Example: Take a metal pipe with cobwebs through it and it is plain and clear that any bugs trying to go through the pipe have a blocked path. It is the same for our brains, clog them up with drugs and we cannot find a clear way through to handle life. We need to clear out the cobwebs of negative (and sometimes publicly acceptable) thoughts and accept our challenges. Drugs and alcohol will take you away for a short while but your problems will always come back to haunt you, they won’t go away until you deal with them. And drug and alcohol abuse can physically destroy your brain with continued use and be very harmful to your body.

There have been many studies on the mental and physical affects of drug and alcohol abuse. So many in fact you may find it amazing that people still abuse these substances. There will always be some sort of negative result from substance abuse no matter how much you abuse them, the negative affect will hurt you no matter how much you try to “logic” out a so-called good reason for this physical and mental abuse on your own person. I am not using this book space to get an opportunity to lecture you on the abuse of these substances, but I do think it is worth mentioning the devastating long term effects on your brain and body.

The human brain when you are born (hopefully with no physical defects) is the perfect operating system. The brain is so superior to all living creatures and machines on Earth that mankind has never been able to duplicate it even with computers many times the size of the human brain with huge amounts of memory chips (memory integrated circuits). It is indeed a complex and incredible machine of infinite capabilities. Even now after all the efforts science has put into trying to understand our brain they are still (and they admit it) far away from understanding its complex systems of logic, emotions and memory. Every image and event is recorded in your brain, ready to be used at a later date. This machine and its health are very important for your happiness and success, to abuse the human brain is to abuse your ability to function properly. The safety and security of your body and soul are protected and looked after by your brain. A fit and healthy body will ensure that you are ready for whatever life dishes out to you.

The only way you can solve your problems is with a good healthy brain so treat it well and with the respect it deserves. For me the most confusing and saddest time of my life was when I was a lost teenager struggling to try and figure out what my life was all about. I went to parties, drank, smoked and did it again with the same results – nothing ever came of it. I look back on it now and wish I had the common sense back then to see the waste of time that it was. I know nobody that I drank with now, they are all gone, some dead, some ruined, some moved on. I could blame this on my family and the way that I was brought up because I was introduced to drugs, sex and alcohol abuse at a young age, but I had my own brain as a teenager and I had the knowledge that should have steered me away from that lifestyle but I was just lost and lonely. But I would never do it again because I know so much more now. A lesson earned is a lesson learned.

Treat your brain with the love and care it deserves and it will help you when you need it. Think about having a happier life and keep yourself healthy and wise, it is the only way to have the life that you deserve, and yes you do deserve a good life. Feed your brain with good common sense and try to avoid negative influences. The human brain craves for sensible input all the time, so do it a favour and give it what it needs, satisfy its cravings for challenges and fun.

Overworking can have a very negative effect on your brain, it becomes tired along with your body. Give yourself lots of rest and recreation and your brain will repay you with good ideas and a great imagination.

Your Appearance Is Important

Your personal appearance can have a great effect about how you feel and look at yourself.
If you wear rags, then you feel like rags. If you wear neat and tidy clothes then you will feel neat and tidy. Get the idea!

If your clothes are:

Too big
Too small
Untidy
Have holes
Or patches

You will find it hard to feel good about yourself and your personal future. It would depend on what life you lead and what your future goals are. I suggest that you have a good look at the clothes in your wardrobe and don’t forget to look at your shoes. And just because you are a coal miner or car mechanic does not mean that you shouldn’t wear nice tidy clothes when you are not working, even at home when you are relaxing. Besides you never know who is going to turn up and visit you and remember “looking good makes you feel good” and gives a good impression to other people

If you don’t have lots of money that is alright because there are other options that are available to you. You can look for stores that sell second-hand clothes or buy the clothes that you want in payments.
Get advice off friends or work mates that wear the types of clothes that you want to wear.
Shop around and try not to be limited in the area that you live in. If you don’t have a car or cannot afford to leave town then try this, if you know people or have relatives that live in other towns or cities ring or write to them and ask if they can help you get good deals on clothes or shoes.
Remember a true friend will not make fun of you, they will gladly help you.

This may not be an easy thing for you to do, but with constant effort I am sure, over time, that you will find the clothes deals that you are searching for. Try not to let your pride get in the way, most successful people started out the hard way and had to make big sacrifices to get ahead, saving money on clothes would have been one of those sacrifices for many of them.

In the near future consider buying the clothes that you know that you would feel relaxed in, these clothes should be not too tight and not too loose. The clothes that you wear can help you gain respect. I am not pretentious, and I don’t recommend fashion sense or such. I don’t match my clothing, I just wear what I feel like wearing on the day.

Pressed clothes look good. Heres an idea, why not buy a clothes iron? And if you don’t know how to use an iron get someone to show you what to do. Be careful as a clothes iron can be dangerous and can easily wreck clothes. But used in the right manner an iron can make a shirt or blouse look very nice at a very cheap price. Go for it and learn a new skill at the same time. And by the way guys, I know and have known many males who know how to iron clothes, so don’t let a macho ego hold you back. I have known how to iron clothes since I was a teenager and I was the one who taught my daughters how to iron clothes. I also helped them learn to sew and do many standard household chores.

Have The Courage To Say No

There are many times during our lives, when we look back, when we wished that we had said ‘no’ to somebody. When we get older it is easier to wonder why we made decisions the way that we did. This is because we can look back on our mistakes and see where we went wrong. We are now older and wiser – Right? Saying No can take a lot of courage especially if you are being pushed by peer pressure or other such forces that make it hard to say no.

In order to have total control over our lives we need to control our vices or immoral behaviour as well as the other, more lesser, weaknesses. Besides the religious implications there are very logical reason as to why you should do this. The human body can survive on food and water, this is what the human body needs to function correctly. Fitness is also important, but everything else is additional. Now if a person could say no to all else then they would have total control over all weaknesses, therefore they would be as strong mentally as a person could ever get. Is this what you want?

To weaken to any vice is to admit that something has control over you. Lets look at your life as if you had had total control over all weaknesses. Look back into your past and think of times that you ‘gave in’ to someone or something because you had a weakness. If you hadn’t given in, how much better would your life have been?

Did other people get hurt emotionally or physically because you were weak minded?
Do you regret those weak moments?
Did you struggle to control yourself?
Does this weakness often win your internal struggle, does it win all the time?
Would you feel stronger as a person if you hadn’t given in, even though you would have missed out on the tempting weakness?

To give in to a weakness is not really a mistake, because you know beforehand that you have this weakness, and that this weakness helps you make decisions towards this weakness and other weaknesses, decisions that feed the weakness and help drum it into your head that you can’t help yourself. We all have weaknesses to some extent, but not all of us practice the power over our weaknesses, the willpower to say “No!”. By saying “no” we are proving to ourselves that we can control ourselves and weaknesses will not ruin our lives.

We have all read about those people who seem to stand steady, strong as a rock, those that don’t stumble along the way (or at least the stumbling is not obvious) – these people have standards that separate them from us. They set rules for themselves and they never waver from them. They are not stronger than us or better than us, they merely learned early (or at some stage) in their life to control themselves. Did you notice other students at high school or university who never went out with the crowd, but stayed behind and always got great grades and then moved onto great careers, while you partied, and had loads of so called fun? Where are they now? And where are you now?

Many of life’s often heavily publicized ‘pleasures’ are weaknesses, and often the word happiness or happy is an excuse for more weaknesses. It is all part of the socially accepted never ending search for the pleasures of life that are supposed to make us eternally happy. The advertisers have to find some way to get it into your head that you need their products or offers (they want you to think that you can’t live without them) so they very craftily use the words or pictures of:

Happiness
Fun
Well tanned and good looking women
Well tanned and good looking men
Sun and fun
Money
‘Have to own it’
‘Have to have it’
‘You deserve it’

These are used to lure unsuspecting common people into taking up their offers in a desperate effort to change their lives from the normal droll day to day living to the sparkly life of happiness and sunshine, even if it is only for a few weeks or moments in time.

Here is how you can find out if you have many weaknesses.
Make a mental or written list of all the things that happen in your life that you consider a weakness. Pick the first item on the list and see if you can go without it for a period of time, this could be days, weeks, months or even years. If you succeed easily you can cross it off the list and then move to the next item. But the real test is to see if you can cross each weakness off the list and then keep it out of your life forever. You cannot die from removing a weakness from your life, but you can die, suffer or hurt other people if you keep the weakness (smoking, drug addiction, alcohol addiction etc).