Healthy Homes Asia

Would you like a guilt-free holiday which you actually enjoyed? Here are a few simple tips.

Tip 1 – Give up your guilt and judgements about 'bad food'.

Science tells us that our bodies react to food the same way whether we eat it, or just think about eating it. So you might as well enjoy actually eating it! And the impact of guilt and judgements about 'eating the wrong things' may well do your body more harm than the food itself. Go easy on yourself, relax, and enjoy your food.

If anger, rage, hate, fury, guilt, blame, shame are toxic....laughter, joy and happiness are healing. So allow your food to heal you this season.

Tip 2 – Ask your body what it requires.

Have you ever tried this? Consciously ask your body and see what shows up. Maybe you'll start to salivate when you think/see a particular food. Maybe your eye will hover over a particular menu item. Or maybe you'll just 'know'. Your body is a remarkable thing that operates your heart, pancreas, liver, kidneys etc with remarkable precision. (Do you think your university-educated higher brain could do that?). So it might just know a thing or two about what it requires. Just because your brain is programmed to eat 'Christmas food' doesn't mean you body needs it. And you'll feel much better if you listen to your body.

Tip 3 – Choose for YOU. Yes you can.

All festivals usually come with a standard cultural menu. Just because your parents served it that way, doesn't mean you have to too. Just because your parents may be staying with you, doesn't mean you have to choose their (or anyone else's) menu. There is no right or wrong, there are only choices. So why not choose food that you know will work for you?

Tip 4 – Be aware of where your food comes from and what your body does with it.

If you buy from a large/chain/bulk-style supermarket, the food you buy may already be 'dead'. It has probably been grown in nutrient deficient soil, sprayed with pesticides, heated, processed, stored, and shipped thousands of kilometers before it gets to you. What if you asked instead where you could buy locally grown, organic food? What if it were FREE from your OWN garden?

Tip 5 – Drink lots of water

Your body is 75 per cent water and every system in your body relies on it. Not enough and your body will literally 'cry out' in pain and start to shut down. Drink 1-2 litres a day, and no, this does NOT include alcohol, soft, caffeinated or milk drinks. If you prefer another taste to your water, squeeze in some fresh lemon juice or soak superfood Goji berries (ku-ki-ja) or Shizandra berries (o-mi-ja) in it for a few hours.

Tip 6 – Get some sun.

You need Vitamin D, including to PROTECT against skin cancer. The sun provides this and it's free! Make sure you get a sensible amount, especially through the winter. And it's a GREAT excuse for a holiday in Australia or Thailand!

Tip 7 – Be grateful.

Thank your food, thank your body. It got you through another year operating equipment more complicated than a NASA space station. Truly amazing.

Do you know how it works? No, but thank goodness it does. So thank it and ask what it requires to see you through another fabulous year.

‘If God had intended us to be nudists, we would have been born with no clothes on.’ – Leonard Lyons

Most people don’t exercise. Rubbish food coupled with indolent, acidic lifestyles punctuated by unhealthy stress all seem a far cry from the farm-fresh produce and romps on the Downs enjoyed by our forebears.

The fact is, though times have moved on, the body’s needs for nourishment and exercise have not. If we don’t meet them, let us expect trouble. Here are the exercise basics:

Consult a doctor before any exercise regimen(!)

Warming up: If you are new to exercise, work up to walking 10,000 brisk steps a day. For a few won/yen/yuan/dollars you can get a plastic pedometer from a sports store to clip onto your belt. Doing nothing all day but shuffling around in your pyjamas will clock up 3,800 steps (In the name of research, I measured it three days in a row). 10,000 steps places a progressive load onto your muscle and cardio systems and ensures you stay well-oiled and piped. Next…

Move! Once you’re walking easiliy, exercise 40-60 minutes a day, some of which with your heart rate up around 65% - 70% of your maximum (max rate = 220 minus your age for females, 226 minus your age for males). Practise short bursts of all-out effort for a minute at a time, then relax. Swimming, cycling, rowing, stair-climbing and hill-climbing are all good for this – start slowly and work into it. The right level of exertion is when you’re slightly out of breath while talking! Also:

Load-bearing exercise: The dreaded weight-training, push-ups, knee bends, squats and stair-climbing are all resistance moves that prevent the muscles and skeleton from atrophy. These movements pump the lymph system and help clean you out. Weight-training can be done by all ages, though kids under ten are better off with the usual chores, slavery and play until the body matures in its middle teens. Serious muscle builders, it’s all about intensity and rest. Log onto www.precisiontraining.com. Don’t forget:

60-90 minutes a day spent outside. The body requires sunlight and fresh air to manufacture Vitamin D and catalyse other reactions. Solar radiation penetrates even that lead blanket over Kent, so don’t think of using weather as an excuse for indolence, unless you live in Siberia.

Motivation

Exercise is hard for many because exercise equals pain and the brain moves away from pain toward pleasure as part of the survival response. ‘No pain, no gain’ results in thousands of gym memberships being paid for and never used. Nike’s famous slogan ‘Just Do It!’, frankly, for most people didn’t. Why? ‘No pain, no gain.’ We like the idea of what exercise can do for us, it’s just the grunting and heavy-breathing part most of us have a problem with.

Shift Your Focus

Don’t call it exercise – play!  Re-label and shift your focus. Get involved in a hobby that combines exercise with fun: walking, gardening, cycling, swimming. I like exploring battlefields and historical sites, so climbing mottes and nodding at baileys gets me all hot and bothered. Orienteering, rollerblading and fell-walking are great but if you’re getting on a bit, gardening, sponsored walks, swimming, cycling and invading France were all enjoyed by your forebears.

• Exercising is easy if you’re having fun (play)
• Remember: You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever done to yourself
• Don’t overlook exercise

And check this out:
JUST THREE MINUTES OF EXERCISE A WEEK COULD PREVENT DIABETES, SAY SCIENTISTS: Jumping on an exercise bike in just 20 second spurts can improve insulin function.

What's near you now?

Live in Korea? Join this class. Or somewhere in Asia? Beg this guy to train your trainers NOW. You won't look back and your body will love you for it.

by Phillip Day

70% of accidents occur within five miles of the home. So move ten miles away

Two points I’d like to make on this one.

1)      Take prudent precautions daily

2)      Stop telling me how safe I’ve got to be!

Prudent Precautions

Sometimes people die foolishly. In America, car crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans under 35. Tragically, such disasters almost always occur because of some routine oversight, distraction or a precaution not being taken. Mobile phones, fatigue, an insect (a big one) entering the car, unrestrained pets, children and other life-forms messing around in the back seat.[1] No belt on.

If you’re attentive and sensible whenever embarking on something dangerous, obviously you will reduce the chances of accidents. For instance, seat-belt, look before pulling out, toss the mobile phone into the gym bag, etc. (Do I really need to go over this?) Driving becomes so routine for most of us, we leap into the hot-seat without much thought as to how the journey could end. Passing a smouldering wreck on the side of the motorway muttering ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I’ is not quite the same as taking precautions. By the way, slowing down to gawp at accidents (in American, ‘rubbernecking’) is the leading cause of accidents in the US!

The other side of the coin

I don’t believe the universe is out to get me. I do believe in taking precautions. That having been said, I strenuously object to those pettifogging local government health and safety Nazis passing a blizzard of directives to save me from a) myself, b) from all the risks life might chuck at me, and c), jacking up my taxes to pay for all this nannying. And complaining makes me a Philistine, of course. After all, who doesn’t want kids to be safe?

·         Some schools have banned egg and spoon races in case the little darlings lose

·         Cross-country running is now officially child abuse (I thought that was the whole point) [2]

·         A school in Kent has banned children from flying paper aeroplanes in case they’ll have someone’s eye out

·         At a school in Middlesex, pre-teen pupils are told they’ll each be given a courgette so that the purpose of a condom can be simulated. One scholar speaks for all when she asks: ‘What’s a courgette?’

Apparently adults are too thick and stupid to watch out for themselves too. For the record, I reserve the right to ride my bicycle without one of those alien-badger-plastic-nasties on my head. I’ll walk my dog in the park without a lead - at her age, Rosie is far more likely to suck a kid to death. Apparently all of us are now such a danger to each other that we are in need of 24-hour legislative protection. So politicians dream up ever more horrible ways to be busy and lawyers get rich, so cui bono?

Can you legislate the risk out of life? Of course not.

US Congressman (person) Ron Paul sniffs a rodent: ‘Freedom is not defined by safety, Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. This doesn’t stop governments, including our own, from seeking more control over, and intrusion into our lives.’ [3]

So be SAFE!

We’ll be watching.

Mind how you go now

Looking for ways to make your life easier, happier and healthier? Read 100 here:

SIMPLE CHANGES by Phillip Day

by Phillip Day

‘There must be something to acupuncture – after all, you never see any sick porcupines.’ – Bob Goddard

Unnecessary surgeries, drug-prescribing, unneeded tests and dangerous treatments all contribute to a frightening toll wrought by doctors around the world today. My book Health Wars documents the phenomenon of ‘death by doctoring’ in detail and reveals the reasons why, while medicine has made great advances in certain areas, (infant survival, A & E trauma medicine, wound surgery, etc) and should justifiably receive the credit, it has failed miserably in others, most notably, ‘mental health’ and the treatment of disease. These failures are largely due to the belief that treating symptoms with drugs is the same thing as curing the disease itself, which it isn’t.

Examples:

·         Painkillers to treat hangovers, which are a dehydration issue 

·         The removal of tumours in the belief this will cure cancer

·         The treatment of behavioural ‘disorders’ using drugs to mask hyperactivity symptoms

·         Hysterectomies to cure menopausal woes

·         Electroshock treatment (ECT) to cure mental illness

Most diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, are metabolic (systemic) conditions related to diet and lifestyle, yet doctors are not trained in nutrition. Doctors are instead compelled to swallow the most extraordinary paradox that food is apparently good enough to keep you alive but not good enough to fix you when you’re sick. Many I’ve interviewed over the years are fed up to the back teeth with this crummy state of affairs and wish to see things changed. They did not go into medicine not to heal people. Most conventional doctors, if they’re honest, will admit they can’t heal their patients’ diseases with drugs, they only treat the symptoms.[1]

Facts

·         You are what you eat

·         Food can change your mood

·         Every cell in your body comes from what you ingest

·         A New You is produced approximately every seven years after all your old cells have died out and been replaced with new ones. The quality of the New You and how well it will function will be down to diet and lifestyle, with genetics playing an adjunctive role

Bad diets in hospitals only contribute to the difficulties patients experience in overcoming illness. MRSA and other infections strike patients who have compromised immunity. What we should do is fire the hospital dieticians, retool the kitchens to produce tasty, raw, nutritious whole-foods, train our doctors and nurses in nutrition, and do all we can to boost patients’ immunity with adequate hydration, hope and mental stimulation. Not drug them up and leave them sitting in front of Paul O’Grady on the TV with their bread and milk.

The current, drug-based, medical approach to disease:

·         Is failing and dangerous

·         Pays no heed to prevention

·         Lacks proper nutrition support completely

·         Prefers the bullish use of surgical or chemical intervention

·         Does not consider stress as a factor in illness

·         Views illness as a collection of localised symptoms to be treated with drugs/surgery rather than banishing the underlying causation with lifestyle and dietary changes  

Viz:

ISRAELI DOCTORS GO ON STRIKE AND DEATH RATES PLUMMET

‘Death rates in Israel have dropped considerably since physicians in public hospitals implemented a program of sanctions three months ago, according to a survey of burial societies.

The Israel Medical Association (IMA) began the action in March to protest against the government's proposed imposition of a new four-year wage contract for doctors. Since then, hundreds of thousands of visits to outpatient clinics have been canceled or postponed along with tens of thousands of elective operations. Emergency rooms, dialysis units, oncology departments, obstetric and neonatal departments, and other vital facilities have been working normally during the action.

The Jerusalem Post surveyed non-profit burial societies, which perform funerals for the vast majority of Israelis, and found that the number of funerals has fallen drastically.

According to one funeral parlor manager the same thing occurred in 1983, during a similar action by the IMA, which lasted 4 and a half months.

The only area of Israel which was found to not have a reduction in its death rate was the city of Netanya. It also just so happens that all of the doctors at the only hospital in this city have "no-strike" clauses in their contracts and are therefore unaffected by the action.’ [2]

In Short

No-one’s suggesting you don’t need a doctor. I am suggesting you might exercise reasonable caution before swallowing everything Nurse shoves down your throat. When assessing your needs for a doctor, fall back on those good old bastions of reason, logic and common sense:

·         Prevention is the best cure

·         Better not to get sick in the first place

·         Change your attitude, diet and lifestyle

·         Just do it!

·         Ensure the family is well fed with a varied intake of wholesome, nutritious, organic foods

·         Reduce stress

·         Be happy

·         Consult a doctor who gives advice on lifestyle and diet

Fact: Correct drug prescribing is the largest sub-sector of iatrogenic (doctor-induced) deaths in most First World countries.[3]

Notes [1] Hammond, Phil Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, Metro Books, 1999

[2] www.mercola.com; British Medical Journal 2000;320:1561

[3] Day, Phillip Health Wars, op. cit.

by Phillip Day

One of the most effective ways to guard input is to turn off the radio, switch off the TV, unplug the stereo, put the Ipod in the fridge, turn all clanking, buzzing, humming and grinding contraptions orf and enjoy peace.

Stop what you are doing now and listen. The chances are there’s something going on in the background. Noise like light is ubiquitous these days and peace is no longer the prerogative of the country-dweller. Samantha and I often go for a walk in Bedgebury Forest and there’s always an airliner overhead. One afternoon, we actually waited to see how long it would take for everything to silence and revert to nature. We got fed up waiting, and if we did, I’m pretty sure the squirrels do too.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, ‘See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... we need silence to be able to touch souls.’

It goes without saying the hard-heads of the business world stumbled upon this technique long ago (not least to silence dissent). Top-7-Business, a personal development website catering for the business professional, lists its ‘seven powers of silence’ as follows:

·         Silence is creative

·         Silence builds trust

·         Silence gives rest

·         Silence brings balance

·         Silence promotes the inner

·         Silence promotes the real

·         Silence allows listening.[1]

Another site is not so sure. ‘Silence can be a frightening thing. There are times when silence is unnerving, humiliating or just plain boring. If you are speaking in front of a crowd and you lose your train of thought, the silence is torture. If you're in the midst of a crowd of strangers and there is no one you can talk to, the silence can be very lonely. The silence of walking down a dark alleyway late at night can be petrifying.

‘In addition, not everyone feels comfortable in his or her own skin. The idea of spending quiet time alone is anathema to such people. They fill their days with friends, family and co-workers. They do everything possible to avoid being by themselves. Eating a meal alone is an agonizing concept. Spending a whole evening with nothing but their own thoughts is even worse - give them a television and a remote control, at least!’[2]

In fairness, AllSpiritFitness goes on to make the all-important point:

'It’s not really silence itself that gets to us, rather, it's our inner chatter that keeps us from appreciating quiet time. The mind has been a busy and active instrument for eons. Meditation would never have been invented if there hadn't been a need to train the mind to be still. But these days, between the Internet, television and full schedules, our thoughts are more than mere whirlwinds - they're tempests. Even those of us who yearn for some quiet time alone are hard pressed to locate a few free minutes. We need to make sure that any silent time we get is also quality time.’ [3]

·         Inner chatter = patterning

·         Silence calms the heart rate

·         Silence lowers blood pressure

·         Forget the radio, try driving around with nothing on

·         Dwell for five minutes in silence and see how extraordinary the experience is

·         What your mind throws up in the tranquil moments may also indicate areas of your life that need addressing

Simple Changes concepts are designed to rid the mind of unwanted ‘inner chatter’. The first place to start is reorganising your space so that noise is kept to a minimum. TV and radios switched off, washers and driers relocated to the garage/outhouse, Heathrow told to change its approach routes. Consider how useful silence could be if you learned how to change the quality of the mind’s ‘inner chatter’ and thus your focus.

Phillip

Simple Changes – Your 100 Ways to a Happier, Healthier Life

by Phillip Day

by Phillip Day

Most live their days ‘on the fly’ with no real planning – I did it for years. Got up, had something to eat, went to work, came home, watched TV, went to bed. These days I’m more of a fan of imagining every day as a life. Mine. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. I do the following every morning:

·         I wake up (always a good idea)

·         I lie in bed and contemplate the day ahead

·         I ask: What do I wish to accomplish by bed-time tonight?

·         How will I feel if I succeed?

·         Which of these things do I personally want?

·         Does the day I am planning impress the heck out of me?

Today, I will not worry about the G8 summit, a Martian invasion, suicide bombs in Pakistan, Third World hunger, an asteroid striking the Earth, or what David Beckham wore to the Met Bar last night. Today I will leave the TV off, the newspaper in the corner store, the radio silent, and clean up my input. I can be the architect of this new day which has been given to me. I intend to raise my standards and live them well.

The Possibilities Are Endless

·         I will write the first page of my new book. Just one page

·         I will speak to one person who thinks I’ve forgotten them

·         I will practise what I am good at

·         I will dominate my day and carefully steer it

·         I will simplify, simplify, simplify

·         I will guard what comes out of my mouth

·         I will do no harm to myself or others

·         I will eat food that nourishes me

·         I will relish the freedom from negative input

Repetition in a state of emotion forms the attitude pattern. Every day I do this makes the following day easier. Six days of accomplishment means a whole week I have lived well. So much done in one week! Negative input was out, all the positives in. I ate simple, fresh, nutritious food. I drank clean water. I breathed. I did not watch King of the Hill.

Give Yourself a Bonus!

I agree to enjoy at least one overwhelming, optimistic experience (placebo) every day. Each day is planned around this event. If all else fails and the Martians invade, Samantha, Anna and I will still take Daisy for a walk in the forest. The dog’s tail drums in anticipation. I know things about Labradors. They are not worried about their bank manager or a Sarin gas attack on the Bakerloo Line. It’s about rabbits chased, the swim in the pond and aroma plethora.

Setting daily targets has great advantages:

·         You agree with yourself in advance what you are going to do. This makes unwelcome chores easier

·         Distractions are kept to a minimum 

·         You customise your day to suit you, not the other way around

·         More quality time is packed into the day

·         Longer tasks are easy when kept tightly on target

·         You agree with yourself the day will have the outcome you desire

·         You can ‘debrief’ your day back in bed again to see if it went according to plan

·         You can experience success in a single day

Setting targets and debriefing takes me sixty seconds flat. I do not micro-manage, just get a clear, mental image of what I wish to accomplish by day’s end. If I did it right, there’s satisfaction by nightfall. If I didn’t do it right, there’s always tomorrow for another go.

Distractions

Impromptu events can take the best-planned days well into the hedgerow:

·         The water main blew outside in the street

·         You had an accident

·         A phone call forced you to re-prioritise your day

·         You had an unexpected visitor

If distractions force you to re-plan, simply amend the question to: What do I wish to accomplish with the day I have left?

UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DO NOT SHELVE YOUR OVERWHELMING, OPTIMISTIC EXPERIENCE!!

by Phillip Day

‘Just two more laser treatments and the ‘Roseanne' tattoo is gone from my chest.' - Tom Arnold

Forgive others.

Be forgiven.

Let there be no comeback.

A bad conscience is the best antidote to Valium there is. Unfortunately, preoccupations with guilt suppress more than just the desire to sleep. Immune function is affected and with it all systems go into stress. You can worry yourself stiff, literally.

And I can easily say ‘unburden yourself and move on', but a bad conscience imprisons and urges no action, so once again, forcing yourself to take mature action to resolve conscience will always move the game forward. If your efforts are heartfelt and genuine, others will appreciate it and the lifting of weight and a lighter step will be enjoyed as the outcome.

Many issues revolve around family - the most painful usually do. Can these be resolved peacefully by you taking action to apologise or forgive? How much better will you feel when it's settled amicably? These are ‘conscience blocks'. There's nothing there upon closer inspection but the memory you froze in a moment.[1]

Be blameless.

[1] Buscaglia, Leo Love, Slack Incorporated, 1972

by Phillip Day

‘False, lying, cowardly, nauseous puppy. The greatest ass, liar and beast in the world.'

- King George III, on his second son, Prince Frederick

‘I wish the ground would open up this minute and sink the monster into the lowest hole in Hell.'

- Queen Caroline, on her second son, Prince Frederick

Don't get back home on a Friday night, open the mail, cringe at the phone bill and have it wreck your entire weekend. Instead, call up the phone company and ask ‘Why, in a country of free speech, is there a phone bill at all?' Don't lurch from one crisis to another. If this is you, you're suffering from patterning which needs to be overwritten.

Many worry. I don't. We're all going to die one day but at least I won't have died the death of a thousand cuts over things a) I've no control over, and b) long since forgotten about. How about you?

• Be joyful
• Enjoy those overwhelming, optimistic experiences
• Train yourself to toughen up to weather grim times
• These things too shall pass
• There's little you're going through that nobody else is
• For heaven's sake take a holiday! Have you booked it yet?

by Phillip Day

‘One in three British workers fail to take their full annual holiday entitlement, a survey has shown. Instead, they put in 36 million hours of free overtime, giving bosses almost £1 billion in unpaid work every year -‘

We must be barking mad. And if we do go on holiday -

The survey of nearly 6,000 workers by the Chartered Management Institute found nearly half stay in contact with their employer while they are away.' - Daily Mail, 15th June 2005

No! No! No! No! No!

Behavioural patterns are formed over a 15- to 30-day period through repetition and a state of emotional excitement (what I term the Pavlov Principle). They overwrite over the same period. Few of us take four-week holidays, which is why we still have bats in the belfry.

Pavlov's Principle relies on location, repetition and the 30-day conditioning period, so clearing off somewhere nice for a break makes all the sense in the world, especially if we go to play.

It must be a geographical break.

For four weeks.

Take those who relax you. Leave the kids at home if necessary (straight-jackets are for this). Go forth and frivolate, you've earned it. The first ten days of your four-week re-adjustment are usually spent cussing out Spanish waiters and being generally beastly as the mental puke gushes out. After that, serenity and bliss usually prevail or your travel agent will give you your money back.

• Now go and play
• Do not take the laptop or anything connected with work
• Do not ever phone work
• Do not ever tell your boss where he can reach you
• Do not phone home and get stressed
• Tell family to contact you only in an extreme emergency, otherwise sayanara, you'll buy them a tee-shirt
• In fact, Lose the Mobile Phone
• Eat raw, living, organic whole-foods
• Exercise (more play)
• Behave inappropriately (even more play). It's a holiday
• Don't burn. Do get some sun
• Dreaming comes easier with a magenta sunset and a Mai-Tai. These are the times of refreshing and inspiration. Get refreshed, sunshine.

by Phillip Day

"Worry is a trickle of fear that soon carves a crevice so deep, all other thoughts drain away."

Worriers perfect the art of imagining how things will turn out for the worst. Do not dwell on impromptu evil imaginings. You can't stop the birds flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair.

The best way over mountains is one rock at a time. The best advice about mountains is to face them. Mountains cause worry. But not if you overcome them.

Be an overcomer.

Was a time we fell off our bike, picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down and carried on as if nothing had happened. Today, when we fall off our bike, we're dusted off by a social worker, referred into a victim support group, and if that fails, we can sue the government on legal aid.

Alternatively, if we're slam-dunked by some appalling stroke of ‘fate' such as wanton debt, an illicit affair or a Prozac or Valium dependency, we can slip into the ‘victim' jacket and seek out the nearest agony aunt, astrologer or Feng Shui advisor. These are only too happy to oblige with the latest scoop, pocketing our money and reassuring us it's nothing WE did, it's just society's a dog, the new moon's in the 11th house and the furniture's all in the wrong place.

If something about me needs changing, I need to change it

I stopped overcoming

Time for me to overcome

Learn More About Yourself

Divide a sheet of paper vertically down the middle with a line. On the left, write down all the things that worry you which you CAN do something about. On the right, list all the things that worry you which you CANNOT do anything about.

Rank the left-hand column in descending order of bother, i.e. the most worrisome problem at the top. Do the same with the right-hand column of worries you can do nothing about.

• You are now staring at your mountains
• You have an order of worries to tackle, commencing with the most worrying
• Worry caused by the problems you can do something about will diminish ONCE YOU TAKE ACTION
• Imagine each problem resolved and how you will feel about that
• Imagine the relief/pleasure you will gain by overcoming
• Dwell on the peace of mind gained by overcoming
• Imagine the continued pain/anxiety of not overcoming
• List out the steps required to overcome the problem
• How badly do you want to conquer the problem?
• Now take action, focusing repeatedly on the pleasure/relief you gain at every step
• Be consistent and repetitive. If you falter, link further big pain to having to tolerate the worry further

Things You Cannot Do Anything About

Problems beyond our control cause unnecessary worry. There can be no action, since the problem is beyond our capacity to influence, so why worry?

I am going to die one day (perhaps today)

A super-quake will snap California off into the Pacific

An asteroid will strike the earth

The sun will flame out, plunging the earth into darkness

A tsunami will re-engulf Japan

My family will perish in a freak accident

I will become a victim of terrorists

Things you can do

Link big pain to unnecessary worrying

Link big pleasure to not unnecessarily worrying

Imagine the relief of not having to burden yourself with matters beyond your control. While you cannot fix the whole world, sometimes you can fix your little corner of it. Is your worry caused by junk input? You can, of course, take action on a smaller scale, i.e:

Move out of California

Don't take your holidays in Jakarta

Then again, why worry?

Overcoming unnecessary worry is about confronting the worry itself, examining it dispassionately, then deleting it in a state of positive emotion with a change in focus. How about:

• A coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man dies but once
• I can be brave. Why worry?
• Terrorism fails when I fail to be terrorised. Why worry?
• Have I actually experienced terrorism?
• Are my worries disproportionate to what actually happens to me?
• Am I reacting reasonably?
• Why don't I restrict input which fosters unnecessary worry?
• Why not give my life meaning and context to explain why I am here?
• If I live my life well, my journey's end will be expected, even welcomed

Resources

The Little Book of Attitude by Phillip Day