plum blossoms with moon

The power of intention can be used to heal and promote good health, improve performance in many areas and even affect the future.

To be most effective, an intention should be a highly specific aim or goal, which you should visualize in your mind’s eye as having already occurred, while you are in a state of concentrated focus and hyper-awareness.  When you imagine this future event, hold a mental picture of it as if it were occurring to you at that moment.  Engage all five senses to visualize it in detail. 

The centerpiece of this mental picture should be the moment you achieve the goal.
We might also improve the quality of our daily lives just by carrying out detailed mental rehearsals.  At home, we might be able to send intentions to our children to perform better at school or to allow us to be more loving to friends and family.  Human intention might be powerful enough to affect every element of our lives.

Shunsui Katsu-Miyagawa

All of these possibilities suggest that we have an awesome level of responsibility when generating our thoughts.  Each of us is a potential Frankenstein, with extraordinary power to affect the living world around us.  How many of us, after all, are sending out mostly positive thoughts?

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Adapted from Ode Magazine, Jan/Feb 2007 by Lynne McTaggart (The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World, Free Press 2007)

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Kasamori Osen Ippitsusai Buncho

SleepwalkingWhat causes it?

Sleepwalking is most common in children, who usually grow out of it.  It’s a psychological issue, and when it continues into adulthood there’s typically two factors involved. “There tends to be some sort of hereditary component – it runs in families to some extent.  And for people who are more susceptible to sleepwalking, times of stress bring it on,” says Professor Jim Horne, Director of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University.

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How to beat it
When sleepwalking, nobody talks – they just babble incoherently.  But in order to stifle your somnambulism, a long chat is the best medicine.  “Try to get at the underlying cause,” says Horne. “It’s a simple case of talking to someone close to you about what’s on your mind.  Just be matter-of-fact about it and take it from there.”  Still find yourself stalking the corridors by night? A ccording to a study in the Annals of Neurology, sleep deprivation significantly increases the number of sleepwalking episodes experienced by predisposed individuals.  Staying up past midnight stopped being cool long ago.  Get your eight hours in.

adapted from Men’s Health,  Ed Vanstone

moonviewing, sweet slumber

We spend up to a third of our lives asleep.  Although some hard-driving people may view sleep as an inconvenience that curtails productivity and leisure activities, slumber is certainly no waste of time. In fact, sleep may play a more crucial role than diet or exercise in fostering optimal health.

A natural restorative, sleep offers an antidote to the damage done to our bodies during the day.  It allows the body to replenish its immune system, eliminate free radicals, and ward off heart disease and mood imbalances.  When sleep is disrupted—whether by lifestyle factors, insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome, jet lag, sleepwalking, night terrors, imbalance of hormones, or some other disorder—emotional and physiological health suffers.  But you don’t have to accept sleep deprivation and the ills that accompany it.   One way to gently snooze your way back to health is to focus on balancing your hormones.

Balance your hormones
The word hormone comes from the Greek hormon, meaning “to stir up.”  Hormones are released by the various endocrine glands in the body in order to regulate energy production, growth, sexual development, stress responses, and many other functions.  Because minute quantities of hormones can “stir up” so many activities in the body, when they are thrown out of balance the results can affect the entire body.  Imbalances of Hormones often manifest as insomnia and other sleep problems.  Key factors that can upset hormone levels include thyroid dysfunctions, perimenopause and menopause (in fact, disturbed sleep is one of the complaints that cause women to seek treatment for menopause and perimenopause), and andropause (the male form of menopause).  Although hormone levels generally decline as a result of aging, they can also be affected by dietary choices, mineral deficiencies, environmental toxins and synthetic chemicals, medications, smoking, and stress.

Rather than artificially manipulating your estrogen levels with synthetic hormones and ignoring the reasons behind any imbalances of hormones, it is more valuable to determine why you have imbalances of hormones in the first place. Depending on the reason, restoring hormonal balance may be more effectively achieved with dietary changes, nutritional supplements, natural progesterone cream, herbal therapy, or traditional Chinese medicine tailored to the specific factors causing the imbalance of hormones.

Zen Clock with Chime for a progressive awakening to sweet a slumber

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Excerpted from Alternative Medicine magazine’s Definitive Guide to Sleep Disorders: 7 Smart Ways to Help You Get a Good Night’s Rest (Celestial Arts, 2007)

Zeus, disguised as a swan seduces Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.

The ancient Greeks envisioned sleep as the minor god Hypnos, born of night, who lived on the island of Lemnos in a dark cave.  Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, flowed through this underworld where Hypnos lay on pillows surrounded by his many sons, including Morpheus, the dream bringer. 

Unlike his twin brother Thanatos, the god of death, Hypnos was considered a friend of mortals, a healer of body and mind.  He took different forms as he wandered the earth—a bird or a child, but most often a benevolent warrior carrying a horn, from which he would drip a sleep elixir. The Greeks apparently took his gifts for granted.  No cults arose to worship sleep, which seems odd, for surely there were ancient insomniacs.

adapted from Utne, January/February 1999 by Bill Hayes, from Speak

Dream Kanji Zen Alarm Clock with Chime in Dark Oak Finish, an alarm clock for insomniacs

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Full Moon Sumida River, Hiroshige Ukiyo-e

while I walk on
the moon keeps pace beside me
friend in the water

-Masahide-

Bamboo Digital Chime Clock, a meditation timer and alarm clock

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

Butterfly on Large Light Yellow Lilly, Kosan 1912

Bamboo Digital Chime Clock, a meditation timer and alarm clock

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. #56. Irises at Horikirin, Hiroshige

The term “Japanese iris” encompasses three varieties of irises cultivated in gardens or growing wild in Japan: hanashōbu, kakitsubata and ayame.

adapted from wikipedia.org

Timer for meditation by Now & Zen Inc.

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Boulder, CO  80302

Harunobu Ukiyo-e Print, Girl Parachuting Into the Branches of a Flowering Cherry

this world of dew

is yes, a world of dew

and yet…

-issa kobayshi-

Black Lacquer Zen Alarm Clock and Meditation Timer

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Boulder, CO  80302

Koson, Small Butterfly And Sunflower - woodblock print

Butterfly

sleeping

on the temple bell.

-Buson-

Zen Timers and Bowl/Gong Alarm Clock, Temple Bell Alarm Clock

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Hiroshige, The Moon Over A Waterfall - woodblock print

 

The sage has three treasures

simplicity
patience
compassion

-Basho

Maple Kanji Zen Alarm Clock, progressive chime alarm clock

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1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302