If you're like me you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep most nights. That's why i'm so glad to welcome Sheila Olson's very savvy piece about how to get a good night's sleep, aka Beauty Rest. I will surely take her advice seriously and follow her lead. I hope you will too. Here's Sheila: Image via Pixabay 3 Tips for Getting Your Best Beauty Rest We’ve all heard that we need to get our beauty rest, but do we really take this seriously? According to Healthy Magazine, not getting enough sleep can make you appear older by causing wrinkles and under-eye bags to develop on your face. If you get a good night’s rest, your skin will be healthier because deep sleep allows you to create new skin cells. If your skin is constantly dry and dull, it might be because you’re skimping on your beauty rest. You should be shooting for around eight hours of quality sleep per night. Courtesy of Madeline Sharples, author of Leaving the Hall Light On and Papa’s Shoes, here are … [Read more...]
Learning more about meditation
I've never been a good meditator, but lately I've given it another try. Here are my thoughts about that: The meditation man said we should not try to fight our tiredness. That we should take advantage of it and rest. And even if we just rest for only ten minutes it will do a lot of good. Whereas, if we don’t rest, we will make ourselves feel worse. I experienced that today during our meditation practice and felt a wonderful sense of restfulness during the ten minutes he was speaking. Hooray. I was able to concentrate on my breathing and nothing else – a huge breakthrough for me. That can be the beginning of a new practice for me because up until now I have always been a poor and unsuccessful meditator. I could never stay focused on my breathing and getting rid of all the stuff in my brain. My mind would always wonder, my thoughts would stop and start, start and stop, stop and start all through the session. And when the session was over, I would be more unfocused than when … [Read more...]
Is it possible to get our beauty sleep?
Our guest today is Sheila Olson who writes about how to get our beauty sleep. It's a perfect subject for me. My sleeping habits definitely don't fall into the beauty sleep category. I need all the help I can get. Waking at three each morning is not a way to erase my aging dark circles and wrinkles. Here's Sheila. Image via Pixabay 3 Tips for Getting Your Best Beauty Rest by Sheila Olson We’ve all heard that we need to get our beauty rest, but do we really take this seriously? According to Healthy Magazine, not getting enough sleep can make you appear older by causing wrinkles and under-eye bags to develop on your face. If you get a good night’s rest, your skin will be healthier because deep sleep allows you to create new skin cells. If your skin is constantly dry and dull, it might be because you’re skimping on your beauty rest. You should be shooting for around eight hours of quality sleep per night. Courtesy of Madeline Sharples, author of Leaving … [Read more...]
How I’m finding my muse again
I've had a tough time getting back to my writing routine since completing my recent consulting job. While consulting I did manage to write a journal entry almost everyday, but that was the extent of my writing practice. Besides the grueling proposal work I lived out-of-town in a hotel and ate bland uninteresting food for about four months. I had hardly anytime to do anything else besides work. There were no muses in that hotel room, believe me. The first thing I did when I got home was sleep. I napped several times a day for two weeks, until I finally felt like myself again. Although I worked out in the early mornings as usual, not long after breakfast I needed my first nap. Finally I started to look for something to kick-start my writing, to bring back my muse. I had put my list of poetry prompts into my Dropbox folder so I'd have it handy while I was away, but I never once opened that file. I didn't even update it with the prompts that came by email every Wednesday. So that … [Read more...]
Is an alcohol free January right for you?
I've never forgotten the first time I decided to stop drinking alcohol during the month of January. It was the morning after a particularly boozy month of December and yet another boozy New Year's Eve party with friends in Santa Barbara. I felt so terrible that I declared to my husband that I needed a break. He felt the same way, and together we decided we'd abstain from all alcohol wine, beer, hard booze for the entire month. And it felt so good after that first fast, we actually added another month July. We decided to take an alcohol break every six months. We continued that tradition together for the next several years, and then he dropped out. But I was not dissuaded. Today, January 24, I'm twenty-four days into my 2015 fast. I'm pleased to say I've been alcohol free in January (and July) for the last twenty years at least. Now you must think that I'm quite a boozer otherwise. Actually I'm not. I drink a glass of wine or two most nights, but that's it. I never drink … [Read more...]
