Category Archives: Wellness

Be Basic – Water Secrets for Losing Weight and Gaining Health

October 29, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi 2 Comments

70 % of our planet is water, 70% of your body is water and more than 70% of your bodies ailments, disease or symptoms like obesity, are because of water. I believe, through this article, at least 70% of you will realize that your journey of losing weight and gaining health basically starts with improving the quality of the water that you consume.

You don’t need to spend thousands on gyms, super foods and supplements, indulge in quick fixes and over exhaustive programs once you lose your health. Rather it is beneficial to work on the basics before entering complexities. Working on the basics will not only help in preventing diseases and losing weight but also put you on a natural road to recover the health that you have lost.

So the basic secret to losing weight and gaining health is to consume basic water.

Here is what Basic Water Means

Before man populated and polluted the world, water was different than how it is today. It had natural detoxifying and cleansing properties along with superior hydration due to its basic nature( remember basic(alkaline) and acid litmus tests from chemistry class).

With time the water all around the planet gained an acidic nature. The few places to retain some of this pure superior quality water made it holy, places like the Upper Himalayas in India, Lourdes in France, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The purity of this water is due to both its metaphysical and physical properties, which make it best for losing weight and gaining health in the modern day.

The Science Behind It

So what makes this primitive water or holy water superior and how did human activities change its nature?

The primitive water had an active Hydrogen and high alkalinity (Basic Nature) (higher pH level)along with high anti-oxidants and micro-clustering effect on the water molecules. It was better than modern day water in the following ways:

More Alkalinity

It was full of minerals which made it basic(not acidic) in nature, which is in alignment with the basic nature of your body pH standing at 7.30 to 7.45. Check the chart below for more knowledge on pH.
Antioxidant nature

Along with this it was an antioxidant, imagine the water you drink being better than the best green tea. To read more about antioxidants and their nature check out this article “The importance of antioxidants”

Better Hydration

Thirdly it had a micro clustering effect on water molecule, where 5-6 water molecules formed a cluster than 12-15 in the water today. This tinier clustering lead to better cellular hydration.

In a world of junk food and pollutants your body and the water around you is in the hazardous acidic pH range. Humans have lead to this change in the nature of water which had several health benefits in its actual form.

The Health Benefits

Here are some ways in which this primitive holy water which would help you in losing weight and gaining health:

Better Hydration because smaller water clusters so you can have a better workout and consequently more weight loss
Anti Ageing as it is triples antioxidant strength of lime and removesremoves free radicals
Reduces heart pressure and Lowers cholesterol
Detoxification- More filtration of acidic toxins through kidneys and anti oxidants promote blood Cleansing
It balances body pH, raising urine pH by 1 level can decrease obesity, high blood pressure and risk of kidney stones
Acidic body pH takes away Ca from bones to balance pH so the water safeguards your bones
Alkaline water leads to better colon health and improves digestion.
Sports performance improves as a result of better hydration and anti oxidizing effects of water.

Bringing It Back

The ionized alkali elixir which was in abundance a long time ago is now a rare commodity. Lucky for those born in Japan and the upper Himalayas, where it still occurs in abundance but for the rest of us, we need to find alternatives to help us in losing weight and gaining health.

The effectiveness of basic water depends on long term usage, so the one off trek to the mountains or vacation to the land of the rising sun wont help you in losing weight or gaining health.

The solution to this is by recreating this water through technology. Aquatatva has a remarkable product which can bring this elixir from the upper Himalaya or the land of the rising sun straight to your taps. Their seamless machine will not only bring back the primitive ionic alkaline water but also make it accessible at prices cheaper than your water refills. Along with this it will produce by products which are used by top niche skin care companies.

Also check out their application which spreads awareness about the benefits of ionized alkaline water. Its available for both Apple and Android devices.

Do mail me if you found this article helpful and I will give you a tip on how you can make partially alkaline water with some easily available items at home which will help you in losing weight and gaining health.

Wellness

The Journey Within – Stages of Meditation

October 13, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

Meditation – The Journey Within

You use and abuse your brain every living moment. You are either observing, creating, resolving, inspiring or worrying, cursing, cribbing, plotting, planning. Have you ever tried to understand the intelligence behind your brain which makes all this possible?

This intelligence, which you often take for granted, is nothing but the cosmic divinity exhibiting itself through you. Not many have the power of evoking this intelligence, as it requires you to make the most tedious of journey’s. A journey which doesn’t involve moving a million miles but sitting still.

A journey which requires you to activate your divine elements like calmness, concentration and intuition through yoga and meditation and use them to take a walk with your soul in the garden of universal bliss.

Meditation: From Body to Soul to Spirit

Meditation is the transcendence from bodily sense consciousness to super consciousness of the soul and further to the cosmic consciousness, the ultimate spirit( energy) governing our cosmos.

Only the ones who defeat the resisting restlessness of the senses and overcome delusions of the material world,through regular and effective meditation, can look within and carry forward on their journey to experience inner ecstasy.

To get in touch with the paradise within you have to forego the sensory disturbances outside. Only then can you make the connection from body to soul and consequently to the universal spirit.

This connection occurs through different stages of meditation. Here is a brief about the stages of meditation.

The Stages of Meditation

Restlessness of sensory consciousness- The delusion of sense consciousness are the most difficult to overcome. The responsiveness to your sense of taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound are heightened when you try to sit still and meditate. The first stage of Meditation is to observe this restless aspect within you and overcome it through calmness, concentration and persistence. It is a battle between the soul forces of calmness and intuition and your senses preventing you to sit still.
Realization of Super Consciousness- The few of you who outlast restlessness are awakened to the super consciousness within you. You understand that you possess subtle divine perceptions along with gross sense perceptions which work against each other. This realization is also referred to as middle point. You are exactly in the middle of the divine elements pushing you towards the spirit and the sensory elements pulling you back towards the physical world. . In this state you can , from time to time, taste the sweet nectar of the cosmic consciousness and feel deep peace.
Cosmic Closure – With constant practice you empower the divine elements further, thereby reducing the powers of the restlessness causing sense elements and opening the doors to cosmic consciousness. The more divine fuel you add to your super consciousness the closer you get to the divine element(cosmic consciousness). You start feeling this deep blissful feeling of oneness with the everything around you, yet the unrelenting forces of desire and sensory temptation are omnipresent waiting for your concentration to slip.
Samadhi(ONENESS)– You align yourself perfectly with the (GOD entity)cosmic consciousness. In oneness with the very root of the cosmos you either drown yourself in yourself or find yourself in yourself. Desires and sensory temptations have little or no hold on you at all.

CONNECT These four stages of meditation are stated in numerous ancient scripts of wisdom. Although the words and languages might be different but in the end the concept is the same. Facilitating an inner connection of the soul with soul of the universe is the underlying motive of most ancient scripts.

Modern world distractions have made it increasingly difficult for this to happen. In a material and desire driven societies, very few have the time to look inside. With ready made virtual rewards on your fingertips why would someone make all the effort to silence senses and look inside in the first place.

Yet this bubble is on the verge of bursting as more and more people seek salvation beyond substance, meditation beyond limitation, and fulfillment beyond desires. Discover ways of aligning and moving beyond material desires by reading 6 Ways to The World. It will help you in understanding and connecting with yourself.

Mindfulness

Mindful Habits : Taking a Breather

October 10, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

You are Mindful when you to train your mind to be empty.

You occupy the moment when you meditate to relieve yourself from momentary existence.

You observe more when you train yourself to think less.

Mindful-ness makes you observe your actions while you do them. This way of life is cultivated by sitting and observing your thoughts, understanding the nature of sensory triggers and habit induced instincts and finally learning how to distinguish yourself from these actions in the heat of the moment as a separate observing entity.

Over time we engage in lot of activities, which either become our passions or profession. For me it is business, health and writing, for others it might be something else.

While pursuing any kind of work or activity, you get so engrossed in doing, that you forget observing yourself as a separate entity from the activity or work that you do. In due time you are so lost that you end up believing this activity to be a natural part of your life, your calling, passionate pursuit, objective in life.

Failing to be mindful, you get engrossed in work and observe little, as a result you make these external activities larger than your own life. This sets you on a pathway of stress and worry when expected results are not met.

Taking a breather

It is essential to temporarily detach yourself from the activities you pursue, even if you love doing them.

When you take a breather, you take your energies out of the task and exist, be it for a few moments, as an absolute singularity. This is essential as it lets you create a distance between the activity and yourself. Which might be temporal but at the same time necessary to observe your singularity.

You will observe that your singularity much more than whatever it is that you pursue. Your activities don’t define you rather you define your activities.

Ego will never let you out of the vicious cycle of work and passions but it is highly recommended to take a breather from both once in a while. It might seem impossible and irresponsible to leave work and even more with passionate work, but if you don’t give yourself breaks you will let yourself slide in an infinite loop of doing.

By taking breaks you will boost your minds capability of observing. This makes you more mindful and make better life decisions when you are moving at the speed of life. If you dare to be mindful in the modern world you will empower yourself to find the best in every situation in every dimension of life.

I DARE YOU TO BE MINDFUL

I dare you to be more mindful in this world which forces you to worry about unfinished work. In a world where every action is mandatory to produce some end product. I dare you to be more mindful in this world where we act more and observe little. Where we are countering evolution and becoming work horses.

I dare you to be more mindful in the modern world where you are being hustled into becoming an ever working hustler.

(Disclaimer: It is to be noted that a “taking a breather” is a temporary phenomenon aimed at upgrading mindfull-ness and not aimed at making you lay.)

Mindfulness

Mental Wellness-Ancient Treasure Beyond Measure

October 6, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

Ancient treasure is either a valuable pot of gold or an invaluable pot of knowledge. Ancient scripture has much to learn from, if applied appropriately it opens the doors to riches beyond human perception. I came across one such ancient treasure while reading and wanted to share my riches with all of you.

Yes it might not make you instantly rich but it provides you with wealth beyond measure.

A pot of gold is insignificant in front of a pot of knowledge, the actual ancient treasure.

Weeding Your Mental Garden

While reading some scriptures I cam across certain mental traits which most of us occupying the material realm possess.

Most skip through life unaware of these mental traits, others accept them as a part of material existence and very few try to overcome them. The ancient treasure which I am going to share is about these negative traits(weed) which needed to be weeded from the garden of your thoughts.

By weeding your mental garden you not only purify your mind but also align your thought process with universal energies of goodness and positivism. By being in alignment with these cosmic energies you open the gateway of infinite possibilities, and actually become LIMITLESS.

On the contrary if you while away your life without paying heed to the quality of your thoughts you fail to maximize your full potential. You live an unfulfilled life chasing material pleasures without ever finding inner peace.

The Gateway to Hell

If mental energies go unregulated they lead to your own downfall, making your life a living hell. Mentioned in the info graph below are 5 characteristics which your mind has to guard against repetitively as they come up in your life time and again:

Matsarya (Envy, Materialistic Pleasure) is another such trait which you have to guard against.

These traits are so powerful that they take a hold of your mind and make you create a false identity for yourself. If not discovered and removed these traits cripple normal mental faculty.

Ancient Treasure Beyond Measure

I will keep sharing more ancient treasure, hoping we can understand and apply at least some of these ancient practices to make our minds look beyond instant gratification and think wholly.

The scope of learning and progress is infinite we can all make use of ancient treasures to become better people and creating a better world.

Mindfulness, Wellness

The Art of Procrastination – Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

October 3, 2017 Dinkrit Sethi Leave a comment

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

The only way to get better at anything is by repetition. Sadly the same goes for procrastination. All experienced procrastinators, me not being an exception, have mastered this art to such an extent that nowadays excuses to delay precede plans of execution.

As a result dawn keeps turning to dusk and the procrastinator keeps sitting, waiting, wishing. The art of procrastination is the single biggest reason for unfulfilled goals, unrealized dreams and wasted potential and more than most are diagnosed with it, some still unaware.

The first step in achieving any task is knowing what to do, the second part is planning and then finally executing on your idea. As a generation we have become very good at the first two parts, but when it comes to execution we sit, wish and wait.

Inertia of rest and motion

Inertia is the state of a body to stay in its state of rest or constant motion. For achievers it implies constant activity for procrastinators, constant rest.

While the achievers keep acting constantly the ones who get used to rest seldom move. With time as procrastination becomes a habit, the inertia of rest becomes too big a force to overcome.

All of us find ourselves procrastinating sometime or the other. Some are more chronic procrastinators while others do it moderately.
Sharing Solutions

I, over the last few months, have been delaying writing an article for my website (Earlier I used to write as many as 5 of them in a week). Everyday I used to wake up with the intention and slept with no end product.

As I made my journey to turn intentions into an end product, I thought what better way to end my period of procrastination than by writing an article on the art of procrastination. By sharing my experiences in a nutshell I wish to help others struggling with similar problems of inaction.

So here are ways of combating procrastination:

Give yourself deadlines- We used to end up doing herculean homework because it had a deadline attached to it. It appears impossible to solve so many sums, write so many letters, draw so many diagrams now, but we managed as we were time bound. Similarly I gave myself a stern timeline to finish this article or delete my website.
Break down the task into smaller bits- At times we postpone acting because the amount of work involved involved seems too much. In these cases it is to be understood we should divide the same task into smaller bits. By doing this we trick our minds into action as the task appears relatively smaller. I divided the task of writing the article into topic research, headline selection, content creation, graphic creation, content editing so I had clear and simple picture of executable tasks to fulfill my ultimate aim.
Do what you love first- Once you have broken down the task into smaller portions, you can select the part that you love doing and act on it first. As I have a new found love for CANVA, I started with graphic creation and headline selection. As I executed, my interest in the task grew, and as a result I tricked myself beyond procrastination. (That has to be confirmed if I don’t find any other excuse to delay it by EOD today)
Silence your mind- You cant shut down all devices but to focus on one task you can at least silence your mind from other activities and temptations. Meditation will help you reach this state when even after being disturbed you will get back to the work at hand. Yes social media alerts, phone calls, even toilet or snack breaks are trigger points of a train of thoughts which can totally distract you from the task. But with some meditation you will be mindful of how your brain works and get back as soon as you get distracted.

So finally I made it through this article without getting up even once. Barring a few editing and posting formalities I believe I have for now won the war against the procrastination. Do share your thoughts and experiences with regards to the art of procrastination and how you combat it.

THE URBAN YOGI