Anxiety Clearing Meditation

Anxiety, as an emotion, is a vague warning sign that makes you think and feel as though something is about to happen for which you must take action. The emotion is triggered by your brain, which then causes your sympathetic nervous system to create tension in your body and corresponding thoughts in your mind...

For the past three years I've been experiencing anxiety-/panic attackts from time to time. I can't go into the triggers for privacy reasons, but no matter what; anxiety- and panic-attacks can be dealt with and handled. I think therapy is a great way, if you find a good therapist.

Another helpful thing is regular meditation! I have recently started meditating more often and am trying for incorporate it into every day of the week. A minimum of 15 minutes a day should make a difference for you over time.
Read this interesting article about 7 health benefits of meditation.

You can e.g. meditate in silence or use guided meditations. If you are feeling the rise of an anxiety-/panic attack I really recommend this meditation from YouTube:



An hour ago an anxiety attack was sneaking up on me and I desperately needed immediate help! Thank God I found the meditation above! It's the first time that I have been able to shift my energy so quickly and not let the anxiety rule over me.
I hope it will help you aswell <3

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Raw Snack Balls with Lime Peel & Lemon Juice

I just have to share these overly delicious snack balls that I just made. They took me a few minutes to prepare and the balance of the flavours was just perfect!

2 dl cashew nuts
1 dl raisins
Peel from 1 lime
1-2 tblsp. lemon juice

1. In a food processor blend the cashews until they are crumbly.
2. Add the raisins and blend until it starts sticking together.
3. Add the lime peel and the lemon juice and blend until you have a dough.
4. Roll the dough to small balls and roll them in shredded coconut and serve :-)

Here's how mine turned out:

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Experiencing Detox Symptoms

Detox happens not only in the body, but also in the heart and mind.

Today I've been on a 99% raw food diet for about a week. The 1% is some warm soup I had the other day. Today I'm really experiencing some of the symptoms from detoxification:

- Muscle ache: in my neck. My oh my.

- Skin problems: A few small pimples popping up on my face.

and

- Mood swings! All the other days I felt wonderful and joyous. Today I feel like isolating myself full of sorrow and anger and anxiety...

I'm trying to accept these feelings and calming myself down by telling myself that it's part of the detoxification and by listening to liferegenerator in this awesome video about: detoxification symptoms.

Have you experienced detoxification symptoms too?
Here is a great article about it.

Much love :-)

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Mouthwatering Raw Lemon Pie

My oh my I could eat that pie all day long! It took me less than 15 min. to prepare, sat about 3 hours in the fridge and after dinner I could indulge in the mouthwatering delight. Yummy!
Here is the delish recipe:

Raw Lemon Pie

Cake bottom:
4½ dl dates (without stones)
4½ dl walnuts (or mixed nuts).

Filling:
2½ dl dates (without stones)
1 tbsp vanilla powder
Juice from ½ lemon
If the dates are too dry: add some water

Topping:
Shredded lemon peel or coconut

1. For the cake bottom: Blend the dates and nuts in a foodprocessor until the consistency is moist and begins to stick a bit (this might take a few minutes. Watch out for the foodprocessor not getting too hot. In case it gets a bit too hot, give it a little break). Place some baking paper in a pie dish or springform and spread the dough evenly on it.

2. For the filling: Blend the dates, vanilla powder and lemon juice in the foodprocessor until it gets creamy. Spread this on top of your cake and sprinkle some shredded lemon peel or coconut over it.

3. Leave it in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours.

And this is my 1st but not last piece tonight:

The flavour is just wonderful and very unique. I hope you'll love it as much as I do - and it's a guilt-free cake! Yay.

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No-Poo, No-Deo...?!

No-Poo:

The 18th of January 2013 I decided to not use shampoo and soap when showering anymore. I thought that if I seriously want to purify my life it won't be enough to eat helthy. My environment and the stuff I put on my body needs to be clean aswell!
Some of the chemicals in shampoo:

Since I was 13 I have showered every day and washed my hair every(!) day! So I knew this was going to be tough! And it still is, but it is also getting better i.e. my hair is getting less and less greasy. Btw. my hair is fine and naturally blond. Before I went no-poo it would get incredibly greasy the very day after a hair wash. Now it's not that bad anymore and I use corn starch to soak up some of the grease. Corn starch works so well for this, especially if you have blond hair. I heard that brunettes can use cocoa powder!?
My plan is to eliminate the use of corn starch, but I seriously couldn't take how greasy my hair looked... :-/ And my husband didn't really enjoy it either. Hehe.

Here are two great sites about the no-poo method and what it did for those people:

Coderedhat.com

Fulfilledhomemaking.com

I tried to follow those methods with the baking soda and apple cider vinegar rinse. Because my hair is fine the apple cider vinegar (if I used it on my whole hair) made my hair look even greasier than before the shower... Actually I didn't feel like the baking soda and vinegar worked for me :-( Maybe I should've tried longer and probably I'll try it again some time, but now I'm doing something else:

I'm washing my hair, face and body with Moroccan Rhassoul clay and I LOVE it! It makes my hair shiny and happy :-D I can now wash my hair every third day (of course still shower in between!) which is amazing for me! We've already saved money on water too!

No-Deo:

Deo, creams full of chemicals... I don't use that stuff anymore!
Some of the chemicals in deodorant:

On my skin I always just use coconut oil, jojoba oil or olive oil and they work wonders.

As a deo I use pure coconut oil or this homemade deo that I had to try making:

• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1/4 cup cornstarch OR arrowroot powder
• 4 tablespoons melted unrefined extra virgin coconut oil
• 10 drops essential oil (optional)
• small container with lid (preferably glass)

Click here to read how you make the deo.
The reason why I don't always use it is because I don't have aluminium free baking soda and I'm not too sure about the corn starch either... And it can irritate the skin if you just shaved your armpits! Ouch. So mostly I go for the coconut oil, but this one does work very well too :-) Because I always stay hydrated and eat mostly raw my sweat seriously doesn't smell either!! How I LOVE this way of living :-D

That's all for now. Let me know if you have any experiences regarding no-poo and no-deo! Or just leave a comment anyway if you feel like it :-)

More info about harmful chemicals in beauty products click here.

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Beauty Comes from the Inside Out

I'm back on track again, yay!! Since I started this blog I have been having quite healthy eating habits - but from time to time I did fall off the wagon and had bread, pasta, white rice, sugar (lots!) and other processed foods etc. again.
A few weeks ago I watched the following movies:

Hungry for Change:


After that movie I started eating more raw food.

Forks over Knives:


That movie reasurred me that I'd made the right choice!

and Food inc.:


After that movie I - and my husband! - decided to become vegetarians!

Now I'm doing a combo:

I eat mostly raw and avoid all animal products (incl. dairy), I do occasionally eat fish and I avoid processed foods and foods with gluten in them. And of course I don't smoke anything or drink alcohol.

Every morning I juice some vegetables! I'll share some delish recipes soon :-) And I have fresh fruit and almonds. For lunch I usually have a big salad with some nuts and seeds and olive oil/apple cider vinegar dressing, one or two avocados with lemon juice and some Himalayan salt and some fruits.
Dinner varies more, but I try to make it mostly raw and a few cooked or baked things occasionally.

I LOVE this new way of living! I feel so much better already! I have more energy, I sleep so much better, my mood is lighter, my resting heart rate has become slower! And one of the best things: My skin has started to clear up!
Remember my post: Clearing My Skin - but how?
Aparently it took me some time (27 years?! ;-) to really(!) understand that beauty comes from the inside out! Yoga isn't enough. A lot of water isn't enough. A healthy diet will do the trick! Including regular exercise and treating yourself well in all aspects - - don't forget your inner dialogue! And by having a spiritual practice including meditation.

I still have my work to do in all of those areas, but since my diet has improved so much, I have so much hope for my future :-)

This guy Dan McDonald has inspired and keeps inspiring me so much to continue the healthy life style especially when it comes to juicing. Check his channel (liferegenerator) out on YouTube and enjoy this wonderful, inspiring video:


Until next time dear followers :-)

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Update, Workouts & Ayurveda

So here's an update on how things are going with my healthier life style etc.

This Summer has been a busy one for me - hence the lack of updates on the blog... And my husband fell sick with Graves' Disease so a lot of my time went with taking care of him in the best way possible.
Recently I haven't been eating as healthy as I had planned. I tried to eat sweet stuff only 1 time a week, but I need to get much stricter with that again. I loooove baking cakes and cookies... :-/ And I'm a very slim person, so I can practically eat everything I want to without gaining weight, but you can still be unhealthy and slim! And I want to be healthy and slim!

When I don't have the time to go out running or something, I workout at home. I found this awesome YouTube channel: FitnessBlender YouTube channel / FitnessBlender website. They have 296 workout videos which are so easy to follow at home. I just love it. They vary in length from 5-45 minutes - so there are no excuses not to workout! :-D

I recently learned more about Ayurveda (meaning: the knowledge for long life) and for those of you who know something about this Indian medicine, my dosha constitution is Vata-Pitta. I'm going to learn much more about the doshas and what I can do to live healthier according to my constitution. There will be some sports which are more suitable for me and some foods to eat more of or avoid etc. Getting to know Ayurveda better also fits well into my yoga-interest.

As you might have read here, I have been doing a lot of Bikram Yoga recently. I kept getting heat rashes in my face though, which was extremely annoying! Now where I've had about 1 month break from Bikram Yoga, my skin has become much prettier again. Reading about my dosha constitution I also found out that Bikram Yoga might not be very suitable for me since I have a lot of fire in me already! Suddenly it kind of all made sense to me. I will soon be taking Astanga yoga classes, which aren't in a hot room, and pay even more attention to my breathing.
Let me know if you have any interesting knowledge about Ayurveda, doshas, yoga etc. or if you know any great books on the subject.

That's all for now on my healtier life style!
Let me know in the comments what you are doing to live healthier and happier!

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Clearing My Skin - but how?

One of my goals of this healthier lifestyle that I am leading now is to get clearer skin! I have had small pimples (not red, inflamed ones but small ones) especially on my forehead since I was about 14 years old - and now I'm 27 so it's a loooot of years. I'm so tired of it. Other people don't seem to notice it much, it's only really annoying me... I tried many harsh creams and lotions. The ones with benzoyl peroxide always helped - but as soon as I stopped the treatment, the pimples came back. And besides benzoyl peroxide isn't healthy for your body at all, so I try not to use it anymore - and never did for much longer than a few weeks.

When I started Bikram Yoga about two months ago, my skin really started "blossoming"! Other people experience this too when doing Bikram Yoga. I never found a report though about if their skin changed to the better with time... I hope mine will. Until now: nothing. I guess the heavy sweating in Bikram classes and all the toxins that are being flushed out of the body and all the organs being cleansed through this exercise can aggravate acne and pimples.

Former acne sufferers online talk about how they got clear skin by changing their diet, drinking more water on a daily basis, exercising, positive thinking, reducing stress, getting enough sleep... I also believe a combination of a lot of positive things are needed to clear out bad skin! I doubt there's ONE single remedy that could help!

So what am I doing to get clearer skin?

I'm still doing Bikram Yoga because it "cleans" my body inside and out and feels so good. I eat healthier and drink a lot of water daily. I try not to mix carbs and proteins. Eat lots of veggies and fruit daily (+ a handful or two of almonds to keep blood sugar levels in tact). I mostly avoid white bread, white rice, pasta... I don't put all kinds of stuff on my face and always pat it dry with a clean towel... I use almond + castor oil on my skin as a moisturizer and mostly clean my skin with honey. I try to not use any make up on my skin. Read more about what I do in my post What I do to Live a Healthier Life.

And I try to be PATIENT! Some say they got clear skin after a few weeks of a healthier life style! Others say it took more than 6 months. Excited to see where I will be in 6 months!! :-) Cross your fingers ;-)

Some say jojoba oil is great for the skin. Others say it isn't. Wow no wonder so many people are confused and frustrated with their skin problems and the cures or the lack of them. I don't believe anything you put ON your body can cure your skin. It needs a combination of good things in it and good things on it. That's why I also need a healthy lifestyle when it somes to what I eat. And I need to not put any chemicals on my face and body. I'll try to stick to jojoba oil now and I'll let you know if I experience any changes on my skin :-)

Here are some of the benefits of jojoba oil to the skin:

How does Jojoba oil help the skin?

• Because Jojoba is not an actually an oil, it can prevent your skin from becoming too oily or clogging the pores.
• Jojoba oil may help treat acne by reducing sebum production and by protecting the skin from harmful bacteria.
• It contains many important nutrients, such as vitamin E, B complex vitamins, and the minerals silicon, chromium, copper, and zinc – all important to keep the skin healthy.
• It  contains iodine, which helps with its ability to fight against bacterial and fungal infections.
• Jojoba oil makes a great skin moisturiser and is suitable for all skin types and all ages - apply a few drops of pure jojoba oil to your palms, rub your hands together, and gently massage the oil onto the face.
• It is light and silky when applied to the skin.
• The oil quickly penetrates into the skin and is beneficial for dry, ageing or sensitive skin.

Other uses for Jojoba oil

• Jojoba oil adds life to dull and lifeless hair, bringing back the bounce and shine – put a few drops on the palms of your hands, rub together and apply to the hair.
• Use for body massage, either alone or mixed with other carrier oils such as sweet almond, avocado, camellia , etc.
• Make-up remover – jojoba oil easily removes skin foundation and lipstick – apply a few drops to your skin and tissue off to remove excess.
• Apply to a cotton pad to remove eye-make up, particularly waterproof mascara.
• Lip balm – use jojoba oil as a lip balm for conditioning dry or flaky skin

Source: The EcoLife Blog

Please let me know if you have any experience with going from having skin problems to a clear skin!! Share your secrets! ;-) Please let me know too if you use/have used jojoba oil and how you liked it.

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Beetroot Patties, Juice, Salmon & Lentil Soup

Here's some of the food I have had the past few days. Maybe you're inspired to make it too or something similar:

Beetroot patties with quinoa:

Ready to be juiced (cucumber, squash, cellery, spinach, apples, ginger and beetroots):

Juice for two (with the ingredients above)

"Salmon in a Bag" Tin foil, lemon, salmon, two pieces of butter on top (not pictured here) – Wrap it up tightly and bake for about 35 minutes at 150 degrees Celcius. I made four of those bags for two persons:

The salmon (from picture above). Salad, feta, roasted mushrooms with garlic, salt, some lemon juice. This was only my first portion - and had about two more. Hehe. But no mixing of carbs and proteins! So no rice or potatoes etc. And very little feta for me:

Last night I made this soup (not my picture!): Lentil soup with chickpeas and quinoa

I also really recommend this earthy Arabic lentil soup (not my picture!):

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Your Environment

To live a healthier life it's not enough to eat and drink healthy. There's a lot more to it than that, like I also mentioned in my post What I do to Live a Healthier Life.

You can take many steps to create a healthier environment around you.
Here are some of the things I have done:

• I clean my home and do the dishes with environmentally friendly products
• I use natural deodorants - without perfume, parabens, aluminium (read this article for more information)
• My shampoo is without perfume, parabens etc. I haven't found a completely natural substitute yet. Let me know if you have any ideas on this
• I clean my face with honey or do the Oil Cleansing Method
• Face scrub?: mix of honey and sugar (organic)
• Face moisturizer?: almond oil. Sometimes a mix of almond- and castor oil. I'd love to use jojoba oil, since I heard it's really good for the skin, but it's sold out in Denmark these months
• Hair-gear?: Coconut oil
• I usually avoid using any perfume which is chemically produced 
• I try to use energy saving light bulbs in my home
• I turn off electricity where it's not needed - during day- and night time
• I pull out mobile chargers when they aren't used
• I recycle glass, paper, bottles, cans

That's the things I could think about right now. If I remember more that I do, I'll add it to the list.

Have you done something to create a healthier environment around you?

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Responsible Juicing

I have been reading a lot about juicing these days and I found this interesting article about Responsible Juicing from Juicing Book.

Here's a part of it that I think is really important to read:

Responsible juicing is important because when you juice, you are drinking concentrated nutrition. In a way, you are drinking a herbal concoction when you drink fresh juice. This is because herbal medicine works by providing your body with nutrition. It is the nutrition in the herbs that helps your body heal, recover and stay healthy.

If you juice irresponsibly then you can potentially overwhelm your body with nutrition causing you to stimulate something in your body too much, feel not so good, create negative effects, etc.

- Juicing responsibly means you generally focus more on vegetables that grow above ground rather than below ground. The vegetables that grow below ground are higher in sugar content than those that grow above ground.

- Juicing responsibly means you do not stop eating food.

- Juicing responsibly means you don't expect juicing to cure you but rather realize it's part of the solution and not the solution itself.

- Juicing responsibly means you don't drink too much juice too fast. Instead your start slow and juicing responsibly means you do not become fanatical nor do you juice with a kamikaze attitude.

- Juicing responsibly means you become aware of good food combining and don't mix fruits with vegetables.

- Juicing responsibly means nothing more than common sense.

- Juicing responsibly means you might only drink half a pint (200 mL) of vegetable juice daily. While this might sound like common sense, I have received multiple emails over the years of people who are drinking 2 pints (1 liter) or more a day and to make things worse, the people are primarily drinking only fruit juice which is high in sugar.

When purchasing a juicer, I tell people to be cautious of the information and recipes provided with the juicer because the information usually promotes irresponsible juicing rather than responsible juicing.

Few people are aware, as an example, that juicing while pregnant can actually cause your newborn problems. Why might this be?
Read more here.
The website also has 42 delish juicing recipes.

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For the Love of Juicing

I have fallen in love... With juice!

I have been juicing before - but now it's going to be a part of my every day life! I bought a juicer some years back and made juices from vegetables now and then. From now on my juicer stays on the counter no matter how much space it steals! :-)

Today I had my grapefruitjuice, apple, grapes and almonds for breakfast. For lunch I had a big glass of home made vegetable juice including some fruit on the side and almonds to balance out my sugar levels. I made this juice (from the Danish book High on Juice, 2008):

3 cm gingerroot

2 apples

1,5 cm lemon

3 medium sized carrots

4 cm squash

2 celery stalks (because I didn't have ½ a broccoli stem)

2 table spoons oil

This juice is so good for your immune system and your energy level!
At 3 PM I went to Bikram Yoga for 90 minutes and afterwards I had this juice, which is really good for you after a hard, sweaty workout:

2 apples

4 cm cucumber

4 cm squash

1 celery stalk

2 table spoons oil

And for dinner I had this great, earthy Arabic lentil soup.

I'm still finding it a bit hard though to keep a feeling of being full (enough) without all the bread and sugar I used to eat... I think I need even more proteins in my food, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to balance my healthy eating habits :-)
Please share if you have any thoughts on this.

I really recommend this website: All About Juicing. It's really informative and has lots of great recipes too!

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Lunch, Dinner, Dessert

Today I had an ommelette (together with my husband) with champignon, red pepper, spring onions and squash for lunch

I had this lovely salad for dinner with a yoghurt dressing

These raw "brownies" (I cut them into smaller bites) were my dessert

As you can see I avoid mixing proteins and carbohydrates during the day because it's better for digestion to do this.
Read this interesting article about what to mix and what not:

For Digestive Bliss Eat Foods that Don't Fight

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If You Crave This...

Here's an interesting chart about our cravings and what we really need, when we are craving a particular thing. I don't know who created the list and I don't know the validity of it, but it's worth a try:

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What I do to Live a Healthier Life

I try to...:

Drink a lot of water on a daily basis. Your urine should be clear - then you know that you get enough water. Water is needed to carry out our body functions, remove waste and carry nutrients and oxygen around our body
I also drink lots of herbal teas, which are good for your body too.

Get enough sleep. 7-8 hours feel right for me and I love going to bed around 10pm. Then I feel all fresh in the morning! Research says that if we don't get enough sleep, we often compensate by eating more during the day. There are many other negative side effects to lack of sleep that can be found online.

Exercise enough. For a month I have been doing Bikram Yoga almost daily. Now I do it as often as I can with max 3 days break. I bike daily - to university, job, buying groceries. Research has shown that there are exercising on a daily basis brings tremendous benefits to our health, including increase of life span, lowering the risk of diseases, higher bone density and weight loss.

Eat more fruit and vegetables and cut down on processed foods. Processed foods are not good because (1) most nutritional value is lost (2) the preservatives added are bad for our health.

Go for brown carbs vs. white carbs. Actually I've almost cut out all bread from my diet. At least all white breads and breads with gluten. White carbs are refined grains like white rice, pasta, white bread, crackers, noodles, tortillas, wraps, anything with white flour and breading. The nutrients have been removed in the production process, leaving them rich in calories but low in nutrients. They also cause unhealthy spikes in our sugar levels. Go for brown carbs (unrefined complex carbs) instead, like brown rice, whole grain, oats, oatmeal, legumes, nuts. These come with nutrients and vitamins intact.


Cut out sugary foods. I guess we all know why... They are simply not good for our health. Candy bars, pastries, chocolate, cookies, cakes etc.

Cut out soda and caffeine. Drinks with caffeine are diuretics – meaning they speed up the rate of urine production. Hence, these drinks do not contribute to your 8 glasses of water/day requirement – they actually take away from it! Furthermore, soda is unhealthy, causes weight gain, is an artificial stimulant, among other reasons.

Don’t drink alcohol. Like caffeine, alcohol is a diuretic. Not only that, alcohol is repeatedly proven to have negative effects on our body and health – impacting the proper functioning of our brain, liver, lungs, and other major organs.

Go organic. Organic foods are foods produced without “synthetic inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives”. (Wiki)



On top of these things that are related to food and drinks I also try to live a HAPPIER life. Loving myself more, thinking more positive thoughts, laughing daily, praying to God more... It's not only what we consume that influences how happy and healthy we are, it's also our thoughts about ourselves and the world around us . . .

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