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How to Improve Your Memory

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Memory is the process of taking in information from the world around us, processing it, storing it and later recalling that information, sometimes many years later. Memory is essential to all our lives. Without a memory of the past, we cannot operate in the present or think about the future.

Types of memory

There are three main types of memory:

  1. Working memory: Working memory refers to the processes for temporarily storing and using information. Sensory information is stored for a few seconds in our brain.
  2. Short-term memory: Short-term memory allows us to remember pieces of information. It allows a person to recall information for a short time like 30 seconds.
  3. Long-term memory: Long-term memory refers to the storage of information permanently in our brain.

How does the brain store long-term memory?

Brain stores long-term memories outside the hippocampus and neocortex. Repeated or rehearsed information is stored in the brain in memory shelves, and it is recalled when needed. Memory refers to the psychological processes of acquiring, storing, retaining, and later retrieving information. There are three major processes involved in memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Encoding: At first, the information presented to the brain is coded in the brain just like binary digits. Encoding is important as it makes memory capable of being stored.

Storage: After encoding, memory is stored in certain areas of the brain specified for the storage of information, that is called memory shelves.

Retrieval: Retrieval refers to getting information out of brain storage and recalling it. Retrieval can’t occur if memory is not stored in the brain as long-term memory. [Read more…]

Meditation Techniques to Help You Get Started

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Meditation Techniques to Help You Get Started

Meditation is a powerful practice that can change your brain, improve your life, and enhance the quality of your life.

There is a misconception that you have to “do” meditation and “do it right.” We believe that meditation is about bringing our primary focus into being rather than doing; aim to be with our breath, be with our thoughts, be with our feelings, challenges and even pain.

Mindfulness practice focus on being present and aware of what you are feeling, doing, and sensing as it is happening. A seated meditation practice offers the opportunity for us to sit and be even though there are infinite things to do.

[Read more…]

Blogging Tips for Busy Coaches

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Blogging Tips for Busy Coaches

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Writing a blog remains one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your training or coaching website, define your personal brand, and help prospective clients get to know you as a thought leader in the industry.

Why Don’t More Coaches Blog Regularly?

Simple – blogging can take up a lot of time. Even if you’re a lightning-fast writer, the time it takes to edit your blog, optimize it for SEO, upload photos and videos, and promote it via social media can easily stretch into a 4, 5, even 8-hour project.

Chances are you’re too busy running your business to regularly spend 8 hours writing a single blog post. But there is a way to consistently create great content without spending half your life shackled to your laptop. Here are a handful of our favorite blogging tips to help you write, publish, and share great blog posts in a fraction of the time: [Read more…]

Do Affirmations Have a Place in Your Coaching Practice?

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Do Affirmations Have a Place in Your Coaching Practice?

Written by Mark Teahan Director of Education Programs

I recently had a phone call with a colleague and the topic of affirmations came up. It struck me as a coincidence because I was just working on the use of positive affirmations and motivational interviewing in coach training. If you are familiar with my coaching style and its impact on Spencer institute coaching programs, you know how and why we love and appreciate motivational interviewing. It is a standard for dialogue in the early stages of coaching and it’s important to do it right.

Depending on where you are in your coach training journey and experience, you might know this already. Largely through trial and error, previous generations of coaches fine-tuned and tweaked coaching deliverable services without any training related to psychology, where motivational interviewing has its roots. They were winging it. I know this to be a fact, I am guilty of it. [Read more…]

Shifting The Narrative Around Diets and Nutrition

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Shifting The Narrative Around Diets and Nutrition

Diet culture primarily focuses on telling individuals to “reduce”, “limit”, “restrict”, “avoid” and “eliminate” certain foods or entire food groups. As a result, when exercise professionals partner with their clients to examine their unique dietary habits and patterns, our clients often focus on “eliminating” something from their diet. Sometimes it means the client voices a need to eliminate carbs, cut out sugar, or reduce red meat intake.

Sustainable behavior change does not occur because someone says “stop that” or “don’t do this” messages. Instead, help your clients shift the narrative to be one of “how can I add healthy items and tasty ingredients to my current intake?” As a Holistic Nutrition Coach or Personal Fitness Chef, you can and should be talking to your clients about general healthy nutrition practices.

Here are a few ways to infuse flavor into ordinary meals and some suggestions for how to add more calories and gain weight in a healthy and sustainable way. [Read more…]

Benefits of Eliminating Alcohol From Your Lifestyle

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The Truth About How Alcohol Destroys Your Body

After tobacco, alcohol is the most commonly used drug in the United States. According to advanced statistics from the National Survey of drug use in 2019, 86% of American nationals aged 18 or more reported alcohol use in their life. 

Alcohol gives a person a pleasant feeling, makes him happy and sociable temporarily, but its long-term use has adverse consequences on the human body and its systems. Alcohol is used to elevate mood as a lubricant and a relaxant. Long-term use and heavy drinking destroy different systems of the human body. Let’s have a detailed review of how alcohol destroys your body. 

How much alcohol destroys your body? 

Usually, heavy drinking and chronic alcohol abuse destroy your organ system and functioning. Moderate and limited alcohol use has comparatively fewer adverse effects than heavy drinking. 

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture, adults may choose not to drink or limit their daily intake to 2 or less than that for males and 1 or less than 1 for females. This is considered moderate alcohol use. 

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports 5 or more units per day in males and 4 or more in females in less than 2 hours as binge drinking.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism also defines heavy drinking as follows:

  • For males: 4 drinks/day or more than 14 drinks/week.
  • For females: 3 drinks/day or more than 7drinks/week.

[Read more…]

The Science Behind The Benefits of Meditation

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Does Science Validate Meditation?

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Meditation is an act of self-reflection, deep thoughts, and concentration on thoughts and feelings. It is a powerful tool that shifts your awareness. Meditation is a proven scientific technique to reduce stress, increase happiness, and improve overall health. Moreover, it is used for healing, stress reduction, boosting brain function, and problem-solving. But many people are still confused about this ancient practice.

The top mind-blowing meditation statistics for 2021 estimate that 200–500 million people meditate globally. Meditation improves 60% of anxiety symptoms and reduces the risk of getting hospitalized due to coronary diseases by 87%. Among the American population, 35 million people have tried meditation once. 

Meditation is one of the fastest-growing trends in healthcare. But what exactly is it? What are the different types of meditations? This article details some of the best-known meditative techniques, science-based facts about meditation, how it improves brain function, stress relief, and its effect on mental health.

Does Science validate mediation? 

Some people believe that meditation is still a hippie thing, and there’s no scientific proof of it, but scientific research validates that meditation brings numerous health benefits to a person.

For example, Dr. Mehmet Oz recently cited scientific studies showing the positive effects of meditation on health. He quoted, “I’m not enthusiastic about including 15 minutes alone in a room if it doesn’t bring measurable improvement in brain function.”

Research and evidence show that when we practice different types of meditation, our minds and bodies react in numerous ways. Over 18,000 available scientific studies have validated meditation for its positive impact on overall well-being. 

Studies such as “Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention” and “Does mindfulness meditation improve cognition?” have found that regular meditation benefits focus, creativity, memory, empathy, and stress. Neuroscientists have studied how meditation impacts the brain’s structure, function, and performance. Now researchers have identified specific benefits that extend beyond one’s imagination, including a global rise in compassion, increased generosity of spirit, and–perhaps most significant–helping to transform societal attitudes about age, weight, diseases, and economic status. [Read more…]

What Drives Human Motivation?

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What Drives Human Motivation?

Motivation involves biological, emotional, and cognitive forces that activate behavior. It describes why a person does something as it is the driving force behind human action. It does not only activate behavior but also involves generating the factors that direct and maintain these goal-directed actions.

Psychologists have proposed several theories of motivation including drive theory, instinct theory, and humanistic theory. The reality is that there are several forces that guide and direct our motivation.

Types of Motivation

Motivation can be divided into two types which are the following:

1. Extrinsic motivation

These are the motivation that arises from the outside of the individual body and it involves rewards such as money, social recognition or pride.

2. Intrinsic motivation

These are a kind of motivation that arises from within the human body such as a complicated crossword puzzle only for the personal gratification of solving a problem. [Read more…]

What is the Difference Between the Brain and the Mind? 

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What is the Difference Between the Brain and the Mind? 

We often hear, “he has a brain tumor, he has lost his memory and thinking, Alas! He used to have a sharp memory.” If we ponder over this line. Where did he have a tumor? How did it affect his memory and thinking? Is there any relation between a physical thing (brain) and an intangible (memory and thinking)? 

Suppose we say both are the same, then we must say he had a tumor in memory, but it seems weird. Isn’t it? It is obvious that both are different terms but correlated with each other somehow. 

This blog will help you understand major differences, similarities, and how to enhance your mind and brain. 

The Brain and the Mind

The brain and the mind are the two most common terms used interchangeably. Both the brain and mind control each other and are dependent on each other. We can take an example of a loudspeaker. The loudspeaker is a physical or tangible thing. It produces an intangible sound, we can not see and touch the sound, but we can hear it and sense it. 

Similarly, the brain is a physical or tangible thing, and it can be touched and seen. But the mind is an intangible thing; we can’t touch our mind or see it.  [Read more…]

Scientifically Proven Ways to Improve Your Immunity

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how-to-improve-immunity

Scientifically Proven Ways to Improve Your Immunity

Is there any magic pill or a supernatural supplement to enhance immunity? The simplest answer is, NO; immunity can be improved with natural ways only. Do you wonder how you can enhance your immunity or is enhancing immunity a backbreaker? This article is for you, and here you’ll be guided on improving and strengthening your immunity. 

Immunity is like an army, having so many soldiers guarding a country’s borders. Foreign bodies or antigens are “enemies.” These soldiers fight against these enemies. In critical conditions, the army summons more soldiers. Similarly, in case of infections, the immune system produces antibodies against invading organisms and antigens. 

From fighting against a common cold or flu to Covid-19 pneumonia, your immune system protects you in every possible way. It must be strong enough to fight against foreign bodies but not overactive, causing autoimmune disorders. In which the body starts killing its own cells. Inputs and outputs tightly control immunity. 

How to improve Immunity? 

Plenty of herbal supplements and medicinal drugs claim to improve immunity, but improving immunity naturally is the best way. Improving immunity naturally is a little bit arduous but – for a good reason! 

Immunity has an utmost role in warding off infections. Without immunity, a minor cut may lead to worse consequences. It walls off invaders from entering your body and causing illnesses. The following are scientifically proven ways to enhance immunity. [Read more…]

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