In this plan, one can grow his money @ 30% annually. It is very simple.
One has to just fix an appointment with me by mailing me. My mail address is available in the profile below.
On the deal, the person will get 30% increase on his wealth after a year. Nothing more to do, just sit back and relax.
Example:
Suppose person A is fixing an appointment with me and he deals with me for Rs.50,000.
In this case, he will have to give me cheque of Rs.50,000/- dated: 1/1/2008 and I will give him in return PDC of Rs.65,000/- dated: 1/1/2009 at the same time along with the responsibility agreement.
He just has to deposit the cheque at the given date and and his wealth has increased by 30%.
Minimum amount accepted: Rs. 10,000 ($250)
Maximum Amount accepted: Rs. 4 Crore ($1 mn)
One will get the 30% growth of the invested amount.
28.2.08
Money Secure
This is "Money Secure". Here, one can secure the financial future in terms of both risk and growth.
What one can secure for the future?
One can secure:
1. Medical Expenses
2. Educational Expense
3. Marriage Expense
4. Accidental Injury
5. Retirement Income till one lives
6. Life Insurance for the family after the death of earning person
7. Disability
At the same time one can grow the capital @ 15% annually.
All this is absolutely free. No charges for it.
Your only cost is your time of 10 mins to see my profile and mail me your requirements to fix an appointment.
Min. Money Required: RS. 10,000 ($250)
Max. Money Required: No Limit.
What one can secure for the future?
One can secure:
1. Medical Expenses
2. Educational Expense
3. Marriage Expense
4. Accidental Injury
5. Retirement Income till one lives
6. Life Insurance for the family after the death of earning person
7. Disability
At the same time one can grow the capital @ 15% annually.
All this is absolutely free. No charges for it.
Your only cost is your time of 10 mins to see my profile and mail me your requirements to fix an appointment.
Min. Money Required: RS. 10,000 ($250)
Max. Money Required: No Limit.
25.2.08
The Future of Nanotechnology
In the world of "Star Trek," machines called replicators can produce practically any physical object, from weapons to a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea. Long considered to be exclusively the product of science fiction, today some people believe replicators are a very real possibility. They call it molecular manufacturing, and if it ever does become a reality, it could drastically change the world.
Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged atom. As millions of these atoms are pieced together by nanomachines, a specific product will begin to take shape. The goal of molecular manufacturing is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure.
The first step would be to develop nanoscopic machines, called assemblers, that scientists can program to manipulate atoms and molecules at will. Rice University Professor Richard Smalley points out that it would take a single nanoscopic machine millions of years to assemble a meaningful amount of material. In order for molecular manufacturing to be practical, you would need trillions of assemblers working together simultaneously. Eric Drexler believes that assemblers could first replicate themselves, building other assemblers. Each generation would build another, resulting in exponential growth until there are enough assemblers to produce objects [source: Ray Kurzweil].
Assemblers might have moving parts like the nanogears
in this concept drawing.
Trillions of assemblers and replicators could fill an area smaller than a cubic millimeter, and could still be too small for us to see with the naked eye. Assemblers and replicators could work together to automatically construct products, and could eventually replace all traditional labor methods. This could vastly decrease manufacturing costs, thereby making consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger. Eventually, we could be able to replicate anything, including diamonds, water and food. Famine could be eradicated by machines that fabricate foods to feed the hungry.
Nanotechnology may have its biggest impact on the medical industry. Patients will drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses. There's even speculation that nanorobots could slow or reverse the aging process, and life expectancy could increase significantly. Nanorobots could also be programmed to perform delicate surgeries -- such nanosurgeons could work at a level a thousand times more precise than the sharpest scalpel [source: International Journal of Surgery]. By working on such a small scale, a nanorobot could operate without leaving the scars that conventional surgery does. Additionally, nanorobots could change your physical appearance. They could be programmed to perform cosmetic surgery, rearranging your atoms to change your ears, nose, eye color or any other physical feature you wish to alter.
Nanotechnology has the potential to have a positive effect on the environment. For instance, scientists could program airborne nanorobots to rebuild the thinning ozone layer. Nanorobots could remove contaminants from water sources and clean up oil spills. Manufacturing materials using the bottom-up method of nanotechnology also creates less pollution than conventional manufacturing processes. Our dependence on non-renewable resources would diminish with nanotechnology. Cutting down trees, mining coal or drilling for oil may no longer be necessary -- nanomachines could produce those resources.
Many nanotechnology experts feel that these applications are well outside the realm of possibility, at least for the foreseeable future. They caution that the more exotic applications are only theoretical. Some worry that nanotechnology will end up like virtual reality -- in other words, the hype surrounding nanotechnology will continue to build until the limitations of the field become public knowledge, and then interest (and funding) will quickly dissipate.
Atoms and molecules stick together because they have complementary shapes that lock together, or charges that attract. Just like with magnets, a positively charged atom will stick to a negatively charged atom. As millions of these atoms are pieced together by nanomachines, a specific product will begin to take shape. The goal of molecular manufacturing is to manipulate atoms individually and place them in a pattern to produce a desired structure.
The first step would be to develop nanoscopic machines, called assemblers, that scientists can program to manipulate atoms and molecules at will. Rice University Professor Richard Smalley points out that it would take a single nanoscopic machine millions of years to assemble a meaningful amount of material. In order for molecular manufacturing to be practical, you would need trillions of assemblers working together simultaneously. Eric Drexler believes that assemblers could first replicate themselves, building other assemblers. Each generation would build another, resulting in exponential growth until there are enough assemblers to produce objects [source: Ray Kurzweil].
Assemblers might have moving parts like the nanogears
in this concept drawing.
Trillions of assemblers and replicators could fill an area smaller than a cubic millimeter, and could still be too small for us to see with the naked eye. Assemblers and replicators could work together to automatically construct products, and could eventually replace all traditional labor methods. This could vastly decrease manufacturing costs, thereby making consumer goods plentiful, cheaper and stronger. Eventually, we could be able to replicate anything, including diamonds, water and food. Famine could be eradicated by machines that fabricate foods to feed the hungry.
Nanotechnology may have its biggest impact on the medical industry. Patients will drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses. There's even speculation that nanorobots could slow or reverse the aging process, and life expectancy could increase significantly. Nanorobots could also be programmed to perform delicate surgeries -- such nanosurgeons could work at a level a thousand times more precise than the sharpest scalpel [source: International Journal of Surgery]. By working on such a small scale, a nanorobot could operate without leaving the scars that conventional surgery does. Additionally, nanorobots could change your physical appearance. They could be programmed to perform cosmetic surgery, rearranging your atoms to change your ears, nose, eye color or any other physical feature you wish to alter.
Nanotechnology has the potential to have a positive effect on the environment. For instance, scientists could program airborne nanorobots to rebuild the thinning ozone layer. Nanorobots could remove contaminants from water sources and clean up oil spills. Manufacturing materials using the bottom-up method of nanotechnology also creates less pollution than conventional manufacturing processes. Our dependence on non-renewable resources would diminish with nanotechnology. Cutting down trees, mining coal or drilling for oil may no longer be necessary -- nanomachines could produce those resources.
Many nanotechnology experts feel that these applications are well outside the realm of possibility, at least for the foreseeable future. They caution that the more exotic applications are only theoretical. Some worry that nanotechnology will end up like virtual reality -- in other words, the hype surrounding nanotechnology will continue to build until the limitations of the field become public knowledge, and then interest (and funding) will quickly dissipate.
Products with Nanotechnology
Products with Nanotechnology
You might be surprised to find out how many products on the market are already benefiting from nanotechnology.
Ingredients like zinc oxide can leave a white sheen behind. But sunscreens with zinc oxide nanoparticles rub on clear.
Sunscreen - Many sunscreens contain nanoparticles of zinc oxide or titanium oxide. Older sunscreen formulas use larger particles, which is what gives most sunscreens their whitish color. Smaller particles are less visible, meaning that when you rub the sunscreen into your skin, it doesn't give you a whitish tinge.
Self-cleaning glass - A company called Pilkington offers a product they call Activ Glass, which uses nanoparticles to make the glass photocatalytic and hydrophilic. The photocatalytic effect means that when UV radiation from light hits the glass, nanoparticles become energized and begin to break down and loosen organic molecules on the glass (in other words, dirt). Hydrophilic means that when water makes contact with the glass, it spreads across the glass evenly, which helps wash the glass clean.
Clothing - Scientists are using nanoparticles to enhance your clothing. By coating fabrics with a thin layer of zinc oxide nanoparticles, manufacturers can create clothes that give better protection from UV radiation. Some clothes have nanoparticles in the form of little hairs or whiskers that help repel water and other materials, making the clothing stain-resistant.
Bridgestone engineers developed this Quick Response Liquid Powder Display, a flexible digital screen, using nanotechnology.
Scratch-resistant coatings - Engineers discovered that adding aluminum silicate nanoparticles to scratch-resistant polymer coatings made the coatings more effective, increasing resistance to chipping and scratching. Scratch-resistant coatings are common on everything from cars to eyeglass lenses.
Antimicrobial bandages - Scientist Robert Burrell created a process to manufacture antibacterial bandages using nanoparticles of silver. Silver ions block microbes' cellular respiration [source: Burnsurgery.org]. In other words, silver smothers harmful cells, killing them.
Swimming pool cleaners and disinfectants - EnviroSystems, Inc. developed a mixture (called a nanoemulsion) of nano-sized oil drops mixed with a bactericide. The oil particles adhere to bacteria, making the delivery of the bactericide more efficient and effective.
[source: The Ecologist]
New products incorporating nanotechnology are coming out every day. Wrinkle-resistant fabrics, deep-penetrating cosmetics, liquid crystal displays (LCD) and other conveniences using nanotechnology are on the market. Before long, we'll see dozens of other products that take advantage of nanotechnology ranging from Intel microprocessors to bio-nanobatteries, capacitors only a few nanometers thick. While this is exciting, it's only the tip of the iceberg as far as how nanotechnology may impact us in the future.
You might be surprised to find out how many products on the market are already benefiting from nanotechnology.
Ingredients like zinc oxide can leave a white sheen behind. But sunscreens with zinc oxide nanoparticles rub on clear.
Sunscreen - Many sunscreens contain nanoparticles of zinc oxide or titanium oxide. Older sunscreen formulas use larger particles, which is what gives most sunscreens their whitish color. Smaller particles are less visible, meaning that when you rub the sunscreen into your skin, it doesn't give you a whitish tinge.
Self-cleaning glass - A company called Pilkington offers a product they call Activ Glass, which uses nanoparticles to make the glass photocatalytic and hydrophilic. The photocatalytic effect means that when UV radiation from light hits the glass, nanoparticles become energized and begin to break down and loosen organic molecules on the glass (in other words, dirt). Hydrophilic means that when water makes contact with the glass, it spreads across the glass evenly, which helps wash the glass clean.
Clothing - Scientists are using nanoparticles to enhance your clothing. By coating fabrics with a thin layer of zinc oxide nanoparticles, manufacturers can create clothes that give better protection from UV radiation. Some clothes have nanoparticles in the form of little hairs or whiskers that help repel water and other materials, making the clothing stain-resistant.
Bridgestone engineers developed this Quick Response Liquid Powder Display, a flexible digital screen, using nanotechnology.
Scratch-resistant coatings - Engineers discovered that adding aluminum silicate nanoparticles to scratch-resistant polymer coatings made the coatings more effective, increasing resistance to chipping and scratching. Scratch-resistant coatings are common on everything from cars to eyeglass lenses.
Antimicrobial bandages - Scientist Robert Burrell created a process to manufacture antibacterial bandages using nanoparticles of silver. Silver ions block microbes' cellular respiration [source: Burnsurgery.org]. In other words, silver smothers harmful cells, killing them.
Swimming pool cleaners and disinfectants - EnviroSystems, Inc. developed a mixture (called a nanoemulsion) of nano-sized oil drops mixed with a bactericide. The oil particles adhere to bacteria, making the delivery of the bactericide more efficient and effective.
[source: The Ecologist]
New products incorporating nanotechnology are coming out every day. Wrinkle-resistant fabrics, deep-penetrating cosmetics, liquid crystal displays (LCD) and other conveniences using nanotechnology are on the market. Before long, we'll see dozens of other products that take advantage of nanotechnology ranging from Intel microprocessors to bio-nanobatteries, capacitors only a few nanometers thick. While this is exciting, it's only the tip of the iceberg as far as how nanotechnology may impact us in the future.
The World of Nanotechnology
The World of Nanotechnology
Experts sometimes disagree about what constitutes the nanoscale, but in general, you can think of nanotechnology dealing with anything measuring between 1 and 100 nm. Larger than that is the microscale, and smaller than that is the atomic scale.
An engineer prepares a silicon wafer in an early stage of microchip production.
Nanotechnology is rapidly becoming an interdisciplinary field. Biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers are all involved in the study of substances at the nanoscale. Dr. Störmer hopes that the different disciplines develop a common language and communicate with one another [source: Störmer]. Only then, he says, can we effectively teach nanoscience since you can't understand the world of nanotechnology without a solid background in multiple sciences.
One of the exciting and challenging aspects of the nanoscale is the role that quantum mechanics plays in it. The rules of quantum mechanics are very different from classical physics, which means that the behavior of substances at the nanoscale can sometimes contradict common sense by behaving erratically. You can't walk up to a wall and immediately teleport to the other side of it, but at the nanoscale an electron can -- it's called electron tunneling. Substances that are insulators, meaning they can't carry an electric charge, in bulk form might become semiconductors when reduced to the nanoscale. Melting points can change due to an increase in surface area. Much of nanoscience requires that you forget what you know and start learning all over again.
So what does this all mean? Right now, it means that scientists are experimenting with substances at the nanoscale to learn about their properties and how we might be able to take advantage of them in various applications. Engineers are trying to use nano-size wires to create smaller, more powerful microprocessors. Doctors are searching for ways to use nanoparticles in medical applications. Still, we've got a long way to go before nanotechnology dominates the technology and medical markets.
Experts sometimes disagree about what constitutes the nanoscale, but in general, you can think of nanotechnology dealing with anything measuring between 1 and 100 nm. Larger than that is the microscale, and smaller than that is the atomic scale.
An engineer prepares a silicon wafer in an early stage of microchip production.
Nanotechnology is rapidly becoming an interdisciplinary field. Biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers are all involved in the study of substances at the nanoscale. Dr. Störmer hopes that the different disciplines develop a common language and communicate with one another [source: Störmer]. Only then, he says, can we effectively teach nanoscience since you can't understand the world of nanotechnology without a solid background in multiple sciences.
One of the exciting and challenging aspects of the nanoscale is the role that quantum mechanics plays in it. The rules of quantum mechanics are very different from classical physics, which means that the behavior of substances at the nanoscale can sometimes contradict common sense by behaving erratically. You can't walk up to a wall and immediately teleport to the other side of it, but at the nanoscale an electron can -- it's called electron tunneling. Substances that are insulators, meaning they can't carry an electric charge, in bulk form might become semiconductors when reduced to the nanoscale. Melting points can change due to an increase in surface area. Much of nanoscience requires that you forget what you know and start learning all over again.
So what does this all mean? Right now, it means that scientists are experimenting with substances at the nanoscale to learn about their properties and how we might be able to take advantage of them in various applications. Engineers are trying to use nano-size wires to create smaller, more powerful microprocessors. Doctors are searching for ways to use nanoparticles in medical applications. Still, we've got a long way to go before nanotechnology dominates the technology and medical markets.
23.2.08
50 Surefire Web Design Tips
50 Surefire Web Design Tips
Tips to brand your website
Include your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page. Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.
Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.
Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.
Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.
Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page.
Tips on website navigation
Design your pages to load in less than 10 seconds (50Kb maximum size, including pictures).
Group your navigational options in relevant categories.
Use common names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid "clever" or "trendy" alternatives.
If your site uses Flash, provide also an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy, faster site.
Provide simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don’t need to scroll back up.
Link your logo to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.
Display a "breadcrumb trail"; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section > Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.
If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages. Freefind ( ) offers you a free and powerful search engine for your site.
Set your search box to search your site, not to search the web.
Create a custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main sections of your site. That way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL.
Tips on Layout and Content Presentation
Save the top of your page for your most important content. Remember: good content must flow to the top.
Lay out your page with tables, and set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed number of pixels. That way, your page will always fit the screen, without the need to scroll horizontally.
Optimize your page to be viewed best at 800x600 (the most popular resolution at the time of this writing).
Use high contrast for the body of your page: black text on white background, or white text on black background work best.
Don’t use too many different fonts in one page. Also, avoid using small serif fonts (like Times Roman): they are difficult to read from a computer screen. Verdana is the most web-friendly font, since it is wide, clean and easy to read.
Avoid long blocks of text. Use tools that facilitate scanability, like bullets, subtitles, highlighted keywords, hyperlinks, etc.
Avoid amateurish features like: numeric page counters, wholesale use of exclamation points, all caps, center justified blocks of text, excessive animated gifs, busy backgrounds, etc.
Don’t use pop-up windows. They distract your visitors and are immediately dismissed as ads.
Test your site so that it looks good in different browsers and resolutions.
Tips on Writing for the Web
Write in layman’s terms so that everybody can understand your content, unless you’re running a technical site for technical people.
Reading from a screen is painful: use 50% less words than you would use on print.
If a page is too long, break it into several pages and link to them.
Don’t use font sizes smaller than 10pt. for the body of your page. Specify your fonts in percentage terms instead of pixels, to let users set their own size preferences using their browser’s text view options.
Use a spell checker. Spelling mistakes are embarrassing and hurt credibility.
Tips to Know Your Customers
Ask for feedback: include a feedback form in your Contact Us page.
Publish an ezine and include a subscription form in your homepage. Give your customers valuable information and encourage them to contact you.
Include polls and other tools to gather market intelligence.
Tips on Linking
Make your links descriptive. They should indicate what the user will be linking to, as opposed to just saying "click here".
Don’t underline anything that is not a link.
Underline your links and use a consistent color for them across your site (preferably blue).
Use a different color for visited links, so that your visitors know where they’ve been (preferably purple or a more subdued tone of the unvisited links color).
When linking to a non-HTML file, such as Excel, Word or Acrobat, make it evident, by including a small icon next to the link.
Don’t link to "under construction" pages.
Make sure that your links work and that you don’t have broken links. There are free online tools that can help you with this.
If you use graphic links, don’t forget to use the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute should describe what are you linking to.
Tips on how to use graphics
Optimize your graphics. Use only .gif and .jpg formats. Make your image files as small as possible while maintaining acceptable quality. Use a free online graphics optimization tool.
Use thumbnails (miniature versions of a picture) and make them clickable to the actual size picture.
Avoid graphics that look like ads. People ignore them.
Use the ALT attribute on pictures, even the image is not a link. It helps users with disabilities and people who have turned off graphics.
Tips to optimize your site for the search engines:
Create short, descriptive page titles, to entice search engine users to click on your links.
Create a site map containing all your pages, and link to it directly from your homepage. Search engine robots will follow the link to your site map and will most likely add all your pages to the index.
Decide what the two or three main keywords are for each page (the words you believe search engine users will type to find your page) and repeat them often in your page title, description meta tag and page body.
Create a Links page and call it Resources. In it, place links to those sites that have agreed to place a reciprocal link to your page. The more inbound links you have from quality sites with a topic related to your site, the better your site will rank with the search engines.
Use more text than graphics, and minimize the use of Flash and JavaScript. Search engines heavily favor text and will crawl and index your site faster.
Tips to brand your website
Include your logo in all pages. Position it at the top left or each page. Complement your logo with a tagline or catchy sentence that summarizes your business purpose. For example "Always low prices" is the tagline for Wal-Mart.
Create a favicon. A favicon is that small graphic that appears next to the URL in the address bar.
Have a consistent look and feel in all your pages. Use a color scheme and layout that are clearly recognized across your site.
Have an About Us section, that includes all relevant information about you and your business.
Include a copyright statement at the bottom of each page.
Tips on website navigation
Design your pages to load in less than 10 seconds (50Kb maximum size, including pictures).
Group your navigational options in relevant categories.
Use common names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid "clever" or "trendy" alternatives.
If your site uses Flash, provide also an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy, faster site.
Provide simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don’t need to scroll back up.
Link your logo to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.
Display a "breadcrumb trail"; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section > Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.
If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages. Freefind ( ) offers you a free and powerful search engine for your site.
Set your search box to search your site, not to search the web.
Create a custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main sections of your site. That way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL.
Tips on Layout and Content Presentation
Save the top of your page for your most important content. Remember: good content must flow to the top.
Lay out your page with tables, and set the width in percentage terms instead of a fixed number of pixels. That way, your page will always fit the screen, without the need to scroll horizontally.
Optimize your page to be viewed best at 800x600 (the most popular resolution at the time of this writing).
Use high contrast for the body of your page: black text on white background, or white text on black background work best.
Don’t use too many different fonts in one page. Also, avoid using small serif fonts (like Times Roman): they are difficult to read from a computer screen. Verdana is the most web-friendly font, since it is wide, clean and easy to read.
Avoid long blocks of text. Use tools that facilitate scanability, like bullets, subtitles, highlighted keywords, hyperlinks, etc.
Avoid amateurish features like: numeric page counters, wholesale use of exclamation points, all caps, center justified blocks of text, excessive animated gifs, busy backgrounds, etc.
Don’t use pop-up windows. They distract your visitors and are immediately dismissed as ads.
Test your site so that it looks good in different browsers and resolutions.
Tips on Writing for the Web
Write in layman’s terms so that everybody can understand your content, unless you’re running a technical site for technical people.
Reading from a screen is painful: use 50% less words than you would use on print.
If a page is too long, break it into several pages and link to them.
Don’t use font sizes smaller than 10pt. for the body of your page. Specify your fonts in percentage terms instead of pixels, to let users set their own size preferences using their browser’s text view options.
Use a spell checker. Spelling mistakes are embarrassing and hurt credibility.
Tips to Know Your Customers
Ask for feedback: include a feedback form in your Contact Us page.
Publish an ezine and include a subscription form in your homepage. Give your customers valuable information and encourage them to contact you.
Include polls and other tools to gather market intelligence.
Tips on Linking
Make your links descriptive. They should indicate what the user will be linking to, as opposed to just saying "click here".
Don’t underline anything that is not a link.
Underline your links and use a consistent color for them across your site (preferably blue).
Use a different color for visited links, so that your visitors know where they’ve been (preferably purple or a more subdued tone of the unvisited links color).
When linking to a non-HTML file, such as Excel, Word or Acrobat, make it evident, by including a small icon next to the link.
Don’t link to "under construction" pages.
Make sure that your links work and that you don’t have broken links. There are free online tools that can help you with this.
If you use graphic links, don’t forget to use the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute should describe what are you linking to.
Tips on how to use graphics
Optimize your graphics. Use only .gif and .jpg formats. Make your image files as small as possible while maintaining acceptable quality. Use a free online graphics optimization tool.
Use thumbnails (miniature versions of a picture) and make them clickable to the actual size picture.
Avoid graphics that look like ads. People ignore them.
Use the ALT attribute on pictures, even the image is not a link. It helps users with disabilities and people who have turned off graphics.
Tips to optimize your site for the search engines:
Create short, descriptive page titles, to entice search engine users to click on your links.
Create a site map containing all your pages, and link to it directly from your homepage. Search engine robots will follow the link to your site map and will most likely add all your pages to the index.
Decide what the two or three main keywords are for each page (the words you believe search engine users will type to find your page) and repeat them often in your page title, description meta tag and page body.
Create a Links page and call it Resources. In it, place links to those sites that have agreed to place a reciprocal link to your page. The more inbound links you have from quality sites with a topic related to your site, the better your site will rank with the search engines.
Use more text than graphics, and minimize the use of Flash and JavaScript. Search engines heavily favor text and will crawl and index your site faster.
20.2.08
5 Most Common Web Design Mistakes
As you're designing your new web site, you'll be tempted with web design ideas that could turn into fatal mistakes. This is especially true if your web site represents your business. Below are five of the most common mistakes to avoid at all costs...
1. Too Many Graphics
Having too many graphics (particularly large graphics), can cause your site to load entirely too slow. Visitors will get impatient and often times click out of your site -- never to return.
SOLUTION: When possible save your graphics as GIF files (.gif) rather than JPEG (.jpg). Also, reduce your graphic in actual size as much as you can without distorting the graphic or picture.
2. Counters
A visitor counter or hits counter should not be seen on your site unless you have trememdous traffic. The reason for this is visitors really don't want to know which visitor they are, especially if they're visitor number four. There's no benefit to your visitor, nor is there any benefit to you. The only way showing a counter is advantageous is if you've had millions of visitors and wish to display the popularity of your site or would like to attract advertisers with the large numbers. Otherwise, you can use this space for a benefit-packed headline that leads your visitor to another part of your site.
SOLUTION: Most web hosts offer web statistics that reveal daily visitors, hits, referrers, etc. This feature will let you know how many people are visiting your site without the whole world seeing the information. If you're just starting out, make sure your web host offers this free service.
3. Banners
Limit your banners to the bare necessities. Why? Because banners are graphics that can slow loading time and are a turn-off for many surfers on the internet. For most, "banner" is just another word for "ad" and they avoid clicking on them.
SOLUTION: If you do have a banner or two, place the banner at the very top or bottom of your page. Or you could place a small banner in your sidebar. Most people will look at the first picture they see and then start reading below the picture, so any writing or links that are above the banner may remain unnoticed. Also, the banners on your site should be related to your product or service. Remember, everything on your site should work together to benefit your target customer.
4. Scattered Web Site
When designing your site, make sure it has a pattern that leads your visitor. Get several people (friends or relatives) to visit your site and watch them as they navigate. Notice the places where they stop (as if they're finished) and also links that they click on. Organizing your site to lead visitors is very important whether you're leading them to buy something or just to click and go to another place in your site. Customers are silently begging to be led.
SOLUTION: Take a look at the flow of your site. Design it in a fashion that always continues like this...
Make sure that graphics don't get in the way of your lead. If the visitor stops in the middle of the home page to click on a graphic or banner before getting to your sales page, they may never return. You've got one chance to get the visitor's attention and keep it. Make the most of it.
5. Generalization
The most effective way of selling on the internet is to personalize your web site to reach your target audience. Many web sites are general and try to reach everybody. The reality is that you can't be everything to everybody. The business owners who are successful on the web normally have very specific products or services that target a niche market.
SOLUTION: Make your site as personal as possible. As you're writing, pretend that you are face to face with the customer. Present your web site in such a way that the visitor feels like he just walked into a store in his hometown. Also, stay focused on your target customer (one who would be interested in "your" product.)
These five mistakes should be avoided at all costs if you want to build an effective and successful web business. Design your site to sell!
1. Too Many Graphics
Having too many graphics (particularly large graphics), can cause your site to load entirely too slow. Visitors will get impatient and often times click out of your site -- never to return.
SOLUTION: When possible save your graphics as GIF files (.gif) rather than JPEG (.jpg). Also, reduce your graphic in actual size as much as you can without distorting the graphic or picture.
2. Counters
A visitor counter or hits counter should not be seen on your site unless you have trememdous traffic. The reason for this is visitors really don't want to know which visitor they are, especially if they're visitor number four. There's no benefit to your visitor, nor is there any benefit to you. The only way showing a counter is advantageous is if you've had millions of visitors and wish to display the popularity of your site or would like to attract advertisers with the large numbers. Otherwise, you can use this space for a benefit-packed headline that leads your visitor to another part of your site.
SOLUTION: Most web hosts offer web statistics that reveal daily visitors, hits, referrers, etc. This feature will let you know how many people are visiting your site without the whole world seeing the information. If you're just starting out, make sure your web host offers this free service.
3. Banners
Limit your banners to the bare necessities. Why? Because banners are graphics that can slow loading time and are a turn-off for many surfers on the internet. For most, "banner" is just another word for "ad" and they avoid clicking on them.
SOLUTION: If you do have a banner or two, place the banner at the very top or bottom of your page. Or you could place a small banner in your sidebar. Most people will look at the first picture they see and then start reading below the picture, so any writing or links that are above the banner may remain unnoticed. Also, the banners on your site should be related to your product or service. Remember, everything on your site should work together to benefit your target customer.
4. Scattered Web Site
When designing your site, make sure it has a pattern that leads your visitor. Get several people (friends or relatives) to visit your site and watch them as they navigate. Notice the places where they stop (as if they're finished) and also links that they click on. Organizing your site to lead visitors is very important whether you're leading them to buy something or just to click and go to another place in your site. Customers are silently begging to be led.
SOLUTION: Take a look at the flow of your site. Design it in a fashion that always continues like this...
Make sure that graphics don't get in the way of your lead. If the visitor stops in the middle of the home page to click on a graphic or banner before getting to your sales page, they may never return. You've got one chance to get the visitor's attention and keep it. Make the most of it.
5. Generalization
The most effective way of selling on the internet is to personalize your web site to reach your target audience. Many web sites are general and try to reach everybody. The reality is that you can't be everything to everybody. The business owners who are successful on the web normally have very specific products or services that target a niche market.
SOLUTION: Make your site as personal as possible. As you're writing, pretend that you are face to face with the customer. Present your web site in such a way that the visitor feels like he just walked into a store in his hometown. Also, stay focused on your target customer (one who would be interested in "your" product.)
These five mistakes should be avoided at all costs if you want to build an effective and successful web business. Design your site to sell!
8 Tips for Designing a Great Website
8 Tips for Designing a Great Website
Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons … will they match my shoes, my handbag or my tie? Are you stuck in a maze of buttons, headings, bullets, sub-headings and colour schemes?
STOP!!!!
Take a deep breath and read some practical tips for professional looking websites.
1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it.
If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page.
The most common colour schemes include:
- Red, yellow and white
- Blue and white
- Red, grey and white
- Blue, orange and white
- Yellow, grey and white.
If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists.
2. Use templates.
Can’t find a website you really like? Another option is to choose a template. There are many templates or pre-set designs. These come as part of your web design software (such as FrontPage) or you can check out some websites that specialise in designing templates.
Visit:
www.web4business.com.au emplates1.htm
www.newtemps.com
www.website-templates-resale-rights.com
www.123webtemplatesandmore.com
3. Provide an easy to use navigation system.
This is one of the most important issues to consider when designing a website. You need to ensure your visitors can find what they are looking for easily. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it’s best to stick with it.
It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.
4. Don’t go overboard on special effects
Whilst it is ok to have one or two special effects to jazz up your website, spinning graphics and logos often distract your visitor from the content, not to mention they can take too long to download. Your visitors may click away even before your spinning logo finishes loading.
5. Backgrounds
Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, ie. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.
6. External Links
It is a good idea to open links to other websites in a new window. That way your visitors can easily return to your site when they are finished browsing the external link
7. Site Map & Search Feature
If you website is more than 15 pages, it is useful to have a site map or a “Search” feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
8. Content is King
While it is important that your website looks clean and professional, it is far more important that you concentrate your efforts on the content and promotion.
If you want a professional website, things to stay away from include:
1. Flash intros, revolving globes, bevelled line separators, animated mail boxes
2. Loads of pop up or pop under boxes
3. Autoplay music. Allow your customer to play music only if they choose.
4. Hit counters of the free variety, which say “you are 27th visitor”
5. Date and time stamps, unless your website is updated daily or weekly
6. Busy backgrounds.
Don’t sweat the small stuff and get yourself focussed on what to include on the website and the best way to promote it.
Square buttons, round buttons, flashy buttons … will they match my shoes, my handbag or my tie? Are you stuck in a maze of buttons, headings, bullets, sub-headings and colour schemes?
STOP!!!!
Take a deep breath and read some practical tips for professional looking websites.
1. Select a colour scheme and stick to it.
If your company has a logo or preferred colours on its stationery that’s a good start. For those of you starting from scratch, choose two or three complementary colours and stick with them – don’t change colours on every page.
The most common colour schemes include:
- Red, yellow and white
- Blue and white
- Red, grey and white
- Blue, orange and white
- Yellow, grey and white.
If you’re not sure what colour scheme to choose, surf the internet and find a website that you like. You can then model your colour scheme on what already exists.
2. Use templates.
Can’t find a website you really like? Another option is to choose a template. There are many templates or pre-set designs. These come as part of your web design software (such as FrontPage) or you can check out some websites that specialise in designing templates.
Visit:
www.web4business.com.au emplates1.htm
www.newtemps.com
www.website-templates-resale-rights.com
www.123webtemplatesandmore.com
3. Provide an easy to use navigation system.
This is one of the most important issues to consider when designing a website. You need to ensure your visitors can find what they are looking for easily. Most websites either display their navigation bar on the left or at the top. And since most people are used to this type of navigation, it’s best to stick with it.
It also helps to include your navigation bar at the bottom of each page to save your visitors from having to scroll back to the top.
4. Don’t go overboard on special effects
Whilst it is ok to have one or two special effects to jazz up your website, spinning graphics and logos often distract your visitor from the content, not to mention they can take too long to download. Your visitors may click away even before your spinning logo finishes loading.
5. Backgrounds
Ensure your visitors can read the text on the background, ie. no black writing on dark blue background or yellow on white. Also be careful that your links are visible before and after being visited. The default for links in most programs is blue (before being visited) and burgundy (after being visited), so if you have a dark background, ensure your links are light.
6. External Links
It is a good idea to open links to other websites in a new window. That way your visitors can easily return to your site when they are finished browsing the external link
7. Site Map & Search Feature
If you website is more than 15 pages, it is useful to have a site map or a “Search” feature to ensure your visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.
8. Content is King
While it is important that your website looks clean and professional, it is far more important that you concentrate your efforts on the content and promotion.
If you want a professional website, things to stay away from include:
1. Flash intros, revolving globes, bevelled line separators, animated mail boxes
2. Loads of pop up or pop under boxes
3. Autoplay music. Allow your customer to play music only if they choose.
4. Hit counters of the free variety, which say “you are 27th visitor”
5. Date and time stamps, unless your website is updated daily or weekly
6. Busy backgrounds.
Don’t sweat the small stuff and get yourself focussed on what to include on the website and the best way to promote it.
Three Basic Web Design Guidelines
Three Basic Web Design Guidelines
The appearance of your web site is one of the most important aspects of your success. Your product or service will literally be judged by the appearance of your web site.
Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There are literally thousands of home-based Internet businesses struggling to make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing their site in defeat.
I have received many messages over the years from struggling Internet marketers wanting to know if I could look at their site and tell them what they're doing wrong. Most of the time, I can tell them the problem as soon as their site has loaded -- poor web design. They failed to take the time to learn how to properly design their sites -- how to design a professional looking site specifically designed to sell their products and services.
If you really want to succeed, you must take the required time to educate yourself.
Creating a Template
When you begin designing your web site, your goal should be to create a template that you can use to create each page of your web site. This will give your entire site the same look
and feel.
A template is simply a web page "shell" that contains your entire page design, logo, images, navigational links and a specific area for your content. However, your template won't contain any content, as each time you create a page with your template, you'll save it with a different page name.
Formatting Your Pages
I highly recommend placing your entire page content within HTML tables. Tables will enable you to have complete control over your content and how it will be displayed.
For example, you can create three tables, stacked on top of each other, for each section of content. The cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes should be set to "0" to enable your tables to seamlessly flow together. In addition, the widths for each table should be the same. The top table would contain your page header content, the middle table would contain your content and the bottom table would contain your footer content.
As placing your entire page content within a single table will significantly increase your site's load time, stacking your tables will enable you to benefit from the powerful formatting capabilities of tables, while at the same time, keep your site's load time down.
If you've ever designed a web page without using tables, you know how limited you are as to how your content will be displayed. Your text will be displayed right up against the left border and will span across the entire width of your page -- certainly not a good way to design a professional looking web site.
Tables will enable you to display your content in sections like a newspaper, set up a specific number of rows and columns, and even place additional tables within your main content table to create special content sections with colored backgrounds.
Your Storefront
Your main page is the storefront for your business and should specifically let your visitors know exactly what you're offering. If your potential customer can't find your product or service, they definitely won't waste a lot of time looking for it. They'll go on to the next site and probably never return. They're visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your site offers. Provide them with what they're looking for and you'll reap
the benefits.
Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your company logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will not only assist your visitors in remembering your site, but it will also give your pages the same look and feel.
Instead of trying to cram all your content into your main page, consider creating sections. These sections can contain highlights of your information with a link to further information. You can set your sections up in tables with colored heading sections for information such as articles, products or whatever you'd like.
It's much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements and link to the detailed informational pages.
A good rule of thumb is "less is more." In other words, keep your main page as small as possible and include your most important elements.
Navigation
When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main. Make sure you include good navigational links on every page. Place your navigational links together at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance throughout.
Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any other page on your site down to three or four.
Fonts
One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success. It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.
When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts. In other words, don't use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana. The standard text size is 2. Arial and Verdana are the standard simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen.
Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger font size.
Background and Text Colors
Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.
Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have an affect on your visitors as well.
Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors, such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.
A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you're trying to achieve. However, it's always best for your text areas to have a white background with black text.
Above all else, you must take the time to educate yourself before you begin. I can't stress this point enough. If you don't, you're honestly just wasting your time. Although it may take a little longer, it will be well worth it in the long run.
The appearance of your web site is one of the most important aspects of your success. Your product or service will literally be judged by the appearance of your web site.
Poor web design is one of the leading causes of small business failure. There are literally thousands of home-based Internet businesses struggling to make a living online. Most, make very little or no money and end up closing their site in defeat.
I have received many messages over the years from struggling Internet marketers wanting to know if I could look at their site and tell them what they're doing wrong. Most of the time, I can tell them the problem as soon as their site has loaded -- poor web design. They failed to take the time to learn how to properly design their sites -- how to design a professional looking site specifically designed to sell their products and services.
If you really want to succeed, you must take the required time to educate yourself.
Creating a Template
When you begin designing your web site, your goal should be to create a template that you can use to create each page of your web site. This will give your entire site the same look
and feel.
A template is simply a web page "shell" that contains your entire page design, logo, images, navigational links and a specific area for your content. However, your template won't contain any content, as each time you create a page with your template, you'll save it with a different page name.
Formatting Your Pages
I highly recommend placing your entire page content within HTML tables. Tables will enable you to have complete control over your content and how it will be displayed.
For example, you can create three tables, stacked on top of each other, for each section of content. The cellpadding, cellspacing and border attributes should be set to "0" to enable your tables to seamlessly flow together. In addition, the widths for each table should be the same. The top table would contain your page header content, the middle table would contain your content and the bottom table would contain your footer content.
As placing your entire page content within a single table will significantly increase your site's load time, stacking your tables will enable you to benefit from the powerful formatting capabilities of tables, while at the same time, keep your site's load time down.
If you've ever designed a web page without using tables, you know how limited you are as to how your content will be displayed. Your text will be displayed right up against the left border and will span across the entire width of your page -- certainly not a good way to design a professional looking web site.
Tables will enable you to display your content in sections like a newspaper, set up a specific number of rows and columns, and even place additional tables within your main content table to create special content sections with colored backgrounds.
Your Storefront
Your main page is the storefront for your business and should specifically let your visitors know exactly what you're offering. If your potential customer can't find your product or service, they definitely won't waste a lot of time looking for it. They'll go on to the next site and probably never return. They're visiting your site for a specific purpose. They want something your site offers. Provide them with what they're looking for and you'll reap
the benefits.
Branding will play a major role in your success. Make sure you place your company logo and slogan in the top left corner of each page. This will not only assist your visitors in remembering your site, but it will also give your pages the same look and feel.
Instead of trying to cram all your content into your main page, consider creating sections. These sections can contain highlights of your information with a link to further information. You can set your sections up in tables with colored heading sections for information such as articles, products or whatever you'd like.
It's much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements and link to the detailed informational pages.
A good rule of thumb is "less is more." In other words, keep your main page as small as possible and include your most important elements.
Navigation
When you begin designing your pages, keep in mind, your visitors may enter your site from pages other than your main. Make sure you include good navigational links on every page. Place your navigational links together at the top, bottom, left or right side of the page. Use tables to neatly align your links and maintain a nicely organized and uniform appearance throughout.
Try to keep the number of clicks required to get from your main page to any other page on your site down to three or four.
Fonts
One of the most important parts of a web page is text. The way in which you display the text on your web page will have a great impact on your success. It can make your page look very professional or very unprofessional.
When placing text within your web page, always be consistent with your fonts. In other words, don't use different fonts throughout your pages. The standard fonts used on the Internet are Arial and Verdana. The standard text size is 2. Arial and Verdana are the standard simply because they are the easiest to read on a computer screen.
Headlines, which require a larger font size, are a bit different. A popular headline font used is Georgia, as it displays nicely in the slightly larger font size.
Background and Text Colors
Use caution when selecting your background and text colors. Busy backgrounds make text difficult to read and draw the attention away from the text. In addition, always be consistent with your background theme on each page of your site.
Select your colors very carefully, as colors affect your mood and will have an affect on your visitors as well.
Bright colors, such as yellow and orange, cause you to become more cheerful or happy. Colors such as blue and purple have a calming effect. Dark colors, such as brown and black, have a depressing effect.
A good rule of thumb is to use colors based on the type of effect you're trying to achieve. However, it's always best for your text areas to have a white background with black text.
Above all else, you must take the time to educate yourself before you begin. I can't stress this point enough. If you don't, you're honestly just wasting your time. Although it may take a little longer, it will be well worth it in the long run.
Cultivating Burning Desire
When asked during an interview how he managed to reach the top as a professional bodybuilder and Hollywood actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger replied with a single word, "Drive!" All great success ultimately begins with an idea, but what makes ideas become reality is the fuel of human desire. An idea by itself can give you a temporary feeling of inspiration, but burning desire is what gets you through all the perspiration necessary to overcome the inevitable obstacles along the way.
Take a moment to think about the goals you've set for yourself. (You have set goals, haven't you? If not, go read the article on setting clear goals.) How committed are you to achieving these goals? Under what conditions would you give up? What if you could significantly increase your desire to achieve these goals? What if you wanted them so badly that you knew with absolute certainty that you would absolutely, positively never ever give up? When you are truly 100% committed to reaching your goals, you move from hoping to knowing. If you want something badly enough, then quitting is simply not an option. You either find a way or make one. You pay the price, whatever it takes.
Those with an intense, burning desire to achieve their goals are often referred to as being "driven." But is this special quality reserved only for a privileged few? Certainly not. With the right approach, anyone can cultivate a deep, burning desire within themselves and move to a state of total commitment, knowing with certainty that success is as inevitable as the sunrise.
So how do you cultivate burning desire? You begin with an outside-in approach, altering your environment in ways that will strengthen your resolve while eliminating doubt. If you take the time to do it right, you'll establish a positive feedback cycle, such that your desire will continue to increase on a daily basis.
Here are eight steps you can take to cultivate burning desire to achieve any goal you set for yourself:
1. Burn the ships.
I'm not going to pull any punches with this one. If your goals are really important enough to you, then you can start by burning the proverbial ships, such that you have no choice but to press on. For instance, if you want to launch your own business, you can begin by making the commitment to quitting your job. Write a letter of resignation, put it in a stamped envelope addressed to your boss, and give it to a trusted friend with firm instructions to mail the letter if you haven't quit your job by a certain date.
One Las Vegas casino manager made the decision to quit smoking. He didn't feel he had the personal willpower to do it alone, so he took out a billboard on the Las Vegas Strip with his photo on it along with the words, "If you catch me smoking, I'll pay you $100,000!" Was he able to quit smoking? You bet! (Ok, bad pun.) This is called willpower leveraging. You use a small bit of willpower to establish a consequence that will virtually compel you to keep your commitment. As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket!"
In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?
If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.
2. Fill your environment with desire boosters.
Let's say one of your important goals is to lose weight. Get some poster board, and make your own posters that say, "I weigh X pounds," where X is your goal weight, and put them up around your house. Change your screensaver to a text message that says the same thing (or to some equally motivational imagery). Get some magazines, cut out pictures of people who have bodies similar to what you'd like to have, and put them up around your house. Cut out pictures of healthy food that looks good to you, and post those around your kitchen. If you work in an office, then alter your office in the same manner. Don't worry about what your coworkers will think, and just do it! They may poke a little fun at you at first, but they'll also begin to see how committed you are.
3. Surround yourself with positive people.
Make friends with people who will encourage you on the path to your goals, and find ways to spend more time with them. Share your goals only with people who will support you, not those who will respond with cynicism or indifference. If you want to lose weight, for instance, get yourself into a gym, and start befriending those who are already in great shape. You'll find that their attitudes become infectious, and you'll start believing that you can do it too. Meeting people who've lost one hundred pounds or more can be extremely motivating. If you want to start a new business, join the local chamber of commerce or a trade association. Do whatever it takes to make new friends who will help you keep your commitment.
Although this can be difficult for some people, you also need to fire the negative people from your life. I once read that you can see your future just by looking at the six people with whom you spend the most time. If you don't like what you see, then change those people. There's no honor in remaining loyal to people who expect you to fail. One of the reasons people fail to start their own businesses, for instance, is that they spend most of their time associating with other employees. The way out of this trap is to start spending a lot more time associating with business owners, such as by joining a trade association. Mindsets are contagious. So spend your time with people whose mindsets are worth catching.
4. Feed your mind with empowering information on a daily basis.
Inspirational books and audio programs are one of the best fuel sources for cultivating desire. If you want to quit smoking, read a dozen books written by ex-smokers on how to quit the habit. If you want to start a business, then start devouring business books. Go to seminars on occasion. I advise that you feed your mind with some form of motivational material (books, articles, audio programs) for at least fifteen minutes a day. This will continually recharge your batteries and keep your desire impenetrably strong.
When you absorb material created by an extremely passionate person, you'll often find yourself feeling more passionate as well. A great book I read was Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. As I read the book, I was absolutely amazed at how someone could be so fanatically enthusiastic about coffee. Other enthusiasm-building authors/speakers I highly recommend are Harvey Mackay and Zig Ziglar.
5. Replace sources of negative energy with positive energy.
Take an inventory of all the sensory inputs into your life that affect your attitude -- what you read, what you watch on TV, the cleanliness of your home, etc. Note which inputs influence you negatively, and strive to replace them with positive inputs. I'll give you some good places to start. First, avoid watching TV news -- it's overwhelmingly negative. Do you really need to hear about the woman who was mauled to death by her neighbor's dog? Fill that time with positive inputs instead, like motivational and educational audio programs. If you like to watch movies, then watch movies that are full of positive energy, such as light-hearted comedies and stories of triumph over adversity. Avoid dark, tragic movies that leave you feeling empty afterwards. Dump the horror books, and replace them with humor books. Spend more time laughing and less time worrying. If you have a messy desk, clean it up! If you have young kids or grandkids, spend some time playing with them. Some of this may sound a bit corny, but it will really help increase your overall motivation. If you have a hard time motivating yourself, chances are that your life is overflowing with too many sources of negativity. It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.
6. Dress for success.
Whenever you pass by a mirror, which is probably several times a day, you get an instant dose of image reinforcement. So what image are you currently reinforcing? Would you dress any differently if your goals were already achieved? Would you sport a different hairstyle? Would you shower a bit more often?
Although for years I enjoyed the ripped jeans and T-shirt look, I noted that when I visualized myself in the future, having achieved certain goals, I was dressed a lot more nicely. With some experimentation I found a style of clothing that looks professional and is also comfortable. So I gradually donated my old clothes to charity and replaced my wardrobe with clothes that fit the new identity I was growing into. (Consequently, there's a Salvation Army store with quite a stock of gaming industry T-shirts.) I learned this idea from an ex-Navy Seal, who stressed to me the importance of taking pride in your appearance, and I can say with certainty that it makes a noticeable difference. So make sure the clothes you wear each day are consistent with your new self-image.
7. Use mental programming.
This is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique that will help you associate strong positive emotions to whatever goal you're working to achieve. Find some music that really energizes and inspires you. Put on your headphones and listen to it for fifteen to twenty minutes, and as you do this, form a clear mental picture of yourself having already achieved the results you want. Make your imagery big, bright, vivid, colorful, three-dimensional, panoramic, and animated. Picture the scene as if looking through your own eyes (this is very important). This will help you form a neuro-association between the positive emotions elicited by the music and the goal you want to achieve, thus strengthening your desire. This is a great way to begin each day, and you can even do it while lying in bed when you first awaken if you set things up the night before. You should cycle the music periodically, since the emotional charge you get will tend to diminish if you listen to the same songs each time.
Keep in mind that this form of mental programming is already being used on you by advertisers. Watch a fast-food TV commercial, and you'll note that the food is big, bright, and animated -- spinning burgers, lettuce flying through a splash of water, ripe tomatoes being sliced -- and don't forget the catchy tune. So instead of letting others program your desires for you, take charge and mentally reprogram yourself.
8. Take immediate action.
Once you set a goal for yourself, act immediately. As you begin working on a fresh new goal, don't worry so much about making detailed long-term plans. Too often people get stuck in the state of analysis paralysis and never reach the action stage. You can develop your plan later, but get moving first. Just identify the very first physical action you need to take, and then do it. For instance, if you've decided to lose weight, go straight to your refrigerator, and throw out all the junk food. Don't think about it. Don't ponder the consequences. Just do it immediately.
One of the secrets to success is recognizing that motivation follows action. The momentum of continuous action fuels motivation, while procrastination kills motivation. So act boldly, as if it's impossible to fail. If you keep adding fuel to your desire, you will reach the point of knowing that you'll never quit, and ultimate success will be nothing more than a matter of time.
If you apply these eight strategies, you'll add so much fuel to your desire that the fire will never burn out. You'll move towards your goals like a guided missile to its target, and you'll enjoy the process because you'll be so focused on the positive rewards instead of the difficulty of the tasks. If you get enough positive energy flowing into you, you'll soon have positive results flowing out of you. And you'll quickly become the kind of person that others refer to as "driven."
Take a moment to think about the goals you've set for yourself. (You have set goals, haven't you? If not, go read the article on setting clear goals.) How committed are you to achieving these goals? Under what conditions would you give up? What if you could significantly increase your desire to achieve these goals? What if you wanted them so badly that you knew with absolute certainty that you would absolutely, positively never ever give up? When you are truly 100% committed to reaching your goals, you move from hoping to knowing. If you want something badly enough, then quitting is simply not an option. You either find a way or make one. You pay the price, whatever it takes.
Those with an intense, burning desire to achieve their goals are often referred to as being "driven." But is this special quality reserved only for a privileged few? Certainly not. With the right approach, anyone can cultivate a deep, burning desire within themselves and move to a state of total commitment, knowing with certainty that success is as inevitable as the sunrise.
So how do you cultivate burning desire? You begin with an outside-in approach, altering your environment in ways that will strengthen your resolve while eliminating doubt. If you take the time to do it right, you'll establish a positive feedback cycle, such that your desire will continue to increase on a daily basis.
Here are eight steps you can take to cultivate burning desire to achieve any goal you set for yourself:
1. Burn the ships.
I'm not going to pull any punches with this one. If your goals are really important enough to you, then you can start by burning the proverbial ships, such that you have no choice but to press on. For instance, if you want to launch your own business, you can begin by making the commitment to quitting your job. Write a letter of resignation, put it in a stamped envelope addressed to your boss, and give it to a trusted friend with firm instructions to mail the letter if you haven't quit your job by a certain date.
One Las Vegas casino manager made the decision to quit smoking. He didn't feel he had the personal willpower to do it alone, so he took out a billboard on the Las Vegas Strip with his photo on it along with the words, "If you catch me smoking, I'll pay you $100,000!" Was he able to quit smoking? You bet! (Ok, bad pun.) This is called willpower leveraging. You use a small bit of willpower to establish a consequence that will virtually compel you to keep your commitment. As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket!"
In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?
If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.
2. Fill your environment with desire boosters.
Let's say one of your important goals is to lose weight. Get some poster board, and make your own posters that say, "I weigh X pounds," where X is your goal weight, and put them up around your house. Change your screensaver to a text message that says the same thing (or to some equally motivational imagery). Get some magazines, cut out pictures of people who have bodies similar to what you'd like to have, and put them up around your house. Cut out pictures of healthy food that looks good to you, and post those around your kitchen. If you work in an office, then alter your office in the same manner. Don't worry about what your coworkers will think, and just do it! They may poke a little fun at you at first, but they'll also begin to see how committed you are.
3. Surround yourself with positive people.
Make friends with people who will encourage you on the path to your goals, and find ways to spend more time with them. Share your goals only with people who will support you, not those who will respond with cynicism or indifference. If you want to lose weight, for instance, get yourself into a gym, and start befriending those who are already in great shape. You'll find that their attitudes become infectious, and you'll start believing that you can do it too. Meeting people who've lost one hundred pounds or more can be extremely motivating. If you want to start a new business, join the local chamber of commerce or a trade association. Do whatever it takes to make new friends who will help you keep your commitment.
Although this can be difficult for some people, you also need to fire the negative people from your life. I once read that you can see your future just by looking at the six people with whom you spend the most time. If you don't like what you see, then change those people. There's no honor in remaining loyal to people who expect you to fail. One of the reasons people fail to start their own businesses, for instance, is that they spend most of their time associating with other employees. The way out of this trap is to start spending a lot more time associating with business owners, such as by joining a trade association. Mindsets are contagious. So spend your time with people whose mindsets are worth catching.
4. Feed your mind with empowering information on a daily basis.
Inspirational books and audio programs are one of the best fuel sources for cultivating desire. If you want to quit smoking, read a dozen books written by ex-smokers on how to quit the habit. If you want to start a business, then start devouring business books. Go to seminars on occasion. I advise that you feed your mind with some form of motivational material (books, articles, audio programs) for at least fifteen minutes a day. This will continually recharge your batteries and keep your desire impenetrably strong.
When you absorb material created by an extremely passionate person, you'll often find yourself feeling more passionate as well. A great book I read was Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. As I read the book, I was absolutely amazed at how someone could be so fanatically enthusiastic about coffee. Other enthusiasm-building authors/speakers I highly recommend are Harvey Mackay and Zig Ziglar.
5. Replace sources of negative energy with positive energy.
Take an inventory of all the sensory inputs into your life that affect your attitude -- what you read, what you watch on TV, the cleanliness of your home, etc. Note which inputs influence you negatively, and strive to replace them with positive inputs. I'll give you some good places to start. First, avoid watching TV news -- it's overwhelmingly negative. Do you really need to hear about the woman who was mauled to death by her neighbor's dog? Fill that time with positive inputs instead, like motivational and educational audio programs. If you like to watch movies, then watch movies that are full of positive energy, such as light-hearted comedies and stories of triumph over adversity. Avoid dark, tragic movies that leave you feeling empty afterwards. Dump the horror books, and replace them with humor books. Spend more time laughing and less time worrying. If you have a messy desk, clean it up! If you have young kids or grandkids, spend some time playing with them. Some of this may sound a bit corny, but it will really help increase your overall motivation. If you have a hard time motivating yourself, chances are that your life is overflowing with too many sources of negativity. It's far better to happily achieve than it is to feel you must achieve in order to be happy.
6. Dress for success.
Whenever you pass by a mirror, which is probably several times a day, you get an instant dose of image reinforcement. So what image are you currently reinforcing? Would you dress any differently if your goals were already achieved? Would you sport a different hairstyle? Would you shower a bit more often?
Although for years I enjoyed the ripped jeans and T-shirt look, I noted that when I visualized myself in the future, having achieved certain goals, I was dressed a lot more nicely. With some experimentation I found a style of clothing that looks professional and is also comfortable. So I gradually donated my old clothes to charity and replaced my wardrobe with clothes that fit the new identity I was growing into. (Consequently, there's a Salvation Army store with quite a stock of gaming industry T-shirts.) I learned this idea from an ex-Navy Seal, who stressed to me the importance of taking pride in your appearance, and I can say with certainty that it makes a noticeable difference. So make sure the clothes you wear each day are consistent with your new self-image.
7. Use mental programming.
This is a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) technique that will help you associate strong positive emotions to whatever goal you're working to achieve. Find some music that really energizes and inspires you. Put on your headphones and listen to it for fifteen to twenty minutes, and as you do this, form a clear mental picture of yourself having already achieved the results you want. Make your imagery big, bright, vivid, colorful, three-dimensional, panoramic, and animated. Picture the scene as if looking through your own eyes (this is very important). This will help you form a neuro-association between the positive emotions elicited by the music and the goal you want to achieve, thus strengthening your desire. This is a great way to begin each day, and you can even do it while lying in bed when you first awaken if you set things up the night before. You should cycle the music periodically, since the emotional charge you get will tend to diminish if you listen to the same songs each time.
Keep in mind that this form of mental programming is already being used on you by advertisers. Watch a fast-food TV commercial, and you'll note that the food is big, bright, and animated -- spinning burgers, lettuce flying through a splash of water, ripe tomatoes being sliced -- and don't forget the catchy tune. So instead of letting others program your desires for you, take charge and mentally reprogram yourself.
8. Take immediate action.
Once you set a goal for yourself, act immediately. As you begin working on a fresh new goal, don't worry so much about making detailed long-term plans. Too often people get stuck in the state of analysis paralysis and never reach the action stage. You can develop your plan later, but get moving first. Just identify the very first physical action you need to take, and then do it. For instance, if you've decided to lose weight, go straight to your refrigerator, and throw out all the junk food. Don't think about it. Don't ponder the consequences. Just do it immediately.
One of the secrets to success is recognizing that motivation follows action. The momentum of continuous action fuels motivation, while procrastination kills motivation. So act boldly, as if it's impossible to fail. If you keep adding fuel to your desire, you will reach the point of knowing that you'll never quit, and ultimate success will be nothing more than a matter of time.
If you apply these eight strategies, you'll add so much fuel to your desire that the fire will never burn out. You'll move towards your goals like a guided missile to its target, and you'll enjoy the process because you'll be so focused on the positive rewards instead of the difficulty of the tasks. If you get enough positive energy flowing into you, you'll soon have positive results flowing out of you. And you'll quickly become the kind of person that others refer to as "driven."
Time management systems
Time management systems have become exceedingly popular in recent years... and with good reason. The ultimate potential benefit of such systems is the ability to optimize how you spend your time in order to extract the best possible results in the shortest period of time. Such systems do come with a price, however, and that price is the time you must spend first learning and then maintaining the system. Generally speaking, the more complex the system, the more costly it is to use. The more time you spend managing your system, the less time you'll spend reaping the rewards of increased productivity.
Since the early 1990s, I've studied time management extensively, both by devouring existing knowledge on the subject and through first-hand trial and error. I've read a shelf full of books on time management, listened to hundreds of hours of time management audio learning, and read dozens of articles on the subject. I've used a variety of time management systems including Franklin-Covey, David Allen's Getting Things Done, and Anthony Robbins' Rapid Planning Method (formerly called OPA for Outcome-Purpose-Action). I've used PC software like Microsoft Outlook, Palm computers, and paper-based planners. If there were such a thing as a Ph.D in time management, I've gone through the curriculum many times over.
Studying time management has been an extremely worthwhile endeavor. While the claims made by people selling products in this field are often exaggerated and overhyped, I did realize some genuine productivity benefits from applying the best ideas. As I wrote in the article "Do It Now," I was able to earn two college degrees in only three semesters, largely by applying a variety of time management techniques, some of them to the extreme. I took the same classes in 1.5 years that other students took over a 4-year period, but I was able to compress them into a much shorter period of time by taking about triple the normal courseload. However, I don't consider this to be an extraordinary achievement. I think someone else who studied time management as much as I did could achieve similar results. The sad truth is that most people are so incredibly bad at managing their time that rock-bottom personal productivity is simply accepted as normal. So anyone who can consistently invest 80% of their time each day in intelligent, productive activities is going to look like an overachiever by comparison. The average college student in particular is probably operating at only 20-30% of their capacity, and I'm referring to their social life in addition to academics. Most people are completely unaware of just how poor they are at time management until some "overachiever" enters their lives and makes them look bad by comparison.
Time management systems
It's tempting to say that excellent time management is a result of having a great time management system. But I have not found this to be the case. I think the general mindset of time management is far more important than any system. And the mindset of time management is simply that you value your time. It's really a self-esteem issue. If you see your life as valuable and meaningful, then you will value your time as well. If you find yourself wasting a lot of time, you probably don't have a strong enough reason to manage your time well. No system you use will make much difference until you address the underlying issue of self-respect. If your life has no meaningful purpose, then you don't have a compelling enough reason to improve your time management skills. You might get motivated every once in a while, but your motivation to improve just won't last.
Time management systems are seductive. They lure you in with the promise of greater productivity, more free time, faster income generation, and higher self-esteem. And some of those benefits may indeed be realized. However, another possibility is that your system becomes a distraction that prevents you from achieving real gains. You find yourself investing more and more time in meta-activities like getting organized, prioritizing objectives, and learning the latest productivity software. Actually doing the tasks that your system is designed to manage becomes almost an afterthought... perhaps even an annoyance. Instead of helping you increase productivity, your system becomes a means to disguise low productivity. This is a common problem for people who haven't yet identified a purpose for their lives. The system provides the illusion of productivity, but when you strip it down to its bare essence, you find it's a house of straw. There's nothing there. When you sum up all the tasks, they amount to nothing but busywork and trivialities. Whether or not they actually get done is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. In the long run, no one will care anyway. If you find yourself in this situation, you've simply lost sight of the real purpose of time management.
What is time management?
Let's strip away all this complexity and get back to basics for a moment. What is time management? The essence of time management is the following:
Decide what to do
Do it
These appear to be very simple steps at first glance. Even a child can do them. However, when we look at them through the lens of optimization, they become much more complicated. In order to optimize these steps, we must concern ourselves with identifying the "right" or the "best" way to complete each step. We can easily see that some decision-action combinations produce better results than others. So our question becomes, "What is the best action to take right now, and what is the best way to do it?"
Answering this question should be the main purpose behind any time management system. Yes, there are side benefits like getting organized, becoming more clear-headed, and reducing stress. But ultimately these benefits all contribute to the decision-action process. What will you do, and how will you do it?
When I first studied time management, I found that most of the existing literature was focused on step 2. There was a lot of emphasis on how to get things done. This is a fine model for employees whose tasks are given to them, but that's an industrial age model, and it doesn't suit knowledge workers today who have a lot more freedom in choosing their tasks and even their careers. If step 1 is done incorrectly, then it doesn't matter how well you do step 2. If you decide to do the wrong thing, it makes no difference how well you do it.
Deciding what to do
Step 1 is a lot more difficult than step 2, which is probably why I've found so little adequate coverage of it. One of the most popular systems that attempts to tackle step 1 intelligently is the Franklin-Covey system, which concerns itself with the high level subjects of mission, roles, and goals more than the lower level of projects and actions. However, I don't think Franklin-Covey goes nearly high-level enough. Many of the mission statements I've seen produced by this system are nothing but vapid drivel, especially those produced by corporations.
The next level up from roles, goals, and mission is the level of context. Think of this as your current understanding of reality as well as your role within it. If you change your context, then everything else changes as well. For example, if you change your spiritual beliefs, then you may experience changes in your relationships and career as well.
Accuracy is paramount
The most important aspect of context is accuracy. Either your context accurately models reality, or it doesn't. This includes your most sacred spiritual beliefs, and it also includes the possibility that your beliefs may even alter your external reality. If inaccurate beliefs guide your actions, then your actions may very well be pointless. A person whose high-level beliefs are inaccurate simply cannot be productive in any meaningful sense. S/he might as well be digging a hole and then filling it.
I began learning of time management at the level of projects and actions, but I've since been approaching it from a top-down perspective. Now I'm far more concerned with doing the right thing than with doing things right. I spend a considerable amount of time reviewing my beliefs, looking for incongruencies between my beliefs and my experience of reality, and exploring other potential beliefs that may be more accurate. While working on the projects and actions level can yield minor productivity boosts, working on the high level of context and purpose can produce major breakthroughs. This is the process that led me to retire from computer game development and to start working in the field of personal development. When my context changed, everything else changed as well, including my mission, goals, projects, and actions.
I believe the most important thing I can do to manage my time is to strive to understand reality as accurately as possible. Above all, this means I cannot ignore data. Everything I've experienced -- everything I think I know -- must somehow be integrated into my approach to time management. There can be no incongruencies. My beliefs, thoughts, and actions must all be in alignment with reality itself.
Resolving incongruencies
A big time management mistake people make is that they allow incongruencies to exist in their lives without ever consciously resolving them. This is very easy to see when it comes to religion. People claim to hold certain beliefs as sacred, but they fail to act in accordance with those beliefs. They hold back or label themselves as weak. Why? Because part of them feels those beliefs are correct, but another part of them feels they're not. But instead of resolving this conflict, they try to avoid thinking about it. To resolve the incongruency would likely cause serious upheaval in their lives, and they fear what might happen. So instead they go through unhealthy cycles of hiding the truth from themselves and feeling frustrated with their inability to meet a standard which they don't fully agree with but which they feel they must continue to follow.
The upheaval caused by resolving internal incongruencies is real, but that doesn't mean you must fear it. I've gone through some major life changes as a result of pursuing this path, and it's hard every time. But I cannot accept the logic of clinging to a belief system that I know to be inaccurate. Once new data presents itself (or a new understanding of old data), I have to find a way to integrate it. At the very least, I must drop the incongruent beliefs while I search for better ones.
Despite the challenges, I've been extremely pleased with this approach. Problems that I struggled with for years simply evaporated once I adapted my beliefs to fit my own experience instead of blindly accepting what others told me. The world is full of so many false beliefs (especially from mass media), so it becomes a serious challenge to trust ourselves and our own thinking when everyone around us is telling us we're wrong.
For example, one of the first beliefs I found to be inaccurate was that I needed a job. Part of me felt I should get a job -- it seemed like the right thing to do after college -- but another part of me didn't like the idea of having to go to work each day and have a boss tell me what to do. I'd look at a job application and just stare blankly at it. I could barely stomach the idea of working on my resume. The whole idea just felt intuitively wrong to me. And I'm certainly not alone in this feeling, but most people do their best to tune it out. They go to work each day, but they don't really like it. They'd rather not go to work if they could afford to do so. Instead of accepting this incongruency like everyone else seemed to, I chose to resolve it. And this led me to find a way to make a good living without a job. It was not an easy path in the short term, but it's been much easier in the long run, especially when I notice the results people who followed the accepted get-a-job approach have achieved. Very few of them seem happy and fulfilled with their lives. At work they pretend everything is OK, but privately they feel miserable and trapped. And it gets harder each year. Personally I don't think most jobs are very healthy, considering what they do to the human spirit. I'm sure there are exceptions, but those aren't the norm.
Despite lots of people telling me to "get a job" (often with various expletives tacked onto the end of that sentence), I never did get a job after college, and I've been happily jobless ever since. I just accepted that being employed wasn't something I wanted, and I noticed that people who did have jobs didn't seem to want them either, so I ignored their advice and listened to my intuition instead. (I already explained how I do this on Podcast #6: How to Make Money Without a Job.) By unraveling this incongruency in my beliefs and resolving it, I was able to achieve a better result for myself -- abundant income generation, stellar career opportunities, and a fun social life without the confines of employment. Best of all, I'm ridiculously happy with my life.
The ultimate simplification of time management is that time management is accuracy. In order to use your time effectively, you must strive to create the most accurate understanding of reality you can. This means giving adequate consideration to all the data that presents itself to you: sense perceptions, facts, logic, intuition, emotions, etc. And the ultimate goal is to bring all of these things into alignment. So what you perceive, feel, think, say, and do are all congruent.
Debugging beliefs
I've made tremendous progress in this area, but I certainly haven't reached the pinnacle of alignment. There are plenty of incongruencies I have yet to resolve. Whenever I experience uncertainty in some area, I look for ways to conduct personal tests. For example, the Million Dollar Experiment is intended to test the power of intention. What role does intention play in achieving results? I don't know the answer to that, but I can't overlook the potential of the intention-manifestation model because it could be very significant, and I've already seen some promising results. I don't yet have a deep enough understanding of how it all works though. The real benefit of such experiments is that they provide me with data I can use to upgrade my mental model of reality. And a better model allows me to make more accurate decisions and thereby use my time more effectively.
It isn't enough just to write down a goal and work to achieve it. It isn't even enough to create a mission statement and live your life in accordance with it. How do you know whether your mission and goals are intelligent to begin with? Haven't you ever set a goal you later realized was stupid or pointless? Will future historians summarize your entire life with the label "misguided?" How do you know you won't look back on your current goals a decade from now and conclude that you were on the wrong path all along? What a waste of time and of life to put so much effort into achieving goals that ultimately won't even matter.
Accuracy is the standard for knowing whether or not your goals are well chosen. If your goals are based on the most accurate model of reality you can muster, then you have nothing to worry about. You've done the best you can, and you can expect no better results. But accuracy isn't remotely easy. This is why many of my goals are directly targeted at increasing the accuracy of my beliefs. I figure that if I don't understand reality well enough to be confident that my goals make sense, then my first priority should be to increase the accuracy of my current mental model of reality. To the degree my model seems accurate, I act within it, but when I find incongruencies, I refine the model itself. Sometimes I find my model so broken that I must discard it completely and rebuild a new one from scratch. The ultimate test of your model of reality is reality itself.
Now while you may not want to dedicate your whole life to the pursuit of accuracy, I think you'll realize substantial improvements in your time management by moving accuracy to the top of your time management philosophy, as opposed to efficiency, effectiveness, or some other standard. Whenever you have to make a tough decision about how to use your time, take a step back and revisit your current understanding of reality. What do you know to be true? And what does that truth dictate is the correct course of action for you? Once you know the correct course of action, then you can strive to get it done effectively and efficiently, and that's where modern time management systems can be of use.
To improve accuracy, eliminate inaccuracies
Although it's very hard to know when your beliefs are accurate, it isn't as difficult to detect inaccuracies, so focus your improvement efforts there for starters. Symptoms of inaccurate beliefs include chronic procrastination, mixed emotions, lying, self-sabotage, setting goals that fizzle, fear of failure, fear of rejection, timidity, depression, anger, frustration, resentment, and wearing excessively baggy pants where the crotch is down to your knees (you do NOT look cool in those; you look like a dolt).
It's usually not that difficult to identify incongruencies in your beliefs. You probably have lots of them, but you may have been taught that it's just normal to feel incongruent. I'd say it's common, but it's not normal. I think it's more normal and natural to be congruent. Having mixed feelings is generally an unpleasant state. When you experience this sensation, take some time to privately journal about your feelings on both sides and explore them as deeply as you can. Most people don't go nearly deep enough. Eventually you will uncover a new truth that you've been unwilling to face. For example, as I previously explained, I had to face the reality that I didn't want to spend my life working for someone else, but I still had to earn money to meet my needs. I admitted that both of these were true (my inner feelings and the external reality), but they were incongruent. And that allowed me to devise a congruent solution that honored both sides without forcing me back into a state of incongruency. I opted to find a way to make a good living without needing a job. It was hard in the short term but much easier in the long run. Inaccurate beliefs don't serve you, so dump them whenever you can.
If you take care of the highest level of time management (accuracy), the other parts have a way of taking care of themselves. My purpose, mission, roles, goals, projects, and actions all filter down from my current understanding of reality. Based on my understanding of reality, my purpose is clear. Based on my purpose, my mission is clear. And so on down the line. Clarity at the top creates clarity at the bottom. There is still plenty of room for choice at the lower levels, but it's like picking options for a new car you purchased. The big decision has already been made, so the details just aren't going to matter all that much. The details will control the flavor and texture of your life but not the essential nature of it.
When it comes to time management, the accuracy of your beliefs about reality will basically dictate your results. It doesn't matter so much what particular system you use. As you strive for greater accuracy and congruency, be patient with yourself. This quest for greater accuracy is ongoing. I'm not sure human beings will ever reach the pinnacle of accuracy -- that would require that we become gods. There are always more inaccuracies to eliminate, more experiments to conduct, more pieces of data to integrate. The important thing is not to settle. Don't settle for conflict in your life when you could achieve congruency. Sometimes it will take a year or more to replace conflict with congruency, such as in the case of divorce or career changes, but that time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well put it to good use.
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Since the early 1990s, I've studied time management extensively, both by devouring existing knowledge on the subject and through first-hand trial and error. I've read a shelf full of books on time management, listened to hundreds of hours of time management audio learning, and read dozens of articles on the subject. I've used a variety of time management systems including Franklin-Covey, David Allen's Getting Things Done, and Anthony Robbins' Rapid Planning Method (formerly called OPA for Outcome-Purpose-Action). I've used PC software like Microsoft Outlook, Palm computers, and paper-based planners. If there were such a thing as a Ph.D in time management, I've gone through the curriculum many times over.
Studying time management has been an extremely worthwhile endeavor. While the claims made by people selling products in this field are often exaggerated and overhyped, I did realize some genuine productivity benefits from applying the best ideas. As I wrote in the article "Do It Now," I was able to earn two college degrees in only three semesters, largely by applying a variety of time management techniques, some of them to the extreme. I took the same classes in 1.5 years that other students took over a 4-year period, but I was able to compress them into a much shorter period of time by taking about triple the normal courseload. However, I don't consider this to be an extraordinary achievement. I think someone else who studied time management as much as I did could achieve similar results. The sad truth is that most people are so incredibly bad at managing their time that rock-bottom personal productivity is simply accepted as normal. So anyone who can consistently invest 80% of their time each day in intelligent, productive activities is going to look like an overachiever by comparison. The average college student in particular is probably operating at only 20-30% of their capacity, and I'm referring to their social life in addition to academics. Most people are completely unaware of just how poor they are at time management until some "overachiever" enters their lives and makes them look bad by comparison.
Time management systems
It's tempting to say that excellent time management is a result of having a great time management system. But I have not found this to be the case. I think the general mindset of time management is far more important than any system. And the mindset of time management is simply that you value your time. It's really a self-esteem issue. If you see your life as valuable and meaningful, then you will value your time as well. If you find yourself wasting a lot of time, you probably don't have a strong enough reason to manage your time well. No system you use will make much difference until you address the underlying issue of self-respect. If your life has no meaningful purpose, then you don't have a compelling enough reason to improve your time management skills. You might get motivated every once in a while, but your motivation to improve just won't last.
Time management systems are seductive. They lure you in with the promise of greater productivity, more free time, faster income generation, and higher self-esteem. And some of those benefits may indeed be realized. However, another possibility is that your system becomes a distraction that prevents you from achieving real gains. You find yourself investing more and more time in meta-activities like getting organized, prioritizing objectives, and learning the latest productivity software. Actually doing the tasks that your system is designed to manage becomes almost an afterthought... perhaps even an annoyance. Instead of helping you increase productivity, your system becomes a means to disguise low productivity. This is a common problem for people who haven't yet identified a purpose for their lives. The system provides the illusion of productivity, but when you strip it down to its bare essence, you find it's a house of straw. There's nothing there. When you sum up all the tasks, they amount to nothing but busywork and trivialities. Whether or not they actually get done is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. In the long run, no one will care anyway. If you find yourself in this situation, you've simply lost sight of the real purpose of time management.
What is time management?
Let's strip away all this complexity and get back to basics for a moment. What is time management? The essence of time management is the following:
Decide what to do
Do it
These appear to be very simple steps at first glance. Even a child can do them. However, when we look at them through the lens of optimization, they become much more complicated. In order to optimize these steps, we must concern ourselves with identifying the "right" or the "best" way to complete each step. We can easily see that some decision-action combinations produce better results than others. So our question becomes, "What is the best action to take right now, and what is the best way to do it?"
Answering this question should be the main purpose behind any time management system. Yes, there are side benefits like getting organized, becoming more clear-headed, and reducing stress. But ultimately these benefits all contribute to the decision-action process. What will you do, and how will you do it?
When I first studied time management, I found that most of the existing literature was focused on step 2. There was a lot of emphasis on how to get things done. This is a fine model for employees whose tasks are given to them, but that's an industrial age model, and it doesn't suit knowledge workers today who have a lot more freedom in choosing their tasks and even their careers. If step 1 is done incorrectly, then it doesn't matter how well you do step 2. If you decide to do the wrong thing, it makes no difference how well you do it.
Deciding what to do
Step 1 is a lot more difficult than step 2, which is probably why I've found so little adequate coverage of it. One of the most popular systems that attempts to tackle step 1 intelligently is the Franklin-Covey system, which concerns itself with the high level subjects of mission, roles, and goals more than the lower level of projects and actions. However, I don't think Franklin-Covey goes nearly high-level enough. Many of the mission statements I've seen produced by this system are nothing but vapid drivel, especially those produced by corporations.
The next level up from roles, goals, and mission is the level of context. Think of this as your current understanding of reality as well as your role within it. If you change your context, then everything else changes as well. For example, if you change your spiritual beliefs, then you may experience changes in your relationships and career as well.
Accuracy is paramount
The most important aspect of context is accuracy. Either your context accurately models reality, or it doesn't. This includes your most sacred spiritual beliefs, and it also includes the possibility that your beliefs may even alter your external reality. If inaccurate beliefs guide your actions, then your actions may very well be pointless. A person whose high-level beliefs are inaccurate simply cannot be productive in any meaningful sense. S/he might as well be digging a hole and then filling it.
I began learning of time management at the level of projects and actions, but I've since been approaching it from a top-down perspective. Now I'm far more concerned with doing the right thing than with doing things right. I spend a considerable amount of time reviewing my beliefs, looking for incongruencies between my beliefs and my experience of reality, and exploring other potential beliefs that may be more accurate. While working on the projects and actions level can yield minor productivity boosts, working on the high level of context and purpose can produce major breakthroughs. This is the process that led me to retire from computer game development and to start working in the field of personal development. When my context changed, everything else changed as well, including my mission, goals, projects, and actions.
I believe the most important thing I can do to manage my time is to strive to understand reality as accurately as possible. Above all, this means I cannot ignore data. Everything I've experienced -- everything I think I know -- must somehow be integrated into my approach to time management. There can be no incongruencies. My beliefs, thoughts, and actions must all be in alignment with reality itself.
Resolving incongruencies
A big time management mistake people make is that they allow incongruencies to exist in their lives without ever consciously resolving them. This is very easy to see when it comes to religion. People claim to hold certain beliefs as sacred, but they fail to act in accordance with those beliefs. They hold back or label themselves as weak. Why? Because part of them feels those beliefs are correct, but another part of them feels they're not. But instead of resolving this conflict, they try to avoid thinking about it. To resolve the incongruency would likely cause serious upheaval in their lives, and they fear what might happen. So instead they go through unhealthy cycles of hiding the truth from themselves and feeling frustrated with their inability to meet a standard which they don't fully agree with but which they feel they must continue to follow.
The upheaval caused by resolving internal incongruencies is real, but that doesn't mean you must fear it. I've gone through some major life changes as a result of pursuing this path, and it's hard every time. But I cannot accept the logic of clinging to a belief system that I know to be inaccurate. Once new data presents itself (or a new understanding of old data), I have to find a way to integrate it. At the very least, I must drop the incongruent beliefs while I search for better ones.
Despite the challenges, I've been extremely pleased with this approach. Problems that I struggled with for years simply evaporated once I adapted my beliefs to fit my own experience instead of blindly accepting what others told me. The world is full of so many false beliefs (especially from mass media), so it becomes a serious challenge to trust ourselves and our own thinking when everyone around us is telling us we're wrong.
For example, one of the first beliefs I found to be inaccurate was that I needed a job. Part of me felt I should get a job -- it seemed like the right thing to do after college -- but another part of me didn't like the idea of having to go to work each day and have a boss tell me what to do. I'd look at a job application and just stare blankly at it. I could barely stomach the idea of working on my resume. The whole idea just felt intuitively wrong to me. And I'm certainly not alone in this feeling, but most people do their best to tune it out. They go to work each day, but they don't really like it. They'd rather not go to work if they could afford to do so. Instead of accepting this incongruency like everyone else seemed to, I chose to resolve it. And this led me to find a way to make a good living without a job. It was not an easy path in the short term, but it's been much easier in the long run, especially when I notice the results people who followed the accepted get-a-job approach have achieved. Very few of them seem happy and fulfilled with their lives. At work they pretend everything is OK, but privately they feel miserable and trapped. And it gets harder each year. Personally I don't think most jobs are very healthy, considering what they do to the human spirit. I'm sure there are exceptions, but those aren't the norm.
Despite lots of people telling me to "get a job" (often with various expletives tacked onto the end of that sentence), I never did get a job after college, and I've been happily jobless ever since. I just accepted that being employed wasn't something I wanted, and I noticed that people who did have jobs didn't seem to want them either, so I ignored their advice and listened to my intuition instead. (I already explained how I do this on Podcast #6: How to Make Money Without a Job.) By unraveling this incongruency in my beliefs and resolving it, I was able to achieve a better result for myself -- abundant income generation, stellar career opportunities, and a fun social life without the confines of employment. Best of all, I'm ridiculously happy with my life.
The ultimate simplification of time management is that time management is accuracy. In order to use your time effectively, you must strive to create the most accurate understanding of reality you can. This means giving adequate consideration to all the data that presents itself to you: sense perceptions, facts, logic, intuition, emotions, etc. And the ultimate goal is to bring all of these things into alignment. So what you perceive, feel, think, say, and do are all congruent.
Debugging beliefs
I've made tremendous progress in this area, but I certainly haven't reached the pinnacle of alignment. There are plenty of incongruencies I have yet to resolve. Whenever I experience uncertainty in some area, I look for ways to conduct personal tests. For example, the Million Dollar Experiment is intended to test the power of intention. What role does intention play in achieving results? I don't know the answer to that, but I can't overlook the potential of the intention-manifestation model because it could be very significant, and I've already seen some promising results. I don't yet have a deep enough understanding of how it all works though. The real benefit of such experiments is that they provide me with data I can use to upgrade my mental model of reality. And a better model allows me to make more accurate decisions and thereby use my time more effectively.
It isn't enough just to write down a goal and work to achieve it. It isn't even enough to create a mission statement and live your life in accordance with it. How do you know whether your mission and goals are intelligent to begin with? Haven't you ever set a goal you later realized was stupid or pointless? Will future historians summarize your entire life with the label "misguided?" How do you know you won't look back on your current goals a decade from now and conclude that you were on the wrong path all along? What a waste of time and of life to put so much effort into achieving goals that ultimately won't even matter.
Accuracy is the standard for knowing whether or not your goals are well chosen. If your goals are based on the most accurate model of reality you can muster, then you have nothing to worry about. You've done the best you can, and you can expect no better results. But accuracy isn't remotely easy. This is why many of my goals are directly targeted at increasing the accuracy of my beliefs. I figure that if I don't understand reality well enough to be confident that my goals make sense, then my first priority should be to increase the accuracy of my current mental model of reality. To the degree my model seems accurate, I act within it, but when I find incongruencies, I refine the model itself. Sometimes I find my model so broken that I must discard it completely and rebuild a new one from scratch. The ultimate test of your model of reality is reality itself.
Now while you may not want to dedicate your whole life to the pursuit of accuracy, I think you'll realize substantial improvements in your time management by moving accuracy to the top of your time management philosophy, as opposed to efficiency, effectiveness, or some other standard. Whenever you have to make a tough decision about how to use your time, take a step back and revisit your current understanding of reality. What do you know to be true? And what does that truth dictate is the correct course of action for you? Once you know the correct course of action, then you can strive to get it done effectively and efficiently, and that's where modern time management systems can be of use.
To improve accuracy, eliminate inaccuracies
Although it's very hard to know when your beliefs are accurate, it isn't as difficult to detect inaccuracies, so focus your improvement efforts there for starters. Symptoms of inaccurate beliefs include chronic procrastination, mixed emotions, lying, self-sabotage, setting goals that fizzle, fear of failure, fear of rejection, timidity, depression, anger, frustration, resentment, and wearing excessively baggy pants where the crotch is down to your knees (you do NOT look cool in those; you look like a dolt).
It's usually not that difficult to identify incongruencies in your beliefs. You probably have lots of them, but you may have been taught that it's just normal to feel incongruent. I'd say it's common, but it's not normal. I think it's more normal and natural to be congruent. Having mixed feelings is generally an unpleasant state. When you experience this sensation, take some time to privately journal about your feelings on both sides and explore them as deeply as you can. Most people don't go nearly deep enough. Eventually you will uncover a new truth that you've been unwilling to face. For example, as I previously explained, I had to face the reality that I didn't want to spend my life working for someone else, but I still had to earn money to meet my needs. I admitted that both of these were true (my inner feelings and the external reality), but they were incongruent. And that allowed me to devise a congruent solution that honored both sides without forcing me back into a state of incongruency. I opted to find a way to make a good living without needing a job. It was hard in the short term but much easier in the long run. Inaccurate beliefs don't serve you, so dump them whenever you can.
If you take care of the highest level of time management (accuracy), the other parts have a way of taking care of themselves. My purpose, mission, roles, goals, projects, and actions all filter down from my current understanding of reality. Based on my understanding of reality, my purpose is clear. Based on my purpose, my mission is clear. And so on down the line. Clarity at the top creates clarity at the bottom. There is still plenty of room for choice at the lower levels, but it's like picking options for a new car you purchased. The big decision has already been made, so the details just aren't going to matter all that much. The details will control the flavor and texture of your life but not the essential nature of it.
When it comes to time management, the accuracy of your beliefs about reality will basically dictate your results. It doesn't matter so much what particular system you use. As you strive for greater accuracy and congruency, be patient with yourself. This quest for greater accuracy is ongoing. I'm not sure human beings will ever reach the pinnacle of accuracy -- that would require that we become gods. There are always more inaccuracies to eliminate, more experiments to conduct, more pieces of data to integrate. The important thing is not to settle. Don't settle for conflict in your life when you could achieve congruency. Sometimes it will take a year or more to replace conflict with congruency, such as in the case of divorce or career changes, but that time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well put it to good use.
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13.2.08
SORE THROAT
Sore throat has been mentioned as a prodromal symptom of common cold in
Ayurveda. It has been described as pinprick like pain in the throat.
Vata-Kapha are usually involved in causation of sore throat.
Ingredients:
Ajowan seeds
Black pepper
Cinnamon bark
Fenugreek seeds
Honey
Liquorice
Table salt
Common Recipes:
Soak two teaspoonfuls of ajowan seeds in cold water. Add a pinch of
common salt. Using this infusion as a common gargle substantially eases
the acute sore throat.
Coarsely powder the cinnamon bark. Boil a teaspoonful of this powder in
water. Strain the extract and add a pinch of black pepper and a
teaspoonful of honey . Consuming this decoction every three hours during the
day cures a sore throat.
Two tablespoons of fenugreek seeds should be added to a litre of cold
water and simmered on a gentle flame. This should be allowed to cool to
a temperature that could be tolerated by the buccal cavity. Strain this
mixture and gargle with it several times a day. This cures a sore
throat.
Liquorice is a well recognised remedy for sore throat. Put a small
piece of raw liquorice in the mouth and chew it regularly. It gives a
soothing effect to the sore throat.
0 comments
Labels: Simple Ayurvedic and Natural Treatments
Natural treatment for Chicken Pox
1. If you get fresh neem leaves, boil them in a vessel full of water
for 15-20 minutes till water takes up color. Add this water to warm
bath water and scrub body with this water. This bath twice a day, till
skin itching subsides and all erruptions gone.
2.. Take neem leaves juice empty stomach in morning.
3. sleeping on bed having neem leaves spread, also beneficial.
If you cant obtain neem leaves in fresh form,
4. Apply honey to erruptions area. This tackles itching very fast.
Ayurveda. It has been described as pinprick like pain in the throat.
Vata-Kapha are usually involved in causation of sore throat.
Ingredients:
Ajowan seeds
Black pepper
Cinnamon bark
Fenugreek seeds
Honey
Liquorice
Table salt
Common Recipes:
Soak two teaspoonfuls of ajowan seeds in cold water. Add a pinch of
common salt. Using this infusion as a common gargle substantially eases
the acute sore throat.
Coarsely powder the cinnamon bark. Boil a teaspoonful of this powder in
water. Strain the extract and add a pinch of black pepper and a
teaspoonful of honey . Consuming this decoction every three hours during the
day cures a sore throat.
Two tablespoons of fenugreek seeds should be added to a litre of cold
water and simmered on a gentle flame. This should be allowed to cool to
a temperature that could be tolerated by the buccal cavity. Strain this
mixture and gargle with it several times a day. This cures a sore
throat.
Liquorice is a well recognised remedy for sore throat. Put a small
piece of raw liquorice in the mouth and chew it regularly. It gives a
soothing effect to the sore throat.
0 comments
Labels: Simple Ayurvedic and Natural Treatments
Natural treatment for Chicken Pox
1. If you get fresh neem leaves, boil them in a vessel full of water
for 15-20 minutes till water takes up color. Add this water to warm
bath water and scrub body with this water. This bath twice a day, till
skin itching subsides and all erruptions gone.
2.. Take neem leaves juice empty stomach in morning.
3. sleeping on bed having neem leaves spread, also beneficial.
If you cant obtain neem leaves in fresh form,
4. Apply honey to erruptions area. This tackles itching very fast.
Panchakarmas - the most natural way to clean the body
Nature has an inherent capacity to refine and regenerate by itself. Human body is a miniature of nature. If left to be driven by the inherent tendencies of the body, refinement and regeneration of the body will take place naturally for human beings also to their full extent of life, with a graceful and glorious living. The present day life style has pulled the man a long way out of nature. We often fail to identify and attend the warning signs during the stressful life. Consequently, the powers of nature in the body are masked by the products of unsafe activities.
Our body is composed of millions of cells. They have spaces in between them which are equally important like the streets for a city. These cells and the spaces in between them, in collective fashion behave as units performing various broad functions such as nourishment, oxygenation, movements, reproduction, etc. The intercellular spaces join one another and forms channels for conveyance and coordination. These spaces join together and ultimately at gross level forms capillaries, vessels etc. The formation resembles a big network of channels, which are ultimately connected with the biggest channel in the body, i.e., the gastro intestinal tract. The functional integrity of the cells, tissues, and organs, the mind and the body as a whole is solely dependent on the optimal quality of these channels, since they are responsible for everything from nutrition to excretion. Nearly 90% of our body is composed of water. Thus it is accepted that these activities are taking place in a fluid atmosphere, named as intra and extra cellular fluids which are kept separated by semipermiable cell membrane. Ideal consistencies of these fluids are very important for normal circulation into and around the cells. In this fine arena, food and activity habits, season, age, and the psycho social atmosphere make their own influences to determine health and illness.
Waste and toxic depositions in the human body are a potential source of illness. Life styles have changed where more and more people are getting used to a stressful and sedentary living. Lack of exercise, eating at short intervals, junk food, etc, leads to unhealthy depositions in the body. They in turn make the circulation of fluids including blood, in the finer spaces sluggish. Stagnation of apparently thicker fluids in the channels is then to be followed. Even in areas of better circulation, the flow through the periphery of the channel will be slower than that of the centre. As a result, products of metabolism including wastes and toxic materials are exposed to the linings of channels for longer periods and interact only to degrade them. They become sticky very often and adhere to the inner surfaces of channels only to make them narrower. Majority of the diseases passes through this part of the pathology in very early stages, even before the diseases show their symptoms out. This derangement continues to exist throughout the course of illness.
The occlusion of extra cellular spaces acts adversely in many ways. It affects the permeability of cell membranes and reduces, the in and out flows. Secondly, the viscous material coat itself, being alien to the often go toxic and even starts producing toxic free radicals etc. Like crystal's growth, these adhesions grow by its own creating further obstruction. Cholesterol plaques found in larger arteries are perceivable examples of it. Further, such stagnations of variable compositions initiate certain vicious circles worsening the pathology. In every disease the attempt should be not only to relive the symptoms but also to correct the basic derangement. The toxic and waste coating masking the entire life force has to be erased out. Only then body will be able to fight the illness by activating various defense mechanisms. The body will be activated in such a way that can combat the present illnesses. It is often found very frequently in practice that with this kind of cleaning alone the symptoms cure to a good extend.
Ayurveda elucidates five methods of purification for the body. They remove the stagnations and expel the toxins at different areas. They are emesis, purgation, enemas, nasal drops and blood letting. The first three methods rinses the upper, middle and lower parts of the gastro intestinal tracts respectively. In diseases involving the head region, nasal cleaning is very effective while blood letting is done for purifying the fluid tissues of the body.
Vamana or emesis is highly effective in diseases located in relatively upper parts of the body and for those of mucous origin. The patient is usually given milk or sugarcane juice to drink as much as possible in the morning. A suitable emetic medicine is then given with honey. He starts vomiting comfortably and completely within half an hour. It works miracles in asthma and other respiratory diseases, skin diseases, and in mental sickness. Emesis arrests the generation of excess mucus and its oozing out in various tissues. Vamana inducts a mucus free respiratory tract in asthma, oozing and sub dermal edema free dry skin in skin diseases and alertness and activeness in mental sickness. This is also of wide utility in gastric ulcers, hyperacidity, head aches, sinusitis, diabetes, certain liver diseases, addiction to drugs, alcohol etc.
In Ayurveda plenty of purgatives in the forms powders, oils, pills, decoctions etc, are used. Purgation is very effective in diseases of bilious origin. It quickly drains out the fuels for inflammation. It purifies the blood, corrects digestion, restores motility of intestines and improves the liver functions. Various diseases of gastric origin, liver diseases, jaundice, boils and carbuncles, toxicity from causes like food poisoning, eye diseases, genital diseases, arthritis, and diabetes are treated well with carefully selected purgatives.
The lower parts of the intestine are inaccessible for these methods. This area is relatively dry because the water contents of the digested materials get absorbed here. In such conditions, a mixture of oils, honey, salt, and decoctions or sometimes oils alone is the most harmless cleaning procedure is given as enema. This is the most effective treatment for all neurological diseases. The colloidal enema reaches to a good length in the large intestine, removing all the sticky and toxic adherences without making the slightest irritation to the structures. Recurrent abdominal disturbances, arthritis, rheumatic diseases, infertility, degenerative diseases, and a wide range of nervous system disorders, are found relieving by suitably selected enemas.
Nasal drops drains out waste materials from different areas o f head and neck in the form of mucus. This is very useful in common cold, sinusitis, headache, and inflammation in the ear, defects of vision, cervical spondylosis and even frozen shoulder.
Blood letting allows the impure blood to flow out which will be replaced by freshly generated blood in very short period. This is useful in various inflammatory diseases, skin diseases, allergy, toxicity, spleen and liver diseases etc. One of the methods of blood letting, using leeches, enjoys world wide popularity as a Para surgical measure even in most advanced medical centers. Other methods of blood letting includes skin pricks over the affected area, vaccum suction using a cow's horn or a vaccum vessel.
The selection of the method, the drug selected, the kind of preparatory and post procedural care are very influential in the regression of diseases. Among these, the preparatory procedures have a major role in the effectiveness of panchakarmas. They are aimed at bringing the adhesions and impurities from remote locations to the stomach from where they are easily expelled. Medicated fats, cream of curd with jaggery, etc are some common preparations, used internally for making the impurities loose and mobile. Massage with hot oils, steam baths, etc. are some popular external preparatory procedures. They act at cellular levels forcing to expel out toxic depositions, making the fluid in the extra cellular spaces thin and mobile and allowing them to flow back to intestines.
This kind of cleaning up remove all shadows which prevent the life force to act upon the diseases। It brushes up the immune system and releases energy availed from food through smoother path ways। The resultant will be a harmony of body, mind and soul which brings all the glories back to life. This is also the preparatory step for the rejuvenation treatments of Ayurveda known as Rasayana therapy.
Dr.Anand.P.K.V. M.D.(Ay)
Vaidyaratnam Ayurveda College,
Thaikkattussery, Thrissur, Kerala
Our body is composed of millions of cells. They have spaces in between them which are equally important like the streets for a city. These cells and the spaces in between them, in collective fashion behave as units performing various broad functions such as nourishment, oxygenation, movements, reproduction, etc. The intercellular spaces join one another and forms channels for conveyance and coordination. These spaces join together and ultimately at gross level forms capillaries, vessels etc. The formation resembles a big network of channels, which are ultimately connected with the biggest channel in the body, i.e., the gastro intestinal tract. The functional integrity of the cells, tissues, and organs, the mind and the body as a whole is solely dependent on the optimal quality of these channels, since they are responsible for everything from nutrition to excretion. Nearly 90% of our body is composed of water. Thus it is accepted that these activities are taking place in a fluid atmosphere, named as intra and extra cellular fluids which are kept separated by semipermiable cell membrane. Ideal consistencies of these fluids are very important for normal circulation into and around the cells. In this fine arena, food and activity habits, season, age, and the psycho social atmosphere make their own influences to determine health and illness.
Waste and toxic depositions in the human body are a potential source of illness. Life styles have changed where more and more people are getting used to a stressful and sedentary living. Lack of exercise, eating at short intervals, junk food, etc, leads to unhealthy depositions in the body. They in turn make the circulation of fluids including blood, in the finer spaces sluggish. Stagnation of apparently thicker fluids in the channels is then to be followed. Even in areas of better circulation, the flow through the periphery of the channel will be slower than that of the centre. As a result, products of metabolism including wastes and toxic materials are exposed to the linings of channels for longer periods and interact only to degrade them. They become sticky very often and adhere to the inner surfaces of channels only to make them narrower. Majority of the diseases passes through this part of the pathology in very early stages, even before the diseases show their symptoms out. This derangement continues to exist throughout the course of illness.
The occlusion of extra cellular spaces acts adversely in many ways. It affects the permeability of cell membranes and reduces, the in and out flows. Secondly, the viscous material coat itself, being alien to the often go toxic and even starts producing toxic free radicals etc. Like crystal's growth, these adhesions grow by its own creating further obstruction. Cholesterol plaques found in larger arteries are perceivable examples of it. Further, such stagnations of variable compositions initiate certain vicious circles worsening the pathology. In every disease the attempt should be not only to relive the symptoms but also to correct the basic derangement. The toxic and waste coating masking the entire life force has to be erased out. Only then body will be able to fight the illness by activating various defense mechanisms. The body will be activated in such a way that can combat the present illnesses. It is often found very frequently in practice that with this kind of cleaning alone the symptoms cure to a good extend.
Ayurveda elucidates five methods of purification for the body. They remove the stagnations and expel the toxins at different areas. They are emesis, purgation, enemas, nasal drops and blood letting. The first three methods rinses the upper, middle and lower parts of the gastro intestinal tracts respectively. In diseases involving the head region, nasal cleaning is very effective while blood letting is done for purifying the fluid tissues of the body.
Vamana or emesis is highly effective in diseases located in relatively upper parts of the body and for those of mucous origin. The patient is usually given milk or sugarcane juice to drink as much as possible in the morning. A suitable emetic medicine is then given with honey. He starts vomiting comfortably and completely within half an hour. It works miracles in asthma and other respiratory diseases, skin diseases, and in mental sickness. Emesis arrests the generation of excess mucus and its oozing out in various tissues. Vamana inducts a mucus free respiratory tract in asthma, oozing and sub dermal edema free dry skin in skin diseases and alertness and activeness in mental sickness. This is also of wide utility in gastric ulcers, hyperacidity, head aches, sinusitis, diabetes, certain liver diseases, addiction to drugs, alcohol etc.
In Ayurveda plenty of purgatives in the forms powders, oils, pills, decoctions etc, are used. Purgation is very effective in diseases of bilious origin. It quickly drains out the fuels for inflammation. It purifies the blood, corrects digestion, restores motility of intestines and improves the liver functions. Various diseases of gastric origin, liver diseases, jaundice, boils and carbuncles, toxicity from causes like food poisoning, eye diseases, genital diseases, arthritis, and diabetes are treated well with carefully selected purgatives.
The lower parts of the intestine are inaccessible for these methods. This area is relatively dry because the water contents of the digested materials get absorbed here. In such conditions, a mixture of oils, honey, salt, and decoctions or sometimes oils alone is the most harmless cleaning procedure is given as enema. This is the most effective treatment for all neurological diseases. The colloidal enema reaches to a good length in the large intestine, removing all the sticky and toxic adherences without making the slightest irritation to the structures. Recurrent abdominal disturbances, arthritis, rheumatic diseases, infertility, degenerative diseases, and a wide range of nervous system disorders, are found relieving by suitably selected enemas.
Nasal drops drains out waste materials from different areas o f head and neck in the form of mucus. This is very useful in common cold, sinusitis, headache, and inflammation in the ear, defects of vision, cervical spondylosis and even frozen shoulder.
Blood letting allows the impure blood to flow out which will be replaced by freshly generated blood in very short period. This is useful in various inflammatory diseases, skin diseases, allergy, toxicity, spleen and liver diseases etc. One of the methods of blood letting, using leeches, enjoys world wide popularity as a Para surgical measure even in most advanced medical centers. Other methods of blood letting includes skin pricks over the affected area, vaccum suction using a cow's horn or a vaccum vessel.
The selection of the method, the drug selected, the kind of preparatory and post procedural care are very influential in the regression of diseases. Among these, the preparatory procedures have a major role in the effectiveness of panchakarmas. They are aimed at bringing the adhesions and impurities from remote locations to the stomach from where they are easily expelled. Medicated fats, cream of curd with jaggery, etc are some common preparations, used internally for making the impurities loose and mobile. Massage with hot oils, steam baths, etc. are some popular external preparatory procedures. They act at cellular levels forcing to expel out toxic depositions, making the fluid in the extra cellular spaces thin and mobile and allowing them to flow back to intestines.
This kind of cleaning up remove all shadows which prevent the life force to act upon the diseases। It brushes up the immune system and releases energy availed from food through smoother path ways। The resultant will be a harmony of body, mind and soul which brings all the glories back to life. This is also the preparatory step for the rejuvenation treatments of Ayurveda known as Rasayana therapy.
Dr.Anand.P.K.V. M.D.(Ay)
Vaidyaratnam Ayurveda College,
Thaikkattussery, Thrissur, Kerala
The Sacred Plant - Tulsi
Tulsii – the Indian Basil plant often grown in the courtyards of Hindu families, is a revered symbol of worship in the Hindu religious tradition. The name 'Tulsi' dennotes "the incomparable one". Traditional Hindus worship this holy plant every morning and evening as a ritual.
Tulsi grows wild in the tropics and warm regions. It is a branched, fragrant and erect herb plant attaining a height of about 75 to 90 cms when mature. Its aromatic leaves are round-shaped, growing up to 5 cms long with the margin being entire or toothed. The Tulsi flowers are small, reddish-purple in color, present in small compact clusters on cylindrical spikes. The fruits are small and the seeds are reddish-yellow in color.
The Tulsi plant with light green leaves is called Shri / Rama Tulsi and the plant variety with dark red leaves is called Krishna or Shyama /Manjari Tulsi. The extracts (juice/oil) of the Shri / Rama Tulsi plant is widely used for its Ayurvedic medicinal value. The juice of leaves, or a concoction, called Jushanda, is a kind of tea, giving relief in common cold, fever, bronchitis, cough, digestive complaints, etc. Marked by its strong aroma and astringent taste, Tulsi is also known as "the elixir of life" as it promotes longevity. The plant's extracts can be used to prevent and cure many illnesses and everyday ailments like common cold, headaches, cough, flu, ear-ache, fever, colic pain, digestive disorders, etc.
This sacred Basil, Ocimum Sanctum, is a fragrant, medicinal plant that also keeps away mosquitoes and flies. It offers a herbal remedy for serious ailments like inflammation, heart disease, various forms of poisoning, malaria, diabetes, hepatitis and psychosomatic stress disorders because of its anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
The Krishna / Shyama Tulsi plant is widely used for everyday worship in all Hindu Brahmin families. Many Hindu households have a Tulsi plant in the courtyard, grown in a specially built structure, having images of deities installed on all four sides, and an alcove for a small earthen oil lamp. Some households can even have up to a dozen Tulsi plants on the verandah or in the garden forming a Tulsi-Van or Tulsi-Vrindavan - a miniature basil forest. Places that tend to inspire concentration and places ideal for worship, according to the Gandharva Tantra, include "grounds overgrown with Tulsi plants". The Tulsi Manas Mandir at Varanasi is one such famous temple, where Tulsi is worshipped along with other Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Vaishnavites or Believers of Lord Vishnu worship the Tulsi leaf because it's the one that pleases Lord Vishnu the most.
The story of Lord Krishna has it that when Krishna was weighed in gold, not even all the ornaments of Satyabhama could outweigh him. But a single Tulsi leaf placed by Rukmini on the pan tilted the scale.
In the Hindu mythology, Tulsi is very dear to Lord Vishnu. Tulsi is ceremonially married to Lord Vishnu annually on the 11th bright day of the month of Kartika in the lunar calendar. This festival continues for five days and concludes on the full moon day, which falls in mid October. This ritual, called the 'Tulsi Vivaha' inaugurates the annual marriage season in India.
Hindu Mythological Tales narrate that Tulsi, a destitute woman, was accused of infidelity and shunned by all. Finding no shelter in the world, she turned to Vishnu for help. But the gates of Vaikuntha (Vishnu’s Abode) were shut on her as Vishnu’s Consort Lakshmi refused to let her in.
Tulsi stood in the courtyard of Vishnu’s abode, under the open sky, helpless and humiliated. Her feet turned into roots, her arms sprouted leaves, and she turned into a delicate yet wild plant, her fragrance spreading all around.Lord Vishnu said: “By not abandoning her devotion to me, despite all odds, Tulsi has become my beloved, ‘Vishnupriya’. She should be treated with dignity at all times - not as an unchaste woman, but as a venerable housewife, a ‘Sumangali’. No worship of Vishnu is complete without an offering of Tulsi sprigs.
And so the Tulsi plant is nurtured in the courtyard of every house, and is identified as Vishnu’s Vrinda or Krishna’s Radha, women whose devotion for the Lord, though unrequited, never waned. Thus, Tulsi is seen as Lakshmi’s co-wife for her unconditional devotion to Vishnu, but as Laksmi is very jealous of her, she resides in the home whereas Tulsi remains in the courtyard.
Another story goes that Tulsi was the paramour of Lord Vishnu. Out of Jealousy, Lakshmi cursed her into becoming a plant and the Lord transformed himself into the sacred Shalagrama Stone to keep her company. The Shalagrama is a small stone, an ammonite, a fossil genus of marine cephalopod, considered to be a natural representation of Lord Vishnu. Shalagramas are found in the Gandak river of Nepal. They are usually black or dark green colored, round or oval in shape, striated with tree-like markings. The curves of the striations signify the various forms / reincarnations of Vishnu. The worship of Shalagrama doesn’t involve elaborate prayer rituals. It is kept wrapped in a cloth, often bathed and perfumed. Its very presence in a home bestows health, wealth and happiness on its inhabitants.
By convention, the Tulsi Leaf is not offered to Shiva, just as Bel Leaves, dear to Shiva, are not offered to Vishnu. Tulsi leaves are also not offered to Goddess Lakshmi as she was once annoyed during her love-sport with Vishnu, when his attention got diverted towards Tulsi.
Necklaces of Tulsi Beads are used as Rosaries while chanting the name of Lord Vishnu. These are kept in special cloth bags to prevent their contamination.
Thus, Tulsi – The Courtyard Plant is not only a symbol of sacred virtue in Hindu religion, it is also well-known and well-used as a medicinal herb for curing human ailments, as an alternative therapy in Ayurveda.
Tulsi grows wild in the tropics and warm regions. It is a branched, fragrant and erect herb plant attaining a height of about 75 to 90 cms when mature. Its aromatic leaves are round-shaped, growing up to 5 cms long with the margin being entire or toothed. The Tulsi flowers are small, reddish-purple in color, present in small compact clusters on cylindrical spikes. The fruits are small and the seeds are reddish-yellow in color.
The Tulsi plant with light green leaves is called Shri / Rama Tulsi and the plant variety with dark red leaves is called Krishna or Shyama /Manjari Tulsi. The extracts (juice/oil) of the Shri / Rama Tulsi plant is widely used for its Ayurvedic medicinal value. The juice of leaves, or a concoction, called Jushanda, is a kind of tea, giving relief in common cold, fever, bronchitis, cough, digestive complaints, etc. Marked by its strong aroma and astringent taste, Tulsi is also known as "the elixir of life" as it promotes longevity. The plant's extracts can be used to prevent and cure many illnesses and everyday ailments like common cold, headaches, cough, flu, ear-ache, fever, colic pain, digestive disorders, etc.
This sacred Basil, Ocimum Sanctum, is a fragrant, medicinal plant that also keeps away mosquitoes and flies. It offers a herbal remedy for serious ailments like inflammation, heart disease, various forms of poisoning, malaria, diabetes, hepatitis and psychosomatic stress disorders because of its anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
The Krishna / Shyama Tulsi plant is widely used for everyday worship in all Hindu Brahmin families. Many Hindu households have a Tulsi plant in the courtyard, grown in a specially built structure, having images of deities installed on all four sides, and an alcove for a small earthen oil lamp. Some households can even have up to a dozen Tulsi plants on the verandah or in the garden forming a Tulsi-Van or Tulsi-Vrindavan - a miniature basil forest. Places that tend to inspire concentration and places ideal for worship, according to the Gandharva Tantra, include "grounds overgrown with Tulsi plants". The Tulsi Manas Mandir at Varanasi is one such famous temple, where Tulsi is worshipped along with other Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Vaishnavites or Believers of Lord Vishnu worship the Tulsi leaf because it's the one that pleases Lord Vishnu the most.
The story of Lord Krishna has it that when Krishna was weighed in gold, not even all the ornaments of Satyabhama could outweigh him. But a single Tulsi leaf placed by Rukmini on the pan tilted the scale.
In the Hindu mythology, Tulsi is very dear to Lord Vishnu. Tulsi is ceremonially married to Lord Vishnu annually on the 11th bright day of the month of Kartika in the lunar calendar. This festival continues for five days and concludes on the full moon day, which falls in mid October. This ritual, called the 'Tulsi Vivaha' inaugurates the annual marriage season in India.
Hindu Mythological Tales narrate that Tulsi, a destitute woman, was accused of infidelity and shunned by all. Finding no shelter in the world, she turned to Vishnu for help. But the gates of Vaikuntha (Vishnu’s Abode) were shut on her as Vishnu’s Consort Lakshmi refused to let her in.
Tulsi stood in the courtyard of Vishnu’s abode, under the open sky, helpless and humiliated. Her feet turned into roots, her arms sprouted leaves, and she turned into a delicate yet wild plant, her fragrance spreading all around.Lord Vishnu said: “By not abandoning her devotion to me, despite all odds, Tulsi has become my beloved, ‘Vishnupriya’. She should be treated with dignity at all times - not as an unchaste woman, but as a venerable housewife, a ‘Sumangali’. No worship of Vishnu is complete without an offering of Tulsi sprigs.
And so the Tulsi plant is nurtured in the courtyard of every house, and is identified as Vishnu’s Vrinda or Krishna’s Radha, women whose devotion for the Lord, though unrequited, never waned. Thus, Tulsi is seen as Lakshmi’s co-wife for her unconditional devotion to Vishnu, but as Laksmi is very jealous of her, she resides in the home whereas Tulsi remains in the courtyard.
Another story goes that Tulsi was the paramour of Lord Vishnu. Out of Jealousy, Lakshmi cursed her into becoming a plant and the Lord transformed himself into the sacred Shalagrama Stone to keep her company. The Shalagrama is a small stone, an ammonite, a fossil genus of marine cephalopod, considered to be a natural representation of Lord Vishnu. Shalagramas are found in the Gandak river of Nepal. They are usually black or dark green colored, round or oval in shape, striated with tree-like markings. The curves of the striations signify the various forms / reincarnations of Vishnu. The worship of Shalagrama doesn’t involve elaborate prayer rituals. It is kept wrapped in a cloth, often bathed and perfumed. Its very presence in a home bestows health, wealth and happiness on its inhabitants.
By convention, the Tulsi Leaf is not offered to Shiva, just as Bel Leaves, dear to Shiva, are not offered to Vishnu. Tulsi leaves are also not offered to Goddess Lakshmi as she was once annoyed during her love-sport with Vishnu, when his attention got diverted towards Tulsi.
Necklaces of Tulsi Beads are used as Rosaries while chanting the name of Lord Vishnu. These are kept in special cloth bags to prevent their contamination.
Thus, Tulsi – The Courtyard Plant is not only a symbol of sacred virtue in Hindu religion, it is also well-known and well-used as a medicinal herb for curing human ailments, as an alternative therapy in Ayurveda.
HOME REMEDIES:
Banana is one of the most effective home remedies for the treatment of a
peptic ulcer. It neutralizes the over-acidity of the gastric juices and reduces
the irritation of the ulcer by coating the lining of the stomach. Patients who
are in an advanced state of the disease should take a diet consisting only of
two bananas with a glass of milk, three or four times a day.
An infusion of the leaves of wood apple is another effective remedy for this
disease. Fifteen grams of leaves should be soaked overnight in 250 ml of water.
In the morning this water should be strained and taken as a drink. Bael leaves
are rich in tannins which reduce inflammation and help in the healing of ulcers.
Lime is valuable in peptic ulcers. The citric acid in this fruit, together
with the mineral salts present in the juice, help in digestion.
Cabbage is regarded as another useful home remedy for a peptic ulcer: The
juice extracted from raw cabbage is also a valuable medicine for a peptic ulcer.
A tea made from fenugreek seeds is yet another useful remedy for peptic
ulcers.
The leaves of the kalyana murangal tree, which is a variety 'of drumstick
found in South India, have also proved helpful in the healing of ulcers. Ten
grams of the leaves of this tree should be ground into a paste, mixed with half
a cup of yoghurt, and taken daily.
The juices of raw vegetables, particularly carrot and cabbage, are beneficial
in the treatment of peptic ulcers.
Carrot juice may be taken either alone or in combination with spinach, or
beet and cucumber.
Milk prepared from blanched almonds in a blender is very useful as a treatment
for peptic ulcers. It binds the excess of acid in the stomach and supplies high
quality protein.
peptic ulcer. It neutralizes the over-acidity of the gastric juices and reduces
the irritation of the ulcer by coating the lining of the stomach. Patients who
are in an advanced state of the disease should take a diet consisting only of
two bananas with a glass of milk, three or four times a day.
An infusion of the leaves of wood apple is another effective remedy for this
disease. Fifteen grams of leaves should be soaked overnight in 250 ml of water.
In the morning this water should be strained and taken as a drink. Bael leaves
are rich in tannins which reduce inflammation and help in the healing of ulcers.
Lime is valuable in peptic ulcers. The citric acid in this fruit, together
with the mineral salts present in the juice, help in digestion.
Cabbage is regarded as another useful home remedy for a peptic ulcer: The
juice extracted from raw cabbage is also a valuable medicine for a peptic ulcer.
A tea made from fenugreek seeds is yet another useful remedy for peptic
ulcers.
The leaves of the kalyana murangal tree, which is a variety 'of drumstick
found in South India, have also proved helpful in the healing of ulcers. Ten
grams of the leaves of this tree should be ground into a paste, mixed with half
a cup of yoghurt, and taken daily.
The juices of raw vegetables, particularly carrot and cabbage, are beneficial
in the treatment of peptic ulcers.
Carrot juice may be taken either alone or in combination with spinach, or
beet and cucumber.
Milk prepared from blanched almonds in a blender is very useful as a treatment
for peptic ulcers. It binds the excess of acid in the stomach and supplies high
quality protein.
AYURVEDA REMEDY TO CURE FEVER AT HOME
FEVER & KITCHEN .... FEVER.................CURE...... IN KITCHEN........Fever or Jwar is one of the most comprehensively described entity in Ayurveda. Thirteen types of fever are described .
In Ayurveda - Vataja, Pittaja, Kaphaja, Vata-Pittaja, Vata- Kaphaja, Tridoshaj (intrinsic fevers), Agantuja (extrinsic fever), Kamaja (related to sex), Shokaja (anxiety induced), Vishama jwar (malaria), Krodhaja (anger induced) and Bhuta-vistha (of unknown origin). Depending upon the doshic involvement or other factors, additional symptoms besides elevation of temperature are observed.
The causative factors of fever are diverse and hence the management is equally varied. In majority of the fevers, the presence of mind and common sense in handling a situation goes in conformity with the laws of nature.
Ingredients:-
Black Pepper
Ginger
Holy Basil
Rose water
Common Recipes:-Sponging the forehead and the body with cold water is a commonly recommended practice in high fever and in fever due to sun-stroke. For better results, add 1 teaspoonful of rose water to the cold water before sponging. You could even add the rose water to an ice-bag and use it for sponging.
Take about 20 fresh leaves of Holy Basil. Take a small piece of ginger and about 5 grains of black pepper. Boil them together in your tea and drink the warm liquid.
In Ayurveda - Vataja, Pittaja, Kaphaja, Vata-Pittaja, Vata- Kaphaja, Tridoshaj (intrinsic fevers), Agantuja (extrinsic fever), Kamaja (related to sex), Shokaja (anxiety induced), Vishama jwar (malaria), Krodhaja (anger induced) and Bhuta-vistha (of unknown origin). Depending upon the doshic involvement or other factors, additional symptoms besides elevation of temperature are observed.
The causative factors of fever are diverse and hence the management is equally varied. In majority of the fevers, the presence of mind and common sense in handling a situation goes in conformity with the laws of nature.
Ingredients:-
Black Pepper
Ginger
Holy Basil
Rose water
Common Recipes:-Sponging the forehead and the body with cold water is a commonly recommended practice in high fever and in fever due to sun-stroke. For better results, add 1 teaspoonful of rose water to the cold water before sponging. You could even add the rose water to an ice-bag and use it for sponging.
Take about 20 fresh leaves of Holy Basil. Take a small piece of ginger and about 5 grains of black pepper. Boil them together in your tea and drink the warm liquid.
Simple Rules to Good Health
If we follow nature and our natural instincts sans the
defects of a regimented modern life-style, it is very
easy to look after, manage, reduce and even cure
completely various health problems like fatigue,
mental and physical depressions, body aches and pains.
The spinal column which joins the ‘Sahasrar Chakra” at
the top of the brain to the ‘Mooladhar Chakra’ at the
lower end of the spine, is the master-key to good
health. Simple relaxation techniques which are
ingrained in almost all the 84 lakh species including
human beings naturally reflex back the body to its
natural, God-given state.
Hence, to enjoy optimum health sans various common
ailments, try the following simple rules of simple
living and high thinking.
1. Eliminate or try to reduce to the minimum the five
well-known white poisons like sugar, salt, oils or
fats, refined flours such as maida, besan or similar
other food stuffs (which do not have the outer
covering like bran), eggs, too much of milk or milk
products as also non-vegetarian food which has lots of
cholesterol, fats and proteins.
2. Drink plenty of water to produce nearly two liters
of urine in 24 hours to keep the body clean and supple
without kidney problems.
3. Eat plenty of seasonal vegetables and fruits,
preferably by reducing other food to that extent. You
can eat plenty of salads as they do not contain
spices, and fruits instead of sugary desserts.
4. Avoid constipation at all costs; preceding paras
1,2 and 3 would help you in doing so. Constipation
creates and aggravates many ailments.
5. Try the following exercises before you come out of
the bed each time you sleep as they have a
rejuvenating effect:
a) Lie straight on your back on a hard bed with palms
under your head in place of the pillow. Join the big
toes and pull both the feet towards your head suddenly
without moving your heels which should remain where
they were i.e. at the same place on the bed. Wait for
a second and then drop down the feet back to their
earlie position and relax to enjoy the nice feeling.
Repeat it again 10 times or more, if you have more
time to enjoy.
b) Repeat by joining the toes and lifting the feet as
above. The circulate both the feet in a semi-circle,
right foot to the right and left to the left, joining
the toes back at the same point from where you had
started, to complete the circle and relax to enjoy.
c) Do the same exercise but in the reverse direction
and enjoy it for 10 times or more
d) Then keep your legs eight or ten inches apart, pull
both feet quickly towards you as you had done in a)
above. In all such cases, when you pull the feet
towards you keeping the heels where they were on the
bed, the knees too automatically and simultaneously
rise to that extent. Then jerk the knees together to
the extent convenient quickly but without force. Wait
for a second and drop both the legs to their original
position. It is very enjoyable. Repeat ten times or
more, time permitting, to enjoy as long as you want.
e) Pull both your legs and feet half way on the bed
with knees raised. Then jerk the feet up keeping the
heels on the bed only. Then while keeping the feet,
not the heels, in the raised position, jerk the knees
quickly but softly, wait for second and drop down the
feet with a slight thud on the bed to enjoy the
relaxation before you repeat it again to enjoy as many
times as you want to enjoy.
After completing the five simple exercises to be done
only with a view to enjoy, slowly slip back both the
legs slowly towards the end of the bed. After
straightening the body fully, stretch a little more to
induce what is called angdai in Hindi or alas-ghene in
Marathi. If done in that position, it will rejuvenate
you each time you do the exercises, feeling
fresh-like-a-flower each and every time.
If each exercise is done for about ten times, the
whole procedure would take two to three minutes. Hence
our good health slogan should be:
“Three minutes a day; keep the doctor away!”
And whenever too tired, do it again for a few
minutes to come out,
“fresh-like-a-flower”.
NB: The author himself has been following these simple
rules for the last two decades or so although he had a
severe heart attack (MI) in 1982 and although many
cardiologists have had advised him to undergo by-pass
surgery. The author has since been doing much more
work after the heart attack but never felt any need to
go for a by-pass although he was 51 years of age when
he had the attack and now he is 76.
After the attack, he started holding free cure camps
for back pain etc. During the last 16 years or so, he
has held more than 600 such kepts with 30,000 or more
beneficiaries, most of whom had come to attend his
camps in the last resort after trying various
therapies. They come just to take one more chance if
something could help them to recover. Those who follow
these simple rules properly do recover to enjoy better
health than ever before.
He has tried to put most of the details on the
Internet at the abve-mentioned website and also the
exercises are given on YouTube to make it easy for all
to learn from there.
defects of a regimented modern life-style, it is very
easy to look after, manage, reduce and even cure
completely various health problems like fatigue,
mental and physical depressions, body aches and pains.
The spinal column which joins the ‘Sahasrar Chakra” at
the top of the brain to the ‘Mooladhar Chakra’ at the
lower end of the spine, is the master-key to good
health. Simple relaxation techniques which are
ingrained in almost all the 84 lakh species including
human beings naturally reflex back the body to its
natural, God-given state.
Hence, to enjoy optimum health sans various common
ailments, try the following simple rules of simple
living and high thinking.
1. Eliminate or try to reduce to the minimum the five
well-known white poisons like sugar, salt, oils or
fats, refined flours such as maida, besan or similar
other food stuffs (which do not have the outer
covering like bran), eggs, too much of milk or milk
products as also non-vegetarian food which has lots of
cholesterol, fats and proteins.
2. Drink plenty of water to produce nearly two liters
of urine in 24 hours to keep the body clean and supple
without kidney problems.
3. Eat plenty of seasonal vegetables and fruits,
preferably by reducing other food to that extent. You
can eat plenty of salads as they do not contain
spices, and fruits instead of sugary desserts.
4. Avoid constipation at all costs; preceding paras
1,2 and 3 would help you in doing so. Constipation
creates and aggravates many ailments.
5. Try the following exercises before you come out of
the bed each time you sleep as they have a
rejuvenating effect:
a) Lie straight on your back on a hard bed with palms
under your head in place of the pillow. Join the big
toes and pull both the feet towards your head suddenly
without moving your heels which should remain where
they were i.e. at the same place on the bed. Wait for
a second and then drop down the feet back to their
earlie position and relax to enjoy the nice feeling.
Repeat it again 10 times or more, if you have more
time to enjoy.
b) Repeat by joining the toes and lifting the feet as
above. The circulate both the feet in a semi-circle,
right foot to the right and left to the left, joining
the toes back at the same point from where you had
started, to complete the circle and relax to enjoy.
c) Do the same exercise but in the reverse direction
and enjoy it for 10 times or more
d) Then keep your legs eight or ten inches apart, pull
both feet quickly towards you as you had done in a)
above. In all such cases, when you pull the feet
towards you keeping the heels where they were on the
bed, the knees too automatically and simultaneously
rise to that extent. Then jerk the knees together to
the extent convenient quickly but without force. Wait
for a second and drop both the legs to their original
position. It is very enjoyable. Repeat ten times or
more, time permitting, to enjoy as long as you want.
e) Pull both your legs and feet half way on the bed
with knees raised. Then jerk the feet up keeping the
heels on the bed only. Then while keeping the feet,
not the heels, in the raised position, jerk the knees
quickly but softly, wait for second and drop down the
feet with a slight thud on the bed to enjoy the
relaxation before you repeat it again to enjoy as many
times as you want to enjoy.
After completing the five simple exercises to be done
only with a view to enjoy, slowly slip back both the
legs slowly towards the end of the bed. After
straightening the body fully, stretch a little more to
induce what is called angdai in Hindi or alas-ghene in
Marathi. If done in that position, it will rejuvenate
you each time you do the exercises, feeling
fresh-like-a-flower each and every time.
If each exercise is done for about ten times, the
whole procedure would take two to three minutes. Hence
our good health slogan should be:
“Three minutes a day; keep the doctor away!”
And whenever too tired, do it again for a few
minutes to come out,
“fresh-like-a-flower”.
NB: The author himself has been following these simple
rules for the last two decades or so although he had a
severe heart attack (MI) in 1982 and although many
cardiologists have had advised him to undergo by-pass
surgery. The author has since been doing much more
work after the heart attack but never felt any need to
go for a by-pass although he was 51 years of age when
he had the attack and now he is 76.
After the attack, he started holding free cure camps
for back pain etc. During the last 16 years or so, he
has held more than 600 such kepts with 30,000 or more
beneficiaries, most of whom had come to attend his
camps in the last resort after trying various
therapies. They come just to take one more chance if
something could help them to recover. Those who follow
these simple rules properly do recover to enjoy better
health than ever before.
He has tried to put most of the details on the
Internet at the abve-mentioned website and also the
exercises are given on YouTube to make it easy for all
to learn from there.
Few Tips for Good Health
For Headache & Tiredness
Sit straight & stretch both arms & place the hands on the knees with palm facing upwards.
Bend the index finger so that it folds under your thumb. The remaining 3 fingers should remain straight.
Let about 1/2 cm. of your tongue (i.e., tip of the tongue) be out of the mouth.
Relax your mind.
Sit in this position for 1-2 minutes. One should do this procedure 2-3 times in a day.
For Controlling Anger
1) One should chew food properly. One must devote atleast 20 minutes in chewing food.
2) Whenever one feels angry, one should fold hands to make a firm fist for a few minutes.
This would make 90% of anger disappear.
For High Blood Pressure
1) One should say the mantra, Om Shanti Shanti Shanti , everytime one eats meals or drinks anything.
One should say this mantra before, during & after eating/drinking.
2) Soak one raisin (kishmish) overnight in pure rose water. Eat it empty stomach the next day.
Soak 2 raisins on the second day, 3 raisins on the third day & keep on increasing the number for 21 days.
That means one should soak 21 raisins on the 21st day. If you do not get pure rose water, then prepare it at home by boiling 1 kg of rose petals (desi gulab) in 1 liter of water & then filtering it using a fine cloth.
To make sure that high blood pressure is cured permanently, one should repeat this course again after a month.
For Low Blood Pressure
One should say the mantra "Hari Aum..." several times at a fast speed. One should read satsang books that help one get rid of depression. Whenever one feels low, then one should fight back the negative thoughts
with the powerful positive energy of "Hari Aum...".
``````````````````````````````````````
For Diabetes/ High Blood Sugar
The following remedies have been taken from the book, Arogya Nidhi, published by Sant Shri Asaramji Ashram.
1) Methi seeds:
Soak 10mg of methi seeds in 100 ml of water in the night. In the morning rub this methi (crush them with your hand) and eat it. Also drink the remaining water.
2) Fresh juice of cabbage, carrots, coconut, karela & spinach is helpful for lowering the blood sugar.
3) Saunth Jal (Dry ginger water): Boil one whole saunth/dry ginger root in a large bowl of water till the water is reduced to half. When the water becomes cool use a thick cloth to sieve it (pani chhan lo). Do sieve it twice so that the threads of dry ginger do not remain in water. Use this water in the day time. After the sugar level becomes normal even then continue taking this water for some days.
4) Ajwain Jal:
Boil 1 litre of water with 1 tsp of fresh new ajwain (approx. 8.5 gms). Boil it till the water is reduced to half.
After the water becomes cool sieve it using a cloth and drink it.Note: This water is hot in nature.
5)Pani Prayog / water Therapy
TULSI For Tooth Problems, Enhance Memory &Prevent & Cure Jalodhar/Bhagodar
Chew 5-7 leaves of Tulsi & drink one glass of water empty stomach early in the morning. Tulsi should not be picked before sunrise, after sunset & on Sunday.
One should pick Tulsi in the day time.
Leaves of Tulsi remain fresh for 7 days.
This will cure tooth problems of children, prevent & diseases like Jalodhar/Bhagodar. This is also very helpful in improving memory.
For Curing & Preventing Kidney Problems
There is a vegetable grown in India called
(Punarnava) in Sanskrit,
(Saatori) in Gujrati,
(Saattaa) in Punjabi
& (Lunrak) in Sindhi.
This vegetable looks very similar to spinach.
* When suffering from kidney problems, one should take 50 gms. juice of this vegetable once everyday.
* In order to make kidney stronger than before, one should cook & eat this vegetable once in 10-15 days.
Note: The first P.M. of India Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru had presented this plant to Queen Elizabeth of Britain
because of its great medicinal value
Harmful Effects of Cheese & Mava or Khoya
Any kind of cheese (or paneer) & condensed milk (mava or khoya) is very harmful for health.
These milk products are very difficult to digest & the body is not able to get rid of them & therefore
they act as poison for the body. These products lead to several health disorders like heart problems etc.
Vaayu (Gas) Problems
Taking 4-5 pieces of cashew after meals is very helpful in overcoming Vaayu problems.
Please note that eating more than 7 cashew pieces in 24 hours is harmful for health.
Potatoes are very harmful for people having Vaayu problems
Mandaagni (Not feeling hungry & weak digestion power
Take a few sliced ginger pieces dipped in lemon juice & sprinkled with salt 10-15 minutes before meals.
Sit straight & stretch both arms & place the hands on the knees with palm facing upwards.
Bend the index finger so that it folds under your thumb. The remaining 3 fingers should remain straight.
Let about 1/2 cm. of your tongue (i.e., tip of the tongue) be out of the mouth.
Relax your mind.
Sit in this position for 1-2 minutes. One should do this procedure 2-3 times in a day.
For Controlling Anger
1) One should chew food properly. One must devote atleast 20 minutes in chewing food.
2) Whenever one feels angry, one should fold hands to make a firm fist for a few minutes.
This would make 90% of anger disappear.
For High Blood Pressure
1) One should say the mantra, Om Shanti Shanti Shanti , everytime one eats meals or drinks anything.
One should say this mantra before, during & after eating/drinking.
2) Soak one raisin (kishmish) overnight in pure rose water. Eat it empty stomach the next day.
Soak 2 raisins on the second day, 3 raisins on the third day & keep on increasing the number for 21 days.
That means one should soak 21 raisins on the 21st day. If you do not get pure rose water, then prepare it at home by boiling 1 kg of rose petals (desi gulab) in 1 liter of water & then filtering it using a fine cloth.
To make sure that high blood pressure is cured permanently, one should repeat this course again after a month.
For Low Blood Pressure
One should say the mantra "Hari Aum..." several times at a fast speed. One should read satsang books that help one get rid of depression. Whenever one feels low, then one should fight back the negative thoughts
with the powerful positive energy of "Hari Aum...".
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For Diabetes/ High Blood Sugar
The following remedies have been taken from the book, Arogya Nidhi, published by Sant Shri Asaramji Ashram.
1) Methi seeds:
Soak 10mg of methi seeds in 100 ml of water in the night. In the morning rub this methi (crush them with your hand) and eat it. Also drink the remaining water.
2) Fresh juice of cabbage, carrots, coconut, karela & spinach is helpful for lowering the blood sugar.
3) Saunth Jal (Dry ginger water): Boil one whole saunth/dry ginger root in a large bowl of water till the water is reduced to half. When the water becomes cool use a thick cloth to sieve it (pani chhan lo). Do sieve it twice so that the threads of dry ginger do not remain in water. Use this water in the day time. After the sugar level becomes normal even then continue taking this water for some days.
4) Ajwain Jal:
Boil 1 litre of water with 1 tsp of fresh new ajwain (approx. 8.5 gms). Boil it till the water is reduced to half.
After the water becomes cool sieve it using a cloth and drink it.Note: This water is hot in nature.
5)Pani Prayog / water Therapy
TULSI For Tooth Problems, Enhance Memory &Prevent & Cure Jalodhar/Bhagodar
Chew 5-7 leaves of Tulsi & drink one glass of water empty stomach early in the morning. Tulsi should not be picked before sunrise, after sunset & on Sunday.
One should pick Tulsi in the day time.
Leaves of Tulsi remain fresh for 7 days.
This will cure tooth problems of children, prevent & diseases like Jalodhar/Bhagodar. This is also very helpful in improving memory.
For Curing & Preventing Kidney Problems
There is a vegetable grown in India called
(Punarnava) in Sanskrit,
(Saatori) in Gujrati,
(Saattaa) in Punjabi
& (Lunrak) in Sindhi.
This vegetable looks very similar to spinach.
* When suffering from kidney problems, one should take 50 gms. juice of this vegetable once everyday.
* In order to make kidney stronger than before, one should cook & eat this vegetable once in 10-15 days.
Note: The first P.M. of India Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru had presented this plant to Queen Elizabeth of Britain
because of its great medicinal value
Harmful Effects of Cheese & Mava or Khoya
Any kind of cheese (or paneer) & condensed milk (mava or khoya) is very harmful for health.
These milk products are very difficult to digest & the body is not able to get rid of them & therefore
they act as poison for the body. These products lead to several health disorders like heart problems etc.
Vaayu (Gas) Problems
Taking 4-5 pieces of cashew after meals is very helpful in overcoming Vaayu problems.
Please note that eating more than 7 cashew pieces in 24 hours is harmful for health.
Potatoes are very harmful for people having Vaayu problems
Mandaagni (Not feeling hungry & weak digestion power
Take a few sliced ginger pieces dipped in lemon juice & sprinkled with salt 10-15 minutes before meals.
Summer Hair care
In summer, the hot and humid weather results in a lot of hair problems.
In fact, very few of us have normal, healthy hair. Good hair needs good care. If you are suffering from problems like oily scalp or dandruff or hair-fall, then have a look at these tips below and try following them. Within a month you will see results.
DANDRUFF:
* Apply neem leaves extract with lemon juice on the scalp and keep it for 30 minutes, then rinse it.
* After shampoo, apply vinegar and lemon juice mixed in equal quantities on the scalp and keep it for 5 to 10 minutes and rinse it.
* Massage the scalp with jojoba oil or coconut oil by gentle inward circulation for 30 minutes and wrap the hair with hot towel for ½ an hour. Shampoo the next morning.
HAIR FALL:
* Take 2 tsp of castor oil, 2 tsp of amla, 2 tsp of shikakai, 2 tsp of reetha powder, two tsp of fenugreek (methi) powder, 2 eggs and 2 tsp paste of neem leaves. Mix all of them and apply to the roots and keep it for 45 minutes. Then shampoo.
OILY HAIR:
* Mix 3 tsp of flour, 10 crushed strawberries, 2 tsp of amla powder and 1 tsp of white vinegar in cold water. Apply this paste on the hair and leave it for 40 minutes and then rinse it. This cleanses your hair and scalp.
Hair vitaliser:
* Grind a few hibiscus leaves and flowers and mix in 2 to 3 drops of coconut milk. Rub gently on the scalp. Rinse your hair after half an hour with a mild shampoo. It can be effectively used to treat various problems like hair-fall, dandruff and premature greying.
Hair tonic:
* Juice of fresh neem leaves cures scalp disorders including dandruff. It even reduces hair loss. A regular massage with neem juice can get rid of lice as well.
Acne home remedies
Mix equal quantities of cucumber juice, rose water and lime juice. Wash the face and apply it overnight. Rinse off in the morning. This clears the complexion and keeps it healthy.
Take 50 ml. of raw (not boiled) milk and mix a pinch of salt and two teaspoonful of lime juice in it. Use it as a cleansing lotion. It helps to clean the deep pores of skin.
Mix equal quantities of lime juice, glycerin and rose water. This lotion if applied to the face regularly at bed time is very useful in removing pimples, blackheads and other stains of the skin. It makes the skin soft, and can also be applied to other parts of the body (hands, feet etc.)
Take 50 ml. of tomato juice and mix with one teaspoon of lemon juice. Apply this mixture to the face. It helps to make the skin soft and glowing.
Take equal quantities of turmeric powder and wheat flour and make a paste with sesame oil. Apply it to the face to remove unwanted hair.
Apply orange juice to the face for smooth and soft skin.
Take 30 ml. of cabbage juice and mix one teaspoon of honey in it. This mixture, if applied regularly to the face, helps to keep the wrinkles away.
Make a paste of raw carrots and apply it to the face. Wash it after one hour. The skin will become glowing.
Regular application of mint juice to the face helps to remove stains.
In fact, very few of us have normal, healthy hair. Good hair needs good care. If you are suffering from problems like oily scalp or dandruff or hair-fall, then have a look at these tips below and try following them. Within a month you will see results.
DANDRUFF:
* Apply neem leaves extract with lemon juice on the scalp and keep it for 30 minutes, then rinse it.
* After shampoo, apply vinegar and lemon juice mixed in equal quantities on the scalp and keep it for 5 to 10 minutes and rinse it.
* Massage the scalp with jojoba oil or coconut oil by gentle inward circulation for 30 minutes and wrap the hair with hot towel for ½ an hour. Shampoo the next morning.
HAIR FALL:
* Take 2 tsp of castor oil, 2 tsp of amla, 2 tsp of shikakai, 2 tsp of reetha powder, two tsp of fenugreek (methi) powder, 2 eggs and 2 tsp paste of neem leaves. Mix all of them and apply to the roots and keep it for 45 minutes. Then shampoo.
OILY HAIR:
* Mix 3 tsp of flour, 10 crushed strawberries, 2 tsp of amla powder and 1 tsp of white vinegar in cold water. Apply this paste on the hair and leave it for 40 minutes and then rinse it. This cleanses your hair and scalp.
Hair vitaliser:
* Grind a few hibiscus leaves and flowers and mix in 2 to 3 drops of coconut milk. Rub gently on the scalp. Rinse your hair after half an hour with a mild shampoo. It can be effectively used to treat various problems like hair-fall, dandruff and premature greying.
Hair tonic:
* Juice of fresh neem leaves cures scalp disorders including dandruff. It even reduces hair loss. A regular massage with neem juice can get rid of lice as well.
Acne home remedies
Mix equal quantities of cucumber juice, rose water and lime juice. Wash the face and apply it overnight. Rinse off in the morning. This clears the complexion and keeps it healthy.
Take 50 ml. of raw (not boiled) milk and mix a pinch of salt and two teaspoonful of lime juice in it. Use it as a cleansing lotion. It helps to clean the deep pores of skin.
Mix equal quantities of lime juice, glycerin and rose water. This lotion if applied to the face regularly at bed time is very useful in removing pimples, blackheads and other stains of the skin. It makes the skin soft, and can also be applied to other parts of the body (hands, feet etc.)
Take 50 ml. of tomato juice and mix with one teaspoon of lemon juice. Apply this mixture to the face. It helps to make the skin soft and glowing.
Take equal quantities of turmeric powder and wheat flour and make a paste with sesame oil. Apply it to the face to remove unwanted hair.
Apply orange juice to the face for smooth and soft skin.
Take 30 ml. of cabbage juice and mix one teaspoon of honey in it. This mixture, if applied regularly to the face, helps to keep the wrinkles away.
Make a paste of raw carrots and apply it to the face. Wash it after one hour. The skin will become glowing.
Regular application of mint juice to the face helps to remove stains.
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