Mindfulness Archives - Ashley Peeler

Stick to Your 2020 Health Resolutions

Ah, New Year’s Resolutions, do you still remember yours half way into January? While it’s easy to go into the New Year strong, I want to share 5 clever ways to stick to your Health Resolutions all year long.

5 Clever Ways to Stick to Your 2020 Health Resolutions

1. No matter what you vow to change in 2020, whether it was to lose weight, get more fit, eat better, or sleep more, there is one thing that is essential to any health goal: WATER! Start your day with a tall glass of WATER, every morning. Not only does this help hydrate you, but oftentimes we eat when we are thirsty, so make sure you are drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day.
2. Every night review what you intend to do the next day. This will relieve stress, help you sleep better and allow you to focus. Also, studies show that when writing something out, you retain it better, so keep writing!
1. Take a walk after dinner. It doesn’t have to be long, but make it meaningful, at least 10 minutes. This is a good time to digest your dinner while giving yourself some downtime, or time with your family. If you are able to eat together then make this your new routine as well!
2. Write your resolutions down each day as a reminder of what you are working towards.
3. Get a friend to hold you accountable. Better yet, if your goal is health-related, work with me and I’ll hold you accountable!

healthy living

2020 is not only a new year, but it’s the beginning of a new DECADE! I’m offering new clients 10% off any of my services in the month of January. I would love to team up with you and help you reach all of your health goals, contact me today.

5 Easy Ways to Have a Sustainable Holiday

Tis’ the season of joyfulness and giving. Along with all the holiday festivities and giving of gifts comes a whole lot of TRASH. I want to share my 5 top tips for enjoying a sustainable holiday season! They are fun and easy, so why not give them a try?

1. Sustainable Gift Giving

This holiday season give your loved ones the gift of an experience. Gifting experiences are creative and eco-friendly! With a little bit of research, you can find something perfect for everyone on your list. They are also great because you can find experiences for all budgets.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Restaurants
Spas
Theater
Escape room
Zip lining
Wine tasting
Museums

experience gift

If you are the type of person that likes to give a physical gift, there are sustainable options! Give a gift that keeps giving.

Some great ideas are:

Trees
Plants
Herb garden
Or my favorite-regift gifts, or books, particularly if you are not going to use them anymore anyway.

2. Change Up the Cards

Billions of Christmas cards are sent every year, creating an enormous amount of unnecessary waste. This year rethink sending out cards.

However, if you would like to still send something try one of these ideas:

Send plantable cards
Send ecards
Or my favorite- when I lived in Germany, my family would make new cards out of old ones. You take part of the card you like and simply cut it out and glue it onto another part of a card that wasn’t used. This is super fun and is great to do with kids.

3. Sustainable Gift Wrap

Unfortunately, most gift wrap is not recyclable. Fortunately you can avoid paper altogether with a little creativity.

Next time you are wrapping a gift try using:

Reusable cloth wrapping
Recyclable wrapping paper
Brown paper or newspaper
Reusable bags
Your child’s artwork they no longer want

4. Use Sustainable Decorations

What is the holiday season without the decorations, right? While they look gorgeous and get the holiday spirit flowing, many of them become waste and wind up in our landfills. There are eco-friendly alternatives.

You’re going to love these:

Rent a live Christmas tree.
Buy a second-hand fake tree.
Revamp your old holiday decorations and turn them into something new.
Make your own decoration out of recyclable items or things found in nature.

sustainable tree

5. Celebrate Sustainably

Holiday parties are a must during this time of year. So many of the items used to host a party are made of plastic and many are one-time use. Switch over to items that you can use year after year…this will save money too!

Host your party with these:

Glassware
Reusable utensils
Cloth napkins
Cloth table cloth
Sustainable decorations (see previous tip)- use outdoor clippings to make wreaths, table decorations, arrangements
Organic foods

Go ahead, get creative this year and celebrate the holidays sustainably. Are you ready to take sustainable living further than the holidays? Contact me and I can set you up for success!

Discover Wellness Now With These 4 Pillars

There are 4 pillars of wellness.. Did you know, with them you possess the key to your own well-being? That’s right, you have complete access to living a healthy lifestyle and being your best self! Wellness can be broken down into these four pillars: Nutrition, Mindfulness, Exercise, and Prevention. Here’s a little breakdown of each pillar.

Nutrition

Whatever you put into your body is considered your fuel. Your brain and body need healthy, non-toxic, real foods full of nutrition to function properly.

Mindfulness

Bringing your attention to the present moment allows you to focus, as well as reduces stress, sadness, and anger. It can also improve physical problems. The benefits of mindfulness include reduced overeating, procrastination, and depression.

Exercise

Activities that require physical movement to improve not only your physical but mental health. Through exercise, you will grow stronger and see improvement throughout your day to day life.

Prevention

There are thousands of toxins and chemicals in products you use every single day. By making small changes in what you purchase to use on your body, or put into your environment, you can prevent unnecessary health problems. Hashimoto’s, Celiac’s, sluggish thyroid, unexplained weight gain, mood, and behavioral disorders, infertility.

10 Sustainable Ways To Improve Your Health

It’s incredibly important to be mindful when on a journey to improve your health. I make it a point daily to think of ways to help our planet, and in turn the future of our children (or the future of those children who will be responsible for taking care of all of us). I decided to compile a list of things I do which might be helpful to incorporate in your daily life.

drinking water

10 ways to keep you, the Planet, and your children healthy:

Buy recycled printer cartridges. Yep that’s right, all those little wasteful capsules are just creating waste. Guess what? You can buy them second hand- they have been fully filled and sealed and look like new.
Use the back of paper for to do lists, calendars, game score tallies, and paper airplane contests. Or staple them together and make a notepad.
Turn the water off in the shower while you are sudsing your hair and body. Really, this actually saves A LOT of water. It also lowers your water and electricity bill. And more importantly it teaches children a valuable lesson about the importance of water.
Reuse glass jars to store things. All snacks, dry goods, and nuts go in jars in my cabinets. Not only are less chemicals leaking into your food, you are recycling the glass all on your own. I also drink from jars, use them as vases, crayon holders, cookie jars, you name it.
Don’t wash your jeans. Yep I mean it, ask anyone in the denim industry and they will tell you, do not wash your jeans! They last longer, look and feel better unwashed. If they smell, put them in the freezer- a tip from Rag & Bone.
Make your own nut milk- it is so easy, so cheap, and so delicious. You also know your ingredients. And, the left over nut pulp can be used to make cookies, or spread them on a pan, put it in the oven, and then grind for flour to pan fry chicken, fish, or veggies.
Use a half cup of vinegar for smells in the washer. Don’t buy synthetic fragrance that causes cancer, hormone dysfunctions, mood swings, and migraines to name a few- just add the vinegar and see how the smells are neutralized.
Use salt and peroxide for blood or wine stains instead of bleach. Bleach is highly toxic, particularly for marine life. It can cause blindness, and yet we still pour it down our drains, going into our water sources.
Use a few drops of lavender oil and water in a spray bottle to clean your yoga mat. If you are a germaphobe, just use a drop of tea-tree oil as it is a natural disinfectant.
Old newspaper cleans windows and mirrors better than anything. Simply use vinegar and water to clean windows. If you don’t like the smell of vinegar, use any essential oil in the mix.

Eliminating waste and toxins out of our environment is a collective win/win as everything ends up in our drinking water. Would you like to know more about sustainable living? Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, or you can connect with me here!

Problems Solved with this 5 Minute Meditation

There is a special style of meditation that I practice. 5 minutes of it a day can help to minimize stress and improve your overall wellness. Over seven years ago I embarked on a journey that changed my life forever: Vipassana.

Vipassana (Insight Meditation) was first taught by Buddha 25 centuries ago and now can be practiced all over the world. I encourage everyone to go through a vipassana practice at least once. Being 10 days with yourself in silence is one of the best things you can do for yourself and those around you: http://www.dhamma.org/en/vipassana.shtml. The gist of Insight Meditation is to use your own breath and become aware of the daily sensations (vibration or frequency) your body transmits. Through this you can relieve yourself of misery, pain, disappointment, expectation, impatience, jealousy, to name a few. It allows you to become capably aware when you are about to subject yourself to these feelings merely by witnessing sensations. Considering we are one big bundle of energy made of stardust, Vipassana enables you to feel those vibrations inside of you, while cleansing the mind.

meditation

It took me 5 years until the time was right for me to attend the retreat. However, after seeing 6 other friends complete the course and witness a positive change in their lives, my curiosity prompted me to go. And next to childbirth, it was the most painful, yet most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

Just to get an idea of what it’s like. Try being by yourself all day. You want to flee, you want to give up, and some do. Your body starts making excuses for sitting 10-12 hours a day. Then suddenly, you finally feel exactly where the breath from your nostrils touches your face. I had been breathing all my life, 20,000 times a day, and it took a silent meditation retreat and 36 years for me at that time to actually be aware of the location of my exhalation.

To Summarize What I Gained

All conditioned things are in a constant state of flux.
Everything is impermanent, nothing ever stays the same, so observe it and enjoy life.
Letting go of attachment paves the way for a flow of love and compassion I was unaware of obtaining through the devotion of my own breath.
If you recall something that has bothered you or angered you in the past, you discover that these feelings stem from longing, craving, or attachment to something or someone.
We are obsessed with our own ego.
We want recognition for our efforts, our skills, our talents.
We want money, love, and we want more and more and more of it.

Once you are able to release this mainstream conditioning, the misery dissipates. Of course, it’s not that simple. But sitting 12 hours a day focusing on your breath for 10 days while remaining silent, and not eating dinner, definitely brings you back to the real essence of being.

Meditation is beneficial for everyone, regardless of whether it is TM, Zen, in between your yoga pranas, or whether a mantra is used. But vipassana is different. Think of a tree- when the branches become unruly, you prune it to keep it calm. Meditation is a pair of shears used on the mind. But with vipassana, the tree is not only trimmed, but it is also uprooted so that a new sapling can grow. Perhaps you can’t tear yourself away for 10 days, but give yourself the gift of 5 minutes a day, which perhaps can be lengthened as you continue your practice.

balance

How to Reset Your Brain in 5 Minutes

Find a quiet spot, I normally wake up and go straight to my meditation stool. However, you can simply roll out of bed and sit up straight.
Close your eyes and allow any thoughts to come in, do not suppress them. But think of them like helium balloons- let them come in, and let them float away.
Focus on your breath. Take a deep breath in your nose fill your abdomen with air, and exhale to push all the air out of your abdomen. Repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Start there.

Once you are able to go a few more minutes, add it to your alarm.

Then start focusing on your vibration. The easiest places for you to feel yourself vibrating is at the crown of the head and in the feet and fingertips. Once you have gotten comfortable with sitting in silence, focusing on your breath, focus on those vibrations.

I promise, if you invite meditation to your day, everything will begin to flow smoother. If you’re ready to take your mindfulness practice to the next level, I’d love to connect, contact me today!