Healthier Coffee

We spoke at our follow up meeting about healthier coffees and what that might look like. While we are not telling you to give up your beloved coffee, we do believe there are some healthy guidelines to consider when it comes to imbibing.

First choose organic coffee whenever possible. Coffee beans are typically a heavily pesticided crop. Therefore if we drink non-organic coffee, we are likely also consuming pesticide residues, which are quite toxic to our bodies. We also like to recommend Fair Trade coffees, which support the farmers and their families with fair, sustainable wages.

Here are some of our favorite brands:

Equal Exchange

Puroroast (low acid)

Caffe Sanora

Green Mountain Roasters

Newman's Own Organic Line of Coffee

The Organic Coffee Company

Cafe Altura

Mount Hagen

We're sure there are more, just look for the certified Organic and Fair Trade labels.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity.

Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.

~ Mark Victor Hansen

Today set your intention and your confidence in motion by remembering to put your best energy in one or all of the 4 areas of balance : eating, sleeping, thinking, and moving. Dedicate yourself to balanced living today. Enjoy greater success and life fulfillment. Look around you for motivation, but more importantly, look inside yourself. See and feel what is waiting to be created today.

Winter Hydration

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face"

~Victor Hugo

Every winter I seem to struggle with those small, yet painful, cracks on the tips of my fingers. Skin is especially vulnerable to dryness and cracking during the winter for many reasons. One of the biggest causes is the forced-air/dry heat that we invite into our homes. And since we tend to sweat a lot less when it's cold out, we forget to drink water and stay hydrated. Proper hydration is key to preventing cracked skin and wrinkles!

Drinking plenty of water is obviously one of the best things we can do. We can also run humidifiers at home and in our offices – though some debate that this invites mold into the home. Another option is just to keep a bowl of water in the room and it will evaporate if the room is too dry. Changing the water daily will help prevent the mold spores. Watching your intake of caffeine and alcohol is important since they both act like a diuretic in the body and can be further dehydrating. Herbal teas can be comforting and hydrating during the cold months, so feel free to sip on some warm tea, hot water with lemon, or indulge in the occasional warm milk with a little vanilla extract and honey. We also like Emergen-C packets added to at least one glass of water daily.

Essential fatty acids from fish, fish oil, flax seed, hemp seed, chia seed, nuts and other seeds are very important for winter skin. These essential fats help keep the skin looking youthful and well moisturized.

In addition to dry skin, signs of dehydration include headache, fatigue, muscle weakness, excessive thirst, fatigue and nausea. And if you're heading up to the high country to ski, you really need to stay on top of your hydration.

Doorways to Greatness

Every day you pass through dozens of doorways; into and out of rooms, your house, your car, etc. A simple and powerful practice is to use the moment you pass thru each doorway as an opportunity to get yourself "right with you" and the world around you. Simply use the doorway to take a moment to recite a quick prayer, an affirmation or simply just say thank you to yourself. When you use this practice time to make good with getting centered, each doorway can serve to help to restart the moment, creating the day and life experience you desire for yourself.

An example would be to recite to yourself; "I am living my best now", "I am living with passion", "I am expressing love now", "I am kind and generous now", "I am grateful for my life"...whatever inspires you, whatever makes you think positive-anything that moves you to be a better you will work. Maybe it has something to do with letting go of the first part of your day and embracing a new state of mind, way of eating, or attitude. Imagine, hearing a positive message dozens of times every day to help you to remember who you are and how great you are!

Be Happy

"Terrible or not, difficult or not, the only thing that is beautiful, noble, religious and mystical is to be happy."

Arnaud Desjardins

Today choose to be happy, happy for the sake of happiness. You can find the good in almost any challenge when you decide to tune into the power of happiness. Circulate your happiness by making a step towards others with warmth, with kindness and with a faith that the closest distance between two souls is a smile and the powerful connector happiness.

Coffee or Tea?

When you woke up this morning was one of your first thoughts, "do I want coffee or tea this morning?" More than 80 percent of Americans over the age of 18 report drinking coffee at least occasionally and over 50% of us drink it everyday. The number of teenage coffee drinkers is on the rise with all the hip after-school type gathering places offering a coffee bar plus wireless internet and a somewhat wholesome environment to just hang out. But is this a healthy habit? A recent study just published (Public Health Nutrition January 2008) looked at a bunch of epidemiological (human-based population), animal and in vitro studies and came to the conclusion that coffee and tea are both safe beverages. But TEA is healthier since it has a possible protective role in the prevention of certain cancers and cardiovascular disease. Tea also tends to contain less caffeine than coffee. Will the caffeine in coffee stunt your teens growth? No, probably not. However, excess caffeine can cause other undesirable side effects in teens and in adults including anxiety, headaches, jitters, sleep interference to name a few. And we all know teens need their sleep!

January is actually "hot tea month." Black tea, green tea and white tea contain a substance called theanine that helps the brain in a really neat way. We like to refer to the effect of theanine as a sense of "relaxed alertness." In other words, theanine increases alpha brain-wave activity and this is known to induce a calm, yet attentive state of mind. So if our teens want to hang out at the coffee house and sip a cup of green tea before or while during their homework, this may actually be a good thing. We just wouldn't encourage the habit much later than 3 or 4 pm because after that the caffeine (about 50 to 60 milligrams) may start to interfere with sleep.

It's also worth mentioning once again that green tea has also been shown to play a supportive role in weight management. Some studies suggest that green tea may reduce visceral body fat and assist in healthy metabolism. So when the weather gets chilly again warm up with a cup of tea and enjoy!

Reinvent Yourself

Do you have days when you look at your life and think, "how did I get here?" Or, "this isn't where I thought I'd be or where I wanted to be." The truth is that we are neither bound by past occurrences or present circumstances. Every moment we have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves. Being open and receptive to new ideas and new ways of being is the first and most important step we can take in reinventing ourselves. Following your hearts desire and stepping outside of your normal comfort zone can take you places you only before imagined you would go - both physically and figuratively. See in your mind's eye what you want in your life, for your life. Vision it before you go to bed at night and journal about it when you wake up in the morning. Meditate on it. Stretch yourself. Read books that inspire you to grow and guide you in the direction of your dreams. Live fully now and keep your eyes and ears open to all realms of possibility.