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The Silent Killer And What To Do About It

You’ve probably heard or read about a few of these silent killers like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which can lead to the number one killer in America: Heart Disease.   Clearly, too many people think poor health, disease and death come from sudden BIG causes.  For example…if you asked people the day before they had a heart attack if they were healthy…the vast majority would undoubtedly say…YES! But does that make sense?  How can someone be perfectly healthy one day and have a heart attack and possibly die the next?

The truth is – no one is healthy the day before their heart attack.  Yes…they may have not had any symptoms the day before…but an absence of symptoms does not mean you are healthy.  That’s why it is important you know about another silent killer and how to minimize it in your life. What is this silent killer?

STRESS!!!

If you have any doubts what stress can do to you,  just take a look at a picture of any of our presidents the day they take office and then check out a picture of them the day they leave.  What do you see?  You see 15-20 years of aging in 4-8 years!!!  And if the changes are so dramatic on the outside – what do you think has happened on the inside?  But the debate is no longer IF stress is bad or harms your health.  It is now focused on how to minimize stress so you can live as healthy and as long as possible.  Since we all know stress cannot be eliminated, the best thing to do is to practice ways to deal with it and decrease its harmful effects.  Like what?  One great way is through…

Meditation

If you have never meditated, you may instantly think of some weird mystical or religious thing.  But, that’s NOT what meditation is all about.  Here’s a great description of meditation and the potential it possesses.  Imagine the ocean during a storm, big 10-15 foot waves crashing all around.  Now imagine if you took a rock and threw it into the ocean.  What would happen?  Not much.  You probably couldn’t even see the splash your rock made through all those big waves.  Even if you threw in a huge boulder…it wouldn’t make a very big impact next to 10-15 foot waves.  Now imagine a lake at 5:00 a.m.  No wind and the surface of the water perfectly calm, like a piece of glass.  Now what happens when you throw in even the tiniest pebble?  That’s right – you can immediately see the ripples and you can see their effect for miles!

When you have a lot of stress – your brain and all your thoughts are like the stormy ocean with 10-15 foot waves.  Nothing you think or try to do will have a great impact.  But as soon as you calm all those thoughts down…BINGO…you can have a massive effect. Meditation is simply calming your mind so you can focus 100% of your attention on one area.  Think about it this way:  You have a constant stream of thoughts.  Try to stop thinking.  You can’t.  Thoughts keep coming one right after the other.   But there is a teeny, tiny gap in between each thought.  Meditation is the widening of that gap.  You want to try to make that gap as wide as possible.  It’s harder than it sounds, but the good thing is – just attempting to meditate will help relieve stress, even if you are not good at it!  The worst thing that can happen is you fall asleep…and who can’t use a good nap?