If you’re reading this, you have an Internet-enabled device and access to some really remarkable tools on the web. Often offered for free, they can help you in your quest for happiness, well-being, and material success. Seven tips for how to utilize them are shared below.

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If you’re not a vegan, you’re killing yourself with the food you’re eating. You’re killing yourself with the false beliefs you have about the nutritional importance of animal products. You’re killing yourself by creating in your body high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer. And if you don’t believe me, go see this documentary. It just might save your life.

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There was a story in the paper last week about fishermen in Los Angeles being warned against eating a number of species of fish they caught off L.A. shores that have been determined to be toxic. The response of the fishermen was basically, “We’re going to eat them anyway.”

This is fascinating to me. The fish are clearly unsafe to eat and yet these fishermen presumably don’t care. Their attitude reminds me of another story that came out a few weeks ago about Americans not being afraid to live near nuclear reactors.

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Rip Esselstyn, a Texas Firefighter, has developed a “28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds.” It’s motto, “Eat More, Lose More, is particularly appealing to me, being someone who is excessively dedicated to food consumption.

What is profound about this book is that it will teach you how to eat right, how to eliminate all the foods and substances getting in the way of optimal physical and emotional health, while at the same time providing you with no sense of sacrifice, the end of guilt and shame, immeasurable epicurean pleasure in terms of food and drink, renewed energy and vigor, happiness, and a tremendous sense of self-empowerment.

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In today’s multi-tasking, pressure-cooker world of too much to do and not enough time to do it, it’s oftentimes impossible to not feel overwhelmed, to not get stressed out, and to not get down on ourselves about what we’ve failed to accomplish despite how hard we’ve worked. The following are some ways to assert yourself over that stress and negativity, so try one or more of them the next time you’re feeling down or anxious.

1. Replace Negative Self-Talk with Positive Mantras

Bombarding yourself with negative self-talk can be one of the most stressful things you experience each day. The good news is that you can control this big stressor by recognizing negative self-talk when it occurs and replacing it with positive thoughts. For example, if you tell yourself that you’re stupid for failing to remember something important, stop that thought in its tracks and focus on something you’ve done successfully. Remembering your successes can help you realize that you don’t deserve to be stressed out by your inner critic.

2. Use Breathing Techniques

It’s beneficial to take deep breaths when you’re feeling stressed. Simply inhale deeply for five seconds, filling your lungs – now hold your breath for five seconds before expelling all the air in your lungs for another five seconds. Try the same exercise with ten- and fifteen-second intervals as you start to feel calmer.

Another technique to try is cyclical breathing through your nose. Fold the index and middle fingers of one hand in toward your palm, then use the thumb of the same hand to block one nostril. Inhale through the other nostril, then use your ring finger to block that one as well. Hold your breath, then release your thumb and exhale through the unblocked nostril. Replace your thumb, remove your ring finger, and inhale again. Repeat until you begin to feel calmer.

3. Do Yoga & Stretches

Practicing yoga is always helpful when you want to relieve stress, so try some of these yoga-inspired stretches to relax your mind and body when you need it most.

• Cat stretch – start on your hands and knees, preferably on a non-slip surface like a yoga mat. Let the weight of your head lengthen your spine toward the floor as you arch your back while inhaling. When you’re ready to exhale, bring your head up until your chin is level with the floor and allow your spine to relax into a concave shape as you release your breath. Repeat to release tension in your back and neck.
• Spinal stretch – lie on your back on the floor with your legs resting against a wall at an angle somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees. Focus on allowing this position to lengthen your spine as you breathe deeply.
• Twist stretch – sitting in a chair, place one hand on the outside of the opposite knee and twist your upper body in the direction of that knee, looking over your shoulder and keeping your chin parallel to the floor. Repeat on the other side to complete one rep, then do as many as you need to in order to release the tension in your spine and neck.

4. Get a Massage

Give yourself the gift of a professional massage. This releases toxins and tension, removing the stress from your body. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water after your massage to flush out the toxins that have been released from your muscle tissue. If you don’t want to go out for your massage, persuade your partner or significant other to have a massage night – you’ll both benefit from this romantic and stress-relieving experience.

5. Treat Yourself to Music, Candles & Aromatherapy

As you practice the above techniques, add soft music, candles, and scented oils to give yourself a truly relaxing experience. Soft jazz or classical music can be used to release stress, and the calming effects of scented candles and oils might help you, too. Choose lavender, jasmine, chamomile, sandalwood, vanilla, or sage for some of the best stress-relieving results.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships, where recently she’s been researching scholarships for dietitians as well as scholarship thank you template. Whenever this WAHM gets some free time she enjoys doing yoga, cooking with the freshest organic in-season fare, and practicing the art of coupon clipping.

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After what has happened in Japan, anybody who says we shouldn’t put the brakes on our zest for nuclear energy is either a moron or beholden to special interests. This includes President Obama.

Thinking that an earthquake leading to a nuclear accident can happen here in California is not an overreaction, it is a logical conclusion.

Japan’s tragedy is our opportunity to ensure our safety. There is enough horror that happens in this world which is beyond our control. Best we pay attention to those things we create that portend our self-destruction.

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Common symptoms of stress, particularly prolonged stress, are depression, anxiety, insomnia, irritability, anger, reactivity, impulsivity. Stress can affect appetite, energy levels, motivation. It can alter one’s perceptions, one’s thoughts, one’s insight and judgment. People who are stressed out just don’t think as clearly, they’re out of balance, disconnected from their higher, intuitive self. More vulnerable to a variety of illnesses, physical as well as emotional.

Stress, in general, weakens the immune system, diminishes the body’s ability to fend off illness and infection, to repair and to heal. Prolonged stress, with its dampening of the immune system, can generate headaches, muscle aches, neck and back aches, constipation, diarrhea, gastro-esophogeal reflux, ulcers. High blood pressure. Heart attacks and strokes. Stress WILL be hazardous to your health.

Stress increases one’s odds of having an accident, because stressed-out people are more easily distracted, not paying attention as best they can, such that an accident happens which otherwise might have been avoided.

If one does suffer bodily injuring secondary to an accident, one who is stressed has diminished capacity to heal and recover from it. When one’s mind and body are in good condition, the odds of recovering from a serious injury are much greater.

Last but not least, it is possible that prolonged stress weakens the immune system to such a degree that one becomes more vulnerable to tumors and cancers.

So what can be done about it?

Ideally, find ways to reduce the stress and eliminate it, if possible. Reducing the stress means recognizing what’s causing the stress, whether it be an exhausting job, financial insecurity, health problems, relationship problems. Whatever might be causing the stress needs to be acknowledged and enumerated.

The next step involves addressing these specific causes of stress in one’s life, perhaps making new decisions, perhaps taking new actions if there are indeed viable options. Make better choices and it’s possible to reduce, if not eliminate, the stressful triggers in one’s life.

Sometimes one can’t reduce or eliminate the stress. Some things are out of our control no matter what choices and decisions we make. In this case, reducing stress means reducing your reaction to stress. Finding ways to accept the difficult situation and co-exist with it, rather than having a physical or nervous breakdown.

In conjunction with trying to “change the things you can” and “accept the things you cannot change,” there are other ways to manage and cope with stress. Good nutrition is important. Eating balanced meals. Staying as far away from fast food and junk food as possible. Keeping the sugar and fat choices to a minimum. Exercising and working out can help dramatically. Meditation. Yoga. Talk therapy. Spiritual / Religious counseling. Vitamin and mineral supplements may help. Sometimes medications can help people deal with their stress. Sometimes medications are necessary, hopefully for just a brief period of time.

When people are stressed, they should avoid watching intense tv shows and movies. They should stay away from the horror, gore and violence. Watch comedies as much as possible. Laughter is healing. It does generate endorphins. Additionally, stay away from too much news. We all want to be informed. But past that, indulging in excessive viewing of the same information, the same message over and over again, is not helpful, particularly if you’re watching news about horrific things happening and yet to come.

When one is under stress, it’s best to try to “think lovely thoughts.” Think positive. Think hopeful, not pessimistic. See the glass as half-full, not half-empty. Make the decision to make lemonade out of lemons.  Be grateful for what you’ve got, despite whatever scarcity, limitation, lack or disappointment is in your life.

Try to see the silver lining in the dark clouds. Try to see the difficulties in your life as somehow blessings in disguise. Try to release judgment and attack thoughts despite what has happened to you. Try to forgive.

In stressful times, people and societies can lose their balance, their sense of purpose and intention. This is why, over the long run, it is critical, amidst the stress, fear and chaos, that we maintain as best we can our integrity, our compassion and our humanity.

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True mental fitness requires a capacity for open-mindedness: The ability and willingness to question your beliefs, your biases, your prejudices.

Look at your anger, your rage, your depression, your fears and anxieties. Uncover their triggers and find different ways to look at the stuff of your life. Make wiser and more considerate decisions.

Release selfishness and self-entitlement. Despite how difficult, awful and painful your life might be and how horrible you might feel, it is, nonetheless, necessary to be considerate of other people’s feelings and needs as well, and to not emotionally bleed all over them or abuse them in other ways. Especially your professed loved ones.

Let go of defensiveness and ego defense mechanisms such as denial, rationalization, and projection, among others, which only serve to distort reality and keep true mental fitness at arm’s length.

All that being said, the question remains, “What are the BEST ways to stay mentally fit?”

I spent a fair amount of time with this question, trying to distill mental wellness down to a few common denominators. I decided upon three: Truth. Compassion. Calm.

Apply these three ideals in your life. Practice them on a moment to moment basis as best as you possibly can with everyone, with everything animate and inanimate, with every situation you encounter. Extend truth, compassion and calm. BE truth, compassion and calm.

Tell the truth. Don’t omit. Don’t distort. Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Be grateful for the blessings in your life. Share the blessings in your life. Be generous in all ways possible.

Choose not to be impulsive, reckless and over-reactive. Disengage from chaos and melodrama, from judgment and attack. Engage the power of acceptance and one-ness.

As we role model truth, compassion, and calm in all the transactions in our minds and in our lives, we will approach mental wellness and eventual global wellness as well.

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We need to re-discover the Now for ourselves because we’re really missing the party. What we are calling the Now is actually the “Now & Then.” Why? Because we bring our baggage from the past into the present moment.

We bring our judgments, experiences, prejudices, biases, resentments, and grievances from the past and throw them on top of whatever’s going on in the present, such that it’s no longer the present moment we’re experiencing, it’s a combination of the past mixed in with the present.

Consequently, we are not perceiving people as they are, we are seeing and reacting to them as we perceived them in the past, with all our judgments and grievances, which contributes to miscommunication, misunderstandings and the furthering of resentments and other negativities.

We do all of this as a survival mechanism, a defense mechanism, so that we can anticipate as much as possible, predict and control as much as possible, so that we won’t get hurt by the world and its chaos.

Unfortunately, this tends not to make us feel any safer or more secure. Additionally, it shuts down our spontanaety. It shuts down the intuitive process. It shuts down our awareness of opportunities and potentials synchronistically delivered to us as answers to our prayers. If we are not in the moment how can we be receptive to its gifts?

So what do we do to be in the Now?

1) We try to see people as they really are, not through the eyes of the past. We put aside our judgments and grievances. We remind ourselves that there is another way of looking at any situation.

We try to experience the people, places and things in our lives in the Now without critical analysis. We can do all the analyzing and interpreting later at some other time devoted specifically to thinking and evaluating our experiences.

2) Forget about smelling the roses. We need to smell the entire universe. And so we make a special effort in every moment of Now to experience it, to be attentive to all the sensations entering our consciousness.

This not only centers us and balances us, it also affords us the opportunity to receive intuitive as well as extra-sensory perceptions. As we quiet the mind, we remove the filters to its natural awareness of these components of reality.

A corollary of this is to avoid multi-tasking whenever possible because when our attention is divided amongst many activities or concerns, being in the Now is impossible. So we decide to do one thing and put all our intention and attention into it, avoiding all other distractions and mental considerations.

3) We remind ourselves that there is nothing to fear. In the present moment, in the Now, we are not threatened, we are safe.

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There is a popular expression in 12-Step Programs: “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

Now, in these harsh, frightening times we live in, it behooves each of us to consider this definition of insanity in the context of our own lives and our own choices.

Now, more than ever, it is important, perhaps even critical, that, rather than doing the same thing and expecting different results, we do something different. Many things different.

For ourselves. For our families. For our country. And for our world.

Now, more than ever, it is important that we pay closer attention to the details of our lives and actions, not merely to avoid accidents, injuries, and a variety of mistakes with potentially serious consequences, but in order to intelligently and critically assess our entire life situation and see which aspects can be repaired, improved upon, and healed, which aspects it might be wise to discard either temporarily or permanently, and which aspects it would benefit us to truly accept and transcend without grievance or resentment.

So that’s what it comes down to in these vigorous and challenging times: We pay closer attention. We make better choices. We weigh the pros and cons carefully. We seek counsel, before we take action, from those we trust who are wise and lead lives that are reasonably intact, so as to avoid impulsive and reckless mistakes.

We make better use of our time.

We choose to be of service to others. Not just in the sense of holding a door for a stranger or taking out the garbage when it’s not our turn. These kindnesses are important. Helping out wherever we can to whatever degree we feel comfortable is important. And healing.

So is being of service to others in the sense of giving others the benefit of the doubt whereas in the past we assumed the worst. Being of service to others in the sense of truly letting go of resentments. Truly letting go of judgments and prejudices. Unconditionally forgiving others despite what they’ve done to us.

I suspect we all do these things to various degrees. I also suspect we don’t do them nearly enough, that there is much more of our compassion and understanding that we can consistently extend to others.

I suspect if we choose to get better at discovering and implementing new choices in all aspects of our lives, we will feel better about ourselves and not quite so afraid, and that we will see our lives improve in the process.

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