Osho Golden Light Meditation

1. Share Meals With The Family

Not only does it provide opportunities for bonding, this provides an opportunity to try new foods. This is a good habit to instil in your children. Research shows that young adults who regularly eat family meals have higher intakes of key nutrients and perform better academically than those who eat with their families two or fewer times per week.

2. Cut Back Your Food Intake By 100 Calories A Day

Just reducing your calorie count by 100 calories a day (or one less biscuit) would prevent, and reverse, the 2lbs annual weight gain of the average person in this country.

It takes an excess of 3,500 calories to gain a pound, or 35,000 calories to put on 10 pounds in a year. Reducing your energy intake by 100 kcals a day (this is only equivalent to a couple of crackers with cheese, a tablespoon of oil or glass of wine) should make you 10 pounds lighter at the end of the year!

3. Watch Your Alcohol Intake

It’s fine to have a few glasses of festive cheer, but one of the several public-health time bombs we’re sitting on is the rising toll of alcohol-induced liver disease. Official alcohol limits (21 units per week for men; 14 for women) are too high for many people.

4. Don’t Smoke

Smokers live shorter, less healthy lives. No action improves health more than stopping smoking, and it saves a lot of money too.

5. Start Meditating

New research suggests that mindfulness meditation – an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions – is an effective way of helping people to overcome stress and improve their quality of life. This research indicates that this practice has health and performance benefits, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure and enhanced cognitive function. Stress is a major factor in heart disease; meditation experts say the technique can help control it. One study discovered that patients with heart disease who practised Transcendental Meditation cut their chances of a heart attack, stroke and death by half, compared with patients who did not meditate.

Another study has found that people who meditate over the long-term have significantly larger hippocampi – the part of the brain associated with memory and learning. This study also found those who had meditated also had increased grey matter or a larger brain! Researchers are now looking at whether this helps to slow down the ageing process.