| Saturday - December 5, 2009 Breathing is automatic and essential. Yet, most of us do not do it properly. This can be caused by, among other things, poor posture, stress, or a lack of exercise. Breathing incorrectly depletes your oxygen levels, taxes your immune system, decreases your energy, and allows toxins to accumulate in your body. So, how do you know if you are breathing properly? Place one hand on your abdomen and the other on your chest. Take a deep breath. If you feel your abdomen rise, you're doing it right. If you feel your chest rise, you are doing it wrong. If you've been doing it wrong, here's how to develop the habit of breathing properly: Two or three times a day, take a slow, steady, deep breath, inhaling through your nose and allowing your abdomen to expand. Then slowly expel all the air from your lungs. You will be amazed at how this simple exercise in deep and purposeful breathing will relieve tension, increase your energy, and generate a feeling of well-being.
"I don't need another time-management system. I need more time!" I understood how he felt. For more than 20 years, I had the same feeling. There was so much I wanted to do, and never enough time to do it. I'd get to work early in the morning, motivated to have a super-productive day. But then, the moment I sat down, the phone would start ringing and my e-mail inbox would be blinking at me. And then a torrent of urgencies would bury me for the rest of the day. Does that happen to you? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by urgent tasks that you can't accomplish on time? Do you find yourself working longer than you'd like? Are you constantly under stress? Does it seem like the workload never gets any lighter? "You don't need more hours," I told him. "If you had more, you'd be just as busy and stressed as you are now. And you would still be behind the curve." That shut him up. He and I both knew he was the least productive member of his team. That's why I was teaching him how to organize his time. Not to give him yet another task to complete. I was trying to save his job. With real unemployment around 16 percent today, you don't want to have the reputation of being unproductive. To be safe, you should make sure your boss views you as one of the most productive people in the company. Coming in early and working late makes a good initial impression. But over the long run, what matters to your boss is how much useful work you get done. And there is no question in my mind: The amount of useful work you do is directly related to how organized you are. In the old days, I would slip into a mental fog every time the words organization or management were uttered. But that changed when I started writing ETR. I began to practice the techniques I was writing about. And, lo and behold, they worked!
The time-management techniques I use now are responsible for at least a million dollars of extra income, 25 pounds of lost weight, six bestselling books, the production of four low-budget films, and a collection of short stories and more than 500 poems. I'm a convert. And I want to make a convert out of you, too. So here's my iron-clad guarantee: If you implement at least two of the three techniques described below and don't get wealthier, healthier, and happier in 30 days, I'll shine your shoes. I mean it. Here are my three most important time-management techniques: 1. Set yearly and monthly goals, weekly objectives, and daily tasks. First you set your yearly goals. Your break those down into monthly goals. Then you break your monthly goals into weekly objectives. And you break those objectives into daily tasks. A good system for coming up with a daily task list was developed in the 1980s by David Allan. He says you ask yourself four questions about each of your weekly objectives: - What do I need to do to take the next step?
- Do I need to gather more information?
- Do I need to take or delegate some specific action?
- Or do I need to do nothing for a certain period of time?
2. Prioritize your task list. The best method for prioritizing was developed by the Franklin Covey organization. The idea is to put each task on your list into one of four categories: - important and urgent
- important but not urgent
- not important but urgent
- not important and not urgent
You should give top priority to the important-but-not-urgent tasks. Why? Because those are usually the ones that will help you accomplish your long-term goals -- the goals that will have the greatest impact on your life. And if you don't give them priority, they will never get done. 3. Get up an hour earlier every day. That extra hour is yours. It is sacred. Use it to work on a task related to your most important long-term goal. Do not do anything else during that hour. - Do NOT open your e-mail.
- Do NOT read the newspaper.
- Do NOT look at your inbox.
Just sit down and start working on that life-changing goal. There lots of other ways to make your time serve you better. (One is to clump together all similar activities -- such as phone calls or e-mails -- on your schedule.) But the above three are the ones that have had the greatest effect on my personal productivity.
What to do when you're stressed? If you live in a state of perpetual stress, your health (and your waistline) may be at risk. High stress is a risk factor for heart disease, cancer, and a variety of other health concerns. And it can make you crave sweets, which only makes your health problems worse. A recent study examined two groups of people. One group was stressed and the other wasn't. But both had access to four bowls of snacks: potato chips, nuts, grapes, and M&Ms. All the participants ate the same amount of chips and nuts. But those who were stressed consumed five times more M&Ms and four times fewer grapes. Why so many M&Ms? Probably for the same reason that people who are depressed crave sweets: High-carb foods increase serotonin, the feel-good neurotransmitter. However, while sweets might improve your mood temporarily, they won't reduce stress. The best way to manage stress? Exercise. A study performed in Denmark recently showed that those who exercise for 15 to 20 minutes a day are 61 percent less likely to feel highly stressed than people who are sedentary.
Embarrassed by the revelation that they were handing out more than $16 billion in bonuses this year, Goldman Sachs announced, this week, that it is coughing up $500 million to "help out" small businesses The Chairman and CEO of GS actually called this ploy "Doing God's work." Happily, none of the newspapers I read took the bait. It's obviously an attempt to buy "good will," The New York Times said. A way of "apologizing to the public," was how The Wall Street Journal saw it. Goldman Sachs, let us remember, was a major culprit in the recent fleecing of the American investor. It was also a major recipient of the taxpayer-funded bailout. Goldman Sachs's job -- and this is true of all investment houses -- is to shake its clients upside-down until all the money falls out of their pockets. That's the way their business works. But when they pick up that money, blow it at the racetrack, and then tell those same investors to fork up more money (through taxes) so they can continue their shakedowns -- well, that doesn't make sense to me.
Don Hauptman, veteran copywriter, author, language expert, and featured columnist in Early to Rise, just clued me in to a re-re-release of what many movie critics consider to be a classic. It's We the Living, the film version of Ayn Rand's first book. We the Living is primarily a love story, set in the aftermath of the communist revolution in Russia. The protagonists struggle against an oppressive regime in a heroic effort to achieve their goals. It wasn't a Hollywood production. (In fact, the filmmakers didn't even have the rights to the book or permission from Rand.) It was made in fascist Italy during World War II, and was banned by Mussolini soon after its release. Its anti-totalitarian themes evidently hit a little too close to home. Fast-forward to 1988. The film was rediscovered, restored, and re-released in art houses worldwide to critical acclaim. That's where Don comes in. A self-described lifelong admirer of Rand, he saw a rough cut of the film, invested in it, and worked to spread the word about it. He's stayed in the loop all these years. And now, We the Living is back as a two-disc special edition DVD. You get the movie, Italian with English subtitles, plus several special features, including a making-of documentary. You can order it through Amazon here. Rand's name has been popping up everywhere lately, in part because of the economic crisis. She was an enthusiastic defender of capitalism and free markets. And many successful entrepreneurs cite her novels and ideas as a major influence. Even if you're not a Rand fan, you can enjoy this great piece of cinema history... or pass it on to a friend or family member during this holiday season.
"We thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food," Ernest Hemingway wrote. "It was a great giver of happiness and well-being."
To Hemingway, drinking wine was not a sign of sophistication. "It was as natural as eating," he said. "And just as necessary."
I feel the same way. One of my favorite rituals is walking into my cellar and picking out a bottle of wine to accompany the meal that K has made. Wine is something we both enjoy. And we are happy to know that it is also good for our health.
You're probably aware that red wine is packed with health-promoting antioxidants. And one of the most important is resveratrol. Dr. Al Sears calls this "one of the most powerful anti-aging compounds you can take."
The studies coming out about this natural compound are impressive. One study showed that resveratrol lengthened the lives of mice by 30 percent. Another, published by the Institute of Genetics, Molecular, and Cellular Biology, found that resveratrol helped mice run twice as far during exercise. The results were so compelling, Johan Auwerx, one of the lead researchers, said, "Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training."
Resveratrol has also been shown to decrease the risk of cancer and boost insulin sensitivity (an important factor in preventing diabetes and slowing down the aging process).
Red wine is an excellent source of resveratrol. However, to get a therapeutic dose, I've been told, you'd have to drink a lot more of it than just a glass or two.
Not to worry… the folks at Total Health Breakthroughs have developed an anti-aging elixir that has the equivalent resveratrol of 13 bottles of red wine – in just one serving. And right now, they are offering it at a special discounted rate for a limited number of initial testers. To put your name on the list, click here.
THB Managing Editor Jon Herring is stirring things up again with his views on cancer prevention. Check out his article here, and add your two cents. Here's what some of your fellow readers have been saying about it: "Thank you Jon for the courage to speak the truth! There are so many facets to this and so many lies told to us in the USA that the truth has become bleary. There are many causes of 'cancer' but most come from something we did to ourselves, either apparent or inadvertently. If and when you remove the cause, the body will repair itself if given the right conditions. Pure air, water, real food, exercise, and sleep. As you say, it is pretty simple to cure cancer, and it is our responsibility. Thank you ETR & THB for keeping things 'Black & White' and not the terrible gray we have been handed the last 30+ years!" -- Robert Newhart "Absolutely right! It is our own ignorance and belief that more educated people know best (whether it is our doctor or our government) and will always prescribe what is best for us that leads us to abdicate responsibility for our welfare." -- Joseph Moore "Cancer is big business -- witness all the 'pink' stuff that's shown up everywhere this year! And I refuse to support the 'Race for the Cure,' the 'Shirt for the Cure,' the 'Potato for the Cure,' the 'WHATEVER for the Cure'! On principle! As Jon says, there already IS a cure!!!! It's just not backed by the pharmaco-industrial complex's big bucks!" -- Jill
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson welcomes your questions and comments. Send him a message at AskMichael@ETRFeedback.com.] | 
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