BEAUTIFUL CHILL OUTS

This week, we needed a beautiful break. Enjoy the best of BeautifulNow Summer with BEAUTIFUL CHILL OUTS, revisited from Summer 2013.

Freeze negative energy:

1. Imagine one large block of ice melting from head to toe to cover every part of your body.
2. Make the layer of ice over your skin transparent

This simple guided exercise, from Cube Hills, is a literal illustration of the mind-cooling effects of meditation. It is also found to help aid fever, heartburn and arthritis.

Meditation cools down a hot and busy mind. And now, it’s being used to cool out the angers and frustrations of prisoners. It’s having a dramatic positive impact on both their physical and mental health.

The Journal of Psychiatric Research, reported that prisoners who completed a 10-week course in yoga had “less stress and better moods, and also performed better on a behavior-control task compared with their non-yoga-doing peers.” The hope is that meditation can help them live happier lives outside of prison as well.

If a fairy godmother can’t chill you out, you are definitely way too uptight. This 10 minute guided meditation will relax your body, calm your mind and soothe your soul. “Like a refreshing ice cold drink on a hot day, this meditation will help revive and rejuvenate your body, mind and soul and help you to reconnect with your vibrant magical self,” promises Donna Margaret McCallum, of Fairy Godmother, Inc. Click here for the guided meditation.

She can also chill-ax you with programs like “Dream Mapping” or “Turning Fear into Fabulous.” Read about how she transformed from a “caterpillar” to a fairy godmother. She might just be able to relax you enough that you find your AHA moment too.

So, why don’t you just chill out and consider someone else’s view for a change!? You can do it better by having a nice cold drink first. Really!

Cold water helps us see other people’s points of view. A study published in the June 2013 issue of the Dutch psychological journal Acta Psychologica reports that when humans are exposed to cooler temperatures, they grow more vulnerable to outside influence.

We form our own perspectives and opinions by a process called “egocentric anchoring.” As we chill, we reduce our egocentric anchoring, which enables us to better consider and adopt another’s point of view, according to lead researcher, Claudia Sassenrath, of the University of Ulm in Germany.

Previous studies suggest that physical coldness is associated with “social distance.” If we want to feel warmer, we need to get closer to other people, in mind, if not just in body. Offering someone a cold drink on a hot day might do more than you think to endear them to you.

Get colder still. Immerse in spectacular pools in temperatures of no higher than 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit.

The "cold plunge" trend is a revival of one that began thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, Rome, China, and the Ottoman Empire. Korean Jjimjilbangs (찜질방) have been offering plunge pools and ice rooms as part of their spa service for centuries. The “Polar Bear Club” has continued an annual cold plunge tradition by jumping, naked, into the freezing ocean on New Year’s Day.

State-of-the-art athletic training facilities, like Aquarius Health Medi-Spa, and über-luxe spas, like Hoar Cross, are now catering to a growing desire to take a cold plunge.

Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy is a curative health and beauty treatment involving extremely low temperatures (-120 to -160 degrees Celsius). Short-term freezing of the skin’s surface leads to the immediate release of endorphins and adrenaline. Whole Body Cryotherapy is a new trend in Sports & Fitness because it has been found to improve muscle recovery time and enhance performance.  

Cryo Health, a new cryotherapy clinic, has just opened in Dubai (July 9, 2013), in the Emirates Towers. It offers customers cryofacials, whole body cryotherapy, and local cryotherapy. Criosauna offers four clinics in Romania.

Get ready to plunge your entire body into an antechamber for one to three minutes. That’s just to get you revved and ready for the real deal, a chamber cooled, by liquid nitrogen from -120° to -160°Celsius. What about frostbite, you wonder? A face mask, a headband to cover the mouth and ears, gloves, socks, and clogs are issued to protect your extremities. Your skin has to be bone dry when you enter. Any residual water will freeze instantly and can damage your tissues. Because it gives you a major metabolic surge, enabling you to burn 400 to 800 calories a single treatment, whole body cryotherapy is being used to aid in weight loss programs.

If you’d like your own cryosauna, try these fromr Millennium Ice. You can try one out at Playtri, a store that caters to triathlon athletes, as one of their Recovery Services offered.

Here’s a list of what cryotherapy might do for you:

SPORTS & FITNESS

• Increase in muscle strength
• Increase in performance
• Allows for more intense and higher volume training
• Improves immune system
• Reduction of the regeneration stage
• Reduction of pain, muscle soreness & inflammation

HEALTH & WELLNESS

• Reduce stress
• Reduce anxiety
• Reduce depression
• Increase in oxygen and nutrients around the body
• Improved circulation
• Improved release of endorphins for natural pain relief
• ​Increased libido
• Increased metabolism and caloric burn​

BEAUTY

• Increase in collagen production
• Reduction of cellulite
• Tighter and healthier skin
• Fewer skin blemishes

Lush has suggested some cool ways to use its products this summer. Try freezing or chilling its hand-made soap bars and shower jellies before you use them to cool yourself down after a hot sweaty day.

And finally, for today, music is a great chiller-outer. We like this list: 25 Years of Chill Out Music. Aaaahhhhhh......

Read more about Beautiful Summer, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact, including 10 Beautiful Tents, New Ideas with Beautiful Heat, Making Water More Beautiful to Drink, Beautiful Beach Sand Sculptures and Beautiful Backyard Meditations.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Summer in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 08.10.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: Courtesy of Fairy Godmother. Present Moment.
2. Photo: by Loving Earth. “buddha bokeh."
3. Photo: Courtesy of Cocktail Hermit. Cool glass.
4. Photo: by Lauren Paulsen. Polar Plunging = Cold Water.
5. Photo: Courtesy of Hoar Cross. Spa.
6. Photo: Courtesy of Criosauna. Cryotherapy.
7. Photo: Courtesy of Cryo Health. Cryotherapy Clinic.
8. Photo: Courtesy of Playtri. Cryosauna.
9. Photo: Courtesy of SportEX journals. Thermal images taken before (left) and after (right) whole body cryotherapy treatment.
10. Photo: by Nicolas ROUX. No stress - greek islands.

Contributors: