Bath Salts DIY

I love taking baths.  In the past I would sometimes take a bath with a book and a bar of chocolate — such a wonderful way to spend a few hours (yes, hours).  That was BC — Before Children.

These days, I get my bath relaxation by making my own bath salts.  It’s ridiculously easy.

• 1-2 cups epsom salts
• 1 cup baking soda
• 1 cup table salt (optional)
• 5-7 drops of your favorite doTERRA essential oil
• Dried herbs to make it look pretty (totally optional)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a glass jar.  Cover with a lid, shake well, and then open to add the essential oil of your choice.  I like to use Lavender for relaxation, or AromaTouch, the massage blend for sore muscles, or Balance, the grounding blend, for feeling balanced and grounded!  Others like to add Peppermint and Rosemary for an invigorating bath, or Serenity, the calming blend, for a very relaxing bath.

Look — it’s a smiley face!

Run the bath with warm-hot water, and add ALL the bath salts just before you get in the tub.  Yes, all 2-3 cups at once.  Stir the water with your hand to dissolve as much as you can before getting in (because undissolved salt crystals are not fun to sit on).  Sit back, and relax — for 30-40 minutes.  During this time, your body is soaking in the magnesium, and releasing toxins.  Add hot water as necessary to stay comfortable.  Keep your hair out of the bath.  Don’t use soap.  When you are finished, slowly get up (the tub is slippery), and rinse off gently.

If the idea of sitting in a bathtub for 30-40 minutes is not appealing to you, bring a book, or play some music, or listen to a book on tape.

Epsom Salts

Epsom salts are not a sodium chloride (NaCl or table salt), but a different kind of “salt” called magnesium sulfate.  Our bodies need magnesium to function properly, and often we do not get enough magnesium in our diets.  Epsom salts are a great way to help the skin absorb the magnesium (and sulfur) so that our bodies can use it.  Epsom salts have many benefits, including:

• relieves stress — higher magnesium levels in the body promote higher serotonin production
• relieves sore muscles
• removes toxins from the body
• helps regulate muscle and nerve function

Baking Soda

Baking soda is added primarily to soften the water and leave your skin feeling silky smooth.

Sea Salt

You can use any kind of sea salt here — Celtic Gray, Himalayan Pink — the idea is more minerals in the water.  This is optional, but a great way to color your bath salts without adding artificial coloring.

Where to get epsom salts in the US:  any pharmacy, Target, or other big box store should carry epsom salts.

Where to get epsom salts in Japan:  perhaps some of my Japanese readers can tell me where they find it, but I’ve found it on Amazon.co.jp.

Happy bathing!

Stress Reduction for the Long Term — Service

Money CAN buy happiness — but in a surprising way

Multiple sources show that people of all ages are happier when they are serving others. In one study, a group of college students were given envelopes with either $5 or $20 in them. Half of the envelopes said to spend it on themselves, half of the envelopes said to spend it on someone else. The volunteers’ self-reported their happiness levels before receiving the envelopes, and again after spending the money.  One group’s self-reported happiness was flat.  The other group reported feeling happier.  Guess who was happier? The ones who spent the money on someone else.

The TED Talk that goes into this experiment, and similar experiences worldwide can be found here.

How can you make this work for you (and your family)?

• Find opportunities to serve others.  Spend time caring for others: for younger children, brushing the family pet, or helping to make a special meal for a family member.
• For older children, get more hands-on, by sending a letter or package to “any soldier,” or knitting a bear for a child orphaned by AIDS in Africa, helping children get access to education, or perhaps helping endangered animals.
• If giving an allowance, suggest that a portion be saved for long-term, a portion be allocated for short-term use, and a portion be used for charity.
• Have a family charity jar – excess coins can go in the jar. Bring it to the bank (there is often a change counting machine there), and the family can decide together where they’d like to donate the money. Let your child help research some of the charitable organizations they might be interested in.
• Hands-on is best, but spending time thinking and learning about the charity and then giving money is also good. Make it a regular ritual: “On the 20^th of the month we’ll count the change and decide where to send it.”

After doing charitable work, talk about how you feel, what went well, what was enjoyable, and what could make it better.  Decide together what your next project will be.

Do you have an experience you’d like to share?  Please add it to the comments.

Stress Reduction for the Long Term — Optimism

Optimism — Creating Positive Thinking

Yesterday’s blog post focused on gratitude, and ways to incorporate thankfulness in our daily lives.  Finding things to be grateful for forces us to focus on the good of each situation, and is a great way to start being more optimistic.

We (and our kids) can be surrounded by negatives – Don’t do this, Stop doing that, Why can’t you… We need to add a positive framework to our lives. Optimistic people are more resilient, and resilience is a characteristic of highly successful people.

Find possible motives for others’ distressing behavior, always giving them the benefit of the doubt.

If someone in the grocery store races to the check-out before you, give them a back story that would make you feel okay with their actions:  perhaps they are rushing home with a prescription and ingredients for chicken soup to make their sick child feel better.  Teach your child this tactic by example, narrating your story for their benefit.  Perhaps they are being rude because someone was rude to them earlier today, and it really hurt their feelings. – OR – I wonder if that person is having a bad day.  I hope that my smile and positive attitude made their day a little better.

At bedtime, ask your child “What was the best part of your day?”

When my son was very young, he used to ask, “Can I tell you the worst parts?” and he’d begin a litany of complaints. I listened without judging or commenting, and then would ask what the best part was. He would often have to wrack his brain to come up with just one. However, after a while, the negative things became fewer, and he was ready with a positive thing. After a year, we rarely heard negative things, and he began asking US what the best part of our day was.  Several years later, he is positive and optimistic.

Be kind to yourself.  

Don’t listen to other people’s negative comments about you.  (Constructive feedback is positive, criticism is another.)  Someone else’s opinion is just that:  an opinion.  Don’t let it dictate who you are, or how you react.   When I was in my teens, I remember reading a book that said for self-confidence, I should look in the mirror straight into my eyes and say, “You are beautiful” (or something like that).  I remember that I did it, and the first time I didn’t believe it.  The fiftieth time, I did.

Tell others that they are important to you.  

Telling yourself and those around you that they are wonderful, important, meaningful, and that you are grateful for them is a powerful, powerful gift.  Tell them frequently, with eye contact.  They may shy away a bit at first, but they will grow from it, and learn to accept compliments.  As Aibileen in The Help said, “You is smart, you is kind, you is important.”  

Watch Ted Talks, Soul Pancake, and other inspirational videos 

There are a ton of great talks about positive thinking. If you have children old enough to watch with you, talk about them together.  Try this, this, this, and this!

Place inspirational messages around the house. 

Write them on post-its, put them on mirrors, doors, walls, kitchen cabinets.  Display them wherever they will be seen.  Move them around every couple of days.

If you can dream it, you can do it.  — Walt Disney

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.  — Mark Twain

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. — Eleanor Roosevelt

Expect problems and eat them for breakfast. — Alfred A Montapert

Start where you are.  Use what you have.  Do what you can.  — Arthur Ashe

Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody. — Kid President

Always be a little kinder than necessary, because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.  — J.M. Barrie

Be kind whenever possible.  It is always possible.  — Dalai Lama

Stress Reduction for the Long Term — Gratitude

Stress Reduction for the Long Term

Stress is a problem for many of us — we have constant stress in our daily lives, whether it be demands from school or work, auditory alarms and alerts from our phones, traffic jams, financial worries, and then the unique stresses each day brings.

I originally wrote this article for families with children struggling with learning issues and ADD/ADHD, but the content is valid for all of us, and for all of our children.  Whether they are dealing with a specific challenge, or just everyday “normal” challenges, our children are under more stress than ever.

Struggles and Frustration

It’s easy for parents and children to get stuck focusing on the problems that our children are facing.  ADHD children often have exceptional intelligence, and the disparity between how smart they really are conflicts with how much trouble they are having academically and/or socially, and frustration builds. Younger children may get angry or sad, older children may turn to risky behavior, including drug misuse and abuse, alcohol, and thrill-seeking dares.

Creating a New Focus

How do we turn this around? There are many schools of thought, but most of the research articles and books I found include optimism and resilience as characteristics that can help us to be successful individuals. A quote I like says that gratitude, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness and focusing on the meaning of life are key to the alleviation of stress. These  all are qualities that will result in optimism and resilience.

Today’s post focuses on gratitude, particularly appropriate as Thanksgiving approaches.

Gratitude

• What are you grateful for today? I enjoyed lunch with a friend, I saw a beautiful butterfly, the sky was blue, the rain in the afternoon gave me permission to stay at home and watch a movie….
• Gratitude Journal  Write one thing daily in your gratitude journal. For younger children, or children with dysgraphia, share the experience with them by writing it for them. For very young children, try drawing pictures. Post them around the room if your child likes that idea.
• How are you grateful for your ADHD (or insert your problem here)?  It has made us closer, it’s made me realize that I’m really good at X, I’ve become a more organized person because I had to be, I’ve learned to be an advocate for myself and others, etc.
• Each morning, before you get out of bed, close your eyes and think of 5 people you are grateful for. Send them a silent thank you.
• Focus on the positive!  It’s important to find a way to be grateful for negative experiences as well. Our family’s motto is “It’s better this way.” If something goes wrong, we find a way that it made an improvement in our lives. “If we hadn’t missed the connecting flight in Hawaii, we never would have experienced this amazing shaved ice at the airport.”
• “What was the best part of your day?”  Each evening, share something good that happened to you today.  If you feel a need to share the negative things, go ahead and get them out.  And THEN, finish it with something good that happened today.

Focusing on the positive is key to creating optimism, and is the subject of tomorrow’s post.