How to have a massage

Your therapist knows what she's doing, but do you? BY INA AMOR MEJIA

ACHEY MUSCLES, STUBBORN KNOTS. You're sitting at your desk trying to get some work done, but your body is yearning for a massage. I feel you. Over here, the usual scenario is I call Anna, my years-long massage therapist with magic hands. An hour or so of her signature dry shiatsu massage and I am fixed. Other days, my husband and I go on a massage date to our favourite Chinese reflexology place on the other side of town. Either way, it's the same massage, every single time. And every single time it works wonders. When you've found the right therapist or massage place, the rest is really up to you. Here are a few lessons I've learned on how to get the most out of your massage...

Coconut Oil: A Daily Habit

How to easily get the benefits of this superfood everyday.BY INA AMOR MEJIA

WHEN COCONUT OIL took the world by storm a few years ago, I remember feeling a bit of a fond indifference to the health trend. I'm from the Philippines, one of the world's largest producers of coconuts and its byproducts. So I thought awesome, finally, but also, tell me something I didn't know. I spent childhood weekends playing under those tall skinny trees, I grew up on food using coconut milk, and I knew the nutty scent of the oil by heart. The irony is, it was never really a conscious choice to make coconut oil a daily habit. 

Well that's changed, A LOT... 

3 beauty recipes

We tried three beauty DIYs with coconut oil as the main ingredient. 
The verdict: easy, healthy, and they actually work. 
BY INA AMOR MEJIA

WHEN I THINK OF COCONUT OIL, I am reminded of my grandmother's beauty ritual. Every month, before 'cold-processed' was the method of choice, her beloved hairdresser would come to extract the oil by heating fresh coconut milk, filling the house with that creamy, nutty scent, and then massaging it into my grandmother's scalp. Though she kept it short, my grandmother's hair was glossy and thick, and it stayed that way until her last days. 

Today, I'm always looking for ways to use coconut oil at home. Recently, I tried three DIY beauty recipes that are not just easy, healthy, and fun to make---they actually do the job. My grandmother would have been proud...

Homemade Rosemary Tea

It's got numerous benefits, but here's why I've been drinking it lately. BY INA AMOR MEJIA

WE HAVE BEEN GROWING rosemary in our roof deck for a year now, and it has been one of the easiest culinary herbs to grow organically. Relatively hardy in our tropical weather, it is such a pleasure to grow and care for. I've always loved its scent---pine-like, earthy, and elegant. Whenever I go up there to prune it, when I'm done I like to bury my face in my hands and inhale. 

Turns out, this herb isn't just great for roast chicken. 

Sineguelas, We Meet Again

This one is giving me all the old feels, and some Vitamin C. BY INA AMOR MEJIA

IT  TAKES VERY LITTLE to make me happy sometimes. Gabby came back from a trip with a bag of Spanish Plums, or Sineguelas, as we call them over here---a sweet and sour fruit that I remember eating as a kid. So late that night I sat in bed eating five of them, and random memories came and went. Sineguelas are not the kind of fruit you eat everyday, you don't normally get them at the grocery or market in a big city, and you never know when you'll get them again (unless of course you've got some growing in your backyard). A little backstory...

Just one diet trick

PART OF MY JOB as associate editor of a food magazine was to know all the trends in the culinary world. This included the diets of the moment. Back then it was all about Atkins and South Beach, the blood type diet, and the French Women Don't Get Fat diet. Then there was the Mediterranean Diet with its focus on heart health. But another diet got my attention because of this book. I ended up doing a feature for the magazine and learning about the habits of the longest living people on Earth. The Okinawa centenarians---who eat lots of tofu, seaweed and bitter gourd. They have a certain attitude towards life and keep active. And there's this other trick I can't forget. 

It's called Hara Hachi Bu --- or eating until you're 80 per cent full. 

How do you know? Eighty per cent full means you're satisfied, but you could eat more, but if you don't, you'd be ok too. Apparently, it takes 10-20 minutes for the brain to register that you're actually full. By the time it does, you've already overeaten. Thanks brain.

If I only remembered this during both my pregnancies, I wouldn't have gained those 55 pounds of fried bananas and prosciutto. Just saying.

And thanks for reading!

*Photo from My name is yeh

Resolutions: A Mood Board

THIS YEAR WILL BE NO MORE in a few days, and once again I'm looking inward and forward. No matter how crazy the final weeks of the year get, it's vital to make sense of everything, to make lists in your head or on paper. To visualize, to plan, and to hope. Always to hope. 

These are twelve big resolutions that I think might be meaningful whatever those hopes are. I've chosen a photo (11 great ones from the web and one of mine. Photo above by Florian Klauer) for each resolution, coupled with some wise words from people you might know. Are you ready?

Habits of a Slow Life

Life is short, you're moving too fast. Here's how to slow down. BY INA AMOR MEJIA

THIS WEEK OVER FACEBOOK my mom told me, "Hurry is one of the saddest things in the world." I thought about that very briefly. But only because, lately, hurry has been the operative word in my world. I haven't had time for reflection, the deep kind. For peace and quiet. For that inner life. It's just been all about work and to do lists. All about deadlines and getting from point A to point B with all possible speed. The weekends bring a small respite from the stress but it always returns on Mondays, and with a vengeance. So when a Saturday road trip, the first one of the year, presented itself unexpectedly the other day, promising to take me away from all this relentless hurrying, I did what every depleted, exhausted and harried person would do. I said yes.

I thought I said no to a rushed life years ago, when I read Take Your Time, by the late author and spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran. This wise-beyond-its-years book about slowing down the pace of life needs revisiting, especially since the lessons mean more to me today than they did back in college when I first read it. And I thought the 90's were fast times.

Easwaran presents an Eight-Step program in the book, which includes meditation, and is broken down into practical suggestions (like the ones I summarized below), that could work for anyone. Having tried many of them I can tell you that they are easier said than done, but worth a try.

Wake up early.

Make time for a good breakfast.

Don't pressure the people around you to hurry.

Learn to be patient.

Attend to details.

Do not multitask.

You are what you think.

Cultivate relationships with others in all that you do.

Basically, Easwaran makes a point about how we must slow down to truly live. Ask yourself about what's truly important and make do without what isn't. It is in spending more time, not less, on those precious ones. The suggestions are simple but the effects are profound. And being the culture of instant that we are, slowing down takes a conscious effort.

I've always been an early riser, and my best days are when I can carve a moment for myself early in the morning to see the sun rise and enjoy my coffee quietly before the kids awake. Rising early also gives me a head start on my day. If I get up at 9am or even 8, the rest of the day becomes a breathless game of catch up where I'm bound to make an endless array of mistakes. I listen to music when I need to calm down. When I'm tired but still have tons to do, I just drop everything (?!?) Please raise your hand if you know how hard that is. But I do it. I just do it. I kick my shoes off and close my eyes. Sometimes 20 minutes is all it takes for a brain reboot.

I wish I knew how to speed read, but only because I want to read more books and not just get them over with. I'm also famously (in my house) anti-multitasking. So you can imagine how much of a fraud I feel like when I find myself frantically eating my lunch in front of my computer. Easwaran says, "When your life and your mind are going faster and faster, there can be no decisions. There are only reflexes..."

I realize this is easier for someone like me who works from home. Friends with 9 to 5 jobs who live in mega cities give me all sorts of valid excuses. But suggestions abound. Like in this article by writer Cody Delistraty, that should be read by every workaholic whose pick me up is "two Red Bulls". Suggestion number 4 is about spending your time wisely by leading an authentic life. It reads, "Choosing what you want to do with your life, not what will most impress someone else, is the only way you won't feel like, in the words of Holden Caulfield, a big phony."

Sometimes it just takes a step back, and focusing all your attention on a single moment. It might be completely random, like that old couple holding hands in the train. The fragrant steam wafting from the cup of noodles on your desk. Or those little things of nature that are everywhere if we only really looked. Slowing down means focusing. Being in that one moment so that everything else that is irrelevant fades into the background.

Rushing through life without the single-minded attention it deserves only makes us want to do more, and faster. According to Easwaran,"What we need to do is just the opposite: to slow down and live completely in the present. Then every moment will be full."

Have a nice (and slow) weekend. And thanks for reading.