CALM YOUR BODY AND MIND – meditation, yoga, relaxation and breathing techniques

Here goes the feature in Rude Health Magazine Page 26

The recovery time after my operation inspired me to write this article, when finally I learnt to SLOW DOWN… so important for our mental health

Magazine:  Rude Health

The body’s natural panic response is to speed up the heart and breathing rate. This may happen when the mind begins racing. Slow and deep breaths can reduce the body’s stress response and promote a feeling of calm, helping to quiet or stop racing thoughts.

That’s why relaxation activities will help to keep your mind calm but also, some mind changes need to be involved, creating healthy routines to implement and start being more focused on ourselves and what is making us feel annoyed throughout the day. 

Different ways to make your mind calm and peaceful:

Focus on gratitude and be realistic about how difficult building the habit may be. Recognize and plan for the obstacles that may get in the way. For instance, if you tend to be exhausted at night, accept that it might not be the best time to focus for a few extra minutes and schedule your gratitude in the morning instead.

Practice self-compassion. It is not easy to find the wisdom and dignity in one’s experience, and to respond to it in an appropriately kind way. A good practise is to write a summary of your day expressing your feelings, so you can detect in the long term, what is making your life harder so you can get rid of it.

Interrupt rumination by refocusing. Instead of replaying the past or worrying about what might or might not happen in the future, stay in the present –  bringing attention to your breath or physical sensations. For instance, you can “count 10 inhales through the nose and 10 exhales through the mouth” This is a good technique that takes 10 minutes and you can do it in your break at work. You also can do a body scan. Start with your toes, and notice the sensations present in your body.

Turn your negative self-talk and beliefs to Neutrality, because the vast majority of negative self-talk is an exaggeration, and writing down these thoughts and changing the words helps. For instance, “I can’t stand this” becomes, “This is challenging.” When your self-talk uses more gentle language, much of its negative power is muted as well.

Set routines, especially adding relaxing activities like meditation and yoga, can bring you that spark of serotonin needed to change your mindset and also keep yourself healthy. 

Make time to meditate. If you first thought is that meditation is a waste of time, then meditation is a must.

Sometimes we forget that we will not reach our goals at work, or handle our to-do list of the day if we do not have a calm, healthy and fit body. 

So creating a realistic to-do list at a professional and personal level is a must. List weekly goals and check in on those goals during the days of the week. Anything can happen during the day and you may not reach all the goals for the day but that’s fine. Assume things will happen spontaneously in life and you need to adapt to them, you cannot control everything except the way you handle those situations. The world will not end tomorrow, the tasks can be finished then 🙂

Get a good night’s sleep. This is the most crucial factor to do everything else properly! Keeping a consistent sleep schedule and a minimum of 7 hours is the best way to make sure you can function properly and have good energy levels which will improve your mood and your overall health.