Tag Archives: stress

Breathwork, Stress Management, Yoga

Mindful Warrior Practice

Last week I posted a piece on Mindfulness Practicing for ACT.

Here’s another practice , this time using a warrior II pose. I like Warrior II, Virabhadrasana II (veer-ah-bah-DRAHS-anna), for generating a feeling of power and focus. Try this exercise when you are having difficulty with finding motivation.

Part one: The pose

  1. Face the long side of your mat with your arms stretched straight out from your shoulders and your feet parallel to each other in a wide stance. You want your ankles approximately beneath your wrists.
  2. Turn your right foot and knee to face the front of the mat.
  3. Angle your left toes a little in toward the upper left corner of the mat.
  4. Bend your right knee so that you only see your right big toe.
  5. Check and distribute your weight evenly between both legs. Press down through the outer edge of your back foot and four corners of right foot.
  6. Check posture and keep the crown of your head stacked over your pelvis and your shoulders over your hips.
  7. Reach through both arms toward the front and back of the mat and turn your head to look past your right fingertips.
  8. Engage your abdominal muscles by creating a “lift” in your lower ab area.

Part Two: The practice

Hold the pose and breath in to the belly, reversing the exhale constrict the belly as the air empties. Continue even breathing as you look out over your right finger tips, envisioning that which you to accomplish. Switch sides and think of another project/task you would like to accomplish.

Additional:

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Stress Management, Uncategorized, Wellness topic, Yoga

September Focus – Anxiety Relief

“Pose” of the Week – Cat/Cow Flow

How to Do It:

  • Come to hands and knees with shoulders over wrists and hips over knees.
  • Inhale: arch your back, lifting your chest and tailbone (Cow).
  • Exhale: round your spine, tucking chin and tailbone (Cat).
  • Continue flowing with your breath.

Why It Helps:
This gentle movement synchronizes breath and body, helping to release physical tension while calming the nervous system.

Time: 1–2 minutes

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Stress Management, Wellness topic, Work

Work-Life Balance

work in progress

I was asked to do a talk on “Work-Life Balance” the other week.  “Work-Life Balance” is the new catch phrase that’s being used instead of “Burn-out Prevention”.  So in essence my focus was on preventing burnout.  Burnout occurs when someone had once really loved what they do at their job but started giving more and more to the job until it took over more and more of their lives.  After this process starts, the individual then usually starts to resent their work and job to the point where they start to do less and less quality of work.  This usually results in low work performance and increasing resentment for not getting any past rewards they use to get for doing a good job.  It really is a downward spiral if there is no intervention.

The idea of “Work-Life Balance” is getting more to the root issue  in that one must have balance and perspective with the roles they possess in order to not experience burnout.  A good exercise is sitting down and listing all the roles you possess.  If there are roles you don’t want then you may want to take them off the list.  If you can’t get rid of the role then keep it, such as the role of “house keeper” if you are single parent and cannot afford to hire this role out.  So once you have the list of all the roles you have, then list one task to do for each of those roles.  Next get your calendar out and place that task on a day and a time to accomplish it.

This is just one way to help maintain balance during the week, but you will start to feel overwhelmed if you forget the role of “caretaker of self”.  You can’t forget to schedule in time for yourself to do something nurturing, like an hour to read, get a massage, see a movie.   You need time to reconnect to what relaxes and/or inspires you so that you can recharge and be able to do these other tasks in your calendar.  Don’t forget that you need time to let go of the other roles and remember yourself.

Breathwork, Mindfulness, Wellness topic

Maintaining Peace Through the Holidays

peaceful homer 2

I’ve scheduled a time out in the morning for to do a little breath-work and a gratitude practice.  It has been amazing to see the difference in the mornings that I skip the practice and the days I will myself out of bed for it.   I’ve noticed also how it has helped me roll with all the holiday festivities without feeling as tired or frustrated as in the past.  Actually this season has been amazingly different and I’m attributing a lot to my morning practice.

I think many times we try to only practice meditation and other coping skills when we feel stress.    Our goal may be peace but our focus is actually on the stressful event.   It is what is prompting  our practice. When you are able to make the shift and allow something else prompt your meditation or mindfulness practice then you will make more progress during the stressful times.  I think the key is practicing as much peacefulness as possible and to do that you need to also practice when you are not very stressed.  When we get well attuned and use to having a peaceful moment it’s much easier to take that feeling of peace and apply it to other situations.

What I have learned is that using breath-work and mindfulness techniques to deal with stressful situations does work  but the effects of the practice is not nearly as beneficial  if you only use them in a stressful situation.  It is like playing an instrument only a few times a year, you may be able to play a song but it won’t necessarily be pretty or easy.     However as with anything when you practice over and over; when it comes time to really perform, it will be much easier and successful.

Exercise, Nutrition, Stress Management, Treatment, Wellness topic

7 Ways to Begin Managing Stress

Stress is something that happens to us daily.  There’s good stress.  You know the type that makes you show up for a meeting on time and also enabled you to prepare the night before.  There’s also not so good stress.  The kind that wears at you and makes you want to run and hide (or eat chocolate, drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, etc… )  It’s the kind that may start out as good stress but then added to all the other little worries morphs into something that is not helpful.

There are a few things you can do when you start to feel this negative stress come on that may help you gain control and not run and hide.  Some such as the first item may seem deceptively simple. We tend to take these for granted but often they are neglected resulting in a low threshold for negative stress and its effects.

1.Take a drink of water.  Many of us stay dehydrated and when we are dehydrated it is more difficult to reduce stress hormones and that feeling of tension.

2. Take a breathing break.   Concentrate on long slow exhales. When we are stressed we hyperventilate (longer inhales than exhales) which signals the body to go into “fight or flight”.

3.Eat well.  Eat meals with a variety of protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables.  Attempt to eat something with protein and fiber at least every 4 hours while awake.  This will keep blood sugar from dropping low enough to signal a stress  response.

4. Walk or do some sort of exercise.  Just 15-20 minutes a day will reduce stress hormones in the blood; 30-60 minutes will optimize this.

5. Shrink your to-do list and focus on only the top 3 tasks.  If that’s too much, shrink it to the most important task you can do right now.   Looking at 20 items can be overwhelming but when you are focusing on just the next step, you feel more in control.

6. Nurture close relationships.  Contact someone positive whom you want to keep in your life.  Soak in some of their positive energy to help give you more resilience.

7. Get enough sleep.  Work on things that will help you get better sleep like cutting out caffeine after 5pm.  Getting 4-8 hours of sleep a night enables your body to clean up toxins and excess chemicals like the stress hormone cortisol.  Sleep helps to give you a “clean slate” for the next day.

*If still no relief, reach out to a support group or professional assistance through a counselor or other healthcare provider.