"Just breathe, Mom"

The winter holidays can be a pretty stressful time.  We see family and friends in greater numbers and frequency.  Our normal routines are disrupted as we try to fit in as many holiday activities as we can.  Many of us feel a sense of time urgency as we struggle to get it all "done" before some important date or event.

Often, the result is that we become overextended, under-rested and emotionally frazzled.  Yet each of us has a built in stress reduction technology that is available 24/7/365.  It requires no batteries, plugs or special adapters. Best of all, it is free and easy to use.  It is our breath.

When I pay attention, I see that reminders about the importance of breathing abound.  One of my professors in the counseling program at Oakland University told our class that one of the best things we could ever do is to teach our clients how to breathe.  My yoga and meditation teachers are always offering new ways to make direct contact with the breath, and I pass these reminders along to my students.  A while back I was sharing a frustration with my adult daughter and she looked at me and said, "Just breathe, Mom."  She is so wise.

The way we breathe can alter our physiology and improve our mood.  A few moments of slow and deep breathing can stimulate our parasympathetic nervous system and calm us down.  It can short circuit a "fight or flight" stress reaction and halt the release of stress hormones into our bodies. It can decrease our serum cholesterol and lower our blood pressure, among other things.  And, as this article from NPR describes, your calming breath can even change the expression of genes, altering the activity of the cells in your brain.

Contact me if you'd like to know more about how to use your breath to improve your health.  The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction classes that I offer are a great place to learn to harness the power of your own breath.

In the meanwhile, if the stress of the holidays starts to diminish the quality of your life, just take my daughter's advice and "Just breathe."

The Woods and Wellness

Do you have a special spot where you feel more connected to yourself and the world around you, present in a timeless sort of way? For me, it is in the forest.

There are woods near both my house and the family summer cottage. I go there to commune with nature and recharge my inner resources. Whether it is walking with my dog and taking it in step by step or standing still to listen to the wind move through the branches and leaves, the forest has a profound and beneficial effect on how I experience life. Even a short stroll helps me to relax, listen deeply to my inner wisdom and rejoin the day with a different perspective.

In The Healing Power of Forests (ScienceDaily, July 26, 2010), we learn that forests, as well as other green spaces, can improve our immune system, reduce stress, mitigate anger and aggressiveness and increase our level of happiness.

When you consider the considerable personal and societal costs of illness, getting out in nature on a regular basis seems a deceptively simple alternative.

Want to feel good? Practice Yoga!

     I remember when I first started to do yoga - I didn't really know what I was doing and I felt clumsy doing it.  I was in a period of my life where I was desperately unhappy and I didn't know why. 

    Yet when I was done with the yoga class, I felt really good.  My body felt like it had done something beneficial.  But there was something else - I felt emotionally uplifted, lighter in mood, more open to life.  I felt happy for quite a while afterwards.  My yoga students have reported similar experiences to me over the years.

    I have always wondered what it is about yoga that makes us feel this way.  Now, an article from Science Daily, New Study Finds New Connection Between Yoga and Mood , explains how yoga works its magic upon us.  A study done at the Boston University School of Medicine indicates that yoga increases the levels of GABA, a brain compound that when found in low levels is associated  with depression and anxiety.  With higher levels of GABA, we feel less depression and anxiety so we feel happier.

   So if you are feeling out of sorts, you might want to give yoga a try.  There are no pills to take, and it might be habit forming.   Yoga might just be the right medicine for you.

Who's Driving the Bus?

I don't know about you, but from time to time I realize that my life is driving me, that I am not in the driver's seat. When I start feeling overwhelmed with too many things to do and I don't feel like doing any of them, when I can't get "enough" done each day and feel tired most of the time, I know it is time to pay attention.

We were talking about this in the MBSR class the other night. One of the students said she was having a hard time practicing meditation because she didn't have any time. Her "To Do" list had her running all day long and when she got home from work, there was more to do. She looked and sounded exhausted. Practicing was just another thing she "had to do."

As we talked, I suggested she bring mindful awareness to the things on her list each day. Asking questions like: Did each of the tasks need to be done that day? Did it need to be done at all? According to who? What would happen if it wasn't done?

I then suggested that she consider the model used by Franklin Covey Co. as a basis for their planner systems:
Discover what is most important in your life, plan to do the things that support those values, and then let those values drive your actions.

I know from my own experience that if I'm not paying attention, my planner can get filled up with all the things that others want me to do, from work to friends and family. If I am not aware, I overschedule myself and underestimate how long things take to do. The result is that there is no time left for what I want to do, let alone time to relax and rejuvenate.

My advice to her was the advice I give myself. If you take the time to meditate each day, you will bring greater awareness to what is truly important to you and how you spend your time each day. You will make more conscious choices that can lead to greater balance between doing and non-doing, working and playing, between the obligations you accept and taking the time to follow your heart's desire.

So if you ask yourself each day, "Who's driving the bus?" and the answer isn't you, it's time to put yourself back in the driver's seat of your life.