An Intro to Meditation

If meditation can help significantly reduce stress in Congolese refugees in just 10 days, do you think it could help you reduce your stress?  

Meditation has been proven to reduce stress, increase positive emotion generation, reduce burnout, increase healing in patients, works as a coping mechanism for those with PTSD, and helps bring the body back to a state of homeostasis. 

So why aren’t you meditating?

I love to meditate in Garden of the Gods

 

Here are the excuses I hear:

1. I don’t have time
2. I don’t know how
3. I can’t stop my brain from going out of control
4. It’s weird
5. I’m not a monk( yes I’ve really heard that one)

Along with breathing exercises, one of the skills that martial arts teaches is meditation.  It is used in combination with breathing exercises to get yourself ready for class and to end class.  Meditation is part of practice for everyone age 4-80.  It becomes an ingrained part of your practice and later your life.  Being able to meditate got me through 50 page graduate school projects, my GRE, comprehensive exams, and multiple other stressors.  I seemed to handle these things better than my peers because I was able to employ meditation as a coping strategy and a stress prevention strategy. 

The easiest way to start meditating is to put 5 minutes in at the beginning of your morning and end of your evening. Guided meditations seem to be easiest for beginners. 

Here is a good 5 minute starter for you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UKw8tFYyY

Multiple magazines including Forbes and Entreprenuer have shown that successful people meditate daily.  It doesn’t matter why they meditate, just that they do. There is something about meditation that increases productivity and mental creativity. So far these are only correlations, but hopefully we will see some studies that give us a definitive answer as to what about meditation leads people to be more successful and productive.  Hopefully they an also establish the amount of time necessary to see full benefits of meditation for the general public. 

Take 5 minutes for yourself today and meditate!  You will have a clearer and more focused mind heading into the weekend. 

Who needs Self Care?

Who needs self care?

We all need self care.

We cannot count on others to take care of us.  This is our own responsibility.

Finding time to take care of ourselves can be hard. We have an astronomical amount to do everyday.  Whether you are raising children or building a company, there is tons to do at every second of everyday.  We try to cram 26 hours into a 24 hour day.  That's without time for eating, sleeping, or going to the bathroom.  We live in a society that is always about more; more productivity, more time at work, more tasks. We have to step out of this cycle and realize that taking time for self care is important and necessary in order to accomplish more and to live a healthier life.

Self-care can be as simple as taking 5 minutes to sit in silence or listen to music. It can be attending a yoga class.  It can be sitting on the toilet reading a book so that your kids don't bother you. It can be giving yourself a face mask.  It could be meditating or taking a long, hot shower. Self-care is anything that relaxes you and gives you time to re-energize. It can be anything.  What is self-care for one person could be excruciating and awful for another person.  Self-care is personal.

Have a great Wednesday!

Breathing

You know how to breathe right?

But do you know how to breathe right?

If you said yes, you're probably wrong.  Your body breathes without any conscious thought most of the time.   90% of the population breathes without conscious thought.  In yoga classes and music classes they call proper breathing Diaphrambic breathing- or breathing from your diaphragm.

To find out how you are breathing, place one hand flat on your stomach and one hand flat on your chest.

When you breathe in, which hand moves?  Your stomach hand or your chest hand?

If you said chest hand, you are breathing incorrectly for self care.
If you said stomach hand, you may be breathing correctly for self care.

Breathing is one of the best exercises for self care and relaxation.

The first exercise is short version of a counting breathing exercise.  It is about awareness and relaxation.

1. Find a comfortable position either sitting or standing. Close your eyes.

2. Place one hand on your abdomen and one hand in the center of your chest.

3. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

4. Concentrate on making your belly hand rise when you breathe in.

5. Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4,  and then breathe out for a count of 4. Repeat 4 times.

6. Breathe normally for about 30 seconds and then open your eyes and go about your day. 

The second exercise is a progression breathing exercise that I used in karate to calm myself down after fighting.  This is a long exercise meant to relax and slow breathing.

1. To calm yourself: go someplace where you can be alone: your room, an empty staircase, a bathroom stall, etc. Leave your phone on silent. Do not look at it. 

2. Find a comfortable position either sitting or standing. Close your eyes.

3. Place one hand on your abdomen and one hand in the center of your chest.

4. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

5. Concentrate on making your belly hand rise when you breathe in.

6. Breathe in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 4,  and then breathe out for a count of 4. Repeat 4 times.

7. Breathe in for a count of 6, hold for six, breathe out for 6.  Repeat 6 times.

8. Breathe in for 8, hold for 8, breathe out for 8. Repeat 8 times.

9. Breathe in for 10, hold for 10, breathe out for 10.  Repeat 10 times. 

10.  Breathe normally for 2 minutes, then open your eyes, and go about your day. 

These are just two breathing exercises.  There will be more I promise.  Not every breathing exercise works as a relaxation and self-care tool for every person.  Keep trying different ones until you find one or two that work well for you. 

Have a great Tuesday and go find some air to breathe!

Change of focus: Self care in the modern world

This blog is about to go through a change of focus.  One of my biggest passions is self care.  

I see everyone around me forgetting to take care of themselves.  I hear about nursing interns who tirelessly take care of patients but haven't eaten or used the bathroom in 12 hours.  I hear about mothers and fathers who are so busy taking care of their spouses, children, and careers that they haven't had 10 minutes to themselves in weeks.  I hear about teachers who go home at night and make end of the year baskets to send home with their kids, so maybe for a few days they won't be hungry, staying up until all hours of the night to make sure they are ready. I hear about graduate students who are working a job to put themselves through school, staying up until all hours of the night to finish projects that their classmates don't care about in order to make sure they maintain a good gpa.


All of these people are important.  Every person on this planet is important.  Yet, we are so worried about taking care of others, that we rarely take time for ourselves.  Because of this trend, I am going to re-focus this blog to specifically talk about self care, research you may find interesting in the field, and how myself and others are teaching ourselves to take care of ourselves too.

Happy Monday!