Feeling fitter and calmer through awareness exercises such as meditation, breathing and yoga exercises
People who start the day with meditation, breath and yoga practices feel calmer and more focused during the day. Yoga exercises provide energy and a healthy feeling. Who wouldn’t want to start the day like this? For me, yoga is more of a way of life than poses on a mat.
Do you ask yourself every day what really matters to you in your life and what drives you? What makes you get up every day and get out of bed? I’m sure you ask yourself every day what is important for your company, how can I generate more turnover, what are the bottlenecks, what should we improve?
At a young age I lived and worked in the beautiful city of London. 6:00 AM in the subway with thousands of people trying to cut themselves off from the outside world in every possible way to keep some contact with themselves and not use up all the energy for the day. So everyone looks at the floor. You will never make eye contact with a Londoner in the tube. Everyone reads books or listens to music with headsets.
Why do we run after money or recognition? We fear that we won’t get what we want or think we need if we don’t keep going for it. We want to be satisfied. A sense of contentment gives satisfaction. The only thing is, there are always new things to chase so you will never experience that satisfaction. If we’re not happy, we just keep running and don’t slow down. This is how we create stress and get burned out. This also keeps you in a vicious circle. Why is it so hard to press the brake?
In addition, the meaning of our lives is often expressed in: what we do, our work, what our daily life looks like, our leisure activities, the relationships we have. We can make it as busy as we want. The stimuli around us ensure that we are continuously busy responding to them. We rush through life. Getting as much done as possible is important. Everything around us has also become instant. As a result, we also expect our work to have immediate results. The expectations of others and expectations of ourselves are therefore not always realistic. We create stress through unrealistic expectations. We are affected as humans and it tires our system and wears us out.
We all know our nervous system. The autonomic (unconscious, self-directing) consists of the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic stands for activity, energy, action or flight response. The parasympathetic nervous system calms the sympathetic effect and stands for relaxation, tranquility and calm. Events in our lives cause us to get ‘punches’ in the area in our body just below the ribs. That is part of the life process. This is because the large nerve that reflects the sympathetic nervous system by means of tension is located here. For example: You are 7 years old and the boy next door pushes you off your bicycle. Your mother is not around. Punch. At 10 years old, classmates call you names. Punch. At the age of 16, your first boyfriend or girlfriend breaks your heart for the first time. Punch. Your heart rate goes up and you get unnecessarily tense. Your system uses energy unnecessarily and you ‘burn out’ inside. The sympathetic system predominates and this is reflected in the type of respiration as well. Our breathing pattern gets damaged during our lives, causing disturbed breath on an often unconscious level.
TIP: A controlled full and equal inhalation and exhalation practice of a few minutes through the nose ensures a healthy and fit body and a calm mind.
Also consider the workings of our minds. Our thoughts are strong, the voice in our head is always there and will make you believe that this is what you need to do and that it is important. How come our thoughts are so strong? What does that determine? The thoughts, our minds can and know exactly how to internalize knowledge, make decisions, judge and discriminate by patterns and learned behavior in our lives. We believe that this is our personality and cannot see that we are not that anger, or that we are not that sadness. We can choose not to be this anymore, but there is a fear of ignorance and what is left.
TIP: Train yourself with: ‘I have thoughts but I am not them’.
You can plan everything and feel like you have everything under control, but then things come your way as a surprise that is beyond your control. If you want to create balance in your life now and get your braking and acceleration system under control, you can start by examining where you are right now.
A moment of rest and stillness through a short yoga or breathing exercise or meditation recharges the battery. You get a clear and fresh head again to take a proactive attitude towards your braking system. You restore your body and allow space to be created in your head for new amazing ideas. Then priorities can be set, leaving more time for friends and loved ones. There are many studies with great tips on time management, but we’re just about to skip that one. By comfortably doing nothing every day, we can practice contentment, new energy, a fresh mind and vital body to get back into balance. We can signal stress earlier so that we no longer have to step on the brake, but can enjoy a wonderful tour through life.
By Manon Simonis | Founder Yogaplace studios, courses, workshops and retreats
