coaching and health – Page 2

Coming to the Senses

digital roots

The human body receives constant sensory input that provides up to the second information about the world around us. This is great news! And thankfully, we are created to modulate these responses. So, how can we use this amazing instrument, the human body, and play healthier music within? Intentionally noticing the five hard-wired senses gives us opportunities to do just this.

Whether or not you believe in behavioral resolutions this time of year, bringing awareness into our lives is a powerful practice. Why? Because when we go through the motions of the day without noticing how we feel physically or emotionally, stress, body pain, and inflammation occur. Instead, when we tune in and witness what our sensations and reactions are, we can use this information to calm, center, and choose a different response.

Use this simple exercise to practice sensory self-care. Please be patient and compassionate with yourself. Noticing the world around you, your reactions, is a process of change by itself. It takes practice, for all of us, every day, moment by moment.

What sight, sound, touch, smell or taste reminds you of relaxation, comfort, joy… or any other positive emotion or experience that’s linked to your health?

Take a few moments to be still and visualize easy, accessible things you can do to bring pleasant awareness to the senses. Is it listening to a favorite song on the way to work? Enjoying a cup of tea with a friend? Using essential oils? Feeling the feet on the ground as you sit at your desk? Wiggling the toes? Looking up from the laptop and allowing eyes to rest? Taking time to really taste food while chewing? Taking a deep breath? Hugging someone you care about, love? (Remember, to get a hug you’ve got to give one).

Be as specific as you can and write down three things that bring you relaxation for each sense. Before you begin, take a few deep breaths. As you hold your pen, or write on your laptop, drop shoulders away from ears. You may want to write about or focus on one sense each week, or each day. Do what “makes sense” to you!

Sight

Sound

Touch

Smell

Taste

After you complete the exercise, even if you haven’t actually done any of these things yet, check in with yourself and notice your mood. What do you notice? How’s your body feel, compared to when you began this writing or visualization exercise?

Incorporate with any meditation practice and en-joy coming to your senses.

Befriending the Vagus Nerve

How do you connect with the wisdom of the body? How do you tune into stress and turn the dial to another station of the mind? Learning centering and grounding practices will open doors for you to go inside and help you live more fully outside in everyday life and relationships. We all need regulation in our lives, and there are accessible tools that our body provides us if we tap into them. Often this only takes a breath or two, so read on…

Basic knowledge of our anatomy and physiology grows understanding of ways to access increased well-being and calm—specifically, the wisdom of our good friend the vagus nerve, a powerful regulatory highway from the central nervous system to the heart and abdominal organs. The article The Neurobiology of Grace Under Pressure by athlete Christopher Bergland provides rich, translatable information. Read it, digest the information, and practice one technique both during quiet times (even brief ones–often the most valuable) and a situation you find challenging. Observe how you can learn to befriend the body under stress and modulate responses.

I love this short video! I even felt my body relax just watching Sara Lee of vaguspower demonstrate how to stimulate the vagus nerve with deep abdominal breathing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPDAnBGC4KU

Finding Your Frog

Yesterday in yoga class our teacher taught us how to practice frog pose. The class theme was around water, so it felt like a natural fit! Frogs are remarkable, really, because they are adaptable, jump exceedingly long distances, swim easily, sing at the top of their lungs, in perfect rhythm with each other. And like this loud guy in the photo I found on our drain pipe, they live in exquisite verdant green skins. Last, but not least, frogs know how to breathe.

Frogs also assume a facial expression of content, and are often depicted as smiling. What can we learn from frogs? Flexibility? Strength? Optimism? Pausing? If we practiced more of these things, would we feel happier?

Here’s a humorous, research driven perspective on happiness and success, from Shawn Anchor.

What’s Important?

Ask yourself this summer:

“What do I need”?

“What do I offer others?”

“What strengths of mine are for the greatest good?”

Mornin’ Rituals

When one wakes up, rituals can establish a rhythm to the day. Some are early morning risers, others may rise much later, as I well remember when working night shifts in the hospital a good while back. (I must admit I had a challenging time figuring out what and when to eat.) The important consideration here is consciousness of what you bring into waking up. What are you waking up to?

I’m not suggesting there’s a right or wrong way to awaken, rather, to become aware of what is present. For example, do you watch the morning news, check your social media status, or do you allow yourself a minute of noticing your feet as they carry you to the bathroom? I remember when our children were wee ones that it seemed I bounded out of bed and was somehow carried miraculously to their crib, in spite of being incredibly sleep deprived. I realize that there are times in life when a minute of conscious breathing or noticing seems like an eternity.

What do you drink in the morning? A cup of water? Tea or coffee? Smoothie? How does that refresh you, bring you into the day? What mug or cup do you drink in?

What chair do you sit in? What do you see out your window? What do you read? Who do you greet upon awakening? How do you greet them?

You probably notice flux during the year in your morning routine. In the wintertime, I get up and sit in a favorite worn chair and watch the daylight come. I tend to write more in my journal then. In the summer, I keep my eyes open and may sit on the porch and watch the birds and insects, listening to the outdoor sounds.

What’s your spiritual or prayer life? How do you incorporate that into your day?

Some of you get up really early and walk, run, or practice yoga, perhaps with a buddy or at the gym. Does this change with the seasons? When is it important for you to connect with others, and when is it time to be more solitary? When do you yearn for quiet? Some may have jobs that provide conversation all day, so the morning is a time to drink in the quiet. It’s taken me many years to give my husband ample space in the morning. He needs time to wake up and I appreciate that now—finally!

If quiet is important to you as a morning ritual and doesn’t seem to be created at home, can you gravitate to quiet within, perhaps in your car before you get out to go to work, or on the subway, or on the bus?

Since life is by nature in constant flux and we are adaptive beings, I invite you to look for moments in your day that create rituals that mean something to you. One of the first great conversations I remember having with my coach was about rituals and the rejuvenation provided. So have fun with rituals. They don’t need to be so serious or complex, rather simply of benefit for you and in turn, perhaps for those you love or care about.

Here’s a robust post from Gilbert Ross on morning rituals.

Savoring

During a yoga class recently, I drank in two ways our teacher encouraged us to use our breath. One was “allow your shoulders to rest on the breath”. Wow! I love that, mostly because a lot of us carry tension in our shoulders. During coaching sessions, I ask clients how they’d like to begin. If they’d like to begin with some form of relaxation exercise, such as imagery or mindfulness, or any simple breath awareness, I usually include an invitation to drop the shoulders away from the ears. That’s one of the first things I learned in yoga 16 years ago.

The second prompt our teacher, Kat gave us was to imagine our breath expanding our ribs and diaphragm out from the sides of our body. I liked that as well because it helps me visualize the breath and make it 3D.

When you see a body of water this season, stop and breathe. Water is a fundamental element of life; it’s a wonder in itself.

Here’s a video link to water lapping on the Cheasapeake SAVORING

Resiliency, Patience, and Gratitude

These greens remain in our garden, despite all the freezing cold! What qualities does this particular plant hold that helps it thrive during winter months? I honestly can’t say the variety, as this time of year we tend to blend recollections of plantings, in spite of best efforts to mark the rows and keep a garden journal! We do find them delicious, however, and delight in their ability to come back, cutting after cutting.

I’ve been feeling like this vegetable a bit, in that some things have been strong and active, and other aspects, like creativity, have felt somewhat latent– this is my first blog since October. One thing I continue to learn is that when we are invited to participate in something in our lives that feels really BIG, extra energy is summoned to that one thing and that’s often really ok. Patience with self can be cultivated, over and over, just like the seasons in the garden. Some crops are more successful than others, from year to year. All farmers know that.

One thing I know is that I am grateful for so much. Here’s a wonderful article that caught my eye a while back from Harvard Health Publications on why gratitude is important to our health, and some practical ways to generate more.

Looking Out

Bentley's Perspective — Bentley’s Perspective

If you allowed yourself a brief, intentional pause or breath today, what might that bring you? Are you willing to do it? How much is your breath worth to you?

Perennial

Since making and tending personal change is more than often both difficult and important, I seem to come back to the garden. What better metaphors are there than plants and seasons? (Well, maybe roads.) Perhaps it’s because growing things mirrors the natural ebb and flow of the natural world. When chives bloom, the buds are hard and tight. They look like they’re about to bust open. When we practice new health behaviors, feeling like one is making progress, and seeing results is often challenging, at best. However, if we can make incremental steps, be as patient with ourselves as possible, celebrate each discovery, and watch things unfold, we may learn that change is indeed possible. Especially if we really, really want it, believe it’s possible, and know why it’s important to us. Most of us realize something different along the weeding and watering process than what we originally planted. We make adjustments along the way, amend the soil, put in a little more compost, add companion plants. We may even notice that what we have is a harvest after all. So little is linear and fixed in this world!

The Regulatory Body

What if you could learn ways to place a governor switch on your sympathetic nervous system, therefore awakening the more latent yet powerful parasympathetic system? Developing the skill of relaxing the body and mind is akin to conducting a defrag on your computer hard drive. It’s simply a way to decrease the ever-present clutter of the mind and soften the edges a bit. This build up of daily life as human beings prevents us from thinking clearly, making better decisions, and being more aware of the car ahead. Whether referring to the calming process as “relaxation techniques” or “meditation”, science remains solid on how quieting the central nervous system can lead to better health. Quieting the mind has been around for thousands of years throughout religious and spiritual traditions. I encourage you to do your own research, and consider what matters to you. What health outcomes are of interest to you?

On PubMed, several thousand articles exist on meditation, the relaxation response, and mindfulness alone.

If you’d like to start, consider beginning with the breath. It’s quick and effective to notice your breathing. If you’re working on your laptop, walking the dog, sitting in your car at a stoplight, take a breath. Sit at your kitchen table, at your desk at work. Take a full breath. If you like, take another one.

Some more techniques to try on, which can be practiced independently from each other.

Breathe in for counts of 4, exhale for 4. Do less if this is difficult. Take it easy.

See if you can stop at the top of the inhale, then exhale.

Notice all parts of the breath; the chest, diaphragm, and belly.

Drop the shoulders away from the ears.

Imagine the breath as a soothing color.

Consider taking a full breath every time before you do something, like answer the phone, put your keys in the front door. Take a breath when you’re in a long line.

Consider the breath with compassion. Refrain from judging. You’re doing a great job.

Any time spent quieting the bodymind generates a healthier state. Don’t make it complicated or over commit. Simply start with the breath. That’s at the heart of the matter.