How Yoga Can Help With Chronic Pain
 Body
 May 04, 2021
 Heather Mason 
 body ,  chronicpain ,  health ,  yoga

• Chronic pain is complex, and can have both psychological causes and symptoms
• Yoga teacher and educator Heather Mason explores how yoga can help relieve chronic pain. 

Chronic pain is a complex and often life-changing issue, and one for which there is no easy answer. The suggestion that pain is mismanaged worldwide and concerns over the efficacy and dangers of opioid medication has made questions over how we deal with pain a contentious issue. As a result, the medical and therapeutic community are exploring new ways to help support their chronic pain patients in leading a full life, with yoga therapy showing particular promise.

The problem with chronic pain
Conventional treatments for chronic pain include physical therapy, surgery and pain medication, with people’s treatment plan largely determined by the source of their pain. These treatment pathways can be highly successful, helping people to achieve a full recovery and move on in life pain-free. For others, however, there is no comprehensive solution, and their pain continues for months and even years.
This is especially true for those who suffer with chronic pain that has a hard-to-treat cause, or for whom no clear cause can be found. Unfortunately, while opioid medication is highly effective as relieving acute pain, it’s efficacy reduces as time goes on while the risk of serious addiction and withdrawal grows. Both health professionals and their patients are therefore extremely interested in the potential of new and alternative treatments to ease the experience of chronic pain.

The causes of chronic pain 
Part of the difficulty in treatment is that the underlying cause of chronic pain varies significantly from person-to-person, ranging from clear physical illness (such as endometriosis) to the truly undiagnosable (for example, in cases of chronic pain without injury). In all cases, however, there is strong psychological as well as physical element – with people living with chronic pain at greater risk of mental health issues, due in part to shared neural mechanisms between the two problems. 
Chronic pain is also an emotional problem, and can understandably cause feelings such as anger, hopelessness, sadness and anxiety. When we look at chronic pain holistically, it becomes clear that any solution which does not address the physical, emotional and psychological aspects of the issue will be incomplete.

Managing pain through yoga
With the help of a yoga therapist (who has the training and knowledge necessary to ensure any underlying physical problems aren’t exacerbated), people living with chronic pain can use yoga to manage their symptoms and live a more pain-free life. The benefit of yoga in particular is that it combines a system of exercises and physical therapy with breathing exercises and mindfulness meditation.
As mentioned above, chronic pain has been linked to a variety of other negative health impacts, from mental ill health to cardiovascular problems. The strain that living with chronic pain causes has even been highlighted in brain imaging scans, where structural and functional changes in areas such as the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus point to the development of anxiety and depression.
People living with chronic pain experience continually elevated stress levels – a constant state of “fight or flight”. This effect is compounded by the social issues, such as isolation and loneliness, which often impact those who find themselves unable to engage in everyday life due to illness.

The physical benefits of yoga 
Evidence suggests that in many cases of chronic pain, bed rest (once widely prescribed) and avoiding movement can actually make the pain worse. The guidance of a yoga therapist can help people stretch and exercise in a safe way which won’t aggravate any underlying issues, gently improving flexibility and strength while also fostering increased mind-body awareness.
Studies exploring the use of yoga in the treatment of chronic pain have reported some promising results. These include a pilot study on low back pain where participants experienced significantly less pain in a four week follow-up than the control group, a meta-analysis that found yoga can improve daily function among people with fibromyalgia osteoporosis-related curvature of the spine, and another which found that people with osteoarthritis who practised modified Iyengar yoga classes reported significant reductions in pain.

The psychological benefits of yoga 
Yoga and mindfulness appears to have a powerfully positive impact on the way we experience pain, as well as easing the symptoms of related problems such as anxiety. Mindfulness practice in particular has been associated with increased grey matter density and reduced volume in the amygdala (the part of the brain that governs our stress response).
These positive brain changes could be responsible for the fact that even a brief introduction to mindfulness appears to change people’s perception of pain and its associated negative emotional impact. As chronic pain is linked to brain changes which could lead to anxiety and depression, yoga and mindfulness may have a protective effect on people’s mental health by soothing the sympathetic nervous system and taking people out of fight or flight mode.
More generally, participating in a yoga class and accessing the support of a yoga therapist could help those living with chronic pain connect with others who face similar changes - reducing loneliness and ensuring that people don’t become isolated. In this way, chronic pain sufferers benefit from a stress free environment where they can form social connections.
The benefits of yoga practice aren’t confined to the studio, either. Yoga therapists can empower those living with chronic pain with tools they can use throughout their lives - whether it’s a breathing exercise to calm down or simple asanas to support their physical wellbeing. Furthermore, yoga is associated with increased GABA levels - a neurochemical associated with contentment - helping to boost people’s mood and contribute to feelings of happiness.
Chronic pain is still not fully understood, and is such a varied and individualised issue that there is no silver bullet. However, using yoga as an adjunct treatment gives people another opportunity to cope with and even reduce their symptoms, and find the relief they need.
​
Heather Mason is the founder of The Minded Institute, who provide yoga therapy education to yoga and health professionals

Psychology Today
Barbara Markway and Celia Ampel
Posted Sep 24, 2019 

Negative thoughts themselves aren’t the problem—it’s the power we give them.
All of us have a near-constant stream of thoughts running through our minds. Much of the time, these thoughts are neutral, and sometimes they’re even pleasant.

The thoughts we’ll be dealing with in this post are what psychologists call Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs), and they can lead to negative thinking traps. These are thoughts that don’t serve you well. They’re either blatantly untrue or, at the very least, not helpful.

Negative thoughts themselves aren’t the problem—it’s the power we give them. You can choose to believe your negative thoughts, treating them as unassailable facts and proceeding through life trapped in their iron grip. Or you can choose to perceive a negative thought the same way you view the millions of fleeting sensations, snap judgments, and other cognitions that zip through your mind every day. They’re information, sure, but they’re not absolute truth.

To help you recognize and deconstruct your negative thoughts, let’s learn about the different flavors these thinking traps come in. We’ll focus on the story of Sasha, a 40-year-old woman who dreams of going back to school to earn her bachelor’s degree but just can’t shake her nagging doubts.

Thinking Trap #1: Making Assumptions
“If I go back to school, all the 18-year-olds in my classes will judge me and pity me for being there. Plus, I haven’t been in school for decades. I’m so out of practice that I’ll fail all my classes.” 
When Sasha thinks about college, she immediately jumps to conclusions. She can see into the future, and it’s not pretty. But what evidence does she really have to believe this unfortunate vision of her collegiate career? When you make assumptions, you’re usually filling the void of the unknown by imagining an undesirable outcome. In reality, a number of good things are also possible.

Thinking Trap #2: “Shoulding”
“A person my age should be making twice as much money as I am now. I need to get my act together.”
Sasha’s stress about her education level sometimes bubbles up into thoughts about where she “should” be in life, or what she “needs” or “ought” to do. This type of thinking might almost sound positive: Hey, she’s motivating herself to pursue a goal, right? But what she’s really doing here is setting inflexible standards for herself that she’s already failed to meet. Her “shoulding” isn’t rooted in self-compassion or her own values; the goalpost is arbitrary.
When Sasha really thinks about what matters to her, her salary is nowhere near the top of the list. She wants an education to better herself and pursue a more meaningful career. Her “shoulds” come from internalizing others’ expectations and comparing herself to her neighbor down the street, and listening to those thoughts has only convinced her she’ll never measure up.

Thinking Trap #3: Black-and-White/All-or-Nothing Thinking
“If I don’t graduate with honors at the end of all this, it won’t have been worth the struggle. I’ll be a failure.”
Here, Sasha has decided that she’s either an A+ or an F. There is no in-between. This kind of perfectionism sets her up to view herself as a failure no matter what.
But the truth is, there’s a lot of beauty between these two poles, where she’ll most likely end up: the concepts she’ll conquer, the skills she’ll gain, the pride she’ll feel knowing she went for her goal. She will make mistakes, but they won’t reduce her to a zero. Learning to appreciate her accomplishments without letting her false steps overshadow them will allow her to keep moving forward.

Thinking Trap #4: Catastrophizing
“If I enroll in college full-time, I’m just going to flunk out my first semester, and I won’t be able to come back to this job. Then I’ll run out of money. I’ll have to move in with my mother, and I’ll be so ashamed I’ll just want to lay down and die.”
Sasha’s worrying mind has leaped from merely making assumptions to imagining the worst-case scenario, a failure so devastating she could never recover. “Catastrophizing,” also known as a probability error, is when you overestimate the likelihood that something terrible will happen.

Our minds are also prone to severity errors—we assume that if the worst happened, we wouldn’t be able to cope. The chances that bright and driven Sasha will fail out of school, fail to find work, and wind up back at home are so minuscule as to be laughable. But when she buys into what her mind is telling her, she sometimes loses sight of reality.

Thinking Trap #5: Feelings vs. Facts
“Whenever I even think about walking into a college classroom, I feel embarrassed, stupid, and panicked. That just goes to show this is a bad idea, and I could never hack it.”
It’s all too easy for Sasha to let her feelings write the story of what her college experience would be like. If she feels stupid, that must mean she is stupid. But feelings aren’t facts.

If you want to prove it to yourself, think about the last time you dealt with a week of rainy weather. After a day or two, you probably felt a little glum, and maybe your inner monologue started to sound like it was written by Eeyore, the sad-sack donkey from Winnie the Pooh: “Oh, why bother? Nothing ever goes right for me.” But nothing about your life had actually changed. You were just buying into your feelings, which can shift with your hormones, your diet, and even the weather.
Our feelings love to spin narratives about whether we’ll succeed and whether others like us. But often, these stories are wildly off the mark.
Now that you know some of the key types of automatic negative thoughts, see if you can recognize them in your own thinking. You might want to start by keeping a record of your thoughts in a thought diary—you can read about the details of how to start one here. 


Excerpted from The Self-Confidence Workbook: A Guide to Overcoming Self-Doubt and Improving Self-Esteem. Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Markway and Celia Ampel.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/barbara-markway-phd
Barbara Markway, Ph.D., is a psychologist with over 20 of experience and the author several books on social anxiety disorder. Her first book, Dying of Embarrassment: Help for Social Anxiety & Phobia, was named one of the most scientifically valid self-help books in a study published in Professional Psychology, Research and Practice. She has appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and featured in the PBS documentary Afraid of People. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Prevention, Essence, American Health, Real Simple and WebMD. She has been heard on radio shows across the country. Dr. Markway's newest book is The Self-Confidence Workbook: A Guide for Overcoming Self-Doubt and Increasing Self-Esteem. She has a private practice in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information, visit barbaramarkway.com.

One Exercise Sure to Make You Feel Better About Yourself......
With a minimum of effort, change the way you see your world.
Jennice Vilhauer Ph.D.
​Living Forward
Posted Jan 17, 2015 

I have been treating patients using cognitive therapies for almost 15 years, and one of the most successful exercises I have ever seen work to help them re-engage their sense of well-being is so simple that each and every time I convince someone to do it, I am still remarkably struck by how effective it is.Before I share this exercise with you, I want you to know that the difficult part is not doing the activity. It is making yourself believe that the activity will have enough benefit that you will put forth the actual effort to do it, and experience the results.

Often when I give this assignment to patients, they come back for two or three weeks afterward, still not having tried it. That's OK; I'm so certain they will not try it initially, that I generally don’t even assign it until I have been working with them for several weeks and have had sufficient time to coach them into understanding the benefits of shifting their attention and thinking; how it relates to brain functioning; and how it affects their mood, so that they understand the value of what I am asking them to do.

OK, so what is the exercise?

• Keep a pad of paper next to your bed and every night before you go to sleep, write down three things you liked about yourself that day.
• In the morning, read the list before you get out of bed.
• Keep adding three new things to your list every day to keep the list growing.
• Do this every day for 30 days.

These don’t have to be big things, like I am a kind person; they can be simple, such as I like that I held the door for my co-worker, or I like that I didn’t lose my temper in traffic today, or I like that I am making the effort to try this exercise even if I’m not sure it will work.

For someone who is depressed, this activity feels like a lot of effort. Why? Research shows that people with depression have what is referred to as an attentional bias for negative self-relevant materials. They also have impaired attentional control, which means that once a negative schema is activated, they tend to ruminate on it and have difficulty disengaging and shifting their attention to something else; consequently, there is sustained negative affect. (1) Essentially, people with depression generally spend a good deal of time thinking about what they don’t like about themselves—and they have a hard time stopping.

The more time you spend thinking about something, the more active it becomes in your mental space—and the easier it becomes to access. Also, the more you think of something, the more it primes your brain to keep looking for similar things in your environment, creating a selective filter that not only causes you to sift your environment for things that match up with what you are thinking about, it actually causes you to distort ambiguous information in a way that matches up with your dominant thoughts.

Someone with depression who goes to a party might get 10 compliments, but if one person mentions the shirt he is wearing is “interesting,” that person may likely go home and fixate on the ambiguous comment and turn it into a stream of thinking like this: I wonder what was wrong with my shirt, I probably looked silly in it, I bet they all thought I looked like an idiot. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I ever get anything right? This is so humiliating. The 10 compliments have long been forgotten.

So how will this exercise help you?

Research also shows that it requires more attentional effort to disengage from a negative thought process than a neutral one. (2) This simple-to-do but nonetheless effortful exercise essentially helps you build the strength to disengage from any negative thought stream; redirects your attention to positive aspects of yourself; and retrains your selective attention bias.

As you do this, you not only start to become aware of more of your positive attributes, they become more available to you as you interpret events around you. Compliments become something you can hear and accept because they are more congruent with your new view of yourself. You start to interpret events occurring around you in a less self-critical way. If you stick with it, over time this has a compounding effect that elevates your overall sense of self-worth—and, subsequently, your well-being.

But remember: There is no benefit to your mental health in just understanding how the exercise works, just as there is no benefit to your physical health in knowing how to use a treadmill. The benefit comes from the doing.
​
References
1. Rudi De Raedt, Lemke Leyman, Evi De Lissnyder. (2010). Mood-congruent attention and memory bias in dysphoria: Exploring the coherence among information-here. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48 (3), 219–225
2. Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt, Simone Kühn, Rudi De Raedt. (2011). Healthy brooders employ more attentional resources when disengaging from the negative: an event-related fMRI study. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 11(2), 207-216

Breathe through your feet? The author of explains that, yes, it can help.
By Dean Sluyter
​Article - Oprah.com

This Japanese secret to a longer and happier life is gaining attention from millions around the world.
Published Wed, May 22 2019  1:38 PM EDTUpdated Wed, May 22 2019  2:33 PM EDT
Ken Mogi, Contributor@KENMOGI

In Japan, the secret to living a longer, happier and more fulfilled life can be summed up in one word: Ikigai.
In Japanese, iki means “to live” and gaimeans “reason” — in other words, your reason to live. This ideology dates to the Heian period (A.D. 794 to 1185), but only in the past decade has it gained attention from millions around the world.
The ikigai way of life is especially prominent Okinawa, in a group of islands south of mainland Japan. (It has also been nicknamed the “Land of Immortals” because it has among the longest lifespans and highest rates of centenarians in the world.)

‘The reason for which you wake up in the morning’In a 2009 TED talk called “How to Live to Be 100+,” award-winning journalist Dan Buettner explores the lifestyle traits of five places in the world where people live the longest. Of all the “blue zones,” as Buettner defines them, Okinawans have the highest life expectancy. (The video has since been viewed close to four million times.)
“In America, we divide our adult life into two categories: Our work life and our retirement life,” he says. “In Okinawa, there isn’t even a word for retirement. Instead there’s simply ‘ikigai,’ which essentially means ‘the reason for which you wake up in the morning.’”
Buettner cites the ikigai of several Okinawans: For a 101-year-old fisherman, it was catching fish for his family three times a week; for a 102-year-old woman, it was holding her tiny great-great-great-granddaughter (which she said was “like leaping into heaven”); for a 102-year-old karate master, it was teaching martial arts.
1:25
Deepak Chopra: This is the best way to manage stressWoven together, these simple life values give clues as to what constitutes the very essence of ikigai: A sense of purpose, meaning and motivation in life.

The health benefits of ikigai
For years, researchers have tried to find the reasons behind a long and healthy life. While the answer is likely a mix of good genes, diet and exercise, studies have suggested that finding meaning in life is also a key component.
In a 2008 study from Tohoku University, researchers analyzed data from more than 50,000 participants (ages 40 to 79) and found that those who reported having ikigai in their lives had reduced risks of cardiovascular diseases and lower mortality rates. Put another way, 95% of respondents who had ikigai were still alive seven years after the initial survey compared to the 83% who didn’t.
It’s impossible to tell whether ikigai guarantees longevity in life through this single study, but the findings suggest that having a sense of purpose can encourage one to build a happy and active life.

Finding your inner ikigai
There’s no single way to find your ikigai, but you can start by asking a few simple questions: What makes you happy? What are you good at? What (and who) do you value? What motivates you to get up in the morning?
Finding your ikigai will take time. The secret, I often tell people, is to learn the five core pillars of ikigai (which I discuss in my book, “Awakening Your Ikigai”). By applying these pillars to your life, you can allow your inner ikigai to flourish.

1. Starting small
Starting small and executing every step with care is the very ethos of this pillar — and it applies to everything you do in life.
Artisanal farmers, for example, devote all their time and effort into creating the best and tastiest produce. They get the soil right. They prune and water their produce with care. Their sense of starting small propels them to go incredible lengths.

2. Releasing yourself
When you release yourself, you’re able to let go of your obsessions and see things that matter to you in a more clear and positive light.
Practicing self-acceptance is vital to this pillar — and yet, it’s also one of the most difficult tasks we face in our lives. But if you can overcome this obstacle and be happy with who you are, it can be an incredibly rewarding experience.

3. Harmony and sustainability
You can’t achieve your goals if you’re constantly fighting with the people around you. Cultivating — and maintaining — a sense of community will provide you with a strong support system to carry you through life’s most challenging moments.

4. The joy of small things
Finding joy in the small things — the morning air, a cup of coffee or the ray of sunshine — should be part of what motivates you to get up each morning.
In high school, I would take the same 6:20 a.m. train to class every day. The sight the same familiar faces enjoying a game of shogi (Japanese chess) always gave me immense joy.

5. Being in the here and now
This pillar is perhaps the most profound. To be in the here and now, it’s important to focus on the present and practice mindfulness every day.
Many sumo wrestlers testify that being in the here and now is absolutely necessary in preparing for and fighting in a bout. They claim that immersing themselves in the present helps sustain their state of mind for optimum performance.

Ken Mogi is a neuroscientist, best-selling author and lecturer based in Tokyo, Japan. He has published more than 30 papers on cognitive neuroscience. Ken’s books on popular science and secrets to longevity have sold nearly one million copies. “Awakening Your Inner Ikigai” is his first book in English.

​

May 5, 2019
NPR. Shots.
ALLISON AUBREY
Twitter

Feel like you're living under a rain cloud? Life not going your way? Lots of us have a bit of Eeyore's angst and gloom.
But here's the good news (sorry to be so cheery):

You can be taught to have a more positive attitude. And — if you work at it — a positive outlook can lead to less anxiety and depression.

The latest evidence comes from a new study of caregivers — all of whom had the stressful job of taking care of a loved one with dementia. The study found that following a five-week course, participants' depression scores decreased by 16 percent and their anxiety scores decreased by 14 percent. The findings were published in the current issue of Health Psychology.
The course teaches eight skills to help people cope with stress. Techniques include mindfulness and deep breathing, setting an attainable daily goal, keeping a gratitude journal and — yes, it works — performing small acts of kindness.

Skeptical? Melissa Meltzer Warehall was too. She's caring for her husband, Paul, who is 64 and was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's in his 50s.
"It's very, very frustrating," Warehall says, "to know the man he used to be and the shell of the person he is now."
When she agreed to be a participant in the study, it was a way to reach out for help. She knew she couldn't change her circumstances, but she wanted to learn to cope better.
"When you're experiencing a lot of stress, it's easy to head into a downward spiral," says Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University. She is trained as a psychologist and studies the ways positive emotions can influence people's health and stress. She developed the program taught to the caregivers.

As part of her research, hundreds of stressed-out people have taken the five-week skills class, including women with breast cancer, people newly diagnosed with HIV, people managing Type 2 diabetes and people with depression. She has documented benefits in each of those studies.
"These skills can definitely help people, no matter what type of stress they are experiencing, even if it is 'minor' everyday stress," Moskowitz says.
Warehall says she began to feel a shift to a sunnier outlook just a few weeks into the program. One skill she learned: how to reframe the daily hassles of life into something positive.

For instance, she says it can be challenging to take her husband on outings; she has to be on guard against him wandering off. Also, he has begun to have trouble navigating in and out of the car, and that can be frustrating for them both. But instead of focusing on the downside, she has taught herself to spend those long moments being consciously grateful for what they're still able to do together.
Though her husband can't work or take trips anymore, she has helped him rediscover music. "I signed him up for harmonica lessons every Saturday," she says. And that's great for both of them. "Just being with him when he makes music — he plays a mean blues harmonica — it's wonderful for me too."
She's learning to cling to the positive moments that come alongside the stress. And this makes it easier. "Everything that we do that's challenging, I look for that silver lining," Warehall says.

But this doesn't come naturally, she says; she has tried to build a habit of gratitude. Writing down one thing each day is a good reminder that there are still lots of joyful moments — despite their stressful situation.
"[Paul] picks up on my energy, and if my energy is positive, it's easier to care for him," Warehall says.
She has learned to focus on what is, instead of what's lost. "I remind myself I still have him. I can still hug him and hold him and tell him I love him."
"In the context of stress, it can be hard to see the positive things," says Moskowitz. "So taking a moment to notice things you're grateful for is really beneficial."

Moskowitz says she knows the hesitation or resentment people sometimes feel when they're told, "Chin up! It'll all be OK." That's a hard message to handle if you're reeling from the news of a serious diagnosis or other traumatic experience.

"We're not saying don't be sad or upset about what's going on," Moskowitz emphasizes. "But we know people can experience positive emotion alongside that negative emotion, and that positive emotion can help them cope better."

She says these strategies and skills are widely applicable. "Anyone can be taught to be a little more positive."

Moskowitz and her colleagues are about to launch another study of dementia caregivers (anyone interested in participating can contact her lab, she says). And though that particular program is not available to the general public outside the research project, Moskowitz points to an online program called It's All Good Here that teaches similar skills. (Moskowitz has consulted with the creator of the program to share some content, but she has no financial ties to the company.)

She says the strength of the eight-technique approach is that there's no single skill that helps everyone. "It's a buffet of skills," Moskowitz says, so it gives people lots of options.

Here's a quick summary of the eight techniques used in Moskowitz' study:

1. Take a moment to identify one positive event each day.
2. Tell someone about the positive event or share it on social media. This can help you savor the moment a little longer.
3. Start a daily gratitude journal. Aim to find little things you're grateful for, such as a good cup of coffee, a pretty sunrise or nice weather.
4. Identify a personal strength and reflect on how you've used this strength today or in recent weeks.
5. Set a daily goal and track your progress. "This is based on research that shows when we feel progress towards a goal, we have more positive emotions," Moskowitz says. The goal should not be too lofty. You want to be able to perceive progress.
6. Try to practice "positive reappraisal": Identify an event or daily activity that is a hassle. Then, try to reframe the event in a more positive light. Example: If you're stuck in traffic, try to savor the quiet time. If you practice this enough, it can start to become a habit.
7. Do something nice for someone else each day. These daily acts of kindness can be as simple as giving someone a smile or giving up your seat on a crowded train. Research shows we feel better when we're kind to others.
8. Practice mindfulness by paying attention to the present moment. You can also try a 10-minute breathing exercise that uses a focus on breathing to help calm the mind.

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University was not involved in this study but has researched the effects of caregiving on the aging process, and she says Moskowitz's work dovetails with many of her own findings.
"There's certainly ample evidence from our research and others' that the stresses of dementia family caregiving can take a toll on mental and physical health," Kiecolt-Glaser says.
"This study used a simple intervention that had measurable positive benefits. It's a lovely contribution to the literature, and I would hope to see wider implementation of this and similar approaches," she says.
​
Allison Aubrey is a correspondent for NPR News, where her stories can be heard on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She's also a contributor to the PBS NewsHour.
Aubrey is a 2016 winner of a James Beard Award in the category of "Best TV Segment" for a PBS/NPR collaboration.

What's the Tension in Your Body Trying to Tell You?                   
Apr 25, 2019
Authors : Claire Dale and Patricia Peyton 
​

• Often, psychological and emotional stress is stored in the body as tension
• Where your body feels tense provides clues to what might be troubling you

When it comes to your car, how do you know when something is wrong? An unfamiliar noise? A strange vibration? Or worse, when the engine blows a gasket? It should be the same with the body, but we often neglect to notice changes in tension and sensation that can impact our well-being until it is too late.

The perception of changes inside our bodies (called ‘interoception’) provides an important set of data that supports our Physical Intelligence. If tensions in our muscles become habitual responses, we may become less flexible and find that we are less collaborative and creative, less able to be authentic and adapt to new things.

Too much muscular tension uses up valuable energy to no effect and often creates discomfort and pain. Relieving that tension, not only relieves the discomfort and pain, it improves our mental and emotional flexibility, transforming the feeling of being ‘in the grip’ of stressors to feeling open and adaptable to them. Relieving tension requires changing our internal chemistry, what we call upping the ODDS:  boosting Oxytocin, Dopamine, DHEA and Serotonin, and lowering cortisol. We first need to understand where the tension lies. 

MOT stands for ‘Map of Tension’. Creating your own MOT is a great way to monitor tension: 

1. Notice exactly how your body feels right now. Don’t change your position. Scan your body. What areas/muscle groups are overly tense, held too tightly for no apparent reason?
2. Look at a printed illustration of the human body or quickly sketch an outline – front and back. Mark on the illustration with a cross or a circle the key areas of tension you noticed. (Most people have at least two or three ‘hotspots’)
3. Move your body – stand, walk, bend and stretch. Any additional hotspots? Mark them on the graphic and number all locations marked
4. Explore the first hotspot by moving that specific area of your body slowly, giving the movement your full attention. If you have pain in that area of the body, begin with the smallest of movements before you try anything bigger. (If you have been given restrictions or instructions by any medical professionals re: how you should move that part of your body, please adhere to those instructions. Do not carry out any movements that might exacerbate any medical conditions you may have)
5. Find a movement – tiny, small, medium or large – that alleviates the tension. Experiment slowly and gently to find what feels most beneficial. If you experience discomfort, sit still and focus your mind on that area with the aim of releasing the tension
6. Sometimes focusing on a painful body area can make it temporarily more painful. If this happens, do not try to move that body part. Instead, take 3 breaths, imagining that the breath can reach the area directly, then focus on another, less painful, body area
7. Create your own movements or adapt stretches/movements that you know help. Try them with renewed focus and attention. Work carefully and precisely using your body’s intelligence to tell you what it needs
8. Make note of the movements you have chosen on the illustration of the body
9. Bearing in mind that each hotspot sends data (sensation or pain) to the insular cortex of the brain that enables us to interpret and find solutions, ask yourself these questions:

• What are each of my hotspots telling me? (If they could speak, what would they be saying?)
• What requests would they make?
• What advice would they give?
• What insights into your patterns of thought and feeling does this exploration provide?
• What do you want to do differently?

Different hotspots of tension tend to be related to different challenges. Here are some common tension hotspots, what they tell us and what we can do about them:

Tension in your jawJaw tension is often linked with frustration, being in the grip of something or holding back on communicating something important.
Remedy: Move the jaw gently side to side, forwards and backwards, and stretch your mouth into a wide yawn.

Tension in your stomach Stomach knots can accompany performance worries, feelings of personal anxiety, insecurity or guilt.
Remedy: Twist at the waist to the left and to the right. Identify the specific location of knots of tension and imagine sending your breath directly to the knotted area.

Tension in the neck or shouldersNeck or shoulder tension is related to carrying the weight of our head as we strain towards screens or towards people with whom we are speaking. They are also classic signs that there is general stress in our system.
Remedy: Regularly realign your head on your spine using strong seated posture technique, as well as the exercises ‘Shoulder Stretch and Drop’ (inching the shoulders up to the ears in eight steps, tipping the head back and squeezing neck and shoulder muscles, taking a breath in and dropping the shoulders back down) and ‘Freeing the Neck’ (rolling the neck in a figure eight pattern).

Tension in the lower back Lower back tension can indicate a lack of core support or support from family members, peers and bosses. Ask yourself: Are you taking on too much responsibility? Are you communicating with others, asking them to step up and play their full part?
Remedy: Use strong, grounded posture technique and strengthen the core by balancing on one leg, slowly lifting the knee towards the chest, then gradually lowering and repeating with the other leg. ‘Torso Twist’ (sitting with knees and hips facing forward, place the left arm diagonally down and across the body so that the back of the left hand is against the outside of the right knee, breathe in and out; twist your torso to the right, looking over your right shoulder, placing your right hand behind you for leverage; repeat to the left), ‘Golf Swing’ (pretend to swing a golf club, just as you would on the course) and ‘Freeing the Hips’ (make a figure eight with the hips) exercises also help.

Tension in the arms and legs Arm and leg tension can result from clenched fingers, braced toes and frequently making fists and often indicates that you are bracing against your environment/feeling the need to fight a battle. 
Remedy: Loosen your limbs by gently shaking your legs one at a time and both arms together, imagining you want to loosen the muscles’ grip on the bones, releasing tension. (Picture Usain Bolt getting into the starting blocks.) Also use stretches and ‘Free Breathing’ (breathe deeply into the abdomen, feeling the ribs expand and the chest cavity fill; breathe out freely with a sigh, feel relief on the out breath; repeat as needed).

Tension in the chest Chest tension may indicate accumulated containment of emotional reactions.
Remedy: Stretch into a diver’s pose – head up, arms out to the side and pointed back, chest out and forwards and breathe into your sternum/chest.

Tension in the hamstring and spine Tension in this area may be associated with a mindset or approach that is too fixed, or being bored or under-stimulated.
Remedy: Stretch the legs in multiple directions – see what feels good. ‘Shake Out’ (bend forwards at the waist, head hanging down, spine inverted, upper body, especially the neck relaxed; take a deep breath  in; on the out breath, vigorously shake torso and shoulders while verbalising an “ah” sound; slowly roll up with head coming up last).

As the remedies above support, movement is the key to upping our ODDS. Movement keeps us ‘fluid.’ After all, we are made up of 60% water, the base for all fluids in the body and the transmission fluid for hormones and neurotransmitters. All feelings, thoughts and actions are the result of impulses, chemical or electrical, passing through these fluids. To be flexible, we need to be well-hydrated and we must also move our bodies. In nature, non-flowing water becomes stagnant; it’s the same in the body. When we move, the fluids move, releasing toxins from cells, transforming static chemical states into more adaptive states and ‘flushing’ our system. 

We should be moving for two to fours hours a day (according to a 2015 paper commissioned by Public Health England). Those who sit all day have a 13% greater risk of cancer and 17% greater risk of mortality compared to those who move.

Our bodies are designed for locomotion and movement and doing so enhances our health, our mood and our mindset. By using the above techniques, you will make a great start on upping your ODDS for better flexibility and increased adaptability, influence, creativity and innovation.

Claire Dale and Patricia Peyton are the authors of new wellbeing book Physical Intelligence (Simon & Schuster)

​5 Signs Your Mind Is Too Busy for Your Own Happiness

We all know we have busy minds, but the author of helps you identify the specific and unexpected ways your thoughts distract you from the moment—and from your own sense of well-being.
By Cara Bradley
@OPRAH.com 

Have you ever tried to stop your mind from thinking? It's not so easy, huh? The truth is that thinking is what your mind is meant to do! Your mind produces thoughts, just as your ears hear sounds and your eyes see your surroundings. Also, thinking isn't a bad thing; it's just that we’re preoccupied and often obsessed with it. Our thoughts rule our lives. We believe that what we think is actually the way things are, that our thoughts perfectly reflect our reality. As a result, we become attached to our stories and end up engrossed in and even imprisoned by what we're thinking.

Your busy mind is made up of a mix of thoughts, emotions, doubts and fears (along with various other thought patterns). By the way, it is the same for everyone. In our society of more and better, our minds operate with constant mental noise: planning, judging, analyzing, commenting, remembering, forecasting and so on. You don't realize how much your busyness controls your day until you collapse on your bed at night. 

In order to understand how your thoughts and emotions may be ruling your world, it is essential to get to know your busy mind. Let's look at it more closely.

1. Sloppy Brain

I call my busy mind my "sloppy brain" when I'm distracted and feel clumsy and out of sorts. Let's face it, sloppy brain happens to all of us. Recently I went to work with my slippers on. No joke! Luckily, as a yoga teacher, I spend most of my workday barefoot, but that still didn't protect me from the loving abuse I took from colleagues and students. I see examples of sloppy brain on the highway, in the grocery store—everywhere. Too many of us are sloppy in how we show up in our day-to-day lives. This isn't a judgment, just a fact. 

The distracted, sloppy busy-mind is in a weakened state. It speeds through life and doesn't slow down to take even a few seconds to tell you to, say, mindfully place your phone and keys in the same place, set your teacup away from your laptop, or notice the stop sign in front of you. 

2. Crazy Busy

"Crazy busy" has become a common phrase and an accepted way to live. We're so addicted to getting things done that we're oblivious to what's really happening around us. Just look around any public area, and you'll see most people looking at their phones while waiting in line, walking or even talking with others.

When you're in "crazy busy" mode, you're not really focused on what you're doing or whom you're with. Your mind is too busy processing stuff to do, daily activities and places to be. Being "crazy busy" can make you feel as though your world is spinning out of control and there's no end in sight. It's not just you. It's most of us. How often have you greeted friends and boasted about being "crazy busy"? The bottom line is that you cannot feel awake and fully alive when your mind is "crazy busy."

3. Autopilot

Many of your daily activities are repetitive, like brushing your teeth, checking emails, taking a shower. The thoughts streaming through your mind tend to be repetitive as well. Many of today's thoughts were yesterday's thoughts—they keep replaying in your head. For example, you might think, "I have to go to the post office," over and over for two days straight until you actually go to the post office. The script for autopilot is often a thought loop that keeps running in your head: "I need to lose weight," "I need to make more money," "I should clean my closet," and so on. When you're on autopilot, you think the same thoughts over and over without being aware of it. Living on autopilot is exhausting and will leave you feeling drained at the end of the day.

I observe autopilot in action all the time. Students rush through the doors, throw down their yoga mats and lie down for a moment before class to "quiet their minds." I'll see them glance around for their cell phones (which are not allowed in the yoga room) or look for someone to talk to (no talking before class either), unaware of these mental habits and tendencies, especially the need to be constantly entertained.

4. Information Overload

Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by information to process and choices to make. Experts tell us to do this, buy that and eat this. Bombarded by advertisements, news, emails and senseless posts on social media, our mental hard drives become overloaded, inefficient and sluggish. Every day, your busy mind tries to absorb and remember the onslaught of information coming across your mental screen. In our overstimulated society, living in the busy mind can lead to exhaustion and fatigue, chronic stress and even depression. 

5. Overthinking

Last, overthinking is a major cause of chronic stress in our highly demanding culture. On any given day, you experience thousands of repetitive thoughts, many of which are tainted with judgment and anxiety. Too much planning, worrying and replaying these loops is exhausting. Incessant thinking creates tension and robs us of peace. Although thinking is useful, overthinking is draining. Although stress is necessary to flourish at times, chronic mental stress causes chronic physical stress, which is harmful to your health.

Gut Check: Your Busy Mind

Do you live with a busy mind? Are you distracted much of the time? Welcome to the club! Let's get to know what this busy mind of yours is so busy doing. 
Take a moment to answer these two questions either on the lines below or in your journal. Your answers will help you get to know your busy mind and how living from it affects your daily activities, relationships and overall sense of well-being. 

List three times during your day when you're most likely to be distracted, hurried or anxious (for example, when you're driving, reading, answering emails, or eating): 
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________

Off the top of your head, list three traits that describe your busy mind (for example, feeling overwhelmed, scattered, anxious, rushed or drained):
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________

Your answers to these questions will offer you new opportunities throughout the day to become familiar with your busy mind. For example, if you tend to space out while driving, use driving as time to practice noticing your direct experience of driving. Turn off the news or music and notice everything around you. Notice the sky, the light on the trees, the noise around you and how your body feels behind the wheel. Then notice when you forget to notice, when you drift back into your stream of thinking. This is how you train your mind to show up. You notice, notice, notice. 

Becoming familiar with your busy mind and how it works is your first step toward understanding how to shift beyond it. You do this by getting to know how your mind operates with mindfulness. Mindfulness is your capacity to show up in this moment and be fully engaged from the level of mind, body and heart. It's your ability to notice your firsthand, direct experience of what's happening—no matter if what's happening is good or not so good. To be mindful is to simply notice when you show up and when you don't, when you're on the verge and when you're not. 

You become mindful when you notice that you're distracted. The moment you notice that you're not paying attention, you wake up—instantly! Noticing is enough, every time. 



















Article from :  
OPRAH.com This excerpt was taken from :
Copyright © 2016 by Cara Bradley. Printed with permission from New World Library. Cara is a yoga, meditation and fitness teacher. 
​

chopra.com/articles/5-ways-to-cultivate-more-joy-in-your-life
​5 Ways to Cultivate More Joy in Your Life
By Rachelle Williams

​Joy is divine. While feelings such as happiness usually come from external sources and are temporary, joy comes from within and is always abiding. It is an innate part of who you are and how you express yourself. Just watch how babies delight in the simplest things—their emotions are raw and true. It is difficult to feign joy.
What kindles the joy within is unique to you. It could be related to finding a purpose, a calling, or fulfilling a mission. It could be the feeling of being surrounded by family or good friends. Whatever it is that rejuvenates your spirit, do more of that! The reward of living a more fulfilled life is worth the effort that it sometimes takes.
The path to joy is ultimately a return to wholeness—a rediscovery of who you are and what makes you happy. It involves getting to know, and move beyond, your fears and insecurities, paving the way toward more lightheartedness and laughter. Over time, life starts to unfold with ease and challenges are met with good energy and creative solutions.

A Pathway to Joy
If you find yourself doubting this could ever be you, know that you can put practices in place to help. The human brain has a tendency to focus on the negative as you take in information; this is known as negativity bias. There may be times where you need to intentionally focus on ways to produce more positive experiences in order to diffuse a bit of that negativity.
The practice of cultivating joy is just that, a practice. A little each day goes a long way and with time you will become adept at discovering what makes you tick and trusting your feelings.
The following five principles are helpful ways to start learning how to move beyond your beliefs laced with limitations and fears and begin to start glimpsing the possibilities of experiencing more joy.

1. Find Ways to Be of Service
It feels great to help someone out in need or support a cause that has meaning for you. When performing an act of altruism, you get out of your head and into your heart. Acts of service remind you that life that is bigger than yourself and that there is more going on than what you see and experience on a daily basis.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in personal dramas and worries, especially during turbulent times. When you can stop and ask yourself, “How can I help,” or, “How can I be of service,” you create a new internal dialogue that leads to alternative and expanded ways of thinking and responding. What will you bring to the table? You have something to offer, a gift brought into this world to share with others. It could be your ability to listen, give a great hug, advocate for those in need, build something, or be there for someone.
In being able to share this gift, you build a greater sense of connection and belonging, something you can relate to as a basic need. Joy is often a side effect of what can happen when you are in the service of something greater than yourself.

2. Practice Gratitude
​Humans are thinking machines. But, consider that almost all your thoughts are the same thoughts you had yesterday! If you realize you need to make changes, you need to place some pattern interrupts in place. This is where practicing gratitude can be of great value.
When you have the same thoughts, you are likely to make the same decisions and take the same actions; thus, the cycle continues each day. You’ve probably heard statements such as “what you think you create” or “where thoughts go energy flows.” The idea is that your thoughts are powerful, and when consciously directed in a more positive direction, a new thought pattern is created. Practicing gratitude does this by shifting perspective and improving mood, creating space for more joy to start shining through.
Try writing or thinking about one to three things you are grateful for every day and make it something different each day. This encourages you to start actively looking for things, people, and situations you are grateful for, which, in turn, starts to create desirous new thought patterns.

3. Live Your Truth
Joy comes from a place of honoring and living your truth or, in other words, being your most authentic self. It takes courage to be the person you are, especially when there may be pressure to live a life that you think others want you to have. It may require getting through some tough challenges. Stand your ground, be true to who you are, and come out the other end feeling less burdened and able to enjoy life with less struggle.
This requires learning to trust your instincts and having faith that you are headed down the right path—even if it seems you are not. The best journeys are not ones where the path is straight and easy, but rather full of twists and turns and unexpected surprises. If you find yourself getting stuck, learn to meditate to help tap into that stillness within where your truth (and joy) resides. Meditation offers numerous benefitsand meets you exactly where you’re at; there is no judgment. Your devotion to being who you were meant to be and sharing that with the world provides a fertile ground upon which joy thrives.

4. Who Is in Your Front Row?
You are constantly influenced by family, friends, community, social media, etc. Most especially, you are influenced by those closest to you—your front row. Think about the people with whom you spend the most time. Some people suck out your energy and happiness, while others light you up. Start to be mindful of who:

• Inspires you
• Provides motivation to achieve your goals
• Empowers you to make the changes you need to succeed
• Cheers you on

This doesn’t mean you need to cut out people from your life that don’t meet your requirements. Just start to be mindful of who is in your front row and how they affect you. What you pay attention to grows. When you plant the seed of cultivating more joy and nurture it, you will find that what you are seeking will find you and people who provide you what you need will start to show up.
And don’t forget to find people who make you laugh. If joy had a sound, it would probably be laughter!

5. Stop Comparing Yourself and Practice Self-Compassion
Find freedom in letting go of comparison and judgment upon yourself and others. You tend to be your own worst enemy. Keep in mind that whatever it is you are seeking, you already have within you. When you become jealous or envious of someone, it’s likely because you see something in them that is in you. Does this sound familiar? If so, start to turn that energy into purposeful action.
Stop thinking in terms of “should” (i.e., I should exercise, I should be more successful, I should meditate, I should lose weight) and take some time to discover what brings you true joy. A practice in self-compassion helps to soften and allow space for different perspectives and gives you the room to pursue your dreams and achieve your goals. One method for developing more self-compassion is through the practice of loving-kindness meditation. Joy comes with acceptance and being in the driver’s seat of your life.

Lasting change doesn’t happen overnight. Consider that in each moment you have choices and you can start by choosing to cultivate more joy in your life. Imagine living a life free of limitations and experiencing all that life has in store for you with a renewed sense of freedom and, of course, joy. Be patient and flexible with yourself, but most importantly—be brave!

Learn a natural, effortless style of meditation that helps invite renewal and freshness into every day with Basics of Meditation, a self-paced online course guided by Deepak Chopra. Learn More.

About the Author
Rachelle Williams
Vedic Educator
As a Chopra Center Vedic Educator, Rachelle is certified in Primordial Sound Meditation , Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga , and Perfect Health: Ayurvedic Lifestyle . She started working at the Chopra Center in 2007 and has loved it ever since. Rachelle teaches at Chopra Center events in addition to leading private classes. She is grateful to share her knowledge and passion for these teachings by inspiring others to become...Read more

by Abigail Brenner M.D.
Psychology Today
28th October 2016
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-flux/201610/9-classic-traits-manipulative-people

Manipulative people have mastered the art of deception. They may appear respectable and sincere but often that’s just a facade; it's a way to draw you in and ensnare you in a relationship before they show their true colors.

Manipulative people are really not interested in you except as a vehicle to allow them to gain control so that you become an unwilling participant in their plans. They have several ways of doing this, as many of you will recognize. They will often take what you say and do and twist it around so that what you said and did becomes barely recognizable to you. They will attempt to confuse you, maybe even making you feel as if you’re crazy. They distort the truth, and may resort to lying if it serves their end.

Manipulative people can play the victim, making you seem to be the one who caused a problem which they began but won’t take responsibility for. They can be passive aggressive or nice one minute and standoffish the next, to keep you guessing and to prey on your fears and insecurities. They often make you defensive. They can also be extremely aggressive and vicious, resorting to personal attacks and criticism, dogged in their pursuit of getting what they want. They bully and threaten, and won’t let up or let go until they wear you down.

Following are nine traits of manipulative people, so you'll know what to watch for when one comes your way. Understanding these basic operating mechanisms can help prevent you from getting pulled into a manipulative relationship. Staying alert, staying in touch with what you know to be true about yourself, and anticipating what is to come will enable you to avoid a conflict and maintain your own integrity.

1. Manipulative people either lack insight into how they engage others and create certain scenarios, or they truly believe that their way of handling a situation is the only way because it means that their needs are being met, and that's all that matters. Ultimately, all situations and relationships are about them, and what others think, feel, and want really doesn’t matter:

“Controllers, abusers, and manipulative people don’t question themselves. They don’t ask themselves if the problem is them. They always say the problem is someone else.” —Darlene Ouimet

2. Manipulative people do not understand the concept of boundaries. They are relentless in the pursuit of what they want and have little regard for who gets hurt along the way.

Crowding into your space—physically, emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually—is of no concern to them. They lack understanding about what personal space and identity mean, or just don't care. They can be likened to a parasite—in the natural world this is often an acceptable relationship. In human behavior, however, feeding off of someone at their expense is depleting, exhausting, weakening, and demeaning.

3. A manipulator avoids responsibilities for his own conduct by blaming others for causing it. It’s not that manipulative people don’t understand responsibility is. They do; a manipulative person just sees nothing wrong with refusing to take responsibility for their actions, even while making you take responsibility for yours. Ultimately they may try to get you to take responsibility for satisfying their needs, leaving no room for fulfilling yours.
​
4. They prey on your best qualities. Manipulative people prey on our sensibilities, emotional sensitivity, and especially conscientiousness. They know they have a good chance of hooking you into a relationship because you are a kind, feeling, caring person, and, of course, because you want to help. They may cater to your goodness and kindness at first, often praising you for the wonderful person you are. But over time, praise of these qualities will be minimized because you are being used in the service of someone who really doesn’t care about you. They really just care about what you can do for them. 

5. If you want an easy way to discern manipulators from empathetic people, pay attention to the way they speak about others in relation to you. They will often talk about you behind your back the same way they talk to you about others. They are masters at “triangulation"—creating scenarios and dynamics that allow for intrigue, rivalry, and jealousy, and encourage and promote disharmony.

6. Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you. If someone doesn’t get you, don’t hang around waiting until they do. Don’t make it your mission to get them to understand and like you—they’re not interested in you as a person.

7. Characterize people by their actions and you will never be fooled by their words. Always remember that what a person says and does are two very separate things. Observe someone closely, without making excuses for them—usually what you see is what you get.

8. If the individual put as much effort into being a good person as they do into pretending to be one, they could actually be a good person.

This is an essential point: Our initial encounter and perception of someone strongly colors our developing relationship with them. If we understood from the beginning that a person is not who they seem to be, and is just hiding behind a facade of what appears to be socially acceptable behavior, then perhaps we would be more wary of getting involved with them. 

9. Regularly examine what you believe. We don’t do this enough. As life progresses, our beliefs and attitudes may change, and we need to know how these changing ideas affect us. When we are not sure what we believe, it’s all too easy to allow someone else who is sure that their beliefs are right—not only for them but for you as well—to attempt to manipulate your thinking:

“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.” — Michael Ende

Abigail Brenner, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice. She is the author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life and other books.
​© Psychology Today 2017

Written by Stuart Kenny - January 2019
Longevity expert Dan Buettner explains how the Japanese concept of ikigai can steer you towards a life of fulfillment.

Working out what your purpose is in life might not seem like the best way to relax after a long day at work or studying. But if the ancient Japanese concept if ‘ikigai’ is anything to go by, it might just add years to your life.

Roughly translated as “a reason for being”, your ikigai is in essence the meeting point of what you love, what you’re good at and what enables you to express your morals and values. In fact, clearly establishing your ikigai has been scientifically proven to help people live a longer, happier life.

To find out more, we spoke to Dan Buettner, a National Geographic fellow, New York Times-bestselling author and leading researcher in longevity, and discussed ways to find and channel your ikigai, and how doing so could bring greater fulfillment to our everyday lives.​

What is ikigai?
“Ikigai is the reason why you wake up in the morning,” explains Dan.

“You don’t want to wake up when you’re 60-years-old, look back on your life and say ‘what did it all mean?’. If you don’t know where you’re going in life then you’re never going to get there. Ikigai – and being able to articulate your ikigai – gives you a destination.”

In 2005, he wrote a cover story for National Geographic on the secrets of longevity centred around the ‘Blue Zones’. A Blue Zone is a region where people are healthier and live longer than anywhere else in the world. There are currently five identified on earth: Sardinia in Italy; Loma Linda in California; the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica; Icaria in Greece; and the Okinawa Islands in Japan.

As Buettner travelled from region to region to validate and investigate why centenarians – people who live to 100 or older – were more common in these zones, he noticed a trend, amongst others, that was prominent in each – the presence of what was called ‘ikigai’ in Okinawa. The term itself comes from a combination of two Japanese words – ‘iki’, meaning the state of being alive, and ‘kai’, meaning to reward, value or do something worthwhile. While not always named in the other zones, the concept was present in those who lived there.

“I’m a big believer that you need to have it clear in your mind what your sense of purpose is,” says Dan. “You need to be able to sum it up in one sentence, and for me, my ikigai is going into cultures and distilling the lessons that the rest of us can learn from them.”

Unlike the latest lifestyle trends that you’ll find on the self-help section of Waterstones’ bookshelves, ikigai also demands a commitment to give back to the community around you. “It’s about having a sense of purpose,” Dan continues. “But it’s not just going out and doing something that selfishly indulges your adrenaline glands or your passion – there’s also a thread of responsibility to it.”

How can you find your ikigai?
Finding your reason for being in life may seem easier said than done of course, but Dan has a simple route for anyone who wants to centre in on their ikigai.

“Sit down with a piece of paper, or at a computer screen, and make three columns,” he says. “At the top of the first column write ‘what I love to do’. The second column should read ‘what I’m good at’, and “Let’s say your passion is animals. You love dogs and taking care of them. That could be your ikigai and your outlet could be volunteering at a dog centre. Or your passion could be skiing – yes, you ski big mountains, but then you could also teach kids. That’s true ikigai."the third column should say ‘what allows me to live my values’. Make a longlist for each of those. [Your ikigai is] the cross-section between all three, and you want to make sure you have an outlet for that in your life.”

Everyone's ikigai is different. It is a reflection and expression of your true inner self. It cannot be forced upon you, coming instead from within, and as such, when you put your ikigai to work it should create an affirming mental state in which you feel comfortable and fulfilled.

“Very few people actually get to implement their ikigai through their job. But you want to make sure you’re doing it through your hobby, and again there should be an element in ikigai of giving back and not just indulging in your own passions.
Let’s say your passion is animals. You love dogs and taking care of them. That could be your ikigai and your outlet could be volunteering at a dog centre. Or your passion could be skiing – yes, you ski big mountains, but then you could also teach kids. That’s true ikigai."

How ikigai can change your life
In Buettner’s book, also titled The Blue Zones, he describes how people in Okinawa enjoy "what may be the highest life expectancy” in the world.

“When I was researching that National Geographic story on longevity, it was pretty clear that for Okinawan centenarians, ikigai was central to what keeps them going day by day. It gets them out of bed, and keeps them active and engaged with the world.”

Longer and better all-round living
Dan points to statistics from other leading longevity researchers, saying: “Famously, a research scientist called Robert Butler retrospectively looked at seniors who could express their sense of purpose or their life meaning, which is a form of ikigai, and found that people who knew where they were going in life – and who knew their passions and purpose – lived about eight years longer than those who were rudderless.”

And finding your ikigai not only helps you channel your purpose, but also helps you focus on the more important aspects of life – healthy eating, spending time in nature, making time for friends and family, and ensuring you set aside appropriate time for yourself.

“People with a sense of purpose are the ones who are more likely to work out everyday, eat well, take their medicines and keep their brains engaged, so all of those things will play into it as well,” says Dan. He highlights how lifestyle – and not genes – is the chief determinant of how healthy we are, and emphasises how this has a lot to do with a sense of purpose.

It can take the pain out of Mondays...
In Buettner’s book, Dr. Makoto Suzuki, a pioneering geriatrician, is quoted as saying: “A sudden loss of a person’s traditional role can have a measurable effect on mortality. We see this particularly amongst teachers and police who die very soon after they quit working. [They] have very clear sense of purpose and relatively high status. Once they retire they lose both those qualities. I believe the reverse is true too. You function better if you feel needed.”

It is clear through the research that no matter what age you are, you will feel healthier and happier if you believe you have a purpose, and know where you are going in life. And although retirement is likely to be a long way off for most, finding your ikigai not only allows you to find your meaning in life, but as a result provides that sense of knowing that you’re on a journey and working towards something bigger – even when you’ve got post-weekend blues on a Monday morning at work.

It takes the focus off finances
If there’s one stress common to every era, it’s money. Of course, there are a lot of financial concerns now that didn’t exist before – the extra work needed to buy a house, to pay for education or just to pay bills while still doing whatever makes you passionate.
​
But Dan points out that those who practise ikigai don’t prioritise money, and as such don’t have a lot of the day-to-day stress that comes with it. “Ikigai is at the top of their mind,” he adds. “Where we might put financial goals at the forefront of our daily activities, they would put their passions. Financial goals may follow but they’re not number one.”

It can make you more selfless
If purposelessness is such a dangerous state, then what are the best next steps for those at a crossroads in their life? Perhaps they’re just out of university, hunting for a first graduate job and not sure if they’ve made the right life choices so far.

Dan doesn’t hesitate to answer: “I’m very clear on this. As counterintuitive as this may sound, the best thing they can do is volunteer. And it’s been proven. It takes the focus off your own problems and puts your ikigai to work helping others. Even if you don’t get paid, it will improve your mood and wellbeing.”

It can help you like life away from a phone screen
“The idea of ikigai is uniquely a ‘Blue Zones’ concept,” emphasises Dan. Blue Zones tend to be small areas based around community, ancestry and agriculture, where the culture has not moved with the progression of time and technology. So does the rise of tech, phones and individualism in Europe and beyond contradict the concept of ikigai?

To cut a long story short, yes. And most people would be lying if they didn’t already know that social media comes with addictive, stress-inducing consequences. “These are traditional cultures and their practises are lost in our world of social media and television,” says Dan. He adds that instead of embracing different values and cultures, the rise of a ‘me-first’ society is “contributing to an environment of selfishness that is anti-ikigai”.

In a Western world where the average person is more isolated from their neighbours than ever, social media is increasingly alienating generations, various mental and fiscal hurdles are leaving millenials at a crossroads and me-first politics is on the rise, ikigai is a potential anecdote; a reminder that you can have purpose and direction without being self-serving, and might just be a simple step towards living a more fulfilling life.

For more of Dan Buettner’s tips on longevity from the people who have lived the longest, head to the official Blue Zones website.

1 January 2019
​Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation Mark Rowland commented:

“With 2019 set to be a year of significant transition and change for everyone, we are sharing advice on what people can do to prevent stress and manage change. The start of the year is a good time to set goals; by taking steps to look after our mental health, we can prevent problems from building up into serious issues. 
“Often when change carries a perceived threat or negative consequence, it can release our ‘fight or flight’ response. The resulting stress hormones can cause an overwhelming feeling of not being able to cope. That is why we want people to know the practical ways they can manage change in 2019 as best they can. 
“The New Year is also an opportunity accept ourselves for who we are and put our energy into making the world a better place - one person’s mental health at a time. By understanding how to look after our own mental health, we are in a better position to look out for others’ mental health too.” 

Here are seven New Year’s tips to help manage your mental health in 2019: 

1. Show compassion: Seeking to understand and accepting that it’s okay for others to have different views is an important first step in managing mental health problems. Everyone has the right to respectfully express what they think and feel and to be respected in return. Sometimes it’s better to resist the urge to immediately respond in a state of agitation and wait a couple of hours to see whether we still think it is worth responding to. Without our mental health we have much less to give to any of the social or political causes we might be concerned about. 
2. Spring clean your apps: Turning off app notifications is a practical way of limiting the demands they place on our attention. News is now available 24hrs a day and so much exposure to uncertainty can be stressful, though it’s important to stay informed, be aware of how it is making you feel and limit yourself to how many times you check you phone. Look at the people or accounts you are following on social media – are any friends or accounts you follow causing you stress or negativity? Muting those accounts will help manage those stresses.
3. Stay connected: There’s nothing better than catching up with someone face to face, but that’s not always possible. You can also give them a call, drop them a note, or chat to them online. Keep the lines of communication open: it’s good for you. If you are part of a community, club or if you are religious or spiritual - these networks can give you a way of staying connected to something bigger and provide consolation in times of difficulty.  
4. Look outwards: keep an eye out for your friends and family who may be struggling. Unpredictability and volatility are becoming the new normal. Now as much as at any time, we need to find ways of supporting each other and building our collective resilience. Looking after for someone else is good for your mental health as well.
5. Take proactive steps to support good mental health: Many of the things that support good physical health support good mental health too. See our  tips and free guides, and don’t be put off if some of the tips sound simple! Often the simplest things we can do, like exercise or spending time in nature, can give our mental health a big boost. 
6. Make time for something you really enjoy: find something that helps you change state. Enjoying yourself can help beat stress. Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it, and achieving something boosts your self-esteem.
7. Don’t be afraid to get help: it is better to act early if you feel rising levels of stress. There are a range of online resources and apps available plus effective psychological therapies through the NHS.

The Priory

New Year's resolutions to improve your mental health and wellbeingAfter the busy festive period, the New Year can be an excellent time for a fresh start, and a chance to begin the year with a healthy mind-set. You may already have some ideas for New Year’s resolutions – you may be planning on joining a gym, spending more time with family, looking for a new job or career path, or cutting back on the amount of junk food that you eat.
You may also be looking for ways in which you can improve your mental health in 2019. Here, we provide five top tips on how you can focus on your psychological wellbeing in the New Year, resulting in long-lasting benefits.

1. Cut down on drinking and avoid drugs
You may have been drinking more than usual during the party season, and may even have taken drugsduring this time. However, these substances are incredibly harmful to both your physical and mental health. It’s well-known that alcohol is a depressant, which can negatively affect your mood, making you feel low and anxious. Depending on which drugs you misuse, the effects on your mental health can range from anything from depression, anxiety and euphoria, to long-term psychosis, hallucinations and delusions.
Alcohol and drugs can also lead to you developing a harmful addiction to these substances, whereby you become both physically and psychologically dependent on drinking or taking drugs in order to function effectively in your day-to-day life.
There’s a whole host of benefits associated with giving up these substances. This is why it’s so important to take steps to cut back on your drinking (or stop altogether), and avoid drugs completely, as a means of improving your mental wellbeing.
If you think you have a problem with alcohol or drug misuse, it’s crucial that you seek specialist support to help you to overcome your addiction. Priory offers a free, no obligation addiction assessment, providing you with the opportunity to explore your individual challenges, view our exceptional addiction treatment environments, and learn about the journey that you can take towards achieving abstinence and recovery.

2. Look after yourself physically, to feel better mentally.
Your physical health and mental wellbeing are linked, and as such, there are lots of positive changes you can make to improve your physical wellbeing that will also result in psychological benefits.

Exercise regularly
Exercise boosts the ‘happy chemicals’ in the brain, known as endorphins, which ultimately improve your mood and sense of wellbeing. Try and make the effort to engage in some form of exercise every day, even if this is just going for a short walk, and it’s likely that you’ll feel better as a result, both physically and mentally.

Eat healthily
It’s important to make a conscious effort to eat more healthily in the New Year, and try not to overeat. Not only does this have obvious physical health benefits, but a healthy diet that’s full of vitamins and nutrients can also have positive effects on your mental wellbeing. Research suggests that foods that are rich in folic acid (such as avocado and spinach), and omega-3 acids (such as salmon and tuna), can improve your mood and lower stress and anxiety.
It’s so easy when we’re feeling stressed or low to reach for the junk food, but you can help to alleviate some of these negative feelings by simply eating well.

Get plenty of sleep
It can be hard during our busy modern lives to get the right amount of sleep every night, particularly for individuals who work shifts, or for those with young children. However, the act of sleeping helps us to recuperate both physically and mentally, resulting in alertness and a positive mood the next day.
The average adult needs around eight hours of sleep a night to be fully rested. The following steps can help you to achieve this as often as possible:

• Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day. Instead of lying in at the weekend, try to get in the habit of waking up at the same time that you do during the week. This can help to establish a consistent and healthy sleep routine
• Try to avoid napping during the day, as this can mean that you struggle to get to sleep at night, and can have a negative impact on your routine
• Limit caffeine, sugar and alcohol before bed. These substances can make you feel anxious and jittery at night, and can prevent you from getting to sleep and staying asleep. You could also try and limit the amount of liquids you drink before bed, so you don’t keep waking up needing the toilet and then find it difficult to get back to sleep again
• Avoid electronic devices such as computers, mobiles and tablets within 30-60 minutes of your target bedtime. These devices give off light which can be overly stimulating and keep you awake. If you want to read before bed, make sure you read from an actual book or magazine, as opposed to a screen. Again, these steps can improve the quality of your sleep

3. Get yourself 'out there.
For many, January in particular can be a miserable month – Christmas is over, you may be eagerly waiting for your next payslip, and the dark nights and poor weather can mean that all you want to do is stay at home. However, staying indoors and potentially isolating yourself, can have a negative impact on your mental health.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to actively look for ways to get yourself ‘out there’ in the New Year. You could try joining some form of group or club, based on something you enjoy or something you’ve always wanted to try. For example, you could join a book club, a sports team or try volunteering. Not only will this help you to get out of the house and tackle the ‘January Blues’, but you may end up making new friends, increasing your confidence, and finding a positive hobby that you can continue all year round, thus improving your overall mental health and wellbeing.

4. Practise self-care
​It’s so important to practise self-care as a means of improving your mental health. It can be easy to focus on the needs of other people in your life at the expense of your own needs, but taking just a small amount of time for yourself can be hugely beneficial to your psychological health.

Plan time for yourself
Try and plan some time for yourself as often as possible. Even just doing small things that you enjoy such as having a hot bath, reading a magazine or book, or listening to your favourite music, can help you to ‘re-charge’ and improve your mood. Set time aside for this each day, or a few times a week, so these activities are something that you can look forward to.

Discover what makes you happy
Develop an understanding of the places, people and activities that make you happy and bring enjoyment to your life. Then try to include as many of these as possible within your daily life, in order to boost your mood and wellbeing. You could even write these things down and refer to your list whenever you’re feeling low, anxious or stressed, as a reminder of all of the positive things in your life.

Stop being so hard on yourself
It’s so easy for us to be self-critical and hard on ourselves, which can have a negative impact on our levels of resilience, self-esteem and wellbeing. If you find that you beat yourself up over small things, and engage in negative self-talk, ask yourself whether you’d say the same things to another person. If the answer is ‘no’, then why would you say them to yourself? Instead, try to re-frame your negative thoughts so they’re helpful and conducive to positive mental health.
​
5. Consider taking a break from social media.
There’s no doubt that social media has interconnected much of the world and can be a great way to keep in touch with friends and family. However, with increasing use, social media has the potential to have a negative effect on mental health.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram can increase stress levels and have a detrimental impact on mood due to the fact that they encourage us to compare our lives to the lives of other people. Therefore, when you see others’ seemingly ‘perfect’ day-to-day lives, this can lead you to feel inadequate that you’re not able to match them.
As a way of starting off the New Year on a positive note, you could try logging out of your social media accounts and evaluating the impact that this has on your general mood, stress and anxiety levels and overall wellbeing. You might find that you’re much happier without having a constant insight into other people’s lives. In addition, without the incessant scrolling on your phone or tablet, you may find that you’re able to spend an increasing amount of quality time with your family and enjoy your leisure time more than ever.
​
Get helpIf you find that you are struggling with a mental health problem, it’s important to recognise that specialist support is available. 

Letting go of certain things can open the door to true contentment in life.
Amy Morin - What Mentally Strong People Don't Do
Posted Nov 28, 2018

Mental strength and inner peace go hand in hand. Mentally strong people are confident that they can handle whatever life throws their way.That's not to say they don't feel pain or that they don't get sad — they experience their emotions on a deep level. But they don't waste energy wishing things were different or trying to change other people. They stay focused on managing their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

They also make self-improvement a priority, because they know there's always room for improvement. And they give up these 10 things that could destroy their inner peace.

1. Engaging with toxic people
The people you surround yourself with affect the way you think, feel, and behave. Engaging with people who lie, gossip, bully, or cheat takes a toll on your well-being.
Mentally strong people don't waste their energy trying to change toxic people. They establish healthy emotional and physical boundaries.

2. Excessive self-blame
Thinking everything is 100 percent your fault — whether it's a failed relationship or an accident — will affect the way you see yourself and the world around you. You can't always prevent bad things from happening.
Mentally strong people take appropriate accountability. They recognize that they're responsible for their choices, but they also acknowledge factors beyond their control, like the state of the economy, the weather, and other people's choices.

3. Chasing happiness
Thinking you need to be happy all the time will backfire. Momentary pleasure is much different than long-term satisfaction.
Mentally strong people are willing to put in the hard work it takes to gain contentment. They refuse to give in to instant gratification or temporary indulgences. They look for ways to build a brighter future by creating long-term goals.

4. Staying comfortable
It may seem like staying inside your comfort zone is the key to feeling good in life. But avoiding discomfort always backfires in the end.
Mentally strong people face their fears, venture into unknown areas, and test their limits. They know that being uncomfortable is tolerable and allowing themselves to experience discomfort is the key to living a better life.

5. The victim mentality
Thinking the world and the people in it are out to get you will prevent you from being your best. In fact, if you blame all of your problems on external circumstances, you'll never take responsibility for your life.
Mentally strong people acknowledge their choices, even in the face of tragic circumstances. They focus on the things they can control, and they refuse to waste their time hosting pity parties.

6. Trying to impress people
You could waste a lot of your life trying to make people like you. Depending on admiration from others, however, gives others power over you.
Mentally strong people are comfortable in their own skin. They don't waste their time worrying about whether other people approve of their choices. Instead, they focus on living according to their values.

7. The pursuit of perfection
Striving for excellence is healthy. But insisting on perfection is an uphill battle. You'll never feel good enough if you set the bar impossibly high.
Mentally strong people accept that they're going to fail and make mistakes. They are able to acknowledge their flaws and weaknesses.

8. Grudges
You may think that holding onto a grudge somehow punishes someone else. But in reality, clinging to anger and hatred only reduces your life.
Mentally strong people let go of grudges so they can focus their energy on more worthwhile causes. That doesn't mean they allow themselves to be abused by people, however. It just means they don't allow pent-up resentment to overtake their lives.

9. The quest for material things
No matter how much money you make, a bigger house, a nicer car, or more expensive clothing won't give you peace of mind. Expecting material possessions to satisfy your needs will leave you sorely disappointed.
Mentally strong people aren't necessarily minimalists, however. They can enjoy nice things. But they don't expect their material possessions to give them joy and contentment.
10. Complete self-reliance
Thinking you can do everything on your own is about acting tough — not being strong. There will be times when asking for help is important.
Mentally strong people aren't afraid to admit when they need help. Whether they rely on a higher power, ask for professional help, or lean on a friend during a time in need, they gain strength from others. Knowing they don't have to have all the answers gives them a renewed sense of inner peace. 

How to Build Mental Muscle
Inner peace comes from knowing your beliefs and having the willingness to act according to them. It takes mental muscle to do that.
Fortunately, everyone has the ability to practice mental strength exercises every day. The more mental muscle you build, the easier it is to find true contentment in life.

Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, college psychology instructor and internationally recognized expert on mental strength. She's a Wall Street Journal and international bestselling author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do and 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do.

Deepak Chopra: How to Get Out of Sad Gear

The spiritual teacher explains how to cope with temporary or long-term sadness.
By Deepak Chopra
Photo: Marga Frontera/Getty Images

We live in a society where a high value is placed on being positive. Yet sometimes this simply isn't possible, and people find themselves facing temporary or long-term sadness. Just telling yourself to "be positive" isn't much help, because moods can have a life of their own. One of the pitfalls of positivity is that people tend to fantasize about a perfect life instead of realistically facing the fact that no life is perfect. Everyone's existence contains challenges, disappointments, frustration and failed expectations. Further, what usually happens is that most of us become passive. We distract ourselves by watching more television or spending more hours on the computer. We wait for sadness to pass and we behave as if nothing bad is going on. Keeping up a good front is important in most people's lives, yet behind the facade can lurk a good deal of fear. Instead of positivity, what's needed is reality. Being realistic means that you drop the main defense that all of us are tempted to employ: denial. The only reason to deny your sadness is if you feel that you can't do anything about it. But there are concrete ways to cope with sadness and gain control over it: 

Step 1: Identifying Your Kind of Sadness 

It's perfectly normal to have sadness in your life. Some kinds, however, can be a cause for concern. If you are feeling sad at this moment—or have been experiencing a down mood for a while—look honestly at your situation. There are three types of sadness most of us fall into: Short-term sadness: This is a passing mood, lasting a few days or, at most, a week. It sometimes has a cause and sometimes not. The best remedy—as we all know but, sadly, often fail to remember—is to lower your stress, go to bed early and get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, make sure you exercise and break up your normal routine a bit. Boredom, lack of sleep, being too sedentary and excess stress are all associated with a sad mood. 

Triggered sadness: This includes a downturn in mood because something undeniably bad has happened to you, such as losing your job or the death of someone close to you. In such a situation, you will generally know what the trigger is. The problem is that most people feel helpless when they enter extended sadness, even when they know there is a good reason for it. In this case, you need to process your sadness, let nature take its course and share your feelings with someone who can counsel and console you. Bottling up your feelings and feeling victimized are never helpful. Triggered sadness lasts an unpredictable length of time, yet in an emotionally healthy adult, within six months there is a return to the level of emotions that existed before the trigger was set off. 

Depression: If you feel sad, exhausted, helpless, hopeless and unable to sleep, eat or enjoy sex for a period of time lasting more than a few weeks, you should suspect that you are depressed. There is often a trigger for this condition, but it is usually something that you could normally cope with. When coping breaks down, depression takes over. So if you feel that you can't cope, even with minor stress and ordinary setbacks, mild to moderate depression may be indicated. This is a complicated mood disorder that varies from person to person. If you suspect that you or someone close to you is depressed, a doctor's care is needed. 

Step 2: Banishing the Enemies of Happiness 

Let's say that you fall into the first two categories of short-term and triggered sadness (we won't discuss depression here; that must be handled by a health professional). If so, there are things you can do to change the situation. 

It surprises people, but, in fact, the best cure for sadness is happiness. Anything that diminishes your ability to build your own happiness must be avoided or eliminated. For example, don't hitch your happiness to external rewards or postpone being happy until sometime in the future. Don't expect someone else to make you happy. Don't allow your emotions to become habitual and stuck or close yourself off from new experiences. Don't ignore the signals of inner tension and conflict, dwell on the past or live in fear of the future. Most of all: don't equate happiness with momentary pleasure. 

In a consumer-driven society, it's all too easy to fall into all the don'ts on this list, because they share the same element: linking happiness with temporary pleasure and external rewards. Of course, we all live for the pleasure that life brings. No one is saying that you must deny yourself. But the most satisfying project you will ever undertake—and a mark of a complete human being—is to discover how to build a sense of happiness that no one can take away from you, because you have taken total responsibility for it. The journey to such happiness takes a long time, yet every step is one of fulfillment. 

Step 3: Building Well-Being 

Passively accepting your sadness is the same as forgetting to build your own happiness. Happiness is more than a mood. It's a long-lasting state that is more accurately called well-being. Well-being is a balanced state of mind and body that you feel subjectively as contentment, peace of mind and emotional freedom. Well-being opens the door to joy and deep satisfaction with your life. There are practical things you can do to help cultivate it such as: give of yourself (in other words, take care of others, and care for them); work at something you love; set worthy long-range goals that will take years to achieve; be open-minded; learn from the past and then put it behind you; plan for the future without anxiety, fear or dread; nurture close, warm social bonds; and develop emotional resilience. 

Developing emotional resilience is perhaps the most important, because that's the ability to bounce back from bad things in your life. How do you encourage it? By being present with your feelings instead of fearing them, by getting past victimization or "poor me" thinking, by making a plan of action when things go wrong and sticking with it, by associating with people who are emotionally mature and seeking counsel from someone who has managed the same kind of crisis that you now face, by focusing on the times you have survived and thrived in the face of tough circumstances, and by appreciating and rewarding yourself for dealing with your difficulties. 

Working on long-term, emotionally mature happiness is the best way to insulate yourself from downswings in your mood. Sadness comes and goes. Well-being can be made to last a lifetime. It doesn't matter how close you feel to this highly desirable state or how far. For everyone, well-being is a journey. All it requires is the right vision and devotion to personal growth. You have the inner guidance to support you. The secret is committing to that journey and taking those first steps with hope and belief in yourself.

Deepak Chopra, MD, - Oprah.com
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/why-youre-sad-how-to-stop-being-sad-deepak-chopra
Published 08/13/2012

How to Stop the Two Most Common Forms of Self-Sabotage
What to do when self-sabotage keeps you from getting what you want.
Jennice Vilhauer PhD
Sep 30, 2018

There are lots of obstacles to getting what you want in life, but self-sabotage is probably the biggest one that stops most people. Why would anyone self-sabotage their own efforts to improve their life? It’s a complicated question best answered on an individual basis by some soul-searching work with a therapist. However, there are a couple of very common forms of self-sabotage that, once you recognize them in your own life, you can begin to address even if you don’t know why exactly you do them.

1. Arguing for your limitations
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We all know what this looks like. Imagine the friend who asks for help, and every suggestion you offer is met with a reason why it won’t work. When someone argues for their limitations, there is a tendency to use the circumstances of their life as an explanation for why they can’t do the things that would help them succeed. I am sick, I am depressed, I had lousy parents, my spouse doesn’t love me, I don’t have the experience I need, I am over-qualified, I don’t have enough time or money. 

The hardships in life are real. We all have them. Limitations are everywhere, because life is anything but fair. But arguing for the reasons why you can’t do something to improve your situation will only keep you stuck exactly where you are. The way our attention process works, the more we focus on something, the bigger it gets in our mind. The more you think about something, the more it becomes the basis for your actions. When you give your attention to the reasons why you can’t do something and accept it as a limitation, your brain won’t generate ideas and solutions for how to overcome the limitations. 

Instead of arguing for your limitations, try arguing for your right to live well. When you argue for your right to live well, you are putting your focus and attention on the reasons why the hardships and limitations in life won’t stop you. You are fighting for why you can do something, instead of why you can’t. As you do this, you open up the solution-generating part of your brain to start coming up with ideas and ways to overcome your limitations, because you are telling it to do so. When you look for solutions, that is when you find them. 

An easy exercise to get the process started is to simply write down a list of 10 reasons why you know you can succeed at whatever the goal is you are trying to achieve. If you’ve been focused on why you can’t for a while, then this will be a little challenging. That’s a good thing. Look for past examples of times when you’ve accomplished difficult things. Think about what traits and characteristics you have that got you through those hard times. Then read your list over every day, until “I can because…” becomes the dominant feeling on the subject. 

2. Engaging in negative self-talk

Arguing for you limitations tends to be about your external circumstances, while negative self-talk has more to do with how you view yourself, although there can certainly be overlap. Negative self-talk is the inner dialogue in your head that says things to you that you would never dream of saying to anyone else: I am stupid, I am fat, I am ugly, I am a phony, I am never going to get it done, etc. Negative self-talk is based on your self-concept, or more specifically your beliefs about who you are and what you can accomplish. Your beliefs determine which actions you are willing to take and consequently what you do in life. 

The antidote to negative self-talk isn’t to just quiet the inner critical voice in your head — you must also replace the negative talk with more compassionate statements to yourself: I am trying, I am learning, it’s OK if I make a mistake sometimes, I don’t have to be perfect, etc. Reach for thoughts that feel like an improvement, but are still within the realm of what you know is true about yourself, like: Sometimes when I try, I can succeed. When you choose phrases that are hopeful, but not absolute, you are more likely to buy into their truth, and they won’t sound so fake. When you stick with picking improved thoughts, eventually you get to the place you want to be — I really do like myself. If this seems like a hard thing to do, I would suggest reading the book Self-Compassion by psychologist Kristin Neff.

Once you are able to be a little kinder to yourself, then you can move to the second phase of working on your self-esteem by creating more positive self-statements about what you are capable of accomplishing. Remember, what you say to yourself is the foundation for your actions. If you don't tell yourself something is possible, you won't act on it. In order to achieve the things you want in life, you often have to be your own cheerleader, believe in your abilities, and tell yourself that you can do it. To work on your positive self-talk further, I would recommend the book Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay, which is a step-by-step guide to help you improve your overall self-confidence. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/experts/jennice-vilhauer-phd

Ultimate Relaxation: Top Tips for Effective Unwinding 
Hannah
19/10/18

If you had a device attached to you that could detect when you entered a state of complete relaxation, how many times would it have tracked over the past week? Honestly. How about in the past month?

For many of us, the number would likely be low and in some cases zero. We must take heed of the fact that not allowing ourselves adequate time for relaxation can have a devastating effect on our health and wellbeing.

Energy is a finite resource and we can literally run out, or in other words burn out. The fact is our bodies require rest to perform at their best and much of the time what we consider to be relaxing, either doesn't serve to effectively calm our nervous systems or fails to even materialise.

It's time we started taking relaxation more seriously and made a conscious effort to lower the amount of cortisol (stress hormone) in our bodies. These top tips won't come as a revelation, but perhaps they will act as a reminder to do one or all of them over the coming days.

Listen to some soothing music​
Music makes you feel things. It has been scientifically proven, and you will know it from your own experience of watching a film, or hearing a song you love come on radio. The level of emotion that music can evoke within us is sometimes quite profound. Time to employ the power of music for the pursuit of relaxation.

Soak in a deep, relaxing bathBaths can be deeply soothing for physically tired bodies and emotionally drained minds. Use essential oils for aromatherapy, bath salts for achy muscles and create a relaxing atmosphere with candles and a bit of softly playing music. Allow yourself enough time to properly soak and feel the stress melt away.

Practice breathing & meditation
How often do you allow your body and mind to be completely still, while you are awake and fully conscious. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that it's pretty rare. Visualise your emotional state like a pool of water. When you are stressed out the water is choppy, with sediment from the bottom disturbed and brought to the surface.
When you meditate, or consciously bring about a state of tranquillity within the mind and the body, then the water has a chance to settle properly. The ripples subside, the sediment drifts down to rest on the bottom and the pool becomes like the surface of a mirror. This is equivalent to entering a state of complete serenity and one of the most powerful ways of rejuvenating body and soul.

Take a walk in nature
Immersing yourself in nature is a powerful tonic for the stresses of modern day life. Countless studies have backed this up and it's quickly apparent when you try it for yourself. Inhaling deep lungfuls of fresh air and marvelling at the world in its natural form resets overthinking brains and refreshes positive emotions.

Make time for something you enjoy
We don't always prioritise spending time doing things that make us happy and bring about a sense of innate calm. It can be regarded as a waste of time or pointless, however this could not be further from the truth. Time spent in this way provides us with the clarity, self assurance and mental stability to be of real use in our endeavours and to those around us.

​Hannah
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Self-Care For When You're Feeling Overwhelmed 
 Oct 11, 2018
 Tara Jackson

The last few weeks in September I was feeling quite overwhelmed, and, putting my hand up, my self-care totally fell out of the window.

It seems for quite a few people September was a bit of a whirlwind. Back to school and back to work for many, with lots of opportunities, things to do, places to be. I said yes to too many things – different jobs (where I still do some freelancing), clients, opportunities with my coaching and the different areas I am building in my own business; I’d also-organised some social get-togethers, and had agreed to cat-sit for three weeks (which meant needing to visit the cat every day, which took an hour out of my day just in travel time).

I was running around like a headless chicken and just ticking things off as they went by, counting down the days – until what, I didn’t know; it felt a bit like I was on a hamster wheel.

On top of that, running around London and having to be with the cat meant I didn’t take the time to buy healthy food and cook meals. Instead I was eating a lot of vegan pizzas and fast, easy food like wraps, salt and vinegar crisps and pre-made soups. I found myself wanting to drink alcohol more than I have in years – as an instinctive response to ‘escape’ at the end of the day, which I gave in to.

I didn’t do any exercise, finding the only thing I wanted to do was sleep when I got home, and my calming, self-reflective practices like journaling and meditation seemed like a distant memory.
It definitely all got to be too much and there were a few moments when I felt totally overwhelmed, unlike myself. There were some tears. At first I was annoyed at myself for letting my self-care completely fall away and for saying yes to so many different things. But, awareness is the first step in changing any situation and rather than dwelling on it and beating myself up for what I ‘could have done,’ I decided to learn from the situation, turn it around, and within one week I am feeling like me again!

So, in case you are going through a similar thing, or do in the future (and I don’t doubt it will come up for me again too), I’m sharing the few things I did, which helped me get back to me.

• I didn’t judge myself for what was happening. It was what it was, and judgment won’t change anything. Instead I asked myself what I needed and started to give myself those things.
• I realised I needed to get out of my head and into my body. I made myself do a short 15-minute yoga class at home, and I felt amazing! I felt my arms, my legs and my body for the first time in weeks and it was like a soothing balm. This made it easier to get back into my routine.
• I was craving veggies – so I bought a load of seasonal ones and made a few different delicious meals to keep in the fridge and freezer – lentils, pak choi and tofu, cavolo nero and grilled aubergine. Eating these nutritious foods instantly helped me feel better.
• I started to say no and cancel a few things I’d already booked in my diary. Ironically I was due to go to a networking event which included a talk on self-care, but chose to stay at home practicing self-care instead of going to an event on it.
• I’ve prioritised some moments of nothing-ness. Space to just be, write, meditate, walk in nature near my home. I was craving spaciousness and have diarised it for the next month so I can be sure to have it.
• I’m not drinking for a while again, it was making me feel sluggish and bloated – being a little bit strict with myself is what I personally need right now, so that’s what I’ve chosen for myself.

I know we all have different things and what works for one person may not work for another. All I can do is encourage you to experiment; remember you are worth the time and energy it takes. Only you can prioritise you, and you have to set the boundaries in place to do this.

It is a journey, life is cyclical, there is no destination. The more I grow, the more I learn and all I can do is keep doing what I can to help me feel as happy and healthy as I can be (so I can give as much as I can to others and myself).

How do you help yourself when things don’t go so well or life ‘takes over’?
Tara Jackson

www.embraceyourhumanity.com/
A blog post by embraceyourhumanity.com 
bits 'o love
​16/5/2014

I've been on stage my whole life, acting, singing, performing, speaking, teaching...And I've always been told I'm boisterous - okay, maybe downright loud - and outgoing. And I am, in many ways, so it came as a complete shock to me when I realized I'm actually an introvert. 

What?! So it's NOT weird that I have no problem talking to 800 people at once, but the idea of networking at a happy hour event makes me want to run screaming? Apparently it's not weird at all. I'm just an introvert. 

With this discovery, suddenly everything made so much sense! 

This realization allowed me to finally give myself permission to be me, and to stop beating myself up for rarely wanting to do the things that so many people do (almost anything with crowds - egads, no!). I had a lot of erroneous ideas about what made an introvert an introvert, and an extrovert an extrovert. I thought that only an extrovert would enjoy being a public speaker. When I saw Susan Cain's Ted Talk on the Power of Introverts, which was really my first thought-provoking exposure to the idea of introversion and extroversion, I remember thinking how brave she was to overcome her crippling shyness to give this great talk. Clearly I still didn't completely understand, but after watching that video, I was beginning to. 

Then I started seeing all these lists on Facebook, like 23 Signs that You May Be an Introvert and 27 Problems Only Introverts Will Understand, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's ME!" I'd spent my whole life fighting against my natural need and inclination to have quiet time and down time. No wonder I love meditating so much! It gave me a really good excuse to do something I love, that felt great, and I knew was good for me. ​



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It turns out that being shy has nothing to do with being an introvert, and Susan Cain didn't necessarily have to overcome anything like shyness in order to speak publicly. 

Introverts simply fill their cups by quiet activities alone or in very small groups, and often feel depleted by too much outer stimulation, while extroverts feel energetically fed by outer stimulation and activities, and often feel depleted after spending too much time alone. 

Introverts can be loud or quiet, and extroverts can be quiet or loud. It's a spectrum, and we each have our own unique place on it. 

Whether you are more of an introvert, more of an extrovert, or an ambivert, give yourself permission to be you. Stop beating yourself up. Don't compare yourself with what you think is supposed to be "normal" anymore, and then use that as license to self-abuse. Someday, you'll figure out two things: 

1. You are totally normal, and 
2. You are totally unique

So why not go ahead and give yourself permission to just be you? It's as good a time to start as any. The sooner, the better, actually. ​

Self-Care for When Things Fall Apart 
Aug 29, 2018
 Tara Jackson 
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Sometimes life just happens to you. You can have the best intentions and daily practices but things seem to happen which are often out of your control.

Recently it seems a lot of people close to me have been going through life changing events – job losses, a relationship break down, health issues, a death of someone close, or similar upheavals which affect their life. 

When I look back on my life to date and how I have handled situations which have thrown me off balance, I realise they often felt totally overwhelming at the time and like there was no way out from them. I felt trapped and didn’t think life would ever feel good again. However, I now know that it is these moments which have helped to define who I am today.

Going through upheaval and change is exhausting both physically and emotionally. Our bodies tend to adopt the ‘fight or flight’ response and it can seem like many of our normal cognitive functions aren’t working as they do regularly.

As you go through whatever the situation may be, taking care of yourself can seem almost impossible but this is when you need to the most. I know in past situations I have just wanted to curl in a ball and sleep through everything, or escape through mind numbing activities such as drinking, watching endless TV and, at certain times, eating. However, these things offer only temporary relief and ultimately you feel worse.

When something comes up which is out of my control I am learning to allow myself to go through whatever it is I am going through. Feel any pain, rage, sadness and whatever else may be coming up as well as care for myself in as simple a way as possible, as my usual practices can often feel too much. Here are some simple things which have helped me in different situations.

1) Breathing
So simple and so powerful, yet so easily forgotten. Taking long, deep breaths into your entire body regularly will help you to get out of the fight or flight response and allow your body to relax. Breathing will help to calm you no matter what is going on around you.

2) Staying present
It’s easy to let the mind wander, and replay certain situations or scenarios, or even try to predict the future. Instead (and this is definitely easier said than done) bringing your attention back to the present moment really helps, as ultimately we can’t change the past or predict the future, so thinking about it can lead to unnecessary thoughts which can often spiral negatively. Try focusing on something small such as observing an object – all it’s different colours, textures, shapes. Then move on to something else. The more you do this the easier it gets.

3) Being kind to yourself
It’s so easy to want to blame or berate yourself for what is happening. Our minds try to come up with reasons for how it might be our fault, how we might be to blame. If only we had done something differently. Also being kind to yourself by acknowledging you need to take care of yourself first and foremost. Perhaps you need to say no to certain things for the time being that you would normally do, or ask for help? Do what you need to do to be kind to yourself.
 
4) Looking after your basic needs as best as you can 
Food, water and sleep are essential to everyone and so easily forgotten when things get thrown. I know that eating is the last thing on my mind if I am going through heartbreak, whereas in another situation where I lost a job all I wanted to do was eat. Remembering to nourish your body in any way possible and get sleep when you can will help with how you handle the situation enormously. Even a small amount of sleep deprivation and dehydration can impair your normal body and brain functions. If it’s hard to manage, go for little and often with both sleep and nourishment and ideally eat the most nourishing food possible.
 
5) Finding an outlet for release 
Often life does not or cannot return to what it was before and you need to learn to live with a new normal. It can feel hard, uncomfortable and even scary, but learning to adapt and accept this new reality is a part of life. Having an outlet to express what you are feeling will help you to reach a place of inner peace and/or acceptance faster. Some things which can help are physical exercise or movement, counselling, journaling or another creative expression. Finding something which is within your time and budget allowances and that you feel able to do.

As mentioned earlier I do also think it’s important to allow yourself to feel what you are going through. Acknowledging that there is something happening and it’s okay to feel what you are feeling. Then adding in some simple practices to help you care for yourself whilst you are in this situation.
If you are going through something I hope these simple practices help.
www.tarajackson.co.uk
​

The 12 Best Ways to Spend a Mental Health Day (According to a Therapist)

Author By Jor-El Caraballo, Talkspace Therapist
Posted: August 13, 2018

Everyone has their own way of embracing self-care and addressing their mental health. It’s important for your mental well-being and can provide a valuable reset that leaves you more positive and productive going forward. Today, we’re sharing some secret tips from a therapist on the best way you can spend your mental health day.

Get a Good Night’s Rest
The first key to taking care your mental health, which is often overlooked, is to get a good night’s rest! So the night before your mental health day, make sure to give yourself a block of at least 8 hours of sleep. If you’re not a particularly good sleeper, you may want to block off as much as 9-10 hours for sleep as interruptions during the night might leave you feeling tired throughout the day. And don’t forget to set your alarm clock just out of arm’s reach so that you can’t just roll over and hit that snooze button.

Set Goals for the Day
When you wake in the morning, start your day with a few minutes of intention setting. Starting with setting plans or goals for your day will help you feel balanced and grounded before you get into the world of catching up on the news, or returning calls and emails. Spend a few minutes thinking of the goals that you would like to achieve today and set the tone for yourself.

Eat Breakfast
Once you’ve taken the time to set your goals, sit down and make yourself a nutritious breakfast. This usually means a breakfast full of variety. Sorry, but a donut and coffee doesn’t cut it anymore. Studies suggest that a rich and hearty breakfast can help improve mood and mental performance throughout your day. There may even be a ideal breakfast for those living with depressionsymptoms. Skipping breakfast altogether is not recommended. Those who regularly eat breakfast have been shown to have less depression, a lower stress response, and generally live healthier livesthan those who don’t.

Exercise
After your breakfast settles, the next best thing you can do is to engage in some moderate exercise. If you’re feeling really full, you may want to avoid intense cardio (maybe save that for later), but a low-impact workout such as stretching or yoga can help loosen up muscles stiff from the night’s rest. Exercise can also lower your heart rate and blood pressure as well as make you less susceptible to the stress of the day. After you’re done, be sure to take care of your daily grooming, like showering and brushing your teeth to help you feel fresh and rejuvenated.

Do Your Mental Work
If you are fortunate enough on your designated mental health day to take a day off from the office, now is a good time to engage in some mental work. This could include completing some challenging work from your to-do list or problem solving around some bigger tasks. With a well-balanced breakfast and some exercise under your belt for the day, you are primed to perform with focus and clarity. Take advantage of it and challenge yourself. In the end you’ll also end up feeling a great sense of achievement for putting forth effort, which is great for your mental health!

Eat Lunch
In the midst of that work, don’t forget to take some time a little later to eat a balanced lunch. This is a good time to work some leafy greens into your day as they help slow down the process of cognitive decline and may even prevent dementia long term.

Do Your Emotional Work
This may also be a good time to tackle some of the emotional issues you’ve been facing. What are you going to do about the anxieties you face daily? How are you going to follow up with your boss after making a mistake at work? This is a good time to engage in some robust problem solving or reframing, otherwise you may spend your evening turning over these things in your mind, greatly impacting your restfulness and sleep.

Socialize
After lunch, get back to tackling some things on your to do list or you can spend time reconnecting with friends and loved ones. Spending time socializing is great for your mental health, whether that be going out with friends for a bike tour or spending time catching up with grandma. Making regular human contact is a big part of being mentally well. Social isolation is linked to several mental health conditions such as social anxiety and depression, among others. And if you don’t currently have friends or other loved ones that you can connect with, this is an opportunity to engage in a group activity to potentially make new friends.

Take a Nap
If you’re like me, then after engaging with friends and doing some work you may need a little down time. If you can swing it, why not take a short nap? Naps have been long proven to positively impact mental performance. Just don’t make it too long as it might disrupt your sleep for the evening. It only takes about 20 minutes of napping to reap its benefits, so keep it brief! If you’re not a fan of naps, this is also a good time just to delve into something that brings you joy. That can mean anything from reading a book to getting in some additional exercise or even practicing meditation. Whatever you choose, just make sure to utilize that time for yourself.

Luxuriate and Eat a Light Dinner
After a nap is good time to luxuriate in something you enjoy until dinner time. At dinner time eat a slightly lighter meal. Eating less at night might be better for your weight, your glucose levels and metabolism, helping you to get better rest and feel more balanced energy-wise. And we all know how hard it can be to be well when we don’t feel well!

Reflect on the Day
Spend the early evening hours winding down and taking it easy. Before bed, set aside some time to reflect on the day’s events or journal. Practicing the GLAD technique, a gratitude practice that can help improve your mood, might help you with an extra dose of positivity and set you at peace before bed time.

Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
For many of us, the evenings are when all the not-so-great stuff tends to occur to us. Anxieties about work, personal issues or grief, or other emotional concerns tend to stake their claim on our evenings as we spend most of our days trying to fend off these ills. By making time earlier in the day to work through challenging emotional material, and leaving positive stuff for night time, we set up ourselves up for successful sleep.

These are just some points to consider in your mental health day. If you are able, it may be worth it to throw in an exercise class, some spa treatments or other holistic therapies to help you feel restored. This is a template for you to make them most of your next mental health day.

The CBT formula for good sleep

by BRENDAN STREET
Clinical Lead, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy      

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
EMOTIONAL WELLBEING, EMOTIONAL WELLBEING AT WORK, LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT, SLEEP, WELLBEING AT WORK​
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These cognitive behavioural therapy techniques retrain your body and mind to sleep well at night. Brendan Street explains the basic formula.Most of us will experience a lack of quality sleep at some time, and for some this endures over the long term. Whether you’re a new parent, a shift worker, or feeling the effects of stress and anxiety, sleep is often one of the first things to suffer and it can have severe effects on your overall health. 

Getting to the root of the problem is important, and small adaptions to your lifestyle can make a big difference to your sleep too. But there’s also a formula that is used by cognitive behavioural therapists to tackle the majority of sleep-disturbing factors. 

There are two main interventions that cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) utilises in order to help an individual to tackle sleep difficulties. These interventions are sleep hygiene and stimulus control. Sleep hygiene is about forming good sleep habits and stimulus control works to strengthen the connection between the bed and sleep behaviour.

Implementing the key aspects of these two interventions will help individuals to unwind more quickly when they go to bed and so be ‘sound asleep’. The aspects of the two interventions fit conveniently into this acronym: 

Stimulus control
S – Sleep – The bed should be reserved for sleep and sex only. In order to strengthen the connection with the bed and sleeping you need to associate it with sleeping. The more additional things that you do in bed (read, eat, use smartphone, watch TV) the weaker, more diluted, the connection between sleep and the bed.
O – Observe - Whilst in bed observe the feel of the mattress beneath you, the comfort of the pillows, the sense of being ‘absorbed’ into the mattress. Try to make all the sensations associated with the bed and sleep as vivid as possible.
U – Unable to get to sleep - If you can't sleep after 15 to 20 minutes, apply the quarter of an hour rule. Get up, get out of bed and go to a different room and do something not stimulating for 20 to 30 minutes, then return to bed. If you are still unable to get to sleep after 20 to 30 minutes get up again. Repeat until you sleep. This is hard but necessary. If you lie in bed unable to sleep for long periods you start to associate your bed with wakefulness and maybe agitation. The only way to break the cycle is by re aligning the bed-sleep association.
N – No napping - In order to strengthen the connection between night-time sleep behaviour and the bed, you need to ban any daytime napping. It's essential to associate both the night (and the bed) with sleep and the day with wakefulness. 
D – Decide your routine and stick to it -  If you go to bed at 11:00 pm – always have a fixed rising time no matter how well you sleep. The amount of sleep we need differs from person to person but if you don’t have fixed bed time and rising time the risk is that sleep starts to ‘seep’ into the day and you lose that valuable association between sleep behaviour and night-time/the bed. 

Sleep Hygiene
A – Alcohol and nicotine - Both will interfere with sleep so limit these before bed
S – Sleep environment – Make sure the bedroom is dark enough, comfy enough (pillows, mattress), quiet enough with good air quality and appropriate temperature for sleep
L – Leave it out - Leave laptops, smart phones, TV’s, paperwork out of the bedroom
E – Exercise regularly - Around an hour's exercise a day will help, but leave a ‘buffer’ period of at least 2 hours before bed
E - Eat a balanced diet - Wakefulness can be caused by hunger, but going to bed too full can also cause wakefulness. As such, make sure you consume a balanced diet throughout the day and aim to have a ‘buffer’ period of at least 2 hours before going to bed after eating a large meal. If you’re up late and haven’t eaten for four to five hours a small snack before bed might prevent wakefulness due to hunger.
P – Plan for sleep – have a pre-bedtime wind down. Think of it as your very own – bath, story, bed. Children sleep well when they have a specific routine associated with bed time, and…so do we. As such, try to develop a ‘wind-down’ routine at least 60 minutes before you go to bed. This period should involve ceasing doing stimulating activities (e.g. paperwork) and instead engaging in more relaxing activities – e.g. having a bath, listening to relaxing music etc.
WEDNESDAY 5 OCTOBER 2016

The Science Behind Yoga and Stress
By Dr M Storoni MD PhD on Tuesday July 14th, 2015 - Uplift  

What does bending your body into yoga poses do to your brain chemistry and nerve connections?There are two functional parts of the brain that play a key role in stress. These serve the functions of emotion and cognitive function. So I am calling them the ’emotional’ brain (amygdala and its connections and medial forebrain structures including the medial prefrontal cortex) and the ‘logical’ brain (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, other parts of the prefrontal cortex, parts of the cingulate cortex and parts of the hippocampus).

The emotional brain is able to initiate a ‘stress response’ via the sympathetic nervous system which culminates in adrenaline and cortisol racing through our circulation.The logical brain is always trying to ‘turn-off’ this stress response and it is also trying to restrain the emotional brain. The stronger our logical brain, the better it becomes at doing these two things. When the stress response is ‘turned off’, our parasympathetic nervous system signal is ‘turned on’. This signal ‘relaxes’ the body. So a strong logical brain goes hand in hand with relaxation.

The stress response and ‘relaxing’ signals travel through the body along a particular route and parts of this route have little ‘switches’ which we can physically manipulate to turn the signals on or off. The neck is an example of where such switches are located (by the carotid arteries).
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“Everytime we are holding a posture our logical brain is being activated”

Training the stress circuit
Yoga is training this entire stress circuit at two levels. First, every time we are ‘holding’ a posture, staying very still to concentrate or trying to balance, our logical brain is being activated. When we are bending forwards, our ‘relaxation’ signal is being turned on through the ‘switches’ in the neck. So bending forwards and concentrating at the same time is triggering both the logical brain and the relaxation signal at the same time.

Bending backwards triggers the stress response signal through the switches in our neck. Contracting a muscle also triggers the stress response signal. So, when we bend backwards and contract our muscles while still having to stay still and concentrate on balancing, our logical brain is given an extra challenge. It has to overcome the stress response signal being triggered in these two ways before we can be still and concentrate during a posture. This ‘extra’ resistance the logical brain is having to work against, ‘trains’ it like a muscle.

“New circuitry that enables you to find it easier to control your thoughts is formed” 

Rewiring the nerve connections
At the end of a series of yoga postures, the logical brain has had a ‘workout’. It is buzzing with activity. You feel mentally calm as it is keeping your emotional brain quiet. Training the logical brain in this way for a long time can result in a rewiring of the nerve connections within the logical brain. New circuitry that enables you to find it easier to control your thoughts is formed. You may find it easier to channel your thoughts in the direction you want and not ‘dwell’ on negative thoughts or experiences. This is partly why yoga seems to have a positive effect on depression and anxiety, where sufferers have a tendency to dwell on negative life events. Stronger connections within the logical brain keeps the lid down on the emotional brain and the stress response. This is why yoga can be so effective at battling stress.
The key thing to do is to attempt yoga postures which are structured in a well-formulated sequence where each posture involves a long hold. Then your yoga and stress will begin to be balanced.
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https://upliftconnect.com
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How to Hold Space for Yourself By Azriel ReShel on Friday August 5th, 2016 - Uplift

The Importance of 'Being There' for Yourself

Most people would say they are good at supporting their friends and family, but why are we so bad at being there for ourselves?

When my second eldest daughter was a few months old, she developed colic. She would wake every night, crying for several hours, utterly inconsolable. Nothing I did helped her, not breastfeeding, holding her, rocking her, or my attempts to soothe her. Sometimes her cries pierced me so deeply I felt like giving up and leaving her alone. I felt so powerless.

Though it was difficult, my daughter taught me something vital and precious. As I watched her healing journey, I realised I cannot take away someone else’s pain or rescue them. I cannot change what they are feeling, patch it up and move along. All I could do was witness, be there and be present for her. Yes I got frustrated, angry, and distraught that I couldn’t do more, but eventually I found a place of calm as I sang mantras and focussed on staying peaceful in my own body. In learning to hold space for her, I learned to hold space for myself. In fact, I couldn’t be present for her, without being present for myself. Her pain triggered my own deep pain, and I had to allow myself to move through it if I was going to help her. In learning to hold space for her, I learned to hold space for myself.

It took the crumbling of a 13 year relationship to make me see how much of my energy goes into holding space for others; my four children, ex-partner, and those I work with in my teaching and healing practice. While I can hold space well for others, am sensitive and empathic, I recently realised again that there was a ceiling to this ability. In order to expand my capacity to be there for others, I needed to truly learn how to be there for myself. I was so focussed outwards, that I was neglecting the very thing that makes me solid and potent as a healing force for others: My own wellbeing.

I have a daily requirement to centre, ground and remain in my own core, otherwise I’m knocked off into other people’s solar systems and wander around in a lost galaxy for a while before finding my way home. We all need to hold space for ourselves if we are going to be able to live life in a healthy and balanced way. To expand my capacity to be there for others, I needed to truly learn how to be there for myself.

What exactly does it mean to “hold space” for yourself?
We seem to do it naturally for others, but what does it mean to do it for ourselves? For me, holding space means becoming the container to experience myself; to grow, to feel, to express, to test out, to live. It is being present, treating yourself with care, consideration, kindness, compassion and love. Hearing the needs of your body and mind, feeling your emotions, and listening to the yearning of your soul. It’s a way of being, a lifestyle, a profound choice and a stand you take. It’s not a belief system, but is rather a way of being with yourself and meeting your own needs.This can be lifesaving in intimate relationships, where we can ruin a good thing by trying to make the other meet all our needs.We spend every minute of the day with ourselves. How much of it is good, supportive, and kind?

Holding space is like a great pilgrimage home to your own soul. A key to holding space for yourself is to see yourself with all your faults and without judgement and criticism. To see yourself with kindness and love, just as you would a friend. It’s making friends with your fear, inviting Cousin Self-Doubt, Mrs Perfectionist, Brother Criticism, and Sister Putdown, in for a cup of tea around the fireplace.

Treat yourself with care, consideration, kindness, compassion and love.“Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.”  Nathaniel Brand

Holding space for yourself gives you a place to check your direction, to see who or what is in the driver seat of your life, and to adjust your course when you need to. It brings space and awareness into your life, ensuring your life reflects your soul and your longings, so you don’t have to wake up at age 45 and realise you don’t like who you’ve become.

If you truly want to help others, and make a positive impact on the world, then learning to hold space for yourself, to befriend and love yourself, is the greatest impact you could make on the planet. You can’t hold space for someone else if you can’t be with your own pain and hold space for yourself.  If there’s no room for you in your life, there isn’t really any room for others. When you’re kind to yourself you impact the lives of others by being less reactive, more responsive, more available, empathic, compassionate, kind, present, balanced and at peace.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” Jack Kornfield

But how do we hold space for ourselves?

Here are some simple steps to ensure there is room in your life for you.......
 If there’s no room for you in your life, there isn’t really any room for others.

Nine vital keys to holding space for yourself

1. Embracing your imperfection
Your “imperfections” are what make you unique and can often be the gateway to your greatest gifts. If you try and be like everyone else, you rob the world of your special talents and the rare contribution that only you can make. The more you can accept and learn to love your individuality, the more you will express it and the happier you will be. Some of the world’s most uncompromisingly brazen individuals have made enormous impacts. Who would have ever thought a monobrow could be cool, yet Frida Kahlo made it so! Self-acceptance is key to holding space for yourself. The more you accept and love yourself, the more you will look after yourself and value your own needs.

2. Saying no
When you say ‘no’ to others, you very often say ‘yes’ to yourself. If you’re doing something for others at the expense of yourself, it is not beneficial for anyone. Through years of pleasing others, my new mantra to live by has become: ‘if something feels right in my heart then it will serve others too’.

Honouring yourself always works out well. It’s unkind to put yourself last, and agreeing to do things through obligation always breeds resentment. This is not to say you shouldn’t do things for others (of course you should!), but there’s a way to do it that also supports your own wellbeing. When you say ‘no’ to others, you strengthen your self-esteem, you show yourself that you are important and valuable. And you give others permission to do the same.

3. Developing boundaries.
When you have good boundaries, are assertive and can say ‘no’ without feeling guilty, then obligatory relationships end and you can enter the realm of the undefended heart – a place where you are able to love freely and generously. Much of loving is defended loving. When you know you have the strength to stand up for yourself and stand in your own corner, you can actually love more freely. Boundaries don’t need to shut out, they can actually strengthen bonds.

4. Communing with yourself
Making time to truly connect with yourself supports your overall health and wellbeing. I have a practice each morning and evening where I place my hands over my heart, and drop into my inner world, to visit my deepest self. I tune in to my heart and feel where I’m at, observing how my body is feeling, and noticing my emotions and thoughts. I recall all those fragments of myself, the energy that has been scattered between situations, people and places, and put myself back together like a puzzle. I also take this time to connect with my spiritual nature, to remember I am spirit, and to pray for guidance and support. However, you can do this in whatever way feels right for you. Creative practices like music, art, journalling, or just being in nature, are deeply healing for the spirit that has been left out in the cold.
Making time to truly connect with yourself supports your overall health and wellbeing.

5. Listening
In stillness we get to know who we are. Taking time to be still, alone, to simply be, supports you in getting to know yourself and your dreams, and gives you space to correct your course if you have lost your way. It helps you to shine a light onto negative cycles and habitual patterns. Simply noticing what you ‘do’ is the first step to healing. Observing with kindness, acceptance and humour is key to disrupting the cycle, as criticism keeps us locked into these negative patterns.

6. Reaching for support
In order to hold space for yourself, you must be able to reach out for support when you need it. This strengthens your ability to be there for yourself. Knowing your own limits and knowing you can get support if you need it, makes your power to be there for yourself grounded and deeper.
In order to hold space for yourself, you must be able to reach out for support when you need it.

7. Being authentic
This is you! You know the truth. You know who you are. Don’t hide it from yourself. Have the courage to see all of you; your gifts and your less than perfect bits. When you see yourself with kindness and compassion, you have the power to change aspects of your self or your life that you dislike.

8. Being a good parent to yourself
A creative parent holds space for a child to explore, be creative, test boundaries, let their imagination run wild, experience different personalities, ideas and roles. A great parent doesn’t control or shut down. This is the same when dealing with your inner-child. Allow yourself explore and experience life, empower yourself to make the right choices and live life in your own way. Be an innovative parent to your inner child: loving yourself when you’re sick, being encouraging when you fall over, and always cheering yourself on.

9. Developing supportive rituals
Take a stand for yourself. Do at least one nurturing thing for yourself every day and make a promise to yourself that you will check in with you every day. Just as you would invest time in a friendship, making time to call your friend and find out how she’s doing, or give extra love and support during a rough time, you can do the same with yourself. Truly, you are your own best friend. My thing is warm baths, with flower essences, epsom salts and essential oils. This is my Humpty Dumpty cure, and it works every time!

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the universe, deserve your love and affection” –  Buddha

Feature Image: Artwork by Regina Lord.