Pressing the pause button on your busy life is easier within the serene environment of class I know but I thought I would start your week with a few yoga inspired tips to take your weekly oasis of calm and spread it through your week. So, here are a three 60 second techniques to bring a little positive balance when your day is proving challenging!
#1 Activate the right brain
Broadly speaking the left hemisphere of our brain is where our rational logical mind lives, and our right hemisphere is home to our sense of peace and creativity. At work we can tend to get stuck in left brain dominance, very task focused and logical: all good things. However, if you are wanting to i find a little moment of peace in your day take 60 seconds to consciously activate more of your right brain. Simply use a few rounds of the Alternate Nostril Breathing that we start class with, OR, you can simply close your mouth AND your RIGHT nostril and breath in and out 10 breaths just through the LEFT nostril SLOWLY to energise the right brain. Take 60 seconds to do this before a meeting and notice how much more calm and focused you are. Spooky.
#2 Relax the face
So much tension can build up in the face, we are sending stress messages to our body just from the determined set of our jaw and our wrinkled brow. Try this great yoga asana ‘Lion’ to release the tension from your face and to send relaxation throughout your body. You will need to work in an office where you can close the door for this one, or pop to the bathroom to try it unless you have very incurious colleagues in your open plan office! So.sit quietly, put your hands in your lap.then scrunch your face up, tight tight tight, scrunch the forehead, wrinkle the nose, grit the teeth: make a real scrunched old prune face..then.big exhale.do the lion face.as you can see demonstrated above by Yoga Picture Lady and our very own Richie Macaw, Piri Weepu and Rico Gear (yes, I did search hard for Dan Carter one reaslising that would be stress relief for many all on it’s own but couldn’t find one of him doing Lion face sadly)..so.. .open your mouth wide and stretch your tongue out, curling its tip down toward the chin, open your eyes wide, contract the muscles on the front of your throat, and exhale the breath slowly out through your mouth with a big “ha” sound. Then just check in with how you are feeling.better huh? I know, you don’t realise just how much tension you are holding in your face until you release it. Nice.
#3 Relax the mind
If you are getting super stressed by a particular task or person ask yourself.how much will this thing, or this persons opinion of this thing, matter to me 5 years from now? 99% of the time the answer is ‘hmmmm, not so much actually’ and simply asking the question is accompanied by a release of mental tension. So, just realigning your long term perspective with this simple question can take much of the emotion and the frustration out of the task or the interaction and make it much simpler to complete. So.all it takes is 60 seconds to press pause and your body and mind will thank you for it: hope this bring a little calm and stress relief to your day!.let me know what works for you.
