Movement Magic
Stress Relief, Sleep, Emotional Health
Emotional Health affects our physical health.
Stress, lack of sleep and what we feel and think have been shown to affect our overall health and our hormones.
Below you find a little bit more information about each of these and how practices like mindfulness and mindful movement like Yoga or Feldenkrais can support your emotional health and general wellbeing
Stress Management and Resilience and Health
Stress is known to affect our hormones and health, including our digestive, pelvic floor and vaginal health. Managing stress and improving sleep can be the most effective way to step back to health and return to life.
Irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes and weight gain have all been linked to stress. Stressed individuals also seem more likely to be affected by reflux, bloating and other digestive issues. Stress has been shown to change the microbiome in the gut and vagina and affects our hormonal balance. It also can affect the tone of our pelvic floor.
So we need to manage our stress levels. There are many techniques that can help up manage stress, help us relax and improve stress resilience. Some find movement helps them - this may be mindful, somatic movement or restorative Yoga or, for some, it can be a walk in nature. Others prefer traditional relaxation techniques, such as breathing, meditation and mindfulness.
As a qualified mindfulness teacher with many years of experience in mindful movement practices, such as Feldenkrais and restorative Yoga teacher, I can help you find a technique that works for you. I am also a qualified insomnia therapist and Yoga for Sleep Recovery practitioner.
"The mind is like the wind and the body like the sand: if you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand." Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen
Physical health also needs a healthy mind. A healthy mind relies on our ability to deal with our thoughts and feelings, acknowledging them and letting go those feelings that no longer serve us. This is "emotional hygiene".
Imagine your mind as a wardrobe and your feelings as the clothes in that wardrobe. If you never tidy that wardrobe and just add more and more clothes, it won't be long before your wardrobe overflows. So every once in a while you need to tidy up: check which clothes still fit you and which ones are just taking up space, never to be worn again. The same applies to our feelings, especially those like shame, embarrassment, fear or a sense that we are not good enough. It's time for a tidy up! Time for "emotional hygiene"!
Respected psychologists have found that feelings are not just in our mind but are deeply lodged in our bodies.
Somatic and mindful movement practices, such as Feldenkrais and Body Mind Centering, encourage us to sense our bodies. This might bring up all sorts of feelings. Somatic practices support us as we acknowledge these feelings without judging them. We can accept them for what they are, realize that we are more than these feelings and so we can put them to rest.
Emotional Health can be Practiced
Yoga and Chi Gong practitioners have known this for thousands of years and developed practices that can help us let go of unhelpful negative thinking, calm our nervous system and release stress. They also offer reflective practices that invite us to look deeper at our emotional landscape.
These models of self reflection can be described as body-psychotherapeutic, poetic maps that allow us to support us in achieving our goals, dreams and hopes.
In the Yoga and Daoist wellness model you do not have to reveal and relive the actual story that caused the stress (I am not a psychotherapist, psychologist or counsellor). Instead, it offers simple techniques and practices that enable us find out who we are and what we want from life. These practices can help us find more joy and happiness and guide us towards a life in which we fulfill our dreams, goals and ambitions.
Incidentally, in Yoga psycho-therapeutic models of self awareness, our pelvis and digestive area are the areas where we find our power of creativity, of digesting ideas, thoughts and emotions. So join me to thrive and reconnect to your vibrant, powerful, joyful self.
How can you work with me?
Contact me to discuss how a tailor-made plan can help you to return back to health. Book a 30 minute pre-chat to tell me more about your issue and get some great general tips. £30
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