Hi and welcome to this next blog...
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In this very busy life that we are living, it is no wonder that we feel tired and out of balance some of the time.
The question is, How can we get everything done we want to and still feel energised and healthy?
One of the first steps is to become more aware of how we breathe and to find ways to get more balance into our hectic lives.
How are you breathing right now?
As a healer and holistic therapist, I have noticed over the years how shallow most of us breathe and how breathing this way can affect our health, vitality and emotional balance. I can say that I have had to really work on improving my breathing over the years and to change such an unconscious pattern, I had to write reminder notes to myself in order to focus my attention on my breathing and to practice different types of breathing exercises on a daily basis.
About 5 years ago I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had my thyroid removed, due to chronic stress and not taking good enough care of myself. Getting cancer was quite a shock at first and was definitely a wake up call for me to stop, listen and fill myself up again. After this experience, I decided to become a kundalini yoga teacher so I could not only continue to improve my health and wellbeing but to help other women and men as well to do the same. This certainly has changed and improved my life along with my daily spiritual practices.
Chronic stress plays a big part in affecting our health and wellbeing on all levels including our glands and other systems. Our glands are the guardians of our health. We age much faster when our glandular system is affected. It gets affected by all that we do and not having enough balance in our lives.
Where is your life out of balance?
Who we are, what we think about and feel about and the way we breathe all affects our endocrine glands.
I would like to share with you some pranayam exercises from Yogi Bhajan you can practice on a daily basis to give yourself an energy lift as well as help you to feel calmer, have better concentration and cope more easily with stresses of daily life.
To Energise Yourself: sit with a straight spine either in a chair or on the floor. Block your left nostril with your left thumb. Keep the other fingers straight up like an antennae. Take 26 long, deep breathes; breathing into your belly, bring the breath up to your solar plexus and then up to your collar bone through your right nostril. Then inhale through both nostrils and relax for 1-2 minutes or longer if you can.
To Feel More Calm: When you are feeling overanxious. stressed and nervous and want to feel more calm and balanced, sit with a straight spine and block off your right nostril with your right thumb and keep the other fingers straight up. Take 26 long, deep and complete breaths through your left nostril. Then inhale through both nostrils and relax for a few minutes
Practice long deep yogic breathing every day for at least 3-5 minutes and then increase the time as you are able. Imagine you are breathing into 3 balloons. Breathe deeply into your navel centre and then bring your breathe up to your diaphragm and then up to your collarbone and then exhale all the way out. This will get much more oxygen into your blood cells and body. Imagine breathing out all of your stress and tension with your exhale and breathing in energy, light and peace with each inhale. This will begin to not only improve your energy levels but your health and wellbeing as well.
Kundalini Yoga was brought to the west in the 1960s by Yogi Bhajan from India. Each class combines postures, breath, chanting, meditation and relaxation to give the student a full experience of healing and rejuvenation for body, mind and spirit. It is a non-stressful way to promote flexibility, cardiovascular capability, and to cultivate energy, serenity, personal power and spiritual awakening.
No matter how stressed or tired you are feeling when you come into the class; afterwards you will feel much more peaceful and re-energised. This yoga brings you back to a deeper place within yourself.
There are teachers world wide. For Australia/New Zealand, visit: kundalini yoga association - KYTANZ
Laurie is also on facebook
Peace and blessings, Laurie
So true! Thanks for the blog Laurie. This article brought up 2 things for me. 1. Late last week I was crying a lot, over things that normally wouldn't make me cry. It wasn't until a friend pointed out to me that I wasn't breathing properly that I realised I had been working myself into a massive stress/anxiety knot! The crying was my body trying to release that tension.
ReplyDelete2. I have had a very bad sinus infection for nearly 2 weeks and when I stopped to do the breathing exercises you had posted I realised that I haven't been breathing properly for weeks!!
Thank you for bringing light to the situation.
Sarah