This is the height of holiday stress. Here a fast stress reliever:
• Choose a quiet corner
• Turn egg timer on 5 minutes
• Sit with crossed legs on the floor on a cushion; or on a chair
• Keep your back straight - let the top of your head touch Heavens
• Hands: palms-up and open on your knees
• Closed eyes
• Breathe in and out slowly – always start with exhaling (counting regularly might help the beginner)
• Do not move at all except keeping your back straight
• Empty your brain from thoughts and outside disturbances
• Pay attention to your sensations: breathing, aches, itches, fears, etc.:
• Let them happen.
• Stop when the clock rings
• Go on with your day with renewed energy and purpose.
The Five-Minutes Meditation is useful when
• you are stressed out
• your emotions overwhelm you (anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy, etc.)
• you are tempted to binge out on food (perfect to do before each meal in obesity, for instance)
• you suffer with sleeplessness - just do it before retiring to bed
• you are listless and bored and procrastinating
• you have high blood pressure
• you have pains - instead of taking pills
For really learning to meditate, there are good programs, groups, and courses available.
Do not attempt to increase the time above 5 minutes.
Citation
"Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel. It's not about making the mind empty or still, although stillness does deepen in meditation and can be cultivated systematically. Above all, meditation is about letting the mind be as it is and knowing something about how it is in this moment. It's not about getting somewhere else, but allowing yourself to be where you already are. If you don't understand this, you will think you are constitutionally unable to meditate. But that's just more thinking and, in this case, incorrect thinking at that."
"But to stay at it for even five minutes requires intentionality. To make it part of your life requires some discipline. " (From: Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are). Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
The Here and Now
October 27, 2010
Yesterday at yoga, my wonderful teacher Carol Nelson encouraged us to be in the Here and Now.
A great suggestion!
But then I thought: Wait a second!
As a physician I know that the people most in the Here and Now are Alzheimer’s patients. First, in the development of dementia, one loses the future and dwells on the past. Later on even the past dims, and there is nothing there than the Here and Now – a sad state of affairs.
That is not to mean, when your thoughts are churning about a project at work or a past lover who jilted you, it is not a good idea to focus on the Here and Now, take some deep, slow breaths - always start with exhaling! – and feel your diaphragm move.
It only means one shouldn’t stretch a philosophical tenet too far. The Here and Now has it merits – but driven to exclusivity, it becomes hollow and ridiculous. Moderation also is a reigning principle in philosophy.
However - now look at “moderation”, as a concept. When you are falling a love, deeply in love, do you want to “moderate” yourself? Or do you want to live the most important moments of your life?
Questions, questions… Read More
To Sleep or Not to Sleep
July 27, 2010
We all have heard that the tryptophan in milk, cheese or turkey makes us fall asleep faster – so off we go and enjoy a little snack at bedtime. I guess even doctors have given that advice.
It is bad advice. Tryptophan does not do the trick – and melatonin from wine or grapes does not do much either. Alcohol is the worst soporific because it makes you fall asleep by dampening down your brain - only your brain recovers and gets over-excited. So, you won't sleep long.
One should have the last meal not later than six or seven pm - and NOT have a snack before turning in to bed. We call it breakfast because we are supposed to break the nightly fast in the morning. If we eat late, the body is busy digesting instead of sleeping and repairing. Repair is crucial because daily we are exposed to harmful chemicals and radiation that break DNA strands which could lead to cancer.
The two things that help falling asleep easier are:
1. Going to bed with the early signs of tiredness. For most people that would be between eight and ten. If you then watch TV or sit at the computer, you get a second wind and sleep the worse for it. As a doctor who did many nights of duty, I know that one can experience even get a third and fourth and so on wind if needed – adrenalin always gets us going - but it is definitely not healthy.
2. Warm feet make you fall asleep as a study showed; cold feet keep you up. Taking a warm foot bath, or going to bed with socks might help. Perhaps you even one day you try the crazy-sounding “wet socks” - an old-world sleep remedy. I have tried them – they help: You need two pairs of socks; preferably one cotton, one wool, but both cotton works, too. Wet the cotton pair with cold water (as cold as comes from the faucet), wring lightly; they should be wet but not dripping. Put on the woolen pair of socks on top of it. You can wrap your feet in a towel if you want – but a bit of moisture does not hurt your bedding. Sleep.
You will sleep like a baby. If you wake in the night, you may remove towel and socks. But you might not wake until the morning. Read More