Things to know about Exercise
30 Dec 2011 Leave a Comment
in Shiatsu
Hello Folks, I sincerely hope you are having a good festive season, with plenty of smiles and joy.
What with New Year around the corner, I thought it would be the perfect time to offer you my long promised Health & Wellbeing tip, looking at the 2nd of the Chinese Free Therapies – exercise.
The first of these therapies we looked at was Diet, which could also be very apt for this time of year. If you are planning on making changes to your diet as part of your New Year’s resolution, whether for reasons of weight loss or general health, then please read this first, as it could help you to avoid the misery of a diet, and increase the chances of you keeping up your good habits, and reduce the chances of you putting it all back on as soon as your diet ends! Just by following the simple tips I offer here, one of my clients lost 2 stone – effortlessly and painlessly.
If your resolution is anything to do with being less angry, afraid, stressed, or to be more positive, then check out the mindfulness course I am offering in January. We finished one before Christmas and one participant said “Thank you for making me a better and happier person”. Seriously, they should be teaching this in schools, and we’d all be a much happier and more productive race.
If you are looking to address other areas of your health, then perhaps you should consider booking in for a health and wellbeing session – In these hour-long sessions, we can look at physical issues either with shiatsu, a hands-on physical and energy based treatment, or through personal yoga instruction. We can also look at emotional/mental or lifestyle issues.
Or if you want a group yoga class, I start back on January 3rd, Tuesday & Thursday evenings and Saturday Mornings.
Whatever, I hope you find the following on exercise useful.
Happy New Year.
Exercise
The human body loves to move! It was designed to move, and for thousands of years that is just what it did, hunting, gathering, farming, getting water from the water hole, all very physical activities that were a necessary part of daily life. Now through technological advances, cars, machines, taps, and the comfy chair our daily lives – for the majority of us – have become much more sedentary, and this leads to a whole set of problems, obviously physical, but also impacting on our emotional and mental health.
Obviously Exercise gets our heart pumping, improving our circulation, and improves our lung capacity. It also benefits our waste disposal system – the lymphatic system. The Lymphatic system is organised very much like the circulation, but whereas our blood is pumped around the body, the lymph relies on the body movement to pump it around the body, so any toxins – from food, or drink for example – need that bodily movement to get them out.
It also very much helps to relieve stress, and should be done for this reason alone. If you ever watch ducks fight, you will see that after the fight, they flap their wings a few times, and then the go back to floating peacefully around. Contrast that to humans, say for example someone insults you: The common thing to do then is to spend the next few days telling everyone about it, quite simply we don’t let go of it. Byron Katie asks at this point, they said what they said once. You run the events through your head 20 times and each time it hurt. Who has hurt you more, you or the person who insulted you?!
One of the reason we struggle to let go so much, is that our modern lives are so stressful, in fact most people spend the majority of their lives in a state of stress. Our bodies are designed for short periods of stress, to deal with immediate dangers – our fight or flight response, and to then return to a relaxed state – much like the ducks. We spend our lives in this fight or flight state, but it is very rare that we either fight or flee – meaning the body never receives the signals to stand down, to reduce the levels of adrenaline and other stress hormones in the body, the body needs that physicality in order to let go of the stress.
In Chinese medicine, anger, frustration and repressed emotions all block the flow of the energy of our liver, and what does the liver love most – you got it exercise, either a good stretch or getting sweaty!
Ideally we would do at least 20 minutes of exercise a day, which may not be realistic in everyone’s life, but here are always opportunities if you look for them, take the stairs not the lift, walk to the shop rather than go by car – you never know what you might see or experience on the way.
So what is the best form of exercise? Very simply one you enjoy. Not only will you be more likely to carry on with it, and be more motivated to give it your all, but you actually get more benefit from it. Firstly the body releases happy-making endorphins, which are pleasurable and reinforce your desire to continue doing exercise. And secondly you are not getting frustrated and stressed. It is for this reason that I don’t recommend gyms for example. The pleasure that you get from these is all about the adrenaline rush, the actual act of being in the gym is not in itself enjoyable.
I would always recommend that people try Yoga or Tai Chi, which are very nourishing for the body, work the whole body, and are also very meditative, and the more aware you are of your body during exercise the more benefit you get, as the nervous system gets better feedback about what is going on. If these aren’t to your taste, or maybe you just want something more physical, then I would suggest swimming, dancing, sex (lots of pleasurable endorphins here!), or martial arts – again as these all work the whole body. Personally, on top of the yoga, I play football once a week, just to really get that heart pumping.
The real rule of thumb here though is, are you looking forward to the exercise itself, or just how you feel after? Really try to find something you actually enjoy!
So Remember, Enjoy!
I always welcome the feedback or questions I get from these tips, so please keep them coming. If you know someone who would be interested in receiving them, ask them to send an email to pete@authentichealth.co.uk, or sign-up to my facebook page. Pete Anderson – Health and Wellbeing
For more info on me, please visit my website www.authentichealth.co.uk
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