Author: Nancy

 

In the previous article I already told you that you sometimes think that you are ‘resting’ and ‘recuperating’ but that in reality you are not… you are still in your ‘red’ zone…

How do you go to your ‘green’ zone? By artificially activating your parasympathetic or… in order words: by doing relaxation exercises.

There are many activities that can bring you to your ‘green zone’: relaxing massages, a warm bath, a day at the spa, certain forms of yoga, etc…

But today I want to focus on 3 techniques that you can use anywhere and anytime, even when you only have 5 minutes…

1. Abdominal breathing

Abdominal breathing means breathing deeply from your abdomen or from the bottom of your lungs. It is exactly the opposite of the shallow, high-chest breathing you use when anxious or tense. To see if you are breathing from your abdomen, place your hand on your abdomen and watch it rise each time you inhale. Abdominal breathing will help you relax any time you are feeling anxious. There are different forms. The easiest is the 4-4-4-4. (I already talked about it in ‘Defeat your stress in 10 days’)

1. Inhale while counting to 4
2. Hold your breath while counting to 4
3. Exhale while counting to 4
4. Don’t do anything while counting to 4

Do the full set (4-4-4-4) 3 times.

Following these steps can actually make you start yawning: proof that your parasympathetic nervous system has been stimulated.

2. Stopping and landing:

Stopping and landing comes from Mindfulness. It is exactly what it says: you ‘stop’ whatever you are doing and ‘land’ in the here and now. How do you do that?

• Settle into a comfortable sitting position on a chair. Allow your back to adopt an erect, dignified, and comfortable posture. Place your feet flat on the ground, gentle close your eyes.
• Focus your attention on the sensations of touch and pressure in your body where it makes contact with the floor and your chair.
• Bring your awareness to your breathing:
  • Where do you feel your breathing? In your belly? In your throat? Near your nostrils?
  • Are you breathing deeply or are you breathing quickly?
  • You don’t have to breathe in a certain way. Let the breath breathe itself. Just observe the sensations, observe what is.
  • Maybe you will notice changes, maybe not…
  • You might notice it’s not so easy to stay focussed on your breath. Your mind will wander away… You might notice thoughts, emotions or physical sensations.
  • Notice it and … bring your awareness back to your breathing.
  • It doesn’t matter how often your mind wanders, notice it, and bring your attention back to your breathing.
  • Do this as long as you like (5 minutes is a good start).

You can find out more about Mindfulness here.

3. Heart coherence:

Heart coherence is a breathing method that is claimed to facilitate circulation and autonomic nervous system balance. It involves breathing at the nominal rate of x (find out exact number in link) breaths per minute with equal inhalation and exhalation. It also increases heart rate variability and brings it into coherence, but here we are more interested in the calming effect: it activates your parasympathetic.

You can use an app that ‘accompanies’ you while breathing. But I want to teach you a technique that you can also use when you don’t have your mobile phone nearby… (hard to imagine for some, but still…). When you are learning the technique, all you need is a piece of paper, a pen and a timer.

Three times a day, at a moment of your choice

• Sit up straight, feet flat on the ground with a piece of paper (landscape) and a pencil in front of you.
• Set a timer for 3 minutes.
• Focus on your breathing for 3 minutes.
• Let your hand draw waves at the rythm of your breath: while breathing in your hand goes up, while breathing out your hand goes down.
• Thoughts will come up. Whenever they do, don’t follow them but do go back to focussing on your breath and on your hand drawing the waves.

Usual questions:

• Eyes open or closed? You choose. If you decide to keep them open, try not to fix your attention on something specific. It might keep you from focusing on your breath.
• It’s not about having a ‘beautiful’ result. So when you come to the end of the page, go back or start another row underneath, or turn the page, or…

What’s next?

• Put the date and time on it.
• Do this for 1 week, 3 times a day. After having done this for a full week, go to the instructions for week 2.

(Instructions for week 2 and 3 can be found here)

These are the 3 techniques. Which one will you try out? Maybe you know another one? I’d love to find out in the comments below!

If you liked the above, you can sign up for more Tips & Tricks here.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

 

 

 

If you call yourself a passionate professional, be it an entrepreneur or a employee, you probably like to work hard. It’s what you do and… what you are proud of. You’re very busy, working long days and then there’s your ‘time off’, which you also like to use as efficiently as possible.

Maybe you want to be healthy and because of that you work out, want to cook healthy food…
You might want to spend quality time with your family, planning and exciting trips to have lots of quality memories …
You might want to attend courses, meet friends, visit museums and go to the movies…
Maybe you suffer a little bit from FOMO (=Fear of Missing Out)?
This shouldn’t be a problem, however, it does mean that after a very busy day, you just continue to be equally ‘busy’…
And when do you rest?

“I love these activities … I find them relaxing.
Am I not allowed to relax after a hard day’s work?”

I understand you like these activities, so do I. And it’s very likely that when you do them, you don’t think about work (I hope so!) but… not working and/or not thinking about work is not the same thing as resting and… your body really needs to rest.

You’ve probably heard about the stress reaction: whenever you’re confronted with a stressful situation, you’re body goes into the fight or flight reaction. It all happens automatically and it’s taken care of by your autonomic nervous system. This autonomic nervous system consists of 2 parts: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic sets the fight-or-flight in action, you can compare it to an accelerator. The parasympathetic, on the other hand, makes sure that after the stressful event, everything goes back to normal. This would be your brake.

“But what are you talking about? I don’t feel stressed at all?!”

A lot of people don’t know that the combo of accelerator and brake is working all the time, not just in stressful situations… From the moment you’re ‘active’, you are hitting the accelerator, stress or no stress… You’re entering into the ‘red’ zone… And how do you recuperate? Mostly while you are asleep, but also when meditating or practicing relaxation techniques… At that moment you are recharging the batteries and you find yourself in the ‘green’ zone.

But what if you keep on being busy and stay in the red zone… ? This might stop your accelerator-brake system from working properly so that you will stay in the ‘red’ zone, even when you are sleeping (and you are supposed to be recharging…).

And do you know what the worst part is? You might not realise this is happening, until you feel increasingly more tired and finally … it’s too late: you might fall ill.

How do you know you are spending too much time in the ‘red’ zone? That’s our topic for next time but in the meantime: make sure to create enough ‘green’ zones in between the ‘red’ ones…

• Don’t stuff your days with countless activities (yes, also the fun things get you into the ‘red’ zone…). “Can’t I do anything for fun anymore?” Of course you can! But make sure there is also time to recuperate.
• Don’t rush from one meeting to another, not even when it’s ‘fun’ meetings… Create short spaces of rest (5 minutes can be enough).
• Make sure to recuperate a bit extra at night: especially the last hour before going to bed shouldn’t be too active. No intensive sports activities, no scary movies or videogames, no computer screens… Make sure to prepare your system for relaxation, so you can recuperate during your sleep.
• Make sure to book some extra ‘green’ time during the weekend. ‘Green often stands for ‘slow’ or ‘rest’: read a nice book, go for a walk (not too quickly…), enjoy some cuddling with the kids…

 

You can’t burn the candle at both ends.

Think about top athletes: after their top performances, there are always periods of rest, to make sure they can perform again next time. So… when you work hard, make sure to rest ‘hard’… , so you can keep on doing the job you love in a healthy way!

What can YOU do to add some more ‘green’ to your life? Please share below!

If you liked the above, you can sign up for more Tips & Tricks here.
Looking forward to hearing from you!