29 Aug Is stress and friend or foe?
Hiya I want to introduce a friend into your lives. He is not on Facebook at the moment. His name is Stress! How well do you know Stress? Not at all well I bet. I would like you to invite him for a cup of tea or a pint of beer and get to know him really well like your old friend Mr Relaxation. Through the practice of Yoga we welcome Relaxation and train to let go and destress would it not be equally beneficial to practice at least once a month on Stress to become aware and keep a check on it. Hence Sefali?s Yoga practice of ?Stress and Management? classes endeavours to bring about mindfulness of stress and be acceptable of the need for both Messrs Stress and Relaxation. Don?t beat Stress become aware of it. Stress is normal and he is necessary please don?t reject him as he may turn on you. LOL (laughing out loud!).
Being aware of Stress and management of it is vital to us as understanding the significance of relaxation and cultivation of it. Stress and Relaxation are biologically built into us in what is called the Autonomic Nervous System. Stress is part of our Sympathetic Nervous System and Relaxation is part of our Parasympathetic Nervous System. Stress is like putting our foot on an accelerator of a car to make us act and react with events in our lives quickly and Relaxation is like taking our foot off the accelerator to allow us to have a break. To be a good Yogee you need to understand the causes of stress, how you manage it and how we can best bring about relaxation to counteract that stress. The body naturally knows how to deal with both aspects automatically which means you don?t have to say ?right I think you better put your foot on the accelerator now and get ready to run as I can see a lion coming to attack us?. If you were to think to open the car door, start the car engine put your foot on the gas, accelerator and drive the car you will definitely be dead meat and his next meal! The body takes care of this automatically so you don?t have to think. To think means delay. Your perception will sense danger before you probably become consciously aware of it. Your senses will become sensitive to stimuli. Your eyes will dilate, hearing will become better; your heart rate will increase as more blood will be required to be sent to the muscles; the blood will carry more sugar to the muscles which are now ready to ?fight or flight? in the situation. I would of course choose to run! As soon as the danger of the lion disappears we can busk under the shady tree lie down in Savasana and recover just to let the heart rate, insulin levels, and muscles to recover until the next time.
Luckily we don?t have to run away from lions, tigers or grizzly bears in our environment. What we do have instead is the good old payment of mortgages, bills, taxes, mounting debt, employment and recession issues, exam pressures, relationship problems and other family crises such as bereavements, marital breakdown, recession, unemployment and of course the dwindling NHS system. You?ve heard the expression ?that?s life?. In away having a lion coming to you is easily recognisable as stress. It comes instantly and is dealt with instantly and your life returns to normal. The pressures are now mounting and are of a different nature; replying to emails, texting, Facebooking, Twittering, driving to beat the traffic and struggling to find your parking space because of increased mounting traffic or lack of housing. The stressors are now of a different nature and what is causing stress can often be confusing. Hence we must keep up-to-date with it.
In my Stress and management workshops once a month I seek to make us aware of Stress to remind us that Stress is normal and necessary just as significant as Relaxation. The only difference is that Stress is now a bad taboo only because we do not understand how Stress works. I practice Stress awareness by giving an overview of what stress is, what causes it, how it affects us, why it is necessary, how to recognise it and to recognise it spiralling out of context, and look at ways that you work to reduce it and how they can be improved and other methods which may help to reduce it. For example will attending Yoga classes get rid of the stress or will a change of our attitude towards the stressor reduce the affect of it. Of course Yoga and relaxation not only changes our perception and renews us with energy to tackle the issues but we must learn to deal with the underlying cause of the stressor head on also. Our dear friend is a bit schizophrenic his personality is constantly changing hence its affect is changing with it as a result our understanding and management of it has to change also. Messrs Stress and Relaxation come together hand in hand.
Come to Sefali?s Yoga at her private studio of small classes and learn to befriend Stress. The first class starts this Sunday, 1 September at a special offer of 10 from 9 am to 10 am.
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