October Balancing Act

 Until October 23rd we are in the sign of Libra, the scales of balance. How fitting.

Let's Cut to the Chase

Exercises for staying balanced, my own professional non-medical opinion.

- Breathe. So simple, right? Yep. Just stop for 10 seconds and take deep, slow breaths into your belly.

          ~If you want to get really fancy, imagine a stream of green or sky blue light traveling into your body with each inhale. Watch it pass down your throat, through your heart and collect in your belly. When you exhale imagine you are letting go of all the things you no longer need. Things like negative emotions, ideas and stories, negative thoughts, also physical challenges like pain or discomfort. There is no limit to what you can choose to release if it is no longer serving you or adding to your life. 

- Stop doing so much. Yeah, this one's simple too. Have you ever stressed out because there wasn't really enough time to go to the gym, but you felt like every single workout was so important, and if you didn't get it in everything would turn to sh*t? Well, from what I've read the stress alone will cause your body to hold onto more weight than if you had just gone home, made a healthy dinner and read a book. (PS, it could be anything that creates stress).

          ~An anecdote: This past May I stopped going to the gym and I've never lost weight so easily in my life. Seriously. I'm amazed. Now, I am NOT saying you should ditch the exercise and eat cake. But, my combined 30 mins walk to and from the subway everyday, plus walking once I'm in the city, plus yoga a couple times a week is plenty exercise for me BECAUSE I ALSO eat a very healthy diet with little to no refined sugar and lots of lightly cooked vegetables.

- Unplug. The light from our technological devices is proven to mess with our sleep because it delays the production of melatonin in our bodies. It's a fairly important hormone, since it has everything to do with regulating our sleep cycle and telling our body it's time to pass out.

So there you have 3 viable, easy to implement options. Breathe. Stop trying to do so much; instead take a brisk stroll and use the extra time to make good food. And finally shut off your electronics a couple hours before you want to go to sleep. Try it for a week and see how you feel, I dare you.

A Rant About The State of Things 

Is It Just Me...

Or is the world waking up to the widely studied and well documented FACT that our physical health has EVERYTHING to do with our mental and emotional health, and vice versa? All I see lately are articles, studies, reports, etc that speak of the mind-body connection.

I'm going to take it a bit further: How many people believe that an event which happened when they were 3 created neural pathways that led to habits which have now resulted in an autoimmune disorder? Did you know that people who suffer from IBS are also shown to have mental instabilities? Brain-gut connection???

Speaking of gut and digestion: while we've certainly come a long way in terms of feeding ourselves properly, we had to have trial after trial to get labels on GMO foods, take sugary foods out of the school system (which we're still fighting), and to put our health in the hands of those who have our best interests in mind and not those who are trying to make the most profit.

Yes, I believe we ARE indeed waking up to the harsh reality that we cannot trust big companies to tell us what is healthy or the pills we should be taking. Instead we are listening to our OWN intuition, our own bodies, our own nature. Keep listening, we have all the knowledge we need already within us. It's simply a matter of discovering the key which will unlock it.