Emotional Health and Weight Loss

I'm a firm believer in the ability of physical health to improve one's mental health. The attitude of the body is the attitude of the mind, after all. If you are in a bad mood, you'd be amazed just how much positive impact a workout can have. It can be cardio, Tai Chi, strength training, stretching, anything really. When the body is moved around and feels healthy, that releases chemicals in the brain that help stabilize your emotions.

However, it is important to distinguish between a simple mood swing, and a more serious or chronic mental health issue. Mind-Body techniques can be used to treat many mental health issues, but they are used in a preventative way. For example, mindfulness meditation can help prevent Major Depressive Episodes, but it isn't used as a treatment during these episodes. The same goes for anxiety: if you keep to a mind-body exercise routine while you are feeling good, it's very possible that your anxiety levels will drop, and you won't have as many anxiety attacks. But if you are having an anxiety attack, doing Tai Chi forms is not how you should get through it.

This also applies to non-clinical, chronic emotional states, like grieving or mourning. These are natural processes that require time, loved ones, and often counseling, to properly deal with. If you want to stay as healthy as possible, whether that means losing weight, building muscle, or just being active, it is imperative that you first acknowledge, and seek treatment for, any chronic emotional issues you are experiencing.

Once you are emotionally stable again, then you should develop your mind-body routine and pursue your physical health goals. A peaceful mind can be harnessed to heal and strengthen your body, mind, energy, and spirit. A worried and bothered mind cannot. Weight loss is 50% willpower, and strong willpower comes from a peaceful mind.

Happy Stretching!

The Power of Water for Weight Loss

Water is one of the most powerful wellness tools, and drinking it is a great way to begin a healthy habit. But, it is much more important for weight loss than you think.

Exercise nuts always claim that exercising makes them feel great. This is probably true, because exercising increases the production of endorphins, which activate the pleasure centers in our brain. However, there are plenty of people who feel tired, grumpy, and just physically and mentally bad after exercising.

These people are dehydrated.

It's as simple as that. Sweating in the gym, even for just half an hour, can cause you to lose enough water to actually be dehydrated, especially if this is your first week into a new exercise routine. Normally, your body will automatically make you more thirsty over the first few days of exercising, and you'll be able to make up for the water you lost.

The down side is, you may give up on exercising completely before you can make up for that lost water. Dehydration has some awful side-effects including headaches, muscle soreness, dizziness, negative mood, and many others. If those aren't enough to make us quit exercising, I don't know what is!

But you can easily avoid these post-workout hangovers by simply drinking plenty of water for a few days before you exercise. If you are't drinking any glasses of water during the day, definitely start. If you are getting at least one glass per day, why not bring that up to 2 or 3 glasses a day before you start your new weight loss routine? You want your body to have extra water going into the workout, so that rehydrating after the sweat session is fast, and the side-effects are minimal.

Here's a funny way to know if you have enough water to exercise: your pee should be totally clear. Clear urine means that your blood is free of waste (which is what normally turns your urine yellow) and it means you have absorbed as much water as you can, so your body is releasing the excess.

So go drink some water and good luck with your exercises!

The Attitude of the Body is the Attitude of the Mind

As humans, we are deeply connected to body language. Slumped shoulders, a stiff posture, wide eyes, these signs communicate things to us about the emotions of the people who carry them. For a long time, it was believed that this connection between your mind and your body only went one way: the way you felt changed the way your body looked.

But recent research into nerve and muscle feedback has provided evidence for a two-way connection: your body language can change how you feel. So far, the research has focused on making people smile more, or frown less, and then having them report their mood throughout the experiment. As you could probably guess, doing either one makes people feel happier and emotionally lighter.

But if you ask me, you can already extend this kind of body-to-mind therapy to your mind-body routines, and for more than just smiling. Think about how you want to feel, and then picture what body language goes along with that. It's like being an actor.

If you want to feel strong and confident before a workout, stand up straight and puff out your chest. If you want to calm down, lay down and let your shoulders relax. If you want to feel good about your new weight loss routine, smile! Maybe you could even hold a chopstick between your teeth like they did in the experiment to create an artificial smile.

Most importantly for your wellness, be mindful and pay attention to the emotions that your body language is communicating. Not just to others, but to yourself as well. Subconsciously, your mind will pick up on your shoulders slumping, or your back hunching, or your feet dragging. Flip those signs of sadness around into body language of happiness and confidence, and your mind will catch on sooner or later. 

Happy Stretching!

The Long and Short of Weight Loss Motivation

People are notoriously bad at keeping their eye on the longterm goal. When it comes to motivation, if we don't get results soon, we feel like giving up.

Sometimes, we get good results soon, and then they taper off. And when the going gets tough, our desire for results isn't met, and our ability to commit tapers off as well.

While health and fitness are about perseverance, there are ways of thinking about your goals that make them easier to reach.

If your ultimate goal is weight loss, you can't feel closer to that goal every day. Our bodies simply cannot burn pounds of fat that quickly, so if you are measuring your daily achievements with a scale, you are going to be disappointed.

However, with a little mindfulness, we can measure how we feel after we workout. We can pay attention to how our body feels, and how our energy level is, and how well we sleep. Those things all happen within hours of our workout. If those feelings are your goal, and you pay attention to your progress toward them, then you will feel rewarded every day that your exercise.

Focus on the immediate rewards that come with working out. If you value those results more and more, you will be motivated enough each day to stick to your routine. And when you stick to your routine, you lose weight. It just takes a while.

Happy stretching!

Mind-Body Workout #7: Workout with the Kids

The kids are home from school, and you can't keep them at summer camp forever. That means, sooner or later, the family needs to find some activities to do together to release all that extra energy. So today, we're giving you a mind-body workout for the whole family (or just the kids) that is designed to be fun and keep everyone moving and involved.

Good Luck!

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Mind-Body Workout #7: Workout with the Kids

Move like an octopus: This movement is good for a few reasons. First, the kids will have fun pretending their arms are little octopi, and the more they get into it, the better it will be for them. Second, I suggest you do this in the water, like at the beach or a pool. The water resistance keeps you from straining your muscles and moving too fast, and it makes the octopus game even more fun!

Legs like a windmill: This exercise is pretty intense, which is probably why the kids will love it. Just make sure they stand far enough apart so they don't accidentally kick each other. The parents may have trouble keeping up, but that's okay, let the kids get that energy out while the parents grab a cold drink.

Moving Meditation: This meditation (kind of like patty-cake) requires that the kids focus on their fine motor movements. It doesn't leave a lot of room for talking or watching TV or texting. Most young children are too active and excited to appreciate meditation that is quiet and motionless. Instead, give them this little clapping pattern to repeat, and watch as they slowly calm down. 

Funny Noises: Lastly, after the kids have sat down for the moving meditation, go ahead and do a vocal meditation. Have the kids focus on the sensations in the top of their head, their throat, and their chest as they change pitch and find their own sounds. This is an opportunity for kids to be a little loud without being disruptive. Have them take a big breath in before each round of noise making, and don't hold the notes too long: kids have smaller lungs than adults do, so they will run out of air more quickly.

Happy Stretching!

Dealing with Sciatica

Pain that shoots up or down the leg and into the lower back can be caused by a few different things, and the first step in treating this kind of pain is understanding where it's coming from.

One possible cause of this leg and back pain is an issue with your Sacroiliac Joint. SI joint issues are often mistaken for lower back injuries or sciatica. They can occur due to age, posture, lifestyle, and are more common in women.

Another cause of this pain is sciatica. Instead of being caused by improper functioning of a joint, sciatica is usually the result of a herniated disc, or other spinal issue. The disc or soft tissues pinch the nerve roots in the lower back , which send pain singles down the sciatic nerve and into the legs.

The pain from sciatica can range from hardly noticeable to incapacitating. When it gets bad, doctors will often suggest cortisone injections. But this fix is only temporary.

If you want to prevent sciatica, or treat your current sciatic pain and prevent reoccurrence, follow this mind-body exercise routine, similar to the one for SI Joint pain:

1. Calf Stretch: Remember to utilize 60% effort, less is often more with joint and nerve issues
2. Vitamin H: Do whichever hamstring stretch works best for you. The video shows a few ways to safely stretch your hamstrings if you back is giving you problems.
3. Chair Twist: Again, go only to between 60% and 80% effort. 
4. Outer Hip Stretch: Can be done on a chair, or on the ground. (Video coming Tuesday!)
5. Groin Stretch: You can use a chair or a machine, like I show in the video.

Remember, meditation is a huge part of healing and relaxation. Pairing your physical exercises with breathing patterns and Tai Chi forms will only improve your results. Consider combining this exercise with my Sunrise Tai Chi form, visualizing the energy from the sun flowing through your body, into the SI Joint or Sciatic Nerve, and then down into the Earth, dissolves the pain like a river eroding a stone.