Rami's Blog

Like the Yin-Yang, Eastern Martial Arts and Western medicine are two halves of a whole. My mission is to preserve the ancient mind-body tools and pass them on to you.

 

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!