5 SCIENCE-BACKED SELF-CARE STRATEGIES TO GIVE YOUR BODY, BRAIN + MOOD A BOOST

5 SCIENCE-BACKED SELF-CARE STRATEGIES TO GIVE YOUR BODY, BRAIN + MOOD A BOOST

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5 SCIENCE-BACKED SELF-CARE STRATEGIES TO GIVE YOUR BODY, BRAIN + MOOD A BOOST

“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.” ~ Deborah Day 

Simple things can have profound effects on your physical health and mental wellness.

Have you ever felt out of sorts only to realise, you’ve been so focussed on caring for others, you’ve forgotten to tune in and ask yourself, “What do I need?”

Healing is not about being perfect. It’s being willing to take responsibility for all your feelings, staying curious and compassionate about how your thoughts and behaviour are affecting your health, and taking loving action to feel better.

Go gently on yourself… remember you’re doing the best you can!

5 SCIENCE-BACKED SELF-CARE STRATEGIES TO GIVE YOUR BODY, BRAIN + MOOD A BOOST! 

1. Dance for health

Exercise improves memory, learning and concentration. Moderate intensity movement, sustained over time, promotes the expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which causes nerve cells to grow and make new connections. It also helps improve your mood, boost your energy, and reduce stress in your body and mind.Recent studies say that dance arts like Nia have physical and cognitive benefits that may exceed those of other forms of exercise (We could have told them that!!)
Get started: take a 6 minute dance break with me on YouTube U R The Answer

2. Actively relax

With 95% of all illness caused or worsened by stress, we need to give our mind something to do, that leads to a feeling of deep inner calm. Active relaxation is a choice and a practice that leads to stress relief in a way that lounging in front of the television can never do.Not so long ago, we sat around the dinner table or village square and chatted… or we played a board game… or listened to stories. Today we’re bombarded with constant stimuli that the brain has not evolved to handle.The brain craves novelty, and nowadays that means consciously engaging in slower, concentrated activities. Make time everyday to turn off your devices and give your whole attention to something that makes you feel centred and uplifted.
Get started: Play any song and devote 5 minutes to Nia’s mindful practice of RAW listening – Relaxed Body, Alert Mind and Waiting Spirit. Song for Olabi by Bliss is a favourite go-to.

3. Make social connections

Perhaps the most powerful thing you can do to keep your body-brain chemistry happier and healthier is to make time for meaningful connections and relationships. Belonging to a group reduces risk of death from all causes and increases longevity, despite health habits.This is another benefit of dancing Nia in community.Research shows that moving and grooving in rhythm with others lights up brain pathways that blur the barriers your mind may otherwise erect between yourself and another, and helps you feel a sense of connection and unity. Nia is a great way to make new friends!
Get started: commit to coming to a weekly Nia class, and if it works for you, join us for a coffee afterwards.

4. See the light

UVB radiation from the sun is the best source of Vitamin D which allows us to more effectively use calcium, improve our immune system, help prevent cancer, reduce depressive symptoms, and support brain function. Sunlight stimulates photosensitive cells in the retina of our eyes to play a vital role in our body brain health. These cells directly affect the brain’s hypothalamus region, which responds to stress and controls our daily bodily rhythms such as the night-time secretion of melatonin from the pineal gland and the changes in cortisol (the stress hormone) and body temperature over a 24-hour period.
Get started: Create a ritual for yourself to get outside in the sun for at least 10 minutes every day. Maybe a mindful walk around the block, or a barefoot boogie on the grass. Physical exercise also boosts Vitamin D (We recommend Vitamin D.ance!)

5. Take in the good

Often when we get busy or feel depressed, anxious or overwhelmed, we can get stuck in a rut of negative thinking, instead of noticing and opening to things that bring us pleasure. In Nia, our lifestyle awareness practice of “Life As Art” helps retrain our focus by reminding us to put our attention on what feels pleasing and inspirational. Using your mind in this way will change your body-brain over time.
Get started: Notice something around you now that brings an inner smile… maybe a flower, a cloud, an object of beauty, the moon, an animal, a child. Give it your full attention and savour this positive experience by feeling it in your body, making that feeling as intense as possible. Stay with it, and as you sink deeper into the sensation, add a visualisation, like perceiving every cell bathed in golden light or imagining a soothing balm circulating inside yourself. Breathe it in and say ‘thank you’ for the aliveness and pleasure you feel.

If you are struggling in any way… please remember our wounds are not meant to be tended alone, but in a relationship, in a community… As Ram Dass says, “we’re all just walking each other home.”

Every day I support loved ones facing depression, anxiety, addiction, and sensory processing difficulties. I am here for you too, without judgment. Through movement, mindfulness, courage, and connection we find health.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:  Joy as a Healing Energy

Sophie Marsh © 2022 • Web Design Seedhead

JOY AS A HEALING ENERGY + A MEDITATION

JOY AS A HEALING ENERGY + A MEDITATION

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JOY AS A HEALING ENERGY + A MEDITATION

“Biology isn’t just genes playing out some unalterable script. It is sensitive to the world around it.”
~ Dr Bruce Perry, Child Psychiatrist

Environment dictates how your cells perform. If your body moves in an environment of pleasure and comfort, your cells vibrate at a higher frequency. If the environment is one of tension, fear, anxiety, every system in your body vibrates with this energy.

Practising Nia and 5Stages brings you to a place of sensitivity that enables you to observe and release stress and embrace the sensations of “dynamic ease”, pleasure, and comfort. Every time you vibrate higher, a part of you heals.

Prolonged pain, loss, and stress in the world around you, and in your own life can lead to persisitent inflammation in the body and can adversely affect brain systems linked to motivation and mental agility. Article: chronic stress and the brain

Often, we can’t control our external circumstances, but we can change our cellular environment by choosing how we move through life’s experiences, what meaning we give them, and how we direct our energy and attention.

Living with self-awareness and intention takes courage and commitment. It’s being willing to start where you are, and begin again, and again.  It’s staying open to learning, letting go of expectations, and allowing the aliveness of every moment to inspire you. It’s paying attention to subtle feelings and trusting what you sense, making choices that are in vibrational alignment with your highest – body, mind and spirit. It’s finding your soul’s medicine.

A JOY MEDITATION

Take a moment to settle into your self, noticing the feeling of the earth or chair supporting you, maybe lowering your gaze, and letting yourself soften a little more as you exhale. Now think about a time and place in you life where you felt yourself bursting with Joy. Keep replaying it in your mind’s eye.

As you bathe in the memory with all your senses… the sounds, colours, smells… begin to notice what’s happening in your body now. Keep your focus on sensing into it. Maybe there’s a deeper breath, or your face moves into a smile, or your heart lifts or you feel a wave of warmth or a peaceful pulse or a tingling buzz?

Stay with this feeling and allow it to permeate through every part of you. Imagine your cells are swimming in light. Gently sway your spine and visualise loving energy flowing through every part of your body, and oozing out of your joints. This feeling is what in Nia we call the “Big J Joy.”

Big J Joy is a sensation of aliveness and wellbeing that permeates the Universe and every healthy cell in your body. It’s available 24/7, waiting for you to open to it. It’s not about putting a positive spin on things, or or even feeling happy. Often it’s when we are in our darkest moments that Joy does its greatest magic.  Sit with the sadness, pain, discomfort, fear. Acknowledge it, feel it and flood your cells with Joy.

Choosing to connect to this high vibration creates powerful changes to your biochemistry, thought patterns and energy. It creates a feeling of being at home in yourself, and connected to all. It helps you take your power back and self-heal.

“Each time an inner conflict is resolved, a person’s energy level increases.” ~ Alexander Lowen MD, Bioenergetics

Join me for a 3.5 minute Nia dance break to the song “Call Me Out Tiger” to practise choosing and oozing Joy, with the intention to self-heal.  Notice your energy before you move (give it a number out of 10) and then compare it again afterwards. Do you feel better?  More energised? Thank you body!

Sophie Marsh © 2022 • Web Design Seedhead

STALKING WHAT STEALS YOUR JOY AND HOW TO GET IT BACK

STALKING WHAT STEALS YOUR JOY AND HOW TO GET IT BACK

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STALKING WHAT STEALS YOUR JOY AND HOW TO GET IT BACK

JOY OF MOVEMENT – Nia White Belt Principle 1 – A concept and tool for turning all experiences into positive ones. Joy is the seed at the heart of Nia. The kind of joy we speak of is not simply personal enjoyment, but the essence of joy – that which is our birthright – our connection to Universal Joy.

Find out what brings you Joy and do it more often…

Stalk what steals your Joy and give it less attention.

Sounds simple enough. But the way our biassed brains are wired… we tend to focus on the negative. Our “fight or flight” sympathetic nervous systems are being flooded daily by external and internal stressors, real and imagined. There’s so much going on in the world that is beyond our control and these are troubling times for our planet and many who are suffering and struggling.

Right now, without ruminating, make a list of 5 things that steal your Joy.

These might be the things that you lay awake at night ruminating about… that create stuck stress and fuel anxiety… that leave you tired or wired… that when you think about them, you get shallow breathing, a racing heart, a tight jaw and scrunched shoulders… that make you feel separate and alone.

It could be a pessimistic belief, an ungrounded fear, a toxic relationship, a soul-sucking job, someone that you’d like to forgive or something you need to do that you’ve been putting off, or maybe it’s a serious concern about the world or your place in it. Notice how you feel when you bring these things to mind.

Please know if you are currently facing any kind of imminent danger… then my heart and prayers are with you… and this is not what I’m writing about.

Here are the first 5 that came to me right now (and not listed in any particular order of importance):
1. worry about my children’s wellbeing
2. any person, ideology or Facebook post that promotes fear, separation, intolerance or hatred
3. global climate change and the bushfires currently sweeping eastern Australia
4. the fear that I am not enough and at the same time, that if I step into my full potential that I’ll be too much
5. feeling helpless to make a difference

Phew! Take a few deep breaths… put your hand to your heart and let yourself know you’re ok. Bring yourself back into this moment, to the screen you’re reading this on, to the sounds around you, to the feeling of your body on the chair/bed/floor. Say, “I am here now. It is 12 November 2019″ (insert today’s date) and, smiling with relief,  “there is no tiger in the room.”

Now… write down 5 things that bring you the sensation of Joy as aliveness.

When you think of these things you might feel an expansion in your chest and the desire to take some deep breaths… a sense of being connected with your true self, with others, with nature, with life… a smile in your eyes and your heart… a spring in your step and like the world is full of boundless possibilities… simultaneously microscopic and Universal… being centred, grounded, and radiant all at once… feeling like you are ‘in flow’ and ‘on purpose’.

Here are the first 5 that came to me (oh and there are so many more… how did massages, making love, belly laughs, puppy licks, starry nights and nature walks not make it??!):
1. hugging my children
2. dancing in community
3. ocean time
4. looking into another’s eyes in a silent exchange of love
5. inspiring Joy and supporting personal transformation through Nia

Nia White Belt Principle 1 – Joy of Movement – invites you to get to know the sensation of aliveness and to choose it again and again.

Your body’s natural self-repair mechanisms can only activate when you are in a relaxation response. Being in a positive brain state allows your creativity, connection and compassion to flow. It’s not always easy. It IS a practice. Energy follows attention, so it makes sense to stalk patterns and habits that stress your body and mind as well as put your attention on what you want to feel more of. Joy. Peace. Gratitude. Love. Faith.

At this precarious time of bushfires and bullies, heartbreak and homelessness, injustice and ignorance, environmental disasters and political oppression, domestic violence and mental health crises … there are also hundreds of precious moments and miracles. Let’s raise the resonance and practice together… Today I choose Joy… choose breath… choose movement… choose love… choose gratitude… choose life.

Sophie Marsh © 2022 • Web Design Seedhead