Dear Friends,
Our nervous system affects how we think, feel and act.
When we’re stressed and in the fight or flight response
- our thoughts will be fast, negative and fear-based
- our body will feel tense, our heart will race and we may feel butterflies
- our breath becomes sort and shallow
- our nervous system is heightened and hypervigilant
We can’t control what happens to us but we can control how we respond to life’s stressors and empty our stress bucket regularly.
The key to releasing stress and maintaining a balanced and healthy nervous system is our vagus nerve.
Here’s how to activate the vagus nerve:
- Compassion
- Cold water
- Humming
- Breathwork
- Yoga – poses focused on neck, chest, belly and psoas
- Meditation
Meditation calms the nervous system
How we think affects how we feel and how we feel affects our decisions and actions.
When we’re stressed, the front part of our brain that’s responsible for calm, rational thinking shuts down and the fear centre if our brain is in charge.
This means that our thoughts become overly negative.
A regular meditation practice will
- reduce stress hormones
- reduce blood pressure
- reduce stress and anxiety
- create new neural pathways (changes the brain and how we think)
- make us less reactive/impulsive
- improve our thinking and decision making
- improve our sleep
Yoga and Meditation increase our capacity to deal with life
We can’t control what happens to us but we CAN control how we respond to the stress in our lives. Emptying our stress bucket daily will ensure we have the capacity to handle life’s curveballs without overwhelm and burnout.
The best thing we can do to help loved ones who are stressed is to calm ourselves and be the calm ones in a crisis.
Yoga Alchemy with Monica
If you want to learn more about your nervous system,
If you want to learn skills to manage your mind and emotions,
If you want to get to the root of anxiety,
If you want to heal your past,
If you want to become unstuck and move forward after trauma,
then join Monica for a 7 month transformational coaching program – Yoga Alchemy.
Keep calm,
