Love Yourself and Others

Make this Christmas season be the year you feel the most relaxed and peaceful. Loving on yourself and others can give you much joy and peace. This is a perfect time of year to start making time for some self-love as you are also giving to others.

Three things to help you stay on track with your health goals and counter the stress that is likely to occur during this busy season.

1: Start or end your day with a de-stressing sun salutation routine. It can take as little as 5 minutes to clear your mind and release all the stress that can build up in the month of December.

• Start in Mountain pose bringing your hands to your chest in prayer. Take 5 deep breaths.
• Reach up with your arms overhead reach back behind you, open your chest and squeeze your buttocks. Inhale and exhale to forward fold: tailbone up and hands on the floor. Take 5 deep breaths.
• Step your left foot back behind you into a lunge stretch and look up to the ceiling keeping your hands on the floor. Take 5 deep breaths
• Step right foot back into plank. Lower body down to the floor. Keeping hands on the floor stretch chest up towards the ceiling and look up stretching your abdominal muscles. Take 2 breaths.
• Lift hips up toward the ceiling into down-dog. Hold for 5 breaths.
• Step your left foot forward between your hands on the floor into low lunge. Keep hands on the floor, open up your chest and look up to the ceiling. Hold for 5 breaths.
• Bring your right foot forward to meet your hands and left foot. Stay in forward bend for 5 breaths.
• Slowly rise up, bringing your head up last. Hands together, reach above your head and stretch back behind your head. Hold for 5 deep breaths.
• Return hands to prayer. Repeat if desired.

2: Take time to walk every day. Walking not only burns fat and calories, but lifts your spirits and clears your mind.

3: 6 questions to ask yourself on a daily basis.
1) What is your most important exercise goal?
2) What would be the most positive outcome of meeting this goal?
3) What is the biggest obstacle to this goal?
Then follow up with these 3 questions:
1) When and where is this obstacle most likely to occur?
2) What can I do to prevent the obstacle from occurring?
3) What specific thing will I do to help get back to my exercise goal when this obstacle happens?

Three things to give to others.

1. Call up a charitable organization and ask how you can help.
2. Invite your neighbor over for dinner.
3. Invite a friend or co-worker out to lunch or coffee.

To find out more about what you can do to become more physically active, contact me via email or my online form to set up a free consultation.