mindful movement
As the saying goes, “Aging is not for the faint of heart.” While that may be true, there are many ways we can slow down the process. In fact, it is our destiny as humans to age with grace, strength and vitality.
Whether you are a 40-something working parent looking for a home-based workout, a 50-something executive who needs to relieve stress, or a 60-something looking for new ways to stay fit and vital, gentle fluid movement is your ticket to feeling and looking stronger, healthier and happier for years to come.
These are unprecedented times in which movement is no longer required. We hop in the car to go to store. A swipe on our phone gets dinner delivered to our door. Conceivably, we can never leave our home and get by.
Twenty minutes a day isn’t much effort to be rewarded with a strong, balanced body that uses energy efficiently and allows us to continue doing the things we love to do without pain or injury.
It’s common for trauma to get caught in body memories. This occurs unconsciously and is what makes survivors jumpy, dysregulated, or numbed out in ways they can’t explain. Mindfulness-based, embodied therapy involves tracking body memories as they reemerge in treatment.
The body conserves energy on an ongoing basis. Habits start out as intentional actions that are practiced enough times that they become automatic. Habituated actions consume very little energy. Whereas consciousness is consumes an extraordinary amount of energy. In other words, it’s metabolically expensive.
When we are disembodied, we live removed from the power and wisdom that comes from the body. Energy stagnates. Joints get sore and muscles turn slack from lack of use. The best to free ourselves from this trap is to engage our body and mind.
Nature balances growth with decay. Though the signals aren’t strong, they are there in our DNA waiting to take action. For the first three to four decades of our life, the growth phase dominates. But somewhere around our late forties and fifties the free ride of youth is over.
A woman is told in a million different ways that if she finds herself alone at middle age it means she is unlovable, unattractive, unappealing, unsexy. But what if it means she is independent, self-entertaining, free-spirited, and self-possessed?
Various types of exercise, including walking, have been found to promote mental health. They do this by boosting energy, improving sleep, relieving tension and stress, and combating anxiety and depression.
Yoga studios are crawling with raving lunatics. I should know. I was one of them and looked every bit the part: a rail-thin-rubber-bandy-raw-vegan-meditating-twice-a-day-yogi. While I could twist myself into a pretzel, it was only after tumbling off my mat that I began to embody what yoga truly means.