The focus for our last couple of blogs has been around our sleep and evening rhythms, therefore in this blog we felt to bring some awareness around the importance of establishing a nurturing, self-loving morning rhythm when looking at deepening our health and overall well being.

The quality we choose of how we are with ourselves upon waking can set ourselves up for the type of day we are about to embark upon. Have you ever noticed that if you get out of bed grumpy or racy, then that can easily become the flavour of your day?

Here we are sharing some simple rituals that can support you when waking up and how establishing a caring and nurturing morning routine can make a real difference to how you feel into your day. These simple and practical tips offer support in how to start the day reconnecting with yourself and how to hold this connection into your day ahead.

1) Upon waking, pause and spend a moment re-connecting with you, your breath and body. How are you and your body feeling?

With the busyness of our lives, it is common and easy to jump out of bed and race straight into the day. Or even upon waking, turn our phone on and get caught up in emails, Facebook etc before we even land our feet on the ground.

What if, upon waking we created space (just a few minutes) to be with ourselves and held a gentle conversation with our body through awareness of feelings/sensations and a commitment to keep our mind with us/our body (conscious presence). Then and only then, get out of bed, holding and nurturing this precious connection with self. Could this be a different start to our morning that would lay a solid foundation for a more harmonious, gentle and joyful day?

2) Meditate a few minutes upon waking when/if feeling out of sorts

Having checked in with your body and how you are feeling, if there is a raciness in the body, mind and/or physiology, nervous tension or an emotional overwhelm – sadness, anger, frustration etc – 3 to 5 minutes of Gentle Breath Meditation will help you come back to a precious place of centredness, gentleness and support the clearing of stress/disharmony held in your body. You could also enjoy our 13 minutes free online body awareness meditation .

3) Enjoy being organised and getting ready with ample time

Allow yourself plenty of time to get ready so that you don’t end up rushing. Is it really worth sleeping in those extra 15 minutes, then to have to rush to get out of the door and deal with the created nervous tension? Planning in advance for your day ahead, getting up earlier and making a priority to take the time and be gentle/present with yourself in your daily preparation (preparing breakfast, showering, getting the kids ready, exercise etc) offers a deep support for carrying a connection with yourself into the day ahead. Being present in what we do allows for spaciousness in our life that can be tangibly felt in our body.

4) Develop awareness around what and how you eat for breakfast

Is coffee and/or sugary food a must to get your mood picked up and your brain functioning? Are you gobbling breakfast before you zoom out the door or on the go to work? What about experiencing making breakfast a nurturing moment for both your body and whole being and observe how this can support you through your day.

5) Nurture, celebrate yourself and have fun getting dressed

Be present and enjoy getting ready and dressed for your day – for you . How often do we dress in a hurry in an effort to rush out the door, to impress, or cover up how we are actually truly feeling? If we come back to everything being energy (which it is), what if we took the time to be precious, tender and playful with ourselves as we dressed in the morning for our day ahead? When we put energy into truly caring for/honoring ourselves as we get ready, it feels lovely and this loveliness naturally nourishes us throughout the day.

The way we feel in the morning is strongly linked with the quality of our sleep, our evening rhythm and all the daily choices we make – you may find it valuable to revisit our prior blogs on those topics. 

It is not about getting it all perfect at once, rather about ongoingly developing our awareness and commitment to ourselves. Celebrate each baby steps you take to develop a loving foundation from which you begin your day. It is precious and powerful.

Donna Nolan and Alexandra Plane offer Yoga/Yoga Therapy, Meditation, Esoteric Healing and Massage at their clinic in Balmain, Cammeray  and Balgowlah

Contact them for enquiries or bookings.

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Following on from our previous blogs “Do you have difficulty with sleep?” and “An Introduction to Rhythms and Cycles around Sleep“, you may wish to explore our below favourite self-loving winding down tips for a good night sleep.

1) “Tune-in” 2 to 3 hours before your bed time (for us it is around 6pm)

Make a conscious effort to become even more aware of the quality of energy that you are living in ie. are you rushing, doing mode, in drama or emotional overwhelm? Choose to stay present with what you are doing moment to moment and connected with your body (i.e feel your body, your breath, the quality of your movements, your voice etc).

2) Favour “being” over “doing”

Notice if you go into rushing to get things done so that you can have some “me” time. Make your “me” time be about you being with yourself in what you are doing as you are doing it, whatever that is. Remember we are “human beings”, not “human doings”!

3) Develop a regular routine of going to bed at the same time

Your body will love a regular rhythm. The best quality of sleep and what is most supportive for healing from an esoteric medicine point of view is from 9pm – 3am. If you are a night owl, try going to bed a bit earlier in small incremental stages, perhaps half an hour earlier for a month or so, see how that feels and then slowly move your bed time to an earlier time. Feel how it is for you in your body. This is a little easier to do in winter – so try now!

4) Engage in quality activities

Turn off both the computer and the TV at least an hour before you go to bed so you are not going into additional mental, intellectual or nervous stimulation before sleep. Enjoy maybe taking a nice evening walk, a long shower or a nurturing warm bath and really use this last hour to prepare yourself – physically and energetically – for your night sleep.

5) Don’t engage in heavy conversations before bed that will lead you into more thinking and potential emotional upset

Save them for the morning when you are feeling fresh.

6) Open your awareness to “cycles” – Meet tomorrow now

Have you noticed how we are met in the morning by the exact same quality of being we go to bed with? Such as going to be with un-resolved emotional issues, an exhausted body or an out of control mind. The answers to that is to develop a quality of being in our daily evening rhythms that equals the quality of being we want to enjoy for the day ahead.

7) Make time to “digest” and/or reflect on your day

What was the quality of your day? Did you react a lot? Did you take on a lot from others or circumstances around you? In other words, how was your ability to simply observe and not absorb. Appreciate and celebrate what you did well and learn the lessons for those instances where you lost your connection with yourself.

8) Gentle Breath Meditation

If you feel your body and/or mind out of sorts and difficult to settle with conscious presence and gentle movement, try the gentle breath meditation.

9) Put yourself to bed lovingly, tenderly and with awareness

Take a few gentle breaths feeling you lying down in your bed. Let your body go, surrender.

10) Close your eyes to be with you

Open and close your eyes slowly, gently and with presence a few times – coming to feel the warmth of your eyelids and the spherical nature of your eyeballs – until you feel to close them the last time to simply be with you. Falling asleep with ourselves is very beautiful, both deeply self-honoring and healing.

Donna Nolan and Alexandra Plane teach Yoga, Meditation and assist people in their healing via Esoteric Therapies, Massage, Yoga and Meditation. Contact them here.

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In our prior blog Do you have difficulty with sleep? we shared the WHY as to falling asleep or staying asleep can be difficult – the fact that the way we live throughout our day, i.e all the choices we make, has a direct relationship on the quality of sleep we get at night -, and discussed how this can be addressed with some simple and playful tips.

In this blog we are introducing the notions of “rhythms” and “cycles” around sleep and discuss how our “daily evening rhythms” can prepare us for a quality of sleep that is both deeply rejuvenating and healing.

We tend to think about our days in a linear way – i.e the beginning of the day being as we wake up and the end of the day being as we fall asleep. What if we were to consider our days not so much in a linear way, and rather in a cyclical way?

What if we considered the possibility that energetically the start of our day actually already well begins the day before? That how we prepare ourselves for bed is going to deeply affect both the quality of our sleep and how the day ahead will unfold? Could this influence how we prepare for bed and impulse us to unwind our days in a more conscious, responsible and self-loving way?

What if we took the time – or rather created the space – from early evening (or about 3 hours before our current bed time for the night owls or those on night shift work) to begin to wind down with a quality of presence/being that prepares us for both a rejuvenating and nurturing sleep, and a productive, joyful tomorrow?

What would that look and feel like?

From our own experience, wind down time usually starts around 5.30pm-6pm. Often we can still be working at this time however we become very aware of not going into a drive or nervous tension to get things done. We begin to deepen in conscious presence (the mind being with the body in what we are doing) and become even more considerate – or rather more self-loving – with whatever we do and how we relate with others.

For some people it may be that the few hours preceding bed time they are still at work, for others they may be preparing the family evening meal, getting the kids to bed or commuting home. The evening (or those few hours prior to bed) is going to be different for each one of us and what is important is not WHAT we do, but rather HOW we attend to it.

How many of us tend to rush to get things done in the evening to have some “me” time, without the kids, without any work? Sounds familiar…? Could that “rushing” actually be counter-productive and unhealthy?

That “rushing” or “let’s get it done” way of being is running a pattern of energy in the body which drains our vitality, overstimulates our nervous system and takes us in disconnection with ourselves.

With the resulting tiredness, exhaustion, excess in nervous tension accumulated in the body when we eventually get to the “me” time, it can then be quite difficult to re-connect deeply with ourselves and gently, lovingly wind down.

In the evening, the level of stress and dis-harmony accumulated in the body may have become so un-pleasant to feel that we would often go into the use of any form of distraction or numbing to NOT feel/be aware of it – TV, computer, over or wrong eating, alcohol to name a few -. Possible? That precious “me” time then loses in quality and the opportunity to reflect on the day, enjoy being with ourselves/those around us and prepare the body for deep rest are often missed.

By developing conscious presence (mind body together) throughout the day and then deepening it into your evening rhythm, you will find that the way you feel as you head to bed will be a very different quality of energy that will support you into a restful evening and good night sleep.

And what about living the future in the present by developing in your evening daily rhythms the quality of being that you want to be met with, enjoy as you wake up in the morning? Now, that is something special….

For our Top 10 tips for a good night sleep, read our next blog.

Donna Nolan and Alexandra Plane teach Yoga, Meditation and assist people in their healing via Esoteric Therapies, Massage, Yoga and Meditation. Contact them here.

The post An introduction to rhythms and cycles around sleep appeared first on Yoga & Healing | Therapies Massage Exercise Corporate Wellbeing | Sydney, Balmain & Northern Rivers.

We come across many clients in our clinics and at our yoga classes who have difficulty sleeping, insomnia being the most common form of sleep disorder complaint. They may find it hard to know how to get to sleep, or they may be able to get to sleep however then wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to fall back asleep.

Good quality sleep is super important for our overall health and wellbeing. 

We all know how much better we feel when we have properly rested with regular or even one good night sleep. It makes a world of a difference as to how we feel, relate to others and approach all areas of our day.

WHY falling to sleep or staying asleep can be a problem?

How we live throughout our day has a direct relationship on the quality of sleep we get at night. The majority of us – whether we are a busy mum, white/blue collar, students etc – live our days in intense busy-ness with our minds always racy, full of thoughts and with little body connection.This way of being holds a particular quality of energy that affects our body.

Then, when we go to bed, the momentum of our day is still there in the body (i.e this busyness of the day, its associated mental, emotional and physiological racy-ness, overwhelm and/or other disharmony). The body may be tired and wanting to rest, however the physiology is still stimulated, racy, and the mind still thinking of all that has been and may still be going on.

The above scenario is the most common one experienced by people having difficulty falling to sleep or staying asleep – putting aside the occasional jet lags, changes in sleeping environments, medical illnesses etc -. They can’t get to sleep or fall back asleep because their nervous system is overactive, their physiology still racy and their minds super busy, unstoppable with lots of thoughts and activity going on.

The key here to return to getting good quality sleep is to look at the quality of being/energy of how we are living throughout our day, as this directly affects the quality of our sleep.

If we can develop the habit to align, focus, place our mind with our body in all that we do throughout the day and hold a quality of gentleness, when we put the body to bed at night it is ready for sleep, and the mind too can follow, allowing our whole being to properly rest and rejuvenate.

This means developing conscious presence – ie. having an awareness of feeling our body in all that we do, say and think. When we develop this quality of being in our day-to-day activities, any stressful and disharmonious momentum already built in our body will begin to clear, and the draining, uncontrollable chatter of the mind will reduce and gradually stop.

Tips for developing conscious presence – mind and body in union together

1. Make the choice to put your attention with the activity that you are doing throughout your day as you are doing it. Rather than being lost in thoughts whilst you are doing something, give the mind something to do, a point of focus, that is, to be with the activity you are doing.

2. Choose to do the activity in a quality of gentleness. By giving yourself the task of doing it gently, it gives room for your awareness to expand and brings an energetic connection to the mind and body.  Maintaining an awareness of your body posture as you go through your day – keeping it open and alive  – will support your quality of awareness, gentleness and the prevention of various muscle tensions/ body aches.

3. Maintain an awareness of the quality of your breath and choose a gentle breath. Awareness of the breathing process is a simple technique that can be done anywhere anytime to develop/maintain body connection and is sufficient to kick an overall relaxation response in your physiology. A gentle breath in and out your nose will help to clear stress and disharmony built in your body, and bring you back to centered state of mind and being.

4. Choose a couple of activities to begin with that you can playfully practice conscious presence each time you do them. For example, every time you shower, eat, brush your teeth, pick up the phone, get into your car, stand up and sit down, open a door – the list is endless, make it fun, playful and loving. Do these gently and with presence, rather than mechanically and being checked out in your head. Once you have mastered a couple of activities, choose another to add to your repertoire and continue to build on the number of activities that you deliberately practice conscious presence with. This will gradually develop conscious presence over time throughout your day.

5. Try doing the Gentle Breath Meditation daily. This guided meditation will give you a marker in your body as to what it feels like to be connected with you and your body. Then take this feeling of connection into the next activity that you do.

Meditation is simply a tool for reconnection with self. Meditation is simple and only requires a few minutes. Learning how to meditate will help you bring yourself back when you are feeling completely off  – emotional overwhelm, anxiety etc.

Our Yoga Classes, Esoteric Healing Therapies and Massage Therapies are also a great support in assisting with sleep problems, your re-connection back to you and for developing conscious presence.

In our next blog, we explore our rhythms and cycles around sleep and how these can prepare us for a quality of sleep that is both deeply rejuvenating and healing. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, why not try playfully practice conscious presence in your daily activities, include the gentle breath meditation as part of your daily rhythm and see how that feels in your body? It is about developing our ability to make self-loving choices, not about discipline.

Donna Nolan and Alexandra Plane teach Yoga, Meditation and assist people in their healing via Esoteric Therapies, Massage, Yoga and Meditation. Contact them at info@yogaandhealing.com.au

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