Tis the season for family, feasts, festivities, migraine headaches and unwanted weight gain. The holidays are supposed to be a joyous time of year but it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the details.
To help deal with the seasonal stress, Jayne Cagle, certified Parna yoga instructor and owner of One Joyful Yoga, offers a few tips.
Breathe with intention
In order to replenish our brains and vital organs with essential nutrients, it is important to breathe correctly. To breathe correctly you must breathe through your diaphragm, which means your belly should rise and fall, not your chest. Cagle suggests imagining that you are inhaling positivity and light. “Exhale the negativity, the frets and worries,” she says. Intentional breathing is particularly useful since you can do it anywhere-from sitting in traffic to sitting around the dinner table.
Stretch
“People that run run run all day need a restorative pose,” Cagle says. She recommends the Viparita Karani in which you simply lay on the floor with your legs on the wall so that your body makes a right angle. Hold the pose from 5 to 15 minutes and “focus on breath,” Cagle says. “Let the energy of the legs come back to the pelvis then back to the heart.” This stretch helps bring relief to the legs, feet, spine and nervous system.
If your lifestyle is more sedentary, Cagle recommends a more active stretch. “One that brings you back into balance,” she says. For instance the sun salute or the Suray Namastkar is an easy 12-step sequence that helps “get rid of stagnant energy,” explains Cagle.
Eat the right foods
It is the feasting season and there’s nothing wrong with that-as long as you are eating the right foods. “We should be eating organic and non-GMO foods,” Cagle says, naming the Main Street Farmers Market as an ideal place to find healthy foods. “It is the best conglomeration of organic food grown by loving people,” she says. Cagle also advises avoiding what she calls CATS (caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and white sugar) as those substances tend to stress out your nervous system.
Examine your traditions
“Don’t get sucked into tradition or habits that may no longer be serving you,” Cagle says. She suggests evaluating your traditions and deciding which ones provide happiness and which ones are no longer working. “It is a good way to make room for new traditions that can be exquisitely more fun,” she says. For instance you could consider replacing a stressful activity with a holiday hike.
Top Holiday Stresses:Crowdslong linesWeight gainGift shoppingTravelingCertain relativesSeasonal musicAccording to a survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center
“It’s not about avoiding stress,” Cagle reminds us. “It’s about transforming it.” After all, the holidays only happen once a year and they’re always over too soon. “Resolve to be happy,” Cagle says. “You can do this.”
Cagle will be leading “Releasing the Weight of the World” workshops beginning in January. The focus is on learning how to release stress and how to stop attracting it. For more information visit onejoyfulyoga.com