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Breaking Routine

by ultrapeg

on vacationThe blog is back from vacation and so am I.  Summer is a time when many of us experience breaks in our routines.  When you live in a tourist area like I do, people who don’t live here want to visit.  We also find ourselves called by family and friends to other parts of the country. When the weather is good, everyone seems to be on the move.  For school kids this change is welcome.  But the further away from school we get, the more attached to our routines we seem to become.

Changes to our standard behavior patterns can be an important and necessary opportunity to refresh and renew our creativity and enthusiasm.  Spending time with family and friends can make change feel good.  Sometimes we need a break in our routines.  Even the most committed resister of change can experience joy in doing something different or renewing relationships.  But changes to routine can have a down-side also.  Having visitors or being a visitor can require lots of change and we all have a hard time with change.  For example, dietary patterns might change.  How you eat, what you eat and when you eat may be totally different from your usual fare. It can seem like fun to throw caution to the wind and do something completely out of character, but there may be consequences which can sour that good time.   Yet trying to adhere to the strict rules we sometimes impose on ourselves can be equally problematic.

Sleeping and waking habits may also be altered.  Many people find it difficult to sleep in a unfamiliar environment.  Being a “white noise” proponent myself, I keep a fan going in my room all year long.  When I don’t have my fan, sleep can be elusive.  Lack of sleep is often combined with the desire to pack as much experience into short periods of time as possible.  So instead of a restful vacation or welcome break in our routine, we end up becoming exhausted.  How often have you heard the phrase, “I need a vacation from my vacation”?

Then there is our usual exercise routine.  Those of you who regularly read my blog know that I am a strong advocate of making exercise a habit.  It then becomes a natural part of your daily or weekly rhythm so that you don’t have to think about doing it – you just do it.  In fact, when you don’t do it, you can feel the lack.  This part of your daily behavior pattern will invariably get disrupted with visitors or travel.  If you are used to coming to classes, it can be difficult to carve out time to exercise on your own.  Sometimes you can try classes in the place you are visiting which can help but is not always a solution.  You may have the best of intentions but the first time they go awry you’ll be tempted to forget them completely.

So what can we do that will allow us to enjoy our time off without completely sweeping away the comfort of daily routine?  My first suggestion is to drop the words “always” and “never” from your vocabulary. “All or nothing” need not be your mantra.  There is a middle way between the extremes.  Try the words “sometimes” or “just for today” on for size.  It may not be necessary to throw everything you’re used to out the window.  It is possible, for example, to be mindful about food choices without depriving yourself or going overboard against your better judgment.  You can invite your guests or hosts to join you in some form of physical activity like an early morning walk or yoga class.  Try a new activity like tennis or golf.  You may not do very well, but it can be liberating to remember that you never have to do it again if it doesn’t work out.  If you have a solitary practice that is meaningful to you, perhaps you can shorten the time frame (10 minutes instead of 30, for example) or change the time of day (before bed instead of first thing in the morning).

Throughout this blog one common thread often repeated is that we make up our own rules and we can also change them.  So let go of all the rules you’ve built around your routines and be open to new experiences.  Being flexible is more than touching your toes in a forward bend. The flexibility we practice in yoga and Pilates should extend to all aspects of your lie.  Dismiss all your rules about appearances and expectations.  Stay in the moment.  Time spent worrying will be precious down-time lost.

Although the changes referred to here are mostly temporary, sometimes more long-term behavior modification is necessary – job change, for example, or an illness or injury.  There can be a sense of loss when these kinds of events occur.  But this can also be an opportunity to think about developing new routines. You were probably not born with the your current patterns (most of them, anyway).  They developed over time and can be redeveloped.  Prioritize.  Figure out which aspects of your usual routine are most important to you and why.  Then see if you can modify your usual behavior to accommodate changed circumstances.  Being open to new experiences can help to lessen the anxiety of change.

As vacationers, though, we will all eventually return to our usual routines.  This can be a great comfort.  Time away can also foster a new appreciation for the simple daily rhythm of our lives.  Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to again pick up some of the better habits that we’ve worked so hard to develop.  It can feel like starting all over.  Especially if some of those habits were difficult to adopt to begin with. Take heart, though.  You did it before, you can do it again.  Let that be your mantra when you’re tempted to blow off that exercise class or eat that second helping of cheesecake.

My most recent vacation was wonderful and I did incorporate some of the suggestions above so I know they work. But I love coming home. It was a treat to spend time with old friends doing things we enjoy doing together.  But it is with humility, gratitude and renewed appreciation that I now slip back into the comfort of my routines and rejoin the community that is so important to me.

 

Simple Recipe for Stress Reduction

by ultrapeg

take a moment to breatheSummer is a busy time of year.  Of course, most of us are busy all year long.  Still summer seems to be a time when we feel this urge to cram as many activities as possible into this short period of time.  Some of you may be fortunate enough to live in a place where the seasons are not so pronounced.  Even where that is the case, summer still seems to present a different vibe than the rest of the year.  Perhaps it is the residue of “school is out” mentality.  Or simply that the days are longer no matter where you are and everyone wants to take advantage of all that daylight.

Those of us in the northern region who live in tourist areas feel the busy-ness of summer even more acutely.  Many businesses in our area only operate during the tourist season.  Suddenly everything is open and there is this frantic need to “make hay while the sun shines”.  People travel more and have more visitors.  Those of you with school-aged children feel a particular pressure to take advantage of the break in routine that school vacation provides.

All of this can lead to a surprising and sometimes unrecognized increase in stress.  It would seem that the promise of leisure time should enable us to relax.  But more often just the opposite is the result.  If you are working, you feel the obligation to get as much done as possible before a vacation and then you’re faced with everything that piles up while you’re gone.  The delightful anticipation of welcoming visitors can be marred by the overwhelming feeling of all you have to do to make them comfortable and enhance their visit.  Vacation time never seems long enough and travel can create additional stress.

Just reading this may be stressing you out.  But the good news is that there is hope.  And it is right within your grasp and everyone can do it. It’s called breathing.  Yup!  That mysterious process that keeps us alive which we often take for granted can also be our ally in reducing stress. Taking a few moments to focus on and slow our breathing can activate the parasympathetic nervous system which calms and soothes us. There are scientific and biological reasons for this which I won’t go into here.  Suffice it to say that this system is the opposite of our “fight or flight” reflex that puts us in high-alert mode.  If you’re interested you can read more about it and even check out some controlled breathing practices in a number of articles on the subject including this one from Yoga Journal.

No matter what time constraints you are laboring under, there is always time to breathe.  Since you’re going to breathe whether or not you are paying attention, why not just stop whatever it is you are doing and simply focus on your breathing.  All you have to do is notice air coming in and air going out.  Just follow the air for a couple of cycles.  You may notice that even this simple practice has a calming effect.  Most of the causes of stress and anxiety are worries about things that may (or may not) happen in the future but have not happened yet, or things that have already happened which we can’t change.  Breathing is always in the present.  When you focus on the present moment – not the past or the future – usually everything is really OK.  Not always.  But mostly.  And here’s the really good news – when the past or future starts to bring that stress back, all you have to do is return to your breathing.  It’s always there.  Even if you have trouble breathing, you can still benefit from focusing and slowing down the process.

In yoga and Pilates there is a huge emphasis on breathing as part of the practice.  Breathing with the movement is an integral part of both practices.  It is every bit as important as the movement itself.  It doesn’t take long for even new practitioners to recognize that if they focus on moving and breathing together, it is difficult to think about anything else while they’re practicing.  The other benefit that becomes clear is that the breath actually helps with the movement.  Bringing oxygen and other nutrients to your muscles when you move them enables them to work that much more efficiently.  Exhaling completes the process by eliminating everything you no longer need from your respiratory system.

Pilates and yoga further enhance the benefits of breathing by helping to improve posture.  This article from the American Council on Exercise describes how posture affects breathing.  Many of us have experienced the pain that can result from poor posture and the muscle imbalances it creates.  The most common of these are back, neck and shoulder problems, but when these persist they can lead to many other ailments. Once movement becomes difficult the tendency is to restrict moving which usually makes things worse.  How amazing to learn that breathing can actually begin the healing process!  An article from Yoga Basics shows that breathing can help with upper back pain as well as lower.

Breathing is a tool available to all of us all the time.  It’s the life force that is truly a miracle.  The yogis call it “prana”.  It is the first thing a baby does at birth and the last thing we do at the moment of death.  In between, we can show our reverence for this process by letting it help us. Let your breathing guide you toward enjoyment of each moment this summer.