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Restore Balance to Your Life In 5 Easy Steps

Restore Balance to Your Life In 5 Easy Steps

If you want a healthier, happier lifestyle, it is imperative to find a balance in your life. This article will provide you with five easy steps to apply to many parts of your life. Follow this advice, and you will be on the path to restoring balance into your life.

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When making any life changes, it is essential to start slow. These steps are meant to become part of your life over time gradually, so you do not feel overwhelmed.

Eat Healthy Foods

The first step to restoring balance into your life is to eat healthy foods. No matter what type of diet you choose, whether vegan, paleo, or vegetarian, it is essential that you eat plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, and healthy proteins. Some examples of good sources for protein include lean chicken breast or thigh meat, fish, beans, soy products like tofu or tempeh. For the vegetarians out there, lentils and eggs are a great source of protein that can be combined with vegetables to make a healthy meal. Try to avoid processed sugar as much as possible, though, because this type of sugar does not provide any nutritional value and can lead to many problems, including obesity, diabetes, and tooth decay. Remember that drinking more water can help you lose weight.

Exercise Daily

The second step to restoring balance into your life is daily exercise. Some easy activities are walking, swimming, yoga, or lightweight lifting. As your fitness level increases, you can gradually increase the difficulty of your exercise by adding weights for weight lifting, increasing the speed on a treadmill or elliptical machine, taking longer walks/runs, doing more repetitions of yoga poses, etc. Exercising does not have to be strenuous as long as you get your heart rate up and move around for at least 10-15 minutes per day. You don’t need a lot of time; you have to make time. When I created Mother Trucker Yoga, it was all on the premise of moves you can do in 5 minutes or less. 

Get Plenty Of Sleep

The third step to restoring balance in your life is getting plenty of sleep each night. Most adults need between 7-8 hours of sleep each night. If you are not getting enough sleep regularly, this can lead to many health problems, including obesity, high blood pressure, and an increased risk for heart disease and diabetes. Those who do not get enough sleep often complain about feeling tired throughout the day, making it difficult to focus or adequately function at work or school. 

Meditate

The fourth step to restore balance into your life is meditation. Meditation is a great way to relax the mind and relieve stress. There are many forms of meditation to practice, coming from all sorts of traditions and approaches. But this article will explain a simple form, which requires only 15-20 minutes each day for maximum benefit. Sit or lie down in a location where you will not be disturbed and close your eyes. Visualize a light above your head and imagine all negative thoughts, emotions, stress, etc., being pushed out of your body as you exhale.

 

Be Grateful

The fifth step to restore balance into your life is to practice gratitude. Many studies show linking the practice of gratitude to improvements in health, happiness, stress levels, and a reduction in depression. A practice of gratitude is often suggested to do every day because it has cumulative benefits, which means each day, you will feel increasingly better about yourself and your life as a whole. A grateful heart can change your entire life if you let it. When was the last time you practiced gratitude? 

There you have it!

 

Why Crying On Your Yoga Mat is Okay

Why Crying On Your Yoga Mat is Okay

When I was in teacher training and a woman burst into tears during bridge pose and couldn’t stop flowing. I watched from the back of the room as the instructor calmly came over to soothe her. The instructor let her know that this happens and some poses that open the heart can do that. At that moment, I felt relief. Crying was okay in yoga.

Yoga works on a multitude of levels: physical, emotional, energetic.

One of yoga’s secrets, documented in research from the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Research Foundation near Bangalore, is that more active practices followed by relaxing ones lead to deeper relaxation than relaxing practices alone. – Yoga Journal

For many of us, stress has become as common as drinking coffee. I know I have been in a position where I didn’t know what it was like to live in an environment that wasn’t anything but stress. We think we are “relaxing”  with things like constant screen time, loud music, and high-intensity exercise. It all needs to be balanced with restorative or relaxing practices or we leave ourselves out of balance.

If coming to your yoga mat, you find yourself dripping a few tears, please know it’s OK.

If you are ever in my yoga room, it’s encouraged! Even when I’m teaching, I will get a wave of emotion and find myself dripping a few tears.

Yoga is about seeking an internal state of homeostasis, and that may mean that you are asked to breathe for five minutes on your mat. It may even require you to stay in a pose that makes your skin crawl.

Yoga really, truly is about balance. If you continue to seek it, it will help you create the balance you have been searching for. A few tears along the way doesn’t hurt.

References:

The Benefits of Yoga on the Parasympathetic Nervous System

The Scientific Basis of Yoga Therapy 

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