One of yoga’s many gifts…

Tori Swedosh July 27, 2018

The body is incredible and gives us messages constantly. More often than not, we don’t listen. We just keep hammering our bodies and pushing forward, getting stuff done – quick, quick, busy ,busy, busy.

Say you’re driving your car and someone suddenly pulls out in front of you. Your adrenals, which are like little blobs that sit on top of your kidneys pump out a hormone called cortisol into your bloodstream so that you can react quickly to take action. This is natural.

If you are a terribly busy person who leads an incredibly stressed life then your adrenals are sending out cortisol continually. If they keep pumping out cortisol over a long period of time, adrenal fatigue can set in. Unfortunately too much cortisol can cause tiredness and low blood pressure. If you don’t listen to the messages the body is sending showing up as various symptoms, it has to give you stronger messages to make you listen. Weight gain, particularly around the abdomen and face, thin and fragile skin that is slow to heal, acne perhaps and for women, facial hair and irregular menstrual periods can be amongst these. You get sicker and sicker until you are forced to stop.

This is where yoga can really be of benefit.

As you read this take a deep breath and let it fill your torso so that you can feel your lungs press against your rib cage. Hold it for a slow count of four and slowly exhale for a count of five. Do it 3 more times. What you have just done is access your parasympathetic nervous system. When you stop and find time to relax, cup of tea, hot bath, nice walk in the sun for example, we give our bodies time to “rest and digest” or “feed and breed”. This allows cells time to rejuvenate and the body to heal. That energy can be used instead, to bolster the immune system.

You are a beautiful creative being, if you are always in high alert –ready to run, so to speak, how can you possibly have time for ideas and creation? It’s important to stop and observe, it’s important to rest. It’s important to find time for yourself. A little self care or learning to say no occasionally can go a long way!

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