Starting a Home Yoga Practice: Calm Over Chaotic

Between yesterday's Super Blue Blood Moon and the start of a new month, it's a perfect time to embrace change and work on cultivating more compassion. Yay! Here's an adorable little picture to get you psyched for warm fuzzies:

From We Love Cats and Kittens 

I've been doing a lot of research lately into the science of empathy, compassion, and overall wellness, and something I've found mentioned over and over again is mindfulness. Yes, the whole "mindfulness" thing is definitely trending right now, but it's so much more than a fad. In its sincerest, most basic form, mindfulness is a mind-body healing practice that has roots in almost all traditions and philosophies.  Prayer, meditation, contemplation . . . they're all forms of mindfulness practice, and they have profound mental and physical health benefits.  Some of the biggest of these benefits can be boiled down to the simple phenomenon of stress reduction. Mindfulness practices help you breathe and decrease your cortisol levels. Less cortisol means better sleep, better skin, and a happy tummy.  It can also help you interact with others more positively.  If you're not freaked out all the time, then you can engage with the world in a more open, optimistic way. (See picture of Amelie Poulain below for inspiration.)

From tumblr

One of the most fun ways you can practice mindfulness at home is by finding hobbies and activities that activate your parasympathetic nervous system (the one that calms you down) and give you an outlet for expressing yourself.  Yoga and dancing are two of my favorites. I remember a few years ago, back when I was running running running all the time, a friend who I admired as being very compassionate and Amelie-like told me that she felt "so calm" because she'd done yoga, and I had this mini-paradigm shift. I think that intense exercise can be wonderful for many people, and I adore 1980's aerobics videos, but for personal health reasons, I've recently had to shift to more traditionally "relaxing" forms of movement.  Like increases like, and because my stress hormones tend to run very high, I need to focus on slowing myself down more than I need to focus on speeding myself up.  I resisted yoga for a very long time because staying still and breathing deeply don't come naturally to me.  Every time I saw a magazine cover or a TV advertisement, there was an image of a sweaty girl in Lulu Lemon doing pushups and panting, and I felt drawn to that sort of intense movement. I felt that I needed to push myself as hard as I could, but the harder I pushed, the higher my standard became.  Soon, nothing felt "challenging" enough, and I couldn't get the endorphin rush needed to reduce my cortisol levels until I'd "hit the wall." 
Note to self: hitting the wall isn't always a good thing!
A few weeks ago, I started doing yoga at home with my mum. The only sort of "cardio" I do comes from cleaning, teaching, the occasional impromptu dance practice, and walking around campus. At first, the shift from cardio junkie to wannabe yogi was challenging because my body was so used to pumping itself up on energizing cortisol hormones every time I went to "exercise," but I'm starting to embrace relaxation and restoration over pushing myself.  And I can actually almost get my heels on the floor in downward dog. OMG.
The reason I'm sharing this isn't to give a big long post about my life and what I'm doing for movement because I know that stuff isn't important. There are WAY more important things going on in the world right now, and I spend 99% of my time thinking about school, the news, writing, library books, my job, my pets, my family, and getting into a speech & communication disorders program at university.  But because yoga has been so helpful for my mental and physical health, I wanted to write about it here just in case anyone out there is resisting mindfulness practices the way that I once did.  The media makes it look like we have to push ourselves hard all the time, but we don't. Move like you love yourself, and if that movement doesn't look like what you see in Nike ads, don't sweat it.
Anyway, if you're looking to start a yoga practice, here are some links that will help you out :). Adriene Mishler's YouTube videos are warm and inviting and encouraging, and she has something for everyone. I strongly recommend her 30 Day "True" program, which ran throughout January but is still available as playlist on her channel.  I also love Lesley Fightmaster's videos.  She has several beginners' playlists, and I enjoy her meditation videos, too.  SarahBeth Yoga is another good channel. The video for IBS and colitis is very helpful.

Yoga With Adriene: www.youtube.com/yogawithadriene
Lesley Fightmaster: www.youtube.com/fightmasteryoga
SarahBeth: www.youtube.com/sarahbethyoga

Love and light!
<3 Frances