For many Scandinavians, the annual battery recharge at the summer house is just a few short weeks away. Sometimes, however, that recharge is more urgent than the annual summer holidays. In fact, a short replenishment on most days is what we really need to keep balanced and positive. Where will you get that from (and where will you find the time to enjoy it)? The answer is easy, practical and inexpensive: yourself! Learn how to source your own energy with our 20 minute daily program.
You’ve just come home from a long, hard day at work and now it’s time to summon whatever energy you’ve got left to attend to the family. When finally the first quiet moment comes, the exhaustion of the day begins to set into your neck, back and shoulders. Your stomach is still filled with the butterflies from the day’s events and won’t let your body relax into sleep.
Instead of pouring that night cap, switching on the computer or television (none of these activities encourages good sleep!), find a soft, clean spot on the carpet and lie down. If the background noise is distracting, fetch your iPod or put on the stereo and play Quiet Please or your favorite relaxing music. Let's begin:
1. If you have lower back pain, don’t lie flat. Bend your knees and have your feet flat on the ground. You may keep your eyes open or closed through the exercises.
2. 5 Minutes: Place your hands on your abdomen and take a deep breath in. Feel your abdomen rise and then fall as you exhale. Begin with long, deep inhalations and exhalations and gradually let your breathing become more relaxed and even.
3. 10 Minutes: Now that you have begun to rediscover the energy in your breathing, you’re ready to rediscover it throughout your body. Start at the feet. Focus on one foot. As you continue to breathe consciously and think of nothing but your foot, you will begin to feel a tingling sensation which circulates through your toes, your arch and up through your ankle and eventually into your lower leg. As that flow happens, you can move your focus to your lower leg as you continue consciously to breathe. Feel the tingling sensation awaken there too. This is your very own energy source that you carry with you all of the time but that usually is buried in schedules, responsibilities and exhaustion. Continue this awakening process throughout all of the limbs of your body and gradually upwards toward the shoulders, head and neck.
4. 5 minutes: Often we feel the greatest pain and exhaustion in our shoulders, neck and head. It is worth spending a little more time here to source the healing power of your own energy in these areas. Once you reach your head you will begin to feel an intense yet still relaxing flow happening in your forehead and around your temples. Round off your session by taking two or three slow, deep breaths in an out. Place your hands on your knees and roll up gradually to a sitting position.
Although this exercise is in part been about awakening your own energy source, you will begin to feel a lightness and ease, particularly as you source the own energy in your cranial region, that will help you to enjoy the sleep that you need.
Now you can more than manage on any day! Perhaps you can even pack your bags for the summer holidays without feeling as though you are going into near collapse. Holidays are, after all, not without their own energy demands!
For many Scandinavians, the annual battery recharge at the summer house is just a few short weeks away. Sometimes, however, that recharge is more urgent than the annual summer holidays. In fact, a short replenishment on most days is what we really need to keep balanced and positive. Where will you get that from (and where will you find the time to enjoy it)? The answer is easy, practical and inexpensive: yourself! Learn how to source your own energy with our 20 minute daily program.
