Cultivating Ease

Theme for the week - ease vs dis-ease!

One of the things that turns on our stress response is a feeling of dis-ease or discomfort - a sense that something isn’t okay. But guess what? This feeling may just be caused by being bombarded with too much information. When we are overloaded with stimuli (as is the case for most of us), it becomes really difficult to focus on any one thing because we get addicted to too much at once.

Our dopamine system goes awry and we are left feeling a sense of dis-ease. Remember that dopamine is one of our feel-good neurotransmitters. When levels rise, we’re highly motivated and ready to take on the world. When levels drop we feel uncomfortable. It’s at this point that we tend to grab for more stimulus to take our mind off of the discomfort - i.e. check our phone or email, scroll or eat mindlessly - the usual suspects.

The truth is, if we can just draw our attention to 10 slow breaths, dopamine will generally kick back in and we’ll feel fine again and not feel the need for more stimuli. We’ll be able to sit through a red light without touching our phone or stick with the project we’re trying to finish without checking email.

You can also take two minutes to practice noticing all of the ways you are actually just fine right now. Consider taking those two minutes right now. Yep, right now. Just pause here and notice all of the ways that right this minute, you have everything you need - or maybe you don’t. Maybe what you notice is that you’re actually hungry or thirsty or you have to go to the bathroom. Without that check in, you might have ignored the real-time needs of your body and checked your phone instead:)

This week, take a few pauses throughout the day to notice all the ways that you are just fine AND one or two things that you really should respond to. 9 times out of 10, it won’t be any of the things you tend to do to distract yourself from the dis-ease and taking the time to notice, will leave you feeling comfortable and at ease again. 

I’ll be practicing these concepts during class this week with the Your Yoga community. If you’d like to join us, you are so very welcome! To learn more about this beautiful virtual community and our live zoom (and recorded for convenience) weekly classes, check out the information and links below.

Here's to cultivating a sense of ease and comfort!

Rachel