Give your mind a break with active relaxation

We have so many layers to us. Yet we focus usually just on shaping our lives with our mind. And we have a limited view of mind: we see mind as this overall word for everything that happens to us. But our mind is based on our past, and isn’t always right!

Our layers of bodies and experiences get kindly uncovered when you engage in any kind of yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice. Some of the things you’ve told yourself, felt, or wanted are revealed to you. It sounds challenging, and it is hard at times. But it’s also gloriously easy because there’s a relief you feel when you realise that you don’t need to cover up anymore—that you don’t need to wait another decade to feel more content in life. You’re already the real you; you’ve just gotten a bit cluttered along the way.

At some point in any yoga pose, there’s a moment when you realise you’re thinking. It’s like you get the opportunity to peek at the ‘why.’ This awareness allows you to let go of everything. You stop searching for control, and you can breathe deeper and sink further into the pose. Your breath can guide this process too—relax the body to relax the mind. You start using your intelligence instead of just your intellect. It’s like going on holiday and spending a day preparing, a day travelling, and then you arrive at the edge of the lake and you make a massive sigh out. You’ve arrived in the moment.

In a yoga pose, you may realise you’ve been brooding over something that happened during the day that hurt, or something that suddenly appears extremely urgent on your unchecked to-do list. Perhaps images of past relationships will show up. It’s all good. Your clever mind is trying to support you; it’s just a bit of an overachiever!

It’s like your mind is going through a deep-soak cycle instead of a rinse cycle.

Alternating between feeling sensations in the body, anxious thoughts, inspiring ideas, or sounds and smells is very normal. In fact, if you can relax with that and let those things just pass by, rather than telling yourself you shouldn’t be feeling or thinking that, then you move to another state.

Your intellect’s (mind) sole job is to keep you safe. Through your limbic system, it looks for signals to determine if all is well. If it perceives a threat, it will act accordingly. It will scream for your attention. But there is so much more going on than this all-compassing view of mind. Yoga gives you change to focus on your other lowers: how breath affects your energy; giving space for wisdom and intuition to emerge; your ability to connect with nature and therefore outside yourself; and resting back into silence and stillness. This deep resting can be hard at first because we usually don’t have experience of doing no-thing. We often take pride in how busy we are because we feel value that way. We have to trust that this is the space of silence and stillness that will create our next moment. The present carries the future.

You may have heard yoga being called a practice. It’s called that for a reason: it takes time and evolves. Years ago, a meditation teacher told me that the most painful thing is to NOT be on your path. The only way to stay on your path is to keep walking on it.

The pathway to calm is to let your thoughts just hang out where they are.

By doing this, you will allow space to drop into your body and just rest. Of course, if you experience pain, you need to adjust. Stop striving. If you’re familiar with this pain or tension comes from, you can breathe into it and let it be there until it changes or adjust with kindness. A sweet stretch in the body is good; pain is not.

If you experience PTSD or past trauma, then you may need different kinds of support around you. Yoga is excellent to support the healing in these conditions, but you need to feel safe enough to let go. I can work alongside other health practitioners who support you and bring a yoga perspective and practice to your healing. Please reach out.

Back to that moment in a pose where you realise you’re still totally in your head: You can use the in-breath to gather this tension (physical and mental) and then use the out-breath to release whatever you observe or are holding on to. Feel tension and distraction leave through your nostrils with your breath. Eventually, you’ll learn to instantly soften and the shape you’re in starts to feel a bit like falling in love. Effortless. Gentle. .

If not, you can fake it: make your out-breath longer than your in-breath. Visualise muscles and thoughts softening or disappearing. You’ll have your unique way of doing this. Trust.

Send signals to your body and mind that it is okay to let go.

I do hatha or vinyasa flow yoga with my lovely partner most mornings. I can feel when he lets his mind and body go in a pose—it’s about halfway through. Up until then, there’s a bit of huffing and puffing, agitation, striving and commentary. And I know he sneaks in some tummy crunches at the end when we are meant to be totally letting go! Even though I’ve been doing yoga and meditation on and off for three decades, I still find myself going back to the beginning sometimes. Letting go in the moment is the hardest thing to do but it is the single most beneficial thing we can do for our physical and mental health. The changes are slow, but there’s no going back once you’ve made a shift.

Try a class with me or find a yoga class in your neighbourhood. Starting with restorative yoga or yoga nidra is a gentle way to begin. Forget the word “yoga” if it you think you can’t do yoga. Yoga just means means union of mind and body - being in another state. Just think about active relaxation, bringing ease. We are all messy and challenged and have to start somewhere. We are all also filled with beautiful layers just waiting to catch a breath and deeply rest.

The side of relaxation you may not know (yet)

You are probably familiar with how the stress response affects your body: Your nervous system goes into fight or flight and increases your heart rate; your immunity and hormone regulation is largely shut down; you crave more fat and carbs because the mind is telling the body it needs to eat these kinds of foods to survive; and your brain function gets microscopic and cannot cope with more than surviving.

You are also probably familiar with the relaxation response in your body: Your nervous system switches to rest and digest: your heart rate lowers and blood pressure decreases; your immune system is activated to fight off harmful bugs; hormones that are terrible for you in longer-term doses like cortisol are no longer produced; your clever scrummy hormones like melatonin (for sleep) and dopamine (for feelin’ good) increase and flood your body; your weight is balanced and you feel pretty good.

There is a side to relaxation that you may not know (yet). You’ll have an inkling of it because you’ve been there at times. You’ve had an awesome, relaxing holiday and come up with a creative idea for your life. Or you’ve been for a bush walk, listened to a meditation track, or been to a yoga class. How do those things come about and how can you get more of them so that you feel calmer more of the time?

When your body is relaxed your mind chills and you become calmer, creative and more positive.

When your mind receives signals from your physical body that everything is okay, your body relaxes. The uber energy spent on the stress response via the nervous system is no longer needed. This energy can now be redirected to all the other crucial functions in your body. You switch into this state by calming down enough for the brain to enter calmer brain wave states. Think of the luscious time before you drop into sleep - you’ve disconnected from your thoughts and your body is physically relaxed. You are about to enter dreaming. You can reach this state while you are awake through calming practices (more on that later), signaling to your mind that it is no longer needed to just keep you alive. It now has energy and focus to direct the body to heal and other yummy things.

You become calmer. Your mind’s sole job is to keep you safe. It is always looking for signals from the outside world so it knows whether to put you in a stress response or a relaxation response. That’s where most of your energy goes - into fueling your mind and body for this basic function. Many people live in chronic stress - there are no tigers in the room to run from, but your mind thinks there is. They are on the go, go go and feel mentally and emotionally overwhelmed, all of their waking life. Their sleep is effected. Their digestion is poor. If this sounds like you, take a breath, give yourself a hug and please read on.

When you enter a calmer brain wave state from being physically and mentally relaxed, you are more creative. You enter more of a non-doing space. There are more gaps between your thoughts. These gaps give space for your creativity to fire. When you enter deep relaxation, or a meditative state, you mind slows into Theta brainwave states. Kamini Desai mentions in her book Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep (my bible) that artists, inventors and children can often have more Theta brainwave activity, even when they are awake. I’m at my most creative when I’ve just started to relax. It’s a bit annoying sometimes - I always have to have a pen and paper near by!

You become more positive. I don’t mean fake happy, I mean something more ordinary and unwaivering (no matter what life throws at you): A deep, rich doubtless feeling that life is going to be okay and not have so many manic ups and painful downs. In Sharon Salzberg’s book Faith she talks about a concept called Bright Faith. I’ve taken this as accepting where you are right now, but also knowing that the beautiful view in front of you is not only somewhere you are not only heading to, but also that you feel the essence of this beautiful new place from where you are right now. Practicing Bright Faith can only be done when you are in the relaxation response - when your body and mind are calmer. You cannot heal and realise new things for yourself when you are stressed. Your mind does not and will not do it for you. It’s just trying to survive.

How do I know this?

I’m not a flash scientist or medical expert. But I have transformed myself from chronic stress, overwhelm and pre-disease to someone who has a new lease on life. I am into recovery from Long Covid, digestive issues and heart palpitations. I’m healthier, happier and I can’t wait for the rest of my life. A few years ago, I was just trying to survive and I felt like shite every day. I also know about these lesser known effects of the relaxation response because I do practices every day to get me there. I have also ditched my super-stressful career and retrained as a yoga teacher. My little studio, BeCalmed Studio, at the back of my house in native bush, is a restorative haven. Now it’s here for you. I don’t make much money but I live each day being able to share what has worked for me. I’m in love with the practices I teach as are nearly everyone who comes through the studio.

What practices will help you enter this super-relaxation state?

Restorative yoga, yin yoga, breath work, and Mother of all Good Things - Yoga Nidra. Our version of Yoga Nidra is called BeCalmed: Mind Rest. Our method is the I AM Yoga Nidra method, from my teacher, the wonderful Kamini Desai. She has passed on teachings from her father and his lineage of yoga wisdom.

These active relaxation practices are gentle and easy, and switch your body over into the relaxation response, guaranteed. You don’t really do much except relax your body and listen to me! You take shapes and breath that promote tension release. And you listen to a lying-down guided meditation, Yoga Nidra, to have a super release of mental tension. You enter a meditative state that is similar to that space between awake and asleep.

The yoga where you put your foot behind your head works for many people. So does the more restorative sides of yoga. They all end up in similar place though - relaxing the body to relax the mind.

So if you want to feel better and do life better - with a little more calm - don’t use the same strategy that go you here in the first place. Try something different. Get some calm in your life, right now.

How can you practice?

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - online via Zoom

BeCalmed: Mind Rest - Tuesdays 6.30pm - forest-studio, Titahi Bay, Porirua

First class free - use coupon - becalmed1

Let me know what’s going on with you and we can choose the right class for you. Aroha nui ki a koe.

Or do these free things, right now

Try this restorative yoga pose, Legs up the Wall or listen to my short guided meditation to bring about calm. Or listen regularly to this short breathing track. You can also find me on InsightTimer.