So how dowe stimulate it? Things like yoga (especially the more ‘yin’ styles) breathing practices and meditation consciously work to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and make us feel calmer. Also known as the ‘rest and digest’ function, when stimulated it encourages the body to heal and repair itself. It allows the heart to slow down, digestion to work properly and sleep to be deep and refreshing. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, serves the opposite function. It’s arguably the greatest killer in the western world. Chronic stress impacts relationships, mental health and decision-making abilities. And the long-term effects of stress are well documented on one end of the scale are poor sleep and digestive problems and on the other, heart disease and cancer. Unfortunately, the ‘predator’ these days is often the permanent sense of overwhelm that hangs over many of us. If we were outrunning a predator, this would come in handy. It shuts off ‘unnecessary’ functions like digestion in order to conserve energy. It floods our system with adrenaline, which in turn increases our heart rate, causes muscles to tense and breathing to become more rapid. Also known as ‘fight or flight’, the sympathetic nervous system is what kicks in when we’re in danger.
The result, from a physiological point of view, is that our sympathetic nervous systems end up running the show. We’re inundated with images and messages insinuating that we’re not enough, and as a result, we hold ourselves- and others- to impossible standards. We work round the clock because we’re always reachable, driven by a fear that we’re somehow dispensable. Whilst this does have a positive side- it’s easy to stay in touch with friends, its convenient to buy things using only face recognition- it also takes its toll. We are constantly connected to communication devices and mass media. It’s also that yoga can-with time- give us a greater ability to surrender to the flow of life. It’s not just that yoga gives us a strong body or a healthy glow, though these are appealing by-products. It’s not surprising that as the pace of contemporary life becomes more and more relentless, people are turning to yoga in their numbers. But this not being an ideal world, most of us will need to find a tool or two to help us achieve such equanimity. In an ideal world, we’d all instinctively handle life with such grace. They trust in the knowledge that at some point, they will be spat out on the other side, even though they don’t know when that might be, or what might happen in the meantime. They yield fully to the weight and mood of the water. To struggle under the weight of a giant wave could potentially lead to serious injury or even death.
There’s something inherently Zen about how the surfers have no choice but to meet a dramatic wipeout with complete surrender. Naturally, part of their training includes learning to hold their breath for long stretches, but if you ask any surfer about the key to surviving such a wipeout, they’ll tell you that it’s to stay calm and not struggle.īig Wave surfing strikes me as an apt metaphor for dealing with life’s more turbulent times.
They might be underwater for anything from thirty seconds to a few minutes, churned relentlessly in what surfers affectionately (and euphemistically) refer to as a ‘washing machine’ until at some point the wave breaks and they are returned to the surface. If it all went well, they got to experience the ride of their lives as they glided down a wave the height of a tower block to rapturous applause from the spectators standing a sensible distance away on the beach.īut if it all went wrong, that’s another story. Medical teams circled overhead in helicopters. The surfers had to be pulled into the waves by jet skis. As the title suggests, it wasn’t for the faint of heart. I recently watched a video of a Big Wave surf competition. This article is on overwhelm, so it’s applicable to just about anyone who’s ever felt stressed, really! There will be more on that to come in this blog very soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share that I am now the yoga columnist for The Third Space, which is a new wellbeing magazine for the not-for-profit centre. I have had a bit of a hiatus as I had a baby last year and this coincided with moving to a new town and starting a new life.
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