relaxation | St. Louis Corporate Yoga

7 Relaxation Tips Before Falling Asleep

Do you find it hard to relax at the end of a long day? Do you find falling asleep a challenge? Are you worrying and stressing over situations in your life instead of enjoying a good night’s sleep?

The following 7 tips will help you relax before you go to bed, so you naturally sleep restfully and start each and every day at your fullest potential.

Routine is your best friend

Develop a set pre-sleep schedule of activities. Let your brain know it is time to shut down. This means limiting stressful thoughts and outward influences before bedtime. “Wind down” by consistently reading for 1 hour before bedtime. Your brain will eventually recognize that 60 minutes of reading in the evening is a signal that sleep is approaching.

Same time every day

You go to work at the same time, eat lunch and dinner about the same time, and have several consistent daily routines. When you go to bed and awaken at the same time consistently, you program your internal clock to shut down your busy brain and wake up on a given schedule. Putting your sleep pattern on autopilot will help you relax and you don’t have to anxiously try to force yourself to sleep.

Exercise but not too late

Exercise and other forms of physical exertion immediately deliver a boost of energy. Soon after, your body tells you that you need rest and recuperation. Exercising in the evening, 2 to 3 hours before you go to bed, signals your brain for rest and recovery, rather than a stressful “how will I go to sleep” mentality.

Start counting sheep or … apples

There is a good reason the sheep counting strategy works to help you go to sleep. What you are actually doing is replacing stressful and worrisome thoughts with a simple and boring, repetitive mental exercise. You can accomplish the same by thinking of objects or foods whose names start with each letter of the alphabet. Your brain only focuses on one thing at a time, in this instance a simple mental exercise instead of stress and anxiety.

A moment of gratitude

Before falling asleep, think about all the reasons you have to be grateful. It is hard to be anxious and stressed out when you realize you have so many things to be thankful for. Praying can also be a very valuable tool in creating calm before sleep. Doing this right before falling asleep implants positive thoughts on your nighttime brain.

Meditate

Mindful meditation focuses on the present moment. You concentrate on your breathing and your present state. Give no room for focusing on past problems or future issues which have yet to arrive. Lifelong practitioners of meditation can even slow down their heart rate and fall to sleep quickly, enjoying a healthy night’s rest.

Clear the chaos

Ideally, the place where you sleep should have minimal distraction so no consumer electronics, cell phones, MP3 players in the bedroom, please. The fewer pieces of furniture in your bedroom the better. As you are preparing for bed, your mind unconsciously takes in all of the distractions and objects in your environment. This can negatively affect your ability to fall asleep.

Why is Thai Yoga Massage Private so Beneficial?

We are often the ones making life so darn difficult: over-scheduled lifestyles, lack of spontaneity, poor sleep, erratic diets, judgmental thinking. This built up mismanaged energy does not need more doctors and pills, but perhaps some sacred realignment time to finding more happiness and greater fulfillment.

One of the best ways to improve the quality of our relationship to ourself and others is to bring our energy back into balance. Many studies tell us that a healthy lifestyle not only requires less energy to maintain but also elevates our appetite for life. With greater energy, we may step outside our regular comfort zone, and take long walks, or practice compassion, offering forgiveness. Respecting our time management skills, pays back double, as we gain both vitality and insight and have bigger desires to set and meet new personal goals.

Traditional Thai Yoga massage is an ancient form of therapeutic healing. It’s roots are in India from where it was brought to Thailand over 2000 years ago by Ayurvedic doctors and Buddhist monks. It combines acupressure, energy balancing, stretching and applied yoga exercises. Traditional Thai Yoga massage is a unique and powerful massage therapy. This very ancient form of bodywork, is excellent both for those extremely stressed as well as those with many years of yoga and meditation experience.

Receiving a Thai Yoga Massage is unlike any other kind of experience. An experienced Thai Yoga instructor will apply the harmonious vibration of “metta” bringing about a most tranquil and blissful feeling through the mind/body. When we are receiving Thai Yoga Massage, we feel fully supported, nurtured and encouraged to be ourself. This supreme state of relaxation results in feelings of safety, trust and revitalization at the deepest level.

Using our primary muscles of breathing, we inhale, expanding the abdomen, allowing the diaphragm to release, the lung tissue to expand and the deep, rich oxygenated breaths to flow. We may let life unfold without attaching to results. It is there that we are able to circulate the body with life force energy and wire our brain to stay calm, confident and centered right in the center of change.

Thai yoga massage has been offered at Clayton Yoga since 2006 and since that time, Michelle Maue has offered over 150 Thai Yoga Massages. Thai Yoga Massage provides us with greater intuition, strengthens the heart chakra, and helps us make better lifestyle choices. For frazzled souls, seeking quick solutions, Thai Yoga Massage helps to balance us from the inside out.

To feel amazing from the inside out, why not contact Michelle Maue at 314-630-1677, and book your first Thai Yoga Massage session with us today! relaxation, Clayton Yoga

Learning To Relax To Prevent Burnout

Learning to relax is one skill that will support you in all situations in life. If you looking to decrease the chance of getting burned out you definitely want to practice relaxation at will.

Why is relaxation so important? You might create free time by traveling or taking a few hours off your usual schedule and visit a spa. You might physically stop working and give yourself the time to relax – sounds great, right? But you don’t give yourself a mental break!

If you’re relaxing on the couch but you’re ruminating and stressing about your page long to-do list, then you are not getting the recharging break that you need! The time you think is all about relaxation became just another type of stress.

In order to properly recharge and to avoid adrenal fatigue you need to switch your mind off as well and you need to avoid additional sources of stressors.

Do you think that crashing in front of the TV on the couch will get your batteries recharged? Not at all. Here is what’s happening: your cortisol levels will increase due to the unnatural light from the TV, your joints might ache as a result of bad posture and of course you might eat a few extra calories that you don’t need. To make it all worse: you’re probably going to still be panicking and stressing about all the work that needs to get done while you stare at the screen.

The best thing you can do to recharge your batteries? Exercise! Do you feel that hitting the gym is just putting more stress on you? There are so many other ways you can get your mental break while exercising! How about taking a funky dance class? Or taking a ballet class? Maybe Tai Chi is more your thing. The important thing is to find an exercise that you love and value. If it feels like a punishment… keep exploring.

Why don’t you enjoy the great outdoors? Look for gentle exercise like a brisk walk in a nearby park. The natural setting will help you to relax while the light exercise will trigger the release of serotonin – a natural antidepressant and a perfect tonic for our stress hormones.

Practicing yoga is an awesome solution for relaxation. Vinyasa flow is perfect for helping you get into a flow like state where stress seem to melt away. St. Louis Corporate Yoga offers Vinyasa classes perfectly adjusted to the stressful setting of corporate life. When your company is willing to invest in on site classes, you don’t even have to travel to the yoga studio… as the yoga instructor comes to you before or during work hours.

In order to properly relax, you need to distract your brain, you need to stimulate the production of serotonin and you need to avoid screens. Better yet, try to choose something that you genuinely enjoy and that you can look forward to. This is about the most important thing because when you do something you love doing, it will produce all the right neurochemicals.

Interested in setting up customized corporate yoga classes at your workplace? We would love to help! Call Michelle at 314-630-1677 to take the first step.

Fall Asleep Without The Struggle

There is nothing that influences your day more deeply than your sleep quality. How many times do you just drag through the day having no energy or inspiration after a bad night’s sleep? This happens all too often. Of course you can actively support yourself to get a better quality sleep. It all begins with falling asleep without the struggle.

Here a few true and tested tips for easily falling asleep

Turn off your buzzing mind. Do you have a problem falling asleep as your mind cannot stop thinking about the million things you supposed to be doing the next day? Worried about forgetting the most important tasks? Get out a piece of paper and make a to-do list! Then make a priority list. Separate the most important and the most urgent things to get done tomorrow. Make a plan to get those urgent and/or important things first thing in the morning.

Get off the worry train. Do you constantly worry about the many things that can go wrong? Puts those worries on paper – this will help you put them into perspective. You might even find solutions as a result of seeing your worries on paper. If it is outside of your control, saying a prayer might help.

Get an old fashioned alarm clock. You don’t need all those digital gadgets in your bedroom. Ban the TV and all mobile devices if possible. No, you will not miss out on anything, I promise.

Yoga breathing to the rescue. Take a few deep yoga breaths. You don’t even have to get out of bed. Breathe in slowly to the count of 4, then exhale slowly to the same count. Did you know that exhaling really slow helps you relax even more? Try to exhale to the count of 8… don’t rush those numbers! You might need some practice to exhale twice as long as you inhale.

A warm bubble bath might be what you need to help with relaxation. Take a soothing bubble bath or add a few drops of essential oils to your bath water. (Don’t put the essential oils on your skin and don’t overdose them as they can lead to allergic reaction.) Enjoy up to 15-20 minutes of your bath. Add soothing music, a few candles for perfect relaxation.

Prepare for the morning rush the night before. “What to wear to the meeting tomorrow? How about breakfast? What about the weather? Will there be a traffic jam on the way to the office?” – you might be asking a thousand questions silently as you try to fall asleep. Take 10-15 minutes every evening to prepare for the next morning. Check the weather forecast to help you what to wear and plan for traffic jams. Put out the clothes and shoes you want to wear to avoid any surprise early tomorrow. Prep your breakfast if possible. You can gather all ingredients for a healthy smoothie or prepare a sandwich the night before.

Give in. If you still find impossible to fall asleep, instead of getting angry as you waste precious time, just give in to being awake a bit longer. Listen to some relaxing music you like or read a good book. Poems, quotes or inspirational stories are great choices. Reading thrillers or mystery novels might not be a good choice obviously. Let yourself being taken to sleep on the wings of quality entertainment.

Which of these tips will you try tonight?

Make Vacation Time Real Relaxation Time

You have been waiting long for your vacation. Why do the first days always feel just like any other day of the year? Packing and traveling to your destination can be stressful.

Have you ever felt you only truly enjoy your vacation in the last few days? Feeling you lost so much time getting used to being on vacation that you missed out on all the fun and joy?

How to make every minute of your vacation count this year:

Begin your vacation before you travel. Prepare mentally for your time away. Check out your destination on Google Maps. Read reports about your destination from fellow travelers on TripAdvisor.
Get a realistic picture of your destination. Even the occasional negative review will help you a lot. At least you know what to prepare for. If you find a common theme in those evaluation of, say, medical and health supply items being overpriced or simply not available, you can bring your own. Less frustration – more joy!
Don’t overplan. What good does it do to be on vacation when all your days are planned minute by minute exactly like at home? Give yourself total free time. Free from “musts” and “shoulds”. Check out all available entertaining options if you want but restrain yourself from filling your every minute with sight-seeing trips, museum visits and other things travelers supposed to do at the travel location.
If you have the chance, plan on having a day between work and vacation so you can pack without stress and take care of small chores before you hit the road.
Give yourself 3 days to get used to your vacation location. The different climate, food or customs will take some time to get used to. It is unrealistic to expect that you will feel totally at home the minute you arrive!
Decrease your expectations. Most of the times we look at the vacation time to solve all our relationship issues. In fact, statistics say that families argue more than usual when away. Why? All the routine programming that makes life easier at home is gone. Plus they spend more time together in one day than in a week back home. So automatically there is a bigger chance of conflict.
Gift yourself with time alone. Of course it is wonderful to spend so much time with your friends or family. Don’t forget about your own needs, though. Enjoy time alone at the beach, get up earlier for a morning run or book a massage session for yourself.
Do nothing, just be. Give yourself the gift of a “Do nothing” day. Sleep as much you feel like, eat when you feel like, read a book in a day, jump into the pool, daydream…. Without checking the time once. Be in a flow of life, just be!
Do some yoga if you feel like it. As inspiration, below is a yoga video Michelle made at her last Grenada yoga teacher training.

Wishing you the vacation of a lifetime!

Sleep For More Productivity

Want to become more productive in your job? There is a surprising answer to this question: sleep more and you will get more done on a daily basis – no matter what you do for a living!

Do you have a mile long to-do list that is getting longer every day? Do you feel like there is never enough time to get at least a few projects done? Do you begin new projects without finishing old ones? Could you just scream when you think about all the stuff that needs to get done in a short time? If you answered Yes to any of these questions, you know so well the stress this causes in your life.

The easiest way to handle the never ending to-dos in your job might be to work some more instead of taking some time off for recreation. You might take work home or spend more time in the office.

How do you fit all this extra work into your day? You might think about sleeping a few hours less, burning the midnight oil to get at least the most important stuff done. Unfortunately you will pay a high price if you sacrifice sleep.

Sleep is precious! Your body needs sleep to process the information flow you get throughout the day. This is the way it was constructed. Now we might try to test the limits of our systems…. But what price do we have to pay for this little experiment?

I am sure you know the feeling of fog spreading in your mind after a sleepless or short night. The ability to think clearly weakens and you feel you need to think twice to understand simple things and taking action is just a dread. Remembering things you want to get done becomes a chore and creating creative solutions is just out of question. You function but at base level at best. Now try to get productive in this foggy brain state… what are the chances of succeeding? Zero!

And no matter how we try defy the natural law of getting enough sleep, the reality is we cannot.

Protect your sleep no matter what! You need to get between 6-8 hours of sleep per night. How much sleep you need exactly is very personal. Some people thrive on 6 hours, some other need their 8 hours of zzzzzzzz….

In order to find out your natural sleep demands, lead a sleep diary for a few weeks. Note when you go to bed and how long you sleep. Also note your sleep quality. A few words or giving a note is sufficient (1 for a terrible night to 4 for an excellent night of sleep for example).

Plan for at least 7 hours of sleep per night. If you consistently wake up earlier than the 7 hours are up – this is an indication that you might need less sleep. If you cannot wake up without an alarm clock, you need to experiment with sleeping 8 hours or more.

One of a great indication if you got enough sleep is the fact that you wake up without an alarm clock feeling refreshed and ready to begin a new day full of energy.

Practicing yoga will add relaxation to your days and with a more relaxed brain you will get more done than you thought possible!

Music to Your Stressed Out Ears

If you cannot escape stress, let’s at least find ways to relieve the situation.

Music can help you cope with everyday stress! It helps to calm your mind and change your mood.

The wonderful impact music has on our lives is known for ages:

“Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” – William Congreve

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” – Plato

“The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…” – Albert Schweitzer

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” – Victor Hugo

Naturally, it makes a big difference what type of music you decide to listen to at the times of stress. Hard rock, or fast paced dance music will create the opposite of the experience you are looking for. Your heart rate, your blood pressure might increase while listening to that type of music. Which can be very welcome, of course when you are looking to increase your energy or get into action.

For relaxation try to opt for soothing melodies, soft piano pieces – both classical and modern.

Classical music is known to reduce stress. Did you know that your breathing and heart rate will match the pace of the music you are listening to? Your brain waves are also changing in accordance – gifting you with a few sacred minutes of relaxation and joy.

What if you don’t like classical music? There are a lot of “new age” artists producing relaxation inducing tunes. Don’t forget about jazz – for some people jazz music will also do the trick.

The important thing is that you take a bit of time to explore which music soothes your nerves. Select a few favorites and have a playlist ready to listen to on your iPod. If you have a stereo headphone, you can listen to a few minutes of music even in your office.

One of the best places to explore the music you like and search for new pieces is YouTube. Just search for relaxation music, or new age or classical. You will get a wealth of videos to choose from and listen to. Look for Mozart, Chopin, Tchaikovsky clips.

A few of our favorite music “videos” on YouTube:

Tchaikovsky – Lake in the Moonlight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P65WNm48p0

Mozart – Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550 [complete]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTc1mDieQI8

Frederic Chopin – Nocturnes complete: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V60USaluxGA

Relaxing Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYe92a4vG-Y

LONG Playlist of Relaxing Soft Piano Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYk9CRx0g8

Why don’t you spend on evening looking for the best relaxation music for you instead of watching the same old shows on TV? I am sure you will have a much better time and falling asleep like a baby will not be an issue, either.

Please share your favorite relaxing music pieces in the comment section below so our community can benefit from your recommendation! Thank you!

What exactly is Meditation and Can I Begin Practicing in the Office, too?

This blogpost is a description into the everyday magic and natural easefulness ongoing meditation can bring to the workplace. With so many people feeling overwhelmed with their workload today, meditation is a great practice and only requires five minutes when you know what to do.

When you train your mind to stay focused on the breath, you begin to feel at one again with the present. It is this place, that you are likely to feel more calm, empowered and able to make clear choices. Ghandi once said “you must be the change you would like to see”.

It is not about the mistakes or being perfect or pleasing others.

Meditation frees up energy so that we can clearly remove those criticisms and reflect on all the good. And with ‘loving metta’ or awareness, we begin to touch this wisdom that interconnects us all.

Breathing with conscious awareness brings the mind into greater balance, ease, vitality and awareness. We learn through the practice of “meditation yoga” directly that we are always connected. We use this inner faith and apply transformation into any area of our life by seeing the ‘vritti’ or chatter of our mind and not getting caught. The metaphor as being a fish, seeing the hook, but not taking the bite.

So, we come back to our breathing, that indivisible wellspring of goodness and bring it into our everyday life to discover that the power, and faith has always been within. Letting go of our need to know why things happen or unfold as they do and practicing this prayer of surrender reconnects us to our ‘inner mystic’.

With more continuous practice sessions of 5 minute witnessing our breathing throughout the day, we become more confident that a healthy attitude is the way to accessing true potential, wisdom and health.

Meditation reduces stress, anxiety and depression. Other benefits include increased energy, more confidence in reaching goals, greater clarity, improvement in our decision making and better sleep patterns. It is from this harmony that is there all the while, we just need to be still, that we attract the right people, the right circumstance and all abundance. Rumi has said once that all we need to do to tap into this infinite strength is “to sell our cleverness and purchase bewilderment”.

According to spirit, the source of all problems begins when we believe we are separate from spirit. It is when we believe that we are somehow separate that we create problems. The heart of any compassionate practice is to shift your focal point away from these worrisome and distracting thoughts back onto the present moment.

When we place our awareness in the breath, we train the mind to remain neutral. The truth is always that in order to make a difference in the world, we must first make the change from within.

Start a corporate wellness program in the workplace today. Please get in contact so we can help you find the best solution for your company’s needs! Call 314-630-1677.

Yoga Research Findings Enhance On-site Corporate Wellness Classes

Dr. Benson at the Harvard Medical School found that a certain amount of stress is good. A little stress is a good thing. Whether you are doing a job, playing a game, raising a child. Some stress motivates us to adapt to more difficult situations. A little stress can be fun, motivating and even interesting.

But too much stress is a bad thing. Dr Benson uses a graph to show how increasing stress raises your performance and efficiency until you reach a certain point – after that point, more stress causes your performance to decline and efficacy to reduce. Also too much stress can cause a person’s locus of control to be placed outside of one’s own experience.

In recent survey taken at the Mind Body Institute, Americans identify stress as their number one health concern today. More than 50 % of adults in the U. S report high stress on a daily basis. Untreated, stress can seriously affect performance, health, and well-being. This chronic type of stress the never lets up weakens the immune system, making us vulnerable to disease, and harder to recover from illness.

Dr. Andrew Weil has also found that even in remote parts of Africa, more and more patients are visits doctors for stress related symptoms such as ulcers, headaches and indigestion. More than 60% of all healthcare visits are related to mind-body stress induced conditions.

The key according to Dr. Herbert Benson, is to break the chain of everyday triggers or thoughts that worry us. The Dalai Lama says there are two types of problems, one the kind we can do something about and in that case, it is very important not to worry and in the second type, this problem is something we can do nothing about, and also not to worry! When we take deeper breaths, or go for a walk or bike ride, our heart beats slower and our brain waves slow down.

According to Mehmet Oz, MD, the average person’s breath is between 16 to 20 breaths per minute. Researchers found that 23 women and men who recited Om mane padme hum and the Ave Maria prayer slowed their breathing to a rate of about 6 breaths per minute compared to spontaneous breathing and random talking. What this suggests is that prayer or mantra chanting slows the “internal metronome” lessening the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Chanting or saying prayers increases our concentration and synchronizes cardiovascular rhythms creating a sense of calm and well-being.

Also it has been reported the best physiological benefits include pulse rate decrease, respiratory rate decrease, blood pressure decrease, galvanic skin response increase, alpha wave increase, posture improves, endocrine function normalizes, endurance increase, energy level increases, immunity increases, sleep improves and energy levels increase.

There is without a doubt then, through the scientific research findings here that just with a few minutes of practice, our breathing can break the chain of stress and bring about nourishing, nurturing healing energy to the brain and body. For more information on starting a corporate on-site yoga class at your company, call us at 314-630-1677. Namaste!

One Minute Meditation at Work

“A few times per day, while sitting at my desk, tension begins to creep in and take over. I may be sitting too long and working too hard.” Most people agree that work related stress is the single worst contributor to poor health.

Did you know there is a way to transform our tension without having to get to a yoga class? Research shows that deep breathing is the single best way to counteract anxiety and keep the mind calm, clear and empowered. When we breathe with more awareness, we breathe deeply and nourish our heart, support better digestion and even improve our immune system too!

How about One Minute Meditations? When we breathe deep even for one minute, we find our center, and have greater access to sustained levels of energy throughout the day. Try this, as soon as the moment of tension arises, take a step back, and notice your own unique breath move through the nostrils. Take a few deep and natural breaths in and out. Allow yourself to sit comfortably with your back to the office chair. As you begin to make any adjustments, give yourself permission to sit tall, and relax the shoulders.

Notice any muscles that are still tense, the shoulders, face, arms and see if you can release their tension on the exhale breath. Begin to notice how the breath slows down and lengthens the more you place your focus upon it.

Continue to breathe a few more rounds. Take the breath from the belly first, and also exhale from the belly first. If you like to try a counting breath, think of 4 on the in breath, pause and 8 on the out breath.

Small moments of meditation at key moments when tension is arising can be very useful in finding again greater ease at work. This will flood the body with feel good hormones such as serotonin. We can increase peace of mind and take good health back into our own hands.

Everyone has a unique breath and different lung capacity and tidal volume. Allow your breathing to feel natural and supportive to you. If your mind begins to wander and you have gone away too, simply reassure yourself that every one of us does the same thing too. It is as if we have two brains, one that is intimately connected to our peace and one that is hardwired for distraction and survival.

Staying with the breath reminds us how to access the higher mind and simply experience what is actually happening. For each of us, life is constant change, and there is no amount of controlling it, that will stop this unfolding process. When we stay with our breath, we can witness without attachment, and experience greater space, inner security, pleasure, and joy!

St. Louis Corporate Yoga currently offers 9 weekly yoga onsite wellness classes to various companies throughout St. Louis. If you would like to get a yoga class started, please contact us at 314-630-1677 or info@claytonyoga.com.