Living with covid-19

Living with covid-19

Finding stillness amongst the chaos

With the threat of Covid-19 in our community, I have put together some ideas to keep your mind, body and spirit healthy during this time of great change. Stress and anxiety has a major influence on our immune system, so number one priority is to find ways to bring yourself out of your mind and into your body. Being in your body simply means being in the present moment. Cultivating a regular yoga practice is helping me, stay in the moment, some people meditate, some people are doing Pilates or another form of exercise. Exercise helps your get rid of the stress hormones from the body.

Yogic vagal breathing or square breathing is a useful tool to help bring the nervous system into rest and digest mode (or parasympathetic) rather than fight or flight mode (sympathetic nervous system) which most of us are actually operating in these days. So, here’s how you do it……take a breath for a comfortable count maybe 4 or 5…..hold for 4 or 5…breathe out for the same count, then repeat. You may want to repeat for 5-10 rounds or ‘squares’. Do this every day if you can , preferably seated, so you don’t fall asleep!