Turn your stressing into blessings.

The festive season is often a challenging time.

Do you want to feel blessed or stressed?

What can you do when you feel yourself pulled and stretched emotionally, mentally, physically and financially?

We often feel many obligations and expectations which can leave us feeling all sorts of emotions.

We can feel there is very little time for ourselves, or maybe too much time to ourselves.

Christmas is a time for giving, sharing, caring and all sorts of other traditions.

The Alexander Technique can help you manage many of the various demands.

Here are a few things I find helpful to remember and practice in order to maintain some poise, balance, ease, peace and good will.

You can’t give what you haven’t got, so the more calm, content and present you are, the more you will have to give.

I often say to my pupils the best present you can give your loved ones is your presence.

We are often very generous to others at this time of year, but not so generous to ourselves.

We give thanks and gratitude for everything and everyone at Christmas and often forget to acknowledge ourselves.

We need to make sure we are taken care of emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually, then we are much more able to give and share ourselves.

The Alexander Technique is ideal for taking care of yourself –  you learn how  to “give to  yourself” – quality – nourishing – healing – time.

My suggestion is to make a quiet space and the time to commit to giving yourself, 20 mins per day/eve which is about 5% of your day –  not much to ask of yourself.

The festive season is a great time to begin to practice, which you can carry over into the new year.

Do this by detaching yourself from all the different roles, routines, relationships and responsibilities and lying in a quiet comfortable place on your back (constructive rest). This allows the body to release all the accumulated stress, tension and compression, also to recharge the nervous/immune systems as well as all the other systems.

Stopping and resting takes a little practice but the more you practice, the easier it becomes; the body remembers, it is accumulative,  it’s like giving  yourself a present every day,  showing gratitude for the body/mind/soul. It is like a mini retreat – The power of stillness and silence is very healing, balancing, restoring and rejuvenating.

Also whatever you are doing, see if you can do it with less stress – we put so much effort into  whatever we do – One of the principle tools of the Alexander Technique is efficiency and conserving energy.

Doing less,– this can prove difficult at this time of year.

As soon as we ask the question can I do less? This will reduce the stress.

Wishing you a healthy, happy winter solstice and best wishes for 2014!

All the best.

Nicholas Brandon.