Your world is so full of the “stuff of life” that you feel as if you’re life is running at light speed. Perhaps you’d consider it a gross understatement to call a suggestion to add more activity as a way to relax as being “counter-intuitive.”
Well, counter-intuitive or not – there is truth to this suggestion. Activating our bodies in certain ways, can indeed calm our minds and refresh our spirit.
A breath of fresh air
Take something as simple as breathing. After all, breathing is an activity performed by our bodies. It also requires our mind. Next time you’re stressed see if you can remember to take a minute and just observe how you’re breathing. Most likely you’re breathing from the chest and taking rapid, short, and shallow breaths – all of which sounds extremely similar to how you’re breathing while exercising.
It would be great news that somehow getting stressed out could have similar benefits to exercise, but unfortunately this is not the case. In fact, the opposite is true.
But first it is important to know – or remind ourselves – of the function of breathing, which is to move life-giving, energy-producing oxygen to every cell in our bodies. Our hearts are responsible for pumping blood enriched with oxygen – when our breathing is from our chest, is too rapid and too shallow, this means we’re making our hearts work much too hard. In other words, we are wearing our hearts down and end up feeling run down physically and mentally – our brains require 15-20% of our available blood supply.
When exercising, similar to when we are under stress, we often become short of breath – work harder at breathing. Rapid, shallow chest breathing during exercise taxes our hearts just as much as it does when we do the same thing when stressed. Instead, when exercising, focus on breathing through the nose. This supports the correct ratio of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our blood. Doing so also tends to cause us to breathe more from our abdomen, which places less stress on our hearts.
Taking a few moments every now and then to observe how we are breathing is a very simple activity to repeat throughout our day, yet doing so is a powerful method for relaxing our minds. As a matter-of-fact, one form of meditation is called “Mindful Breathing.”
Watch this video to learn more methods for relaxing your mind
>>>Like Burt’s video? Sign up for his free Quantum Jumping lessons to learn more
Moving Meditation
Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years and has come to be recognized within the scientific medical community as an effective tool for such things as lowering blood pressure and reducing stress. In other words – meditating has the ability to relax the mind.
The word “meditate” usually brings to mind a picture of yourself (or someone else) seated on the floor or ground, legs crossed in what is to some people a seemingly impossibly uncomfortable position, with hands either resting on the lap or in some sort of “prayerful” position. Many people have tried to meditate and have had less than optimal results when it comes to relaxing their mind. Surprisingly, some people even describe trying to perform “seated” meditatation as “stressful.”
Meditation is all about shifting focus and a great way to shift our focus is to move. Yoga is a traditional form of moving meditation where focus is shifted to different postures. Buddhists have a meditation practice called “walking meditation.” Some western religious traditions practice “walking the labyrinth.” In all these examples the meditative process is to shift focus away from the stressful clutter in our minds. Instead, one may concentrate on their breathing, or the rhythm of their pace – which are essentially the same thing. This process can induce a relaxed mind free of stressful and/or negative thoughts.
Moving meditation can take place during any repetitive physical activity. The most common that come to mind are walking, running, and biking. But don’t limit yourself to traditional concepts of “exercise.” Exercise is simply physical activity. When looked at this way, doing the dishes can become a moving meditation that relaxes the mind. Pulling weeds, painting the living room, vacuuming, raking leaves, planting flowers, digging a ditch – any activity you may consider to be “mindless” and/or repetitive can serve as a means to relax the mind by shifting our focus.
Create a relaxed mind
The act of creativity is perhaps the most often overlooked opportunity to relax the mind. This method is extremely similar to the practice of moving meditation. For example, creating a garden requires repeated tasks such as pulling weeds and planting flower beds. But we also most usually plan, or imagine, what we want are garden to look like. We also enjoy observing our garden as it grows and changes. In other words, we “contemplate” our garden.
Almost any creative act can be compared to creating a garden. Playing an instrument, writing music, painting pictures, knitting, sewing, woodcrafts, photography, quilting, pottery, writing – creativity shifts our focus. Creativity involves many repeated physical tasks. Even writing is a physical act. The act of creating allows us entry into a level of contemplation that can quiet and relax the mind.
The quantum rhythm of a relaxed mind
Mindful breathing, moving meditation, and creativity all share a common characteristic – rhythm. And rhythms have a frequency to their beat. This may seem to apply only to things such as music or marching – however, frequency is actually a profound characteristic that directs the nature of the reality we experience.
Quantum physics breaks down all matter into small, smaller, and even smaller particles that ultimately are expressed in waves. Each of these waves vibrates at various frequencies. These matter/waves exist in infinitely multiple locations simultaneously. Some physicists theorize that it is the very act of observation that trims all these possibilities into the one thing that is observed. The act of observation transcends what would otherwise be experienced as utter chaos.
This elegant description of the nature of reality suggests that there is also a quantum rhythm to a relaxed mind.
Particles are repeatedly broken down into parts until they become waves. Observing (contemplating) these waves reduces chaos and allows the ability to focus on one thing; one event; one location.
It is the activation of our bodies in a manner that we repeatedly break down and/or perform a similar process or task and then contemplate (observe) the action itself or the result of those actions, that allows us the ability to shift our focus and relax our minds.
