Use the links between health and emotions for your own good


Your emotions and your health are intimately linked. However, finding a few minutes to be alone and quiet every day so that you can try to process your thoughts can often seem impossible. The realities of modern life distract you with their never-ending mental chatter, so you wake up thinking about what you have to do by the end of the day, what you should have done yesterday, or that tough project you've got to tackle next week – anything but what is happening to you right this minute.

Quiet time helps cut through all this noise to help you find out what's really important, what really matters. You may think you don't have the time, but think of it this way: you have exactly the same amount of time in your day as the wisest, calmest and most successful people in the world. It's all about how you spend that time.

Start by taking 5 minutes to meditate first thing each morning. Make it a priority. Just those few minutes will make an enormous difference to how you feel, look, sleep and think. Set your alarm for ten minutes earlier than your usual wake-up time, then, instead of getting up, meditate for 5 to 10 minutes. This is a perfect time to practise, as there are minimal distractions; it will soon become a pleasant routine that connects you to your day's rhythms, like brushing your teeth.

When the alarm goes, hit the snooze button and allow your eyes to gently close. Focus on your breath. Stopping your attention from flying off in all directions is not easy, but with practice you'll find it is a reliable way to create calm, focus your thoughts, and collect your energies, which is especially beneficial just as you're getting out of bed. Take a long, deep breath and imagine it gathering up all your concerns, thoughts and activities. Hold for a count of 5, then exhale.

Continue to breathe slowly and evenly, in for a count of 5, then out for a count of 5. With practice, the pause between each in and out breath will lengthen. Get used to how it feels. Acknowledge all your different thoughts and visualise them becoming less confused, and settling into place with the rise and fall of your breath. Notice how the breath moves all the way through you – filling first your nostrils, then your throat, your chest and belly – and how it increasingly energises and sustains you. Your breath is the source of your power – if you feel yourself being distracted by a particular thought or problem, just return your focus to the movement of your breath.

Continue until the alarm sounds. Waking to this gentle meditation helps you feel connected, calm and more balanced in two ways. First, it counters your body's tendency to produce the stress chemicals adrenalin and cortisol, which build up in your body, making you tired, irritable and less efficient. Adrenalin and cortisol also compromise your body's ability to fight germs.

Secondly, when you create these few minutes of quiet time each day, something amazing happens: you begin to hear your inner voice. The playwright Goethe said, 'The hardest thing to see is what is right in front of your eyes.' It is only when you are very quiet and still and can distance yourself from the distractions of the day that you get clear answers to the big questions that are right in front of you, such as 'What makes me happy?' and 'Who do I really want to be in my life?'

In time, you may find that you would love to start a herb nursery, or you discover a desire to try wood-turning, or realise that you actually don't want to host the Christmas lunch this year. Author Mark Twain wrote that, 'The worst loneliness is not to know yourself.' Those 5 minutes in the early morning each day will centre you, and reconnect you with your inner voice. Be true to it, and let it guide you on the big and little decisions each day.

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This article was sent to us by: Brenda Sawyer at 06092010

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