Doing Nothing- pure Gold for your health!

The New Year has started and after the busy Christmas/holiday season for most, you are right back at it. Kids to school, Go-train/Subway to work, sitting in your car on the highway that has turned into a parking lot!

When was the last time you truly did absolutely NOTHING? No, not watched Netflix and chilled all day, or read the Michele Obama bestseller, or listened to the latest whoever album, read a blog from a respected Coach (insert smiley face here). I am talking about doing NOTHING.

As an analogous reference for those of you who have done Yoga with me. What is the hardest pose in Yoga? Tree pose? Headstand? Noooooo, it is Savasana - corpse pose or final relaxation pose. Meant to completely relax you and detach from all brain activity and sensory perception, 2 minutes in, and the mind starts to wander for the average person to things like -when will I have to leave to get to the kids- what's pressing for later at the office- do I need a shower before dinner- oops I forgot to pick up that obligatory birthday gift that I don't want to spend money on for that person that I don't like at work, etc. Mundane things, siiiigh. But in a sense you are still doing nothing.

Let's try and re-energise and re-invigorate our lives in 2020, by starting to learn how to simply Do NOTHING. And no, I am not going to train you to be lazy!

3 simple thoughts:

1. Embrace silence. You can sit, lie down, walk, allow yourself to reflect, daydream, meditate, fantasize about the future, or just let your mind wander with no focus.

2. Schedule it and/or let it happen naturally. I personally like to start my day with 5 minutes, completely relaxed, with no prevailing thought, checking in with my body to see how I physically feel, before getting up, with focus on my breathing. You can do it at small junctures throughout the day or last thing before sleep at night.

3. Detach from technology- it is supposed to improve our efficiency, not run our lives and increase our stress levels. Does it really matter what everyone else is doing at that immediate moment that you hear the ding of a notification? How often do you jump at that ding. Cortisol and adrenaline hormones constantly being released in a Pavlovian way.

As a well known Golf Channel personality likes to say, "if you keep on doing what you have been doing, you will keep on getting what you have been getting........."

Regards,

Coach Franz

@The Performance Center