HOW TO FEEL BETTER …
I was asked to write an article a while back for a publication.
The title was: HOW TO FEEL BETTER …
Naturally I started researching what the leading causes are of people feeling unwell.
The top concern was / is: STRESS. (SHOCK)
In my time in HR, I looked to Industry reports that helped us a leadership team, because understanding how people are feeling is essential for leaders who strive to create thriving workplaces, institutions, communities and countries.
Because of this that the Gallup World Poll has been one of my go-to’s for emotional intelligence info.
It reported that Worry and Stress rose by 8% in 2020 and 4% in 2021 compared with pre-pandemic levels.
What’s even more interesting is that Higher scores on the *Negative Experience Index indicate that more of the population is experiencing these negative emotions. In 2022, about four in 10 adults worldwide said they experienced a lot of worry (41%) or stress (40%), and nearly one in three experienced a lot of physical pain (32%).
(* The Negative Experience Index is basically a reporting figure that takes into account people’s experiences with health problems and their ability to afford food)
This report tells me TWO things.
People from all over the world are looking for ways to feel better.
Ways that are low cost and effective.
Here are my top 5 rituals and practices to add to your day, which are bound to make you feel better.
With consistent practice, you’ll recognise how these habits stack on one another to provide lasting benefits for you.
Daily meditation.
Meditation used to be one of those words people knew what it meant but mostly thinking it was something complicated and difficult to do (or you needed special training to do).
We all know how hard it can be to stop the mind chatter or 'monkey mind' and stop thinking for a while and just be, but practicing meditation regularly enables us to be in control of our responses and avoid repetitive behaviour that may be based on past experiences, which may in turn be the reason you’re not feeling at your best. Slipping into the 'fight or flight' mode to escape or be aggressive in a situation when sometimes all we need is the presence of mind, or centred thought and feeling.
Meditation also aligns us with the happy hormones and neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) that induce positive thought, the ability to make clear and conscious choices, as opposed to reactively, defensively or impulsively.
Energy tip: facing the east before you start your meditation practice
2. Flower Essences (I’m trained to speak specifically to Bach Flower Remedies) can offer an extra boost which may give us the needed optimism we need to make internal changes.
Taking the remedies daily we’ll start to create space for more compassion, love, and self acceptance to flow, which saves us from the beast of self-betrayal.
What I love about the remedies is that you take them when you're feeling blue. That's to say they're TO REMEDY a dense emotional state that you're looking to lift.. As an example, say you’re struggling to make a CHOICE about something. You could take any of these flower essences to support yourself to become more certain, and take action.
CERATO
HORNBEAM
WILD ROSE
OLIVE
SCLERANTHUS
IMPATIENS
HEATHER
Mostly all of the emotions we experience can be inserted into a 7 main groups. Each group has a few flower remedies that can support you through each emotional state within the group.
The 7 Bach Flower groups are:
* Fear
* Uncertainty
* Insufficient interest in present circumstances
* Loneliness
* Over-sensitivity to influences and ideas
* Despondency or Despair
* Over-care for welfare of others
3. Coaching and Mentoring - Neurolinguistic Programming and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT): To support the internal balance of our system, we can use NLP and CBT.
CBT treatment usually involves efforts to change thinking patterns. These strategies might include:
Learning to recognize one's distortions in thinking that are creating problems, and then to reevaluate them in light of reality.
Gaining a better understanding of the behavior and motivation of others.
NLP is a system of alternative therapy intended to educate people in self-awareness and effective communication, and to model and change their patterns of mental and emotional behaviour.
Both of these are fields of study that use to support my clients and team with.
4. Breathwork: Breathwork helps put the brakes on an acute stress response and diverts the health problems associated with chronic stress. By eliciting the body's relaxation response, deep abdominal breathing helps reduce blood pressure.
Breathwork Brings Together the Mind, Body + Heart.
It nourishes our physical body by oxygenating our cells, promoting healing, and boosting our immune system. Simultaneously, it calms our minds, quieting the incessant chatter and allowing us to tap into a state of deep relaxation and peace. Breathwork can help improve your well-being in many different ways. It serves as a quick, daily exercise that helps change your life for the better. To better understand the power of breathwork, here are some breathwork benefits that have been scientifically proven.
For a free 7 day breathwork and meditation journey, head on over to https://www.arianna.com.au/breathe
5. Essential oils and Aromatherapy: it could be said that modern aromatherapy started in Germany in the 1500s and 1600s and has taken four hundred years to achieve its present state. Hieronymus Braunschweig wrote a number of books on distillation. His work, New Volkomen Distillierbuch, published in 1591, referred to 25 essential oils. Similar references are made by Conrad Gesner in The Treasure of Euonymus, published in 1559. J.J. Wecker, writing in 1616, said: “Perfumes are certainly compound medicine, which can affect the mind and eliminate all bad odours and infections in the air that surrounds us.”
Aromatherapy helps to bring the body/mind/spirit areas back into harmony with each other by encouraging the natural forces within each to realign. When essential oils are applied to the body, the mind and spirit are able to also reap the benefits of aromatherapy for health and wellbeing. Some essential oils, such as frankincense, work greatly to balance these areas of one’s life so that health and wellbeing are achieved. Aromatherapy uses essential oils, which are the pure oils are extracted from many parts of the plant, tree, or shrub, including the flower, leaf, resin, bark, root, twig, seed, berry, rind and rhizome. These essential oils carry specific therapeutic properties that can be used to balance and heal many mind, body and spiritual conditions. At a metaphysical level, essential oils are considered the lifeblood of the plant kingdom.
Due to aromatherapy’s popularity there is some confusion as to what defines aromatherapy, and what is merely fragrance. This is especially true with the confusion surrounding so-called aromatherapy candles. Many candles do not use essential oils. Instead, they use synthetic fragrances that make a room smell nice that offer little, if any, therapeutic benefits. Despite defining their products as aromatherapeutic, because they do not use essential oils it should not, by definition, be considered at all aroma-therapeutic.
At a scientific level, essential oils contain chemical components that cause reactions within the complex human body system which can then cause a significant physiological effect.
In the practice of aromatherapy, essential oils have four modes of action when interacting with the human body.
1. Pharmacological: the effects of chemical changes which take place when an essential oil enters the bloodstream and reacts with hormones, enzymes, etc.;
2. Physiological: the way an essential oil affects the systems of the body, whether they are sedated or stimulated, etc.;
3. Psychological: the individual response to the inhaled aroma of an essential oil.
4. Holistic: the human body’s total response to an essential oil, including but not limited to, the responses listed above.
Holistic aromatherapy refers to the area of aromatherapy many naturopaths, aromatherapists, natural product developers, and healers work within. This involves using essential oils for the therapeutic treatment of clients, enhancing the energetic quality of an environment, and/or using essential oils for spiritual practice. This form of therapy uses the holistic approach – mind, body and spirit – and, unlike medical aromatherapy, focusses on treating more than just the symptoms of dysfunction and/or illness.
To discover the incredible world of essential oils, head on over to this page.