Time Out

Every day, we all experience the fast pace of our culture, climate and daily life. It is full of myriad and constant stimulus, questions, dilemmas, demands and problems. We are often multi-tasking even around our home. Our nervous system is in full gear all day long, using its Sympathetic Branch to provide the energy for all of our ongoing tasks. Then when it is finally time to go to sleep, we may find that we are still racing and unable to settle down to sleep. Or we may find that the next day we don’t wake up feeling rested and ready for a new, exciting day. The Parasympathetic Branch is a rather unused and un-nurtured part of our physiology. It is the Rest and Restore function of the Autonomic Nervous System. It does not operate during the pace of these kinds of days.

Your nervous system needs opportunities to discharge and recharge. When it is overtaxed, it leads to many complicated problems including anxiety, panic, IBS, ulcers, sleep disorders and sometimes drug use/abuse. When the nervous system functions well, we feel well, capable, comfortable in our own skin and generally strong. Sleep is a primary way that we offer ourselves this biological requirement which replenishes our reserves and repairs our organs and tissues. There are many other ways we can support our nervous system to function more fully and healthfully. One of the most powerful ways is through mindfulness/meditation. We can support our well being, happiness and physical/emotional functioning by taking some time out every day to settle our minds. The simplest way is to focus on the body. Allowing the attention to drift gently out of thought and down into some of the physical sensations of the body, we begin to bring the nervous system function back into the mode of Rest and Restore.

TRY: Spend 1 minute in the shower or bath simply resting attention on the heat of the water on your neck.  Feel the way your skin responds.  Sense the body softening.  Allow this process to fill your awareness.

TRY: Spend 3 minutes, 3 times a day, resting your attention on the sensation of your outer body, your skin.  Or you may try resting attention on the movement of the belly as the diaphragm expands and contracts.  Keep drawing the attention back to the focus point.  Allow thought to be unimportant for these 3 minutes.