DETOX: Respecting the Seasons & Cycles of the Body
By Monica. Filed in Yoga Classes |
Our bodies go through cycles like the changing seasons, and we often miss the signs. In the same way that you know how bad you feel when you overeat or eat unhealthy food, start tuning into your body’s reactions to the stimulus you ‘feed’ it.
These days we face problems of sensory and auditory overload. We often find ourselves zooming in-and-out of traffic, checking emails, spending hours in front of a computer-screen or the television, and not to mention stress-eating and juggling the roles we play in our relationships.
It is sometimes hard to quantify how much we over-stimulate our minds and bodies. However you can easily tell the overall experience of too much negative activity – usually through feelings of flatness, dullness, or low mental or physical energy.
Bad food clogs up the body with toxic materials, blocking the channels through which we absorb vital nutrients. And similarly, much like how bad food blocks our food absorption channels, poor sensory and auditory input can block our energy.
When this happens we can create emotional blocks, which are a build-up of information we can’t process. This information gets shelved in a psychological “holding zone”, but eventually we need to deal with it. In the meantime this backlog can manifest in anger, frustration, poor health, and low energy.
To detoxify your body, you can choose to eat quality food, and allow time for your food to digest after eating. Similarly for your mind, allow yourself time to assimilate and process all the sensory and auditory input – information, emotions, noise, sounds, tastes, and colours. This will allow the body to “catch up” with it’s natural sense of wellbeing, centeredness and focus.
As we move from cooler Winter to the warmer Summer months, your body will naturally seek to detoxify. By doing some maintenance on yourself, you can build supportive conditions that allow you to thrive in the overloaded experience of living our busy day-to-day lives.
You can do this in several ways:
- Spending some quiet time. Meditation can be a significant tool in cutting down the impact of sensory overload. It can provide important and much needed quiet time, which allows us to tone down the “mental chatter”.
- Shifting your diet towards lighter, non-stodgy foods to allow your digestive system to release unwanted toxins.
- Going for relaxing massages to allow the body to expel any imbalances and toxic tension.
- Practising non-aggressive exercises such as yoga, tai-chi or chi-gong that allow the body to sweat out toxins.
Seasonal transitions are a perfect time to go on a retreat. Retreats are also an excellent and cost-effective way to detoxify and experience all the above benefits over the course of a weekend. You get to do this in a supportive group setting.
ReConnect Yoga offers weekend retreats (4:30pm Friday to 4:30pm Sunday) at Kanimbla View in Blackheath. Their next upcoming retreat is on 4-6 December 2009. The retreat costs $650 and includes food, accommodation, classes and activities.
For Blue Mountain residents, there is a reduced rate of $350 (over 45% off the standard rate), which excludes accommodation.
Click Here for more information or call 0414 985 800. Places are limited.
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