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Relaxing Into Authenticity

4/21/2016

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Carla Fox RYT/PYT

​“I do not seek perfection. I simply seek to remember who and what I am everyday. I seek the people and places and practices that support the expanding of this awareness in my day, in my life, in my choices.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Over the past couple of years I have observed a seemingly growing portion of the female population experiencing over commitment in their lives. (To be clear, this is not exclusive to the female of our species, only that it has been observed more first hand in that sex by the writer. It is my hope, that this serves anyone who nods their head to any of this or thinks, “I have felt that!”, female or otherwise. This is for anyone who recognizes this and wants to do something about it for themselves and the world they live in.) The most interesting part of it is that the commitments are mostly external. Few, if any, are made to herself. There is a fundamental misalignment with the individual and their own personal path to joy of being or living in their spirit. The inauthentic gap we experience in our own lives drives us to cover up the emptiness with some kind of distraction or stimulation. (Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, KRI International Teacher Training Manual Level 2 – Vitality and Stress (Santa Cruz, NM: KRI 2008), 65.) Now, it may be said that this population has always been there, and that I started noticing it because I began to see and feel it in myself. What does it look like and feel like? Here is what I have felt, seen and come to understand as signs of this over commitment that takes one out of the dynamic balance so many of us are navigating toward:

Feeling so busy that there isn’t time for the things you know are “good” for you.

Doing everything else before allowing the possibility of doing what you love.
Feeling an ambiguous lack of ease or harmony.
Hoping that “catching up” on everything will make you feel at peace.
Feeling envious or judgmental toward others who seem to have/take time for themselves.
Good, old-fashioned anxiety.
Good, old-fashioned depression.
Hearing the running tape in your mind that everything is “great!” or “ok!” because you can’t pin down a specific reason to feel out of sorts.
Feeling like you must be the only one selfish or ungrateful enough to feel this way.
Feeling the need to apologize even when you’re not sure why you’re apologizing.
Fatigue
Insomnia
Addiction

It’s true that a lot of women live a life that is on the surface pretty great; decent health, a job, a family, friends. We live in an era where women have many more options than they used to, and there is a drive, internal and societal, to utilize ALL of those options now and to use them all well, to their fullest expression. No pressure. And still within all of that, there is this sense of something missing. There is a feeling of imbalance that is seeking its level. Often with the idea that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. That there is an action to be taken that will change it. That if one just does MORE. That there is something one must DO to feel better, to get better, to BE better. Often in tandem with that is the feeling that its out of one’s hands. That there’s nothing one can do about it, or that this is just life, and that’s how its supposed to be.

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“Living with depleted energy for years without end can result in high-grade levels of chronic stress; drained nutrients… and sometimes depression that won’t go away. By the time we reach our forties and fifties, sometimes we are so accustomed to fatigue, low energy and exhaustion that our bodies simply don’t know any other way of being.” (Nora Isaacs Women in Overdrive (California: Seal Press 2006), 10.) It is that which makes this state of being so ambiguous, because it feels almost normal. The American Psychological Association notes that 70% of people realize they could use help, but only 7% seek it out. (Gurucharan Singh Khalsa, KRI International Teacher Training Manual Level 2 – Vitality and Stress (Santa Cruz, NM: KRI 2008), 35.) Yogi Bhajan, the master of Kundalini yoga, called this cold depression. Living with a constant low to moderate level of stress as your baseline.  It has been my experience and observation that this all starts out quietly, and gets louder and more symptomatic.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna experiences a time where he is overcome with weakness in a moment where he needs to act. He is in duality about the circumstances of a battle where he has loyalty to both sides. Krishna steps in and reminds him to look into his own true nature and transform his consciousness instead of focusing on the external circumstances. Once this disconnect was healed, Arjuna was able to move with courage, integrity, and compassion in each action on the battlefield.
Herein lies that amazing irony of it all. It is by deeply relaxing into oneself that all of this duality starts to fall away. That it almost takes care of itself. All the potential for harmony already exists, it does not need to be made. It does not need anything to be fixed “first”. The other hilarity is that learning deep relaxation… is really hard work.

In western medicine, this can look like a million things. And it IS a million of those things. It is anxiety, lethargy, resentment, headaches, muscles aches, digestive upset, and so many other things. What we are talking about here is the overall source and at the same time overall effect from those million things that are diagnosed and treated. They are inextricable. It is said that when Native American medicine men talk to the sick, they usually ask three questions: When was the last time you sang? When was the last time you danced? When was the last time you told your story? That lack of each person's version of singing, dancing and storytelling is what we seek to address here.

More on this next time!

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Tell a Good Story

4/7/2016

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​Adam Milligan, President EQUIVITA


For a few years there has been an increasing amount of support for the idea of increased protein consumption directly around resistance training exercise. Manufacturers have designed supplements specific for ingesting pre, post and even during exercise. The idea behind this push is that during resistance exercise you can cause muscular damage that will then need to be rebuilt stronger. And that there is an "anabolic window" for the ideal rebuilding which is right around the time of muscular damage.

Intuitively, this story makes sense. If you need building blocks to make the muscles stronger then having those blocks readily available should make the building easier. This story connects because it is believable.

If, however, you start to look deeper into the story you might begin to question its believability. During an activity where you are breaking down the muscle - which is another great story that we will save for another time and suffice to say that it doesn't happen nearly as often as presumed - you are not building. The rebuilding happens at rest, not during exercise.

So, why would so many studies indicate that post-exercise protein is so important? Aside from the obvious benefit to supplement companies and the psychological benefit to the individual, the answer may be found in the article, "The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis" (Schoenfeld et al. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2013, 10:53).

Through analyzing the data from protein ingestion studies, Schoenfeld concludes that "Any positive effects noted in timing studies were found to be due to an increased protein intake rather than the temporal aspects of consumption...". Total amount of protein ingested being the determining factor as opposed to when that protein was consumed.

So, how much protein should one eat? According to the literature, those consuming twice of the standard recommendation for sedentary people saw the greatest benefit. This puts the protein intake around 1.6g/kg bodyweight. Of course, if I were trying to tell a good story I would let you believe that all you need to do is increase your protein intake and your muscles would grow burn more calories and shed any unwanted body fat. I think you know that it is just not that easy.

As with any supplement or nutrient, your body will only realize a difference if it has an unfulfilled need. Consuming more protein will only make a difference if you are creating a demand in your body for those building blocks. Without the activity to create the need, that increased protein will just be used by the body as increased calories which could go to increased stored calories as fat.

Balancing your macronutrients (FAT, CHO and PRO) to ensure you are getting enough but not too much can be tricky and, no doubt, there will be continual research that will disprove things that we currently believe, but if you listen to your body you can find the balance that is right for you. Research and normative data are best used as guidelines and should always be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

As always, let me know how I can help.
 
Adam

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What Happens to Our Energy in Movement?    

4/4/2016

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Cheryl Harris, Licensed Massage Therapist

It's getting to be that time of year again - if we can get through the next week of cold rainy weather - we will be seeing folks outside running, walking, cycling, just moving. Thankfully, warmer weather invites us all to do that more, and I love it! What happens when we get outside and move more? We are using energy, sure, but the energy doesn't just go away, it only changes form. 'For every action, there is an equal, and opposite reaction'. Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law can be applied in every day situations, but how does it apply to our movement? 
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If we go outside and take a walk, a stroll, just to move and get some blood flow going in our body, there will always be forces at work - your feet hitting the pavement, the pavement pushing up into your feet, your arms swinging, your legs moving one at a time, one in front of the other. These forces always come in pairs. The direction of the first being opposite to the direction of the second. Super, right? Within the movement of walking, we typically swing our arms back and forth; it's what our body does, and we don't really think about it much, or have to tell our brain to move our arms back and forth while we walk. What does this motion do for us in terms of Newton's Third Law and dispersing energy? 

When our arms swing back and forth, it ends up helping keep our lower back 'happy'. Why? How? In walking, our feet hit the pavement and there is an energy transfer through our feet, up the leg, into the hips, low back and spine, all the way up to our neck. Think of it as a sort of vibration, or a ripple in a pond. When these ripples or vibrations happen, they have to have somewhere to go. They travel up the spine, for sure, but where do they go from there? That's where our arms come into play. When we swing our arms while we walk or run, the vibrations travel down our arms and out our fingers, changing into another form of energy, yet again. If we don't swing our arms, that energy can become 'trapped' in a way, and create tightness. That tightness can sometimes settle in the upper back, or lower back, and stay there.

Dispersing the energy is best case scenario, but often we find that folks don't disperse that energy as they need to, so what do they do? Massage, of course! Massage can help loosen the tissue that has tightened down from the energy being trapped in the spine. If we let the trapped energy build up, it can take a while, or multiple massages, to loosen the tissue and get it back to where we want it to be. If we get massages on a regular basis, the consistency can put our body in a great place and make loosening the tissue much easier. 

Energy is a fabulous thing, whether you feel it in the air or you feel it in your bones, and it can come in many forms. Remembering to take care of that energy, and ourselves, is an important part of life. Whether you already get massages, or have been thinking about it and not quite sure if it's a good thing, I'm here to tell you it IS! Massage not only deals with the physical, but the mental energy as well. We often don't allow ourselves to take time out and just be. Our energy is always changing forms and massage can help with the ever changing us. 

Feel free to ask questions if you have them, I'm happy to help. charris@equivita.com

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    This blog is written and updated by the staff that support EQUIVITA. Individual blog posts are the thoughts of the staff member that submitted the post.  The content of these posts often support the thoughts and ideas of our organization, but do not always(and we scarcely use definitives) reflect the same thoughts or ideas of the organization as a whole.

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