Calm Week 1

"Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that's very important for good health."

-Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama’s quote reflects the benefits of staying calm, gaining inner strength, self-confidence and good health. But how do we get there? First consider calm as more of a process, than an outcome.

While deciding what the month of July would focus on, I asked my dear friend and yoga teacher for a suggestion. Without hesitation she said CALM. Upon review of my past posts, it seems calm is mentioned more than 20 times. Yet there is not one month devoted to it. This July I will ask people what calm means to them, and include researched techniques, and best practices.

My yoga teacher said for her calm means not stressing and allowing her emotions to influence how she responds. She recommends taking a breath, with a pause but warns that it is easier said than done. What comes to mind is that calm is a practice. Consider it like memorizing the multiplication tables or learning a foreign language, or a new physical skill. Repetition and practice equal success.

Additional practices would be to first become self-aware of our own triggers. People, places, things or events. Once we know what causes stress levels to rise for us, we can be more focused on how we respond to them.  Then we can implement the following techniques.

Physically raising the shoulders up to the ears can release the body tension that is prohibiting us from finding calm. Adding an inhale with the raising of the shoulders, and an exhale with the lowering. Repeat three times and throughout the day.

Take a brief, leisurely walk. Even ten steps into another room. The movement and change of space can be the start of calming the mind.

Finally pause, breathe then respond. Do this throughout the day, even when you are feeling calm. Build muscle memory.

This is the challenge for the first week of July, to build inner strength, and improve health by learning to CALM and practicing daily.