Tips To Create Calm: 6 Mindfulness Practices
What does it mean to be Mindful?
Being mindful means to pay attention to what you are doing as you are doing it. You do this through mindfulness exercises.
This simple thing, paying attention, is more and more difficult for you in your daily life.
What does it mean to be Mindful?
Being mindful means to pay attention to what you are doing as you are doing it. You do this through mindfulness practices.
This simple thing, paying attention, is more and more difficult for you in your daily life.
That’s because you keep getting interrupted.
Interruption is so much a part of your life that you don’t even notice.
Constant interruption changes the way your brain functions. There are many neurological studies that have proven this.
Your brain is capable of paying attention, but it has adapted to high levels of interruption. That means even when you aren’t interrupted by something else, you interrupt yourself.
This causes high levels of stress and overwhelm.
The primary source of interruption, stress, and overwhelm, is your cell phone. But you can’t imagine life without it.
So how do you counter the stress and anxiety that your phone causes and cultivate greater calm?
By attending to what you are doing while you are doing it through mindfulness exercises. That’s what being Mindful is.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But it feels like yet another thing to fit into an already crowded and much interrupted day. So how do you do it?
Ideally the best way to remind your brain how to be calm is to take Contemplative Practice Yoga® classes. Contemplative is another word for Mindful. When you do Contemplative Practice Yoga®, your mind becomes calm and steady.
If you don’t have time to come to classes this week, then try one these things.
Start with one. Your brain needs time to shift slowly for the neurological changes to be effective.
When you have practiced one of the tips for week, add another until you are practicing several of the tips throughout the day.
1. When you are walking, walk. Don’t walk and text at the same time. Pay attention to what you see, hear, smell, notice on your walk.
2. When you are driving, drive. Don’t text while driving. Even at a stop light. Pay attention to what you see, hear, notice as you drive. The majority of accidents are caused by people texting while driving. This simple mindfulness practice could save your life and keep you from harming others.
3. When you are eating, eat. Leave your phone in another room. Don’t bring it to the table. Pay attention to the food – its smells, sounds (yes sounds), and tastes. Give yourself to the conversation at the table if there are others present or eat in silence and attend to the unfolding experience of savoring a meal.
4. When you are talking to a friend, turn off your phone and pay attention to your conversation. Attention to what you have to say is something you want from your friends. Do this for them as you would like it done for you.
5. When your children want your attention, give it to them. Putting your children “on hold” while you text or check social media teaches them that they are not important.
6. When you are sleeping, sleep. Don’t take your phone to bed. Stop your screen time at least an hour before you plan to go to sleep.
Screens cause our brains to release adrenaline and cortisol into our bodies. Give your body time to clear these stress causing chemicals before you go to bed. There are few things more important than getting a good night’s sleep.
Which one of these tips will you try first?
Yoga for Pain Relief: Neck and Shoulder Pain
What is causing your neck and shoulder pain?
Your neck pain actually begins in the muscles deep in the core of your body – the muscles that attach to your sacrum.
What is causing your neck and shoulder pain?
Your neck pain actually begins in the muscles deep in the core of your body – the muscles that attach to your sacrum.
Your neck hurts because the muscles of your core are extremely tight, and are pulling on the bones of your spine at the base of your body which also attach all the way along your spine from your sacrum to your neck and the base of your skull.
When the bones of your neck pulled out of alignment, they are compressed and they lean on one another in painful ways. The compression can cause the discs between your bones to bulge or leak, or it can cause tension headaches, problems with your eyes, and sinus problems.
To achieve natural muscle pain relief, you must re-align the bones of your spine, starting at your core – because that is where they are biggest and strongest.
It won’t help just to do exercises for your neck because the strong end of the muscles are in your core. The stronger, larger end of the muscle will continue to torque the smaller end.
To re-align the bones of your neck, you have to release the muscle tension that creates the mis-alignment. And that starts in your core.
Bones align according to the way your muscles pull on them.
Right now your muscles have muscle memory of strong tension that pulls your bones into painful positions – all the way from your core to your neck and the base of your skull.
You can create new muscle memory -- teach your muscles how to work without causing your bones to be pulled into painful positions.
When you release the tension in your core, where your neck pain starts, then your bones return to their natural position of pain-free alignment.
When you learn how to keep that core tension from coming back, you avoid future neck pain.
This is the equation:
Core muscle tension release in the muscles that attach to your neck = neck bones in alignment = no neck pain.
How do you release your core tension and give your muscles new muscle memory so that your bones align and keep you out of pain?
With yoga for pain relief, specifically, Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy and classes.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy and classes teach you how to release the core tension that is causing your neck and shoulder pain.
Once you are out of pain you learn how to keep yourself pain-free.
We teach you how to heal yourself and achieve natural muscle pain relief.
We do this through practices that gently and steadily release core tension in the muscles that attach to your neck so that the release is sustainable. There are no quick movements, no pushing, forcing, straining, or exhausting you.
Contact Kim for a free 20-minute consultation with Kim Orr to discuss therapy and/or classes for your back pain.
Yoga for Back Pain
What if I told you that you could experience back pain relief by using therapeutic yoga for back pain? Would you be interested? I thought so.
Back pain is caused by the muscles of your core are extremely tight, and are pulling the bones of your spine out of their natural, comfortable alignment.
What if I told you that you could experience back pain relief by using therapeutic yoga for back pain? Would you be interested? I thought so.
What is causing your back pain?
Your back hurts because the muscles of your core are extremely tight, and are pulling the bones of your spine out of their natural, comfortable alignment.
When the bones of your spine are out of alignment, they are compressed and they lean on one another in painful ways. The compression can cause the discs between your bones to bulge or leak.
Or it can cause the bones to lean on your sciatic nerve.
Or it can destabilize your sacro-illiac joint.
To feel back pain relief you must realign the bones of your spine – so that they return to their natural, comfortable alignment with space between them for the discs to cushion the bones.
To re-align the bones of your spine you have to release the muscle tension that creates the misalignment.
Bones align according to the way your muscles pull on them.
Right now your muscles have muscle memory of strong tension that pulls your bones into painful positions.
You can create new muscle memory -- teach your muscles how to work without causing your bones to be pulled into painful positions.
When you release the tension in your core, where your back pain starts, then your bones return to their natural position of pain-free alignment.
When you learn how to keep that core tension from coming back, you avoid future back pain. This is the equation:
Core muscle tension release = bones in alignment = back pain relief.
How do you release your core tension and give your muscles new muscle memory so that your bones align and keep you out of pain?
Yoga for back pain, or more specifically, Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy and classes.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy and classes teach you how to release the core tension that is causing your pain.
Once you are out of pain you learn how to keep yourself pain-free.
We teach you how to heal yourself with yoga for back pain
We do this through practices that gently and steadily release core tension so that the release is sustainable. There are no quick movements, no pushing, forcing, straining, or exhausting you.
Contact Kim for a free 20-minute consultation to discuss yoga therapy, or try one of our classes for your back pain.
What is Restorative Yoga?
So, what is restorative yoga? There are several styles of yoga that are restorative. Restorative yoga is not the same as therapeutically oriented yoga.
So, what is restorative yoga? There are several different styles of restorative yoga. Contemplative Practice Yoga® is restorative yoga.
In addition to being restorative, Contemplative Practice Yoga® is therapeutically oriented yoga.
What makes Restorative Yoga restorative
Restorative yoga classes focus on giving you the opportunity to restore your physical and mental energy – all without pushing or straining.
Different styles of restorative yoga and various restorative yoga poses do this in different ways. They almost all share in common a use of restorative yoga poses with props – blocks, blankets, bolsters – to help you find and maintain beneficial alignment in your poses.
The pace of the classes is slower than a workout style yoga class.
Beyond these basics, they vary in their styles, techniques, and offerings.
Restorative Yoga vs Therapeutic Yoga
There are several dimensions to Contemplative Practice Yoga® that make it not only restorative but also therapeutic yoga.
In addition to advanced Yoga Teacher Training, Kim Orr is a certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT). She has completed an additional 3000 hours of training above and beyond advanced Yoga Teacher Training. In her small group classes, Kim adapts therapeutic techniques and protocols to the group’s needs. In private sessions, she provides you with protocols and practices specifically addressing your unique needs.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® offers a unique method of core release. Each class is designed to release tensions in your body that originate in your core, the deepest and tightest area of your body. Once you get core release in each class or therapy session, you then carry that release throughout your body.
With core tension release you get something that you don’t get in any other style of yoga class, even other restorative yoga classes.
What Contemplative Practice Yoga® Core Release Gives You
When you experience core release:
Your body becomes more fully oxygenated through increased blood flow. You don’t need to force your breathing to push oxygen into your body, because your muscles are less tense. Tight muscle tissue inhibits the flow of blood and oxygen to your tissues and to your brain by compressing the arteries and veins.
Release of muscle tension allows the arteries and veins in your muscle tissue to flow more effectively – carrying oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and the organs throughout your body.
Increased blood flow and oxygen benefit your body in many ways. And because you have released the tensions, the increased flow continues throughout your day, rather than only taking place while pressure pumping breath during a workout.
Increased blood flow and oxygen increase physical comfort and overall health.
When tensions in your body are released you also feel calmer and more tranquil. You have mental clarity and physical ease.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® classes are designed and taught within the same underlying principles that Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy private sessions use.
Principles of Restorative and Therapeutic Contemplative Practice Yoga®
Contemplative Practice Yoga® classes are designed and taught within the same underlying principles that Contemplative Practice Yoga® therapy private sessions use.
Here are some of the underlying principles:
Each class emphasizes comfort, ease, and connecting to your calm core.
We do this in every class through gentle, simple practices – breathing, poses, and meditative relaxation techniques.
All poses are fully supported with soft blankets so that your alignments in each pose give you the most effective core release possible.
Unlike workout yoga classes or physical therapy, CPY classes and therapy sessions never push you, strain you, force you into uncomfortable positions, or exhaust you.
Each class follows a special series of pose protocols to give you the optimal release of muscle tension throughout your body.
The protocols vary, according to which areas of your body need the most attention, and what the class focus is, - for example relief of neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain. The class plans are adjusted according to appropriate poses for each season, the general needs of the students in the class, and the level of experience of the students.
Private therapy sessions differ from classes in that you address your specific needs and goals rather than the general needs of a class or a class theme.
In classes and in private therapy sessions you are encouraged to begin and maintain a home practice so that you can sustain your comfort and ease. This home practice is set for you by your teacher/therapist according to your needs and taking into account the amount of time you reasonably can give your practice each week.
You are the focus of therapeutic yoga
The purpose of therapeutic yoga is to focus on your needs, your goals for self- care, and healing. The goal is to release tension and anxiety, relieve pain or discomfort, and the cultivate calm and mental clarity.
Every class is designed for this purpose.
Private therapy sessions allow you to accomplish these goals more quickly, with attention to your specific limitations or goals.
Therapeutic yoga, Contemplative Practice Yoga®, is right for you if you wish to become more calm, centered, and contented.
It is right for you if you wish to decrease physical and mention tension, relieve physical pain and mental anxiety, and learn take that with you into all that you do.
If the question, “How comfortable can you be?” is a more interesting challenge to you than, “How hard can you push yourself?” then Contemplative Practice Yoga® is for you.
Traditional Yoga vs Modern Yoga
What’s right for you? Traditional yoga vs modern yoga? Most importantly, what will you enjoy most, traditional yoga or modern yoga? Traditional yoga poses provide gentle, simple, and comfortable physical practices versus the modern yoga push and strain work out.
What’s right for you? Traditional yoga vs modern yoga?
What’s the difference?
How do you choose what is best for you?
Most importantly, what will you enjoy most, traditional yoga or modern yoga?
Almost anywhere you go, in any class you attend at any studio, no matter what ‘style’ they offer, what you get is modern yoga.
There is an exception to all of the many styles of modern yoga.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® is traditional yoga. And it differs in important ways.
What Makes Modern Yoga Modern?
Just about every style of yoga you have experienced or heard about has its roots in the teachings of one man, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. He was born in the 1880s and taught yoga in India throughout the early part of the 20th Century. He had many young people come to study with him when they were teenagers. Many of them became famous teachers themselves. One of them moved to Hollywood in the 1940s, bringing this basic style of modern yoga to the United States.
In order to make the traditional practice of yoga modern – that is, attractive to the young people he taught – Krishnamacharya made modern yoga very active. He altered the traditional forms, combined it with gymnastics and calisthenics, and made it essentially a workout. A workout is something that young bodies are attracted to, and something middle-aged people believe they need to do to remain fit. So it became popular.
Modern yoga includes vigorous movement, often promotes sweating as part of “cleansing”, may involve “stretching” of your tight muscles, and usually emphasizes “challenging” yourself in various ways – just as you would in a work-out.
A fundamental principle of modern yoga is that you should control your response to pain or discomfort. In a modern yoga class, you may regularly push limits of comfort and strength. Even if the teacher tells you to modify poses for discomfort or physical limitations, the emphasis in a modern yoga class is on pushing, straining, and challenging. The mindset is overcoming limitations with activity and force, which is why injuries are common in so many modern yoga classes.
Traditional Yoga vs. Modern Yoga
How comfortable can you be? How calm and joyful?
These are the challenges that traditional yoga presents to you.
Traditional yoga, Contemplative Practice® Yoga, teaches you to be as comfortable in your body as possible – free from pain or discomfort. This is the goal of traditional yoga. It’s not about working out, it’s about feeling comfortable and at ease, calm and peaceful, in your body and mind.
Traditional yoga poses and techniques differ from modern yoga because our fundamental approach is different. Instead of pushing, straining, controlling or overcoming pain or limitations, we teach you to dissolve them – easily and gently.
We teach you to release the core tensions in your body. This is not stretching your muscles, it is releasing deep tension – two very different things.
You carry deep tension in the core of your body – so deep that you are not aware of it most of the time. This core tension is the greatest obstacle to physical wellbeing, and to mental and emotional clarity and calm.
The good news?
Traditional yoga teaches you to dissolve (versus overcome) limitations, discomfort, or pain. We teach you to do this for yourself.
There’s no pushing, forcing, or straining while doing therapeutic traditional yoga poses, because pushing and straining are unnecessary. In traditional therapeutic yoga, you meet the challenge of being fit while being completely comfortable and calm.
Traditional yoga provides gentle, simple, and comfortable physical practices versus the modern yoga push and strain work out.
You already know how to work out and push yourself. You already know how to force, strain, and overcome. You do this in many areas of your life already.
Traditional yoga offers you an opportunity to discover just how powerful gentleness is.
The path to comfort, ease, and joyful wellbeing starts with your willingness to be gentle with yourself – to dissolve obstacles and limitations versus overcome them.
Traditional Yoga vs Modern Yoga – What’s Right for You?
If you want to work out, to sweat, to overcome your pain or physical limitations, to force, push yourself, and strain, then a modern yoga class is right for you.
If you prefer to learn how to dissolve your discomfort or pain, to do so with gentleness, if you prefer to be comfortable and at ease in your body and calm in your mind, then traditional yoga is right for you.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® Therapy and Classes are Traditional Yoga
There are two ways to practice traditional yoga -- Contemplative Practice Yoga® -- private therapy sessions and therapeutic yoga classes.
Private yoga therapy sessions are one-to-one sessions in which your specific concerns are addressed. Each session provides practices that are appropriate to what you are experiencing and what your goals are for therapy.
Contemplative Practice Yoga® Classes are all therapeutically oriented. These small group classes provide basic therapeutic practices that dissolve core tensions while addressing the needs of the group in general.
The goal of all traditional yoga, including Contemplative Practice Yoga®, is to dissolve pain and limitations and teach you how to do this for yourself in a simple, sustainable way so that you may enjoy greater physical comfort and connect to your calm core.
Restorative Yoga vs Vinyasa
What’s the difference between restorative yoga vs vinyasa yoga? Which is right for you? The purpose of restorative yoga poses with props is not to give you a workout, but to give you the opportunity to restore your mental clarity and physical comfort, all without pushing or straining.
You’ve probably heard that word, Vinyasa. You also know what restorative is — what it feels like to have your mental and physical energy restored.
So what’s the difference between restorative yoga vs vinyasa yoga?
Which is right for you?
More importantly, which one will benefit you the most?
Typical Elements of Vinyasa Yoga
Vinyasa means “sequence”, in this case of poses. These classes are often called “flow” classes. The poses follow one another in a flow of movement.
They are also often “hot” classes, which means the room temperature is quite hot so that you will sweat. The heat warms your muscles so that you can perform the poses more easily without support, that means without props. In a typical vinyasa class, there are no props such as blocks, blankets, or bolsters.
Vinyasa classes often involve instructions for breathing, both in and while moving between poses. Vinyasa breathing is usually a forceful breathing. The point is to give you a focus and keep you oxygenated while performing poses that, due to the alignments used, tighten your muscles, especially those that attach to your spine. These alignments also tighten your core. This is why many vinyasa classes provide “core strengthening” exercise.
A Vinyasa class is a workout, an exercise class. You will sweat and ‘challenge’ yourself. You will create a lot of tension in your body. The class is meant, by design, to put you on the ‘edge’ of your strength and endurance, just as a challenging workout does.
People who practice Vinyasa yoga often say that they don’t especially enjoy the classes, but they like the way they feel when it’s over, just as they do with a rigorous workout.
They are happily exhausted and have ‘worked out’ which they know is good for them. They have gotten their bodies moving and their blood flowing. They have pushed themselves and learned to focus on something subtle, like their breath, while undergoing something they are not especially enjoying.
Restorative Yoga vs Vinyasa Yoga
The purpose of the restorative yoga techniques, especially restorative yoga poses is not to give you a workout, but to give you the opportunity to restore your mental clarity and physical comfort, all without pushing or straining.
Instead of creating tension in your core and tightening your muscles (core strengthening), Contemplative Practice Yoga® classes are restorative because they release tension in your core and in the muscles throughout your body. Once that tension is released here’s what happens:
Your body becomes more fully oxygenated through increased blood flow. You don’t need to force your breathing to push oxygen into your body because your muscles are less tense. Tight muscle tissue inhibits the flow of blood and oxygen to your tissues and to your brain by compressing the arteries and veins.
The release of muscle tension allows the arteries and veins in your muscle tissue to flow more effectively – carrying oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and the organs throughout your body.
Increased blood flow and oxygen benefit your body in many ways. And because you have released the tensions, the increased flow continues throughout your day, rather than only taking place while pressure pumping breath during a workout.
Increased blood flow and oxygen increase physical comfort and overall health.
When tensions in your body are released you also feel calmer and more tranquil. You have mental clarity and physical ease.
Our core release technique is unique to Contemplative Practice Yoga.®
At the end of a restorative class or therapy session using restorative yoga poses with props, you leave feeling rested, refreshed, calm, and clear-minded, all without having pushed, strained, or forced yourself into uncomfortable positions.
Restorative Yoga is a Different Kind of Challenge
Vinyasa classes, like workouts, are typically focused on a certain kind of self-challenge, taking yourself to the edge of your abilities and discomfort.
Restorative yoga classes are not concerned with how hard can you push yourself or take yourself to the edge of your abilities.
The challenges presented in a restorative class are:
How comfortable can you be?
Are you comfortable being at ease, calm, and comfortable?
Restorative Yoga vs Vinyasa Yoga – What’s right for you?
If you want a workout, if you want to sweat, push, strain, and challenge the edge of your abilities and strength, then a Vinyasa-style class will provide that for you, especially at advanced levels.
If you’re ready to feel comfortable in your body, at ease in your mind, calm, and clear, without pushing, straining, or forcing, then Contemplative Practice Yoga® is for you. This is a restorative yoga using therapeutic techniques in restorative yoga poses, whether in classes or private therapy sessions.