I hope you are all well and rested after the holidays! We have started a new decade and with a new year comes the resolutions! Statistics show that by 15^th January the vast majority of people have broken their new year’s resolutions. This isn't to sound negative instead it is to help create support for you. Today’s blog is going to consider how you can re-frame your mindset around resolutions to create a lifestyle which doesn’t feel hard work to maintain.

Focus

This year Total Somatics will be using the Theme:

2020 Focus and Insight

I will be sending you lots of extra goodies throughout the next 12 months and I can wait to start revealing them to you! For the moment, you require to create a solid foundation to build a healthy lifestyle. To do this you require focus and insight so you know what you truly need for your health and wellbeing.

Many refer to willpower as the key to keeping to their new year’s resolutions. However, does willpower really work?

Did you stick to your 2019 new year resolution? If you did, that is brilliant and a massive well done is certainly deserved. If you were like many, they may have found as the year progressed they succumbed to their old habits. Many would say Willpower is lacking? What is willpower?

According to successconsciousness.com, Willpower is the inner strength that enables you to make decisions and carry them out. It gives you the strength to take action and perform tasks and plans, despite inner resistance, discomfort, laziness or difficulties.

We’ve heard many times that WILLPOWER is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets; but you can tire it out. How can you harness it without tiring it out?

Health Psychologist and author of Maximum Willpower: How to master the new science of self-control, Kelly McGonigal has identified how we can harness it. Kelly claims, “Harnessing the three powers of I will, I won’t, and I want” in order to help us achieve our goals.

In order to understand why we have a battle with our will power, let’s consider some basic neuroscience. Our brain is an outstanding piece of architecture and engineering. It is so complex; neuroscientists are discovering new and amazing findings regularly. Our brain is divided into many parts. The primitive part of our brain has the “I want” or instant desire, such as for a chocolate bar! The pre-frontal cortex is the reasoning area of the brain which understands long term consequences to actions and behaviour.

So in order to stick to your goals, you need to focus on putting the higher self or pre-frontal cortex in charge. When you do this you strengthen your resolve, self-control and self-awareness. When you allow your pre-frontal cortex to take control of your primitive brain (which requires immediate gratification) you are holding “fundamental intention.” According to Psychotherapist, Carol Perry, fundamental intention requires a much more gentle level of awareness. For instance, your fundamental intention may be to “improve my quality of life.” This intention provides direction and guides you to your long term goal. This is much more achievable because when you have times throughout the year when you lose your routine due to sickness and other situations, you can pick up from where you left off. You have clearly created a fundamental intention to improve the quality of your life, so that means when things settle down, you continue with that focus and insight, rather than being hard on yourself because you have 'broken' a resolution.

Focus & insight from the inside out.

To create a firm foundation for your focus this year, I would like to encourage you this week to consider how your current routine is complementing or hindering your fundamental intention. Could you start considering these simple self-care rituals to take care of your health & wellbeing?

Digital Detox

When you have finished work and have practiced a Total Somatic movement class on the Online program at www.TotalSomatics.com could you disconnect from digital devices? According to mental health experts, the more you disconnect from screens, the more you will feel energized and fully present with the world around you. You are able to develop a somatic or mindful approach by absorbing everything around you, from the aromas to the temperature on our skin and the sounds.

Focus on yourself

Create time during the day to have time for YOU. Creating this time allows you to incorporate Mindful Total Somatic Movement into your daily practice. Mindful Total Somatic Movement allows you to develop healthy habits which help to release chronically tight muscles, allows for deeper quality breathing, allows your central nervous system to “rest & digest” plus help reduce feelings of stress and anxiety.

Feel empowered

A whole new area of health and research has appeared in recent years known as psychoneuroimmunology. This area of health considers the very strong link between mind, body and emotion. If you are a regular reader of my blogs, you will know Clinical Somatic Educators all around the world have known this for years too. We cannot separate our mind and emotions from our body and physiological processes. They are all linked and the connection is very strong and powerful.

As a regular reader, you will know I always like to highlight the purpose of Total Somatics - to educate and empower you so you can take back control of your health and wellbeing.

When you feel you can read yourself from the inside out, have the skills and knowledge to accompany this, then education and empowerment will automatically follow. That is why I like to give you focus and insight, so you can start to make the appropriate shifts and changes to reduce pain, improve posture, increase mobility and develop mindfulness.

Interestingly research has shown three well-known factors within the study of psychoneuroimmunology that has been seen with people suffering with chronic illness.

They are:

• UNCERTAINTY
• LACK OF INFORMATION
• LOSS OF CONTROL

I am here to assist you with your fundamental intentions and provide the relevant skills and knowledge to help you maintain a healthy, somatic lifestyle.

Visualisation

I love visualisation and practice it every day. When you visualise what you want, such as healthy soft muscles, being able to move freely, reduced pain, resuming or continuing with the activities you love to do, feeling fresh and energetic, sleeping well and having a healthy gut, you begin to prime or frame your brain to look for opportunities to make it happen. How often have you visualised a holiday destination? You could see yourself there just from the few images you have from the website! When you get to the destination, it is just as you expected, if not better! That is because you visualised it beforehand.

Visualisation doesn’t work on it’s own. You have to follow with action after visualisation. You cannot expect to have fundamental intentions such as reduced pain and improve mobility by just visualising! You have to create time to follow through with the fundamental intentions that you visualised. Daily Mindful Total Somatic Movement with my online Somatic movement classes provides the perfect opportunity to take time out to follow through with what you visualised.

Sleep is paramount

Sleep hygiene is so important for your physical, emotional and mental health. Sleep is vital for repair, restoration and consolidation of information. During different times of the night and early morning, your brain is working really hard to clean and tidy up connections. If you begin skipping hours every night, it will start to alter your brain activity and will affect hormones that are linked with mood. It is no coincidence that people suffering with insomnia are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with depression. Also on a vanity level, poor sleep and less hours will start to accelerate the ageing process. So creating a healthy sleep routine is really important. If you do wake in the night, don’t be tempted to reach for your phone, switch the TV on or read a book. As soon as the light hits the back of your eyes, your sleep hormone thinks it is daylight and REDUCES in level, meaning you will be wide awake! Waking at 3 or 4am regularly can be heavily linked to stress and sugar levels. It may also be linked with drinking alcohol in the evening. Alcohol can get you off into a slumber, however it dehydrates and causes pressure and extra workload on your liver, which can then cause you to rouse in the early hours of the morning. If this is the case, consult a naturopath or clinical nutritionist for guidance on your blood sugars, which will be creating an internal stress response and waking you regularly at 3 or 4am.

Take action!

The points I have mentioned above are to help you start to assess your lifestyle, current habits and health. Are there a few pointers you could take away this week and start implementing? If you would like me to assist with your fundamental intention, check out my ONLINE PROGRAM. Within the online program, you will find lots of somatic movement classes, videos, tutorials, downloadable support material and much more. I have created this so you can educate and empower yourself, so you can gain insight and focus on what you need to create a lifestyle that will support you for many years to come and allow you to improve and maintain a really good quality of life.

To learn more about The Total Somatics Approach to Health & Wellness Online program, go to www.TotalSomatics.com.

Have a brilliant week!

Take care,

Heidi Hadley xx

www.TotalSomatics.com