It has been said that stress is an inevitable by-product of our modern lifestyle. The most effective ways to recover our innate optimism, positive mood and ability to relax and get into the flow, are activities in harmony with our genetic and social heritage. So, here are some tips to a lifelong relaxation:
- Walking with awareness – walking is the ideal exercise for human beings; it’s what we were designed to do best. But we were designed not just to walk – just power walking around the park won’t crack it for long-term relaxation (though you may get a short-term endorphin high). We were designed to walk with awareness: awareness of our bodies, of changes to our surroundings, of the ground we walk on, of the animals and people we pass (a form of active Walking Meditation). Humans survived because of this ability to be acutely aware and because of this we get rewarded when we add this to our walking (or jogging if you must). The awareness takes us out of ourselves, puts us in the flow.
- Connecting to your body – somewhere along the line of our civilization we lost the ability to be functionally connected to our bodies. It’s hard to relax if you walk in an injurious way, exercise in a way that gives you pain (pain was created as a warning signal), or envy other people’s bodies. Gentle, awareness provoking, exercises such as feldenkrais awareness through movement, certain kinds of yoga or our own repatterning movements can bring us back into connection to our bodies and can be therefore profoundly relaxing.
- Studying things that interest you – we humans are the most naturally curious of all creatures, a genetic trait that accounts for much of the success of our success. When we are allowed to exercise this capacity in ways that are our own we get the relaxation reward.
- Listening to or playing music - the association between people and music goes way back. We know that our near relatives the Neanderthals had musical instruments so presumably they, and we, got it from those hominids that came before us maybe up to 2,000,000 years ago. No wonder it’s in our genes and we get the feel-good reward from it.