With the onset of cold weather, we begin to experience a permanent feeling of hunger: we constantly want to chew something. At the same time, we refuse long walks and outdoor activities in general become less. The upcoming New Year holidays are also conducive to gaining excess weight. How to insure against overeating and keep fit during this difficult period?
Chinese doctors believe that our physical and emotional state depends on the amount of qi (life force). If it is enough, we feel great, eat moderately, easily cope with diseases and are happy with the world around us. With a lack of vitality, we are overcome by infections, our mood deteriorates and we don’t want to get out of bed.
Where do we get chi energy from? Chinese treatises say that we have only three main sources: sleep, nutrition and breathing. But energy is spent on a huge number of things: from heating the body to emotional experiences. In the period of winter frosts, more energy is needed for heating. Not to mention the pre-New Year’s fuss at home and at work, which, it seems, can be spent on a year’s supply of vitality.
Sleep instead of food
When the body’s resource is depleted, the body automatically tries to restore balance – to get additional strength in any way. For example, in the winter months you want to sleep more, the reason is not only a short daylight hours. The body tells me: give me more energy, let me recover.
In winter, to maintain energy balance, it is important not to scatter vitality
Do we allow ourselves this luxury – a longer sleep, when we really want to? Rarely. The body then switches to a second source of energy: food. If the energy deficit grows, then the body reflexively requires more and more nutrition – although, as we know, it is impossible to eat for the future. As a result, the forms of the body begin to “float”, and the forces as such no longer become.
That is why the first step towards maintaining a figure is a healthy sleep in sufficient quantities to replenish the energy resource. The better we sleep, the less we are overcome by the tendency to “nervous” overeating, with which the body wants to make up for the lack of energy.
Saving energy
Energy, like money, requires not only a constant influx, but also a thrifty attitude. No matter how much you earn, irrepressible spending will eat up any resource. In winter, to maintain energy balance, it is important not to scatter vitality.
1. Emotional outbursts. They take the maximum amount of life force. Both negative and overwhelming positive emotions deprive you of energy. It takes a long time to recover. How to avoid it? We can’t let go of our emotions. I propose to reduce their insane intensity and sharpness, after which there is a feeling of devastation. To do this, you can master a simple meditation, which at the right time will pull you out of the storm of experiences. It will allow you to consider the exciting situation a little more detached.
Meditation. Find a quiet place where no one will disturb you, turn off your gadgets, sit down as comfortably as possible. Set an alarm for three minutes, devote this time to tracking your breath: count your breaths without speeding up or slowing them down.
Concentration of attention on breathing allows you to drown out the internal dialogue, freeing up space for total calm. Before starting the exercise, pay attention to the fact that the language is relaxed: when we conduct an internal dialogue, the speech system is preparing to reproduce these thoughts. When the tongue is relaxed, the flow of thoughts slows down.
2. Physical stresses. If there are habitual tensions in the body, it means that energy is spent to maintain them. If you can turn them off, get rid of them, then this energy will go to other, more important and productive tasks.
How do I know if I have habitual tensions? Right now, shift your attention, for example, to the area of the neck and shoulders. Ask yourself the question: can I relax this zone literally by one conditional division (if, say, complete relaxation is one, and total tension is 100 units). Happened? Shoulders slightly loosened, dropped down a couple of millimeters? This means that before that there was some kind of tension, the maintenance of which required vital energy.
The relaxation just achieved can be deepened by tens or even hundreds of units, developing the flexibility and health of the body and thus replenishing the lack of strength. This can be done with the help of one or another gymnastics aimed at finding active relaxation in movement, for example, the form of qigong Sing Shen Juang.
Forces from the air
The third source of vitality is breath. If it flows freely and correctly, then the body confidently replenishes the energy resource and is not prone to overeating. How can you improve your breathing to get more oxygen and energy? In a bad environment, this is not easy. There is a certain set of possibilities. By releasing habitual tensions (described just above), you will free the chest and the movement of the diaphragm. Breathing will become more full, amplitude.
When tensions are gone, many opportunities will open up for receiving additional vital energy.
Changes are difficult to notice for those who do not have breathing problems as such. However, if they are, active relaxation exercises will give the feeling: “It’s as if it’s easier to breathe!” This “breathing easier” that occurs while the chest is relaxed provides an additional influx of energy into the body.
Eastern practices of replenishing breathing, such as neigong, the practice of accumulating vitality, are built on relaxation, freeing the body and creating the best conditions for deep breathing. But they can be mastered only after the correct body structure has been created. If you are thinking about how to stop overeating and increase your energy resource in a different way, start with exercises aimed at relaxing the body and releasing habitual stresses. When they leave, you will have many opportunities to receive additional vital energy.