Do you feel like your energy levels don’t match your requirements? Many of us in the modern age want to achieve more in work, and in our personal lives, but it can feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Are your levels lower, do you have enough fuel in the tank to get through your day and jobs to be done?

You may have heard the phrase ‘work smart, not hard’, but what does that mean in a practical sense? We believe we have an answer that may help you. If you want:

  • More Time
  • More Energy
  • Better Sleep
  • Better Productivity
  • Less Stress
  • Good Health and Fitness,

then this page is for you. Read on to find out more about the importance of a holistic mindset around your health, fitness, and wellbeing.

 

The Traditional Western Approach

Traditionally, we look at three different ways to improve life, which are all connected to each other. They are:

  1. Cognitive – mindfulness – meditation
  2. Physical – fitness and health – Gym, Running, Yoga, Pilates, Sport and Walks.
  3. Nutritional – awareness of fuel

To achieve this, you need to connect all three together.

 

Mindfulness

This involves being aware of stress and acknowledging tools that help you deal with and cope with it. A lot of the time we assume that feeling stressed is bad, or something to be guilty about, so we ignore it. What is important is realizing, and acknowledging when you are stressed, then you can manage and control it, as opposed to stress controlling you.

Instead of trying to push through it, which can be harmful to your health, there are many practices you can pursue to help monitor and balance stress, including diaphragmatic breathing. For example, many well-known and successful musicians and performers still deal with anxiety every time they are about to go on stage. Instead of pushing through it, they manage it by finding ways to centre themselves before a show. Stress is a part of our life and being, we need to learn to control and monitor it.

 

Physical health

For most people, this means going to the gym, going for walks, Pilates, Yoga, sport. The fitter we are, the better our body performs in day-to-day life, and the less stress and wear and tear we feel. If our mind and body are active, we produce ‘feel good’ neurotransmitters called endorphins.

But are you doing the right exercise for your body? Everyone is different, and it’s vital to find what works for your body. Think about the incredible amount of diversity in body types out there in the world—once you take a step back it’s clear it makes no sense to assume that everyone will get the same results from the same activity. As humans we are all unique.

Ultimately, there’s no point doing the time in the gym if you’re doing the wrong exercise for your body, as this will cause problems, not take them away. As a leading physiotherapy clinic, we see this all the time. It’s very common for people to have their heart in the right place, and have a desire to get healthy, but put no thought into finding a sport or style of movement that they enjoy, and that is comfortable and beneficial for their health, fitness and general wellbeing.

Exercise is very important to health, as it moves and lubricates the body. More importantly, it produces endorphins which are an important neurotransmitter, and can help counter stress and cortisol in the body. Cortisol is the inflammatory neurotransmitter the body produces when it is under stress to shut systems down. Cortisol controls your bodies Fright/Flight response.

Today’s work around computers means the general population is far less physical on average, and there is far more static loading on the body. Essentially, staying still for too long causes the spine and tissues to compress, and impacts one’s overall health. Easy ways to counter this are:

  • Changing postures at work constantly. Get a good ergonomic chair and rotate this throughout the day with swiss balls, sit stand desks, etc. The idea is to change the static loading pressures and the body during those long hours spent in front of the computer, so what matters most here isn’t exactly how you are sitting or standing, it’s variety and movement to stop static loading pressures on the body.
  • Take regular breaks to go for a walk, lie down, shakti mat. This ties into the above.
  • Maintain a strong core. The core protects the spine, neck, and back, and improves posture. There are many simple ways to improve core strength, such as Pilates, Yoga, Gym and core specific exercises.

Nutrition

Achieving a healthy diet is actually a lot simpler than people think. The important thing is simplicity. Eating food that is clean, fresh, and colourful basically boils down to eating more home-cooked food when you can!

Nutrition also encompasses being aware of your intolerances (dairy, gluten, wheat, etc.) and making sure you hydrate well. To do these things, you need to know your body. If you don’t, we highly recommend seeing a nutritionist/dietician who can identify your body’s fuelling needs.

 

Going Further: Yin, Yang, Zen

All the above can and will improve your quality of life. But there’s more to it than this—above is only our traditional western understanding of health. In eastern cultures, the concepts of Yin and Yang are vital to health and wellbeing, and there is value in understanding them. After all, these concepts have been around for a very long time and would not still be in use today if they weren’t working.

Here at Flexa Clinic, our managing director—Murray Hing—has 30 plus years of Martial Arts experience and acupuncture training, and this background has given him insight into the Eastern views and the power and effectiveness of Yin and Yang and the importance of Zen.

Zen is the harmony of body and mind, which are in constant flux. When unbalanced, illness and injury can occur. Yin and Yang are the two types of energy that exist in this world. Yang represents pressure, heat, force, and tensions. Yin represents calm, passivity, and softness. If you look at the world today, you see that it runs on Yang. This is the drive that we feel pushing us onward in our work, and in modern society, it is yang that is valued by most work cultures. But excess yang is what causes higher blood pressure, elevated stress, more cortisol, etc. By focusing too much on achievement at all costs, we damage our bodies both physically and mentally. Often, people refer to this as ‘burnout’.

Achieving more Yin is the answer to living in a world with too much Yang.

 

Balancing Yin and Yang

Yang energy is useful. Yang is the source of power for those who are ambitious, and it is what can help you achieve your goals. But you can’t rely on it entirely—think of it like sprinting. Effective over a short distance, but impossible to keep up forever without seriously harming yourself.

A lot of people think that the passive, healing energy of Yin means total inaction, but this isn’t necessarily true. Yin is extremely powerful as an energy source, and is less about taking no action, as it is about ‘going with the flow’. Yin is like water, it can bend, and it can crash. In a hurricane, which is stronger—a concrete wall, or a reed? The Yang concrete wall cannot yield, and will fall over, but the Yin reed can sway with the wind and stay intact. Yin is like water, flows around obstacles, no stress. Yang will try to go through the wall. Yet Yin as water is extremely powerful, as in a tsunami it can move anything in its way.

Now we can look again at those three traditional areas of physiotherapy:

  1. Cognitive. The first step is accepting an excess amount of Yang. Be willing to change from Yang action to Yin. A big part of this is learning the power of breathing deeply to help find your ‘Yin’ and the use of a shakti mat.
  2. Physical. Yang action looks like working out and improving muscle tone, but this is just one element of good physical health. Yin action looks like improving flexibility and circulation, etc. There are many systems in the body that need to be maintained beyond just muscles.
  3. Nutritional. Yang foods are proteins like red meat, and spices like ginger, pepper and garlic, as these generate heat in the body. Yin foods are those that cool your body down, including some fruits and most green vegetables. Again, if you look at modern society it’s easy to see that most people eat meat and carbs and fewer fruits and vegetables, leading to an overall excess of Yang. Simply eat colourful, clean and fresh.

Achieving Balance with Flexa Clinic

Balancing the Yang in your life with Yin is how you can keep striving toward your goals without burning out. You need to know your own body and mind before you can fuel them correctly. Our clinic combines all of these concepts in order to help you achieve holistic solutions for your health. Talk to us today about how we can help you find the correct pathway that is right for you, and how we can help you achieve better mindfulness and balance in your health and lifestyle.