Some Bikram Yoga moves

CAMEL – Stretching the spine, back muscles, shoulders and arms. Stimulates nervous system.

RABBIT – Allows nervous system to receive proper nutrition. Helps depression. Removes tension from the neck. Stimulates thymus gland.










LOCUST – Strengthens upper legs and lower back. Stimulates stomach and intestines helping to relieve gastro intestinal gas. Strengthens the bladder and stretches spine.

TRIANGLE – Stimulates blood flow helps stretch and relax back, shoulders, legs and arms and increases blood flow to the head. Thighs, calf’s and hamstrings stretched. Creates suppleness in spinal disc.







BALANCING STICK – Stretches entire length of spine. Exercises pancreas, liver, spleen and nervous system. Reduces asthma. Perfect control balance. Improves mental powers. Strengthens and firms arms, hips, buttocks and upper thighs. Stretches capacity of lungs. Corrects poor posture. Helps tennis elbow and varicose veins.

Bikram Yoga

Last night I went to my first ‘Bikram Yoga’ class. The special introductory offer of £10 for unlimited classes over the first ten days seemed to good to miss.
I’ve been looking for something to help get me fit for sometime and Yoga really appeals to me for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I have recently become interested in meditation and Buddhism and Yoga is a perfect extension to this interest.
Bikram Yoga classes take place in a room heated to 104 degrees. An instructor then takes you through 26 yoga moves. Each one of these moves is carried out three times. It is a particularly punishing schedule that is meant to also test and improve your mind by pushing it to its limits. Of course like most of the other participants, there are certain moves or positions that are almost impossible for some people to attain. I found positions that required you to sit on your legs particularly hard and painful so had to gently ease myself into some of these.
The last 20 minutes or so of the set 90 minute session I found particularly punishing and struggled to get through this period. I literally felt like I would collapse if I continued so eased up considerably. However, I am pleased that I managed to push myself pretty hard without causing any damage to myself and knowing when my body had had enough.
The session ended with a period of meditation in darkness.
I have never produced so much sweat before in my life. Even a sauna isn’t 90 minutes long and even my shorts and underpants were ringing wet.
After my shower I felt completely invigorated and alive. It was probably the healthiest I’d felt for many years.
About an hour or so later I was extremely tired and found myself nearly nodding off at Angie’s house. I had no hunger at all.
The next morning I expected to wake up and virtually be crippled with aches and pains but surprisingly, whilst I could certainly feel almost every muscle in my body, I wasn’t in any pain. The only thing I did experience was a headache and my neck muscles felt particularly tight. I had a strong urge to drink and as I write this the following day at 2pm I have up to now drank at least thirteen yes thirteen full glasses of water and my headache is just beginning to subside. I must have been incredibly dehydrated. I can now report though that after these thirteen glasses of water since getting up this morning my pee has returned to a lighter more acceptable colour.
The instructor has recommended that newbies should follow their first visit up with another stint the next day so tonight I will attend for some more torture. Hopefully, I will also improve a little more on my suppleness.

Open-mindedness exercise2

The second exercise involves thinking about a consistent argument that crops/cropped up with my children and making three points from their side of the argument.
This is a bit tricky because my girls have been left home for a couple of years.
I suppose one argument that always cropped up was being home late. So here goes.

1. Allowing your sixteen-year-old daughter to come in at the time she chooses shows that as a parent you are trusting and supportive of your child.


2. Perhaps she is less likely to make an attempt at behaviour that runs outside the realms of what we consider ‘normal’ (whatever that is).


3. Allowing boyfriends to stay over means she is more likely to take precautions when having sex.

Openmindedness exercise

Now I like to think of myself (and the character tests I have done seem to concur that I am indeed) an open-minded person and I know that this is one of my major character strengths.
To test this I thought I would partake in an exercise recommended by the ‘authentic happiness’ website. This involves finding three genuine reasons why someone has wronged me in the past.
This is probably the most emotive subject I could think of as my wife took 65% in the divorce settlement and I was left with a paltry 35%. This is something that still causes me a great deal of anger and resentment so here goes with three valid reasons why she would do this. I am going to find this exceedingly tough.

1. She believed her financial contributions exceeded mine throughout our marriage in terms of total ‘monetary’ value as she was the higher earner.


2. She suffers from depression and her medication is not a good combination when taken with alcohol.


3. Her solicitor was attempting to get the best possible deal for her and she was persuaded by her to pursue this.

That’s about the best I can come up with.

My Top Strengths

Having completed a 240 online questionnaire that determines your top five character traits from a list of 24, these are the results. I am in total agreement with the findings. The only one that did give me a little surprise was number 5, bravery and valour. I don’t really consider myself as a brave person although after reading the definition perhaps it is closer to the truth than I thought.

Judgment, critical thinking and open-mindedness are my number one top strengths. The ability to think things through and examine them from all sides and these are important aspects of who I am. I don’t jump to conclusions and rely on solid evidence to make decisions. I am also able to change my mind.

Honesty, authenticity and genuineness are very important aspects to how I live my life. I am down to earth with NO pretence and that makes me a ‘real’ person.

Fairness, equity and justice. Treating all people fairly is one of my abiding principles. I don’t let my personal feelings bias my decisions about other people and I give everyone a chance.

Love of learning new things whether in a class or on my own is my fourth strength. I love reading and relish the opportunity to learn.

Bravery and Valour. I am surprised by the fact that this is one of my top five strengths. Apparently I am courageous and don’t shrink from the threats, challenges difficulties or pain. I certainly know that I speak up for what is right even under opposition and I do act on my convictions.

Count My Blessing

Three things I count my blessings for.

Having a mate - Jason
Having an honest relationship with Angie
Having read about Positive Psychology.

Five things I loved about yesterday

1/ Only one day to go until a have a day off work (Holiday).
2/ Looking forward to Encontro in Swansea at the weekend.
3/ Finishing off Angie's posh chocolates.
4/ Nearing the end of my final ECA for DXR220
5/ My lunchtime nap

Five things I loved about yesterday

1/ My home made pasta dish.
2/ Reading my new Psychology book.
3/ Talking to Angie on the telephone.
4/ The nice feeling I get when I think of obtaining my goal in achieving a psychology degree.
5/ Thinking about doing voluntary mentoring work.

The Diary Cure

According to the Psychologies magazine ' keeping a journal not only enables you to chart behaviour patterns, but also to move on from past traumas, and heal mentally and physically'.
Apparently psychologists are convinced that 'spilling your emotions into a journal is one of the keys to living a healthier more fulfilled life'. Well I'm not sure it would have quite such a profound effect on your health and life but I'm sure it must do some good.
According to the experts writing about emotive subjects or about disagreements or arguments you have just had with other people is supposed to create a sort of cleansing effect. I believe there could be something in that.
My girlfriend and I had an enormous row yesterday which all blew up over something so trivial as to be laughable but in this process it did unearth some deep inadequacies from my viewpoint about our relationship.
In essence what happened was she went with her friend to an art gallery in London and was chatted up by a man named Ken. Her friend gave both of their telephone numbers to him and he called her yesterday and said that it would be good to hear from her. She stated to me that she had no interest in seeing him but thought it was nothing more than a funny story. I began to question why she had told me this. Was she boasting about being chatted up by another man? Was it her way of saying to me 'look don't think about getting too close to me'.
These feelings gnawed away at me and before we knew it it had escalated into a full blown row.
I am constantly frustrated by her inability to show any verbal or outward signs of verbal love towards me. She is not one for saying 'I love you' so perhaps I should just forget about it as she says it doesn't mean anything but then it still gnaws away at me.
Perhaps I just need to accept this and get on with our relationship without causing a fuss about these things.
Apparently the reason why keeping a journal is good for your health, is that whilst writing about events that traumatise and cause psychological stress, we are not bottling up this stress so it acts as a sort of therapy.
Another idea advocated by Oprah Winfrey is to write down five things you love every day. She says that this will 'change your entire outlook on life' and psychologists agree. I'm therefore going to have a bash at this. Here goes five things I loved about yesterday (Sunday).
1/ Angie and I stayed in bed and talked. (ok so yesterday was an argument - but we did have a 'productive' conversation I think).
2/ I managed to get an essay plan done for my Open University essay. (I'm 120 points into a psychology degree and currently doing my second social science course).
3/ In drum rehearsal I have finally got to play the repinique in a piece called ' Afashay' and its such a complicated piece it feels great when I get it right.
4/ I get to spend the whole day with Angie.
5/ I'm still pleased with myself for achieving a Certificate in Social Science thanks to my OU study.

Posture

Just reading a magazine article about posture again reminded me that to sit in a hunched position at my office desk is not good.
I must try and remember to use the 'Alexandra Technique'. To do this you need to imagine that you have a piece of string extending from the centre of the top of your head pulling you upwards.
I have the greatest intentions of trying to concentrate more on my posture but you can be sure that it will be forgotten probably by the end of the day. Hence this journal reminder.