Wednesday Wellbeing: cleansing the body after Christmas excess by Zoe
Cleansing your body after Christmas excess
The festive season may feel a long way behind us but I’m convinced there might still be a few mince pies and chocolates lurking around. Particularly if you hate waste, as my husband does, there may be a need to continue until it’s all gone!
In all seriousness though, it can take a while to transition back to a more typical way of eating after a month of parties and celebration. But I do know many people like to find ways to ‘cleanse’ or adopt cleaner eating and living practices after what they consider to be the various forms of excess or over ‘indulgence’ during the Christmas period. So, in my role as a health coach, I thought I’d share some insight and top tips that may or may not be useful!
Health Coaches are trained to offer guidance and inspirationto help clients shift their behaviour to healthier habits, by making step by step changes to all areas of lifestyle and the foods chosen to nourish mind and body.
It’s a holistic process and I work with a model that uses the concept of primary foods which are: relationships, physical activity, career, spirituality and secondary foods which involves exploring what foods our ‘individual’ body needs. We’re all unique so working in partnership with this model and a person’s needs and aspirations helps my clients to develop a deeper understanding of lifestyle and food choice(s)that work best for them. It’s holistic in that it takes account of everything! It can be a fun but equally deep process that identifies various forms of self-sabotage and areas where we feel we don’t have choice in life too.
As part of this process I’ve learned that some of the simplest tips have been found in supporting people to develop new habits. Part of this is considering, mindfully, what we choose to eat and how we hydrate our body. As this impacts on how we feel, as does the company we keep and the people we choose (or don’t choose!) to spend our time with. Along with how much we enjoy the job we’re in or the career path we’ve chosen and how we support ourselves in this too. Or whether or not our relationship(s) are working for us.
Simple cleansing and getting back on track tips
If you’re not already doing so, try adding in some regular movement that gets the heart rate pumping and deep breath work happening! This supports the body and its cells in releasing toxins into the blood stream and kick starts the metabolism.
I also teach kundalini yoga and meditation. This type of yoga naturally works to combine the energy of the glandular system and the nervous system to optimise the flow of energy in the body! I may look crazy (good!) with my white clothes and turban on but it’s like magic that works with the breath in each of the postures to promote deep yet euphoric relaxation too. You can get some incredible ‘kundalini highs’ that become a bit addictive in themselves because you feel so good after!
In my first classes of the New Year, we really worked up an internal sweat using yogic postures to promote a healthy bowel. These helped the body to kick start cleansing the digestive organs and genuinely left people feeling clear headed. We used a powerful ‘meditation for healing addiction’(to break addiction that is!) to end each class, which works to correct glandular imbalances in the pineal gland which Yogi Bhajan believed to be the root cause of addiction. Students left class with a recommendation to drink lots of water to continue flushing the toxins released into the blood stream. The link is below if you fancy giving the yoga set a try, do share your experiences with me. I’d love to know how you get on!
I’m sure you know by now that I’m super honest and with all this said above, I mostly feel this time of year, with the darker days is about reflecting and listening to our bodies and taking whatever action we feel we need plus making sure we get all the extra rest we need too. So, if you feel like just being and that there’s no need for any kind of change, radical or not, do listen to that inner guidance and just be.
https://kundaliniyogawageningen.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Healthy-Bowel-System.pdf
Wishing you all a healthy and happy 2020!
Zoe
Health & Wellness Coach
Kundalini Yoga and Meditation Teacher
On the Gram @Zoe.Swan