As a yoga practitioner, one thing that I notice both in my personal practice and as a teacher, is the inability to sit still. Yoga as a physical practice includes a series of postures (asanas) and breathing exercises (pranayama) that works to stretch and lengthen the body, and deepen mental relaxation for extended personal concentration (dharana) and meditation (dhyana).
What many people don’t realize that those individuals who can’t sit still are likely not in control of their mind. I mean – look at this logically – if you are totally consumed and have a lot on your mind – how will you sit still? Won’t you be continuously moving around?
Most people who are worried or stressed out are continuously pacing back and forth. Those individuals who are nervous or anxious have “butterflies” in their stomach contributing to the inability to sit or stand still. Those individuals who are constantly complaining have no ability to accept their situation so they continue to rant and rave about their situation with no end in sight.
These are some small examples that illustrate the correlation of physical actions on the mental part of our body. What we need to be cognizant of is what we have on our mind will have a direct impact on our body. Basically, our lifestyle is driving our thoughts.
So is there a way to control and tame our mind? There is – but for that you have to understand why you can’t sit still – and develop a lifestyle to counteract the inability to sit still.
In my personal opinion, there are four major things coming in the way to controlling your mind that you can take control of immediately:
- Poor sleeping habits.
- Poor eating habits.
- Poor drinking habits.
- Poor exercise habits.
The following are actions that you can take to build a “Lifestyle of Sitting Still”
- Reduce the amount of TV that you watch at night. In fact, turn the tube off after 9pm and read a book. Don’t read your email, this blog, the news. Read only good things.
- Go to bed by 1030pm and wake up by 530am during the work week.Good quality, uninterrupted sleep is what you are striving for. Don’t snooze the alarm, wake up right away.
- Reduce coffee and tea intake. If you can just get off coffee or tea that would be best but if you need a cup of java or tea just keep it to one cup. If you have a “coffee meeting” with a friend at Starbucks later in the day, order an herbal tea.
- Eat only fresh food. This is probably one of the best things you can do. Don’t eat leftovers more than 24 hours and try not to microwave too much. Try to each more vegetables. Try to keep red meat consumption at a minimum.
- Drink fresh juice and water. Get a juicer and make natural fresh vegetable and fruit juices in the morning. Drink 2 glasses of water as soon as you wake up and another 6-8 glasses throughout the day to stay hydrated.
- Go for a 30 minute walk after dinner. What’ the saying – after lunch nap a while, after dinner walk a mile? Get out there and move. Walk up and down hills for optimal workouts. This may even eliminate some extra weight you have. If anything it will bring fresh oxygen into the body and pump the heart faster to replenish blood cells and tissues.
- Observe the pace of your breathing. Are you breathing too high in your clavicular region? Too low in your abdominal area? Take long inhalations and exhalations using the full range of your abdomen, thoracic and clavicular regions. Practice breathing from your nose when you are doing random errands, driving, reading a book, or sitting in front of your computer.
- Reduce or eliminate alcohol intake to one to two drinks in any social outing. Who doesn’t like to have a fun time?! But count how many drinks you are having in a week. Try to limit drinking Thursday through Saturday and focus on having just one to two drinks on any social gathering. Best of all, eliminate consumption of any alcoholic beverage.
Building some of these lifestyle habits will take a tremendous amount of time and work but are possible.The path to controlling the mind begins by making some simple lifestyle changes as mentioned above. There are a ton more changes to incorporate but start with these and see where things go, experiment, and make adjustments.