Rami's Blog

Like the Yin-Yang, Eastern Martial Arts and Western medicine are two halves of a whole. My mission is to preserve the ancient mind-body tools and pass them on to you.

 

Where Is Your Mind When You Exercise?

You do exactly the number of repetitions you are supposed to. You hold the stretches for exactly the right amount of time. You do your routine everyday, and and you do it first thing in the morning before anything else. Even before checking email.

But you're still stressed out. You still have anxieties that plague you during the day. You still can't get a great night's sleep.

It's probably because your mind is wandering while you workout.

Half of all mind-body regimens is in the mind. Doing the exercise is good for your heart, but thinking about that project your have to get done at work is bad for your heart. Stress-induced hormones increase your blood pressure and put you on high alert, making it impossible to relax as your thoughts spin around the source of your anxiety.

Put away the timer and start exercising for as long as it takes to feel relaxed. Go muscle by muscle, and move your mind into that part of your body. Picture the muscle and soft tissue like ice, frozen, but melting from your mind focusing on it, like heat from the sun.

Afraid you won't have time to get fully relaxed? Go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. Put yourself in a position where your schedule is wide open when you start stretching, so you can go as long as you need to without constantly checking the clock.

Eventually you should be able to feel each muscle by putting your mind there, and you should be able to consciously relax it with a deep breath.

Focus on your breathing too. Do whatever makes it easier for your to let go of your stress for this hour, or half-hour, each day. You don't need to solve your life problems or get any work done right now. Right now, you need to relax your body and mind.

Doing Tai Chi with a monkey mind is like not doing Tai Chi at all. Bring that energy down from your head to your center and cool off. A meditative mind is kind of like a sauna: you don't need to spend all day in there to feel the benefits. A little bit every day works too.

Tai Chi is Good for the People Around You

Some people are motivated to do things because it helps them, personally. If eating healthy is good for them, then they will do it. No questions asked.

Other people still struggle to be motivated, even if they would experience the same benefits. It isn't hard to understand why: if someone has learned to live with the body and state of health they've got, then the only thing that really scares them is getting worse.

When was the last time you ran a mile? Yesterday? Last week? Last year? Last decade? Unless you run a lot, it is easy to let that ability get away from you. How often does the average joe need to run a mile in his day-to-day life? Not at all, really. But even if you don't feel it, you are getting worse and worse at running everyday that you don't do it.

But if you don't run, you'll never realize how much you've lost. This applies to all health situations. You don't realize you can't bend down anymore until you have to. You don't realize you can't play catch with your kids until your shoulder cries out in pain.

It's hard to motivate ourselves to avoid those things, because we only notice them after they are a problem. But just treating current problems is no way to take care of yourself, you have to avoid health problems to feel really good.

So try this: meditate and be mindful for a few minutes about the well-being of your loved ones. Consider the positive effect if would have on the people around you if your mood was improved through regular meditation. Or the effect that improved strength and flexibility will have on the time you spend with your kids and/or grandkids. Or the effect that better sexual health will have on your love life. Or the effect that lower health care costs and insurance premiums will have on your family's quality of life.

The list goes on and on, but the theme is always the same: your health is not just about you, it is about everyone around you, and everyone who cares about you. So if you aren't motivated to improve your health and start a mind-body routine for just your own benefit, consider the benefits it will have on the people around you.

There's Always Another Exercise

A few weeks ago, I was afraid that I might run out of material for the blog, the videos in particular. I thought, "I've released most of my exercises at this point, what is left to talk about?"

But I realized that I can't have released most of my exercises yet, because I haven't invented most of my exercises yet. 

When I work with patients one-on-one, I always start out with the bread-and-butter exercises to get an idea of how healthy they are, and what works for them. But then, in practically every session I have with someone, I have to brainstorm some new motion, or stretch, or strength exercise for them to do to get the results they desire.

You'll see one of these new moves in an upcoming vlog. It has a name that can't possibly be from ancient Eastern martial arts!

So, how is this relevant to you and your treatment? Well, it means that you should never give up on exercise, because if a certain stretch or movement doesn't help you, it doesn't mean that exercise is general won't help you, it only means that this one particular exercise won't help you.

So we'll just have to invent another that does.

Happy stretching.

P.S. My publisher YMAA has created a great bundle deal on my books, as well as a few other books written by my colleagues concerning mind-body healing. Check it out here on Amazon. If you are interested in getting a lot of expert advice from professionals in the field, this bundle is the best bang-for-your-buck, so to speak.