While Thanksgiving and the holidays are times of joy, they can also be filled with chaos, family issues, stress and weight gain. For those that focus on keeping a healthy lifestyle, this can be extremely challenging during this time of year. Megha Mehta, author of the newly launched healthy lifestyle book “Find Your Rhythm,” explains how by getting in touch with your own body, you can avoid overindulgence, stay centered amidst the loud holiday chatter, and be better equipped to deal with the stress that comes from the long hours and late nights. Here’s how you can really activate your innate body wisdom this Thanksgiving:
- Pause and Scan Several Times Daily: Set the tone for what’s coming up by building this really simple pause and scan technique several times into your day. All you need to do is pause whatever you’re up to for a minute and allow yourself to ‘feel into’ your body. You can start from your toes and then go up all the way into your belly, chest, arms, head and so on. Make sure you’re acutely aware of the sensations, feelings and visions that may come up. The more often you do this, the better you will be tuned in to your body’s internal landscape.
- Breathe to Get Out of Your Own Head: Breathing is the fastest way to become aware and present. It can be a great route to getting out of your mind. Whatever it is that you’re onto just dedicate 1-2 (or more if can!) breaths to getting in to your body. If you aren’t able to feel more present in your body yet, don’t fret, this is a practice that you will get better at with time.
- Letting Go is Just Like Minimizing an App: Just before you go to bed at night, close your eyes and imagine yourself letting go of each part of your day. Just like minimizing apps on your smartphone or windows on your computer use 2-3 minutes to send each of your worries, thoughts, to-do’s and other ideas into ether (space). Depending on whether you’re spiritual or religious you can also hand each of these over to God, the universe or consciousness.
- Inhabit Your Body: Many of us are going about our days without fully ‘being’ in our bodies. It’s like parts of our bodies have shut down or have been blocked and we can’t access them. A great way to activate your body’s wisdom is to take a moment to make each part of your body more fully awake and alive before you start your day. This can take as little as 30 seconds! Just allow yourself to stretch, move and say good morning to every single part of your body, first thing in the morning!
- Disconnect to Reconnect: Whether you’re in a conversation with friends or family or taking those calls, messages and emails that are urgent, it is critical to stop. The constant connection slowly erodes the internal connection we have with our bodies. That makes it more challenging to hear, understand and interpret the messages that our bodies’ are giving us all the time! So for a few seconds, just take time off from your computer screen, laptop, iPad, tablets and smartphones and let yourself just be where you are!
About Megha Mehta
Megha is the Founder of the The Balance Mantra and is a professionally trained Intuitive Health Coach, Energy Medicine Practitioner, Yoga Instructor and author that helps people transform their lives and realize better health, spiritual wealth and happiness.
The Balance Mantra offers articles, podcasts, online programs and one-on-one sessions teaching nutrition, ancient lifestyle techniques, home remedies, yoga, Ayurveda wisdom, energy healing methods, angel card readings and more. Megha’s first book, “Find Your Rhythm”, feel your way to perfect wellness, is available on Amazon.com and will show readers how by changing their perception, happiness, interactions and view of one’s own self, they can achieve a 360 degree transformation that can be really simple yet immensely profound.
Megha is trained in Yoga teaching for kids, families, babies, prenatal and postnatal needs from Tirisula Yoga, Birthlight UK and Rainbow Kids Yoga. She is a Board Certified Holistic Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, NY (certified by the American Association of Drugless Practioners). She trained under Uwe Albrecht to learn how to use the Innerwise system of healing and the arm’s length test. Megha is also a certified Angel card reader, and Reiki and Kunlun practitioner. Megha has a Masters in Business Administration from the Singapore Management University; was born in Hyderabad India and currently resides in Singapore.
