How can mind-body skills help you?
Self-care is fundamental medicine for wherever you are on your wellness journey. Self-care and mind-body wellness consists of four essential areas:
- healthy eating
- exercise, movement, dance
- stress management
- human interaction
We teach simple techniques for people around the world to engage in this wellness journey, and get out of their brains and into their bodies—something all of us need. Below are just a few of our techniques that you can try alone or, even better, with others.
Our research shows measurable results using simple techniques such as meditation, guided imagery, drawing and movement, even with people with severe trauma resulting from wars and natural disasters.
Try Soft-Belly Breathing
Take a break and experience this 4-minute breathing meditation with Dr. James Gordon, Center Founder & Director. Dr. Gordon has shared this simple technique in professional training programs, workshops and lectures around the world, and it instantly connects each of us with our mind-body. Doing this once or twice a day, leaving your cares and deadlines behind and just breathing, can be powerful medicine for you and your family. Breathe on your own, with your children, with your colleagues. We never start a staff meeting without it!
Try 3 breaths before you eat
Kathie Madonna Swift, MS, RD, Curriculum Designer for Food As Medicine and co-author of The Inside Tract: Understanding and Preventing Digestive Disorders makes this simple suggestion: when you sit down to eat a meal, take 3 breaths before eating. Slow down, calm and center yourself. It helps digestion, and makes your meal more nourishing on every level. Bon appétit!
Try Hugging Meditation
The venerable Buddhhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hahn teaches hugging meditation. When you hug your child, spouse or friend, just do that—hug. Don’t worry about what you are having for dinner tonight or your presentation tomorrow. Just be there, 100% in that hug, with all your heart. Don’t rush– hold on—stick with it. Try it, and see if the recipient doesn’t express both joy and a little amazement.
