Allison Kelsey's Physiology Weekly
Open your arms wide and be happy!
Posted on: Mar 09, 2010 - 01:32 PM
Open your arms wide and be happy!
Try it: open your arms to hug someone or a tree or to embrace the fresh air! Or open them wide as children tend to when they tell someone that they love them ‘this much’ or ‘the whole world’.
This posture allows the release of feel good endorphins and can change our mood. It allows us to feel more energised and who doesn’t wish they had more energy at times? It opens through our heart centre (our chest) allowing our lungs to expand which is beneficial if we have a cold, feel congested or suffer from asthma.
If we wish to take it deeper, this opeing through our heart centre, increases our capacity for love and that includes self love and self acceptance.
All excellent reasons to open your arms wide!
Allison Kelsey
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk
Lose Weight from your Mind and Body
Posted on: Feb 09, 2010 - 08:09 PM
Lose your guilt. You don’t have to do gymnastics to lose weight. Good posture aids digestion. Practise standing tall. You’ll lose inches and years.
Allison Kelsey
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk
LOOK UP!
Posted on: Dec 22, 2009 - 03:22 PM
Look up!
It sounds odd but it’s harder to feel unhappy while you’re looking up. Obviously don’t do this if you’re in danger of falling down a manhole or off a kerb but otherwise give yourself an incentive to look up. There’s a reason for the saying ‘You look down’ when someone seems unhappy.Try it and things will really look up.
Allison Kelsey
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk
What will make you stronger – softness or hardness?
Posted on: Oct 08, 2009 - 08:59 AM
When we think of being strong, we often think of physical strength and we tend to link this to hardness in the body – to strong, hard muscles.
We can see this as an unyielding kind of strength……..where we use our body as our armoury – to protect ourselves and with or without knowing it to keep others away from us. We use our body as a shield, as our defence and we put up clear “NO GO” signs. It is clear to anyone that a hug would not be welcome…..
Yet at times when our armour is at its strongest, this can be those times when we desire a hug and some softness and comfort more than anything else in the world. Yet the way we have defended, protected our heart we are giving out clear KEEP AWAY signals.
Interestingly enough, years of running the same patterns in our mind, years of acting and behaving in a certain way – actually starts to sculpt our body into a way that reflects our view of ourselves and the world. We unconsciously create our armour, and thus our posture, stance, facial expressions that tell the world exactly how we have been feeling for a number of years.
Someone who does not feel safe enough to open their heart, to trust others, to allow themselves to feel compassion and love and acceptance for themselves…….over time develop a curling in around the back – these are the shoulders that are curved in, with the chest appearing slightly concave……
These people may complain of neck ache, of shoulder-ache, of upper back pain, of congestion in the chest, of constriction feelings……caused by the armoury.
However, if we kept the emotions, thought processes, trust and behaviour of small children, the armoury that develops is softer, more malleable, and shows someone with soft shoulders with ease of movement and openness and expansion across the chest and heart region.
I wonder which one you find yourself closer to?
I teach yoga and I frequently say in my classes that a lot of the “everyday” actions we take such as driving, washing up, vacuuming, mowing the lawn, sitting at a computer, encourages our body to develop into that flexed hunched shape which constricts through our heart centre and our chest – causing our true emotions to be stifled as we “think” and rationalise our emotions with our head.
Simple backbends and throwing our arms backwards and upwards can open up through our heart centre and be a lovely opening releasing feeling.
So even if we have spent 30 or more years creating a hard armoury, the good news is, its never to late to change it. As Tony Robbins says: Tiny Changes Means Huge Results. We can all start today to yield to softness to create greater strength, rather than leaning towards hardness and barriers.
As you walk or go around your every day chores / work, start by noticing the little things.
2 things to instantly bring softness to your body.
1) Unless of course you are doing intricate / precise work – notice your hands and fingers and allow them to become loose and soft – allow all the tension to drain out of your hands and keep bringing your attention back to your fingers throughout the day to ensure they are soft and floppy.
2) 
Loosen your jaw!! So many people hold massive amounts of tension in the jaw which sends messages to other parts of the body to become tense and hard. Allow that jaw to become loose. So if you are reading a book, browsing the internet, preparing lunch, working on a document, even changing a baby’s bottom – allow that jaw to hang lose. Again regularly throughout the day bring your attention to your jaw, allow it to loosen and this means allowing the lips to part (you can be subtle with this!!)
Just doing these two simple things during your every day activity will bring your awareness to where you are holding tightness and hardness in your body, and giving signals to those parts to follow your hands and jaws and become soft and loose.
One of the areas where we hold massive amounts of stored emotion and which can benefit most from softening, releasing, relaxing – are our HIPS. Sorry ladies, but it’s us who hold more tension here and often we have tighter hips than the guys.
So for those of you who want some more, here’s another exercise to help loosen those hips – and I challenge you to do this for just 5 mins (with awareness) every day for 21 days and notice the difference.
Be on all fours – with your hips above your knees, your knees hip distance apart.
Have your hands under of just in front of your shoulders, (as shown).
Start by taking a few rounds of cat and cow – (as shown in an earlier article) to loosen through the back and hips.
Now start to draw circles with your hips – imagine you are drawing a circle with your bottom – close your eyes and feel the movement and allow it to be come really expressive and as big as you want. Change direction to circle in the other way.
Is this a beautiful circles or a jagged square? If it’s the latter, soften and relax, laugh, smile, play, don’t take yourself too seriously.
The more we soften the more we can create circles and release the tension or emotion held in our hips – a great tonic for the mind, body and soul.
Once you feel you are doing this comfortably and easily, challenge yourself with creating figures of 8 with your hips.
This carried out regularly will start to release the tension in your body and change your mind and emotions – if the body changes, the mind has to change too – it cannot hold the exact same thoughts and patterns if the body is changing.
At the very least, this movement is quite sensuous and you may enjoy it in another way………
Have fun, soften and loosen up!! 
Allison Kelsey
Therapist, Coach, Trainer
http://www.inspirenow.co.uk
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