Travel is integral to my life. I start to relax when I walk in the airport and immediately relax when I board a plane. As a therapist, though, I know that more than 35% of the population experiences at least some anxiety about flying. 
Calm your mind by practicing mindfulness and meditation. Visualize a soothing environment, perhaps your destination, imagine and experience it using all of your senses. After returning from a trip to Bermuda several years ago, I started using this picture to help clients practice visualization. What do you see? (The blue of the ocean and sea rocks.) What do you hear? (The waves crashing, the cars passing above.) What do you smell? (Salt water and sunscreen). What do you feel? (The warmth of the sun, the sharp rocks, the firm sand, sunglasses on my nose.) What do you taste? (Fruit juice.) Choose a setting that is calming for you and immerse yourself in it using your imagination.
Here is just one more reason to roll out your yoga mat and breathe deep: A new study conducted at Ohio State University shows that employees who engage in yoga at work experience less stress and better sleeping patterns than those who don’t. The results which were reported in the most recent edition of the journal Health Education & Behavior had study participants perform just 20 minutes of yoga and meditation at their work desks and take part of one-hour weekly group meetings during their lunch breaks for six weeks.
The study illustrates a few key points about the mindfulness that a yoga and meditation practice can cultivate and the benefits of physical activity.
Not all health solutions are about what you eat and how you physically exercise. Some exercise is mental and it purposely involves no physical activity. Meditation isn’t just relaxing, it can expand your intellect as well. While you build bigger muscles with weights, you build a bigger brain with the relaxation methods of meditation.
“In meditation, effort must be applied in a direction opposite to what we are used to. Our effort must be to relax ever more deeply,” says John Novak, author of Lessons in Meditation.
There’s physical evidence of these brain-expanding benefits. The researchers from the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging used a high-resolution, three-dimensional form of MRI and two different approaches to measure differences in brain structure.
Today’s guest blogger is Tracy Connery from MommyOm, a wife, mother, writer and photographer. Her days are taken in any number of directions, but a long-term relationship with her yoga mat has kept complete craziness at bay. MommyOm is the best in all things yoga and meditation for parents from one mom’s expanding perspective.
The next time your day has spiraled out of control… demands of screaming children, looming deadlines, stacks of unpaid bills… rather than looking to the self-help section of the bookstore, or heading to the doctor for some kind of medicinal intervention, or worse, to the fridge for yet another peppermint patty… sweet, tingly, chocolate-y goodness … ahem… OK, perhaps that’s just me….
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