Trouble falling asleep – the Alphabet Game

by jenne | Health

Have you ever had trouble falling asleep – or waking in the middle of the night and struggled to get back to sleep?

We all know the importance of sleep and what lack of sleep does to our body and mind.

Sleep disturbances are usually due to stress, travel, illness, or other temporary interruptions to normal routine. However, if sleep problems occur regularly and interfere with daily life, you may be suffering from a sleep disorder. In which case this technique might not be enough…

Maybe you remember as a kid being told to count sheep if you couldn’t fall asleep.
It appears that for most it is mainly a myth (Myth = widely held but false belief or idea). 

I had never heard of the alphabet game, but started a few months ago just doing it – Weird, maybe or maybe not –  and just an intuition or some divine intervention? 

In this sleeping exercise, I am going to show you how I use the alphabet to think up words to apply to each letter.

Before we get started, there are a couple of things you need to do.

You obviously want to get bed ready, which would mean turning off lights in the room and removing any noise distractions.

Make sure the temperature is optimal – more on sleep hygiene here (tbd)

Lie down in bed and close your eyes.

Here we go:

Step 1:

Choose a subject for the list you’ll be creating (e.g. cars, plants, fruits, vegetables, animals, etc).
For the purposes of this step-by-step, I’ll use “positive adjectives” as a category.

Step 2: 

Beginning with the letter A, think up a word that begins with that letter.
In this case, we might begin with “Amazing”.

Step 3:

Now think up 3 or 4 more words beginning with A” that are positive and that you might like to achieve or experience everyday. E.g. awesome, active, accepted etc.

Step 4:

Next choose a word for the next letter B, such as “Beautiful”.
Continue with the remaining letters of the alphabet, thinking up words that begin with each letter until you reach the final letter Z.

If you get to the end of the alphabet and you have still not fallen asleep – well heck, I think we have another issue here. Otherwise simply repeat the process, but choose a different category.

To be totally honest, I don’t think I’ve ever got past F in the alphabet – these are only a few examples of words I would use. 

I obviously have NOT learned them by heart, but when doing this “exercise” allow whatever comes up. As long as it is positive – if anything negative comes up – I immediately go back to the word before and try and come up with a positive attribute (or adjective/noun/verb – whatever – you get the gist)

Here are a couple of words that often come up during this *exercise”

A – awesome, ambitious, abundant, authentic

B – bold, brave, beautiful, bright

C – calm, creative, cheerful, curious

D – daring, dedicated, dependable, devoted

E – energetic, efficient, empathic, entertaining

F – fair, free, faithful, flexible

G – generous, genuine, grounded, grateful

H – happy, healthy, harmony, humour

I – independent, imaginative, intuitive, innovative

By creatively thinking up words we are essentially allowing our minds to wander, which will help to induce the sleeping state. And nothing creates a better foundation for a list than the standard alphabet.

The alphabet works so well, because it’s something that the majority of us have learned to a point that it’s become ingrained in our minds from a young age. We are able to use this knowledge as a tool to apply to any list of items or materials. Whether it’s falling asleep or going back to sleep. 

The ideas of lists are endless:

Famous people (e.g. celebrities, athletes, artists, musicians) with the same initials  e.g. Anne Archer, Boris Becker, Charlie Chaplin, Danny DeVito, Emilio Estevez, Farrah Fawcett, Gloria Gaynor, and so on… 

Don’t want to do double initials? Go through the alphabet dog breeds, cereal brands, cities you’ve been to, or spices or herbs. 

Counting down backwards (and slowly) from 100 and visualizing each number as you come to it, can also be effective. Maybe also imagining erasing it from blackboard.

I have other interesting “hacks” or daily habits that I will share with you in future articles.

Let me know in the comments if you have any interests that you want covered.

My word for 2020 – PEACE!

by jenne | Health

I haven’t been living under a rock – but I’ve never “done” a word of the year thing. So I decided to jump on the train/boat/plane and do it this year.

This isn’t like a New Years resolution – because, honestly, I don’t think those work. And it’s probably been statistically proven somewhere.

My word of the year is: Peace – which includes gratitude and accepting. Even letting go and decluttering

Peace is defined as mental calmness; serenity. It also means freedom from disturbance; quiet and tranquility.

To have peace (for me) means to be confident in my decisions and to have no fear – and I am striving for those two things in my life this year. Anxiety and stress come from fear and worry.

One of my biggest challenges over the last year (or two) has been that of dealing with both fear and worry. 

Fear of failure, fear of success. Fear of rejection and criticism. Fear of not being good enough and this whole imposter syndrome stuff.

Worry – about the future and things that probably won’t come to pass, my kids, my health, finances, relationships – and the list goes on.

I’ve decided I no longer want to be the biggest obstacle in my own path. I no longer want to keep myself from taking the necessary steps to achieving my goals.

I think part of the reason most of us struggle with being “in peace” or having peace is because we struggle to love ourselves. Not accepting who we are and just trying to fit in in the world and society. 

I just want to be ok with not being ok all the time. At the same time be grateful, accept and let go of what is not serving me (or others)  and have more self-compassion.

So how, now, am I going to go about this?

Peace and Gratitude 

I’m not really a journalling kind of person. I’d start and stop (for a couple of years) and then start again.

But… I started off the year with a gratitude journal that was gifted to me by one of my awesome coaches Esther de Charon.

Easy  peasy – just three things every day that I’m grateful for.

Good days start with a gratitude journal

Another gift from my dear coach Sigrun is slightly different but also definitely worth doing. Becoming – A guided journal for discovering your voice by Michelle Obama. This will take a little longer and deeper look inside.

A guided journal for discovering your voice

The interesting thing is that I had already decided before the end of the year what my WOTY (word of the year) was going to be – and these two journals only came much later. So there must be something to this.

Peace and Accepting and letting go

Now this ain’t an easy task.

Letting go of expectations and learning to accept that I can’t control everything and everyone around me. Especially my kids – you know that mother hen syndrome. 

Also letting go of “what will so and so think of me” and just worry about what I think of myself. Not taking myself too seriously, but having fun in the process

Leaving room for mistakes, meaning, that we all learn from our mistakes – and Rome was not built in a day.

“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.” –Jack Kornfield

Peace and Compassion

Self compassion first. Giving myself room to be human, flawed and sensitive, maybe even unproductive without judging myself harshly. Generally just being kind to myself. Cultivate acceptance so as not to shut myself down and not lose faith in my own potential.

Peace and Clearing the clutter

This clearing clutter thing has been around for almost a year now. And I STILL have not got my sh!t together and sorted out what needs to stay or go. We’re talking about physical stuff – like in my office and the cellar.

There’s also the mental decluttering that needs attention. I feel my brain is on overload – so many thoughts and ideas floating around my brain. 

I want to think clearly and make decisions easily. Not have too much to do and not enough time to do it in.

I want to free up some headspace to be able to feel calmer, stay focused on what needs to get done in the business and think more clearly. 

I want more peace in my life. I want financial peace. I want peace within my heart. I want peace in my mind. I want peace at home. I want peace in my business. 

I want peace – PERIOD

On a final note I’ll leave you with this quote:  “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

Anger – How to keep your sh*t together – without throwing forks, or so…

by jenne | Health

Have you ever felt the need to throw a fork at someone, bang a frying pan on their head, throw a TV out the window or something equally absurd?

Have you ever just “lost it” or are you just chilled and in Zen and don’t experience those emotions? I don’t know about you, but I am definitely not Zen YET, maybe I’m human…
And Yes, I have thrown forks in a state of rage – twice – nothing to be proud of. No-one was physically damaged and talking about it in the aftermath was essential for clearing up what had caused the explosion.

I guess we all feel anger at different times in our lives and most often don’t want to… And we’ve been taught to be nice people, and most often for women, it is an emotion that is avoided at all costs, and considered as bad, undesirable or unacceptable.

So instead of listening to it we suppress, deny, bury it, block it, medicate or numb it or just plain try and ignore it.

BUT, we are meant to listen to our anger. It is a voice, a plea, a demand to look at what is really going on. If we don’t address anger, fear or other strong negative emotions they can build up over time and cause havoc in our personal lives and bodies. Anger is a powerful emotion and can cause total chaos.

However, even though anger is just an emotion, and like any emotion, it’s not really right or wrong. What we do with it is relevant – it can be used positively and negatively / good or bad.

For good (or positive) anger can:

• be activating and mobilising – it can get us results – If we learn to channel anger into action to achieve something we might have procrastinated on e.g. cleaning out the cellar, or getting the ironing done, . DUH – who still irons clothes today? I don’t… or maybe we’ll get our frigging cellar cleaned out, the wardrobe sorted, the tax declaration done…
• give a feeling of power – It enables us to express ourselves in a way we would not usually. And in the world of negotiation anger can sometimes be a very effective tactic. A salary increase or change of position, or even banal tasks like what gets done at home (or not) e.g. emptying the dishwasher after having asked like 30 times, or putting the washing away after it lying around for 3 weeks
• increase our self-worth or self-confidence –  standing up for ourselves and not letting others take advantage of us. It could be labeled as assertive, strong or confident. And imagine telling an energy vampire to get the heck out of our lives…
• be a motivation for a bigger cause – to take a stand against injustice, discrimination or oppression e.g. child abuse or human trafficking, lack of rights for women (and much more)

For bad (or negative), and maybe this should come before the advantages as it can:

• make us really sick – when we’re really angry, our body reacts the same way when in stress. It triggers our body to take a defensive stance, readying ourselves for any danger that may come our way. When it’s intense and happens often, the physiological effects can be so harmful. It can trigger a whole lot of physical reactions that can have long term effects on the body e.g. high blood pressure, mental conditions, cardiac arrest or stroke.
• “break our hearts” – whenever we get angry our cardiovascular system becomes vulnerable. Anger increases blood flow to our muscles, it spikes levels of adrenaline and cortisol, Here’s a great article on The Science of how your heart can break
• cause pain to those around us – physical pain is bad enough but emotional and psychological damage can destroy relationships maybe irreparably. It is most likely to cause problems in relationships in the family, at work and with friends. People with long term anger problems tend to be poor at making decisions, take more risks than other people and are more likely to have a substance misuse problem.

It takes a lot of courage to look honestly and deeply at the difficult emotions in our lives and to be prepared to make real change from within. Nothing is a quick fix. It’s a process or journey to help ourselves heal, process difficult emotions and create real, lasting change.

Next time you find yourself getting angry at someone, stop and take a moment to check in and ask yourself:

• Why am I angry?
• Who made me angry?
• If I take a closer look, what am I feeling beneath the anger?
• What is really going on?
• Can I change the situation or change my response to it?
• Do I need to set better boundaries?

With these insights we can make a more informed (read: less knee-jerk) decision on how we want to respond. This will help prevent us from verbally assaulting our (often unaware) “wrongdoer” with our anger, thereby prevent injury to the relationship.  AND this could save us from having to deal with the emotional mess of our own guilt and shame.

Can I express myself immediately in a calm, assertive, and non-aggressive way, or do I need some time to cool off before I can talk about how I’m really feeling? Often, the latter works much better.

It can be really challenging to creating change from within at times. But it is so worth it.

Easy to say, not so easy to do. And like most things worth anything:

it takes patience, practice, and persistence.

Serious shit, peeps – life is not for sissies – so we need support!

We either get help in form of therapy, or we find an alternative through dancing, meditating, getting a massage, going for walks in the forest, just sweating it out aka exercise or painting..

From personal experience, and experience from some of my clients intuitive painting has been extremely therapeutic. The insights and observations were immensely beneficial to releasing emotions and finding balance again.

Stay in touch with me on Facebook and Instagram, or read more of my blogs here.

What is Kinesiology?

by jenne | Health

The term kinesiology comes from the Greek words “kinesis” (movement) and “logos” (teaching) – the study of the principles of mechanics and anatomy in relation to human movement.

Translated, this means “the doctrine of the movement”. Not only body movement is meant, but above all the movement of life energy. Kinesiology combines the principles of traditional Chinese medicine (meridian teaching, acupressure, teaching of the 5 elements) with Western holistic medicine (Touch for Health, Brain Gym).

The discovery of kinesiology goes back to the experiences and examinations of the American chiropractor dr. George Goodheart. In the early sixties he observed that physical and psychological processes in humans are also reflected in the functional state of their muscles. He then developed a simple test procedure that detects this muscle function without the aid of apparatus: the muscle test.

Different forms of Kinesiology and their scope of application

Integrative Kinesiology was founded in the 80s in Switzerland by Rosmarie Sonderegger, IKAMED, Zurich.

Integrative Kinesiology combines kinesiology with talk therapy, an approach of humanistic psychology according to C. Rogers. It assumes that there are three steps to positive change:

• the realization of the current situation in relation to the cause
• the reorientation into which one wants to move in the future
• kinesiological energy balancing to reduce stress and build a solid foundation for new, successful behavior

Kinesiology activates our self-healing powers and supports the recognition and dissolution of the energy patterns, which maintain an energetic imbalance in our body. By balancing the body in the energy system, we learn to access our physical, emotional, intellectual and energetic sources and to utilize all our potential.

With the kinesiological muscle test, a feedback device of the body, it is possible to detect stress factors and thus compensate for these energy imbalances. Compensation techniques such as adjustment exercises, colors, essences, sounds or acupressure are used to achieve and maintain the balance between the body, the soul and the mind.

In a consultation, the situation, needs and goals of the client are determined. By means of simple muscle tests, blockages are detected, and impulses are given for a reorientation by appropriate techniques. Kinesiology combines the latest scientific knowledge with elements of the Far Eastern healing procedures.

Brain-Gym®

Brain-Gym® is a part of the IK Kinesiology, although integrated it can also be used on it’s own. It is  a very effective method for activating and improving your learning, concentration and brain performance.

Brain-Gym®, was founded in the 80’s by Dr. Paul Dennison, developed together with his wife Gail. They researched the connection between consciously targeted movement and learning, and observed how physical exercise positively affects the collaboration, which means affecting the understanding, the communication and organization of the individual parts of the brain.

It is made up of 26 activities, along with several other movement-based techniques which help address posture, balance, and coordination skills associated with daily life success. It supports in helping to synchronize your body system to focus better on comprehension, focus, organisation, communication, and emotional health. Brain Gym® is often used in schools, companies, old age homes (or retirement villages), athletic training programs, as well as for personal and professional growth.

Brain-Gym® is an ideal method for children and adults of all ages to learn more easily and to improve physical and mental flexibility.

The muscle test

The muscle test is the working instrument of kinesiology and is used as an energy meter. It indicates where the energy flows and where there is a blockage.

It is a guide to the subconscious. Because the body has stored everything we have ever seen, experienced and heard.

The test provides information on the support the body needs in order to regain its energy balance.

The muscle test can also be viewed as an intermediary between the head (thinking) and feeling (abdomen, heart). With the knowledge that the client receives during a session, he better learns about his reactions and can get rid of old patterns and beliefs.

In kinesiology, we work with 42 muscles. The individual muscles are again associated with the meridians. With the test of the individual muscles it can be determined, in which meridian the energy flows and which strengthening exercises are to be made to restore the balance.

Scope of application

IK Kinesiology can be applied to a variety of complaints, as well as for prevention and personal development, which in turn contributes to a better quality of life such as:

• Reduce stress (tension, fatigue)
• Increase wellbeing and enjoyment of life
• Development of personality and potential
• Physical and mental balance
• Strengthen the immune system
• Activate self-healing powers
• Supporting the healing processes of diseases and accidents
• Sleep disorders, Insomnia
• Depressions
• Migraine and stress-induced tension headaches
• Dealing with fears, e.g. Test anxiety, or phobias

Amongst others…

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