HEALTHY SLEEP AIDS

For a few years in my early 20’s, I suffered from a sleep disorder. I was sleepy and exhausted, but it would still take me at least two hours to fall asleep. Once I was snoozing, I would wake up after about four hours not feeling refreshed at all. I have always been on the lower end of the sleep scale (I feel great with 6 hours of sleep, and groggy with more or less than that), but this was obviously a problem. I visited a sleep clinic and was given helpful tips, I was offered medication and I tried my own at-home remedies. I no longer have a sleep disorder, and haven’t had one for years.

YouTube video created by dcjanelle

Below I share an amalgamation of easy tips that helped me. If you suffer from any sleep problems – anything from ‘Sunday Night Syndrome’ (difficulty sleeping before the work week begins) to something more serious – I hope these tips help you.

1. Thyroid: Have your thyroid checked thoroughly. Thyroid imbalances can contribute to a myriad of problems, including problems with sleep. If you are found to have thyroid trouble, visit a nutritionist or naturopath for suggestions on natural thyroid aids. Make any dietary changes that are suggested to you, and try to stick with them for at least two months to see results.

2. Hormones: Have your hormone levels checked. Same as above, including making any recommended dietary changes.

*You may have a very healthy diet; however, you may also be eating specific items, or not eating necessary items that are making sleep difficult for your particular system.

3. Schedule: Maintain a consistent bed time and wake time every day of the week until you get your sleep issue resolved, and try to stick with that for weekdays once you have the problem under control.

4. Conditioning: Perform a relaxation sequence about an hour before bed every night at the same time. This will help clear your mind of home and work worries, and bring your mind and body into a sleep-ready state. This can include:

• Following a very slow yoga relaxation sequence for 20- to 30-minutes. If you take yoga classes, you can select the most relaxing poses that you’ve experienced. If you have never taken yoga, there are yoga DVDs and free videos online that you can follow. Seek a video that states “relaxation” explicitly, as there are many types of yoga, some of which will give you more energy – something you don’t want to happen before bed time.
• Listening to a 20- to 30-minute relaxation CD while you sit or lay comfortably. These are available at any music store and on iTunes.
• Meditating for 10- to 30-minutes. If you are a meditation beginner, there are recordings and DVDs you can follow. A professional voice will lead you through the breathing, mind-clearing and meditation exercises. A great place to start is at Michael Apollo's site: http://www.modernmeditation.ca/5-ways-to-make-time-for-meditation/
• If you have difficulty sticking with a relaxing activity for too long (you find it “boring”), performing a combination of the relaxation music / relaxing yoga / mediation sequences over a 30-minute period will help. Every 10 minutes you would switch: start with the yoga for 10 minutes, then move on to the relaxation recording for 10 minutes, then finish with the meditation recording.

Remember to begin any of these about an hour before bed time. The extra half-hour or so between completing the relaxation sequence and your normal bed-time will give you more time to extend the relaxation if necessary. Then go straight to bed. It is counter-productive to relax for 20- to 30-minutes and then watch television, get on the computer or have a discussion with someone at home or on the phone.

5. Diet: Do not intake any food or water two hours before bed, so that your body does not have to work on digestion as you are winding down. In addition, eat your largest meal at the beginning of the day, a medium amount at lunch and a small amount at dinner, with snacks between. In this way, your body has had time to burn most of the calories consumed and your digestive system isn't working hard at night.

6. Disengaging: If there are any people causing you stress on a regular basis that you have a choice to remove from your environment, remove them from your environment.

7. Disconnecting: No smart phone, computer, radio or television an hour before bed. 

8. Releasing: Use relaxation and meditation techniques to deal with work and life stress right away during the day so that it does not build up and effect you when you stop “going” each night. Breathing techniques learned from your meditation recording can be used, in part, during the day to help you manage stress at the source. Again, a great place to start is at Michael Apollo's site: http://www.modernmeditation.ca/5-ways-to-make-time-for-meditation/ .

I hope these help!

T

REMEMBERING WHY WE DANCE

The advantages of pursuing your passion throughout adulthood are innumerable, although it takes an incredible amount of hard work to maintain that full-time or side career. But one of the ways we make it more difficult on ourselves is by forgetting all the wonderful reasons why we started doing it in the first place.

Below I share some of your favourite dance moments and one of my own.

One of my highlights from the past actually doesn’t seem like much of a highlight at first. I was remembering a particularly difficult performance when I was a teen. I had several costume changes in that show, and the finale costume was not completed until performance day. Well, the performance trucked along, going fairly well until we got to the finale. As I rushed to change in the dressing room (the bathroom), this costume, which I had not danced in yet, got stuck. Around my hips. The costume designer tried to help me out of it, as did some other random person. I couldn’t get in or out of it - my legs were bound. The song played, the back-up dancers posed and nothing else happened on stage. I didn’t cry (the choreographer did, though). I laughed hysterically after the show was done picturing the three of us trying to free me from my ill-fitting costume prison. This laughter became infectious and even the choreographer joined in. The scene onstage and off was something we’ll never forget. And lessons were learned.

When I think back to moments like this, I remember all of the benefits, the fun and the challenging character-building elements that encompassed my pursuit of a dance career.

And what are some of your reader memories?

Tara says: “I remember my grade 3 ballet teacher, Ms. Tindale, asking us who our favourite characters from popular ballets and movies were at the time. We had a discussion about it after class one day. Then months later during the last class of the school year, she surprised us with costume pieces based on our responses! We spent the class re-enacting our favourite moments of those ballets in costume. To this day, I have never forgotten how transformed I felt in that costume, and I still feel the same way every time I suit up for a performance.”

Shelly-Ann says: “Going to Cuba at the age of 12 to dance for Carifesta and having Fidel Castro in the audience.”

Darren says: “I started ballroom dancing as a teenager, and all the guys on my soccer team made fun of me. But when they saw me hanging out the with girls from tango class one day – girls and women – with no other guys around, they quickly changed their tune and stopped making fun of me. From that moment on I felt that doing what you love, no matter what people say, is a key to happiness. And revenge!”

Berenice says:  “Favourite memory? Words that come to mind are: cool, awesome, learning, sacrifice, study, laughs, training, dancing everywhere (I mean it), practicing, jokes, strength..... wow too many… and some tears of course!”

Pilar says: “Trying on my mini tutu for the first time for picture day at my ballet studio. I knew then what I wanted to do forever.”

Willow says: “The first time I stepped on the stage I was 8 years old. Our little troupe was performing a jazz dance to ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ and I fell during the performance. When I got back up and kept dancing the audience cheered so loud. I couldn’t believe it. I knew at that moment how hard a dance career would be and that the stage was for me!”

Peter says: “I never had many friends as a kid until my mom signed me up for jazz class when I was 11. I immediately felt at home being able to express myself through movement. It wasn’t long before I lost my shyness. I never stopped dancing, although now I do it in the evenings after my day at the office, with a salsa group.”

Lola says: “When I think of childhood dance memories, I think of fun, laughter, hard work, tears, insecurity, confidence, soreness, accomplishment, bravery, and love!”

Thanks for your input and these great memories!

When times are tough, remember the great reasons why you started in the first place and how you felt back then. Try to look at your passion through those re-freshed eyes.  

Please feel free to leave any more dance memories in the comments section below!

LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can.”
~ Sydney Smith

While many people hear this type of lofty inspirational statement and associate it with charitable work, these words can be applied to everyday life, especially your fitness regime.

Over my 15+ years of teaching, I have heard many excuses from clients for skipping workouts, i.e. doing nothing physical. The most common one is:

I DON’T HAVE THE TIME.

When I dig further and ask questions about their schedules, I hear a deeper-rooted excuse:

I DIDN’T HAVE TIME FOR A FULL WORKOUT, SO THERE WAS NO POINT IN STARTING.

It is difficult for many people to find the motivation to work out consistently without an external force (a trainer) driving them forward. That’s why it’s easy for one part of the brain to convince another part of the brain that “I only had time for a little, so I did nothing” is a valid excuse for not taking care of our physical health.

The perception that you’ve wasted your time if you haven't exercised to the fullest during every single workout has spread too far. You have never wasted your time if you’ve done something healthy, no matter how small.

Depending on the exercises chosen:

• A 20-minute yoga session can energize or calm every area of your body, inside and out, help realign your joints and minimize pain.

• A 15-minute total-body strength workout with little rest between exercises can strengthen and energize your body and mind, plus burn fat and boost your endurance capacity.

• A 20-minute cardio session can burn fat and increase your endurance and energy levels.

• A 30-minute mixed session of strength and cardio intervals + a cool-down stretch can do all of those things combined.

The list goes on, and I’m not even detailing the self-esteem, motivational and cerebral potency benefits that come from exercising, especially when you didn’t think you could get a workout in at all.

You do have time to do something.

Doing a little – a short workout – is far better than doing nothing. Healthy physical activity will always benefit you, no matter how brief the workout.

Here's a 2-minute video montage of a strength and stretch workout. The quick flash clips will remind you of some key exercises and stretches that you can perform in a pinch at home!  

Remembering another lofty inspirational saying (that is not usually applied to fitness) might help:

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” ~ Mother Teresa

HOW ABOUT A DEEP Q&A INSTEAD OF A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION?

I have found that asking myself very simple, pointed questions, then deeply considering the answers and writing them down has been more instrumental to my healthy development than making annual resolutions.

Below, I share some of the questions I’ve asked and answered myself over the years. The key elements are to:

1. Ensure the questions both specific and brief so that answers can be clear and focused.

2. Ponder the questions before immediately answering [ask the question, then go for a walk, meditate, take a hot bath, banter with a trusted friend, etc.]. If you answer too quickly, you risk repeating patterns and reinforcing destructive behaviour.

3. Maintain an inward focus during your contemplation. Identifying any negativity in others around you is an important part of the process, but blaming them is another thing. You cannot change others, only your reaction to your environment. Of course, you can also choose a healthier environment altogether.

4. Write down all of the thoughts and answers that come to mind without judging them in order to attain honesty. Sometimes the answers we deem 'harsh' that make us feel guilty are actually exposing our true feelings. Get to the root of the matter.

5. Make life changes based on those answers now.

Some straight-forward questions that I have asked myself, and why I have asked them, are:

Have I made career decisions based on societal norms and/or fear?

• We will be in a constant search for fulfillment if we have.

Did I rush to settle down in this relationship because of history, fear of loneliness or time passing me by?

• If we select a partner based on fear, fulfillment will elude us here as well.

Do I admire the work put out by my employer?

• Spending the majority of our waking hours working on the projects of a company offering sub-standard services or products we don’t trust quickly erodes our self-esteem and sense of purpose.

Am I proud of the work I produce on a regular basis?

• Our self-esteem is immensely impacted by recurrent feelings of accomplishment - knowing that we contribute something positive to the world, however small.

Am I working my hardest to attain my goals?

• It is easy to convince ourselves that we are doing all we can and then become frustrated by lack of promotion and achievement, blaming outside forces.

Who are the friends I can rely on most?

• Over time, the amount of time we have for socializing shrinks, so that time is best spent in quality relationships.

Am I retaining any destructive friendships due to history or nostalgia?

• It is amazing how often we hold on to someone who is repeatedly knocking us down, with the excuse that we’ve known them for a long time. If we just let them go, they can’t knock us down anymore.

Is the “love” I feel for someone or a social group really love, or are those feelings actually dependence?

• When we let someone go and miss them, we sometimes believe it must have been true love. But was it? Or do we miss them so much because the bond was built on dependence?

Do I treat my loved ones as though I do truly love them (i.e. do I show my love)?

• Hmmmmmm... Why not? Is the love really there? Back to: what am I afraid of?

Do I really need all this stuff?

• Our connection to material possessions often leads us to select jobs that don’t provide much fulfillment but do provide us with more money. This money allows us to buy more things (more things to keep up with the Jones' or to fill the void left by an unfulfilling career or relationship). Then we need a bigger or fancier home to house those things. Then we spend less time with family because we “have” to work more to pay the bills for those things. Giant TV's, stainless steel appliances, expensive cars, furniture and clothing from only specific designers, food that isn't "out of fashion," and a house paid off in 10 years. And we never, ever get off of that senseless treadmill.

When you ask such pointed questions, ponder the answers before replying, and write down everything that comes to mind, further analysis is not usually needed. Your next course(s) of action become obvious, though they probably won't be easy.

Let’s jump off the senseless treadmill and start walking with purpose in the right direction!

EXERCISE VIDEOS

Below are the ten workout videos, as promised, designed for Turning Point Fitness Toronto studio members - those already familiar with the featured exercises and stretches.

A few notes:

1. Doing some physical activity each day is best for your health. If you are tired or busy, I have made some suggestions of which videos you can follow on those days.

2. Please feel free to leave your questions and feedback below.

3. Each video contains the same 30-second introduction, which is emphasizing that these videos are designed for Turning Point Fitness Toronto studio members.

4. Once Turning Point Fitness Toronto studio members have viewed or completed each video once, you can either skip the segments where I am speaking and describing the exercises, or use that time for preparation or more repetitions of the exercises.

5. The videos can be viewed below on this blog and are available on YouTube as well (click the icon to view my YouTube channel). They can be viewed on your smart phone, allowing you to follow along at the gym.

6. For each video, a mat or surface on which you can perform floor exercises is required, and for the 'Intervals' and 'Plyometrics' videos, wearing a supportive pair of athletic shoes is best.

7. Below, I am including a suggested 'sample weekly program'. However, this is only one of several possible combinations, and you should customize the workouts based on what your bodily needs are.

These should keep you busy...ENJOY!


ONE SAMPLE WEEKLY VIDEO WORKOUT PROGRAM

MONDAY: Core + Back
[40 minutes]

TUESDAY: Plyometrics (or Dance) + Stretch
[50 minutes]

WEDNESDAY: Arms + Legs
[45 minutes]

THURSDAY: Stretch
[30 minutes]

FRIDAY: Intervals + Sciatic/Back Pain Stretch
[50 minutes]

SATURDAY: Stretch
[30 minutes]

SUNDAY: Dance (or Plyometrics) + Posture
[45 minutes]


Other Suggestions:

Feeling tired/lazy OR recovering from illness OR just got off of a plane/train? Try this video combo: Posture + Sciatic Stretch [40 minutes]

Extra stress at work or home? Try this video combo: Intervals (twice through) + Stretch
[60 minutes]

Been skipping too many workouts and need to re-balance & get back in the game? Try this video combo: Intervals (one round) + Posture [48 minutes]

Feeling energetic? Try this video combo: Intervals (one round) + Plyometrics + Stretch
[70 minutes]

Pressed for time, but want a solid total workout? Try this video: Plyometrics OR Intervals (one round)
[15 - 20 minutes]

Want a feats of strength challenge? Try these three videos: Core + Arms + Legs
[65 minutes]




VIDEOS

The 'maximum dosage' indicates the maximum number of times per week to engage in the individual video's exercises (if these videos are your sole workout source), but is not a suggestion for the amount of times per week you should follow the video. How many times you should follow each video will obviously depend on what type of exercises you are including in your overall workout plan. 'Targeted' stretch indicates a stretch for the specific muscle group worked in the video.

These videos are designed for Turning Point Fitness Toronto studio members. You should not engage in these exercises without a doctor's permission to perform this type of fitness regime.



SCULPT & STRENGTHEN BY MUSCLE GROUP

1. CORE [deep and surface abdominal walls, low back, hip flexors, hips]
Duration: 21 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: 3 times per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? Yes, a brief one.




2. ARMS [shoulders down to wrists, upper back]
Duration: 15 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: 3 times per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? Yes.




3. BACK [full back - gentle]
Duration: 17 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: 3 times per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? Yes.



4. LEGS, BUTT & HIPS [waist down to toes, front, back and sides]
Duration: 29 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: Twice per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? Yes.






TOTAL BODY WORKOUT

5. CARDIO & STRENGTH INTERVALS
Duration: 15 minutes [30 minutes if repeated twice for a challenge]
Maximum Dosage: 3 times per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? No.



6. DANCE-BASED TOTAL BODY WORKOUT [great for non-dancers]
Duration: 25 minutes
Maximum Dosage: 4 times per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? No.



7. TOTAL BODY WORKOUT with PLYOMETRICS
Duration: 20 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: Twice per week.
Contains Targeted Stretch? No.



8. TOTAL BODY STRETCH
Duration: 30 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: Daily, after warming up the body.






THERAPEUTIC BODY WORK

9. POSTURE RE-ALIGNMENT
Duration: 18 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: Daily, especially in the morning or mid-work day.
Contains Targeted Stretch? Yes.




10. STRETCH for SCIATICA & BACK PAIN [good for all Turning Point members]
Duration: 21 minutes.
Maximum Dosage: Daily, especially mid-day.