Do nothing to help lose weight??

                Do you take time for yourself?  Actually stop and think about it.  How many times in an average week do you stop and take time to be alone with yourself? First I want to explain what I mean when I say time to yourself.  I mean sitting, lying, or standing and doing nothing, I mean literally nothing.

                Almost everyone these days is over stressed, I would say there is a good chance that you thought to yourself in the last paragraph “I don’t have time to do nothing.” That is a very common response I usually hear.  And I promise you if you don’t have time to do nothing, than you defiantly need to make some time to do nothing.  A lot of clients who come to see me have too much going on in their lives and it leads to them failing to reach their fat loss goals.  Right now are you failing to reach your goals?

I want you to take just 5 minutes every day for the next 2 weeks and spend it doing nothing.  I mean literally nothing, sit and try to clear your mind.  You are almost guaranteed to find this incredibly challenging at first.  You will find your mind wandering and wanting to think about a million things.  And that’s okay, just relax and bring your attention back to feeling air come in and out of your body.

                Here are a few things you can do to try to make it easier to be present and do nothing in the moment.  One technique is to focus on your breathing, really pay attention to all of the sensations as the air enters in through your nose and leaves out through your nose.  When the mind wanders bring it back to the breath.  Another technique is to focus on breathing, but hum out loud as you breathe out.  If your mind wanders bring it back to the vibration you feel as you hum during your exhalation. 

                It will take a little while to improve.  Don’t be too hard on yourself, it will come with practice.  I can relate to having a very busy schedule, running my own business and having a 18 month old son to think about.  But take at least 5 minutes every day to start and you will notice your stress levels begging to decrease if you keep up with it.  Slowly try to increase it to 20-30 minutes every day if you can.  It will be well worth cutting out Grey’s Anatomy or CIS from your nightly schedule to get some “you” time.