How is your energy today? Truly how do you really feel. 

To see how you feel, you can try this simple exercise. Sit on the floor in easy posture, or sit on a chair. Make sure your spine is elongated and nice and stretched towards the sky. Now, Place your hands on your knees and close your eyes.  Breathing through your nose, with your mouth closed. Take a deep breathe in right to the bottom of your lungs and then breathe out again, making sure you expel all the air. Now, take another 25 breathes just like that one, make them long and slow.  Total 26 . Or if you are well practiced you can do 54 total breathes. Count the breathes in and see how long you can take to breathe in, and then count the breathes out and do the same. Make the breathe in the same as the breathe out in time. Be patient with yourself and do the full 26 breathes. The idea of this exercise is to slow down your thinking mind and get you feeling more into your body. And really feeling what your body feels.

When you have completed the breathing exercise, sit for a few minutes and keep your eyes closed. Make a note of how you feel? How does your spine feel? How does your body feel? Is there any pain anywhere? If so rank it’s intensity from one to ten. One being very minimal and ten being very painful. How is your mind? how did you cope with the exercise? were you focused on the breathing? was your mind wandering? were you wishing it was over? Were you relaxed? Did you try to rush the experience? Did you enjoy it?  Observe yourself and when you have watched yourself and decided how you feel, then open your eyes again. Did the breathing make you tired? was it hard? easy? Now you are closer to feeling truly how you feel.

Is your mind feeling calmer after this exercise? I hope so. Because you now have more oxygen in your blood stream and you are now probably more relaxed than when you started. and its time to look at what you did today and what you ate today? What did you do today? Did you do it with ease and grace? or did you rush? What did you eat today? Did you eat it with delicious focus and enjoyment? Or did you just eat to eat? Think back on your day and see is there anything you would like to do the same? different ? next time you have similar experiences?

Self Observation is the key to optimal health Watching ourself from an observers perspective and not getting attached to our own stories, nuances, addictions and habits is refreshing. Its a great way to see how we are. A little self diagnosis on the road to good health is a necessary responsibility when you want to repair adrenal gland stress, keep your organs and systems in the body strong and when you want to feel fabulous. Yes, you can feel fabulous. Its a case of preserving that energy and monitoring how you use it and when. Herbs can help, good diet can help and living with the seasons can help. If you observed any disturbing symptoms in your process then make sure you visit your health care practitioner and let us work our magic on you. Its great to get help when ailments feel small rather than wait till they exacerbate. And, remember I am here to help you stay well, yes thats my job. Preventative health care. So, make the most of your observations and get help early in the  experience of dis- ease.

Make a note of how you feel and then research how you can get better and feel better. Do this exercise on a regular basis and see where your mind and body have changed. keep a journal of this and as you go through winter see whether the strategies I suggest here in this news blog help you and whether you do regain your lost and depleted energies. You can come and visit me in my free clinics at Eumundi Markets or call me if you want to discuss any of your observations. I am so blessed to help you.

Here we are in cuddly wintertime restfulness… Or are we? Its getting colder, traditionally we would be hibernating in wintertime, making sure we store our energy and shore up our supplies of this precious commodity so that when spring comes we can rebirth and regenerate into our gorgeous blooming full selves again. Winter is the time of year when we batten down the hatches, take lazy morning yoga sessions that start later in the day, eat small amounts of nurturing and warming foods and snuggle up by the fire of life to let it warm us to our bones and let us feel like we are those big cuddly bears sleeping through the season.

I know. Thats an illusion for many people  as you need to meet the hussle and bussle of life,meeting the obligations of a modern world that do not prioritise your health and your energy levels as highly as could be. So, you still get up and work like the beautiful dedicated person you are? You still have the same pace of life all year around? You may think this is ok… but I disagree. There are ways to get cosy in winter and still attempt to burn the candle at both ends if that is the essential life path you choose. Its better if you can just snuggle up for three months, but if not. Then here are my top tips for wintertime snuggly health care to increase your energy, repair your body and get ready for the seed to sprout into spring.

Dom’s top tips for wintertime recovery while you are still on the GO

1. If you have a day off work or a day away from the children don’t make any appointments. No, no going out on weekends, or days off in winter. Batten down the hatches, put the phone on message bank and become bear like. Sleep rest, loll about and read books. Just rest. Have proper days off, where you have a late lazy breakfast, relax, no plans, no agendas, no commitments, no visitors, no  car runs, no going out… just stay home, put your feet up, get warm and rest, Snooze as much as you like, bed early and rest, rest, rest. That equates to three months of weekend resting. which is two days out of every seven days you are dedicating to rest. This is very rejuvenating for your body. Resting sends a message of love to yourself. It is nurturing and it is also acknowledging you as a respected person who deserves to slow down, who deserves the grace of enjoying the present moment in a relaxed way. You deserve to relax, you deserve peace. and you can enjoy it fully!

2. Have silent days where you don’t talk to anyone as often as possible yes, this winter, have silent mornings, or silent days. No noise. Don’t turn the radio on in the car. Leave the TV off for the day, come home from work and have silence in the house all night with no distractions and no talking. Feel the peace and beauty of silence. Its such a healing way to observe yourself and allow your body to rest up. When we have silence , it allows us to process information and also to listen to ourselves. When we become silent, then we hear our inner voice and the voice of the heavens. This allows our intuition to come to play and we can just let the thoughts roll in and out of our mind with no agenda. Just observe them.

3. Go to Bed Early. Yes, Go to bed early in the evenings, research has shown that you can get a better quality sleep when you go to bed before midnight. It is said that every hour you sleep before midnight is equal to two hours after midnight. Some tips to help you restfully get wintertime early night bliss are to have a hot bath or shower before bed, drink a warm water or warm cinnamon and milky drink. Take some of our Relaxing sweet dreams herbal formula before bed. Enjoy bed, make your bed your haven, lots of comfy pillows, your favorite colours and fabric textures for sheets and keep your room nice and uncluttered and light in energy. Aromatherapeutics are great for sleep too. Beautiful smells, scented candles, beautiful essential oils burning and if you want some entertainment before you go to sleep, have  sacred sex or read an inspiring book. Keep your bedroom beautiful and your thoughts and feelings really beautiful and warm when you go to bed. Its such a healing way to get through winter. Rest early, sleep well and dream peacefully.

4. Eat with  Seasons.  This means yes, mumma bear was right when she made all the porridge and Goldy locks was on her game when she ate the warm one. Porridge, warm yummy and nurturing is so good for you. Avena Sativa Oats. One of my favorite nervines that I consider a happy herb. Nervines support and nurture the nervous system and thats exactly what porridge does when you eat it for breakfast. It is the most nurturing of all the breakfast options. Honey, honey, yummy. Is antimicrobial, is sweet, is delicious and add that to your favorite almond milk for strong bones and some gogi berries, dates,nuts and fresh fruits in season and you have the perfect wintertime breakfast.  Then for lunch its those divine chickpeas, lentil dahl, beetroots, root vegetables,  garlic, onion, ginger, turmeric. lots of fresh herbs, parsley is my favorite winter time green, put it fresh from the garden on everything according to taste.  Chia seeds, spirulina. Make fabulous soups, omelettes, sauerkraut, root vegetable salads, Dressings made of apple cider vinegar and good oils. In my book THE MAGIC OF FOOD AS MEDICINE, there are so many options. Food is our first medicine. Make this lunch meal your main meal of the day. Make it delicious and don’t eat too fast. chew, slow, chew. No races to see who finishes first ( certain people who I love) and lets not get personal here haha. However, there is some justification in the ” Chew your drinks and drink your food” motto, which is purely about digestive enzyme release and the assimilation of nutrients which I explain in so much detail in my book THE WELLNESS ZONE. ( Books almost up as ebooks and through amazon, almost!) Make your evening meal, small, light and warming. Thats easy. No heavy foods and eat early.

5. Prevent disease, get well, nurture your body with warm water before each meal in the winter. I know i have said this constantly for the last thirty years and my long term readers will know what I am about to say. However a little reminder never goes astray. Drink 250 to 400ml of warm water before each meal to prevent dehydration and to help digestion and moisture in the digestive tract. Drink this with a little lemon juice, or apple cider vinegar to help the gustatory nerve send those gorgeous messages to the liver to secrete bile. And, make sure the water is warm in winter. Keep it all warm. Then don’t drink water while you are eating or afterwards for a few hours, you don’t want to dilute all that goodness. Drink wine with food if you drink anything. Thats good for you. and aids digestion. Not too much of course. But in the winter wine is warming. Drinking this water thirty minutes before the meal is ideal. GIves the body time to hydrate and makes room for the eating process. There are so many illnesses that can be cured simply by doing this simple therapy before you eat.

6. Every minute you can rest in winter, rest. Don’t do hard core exercise. yes, I am serious, lets get gentle on our body in winter. and I mean, deep breathing exercises, lots of nice gentle yogas, increase circulation, be easy on the joints, not heavy weights, walking and relaxing and processing. Not running hard out. Swimming in hot pools, warm water therapies, massages with sesame oil that is warming. Great time for rebirthing and floatation tank therapies, sweat lodges. warm winter walks all snuggled up in your coat and hat and gloves. Gentle sweating. Waking up an hour or two later and doing your practice. Taking your time with everything, the lushness of space and time between activities. Rest when you can. If you can get a few minutes to have a cat nap. Do it. Think of rest as your wintertime exercise regime. think that if you rest then you will have so much more energy than you did. Every minute of rest is worth so much more than that in cellular energy.

7. Now I get to the herbs. the beautiful herbs for wintertime repair. Think adaptogenic my herbalist loving friends. yes, these work on all of the body without favoring any specific factor. So, lets look at where they will go? Adaptogens go to where they are needed and in winter we want to have astragalus, Ashwanganda ( Withania somnifera) Dong quai ( Angelica sinensis) for women. Tribulis for men.

https://medicineroom.net/wellness-store/

Also consider adrenal glands repair and nervines. I love all the ginseng family for this. We only extract two ginsengs for adrenal repair, however I think they are the best korean (Panax ginseng) and Siberian ( Eleutherococcus sinesis) The nervines I love are Lemon Balm ( Melissa Officinale)  Passionflower ( Passiflora incarnata) and as mentioned at breakfast Oats ( Avena Sativa). These herbs are for repairing the body and for  acknowledging the energy of winter and its purpose as a repairing and still time of the year. Its about keeping yourself as still and recovering as possible and trying to mitigate all that summer and autumn use of energy and giving yourself the chance to repair.

Ok, thats enough for now. I will do some writing on colds and flu repair in winter soon for you. In the mean time, Can you rest more please? Can you accept that we are about to start the season of rest and can you slow it down, deepen your breathing, make time between moments and activities, say no to appointments. Have long lush weekends of nothingness and can you do yourself the biggest favor of all? Make this winter the least busy one yet!

With love Dom xoxox

Medicineroom web site www.medicineroom.net

Have a gorgeous restful day!