Archives for May 2020

Life After Coronavirus: Embracing the Lessons of Lockdown for a Balanced Life

Can Life After Coronavirus Be Better Balanced Than Before?

So, we are approaching life after coronavirus. In Australia, restrictions are starting to lift.

It has been interesting talking to people who are loving this working from home and Covid isolation business! Okay, I am referring to those who still have their jobs and aren’t experiencing the stress that comes with losing a job, who are carrying on with their “usual” working lives.

My Iso Life

I am getting stronger.

I for one have noticed that doing Pilates online (live via Zoom – it’s fab) with my usual instructors has resulted in my body being more sore, indicating I am working harder. How can this be?

I figure I am not distracted by other participants (though there is a certain labradoodle who seems to think that me on a mat equals time to throw a ball), the music, or what else is going on around me in the studio. I had thought I was focused during the live classes but my sore abs and glutes are telling a different story. Being in isolation has helped me to connect with my individual muscles and activate them in a more focused way.

I am learning to be less “busy”.

Having always been a VERY BUSY PERSON, I thought that I had cracked the code of how to be less busy now that my sons have finished school, but alas, no!

Isolation has taught me that I spend a lot of time doing “stuff” away from home. I’m usually occupied with supermarkets, walking my dogs in my local shopping precinct looking at the latest in the boutiques of an afternoon, socialising (usually on a Friday and weekends as I work other days), running errands (there always seems to be something that I need to collect/source/drop off for a son or my husband, or get the dogs to the vet).

I’ve found more time for different things.

I am not doing any of that “stuff” at the moment, which means I have time to do things like a jigsaw puzzle (I mean, I am still working so it’s not like I am bored, but everyone else was doing puzzles and I felt left out), knitting a cardigan for my dad (knitting nerd), cleaning the house more regularly (yawn), and generally staying on top of “things” (you know, home stuff).

My afternoon walks have disappeared with the social distancing. Instead, I am getting my groceries on the way home from the morning dog walk. The dogs probably don’t notice because they are happy to have us all at home, and it has resulted in more time for other jobs.

An Opportunity To Design a New Life After Coronavirus

Now that some restrictions are lifting, I am finding myself pondering what my life might look like in the near future.

What do I want it to look like?

Well, I am sure that I will keep exercising daily either in the studio or at home, so that part is easy.

I will consider whether to start offering face-to face-therapy sessions again, or remain online as they are presently. These are pretty easy ones for me.

I find greater difficulty when I consider the “wasted” time I usually spend doing “stuff”. Can I streamline these tasks into a specific time or day? I had to do this when my children were younger and life was more hectic but have let my “life admin” splurge out to any day at all.

Not batching my tasks onto specific days is less efficient. This realisation aligns me with a value I have around achievement – I want to get more done in a day. Driving to and from shopping centres and the other ways I seem to lose time makes me feel less efficient (and then, less motivated).

How Will Your Life After Coronavirus Look?

What improvements have you noticed throughout your iso life?

What do you find you have more time for?

Are there things you are doing now that you don’t want to give up?

How can you maintain some of the balance you have achieved in this strange lockdown state and design a new life after coronavirus as the restrictions begin to lift?

Are you less stressed because you aren’t racing to the gym as soon as you wake, racing to get to the office, racing back home post-workout? Is it much more enjoyable to saunter to your local park or exercise in the lounge room? Is it sustainable?

Post-Covid Working Life

What about the commute to work? I bet there are few people missing that! Is it possible to work from home a couple of days per week in your post-iso world? Is that a conversation you can open up?

What about working overtime? I can imagine some people are still working to deadlines and needing to work some later nights. But for others, are you finding it is easier to get your work done by “quitting time” at home than you do in the office? Why is that?

It could be due to more focused working (or less if you have a pet/kids/partner/a phone), or maybe your boss is less likely to ask for “one more thing” before you leave if this request has to be made via email? Maybe they still ask but you are able to say no more easily or ignore the email until your next work day?

Rethinking Your Work/Life Balance After Lockdown

Can you carry this protection of your leisure time into the workplace when you return to normal working arrangements?

What would it be like to be one of the people who leave on time most days?

How does it feel to you to imagine saying no to a work request? Does it fill you with dread?

Rethinking Your Social Life Balance After Lockdown

What about the endless nights out with friends?

Do you miss your mates but want more balance between going out all weekend and having a weekend with some leisurely down time?

How do you say no to social invites without causing offence?

What if you say no once and don’t get invited again?

Rethinking Your Family Life Balance After Lockdown

Are you loving that the kids are doing less and not rushing them to a different activity every other afternoon?

How can you streamline their leisure time (and that of the whole family)?

Is it possible to drop an activity or two (and save some $) so that there can be some afternoons at home just relaxing, having an after-school snack at a leisurely pace, and discussing the day’s events?

These are all great ways to keep that connection that is forged when we have holidays together or are in isolation (!).

How To Create A New Life After Coronavirus

All of these adjustments require two things:

An awareness that you want to make these changes a regular thing in your life, and why the changes matter (your values dictate your “why).
Assertive communication to convey this message to the people who won’t want you to change (friends, family members, colleagues).

Use Your Values to Prioritise

So, once you have decided what matters most, you then need to prioritise things.

If your kids have many extracurricular activities such as swimming lessons, karate, and art classes, which of these are non-negotiables for you?

If you feel that it is important to know how to swim strongly, maybe swimming lessons are a must. Or you might be very passionate about art and want this to be a part of your child’s life, so keep the art class.

The point is, if you need to make a choice, get in touch with the values that underpin the reasons for X (art class) over Y (swimming lessons). Then can make a decision based on which value is the priority.

If your child is a little older (12 years +) maybe you can help them to decide which activity to drop, according to their values and interests.

Values Are Key to Designing Your Post-Covid Life

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about kids’ activities, our own busy social lives, or managing our work, we need to know why we are saying yes and why we are saying no.

When it is clear that a decision is aligned with a value we hold, we are then able to talk assertively and maintain our position no matter what other people say in response.

What life changes would you like to keep after isolation life? Why? What value underpins this choice?

Meditation And Your Brain

Meditation On Your Mind?

As a Psychologist, it was only a short leap from knowing nothing about meditation to getting curious about meditation and the brain. After all, reprogramming the mind in order to help people is what we do. And this is also what many claim meditation can do too.

Investigating the Effects of Meditation on the Brain

You might be aware that last year I learned to meditate. I became a bit of a zealot afterwards and had to try to curb my enthusiasm because it seemed that meditation was all I could talk about or think about!

Well, I still do my twice daily meditations (okay, at least once daily, and twice on most days), but now I am more curious about why it works so well.

So, I did some research and here is what I found.

How Meditation Changes Your Brain

Meditation and your brain are best friends. With regular meditation, the following changes in the brain can be seen:

Meditation leads to greater activity in the left pre-frontal cortex.

The left pre-frontal cortex is the part of your brain that takes care of rational decision-making. Increasing activity in this area can translate into more calm responses when under stress, such as when you are having an argument or feeling confronted with a dramatic situation. These are great times to be rational.

Meditation causes shrinkage in the amygdala.

The amygdala is your “fight or flight centre”. Fear lives here. It’s the primal area of your brain that interacts with the pre-frontal cortex (where higher order brain functions take place) to determine your stress response.

A shrinking amygdala can mean you experience less fear. Less fear can mean less anxiety and this can only be good. It means your brain is more likely to defer to a more thoughtful response than a primal, knee-jerk fear response, meaning you are better able to respond to stressors.

Meditation thickens the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is important for learning and memory. A thickening hippocampus corresponds to improvement in both of these important brain functions. We could argue that learning and memory abilities are vital for our entire life.

Learning and remembering are important when we are young and at school, important whenever we learn a new skill, and very important as we age. So meditation can help slow cognitive decline as you age.

Meditation increases grey matter in the brain.

Regular meditation leads to an increase in overall grey matter. Lots of grey matter in the brain might sound like a bad thing, but grey matter actually heightens the brain’s processing power and it declines as we age.

Speed of processing is a factor in intelligence. It is a bit like getting a computer upgrade so it “thinks” more quickly. Studies have shown that not only does meditation preserve grey matter in the brain, regular practice also enlarges areas of grey matter.

Meditation Is Like A Workout For Your Brain

Take note that some of these changes happen within weeks of starting mediation practice and others take some years to appear. But each time you meditate, you are training your brain into better shape – just like each workout you do gets your body into better shape.

It won’t happen overnight but it will happen!

Meditation Alters The Brain Almost Immediately

Even though many of these large meditation benefits take regular practice to manifest, some of the clear benefits of meditation happen from the first time you meditate.

The activity in your brain waves alter each time you meditate. Meditation reduces some brain waves types (the bad ones), and enhances others (the good ones).

Meditation’s Impact on Brain Waves

Beta brain waves

Beta waves are reduced during meditation. Beta waves are the ones which increase with goal-oriented behaviours and have us feeling alert but not relaxed.

Alpha brain waves

Conversely to the above, Alpha waves are increased as our brain relaxes from intentional, goal-oriented tasks. Increased Alpha waves is a sign of deep relaxation.

Delta brain waves

Delta waves are characteristic of sleep. These types of waves are reduced during meditation, suggesting that the relaxed state does not mimic our sleep state.

Theta brain waves

Meditation increases Theta waves, which indicates relaxed attention. Theta waves signal to other areas of the brain to physically relax our bodies. There is some evidence to suggest that these Theta waves stay increased for up to two weeks after just one 15-minute meditation!

Gamma brain waves

Finally, we come to increased Gamma brain wave activity. Gamma waves correlate with increased awareness (mindfulness) and feelings of bliss.

Meditation’s Impact on Self-Esteem

In addition to these brain wave changes, research has shown that meditation leads to a higher congruence between your apparent self-esteem (how self-assured you say you are) and your actual self-esteem (how self-assured you actually feel). This means you are more aligned in your inner and outer worlds, and have a greater sense of “self”.

Starting Your Own Meditation Practice

So, there you have it – short-term and long-term gains from meditating. For those of us who already have a regular meditation practice, we know it makes us feel great, and I hope this encourages some others to give it a try.

If you don’t know how to get started, or need some help staying consistent, maybe you could try a meditation app (like Calm or Headspace), or see if there is a meditation challenge you can join (I am doing one for 30 days, and the day I signed up for it, I was emailed about another one!). Google “30 day meditation challenge” and take your pick!

Just like starting an exercise routine, it is important that your new meditation practice can fit with your life, so choose something that works for you.

Tips for Meditation Success

Whenever we wish to introduce a new habit to our lives, it is helpful to remove as many barriers as possible.

Set a realistic time to meditate

If you are used to waking up at 7am, you are unlikely to succeed in establishing any new habit that demands you wake up at 4am. This is also true of meditation. Choose a time that works with your lifestyle.

Set a realistic time limit for meditation

Think about how much time you can devote to meditation each day. Some apps have guided meditations that are as short at 5 minutes, which might be a good place to start.

Start small. It’s a bit like beginning with a 20-minute jog when you are commencing training for a 10km fun run. Just like with a workout, there really are no “bad” meditation sessions, so meditating for even a short time will give your brain some benefits and will make you feel better than you did before it.

Create a plan to meditate

If you were starting a new fitness routine, it would be difficult to get excited about going to the gym if you had no idea what you were going to do when you got there. The same can be said for meditation. When you sit down to begin, will you launch an app? Press play on a YouTube video? Do a body scan? Knowing how to begin is important for your success.

Be kind and drop perfectionism

After some workout sessions we feel invincible, but with others we feel a bit “meh”. You still did the workout so you still get the benefit.

Meditation is the same – you will experience some meditations that feel really “deep” and others that are less so. This is okay. You will have gains from doing it no matter what you deem the “quality” of each meditation session.

There are loads of ways to meditate, and I encourage you to explore your options and get started.