I am not a mental health professional. I’m an ex-investment banker who experienced a great deal of stress on the job. Because of my interest in exercise and finding effective ways to cope with that stress, I became a Pilates and yoga teacher.

It was being a mother of a soldier
in the 86th Airborne that taught me how to cope with vicious anxiety.
When my youngest son deployed to Afghanistan, I became paralyzed by visions of
what might happen. (Good news: He has been home for years and is a
well-adjusted, loving, responsible young man.)

I would like to share with you
some of my tried and true techniques for finding calm in turbulent times. I
will also share one that did not work very well for me but has worked wonders
for others. Keep trying different methods until you find the ones that put your
mind at ease!

5-5-5 Grounding Through the Senses

In this meditation you will take a
journey through the senses.
You’ll notice what you see and hear, and then take stock of your inner
sensations or feelings.

We’ll start with sight, and
practice noticing various aspects of objects in your environment. If you find
yourself having any judgment on what you see, let it go and come back to simple
descriptions. 

It’s important that you don’t move
too quickly to the next sense of hearing. We’re taking the time to really take
in what we see.

For hearing, you’ll open yourself
up to all the sounds around you. You will notice qualities of the sound and
choose a total of five sounds to work with.

The audio will gently ask you to
move your mind to what you can feel in your body. I like to close my eyes or
softly bring them to half-mast. Again, the meditation will guide you through
the sensations you notice. You will observe five sensations in total.

To end the exercise, you can take
a few deep breaths and open your eyes. Do you feel calmer than you did before
you began the exercise? I usually do. If you do not, you could try a second
round or move on to one of the following ideas.

Guided Chakra Meditation

Find yourself in a seated position. Take care to make your
position comfortable and pain-free. This audio-guided meditation will ask you
to focus on your energy and chakras. The goal is to feel your energy flowing through your body,
leaving you feeling healthy and alive.

The guided meditation in the
linked audio will bring you through the observation of light traveling through
your body. The meditation will ask you to imagine the colors, emotions, and
feelings associated with each chakra.

Your breath and energy will be
gently guided on this exploration.

As you follow the guided journey
through your physical body, there is a parallel being drawn to your energy
body. The energy is not something you need to look for; it’s something that’s
already within you. The goal is to allow your energy to flow and take care of
you, body and soul.

Part of the process is imagining
all the colors glowing and your chakras getting balanced, healed, and aligned.

Breathing into Positive Thoughts

This meditation brings your
focus to your breath, body, and thoughts. You will be guided to use your breath to ease into relaxation.
As thoughts find their way into your meditation (as they always do), you will
be guided to find ease with techniques to let them go. 

The goal is to free you from the
grip of anxious thoughts, if only for the duration of the meditation. 

A Quick Reset with Alternate Nostril Breathing

Sit with your back straight and
gently seal your lips. Rest your left hand on your left thigh, palm facing
upward. Take your right hand in front of you with your palm facing you.

Put your index finger and middle
finger together and take these fingers to your eyebrow center. Take some gentle
normal breaths in this position. Relax your shoulders.

Start by closing your left nostril
with your ring or little finger. Inhale through your right nostril and exhale
through your right nostril. Repeat five times.

Then release your left nostril and
close your right nostril with your right thumb. Inhale and exhale gently, five
times. Don’t force your breath. If you need to take a break and breathe through
both nostrils, then do so. This exercise should feel refreshing and balancing – not like hard work.

The next step is alternating the
breath between nostrils.

• Close your right nostril with your right thumb and inhale through your left nostril. 
• Close your left nostril with your ring or little finger. 
• Lift your thumb and exhale through your right nostril. Then inhale through the same nostril. 
• Close your right nostril with your thumb and lift your finger to exhale through your left nostril. 

This is one round. Repeat 3–5 rounds. You can add more rounds
when you have practiced this exercise and become confident.

When you have completed your
rounds, rest with your hands on your thighs, palms upward, taking normal,
natural breaths through both nostrils and being mindful of any subtle changes
in your energy, mind, or equilibrium.

RAIN Guided Meditations

Tara
Brach has many free meditations
available on her website. She uses the concept of RAIN – Recognize, Allow, Investigate,
Nurture – to guide the individual through
common emotional states such as fear, anxiousness, difficulty, and so on.

Although this technique did not
work for me in super difficult times, I do find it to be a lovely exploration.
Consider trying one of her meditations. Her voice is very soothing.

Make Meditation a Habit

I have found over the years that a
mindfulness meditation may not show immediate benefits in the short run, but a
regular practice can make subtle changes to one’s ability to pass through
anxious times with more ease. It helps create a resilience that you may not
even realize you have.

Sometimes a 10-minute meditation
is still too big of a change when you are trying to establish a new routine. In
that case, a 5-minute meditation may be the best way to start. There are several
free apps that can offer you 3 to 5 minute meditations. Insight Timer and
Simple Habit are two of my favorites.

I hope you have found some new
ideas in this article or maybe you are thinking about getting back to a
practice you previously had. Either way, there is often relief in the smallest
things. If you have a favorite meditation that you believe will help others,
please share it in the comments. Feel better and Stay Safe.

What is your most common emotion
these days? How do you fight it? What has helped you manage your emotions in
difficult times? Please share with our community. 

Amanda Batula’s White Button Front Bodysuit on Summer House

Season 4 Episode 9 Summer House Fashion

Forget spring, we’ve totally got summer fashion on the brain right now since it’s probably the next time we’ll actually be putting on real clothes like Amanda Batula’s white button front bodysuit that she wore on last night’s episode of Summer House. Which is just so unbelievably cute and flattering that we don’t even really see the need to pull a Paige and hold onto the receipt.

Fashionably,

Faryn

Click Here to Shop Her Pretty Little Thing Bodysuit in Multiple Colours

Originally posted at: Amanda Batula’s White Button Front Bodysuit

Exercise. Walking. Water Aerobics. Yoga. Good nutrition. Getting enough sleep. Managing stress. Hydration. All of these are important. The #1 concept that holds them all together is balance.

In my work with adults aged 55–85,
I’ve learned that to stay fit and active as we age, we need to focus on balance
in three areas:

• Balanced
  joint alignment,
• Balance
  while we’re in motion,
• Balanced
  lifestyle.

Let’s cover some simple, practical
tips to maintain balance in all three areas.

Balance Your Joints

Some people believe that arthritis,
joint pain, and stooped posture are unavoidable, non-negotiable parts of aging.
While it’s true that our bodies eventually slow down, and we go through some
life situations we cannot change, we don’t have to experience pain and limited
motion.

In many cases, it’s the uneven wear
and tear on joints that causes pain. For example, if your feet pronate
(collapse on the inner arch) too much, your knees or low back may hurt. By aligning your feet with better
muscular balance
side to side and top to bottom, you can avoid this pain.

I’ve also seen many older adults who
are in excellent cardiovascular condition, but have stooped posture and pain in
their knees, hips, backs, and necks. These adults have often been endurance
athletes, with a lifelong love and commitment to bike riding, running, hiking,
or cardio machines at the gym.

While these activities are wonderful
for overall health, energy, immunity, and mood, they involve repetitive motions.
Without cross-training and stretching, the same muscles get used for hours
every day. The neglected muscles complain, and the imbalanced muscle effort
puts imbalanced strain on the joints.

Yoga, Pilates, tai chi, and other mindful movement practices bring awareness to our posture. They help us see where we are tight and weak. We have to stretch out the tight places to reduce the uneven forces on our joints.

In my work as a yoga therapist, I help
people stretch the tight places and strengthen the weak ones to improve posture, align their joints, and
reduce pain.

There are many exercises you can do to
overcome poor joint alignment: Rounded Shoulders, Stiff Upper Back, Forward Head and Stiff
Neck, Stop Walking Like an Old Lady.

Balance Your Balance

It’s no secret that maintaining
balance and staying upright are crucial to keeping fit and active as we age.
One fall can be a huge setback, especially if we break a bone or have another
serious injury.

When I talk to many potential clients,
they often say, “I can’t balance at all,” or “My balance is terrible.” (Once
they become my clients, they learn to speak and act proactively about their balance!)

I have a big gripe with one part of
senior fitness programming. The balance exercises are often too still. I’ve
never heard of anyone falling while standing on one foot and touching the wall.

People usually fall when they are
already in motion – walking, going down stairs, or stepping over an obstacle.
To maintain and improve our balance, we’ve got to practice dynamic balance, in motion!

We also need to balance
in multiple directions,
including forward, backward, right, left, and while in rotation.

Balance Your Lifestyle

Even if you have the best intentions
to exercise, align your joints, and practice balance every day, it’s incredibly
difficult without a holistic approach. If you’re not sleeping well, eating
well, or managing stress, even simple activities you need to do will feel a lot
harder!

That’s why in my very first
conversation with a potential client, I ask them how well they are sleeping,
hydrating, digesting, and managing stress. In their first week with me, we
track sleep, hydration, fruits and vegetables, and activities that bring them
joy and peace.

These foundational health habits are
the keys to a balanced lifestyle and must be in place to support gains in
flexibility, strength, and stamina. A balanced lifestyle is also absolutely
necessary for healthy bones.

To get you started, here are a few
free resources:

• Two Most Important
  Vitamins for Healthy Aging (and You’ve Never Heard of Them)
• How I Improved Insomnia with Meditation and Yoga Lifestyle
• Calmer This Year Free
  Meditation Training

If you’d like to learn more ways to balance your body and stay fit and active for as long as possible, check out my free webinar Balance Your Body with Mindful Movement.

What is your weakest point of balance?
What do you do to overcome that weakness? What exercises of lifestyle changes
have you adapted? Which ones do you the most good? Please leave a comment
below.

Now that it’s been a few weeks social distancing with hair salons closed, you might be itching to update your color. Sure, it’s not the most important thing right now but with Zoom meetings and virtual happy hours, you probably want to feel your best. We rounded up the best at-home highlighting kits for when you’re desperate for an update. Sure, seeing a colorist is always preferable but whether it’s time, money or these closures, you might be feeling like you can DIY right in your bathroom.

Your best bet with at-home hair color is to start small. Choose a shade 2-3 hues darker or lighter than your current color and you’ll be less likely to make a mistake. You can always add more color but it’s much harder to remove too much. This goes for bleach, too. This probably isn’t the time to go fully platinum because you’ll end up spending more money in the end to fix it. Not to mention, we want to minimize damage as much as possible here.

Pick a hue that’s not too far off your current but one that will cover up any gray hair that bothers you or just give your roots a boost. Then, use color-safe, sulfate-free shampoo to keep the shade bright and vibrant until you can get into the salon. Aren’t sure what color to pick? Ask your current hairstylist if they have any recommendations. Below, some of our favorite options available to shop from the safety of your own home.

Image: Sally Beauty.

Blond Brilliance Highlighting Kit

Get subtle or dramatic blonde highlights with this non-drying formula.

Image: Madison Reed.

Madison Reed Light Works Balayage Highlighting Kit

Though this highlighting kit is mostly sold out, a pretty warm caramel shade is still available, perfect for dark brown or medium brown hair.

Image: Garnier.

Garnier Nutrisse Multi-Lights Highlight Kit

With avocado oil, olive oil and shea butter, this formula promises to leave hair ultra-soft.

Image: eSalon.

eSalon Balayage Hair Highlighting Kit

In five natural shades, this balayage kit comes with lightener and activator, highlight shampoo and toning mask, two pairs of non-latex gloves, application brush and mixing tray.

Image: Target.

L’Oreal Paris Couleur Experte All Over Color and Highlights

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Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission of the sale and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.