Have a day off

In Helsinki again. It’s me, Liilia and my little sister this time. Already a while I´ve wanted to do something with just Liilia. I was so happy when I heard that my little sister was able to join us in our Helsinki trip. Marianne is a great nanny and  great help with photographing. And great company altogether A real treasure!

Talking with a dear friend of mine, some shopping for the summer and a little bit of work on the way during this trip. All things that I enjoy! I can´t wait to tell you about those things too!

This day my little sister made it possible for me to spend a day off. I felt that it was just what I needed!

We are able to meet with my friend Mirva quite seldom. So this day it was really nice just concentrate on talking with her. So no camera on my hands this day. Besides taking photos, Marianne even looked after our babies so that me and Mirva were able to talk just between the two of us. Thanks Marianne – again!

Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 ways to wellbeing”.

Mari ❤ SaimaaLife

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Remember the happy moments of your life

I did my Pics of Happiness photo gallery partly for you. To inspire you to think about your own moments of happiness and things that make you feel good. Partly I did that photo gallery for myself . So that I could  go and browse those photos every once in while. They are very dear to me. There are a lot of memories, thoughts, feelings and dreams behind each one of them.

This day I browsed my Pics of Happiness gallery again. Just for a while when I was having my breakfast. For a brief moment it was nice to look back the happy moments in my life. It was a good start for this day!

(I added some new photos to my Pics of Happiness the other day. You`ll find them all here.)

Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 ways to wellbeing”.

Mari ❤ SaimaaLife

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Guest post by Mari Tynkkynen

Every occupational therapist knows about Meyer philosophy; “Find the balance between work, play, rest and sleep.”

This writing is about how I see these Occupational Performance areas and how our bodies will react to them.

Work

Work is productive doing and it feels like working. Even if you don’t have a job, you probably have things in your life that feel like work. By working you achieve something and you can be happy about the results. Ideally you have a job and you like it and that doesn’t always feel like work.

Sometimes work brings stress in your life. Stress can be positive or negative. If you work too much or your situation in life is stressful, your body needs more cortisol-hormone. It helps you to concentrate and keep on going in a difficult situation. But if stress becomes chronic, you can be tired all day and feel totally awake when you’re trying to sleep. This happens because your body produces cortisol at the wrong time of the day.

During a stressful day you have a higher risk to make bad choices with food. Bad choices increase imbalance in your body and those altogether may lead in other symptoms.

Play

Play means playfulness in your daily life. It is also an attitude towards how we do things. Play is all about getting excited about what you do. If you love your work and it challenges you in a perfect way and when you work with excitement you forgot the time and everything else. This may lead you to flow-experiences. Playing has long term influences, because there is a risk that you smile a long time after playing.

By doing things that you love, your body generates endorphin. It reduces pain. When you are very happy your body products happiness hormone oxytocin. That is the best antidote against stress and depression.

Rest

Rest is a time for your thoughts and autonomic nervous system. Rest is quiet time for your brain, a couple of minutes of silence. Time when your thoughts stop for a second and you breathe deep.

Your energy level rises more when you spend a couple of minutes in quietness than when resting hours at a sofa while watching tv.

This is because while watching tv your brain is working and your body rests. The thing is to let your brain rest for a while. Good ways to rest are for example yoga, pilates, relaxation or meditation cd’s.

While you rest your blood pressure decreases and your heart rate slows down.

By letting your brain rest you will become more creative and patient.

Sleep

Sleep is the most important thing to your health.

By sleeping your body recovers from the day and gets ready for a new one. Lack of sleep affects the body organ system. You see that happen in ordinary life. If you don’t sleep enough you’ll have troubles to remember, setbacks seems oversized, you might be grumpy and you want to eat everything fatty, salty and sugary.

In the evening it gets dark and the body starts to product melatonin hormone. But it needs to be dark, no tv or computer, because their bright light prevents its secretion. Your own body’s melatonin helps you to fall asleep and sleep well. Melatonin-hormone is also a strong antioxidant and your body needs that to recover from the day. If you’re having a trouble to fall asleep, you should try to do a relaxation exercise before going to sleep.

Mari Tynkkynen – Mari is a woman behind Terapiaperhonen Oy. She is occupational therapist. Besides that she does also nutrition coaching, which is based on functional medicine, FLT Ravintovalmentaja – Pro Health®. (Links only in Finnish)

Mari thinks that everything is linked to everything. That’s why we need to think widely and explore the world. The most important thing is to listen to our own body and mind.

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Šavasana

In the evening I noticed again that I hadn`t stopped at all during the day. Right from the morning my day had been full of breastfeeding, changing dipers, playing, laundry, dishes, cooking and blogging. And those were only things that I was able to do. In my mind I had plans for twice as much of things.

In the evening I fell down to bed dead tired. It was difficult to calm down and fall asleep. I was somehow feeling very restless. I promised to myself that tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow I would relax and calm down!

I have plenty of ways to calm down. My favorite ways are ashtanga yoga practice and being in nature.

But this day I had no time for them (again). My way to relax would have to be something easy and it shouldn’t take long.

While the girls were having their afternoon nap I did Šavasana. It’s a pose you do in the end of the yoga practise. Its effect is the strongest after yoga but I learned to use it for relaxing also during my pregnancy. Many times I was able to finish contractions by lying on my back, concentrating on deep breathing and consciously relaxing my whole body one part at a time with the help of breathing. At the same time I also calmed down my mind consciously pushing all thoughts gently away from my mind.

That is what I did also this day around 10 minutes. It worked again! I felt so good after that – relaxed and energetic.

Read more about my “Wellbeing Challenge 2013 – 365 ways to wellbeing”.

Mari ❤ SaimaaLife

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I’m going to write a lot about my “Wellbeing Challenge – 365 ways to wellbeing” this year. I hope it gives you, my dear readers, inspiration and simple ways to take care about your own wellbeing too!

From this point on you can also read posts about natural wellbeing that are written by my guest writers. I`m so happy that I can introduce them to you!

Dedicate year 2013 for your wellbeing

Guest post by Mari Tynkkynen

Wellbeing is a reflection of our lifestyle.  Woman who is feeling well is spreading out good spirit to every people that we meet on a day. Mom who is feeling well is the family’s power center. Here are some tips what to promise on a New Years Eve to be well in year 2013:

1. Most important thing to create wellbeing lies in our thoughts and positive attitude. We are surrounded with everything good, if we just open our eyes to it. It is only waste of energy to focus those negative things in a time when we have so much to be happy about.

What to promise
Make a promise to add things to your life, that make you smile, laugh, energetic, loving, passionate or closer to nature. Things that get you closer to your spirit and wellbeing of body and mind.

2. This is the time when people promise to lose weight. But which is more important; how you look outside or what you feel inside? And how your body is feeling? Think, what do you want by losing weight… what is your body saying to you? Do you want to get rid of some symptoms or get more energy?

What to promise
Promise to listen to your body and take better care of it. Move and eat like your body wants you to. Promise to get more time to sleep, even it means less time for TV or work. If you take better care of yourself, you will lose weight automatically.

3. How do we make time for everything? First we need to think what is important to us and what we don’t actually need. Advertisements say that we need everything. But do we really need that all? Which is more important; some random stuff or time to play with our children? Watching TV or having conversation with our families?

What to promise
Promise to be more present to people that you love. Listen to what they want to say to you and what they want to do with you.  Here’s a thought; to be present – to be a gift. A gift to you and people around you.

These are my promises for improving my wellbeing:
- I promise to do yoga more, because it increases my energy.
- I promise to write you tips how to improve your body’s wellbeing and I’m going to follow those tips also.
- I promise to shut down television every time when somebody comes to visit.

Mari Tynkkynen - Mari is a woman behind Terapiaperhonen Oy. She is occupational therapist. Besides that she does also nutrition coaching, which is based on functional medicine, FLT Ravintovalmentaja – Pro Health®. (Links only in Finnish)

Mari thinks that everything is linked to everything. That’s why we need to think widely and explore the world. The most important thing is to listen to our own body and mind.

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