The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we have already some sunny days. Spring is finally on its way. Along with the arrival of spring, a number of crocuses and snowdrops are slowly appearing. Everything around us begins to grow. The beginning of spring is therefore the ideal time to start planting or sowing flowers yourself. But why should we actually engage in gardening? And how do you start? Can you, for example, do gardening without a garden (spoiler: yes)? These questions will all be answered in this blog!
Why gardening?
Gardening makes us happy. We do not only know this intuitively, various research has also scientifically proved this. For example, different plants improve air quality (NASA), but the sight of plants can already cause a more relaxed atmosphere. Being busy with gardening can also significantly reduce stress: a study by Wageningen University showed, for example, that gardening makes you more relaxed compared to reading a magazine. The big advantage of gardening is that your brain area where you have focused attention can finally relax. You do not have to think about complicated matters like work and relationships when you’re busy taking care of your plants. This way you can let your brain rest for a while. The advantage of gardening yourself is that you can grow your own herbs, vegetables and fruit according to your own taste. A salad made from your own cultured ingredients tastes extra delicious! Convinced? Keep on reading for some useful tips!
Tips for gardening
- Start small. You do not have to plant a complete vegetable garden right away, even in your windowsill you can start with some simple herbs. You also do not need much space to start gardening. On your balcony or in your windowsill you can always create room for a few plants.
- Note the amount of sunlight that falls on the spot where you want to place your plants. One plant needs more sunlight than the other. Keep this in mind before you buy or sow your plants.
- Use your space efficiently. If you have less room for plants than you would like, there are always solutions for this. A window farm (a vertical garden in front of your window) can for example create a lot of space for plants in your windowsill. You can also garden vertically in other places in your home or on your balcony. Square foot gardening is a good option to efficiently create a vegetable garden. You divide your vegetable garden into boxes, where you sow different plants.
- Mix different plants. By varying in plants and flowers it looks extra nice and you can often continue to enjoy your plants at different times of the year. Some plants can also strengthen or weaken each other. Especially for the vegetable garden it is useful to take this into account (companion planting).
- Attract birds, butterflies and bees to your outdoor garden, this can also be done on your balcony. Good for nature, good for your plants, and fun for you to watch!
The NiceDay app can also assist you in gardening. For example, plan in the Daily Planner when you need to water your plants. Register for a few days how you felt after gardening and see if it makes you feel more relaxed.
Stress is a form of tension in the body that occurs in possible threatening situations. You can feel this tension in your head, mind and body. Your heart can pound, you get a dry throat, a rushed feeling or butterflies in your stomach. This tension is understandable: your body prepares itself for a reaction. If you would like to learn more about this, you can take a look at this article. Understanding and accepting the bodily sensations is a good first step towards reducing tension. But there is one tool that you can easily use to reduce tension: your breathing!
Breathing
Your breathing adapts itself to how you feel during the day. In a stressful situation, you breathe faster and more shallow. In a relaxed situation, your body has a more natural deeper and relaxed breath. This also works the other way around: by training your breathing, you can train how you feel. When you consciously breathe more calm and deep, you will notice that your body reacts on this by relaxing.
Short exercises
There are lots of exercises available that focus on your breathing and relaxation. Below you find a selection of three exercises. Just try which one works best for you and use this when you experience tension of stress during the day.
- Using a deep abdominal breathing, try to breath synchronised with the rhythm in this video.
- The Mindfulness app of VGZ contains various short and long breathing exercises. Try which one works for you.
- Do you have some more time? Try the progressive relaxation exercise of Jacobson, where you tense and relax all your muscle groups one by one. As one of the results, your breathing also relaxes. You can find the exercise here.
Breathing in relaxation, breathing out tension.
NiceDay actions
Try planning a breathing exercise in NiceDay and register what this exercise did to your thoughts, feelings and stress level.
The season that many people fear has arrived… autumn is back again. The shorts and dresses are being exchanged for the warm, oversized sweaters and the healthy tan on our face will fade soon. How could we be happy that autumn has arrived?! Read about the benefits that autumn brings in this article.
Take a look around
Let’s be honest, it is wonderful to see how the trees consist of all kinds of colors, the lovely fresh air that immediately makes you feel energetic, the acorns on the ground and all kinds of mushrooms that emerge. You only experience these things during autumn. So what is holding you back to have a nice walk in the forest and to enjoy mother nature? Put on your coat and boots and let’s go out! Bring a friend or go by yourself to clear your head.
Cosiness…
After a nice walk, there is nothing better than entering a warm house and plopping down the couch. Just crawl underneath your blanket, light the candles and let the Netflix marathon begin! Moreover, when it is rainy and cold outside, this will give you the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with family and/or friends. Enjoy for example an old-fashioned game of monopoly!
Less stress!
Because in the Netherlands the weather is only good for a few weeks, people feel the obligation to enjoy the weather and to be outside. They ‘must’ go to the beach, they ‘must’ organize barbecues and ‘must’ have a beach body. These thoughts can cause a lot of stress in the long run. Not nice! There’s a big probability that you do not experience these kind of thoughts during autumn. In autumn, the stress level of most people is lower. So grab some pepernoten, wear your oversized sweater and enjoy this time of the year!
NiceDay: What are the biggest benefits of autumn according to you? Write it down in your NiceDay diary. Besides writing in your diary, you can plan nice things to do in autumn in your Daily Planner.
Some have the impression that incense is a ‘drowsy state’ and gives spiritual enlightenment. But that is not the purpose of incense at all. It effectively contributes to your yoga class and daily life. How to use incense effectively? In this blog all the ins and outs.
What is incense?
The original meaning of the word incense is “incendere” which means “to burn” in Latin.
Where does incense come from?
Incense is made in India, Nepal, China, Japan and Tibet in particular and was originally an incense sacrifice intended to favor gods. It has been used since 1700 BC. In addition to an incense offering, it also had a very practical purpose in earlier times; the expulsion of rotting air. The animals that were sacrificed spread an odor that got masked with incense.
From 1960, incense came to Europe. In that period the interest in Eastern cultures and religion grew. Countries like China, India, Japan and Tibet use a lot of incense. In these countries incense is as common as flowers or the use of soap or perfume in the Western world. With the interest in these cultures also the import and use of oriental incense grew in the Western world.
What’s in incense?
Incense is one of the few substances that has all five elements in it.
- Earth (the ingredients used);
- Air (diffusion of the smell);
- Fire (is needed to burn incense);
- Water (one of the ingredients to make it) and;
- Ether (it has an ethereal action).
What is the effect of incense?
The smell of incense is perceived through your nose and stimulates your nerves. The nerves send a signal to the brain and decide whether a smell is pleasant or not. Smelling ensures that you pay attention. It improves concentration and relaxation. That is why incense is used during a yoga class. For example with the yoga posture Savasana. The use of incense can help doing this pose with more ease. The most used scents for incense are cedar, musk, white lotus and the scent of autumn leaves.
Everybody needs some relaxation from time to time, one way or another. For one person that is exercising, for the other it is knitting. Anyway, we all need something to distract us from daily life. Just some me-time.
For me a day in the spa is the ultimate relaxation. Preferably with my best friend or father. But I also enjoy going there alone. A day without obligations and without my phone. Just a moment for myself, wonderful.
The first time after therapy
Last monday I went to the spa again. A day to De Zwaluwhoeve in Hierden with my friend. There were a lot of cars parked in front of the building. We look at each other hoping that it is less crowded inside. We came here to escape from the crowd! It is even the reason we go there on mondays.
But once we get inside we can see that it is okay. We put our stuff in the lockers and walk inside. We see beautiful saunas, great pools and also the restaurants look fine.
The first sauna we enter feels great in terms of temperature. I lie down and hope to find relaxation today. The last time I came here I was in the middle of therapy and I was not able to sit still and relax. My thoughts were everywhere but here and I left still feeling tired.
However this time I could relax, although it felt a little awkward. It has been so long since I allowed my muscles to relax. I started to think that this is the day it might actually happen!
Chitchatting and wine
We alternate saunas with pools and smoothies. Later on the day we start to feel hungry. Time for prosecco and some good food! We toast on taking rest and on our friendship.
After eating it is time for another round. We start drinking wine, that is part of our sauna experience. And after the wine we decide to go outside and swim in the salt water pool. Which was not a good idea! We suddenly realised we had to get out there to get our towels and it was so cold!
When we left we decided that we have to do this more often. One day away from the outside world, it was wonderful!
The men around me
Most men do not like to knit. However, my father really enjoys going to the sauna. My partner on the other end relaxes by assembling kits, fussing around a bit.
Relaxation for me and my partner together is the motor. A day off, getting an ice cream at the beach, go out with friends or just a simple motor ride. Music on and enjoying the view and each other.
Seeking relaxation
It might be hard to find something you like to do. Ask around what your friends and family do to relax. Is it reading a book or making puzzles? Or maybe you like to get outside, like cycling, lying down at the beach or dining out.
This week I choose a song I wanted to share for a while already, but it never corresponded with my blog posts. It is JP Cooper – Passport home. This song calms me down and makes me smile, because the chorus suits me so well.
Love, Renée x
Learning to relax by tightening your muscles? Is that even efficient? Yes it is! A lot of people are not aware of their tense posture. By tightening yourself and letting this tense go, you feel more relaxed. With this exercise we want to help you relax! .
This exercise is all about tightening and relaxation of your arms:
- First make a fist of your right hand. Squeeze it for 10 seconds , after that let it go. Concentrate now on your right hand, what do you feel?
- Do the same thing with your left hand. Make a fist, and hold it tight for 10 seconds. After that let it go. Concentrate now on the left hand, what are you feeling?
- Now make a fist of both hands. Hold the tense 10 seconds and let go. Now, relax your fingers and forearms. Focus on this feeling!
- The next step is to do the same with you biceps. Press your forearms against your upper arms. Do not tense your hands while doing this, do not make a fist. Repeat this, afterwards relax your arms. Focus on the feeling!
- Now it is the turn of your triceps. Tighten your triceps by stretching your arms downwards. Feel the tension, after that relax and repeat it!
- Last but not least, relax entirely. Relax your arms, shoulders and fingers. Put your arms beside your body and try to relax. Breathe in and out and feel the relaxation. If you like it you can close your eyes or put relaxing music on.
Whenever you feel tense you can apply this exercise. It is a short exercise but you can feel more relaxed afterwards immediately. You can apply during multiple situations like during work or in the train. When you notice this exercise suits you, you can discuss it with your Coach and apply it into your week. Good luck!
Stress is something most people have to deal with during the workweek. Avoiding stress is important but not always possible. However, instead of avoiding stress, you can try to focus on relaxing and letting stressful thoughts go. People have all kinds of ways to relax.
Relaxation is good for:
Your health: Stress is linked to higher blood pressure, an increased heart rate because the body is in high awareness mode. Stress hormones like cortisol also have long term effects like breaking down muscle tissue, the storing of fats and increased glucose levels. All things you want to avoid. Stress also causes tension, which translates into different kinds of complaints like increasing the tendencies to smoke, drink alcohol and eating sweets. Relaxation counters these effects and helps your body to find its balance.
Your state of mind: Long term stress has a direct influence on how you feel. Depressive thoughts, irritation, anger and rumination are common consequences on your state of mind of long term stress. Think about this: Most people feel a lot better when they are on a holiday. That is mostly because during a holiday, you can let stressful thoughts and feelings go. Your muscle tension lowers, you sleep a lot better, all contributing to letting those worries go. This in turn, helps you to enjoy positive activities like a night out.
Your energy levels: People tend to forget that relaxation is also important for your productivity. Like mentioned before, stress causes your body to be in a constant state of high alert. Our bodies are not built for this and get exhausted because of this. Both our body and mind need relaxation to recover, heal, and process input. Rewarding yourself with some relaxation time will reward itself back with an improved concentration and more energy during the day.
Easy ways to relax
Sitting on the couch and watching tv is often what people think about when talking about relaxing. However, relaxing is more than that. Breathing exercises and yoga for example are proper techniques that learn you how to relax. However, there are easier activities that can take the stress away.
Go outside: A walk through the forest or the park are good ways to get away from all the fuzz. The same goes for a walk down the beach, helping to blow all those worries away. A tip; leave the cellphone at home or turn your mobile network off so you don’t have any distractions.
Workout: Sports are good for the body and your mind because of the release of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Sports helps to distract you from worrying thoughts because your attention now goes out to playing the sport.
A warm bath or a sauna visit: An old medicine dating back to the romans.The heat helps your muscles to relax, improves your blood circulation and opens the pores. A bath or sauna visit are especially effective against headaches and muscle tension caused by stress. A warm bath is also the perfect tool to help you fall asleep.
