Be Well Butte Educators; Feb. 2021
A Monthly Wellness Newsletter for Butte County's Educators
Welcome
Physical Wellness
How Busy Educators Are Fitting In Fitness
Wellness Bingo
*If you'd like to access a version of the Wellness Bingo that you can enlarge, click on the image for access through Google Drive.
You Are What You Eat
Mindful Eating
Exercise Improves Your Brain Function
Stress Busters
Matt Tries
Each month Matt Reddam, BCOE School & Community Wellness Advisor, tries out a new wellness activity and reports back on his experience. This month, Matt tries Mindful Walking.
I woke up before my alarm to another Monday in Covid. I know it now, the feeling that lives in my gut, better than I would care to admit. It feels like a relative you never really liked who gets snowed in with you over the holidays and stays an extra week. You can be civil and polite, but you also feel like you can’t quite be yourself. That’s what this feeling is. I call it “Doom Tummy” because I am tired of saying anxiety. It makes it hard to eat, hard to think, I pace a lot, and most of me tries to find any way to escape its impact. To put it bluntly, I woke up feeling awful, and guilty because here was another day I didn’t feel okay. This was the perfect time for a Matt Tries, but I knew it had to be something I could 1) do, and 2) benefit from. I walked outside and realized this was the perfect opportunity to try out mindful walking.
Mindful Walking or “Shinrin-yoku” (translated means forest bathing) is the practice of walking with no other intention than to notice the experience of walking. The very act of walking upright sets us apart from most of the animals on our planet. In a very literal sense, it is part of who we are. Moving through the world in this way is part of what it means to be human. Most of us however, engage in walking with little or no thought given to the miracle of our ability to just be human. For today, my goal was to walk from my house down to the stop sign a half mile away, and pay attention to my body’s experience of walking.
Mindful walking is amazing in it’s simplicity. All you need for mindful walking is a place to go, your body, and a willingness to attend to things you may not normally attend to. When walking mindfully, I was taught to move at a slower pace than usual, stand erect but with shoulders down, take medium to short strides, and to pay close attention to both my breathing and my feet. I knew that if someone saw me, I might look a little silly, but honestly I didn’t care, I just needed to do something. I started by noticing the feeling of my feet on the road, the sound of my feet moving, the crunch of different things beneath my feet. I noticed my legs, the rhythm of my pace. I noticed my breathing, which started shallow and slowed as I attended to it. I made sure to look up and around, to try to see something I had never noticed before. I did. I saw a water tower I had never noticed looming above the train tracks in the distance. I walked this way for the entire half mile. I didn’t once think about my “Doom Tummy”. I didn’t think about schools opening or closing. I didn’t think about Minecraft, Roblox, or how to detox my kids of both. I just walked, and truthfully, I am so glad I did.
https://positivepsychology.com/mindful-walking/
https://www.stopbreathethink.com/mindful-walking/
https://www.headspace.com/blog/2014/11/19/walk-into-a-mindful-moment/
Healthy Habits
Tech Support
Get Your Sleep
Upcoming Wellness Opportunities
Optimistic Closing
Ideas for Future Newsletters?
Maryanne Taylor
Email: mtaylor@bcoe.org
Website: https://www.bcoe.org/Charter--District-Services/Coordinated-District-Support/index.html
Phone: (530)532-5740