When you got out of bed this morning, what was the first thing you did? Is it the same thing you do every single day? And when getting dressed, do you always put your clothes on in a specific order? Not that you want to put your underwear on after your pants, but it's interesting to note how habitual we are in our daily motions and how that can translate into other areas of life.

Like a waterway or a much trod path through a field, our neurological system becomes entrenched in ways that don't always serve us well or fit with our image of ourselves as open, flexible and adventurous. We can become stuck without even realizing it, simply out of a need for comfort, 'time management' (always doing things the same way makes us think we are streamlining our actions), or not knowing that a shift would be helpful in any way.


Take Time To Play With Yourself

No, I'm not being sexually provocative (that's a healing modality for another newsletter!). I'm talking about playing with how you do the things that you normally do unconsciously. There are techniques you can learn, often called "Brain Gym" or "Neuro-Gymnastics," that offer tools and games to balance out the right and left sides of the brain, and therefore rebalance our whole neurological system. They can be quite silly and are often challenging, but you don't have to be a brain scientist to make good use of them.

Here are a few examples from a book called "Achieving Vibrance" by well-known mind-body teacher Gay Hendricks, Ph.D.:

• As you are getting dressed in the morning, put your clothes on in a different order. If you always start with underwear, then socks, then shirt, then pants or skirt, try switching up in different ways on different days. You could start with socks and all lower body wear before moving on the your upper body wear. Or put your watch and jewelry on first and then clothes from top to bottom. You get the idea. Then switch things up again when you get undressed at the end of the day.
  
  
• Brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand. Actually, doing anything with your non-dominant hand is a great way to override familiar patterns. I once attended a workshop where they took us "Other-handed Bowling," which I figured would be a total bust since this was an activity I was notoriously bad at. As a preteen, when bowling parties were all the rage, I always got the prize for the lowest score -- so imagine my surprise when I actually got a decent score using my left hand! I couldn't buy into the usual "I'm really not good at this" story, since it was new and challenging to even the best bowlers. The newness made me be present to the experience in a way I never had before, and helped me get into an amazing groove of breath, focus and movement.
  
  
• Choose a meal to experiment with, and then try one or all of these ideas: a) Eat from a different serving piece than usual (ie: put your scrambled eggs in a bowl instead of on a plate, or your soup in a mug instead of a bowl). b) After taking a bite, put down your fork or spoon until that bite is completely chewed and swallowed, then pick it up and repeat with each individual mouthful of food. c) Try eating with your non-dominant hand. Hold your fork in the left hand while bringing food to your mouth, and if you usually hold the fork in the left hand and knife in the right when cutting, switch hands for that task.
  
  
  

Keep Your Circuits Limber!

These types of brain gym exercises are great ways to take a break when you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed from too many hours in front of a computer. We all know that any little break in the routine gives us fresh reserves to return to our task with -- who hasn't walked away from their desk when fatigue and lack of focus take over? But if you instead of heading for the coffee and cookies you get your body in motion -- shaking out your arms and legs, dancing around with big movement in all directions, or simply using your other ear to listen on the phone every other call -- you give your neurological and energy system a much needed jolt of inspiration and restoration.


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