Sometimes Life Gets to be Too Much

And then I have to remind myself to breathe. To sort out what's in my power to fix, and what's beyond me. To pull my shoulders down from where they're hunched around my ears. To remember that I'm safe, warm, sheltered, and fed. To be thankful that everyone in my family is healthy, and that as a country we aren't under attack. To pat my dog and enjoy his kisses. And to color. 

What do you do when you're feeling overwhelmed?

Research Proves it! Viniyoga Reduces Workplace Stress!

I know from personal experience that Viniyoga is an amazing tool for reducing workplace stress—that’s what hooked me on it almost fifteen years ago, when I still worked at Microsoft.  But now, research proves it!

Aetna, inc. recently studied methods of stress reduction in the workplace. The results were published in the online version of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. The study evaluated the effectiveness of Mindfulness Meditation (a specific type of meditation) and Viniyoga on both perceived levels of stress and biological markers of stress. The Viniyoga intervention used in the study was designed by my teacher, Gary Kraftsow. The study participants included 239 Aetna employees located in California and Connecticut who were split into three groups:  the Mindfulness Meditation group, the Viniyoga group, and a control.

The results were encouraging.  Both the Mindfulness Meditation and the Viniyoga interventions saw over a 30% reduction in perceived stress levels. Participants also showed significant improvements in several heart rate measurements, suggesting that their bodies were better able to manage stress.  Even better, both Viniyoga and Mindfulness Meditation worked in about half the time as other commonly used mind-body interventions.

The Viniyoga intervention included a twelve-week yoga program that used physical yoga postures, breathing techniques, and guided relaxation. Participants met in class once a week and received practice handouts to use at home and in the office. Which just goes to prove what I’ve said all along—a well-conceived home practice gets results!

For more details on the study, check out the article on Aetna’s web site.

Namaste

Tracy Weber

Come visit Whole Life Yoga in Seattle, and check out Tracy Weber's author page for information about the Downward Dog Mysteries series.  MURDER STRIKES A POSE is available now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Whole Life Yoga, and wherever books are sold.

DeStress with This Natural Remedy

In my new book Death Drops: A Natural Remedies Mystery Willow McQuade, ND, a naturopathic doctor specializes in natural cures. When her aunt Claire is murdered, Willow takes over her health food store Nature’s Way Market & Cafe and sets out to solve the crime with a hunky ex-cop.

Death Drops also features over two dozen natural remedies you can try at home. The remedy from chapter 1, below, is helpful when it comes to the stresses and strains of writing and everyday life:

Chapter 1:

Dear Dr. McQuade,
Help! I’ve been feeling anxious and stressed to the max ever since I started my new job. Is there anything natural I can take to help me chill out?
Signed,
Stressed Out

Dear Stressed Out,
Have no fear. One of the best natural remedies for stress is flower essences, which help to correct emotional imbalances. There are thirty-eight flower essences, developed by Dr. Edward Bach in 1934. Just put a few drops of Bach Rescue Remedy—a combination of rockrose for terror and panic, impatiens for irritation and impatience, clematis for inattentiveness, star-of-Bethlehem for shock, and cherry plum for irrational thoughts—under your tongue and you’ll begin to chill big-time. You’ll find it at your local health-food store.
Signed,
Willow McQuade, ND

I know from my own experience that Rescue Remedy lives up to its name (and no, I'm not a paid spokesperson - don't worry!). If I'm feeling stressed or a little anxious about say, a deadline, it really helps. You can take Rescue Remedy as drops, spray, cream, pastilles, and gum. You can even use it or kids and animals to calm them down! It's all natural and safe. Best of all you can take it with you wherever you go! I like to tuck a bottle of the drops in my pocketbook so it's there when I need it. You can buy it in your local health food store.

You can pre-order Death Drops: A Natural Remedies Mystery on Amazon. It will be published on Feb. 21st by Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster. For more information about the book and natural remedies please visit www.chrystlefiedler.com. Thanks!

Take it Slow with a Slow Hobby from a Cozy Mystery

With my book launch for Death Drops: A Natural Remedies Mystery happening next month (Feb. 21^st) and the PR and marketing and blogging and tweeting that I need to do daily and a re-write for book number 2 in the series looming, and well, life, I’m feeling a little stressed (good stress - I’m very grateful for all these wonderful opportunities but still…) However, I know what the answer is: slow down.

Alternative medicine provides some of the best natural remedies. Even just taking a deep breath and saying, “I am breathing in. I know that I am breathing in” and exhaling, “I am breathing out. I know that I am breathing out,” as Thich Nhat Hanh author of You Are Here, says, can improve one’s outlook by releasing stress.

But did you know that hobbies like knitting, painting, sculpting, crocheting and quilting can also help you slow down? That’s because slow hobbies help you cultivate the lost art of focus, concentration and being in the moment. “Slow hobbies have a meditative quality to them and a calming effect that goes beyond the act itself,” says Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slowness.

In fact, according to the Craft Yarn Council of America research 64% of knitters and crocheters use these crafts to help them reduce stress and relax. Studies show that the rhythmic, repetitive dance of the needles can lower heart rate and blood pressure, lulling the knitter into a peaceful state.

I’ve noticed that just “reading” about hobbies is relaxing. For example, I feel more peaceful when I’m reading Laura Child’s Tea Shop Mysteries, Anne Canadeo’s Black Sheep Knitters series and Betty Hechtman’s crocheting mysteries. I can’t wait to dive into all the books of my fellow Killer Hobbies blogging sisters and mellow out.

You may even find your new hobby from a cozy mystery. Hobbies in cozies range from scrapbooking to quilting, from knitting and embroidery to cooking. You’ll find many of these cozies right here.

Choose a hobby that you are really interested in, that you enjoy and that you can build a relationship with over time. You’ll be less stressed and happier and you’ll also enjoy your cozy mysteries even more!

Death Drops: A Natural Remedies Mystery (Gallery Books/S & S) will be published on Feb. 21^st and is available for pre-order on www.amazon.com. I’m giving away free copies of Death Drops. Just answer this question: What is Your Favorite Hobby? to be entered in the drawing! For more information please visit www.chrystlefiedler.com!

Stress!

Okay, I need to make this short and sweet.

Like last week, I was planning on blogging about something erudite about my writing this week. That was before I started really stressing about time.

Why is it that I seemed so much more efficient squeezing everything in when I was younger? I had a full-time job, young kids with all their needs including getting them to and from school and after-school activities, and a great, supportive husband with whom I loved spending time, too.

Of course, maybe the point was that I was younger. I got up an hour earlier than anyone else in the household to write.

Now, I only work half days at a law firm and don’t take on any assignments that come home with me, either actually or in my mind. My kids are grown and my husband is still supportive. But with a March 15 deadline on the manuscript for the seventh Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery, another Silhouette Nocturne sale (which I fortunately don’t have to focus on till my Kendra manuscript is out the door), and concern about promotion for Kendra #6, DOUBLE DOG DARE, a June release--not to mention some family stuff, but, then, there’s always family stuff going on--I’m feeling stressed!

Well, okay, taking time out to blog adds to it, but at least this way I get to vent!

Enough. I’d imagine nearly everyone reading this is equally stressed, at times, about... time! If anyone has any magic bullets to fix it, please let me know.

On the other hand, maybe the fact that my first published novels were time travel romances says something about my selective memory. Maybe I was stressed way back then, too, and figured that at least fictionally all I had to do was play games with time...

Anyway, I’d better get back to work.

--Linda