by David Cutrano | Jul 8, 2023 | Relaxation + Sleep, Self-Care, Tips for Managing Stress, Yoga Wisdom & Inspiration
Sometimes, my mind feels like a crowded room, overflowing with the clutter of thoughts, plans, and pieces of the world I’m trying to hold. In my heartfelt effort to stay engaged—with life, with others, and with the pursuit of meaning—I find myself taking in more and more: emails, faces, words, stories, whether shared in person, on the news, or through what I’m reading or watching.
And with it all come the thoughts—constantly working to untangle, understand, and make sense of it all. The stream never seems to slow. In a life so full, how can we create a sense of clarity, balance, and calm within our minds?
To help with this, I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite mind-clearing practices. They’re simple, quick—most take just a minute or two—and are designed to help you pause, release, and start fresh. Try weaving one into your day each hour, and notice how the mind begins to open like a quiet, renewed space.
by David Cutrano | Dec 17, 2021 | Five Element Yoga®, Self-Care, Tips for Managing Stress
The Vagus Nerve is the body’s largest nerve, traveling like a “superhighway” through the torso, connecting and influencing most major organs and body systems. It plays a central role in both emotional and physical well-being, acting as the main parasympathetic nerve, which means it can trigger deep relaxation and restoration from within.
This remarkable nerve carries essential signals throughout the body, supporting a balanced state of calm and resilience. The Vagus Nerve is a powerful tool for managing stress, anxiety, and even chronic pain. Engaging this nerve through these, and other, practices below, can lower heart rate and blood pressure, improve digestion, and reduce inflammation. By regularly activating the Vagus Nerve, you support your body’s natural ability to shift from “fight or flight” to “rest and digest,” allowing you to respond to life’s challenges from a place of steadiness and resilience. In essence, nurturing the Vagus Nerve helps build a foundation of peace and vitality, supporting emotional balance and physical health.
Activating the Vagus Nerve is easy. Try these simple techniques to strengthen and balance your Vagus Nerve!
1. SUNLIGHT and FRESH AIR
Nature can heal, balance and relax everything within the body, including the nervous system and the Vagus Nerve. Get outside and breathe, take in the sunshine and light everyday for 20 minutes or more if you can.
2. HUG
You can do this all by yourself! Wrap your arms around yourself, and give yourself a hug! When it feels safe, also hug your animal friends, friends and family. This activates the Vagus Nerve by increasing oxytocin – the feel good hormone – and helps to stimulate the spiritual heart fostering connection.
3. LAUGH!
Laughter is a breathing and energy practice: there is actually no need to have something ‘funny’ to laugh at. Just start laughing for laughter’s sake! Really get your belly really going! My fav is to start laughing in a yoga pose. Look out the window and laugh. Watch something funny. Laugh with friends. This activates the Vagus Nerve in the throat, chest and abdomen, and makes you feel darn good.
4. SING, CHANT & HUM
And Sing or Chant Loudly. Try it in a yoga pose; as you do your household activities like cooking, laundry, gardening, cleaning, and of course – in the shower! Sing to your pets – they love it! Sing with the radio. Activates Vagus Nerve in the throat, vocal chords, and abdomen.
5. SIGH
This is a favorite in our household! It feels so good. Make it a looooonnnng Sigh: “Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. It activates a sense of release, and helps to soothe the liver. The Vagus Nerve is activated in the throat, vocal chords, abdomen and liver.
by David Cutrano | Nov 20, 2021 | Self-Care, Tips for Managing Stress
The Holidays are wonderful! And yet this time of year can be challenging…
The disruption of regular rhythms and routines can leave us feeling unmoored, while heightened emotions and potential triggers from interactions with family and friends may lead to fatigue, inflammation, insomnia, nervous energy, and an emotional roller-coaster.
Holiday blues can emerge as deep, rich, and varied emotions arise, especially in the presence of loss or grief—a universal human experience, as we have all, at some point, lost someone or something significant. Here are some Holiday Calm tips for you to navigate this season with greater ease and balance.
Tips for BALANCED ENERGY this Holiday Season:
>KEEP YOUR HEALTHY PRACTICES & RHYTHMS: You already in place your healthy habits and as best you can, keep them up, especially at this time! Keep practicing your yoga, meditation, yoga nidra, walking, sleeping 7+ hours, resting on purpose, exercise…
>DRINK LOTS OF WATER. This will keep you hydrated, and also help you to return to your in-going self-care mode. Water is cleansing and will purify your systems and body.
>MAINTAIN AS REGULAR A SCHEDULE AS YOU CAN. This will help keep you grounded and rooted in the face of commotion and emotion:
- try to eat meals at the same time each day.
- awaken and go to sleep at the same time each day.
>INDULGE, IN SMALLER BITES, LONGER CHEWS, SMALLER SIPS: Savor the yummy indulgences of the season by making them last in your mouth! One little square of chocolate if sucked on in tiny bites, can last 15 minutes of enjoyment. Make it Mindful, it will actually be more enjoyable.
>DO NOT FORCE JOY. Be with all the feelings that arise within you. It’s normal to feel sad, lonely, and grief at this time of year for everyone. It’s good to take time to let yourself feel and cry.
>REACH OUT. Reach out to others, especially those who you know are alone, or have lost someone. A simply phone conversation can bring so much light into your day, and for your friend.
>BE KIND TO YOURSELF. Remember yourself and give yourself a Break, and show yourself Compassion and Acceptance. It will benefit you, and those around you as you opening your heart to yourself, you open it to others.
I wish you and your loved ones a beautiful Holiday Season. Love Jennifer
by David Cutrano | Oct 9, 2021 | Food Nourishment, Relaxation + Sleep, Self-Care, Tips for Managing Stress, Yoga Wisdom & Inspiration
Autumn Season is inherently scattering – windy, dry, cool, and unpredictable – it can leave you cold, fearful, scattered and ungrounded. That is because according to Traditional Chinese Medicine METAL ELEMENT rules the season, and AIR + ETHER Elements says yoga/Ayurvedic wisdom. Every season requires work for us to stay harmonized and happy. Here are 5 Easy Steps to stay balanced this Fall:
1. STAY WARM: Cover up in layers so you can add or peel them to stay warm. Get out your blankets, throws, and shawls for around the house and for your yoga practice, especially Savasana pose when you cool down in relaxation. Stay hydrated with warm teas and room temperature water throughout the day.
Eat less raw veggies and fruits, and add more warming foods and spices like:
- ginger
- baked apples with raisins
- apple + pear sauces (my fav! just chop local apples and pears up, then saute in water a bit of water with cinnamon, ginger, cardamon and sea salt for 10 minutes)
- oven roasted root veggies (beets, carrots, turnips, and parsnips).
2. OIL UP! Autumn is DRYING. This will also aid in your SLEEP MMMMMMMMmmmmmm if you do this before bed. Rub your ears and feet with oil (organic sesame or Ayurvedic oils from Banyan Botanicals or Sarada are great). Massage for a few minutes if you can! Put socks on and it will absorb into your feet quite quickly.
3. DO LESS. REST MORE. GO TO BED EARLIER. Catch up on all that energy you spent during the summer now! Go inward and begin to hibernate. This will also help you to integrate all the feelings, emotions and thoughts swirling around in you.
4. FRESH AIR. NATURE. GET OUTSIDE. MOVE YOUR BODY. Being outdoors when the season is changing will help your body and being acclimatize to the changes each season brings. Enjoy the fresh air. Marvel at the beauty of the new colors – their last hurrah before winter.
- Toss leaves in the air, smell the fragrance.
- Swing from a tree branch. Get playful!
- Go for bike ride, or a brisk walk swinging your arms.
5. HONOR YOUR LUNGS – BREATHE – IMMUNE BOOSTING. Strengthen your immune system now to stay healthy and protected.
- Breathe complete and full conscious breaths.
- Use a reminder or breathing app to take breaks throughout your day to breathe deeply.
- Tap under your collar bones, and sternum with fingertips or loose fists to awaken Lungs and Thymus gland for an immune boost.
- Join me: The Immune Boost – Five Element Yoga® Therapy Workshop and be guided in potent practices.
by David Cutrano | Aug 13, 2021 | Tips for Managing Stress, Yoga Nidra & Meditation, Yoga Wisdom & Inspiration
Equanimity is quiet inner strength that allows us to meet life as it is, neither grasping at joy, nor resisting sorrow, instead resting in steadiness that is unswayed by circumstance. This is not indifference, but the deep and abiding presence within us—a spaciousness of heart that welcomes each moment without being carried away by it.
In our humanness and tendencies, this isn’t always easy to maintain an even keel. We need the help of practices and support to return to this ground of evenness, especially as life’s ups and downs—and our tendency to react—pull at us again and again.
Simple, intentional acts of pausing, breathing, and expanding can shift us into the perspective of the witness—where we move beyond the grasping mind that seeks to fix, judge, or control. From this place of deeper awareness, we learn to trust something steadier than fleeting emotions, to hold our experiences with clarity and kindness, and to remember that we are not the waves—we are the vast ocean beneath them.
Cultivating Equanimity Practices
1. Find Center: Simply remembering that your center IS always calm, peaceful and equanimous helps bring you back to ease. Trust in yourself.
2. Equanimity as your Golden Rule: Keep the concept of equanimity in the front of your mind and intention, especially when emotions, feelings, or thoughts start to spiral. Your mind and focus can be rewired to bring you back to the wisdom of this truthe “I am always calm in my center”.
3. Imagination of Peace: Try using your imagination as a tool for calm by bringing to mind a peaceful place—perhaps the vastness of the ocean, a scene from a postcard, or a natural object like a flower or a leaf. Let the essence of this place or object fill you completely. Breathe it in, allowing its presence to settle into your belly, heart, mind, and every cell of your being. As you do, let everything else fall away, creating a gentle ‘mind sweep’ that makes space for peace.
4. Get Moving! Whether it’s yoga, swimming, walking, running, dancing, weight training, or even pogo-sticking, find ways to move your body that bring you joy—and make it a daily activity. Movement is a powerful way to release built-up cortisol, boost endorphins, and can help process emotions and experiences held in the body-mind. Engaging in physical activity strengthens our connection to ourselves and others, fostering both vitality and balance from the inside out.
5. Breathe Out: Your exhalation is one of the most effective and the simplest relaxation strategies, and can effectively calm stress in body, nervous system, and mind. All you do is make your exhalation longer than your inhalation for a minute or two, or longer if you wish. You can blow out through the mouth, or the nose, or even ‘sigh’ it out. Exhaling longer than inhaling is proven to shift you into the parasympathetic ‘rest-digest’ healing mode.
6. Daily Yoga Nidra or Meditation: Science confirms that regular practice rewires the brain and calms the nervous system, yet the greatest challenge is simply making it a habit. Choose a time that works for you—upon waking, before bed, before a meal, or after work—and commit to it daily. Yoga Nidra, with its guided structure, offers an accessible and welcoming way to enter deep relaxation and presence.
Reflection: What helps you return to your center? What restores your sense of balance? Whatever practice you choose, let it be a gentle refuge, something you turn to not out of obligation, but out of care for yourself. You are worthy of that balance, of that peace. And no matter how often you stray from it, you can always come home to yourself.
