When last did you prioritise play?
If you are like many adults, play may be something you rarely prioritise, and perhaps consider as an activity for children. It is important to remember that adopting a playful mindset can benefit us at any age!
Play helps us form new skills, develop competence, practice and integrate learning. Connecting to our capacity to play through the experience of aerial hammock exercise can strengthen our ability to be spontaneous, present, creativity, excited and joyous!
The act of playing in and of itself is often therapeutic. However, play involving the aerial hammock offers unique benefits of
- Vestibular conditioning
- Coordination and balance conditioning
- The experience accomplishment
- A sense of control over their environment
- Self-lead relaxation
Aerial Hammock Play can be applied with purpose. In a therapeutic setting, it can assist improvment in self-regulation, sensory information processing, attentional capacity, problem solving and learning. It also can help develop social and communication skills.
In a modern world that has become increasingly risk-adverse, the therapeutic aerial environment offers a valuable opportunity for children and adults alike to take calulated risks, develop resilience and courage. Escape from the mundane into the world of Aerial Hammock Play today and discover an avenue for self-realization!
Let me know how you think more play may help improve your life? Please leave us a comment below!
Missing Hugs? Get one from your Aerial Hammock!
For me and many others, precautions surrounding COVID-19 has altered daily life. The sacrifice I feel most, is that I have had to give up Hugs.
Scientists say that giving another person support through touch can not only reduce the stress of the person being comforted, it can even reduce the stress of the person doing the comforting.
However, hugs can do more than just comfort us! Studies suggest they may also be good for your health by reducing the chance a person will get sick, improving heart function and reducing pain.
It is wonderful for your body to receive a hug from your aerial hammock every time you encase your body in its curved arms! Embrace this opportunity for a self-applied hug every day!
This is the question your hypothalamus is asking your nervous system every moment.
Feeling safe physically and emotionally is essential to our well-being. Depending on our sense of safety, our brain and body will decide if it is time to switch off the relaxation response and turn on the stress response. When the stress response is turned on too often, knowingly or unknowing, from our perception of urgency, pressure or fear it can affect our hormonal equilibrium decreasing our capacity for clear thinking and learning. Over time this can impact our vitality and mental health.
Safety and trust are the reverse of stress and anxiety. Until safety and trust are firmly established, relaxation is not possible in body or mind.
The first healing phase in Aerial Yoga Therapeutics is creating stability and safety. In this phase one learns to become attentive to sensation and breath. These are the building blocks for learning that emotions have a somatic origin and can be regulated through the physical body. As one is empowered with the ability to self-regulate emotion, it becomes accessible to calm the vortex of catastrophising thoughts. When this cycle is interrupted, one ceases to activate the psychological triggers of the stress response allowing parasympathetic functioning to be optimised and a new possibility for healing arises.
You may like to reflect for yourself on these questions:
How many days of the week do you feel driven by a sense of urgency or pressure?
What do you need to feel physically to feel safe?
What do you need to feel emotionally to feel safe?
What do you need to think in order to feel safe?
Try this Aerial Hammock Exercise for Creating Calm
In Aerial Yoga Therapeutics to activate the parasympathetic nervous system we can practice becoming breath aware in a seated posture called ‘saddle’. Here the pelvic floor muscles are gently lengthened by the position of the legs. Notice first that you can fully complete your exhalation, like squeezing out water from a sponge - every last drop of air can be released. Then, when the sense to inhale is felt, relax the pelvic floor and lower abdomen and invite the inhalation to enter the lungs by itself naturally, like witnessing a sponge absorb water, there is no need to force the water into the sponge it will draw it in.