Establishing a Daily Practice

After surgery or finding out you have heart disease, you may wake up one morning and say to yourself, “Enough already. I can’t take this anymore.” At this point, you may finally decide that it’s time to take matters into your own hands and DO SOMETHING to improve your life.

That SOMETHING may take various forms. You might decide to walk every day; ride your bicycle; eat differently; meditate; or engage in other stress reducing activities such as Qi-gong, Tai-Chi, or yoga. Whatever that SOMETHING is, you have to establish a daily practice if you really want the change to be permanent.

You can’t say to yourself, “Okay, I’m going on a diet until I reach 140 pounds.” If your eating habits have including high fat, high sugar or salt, and low fiber foods, you can hope that dieting until you reach a certain weight will solve all your problems - and they may in the short run when you’re eating more fruits and vegetables, and less french fries and burgers. But in the long run, you’ll need to change your thinking about what you’re putting into your mouth. You need to relearn healthy eating habits.

The same hold true for stress reduction. You can’t say, “Okay, I’m going to attend yoga class twice a week.” Again, twice a week is better than nothing, but when you get out of your yoga class, stop for a minute and really feel your body. Is it relaxed, less stressed? How soon after your class does it take for you to get angry and tense? Do you feel the cortisol and adrenaline coursing through your veins the moment you walk into the front door of your home and your children are fighting and the television is blaring?

I attended yoga classes twice a week six months before I had a heart attack - six months before I even had a clue that I had heart disease. Yes, I felt relaxed and less stressed after my classes, but I couldn’t sustain that peace and calm for long. Maybe I’d get a good night’s sleep after an evening yoga class, but the next morning, all the external pressures of my life seemed to close in on me and I’d be drowning in an overwhelming sensation of fear and anxiety.

Once I began my Lifestyle Change Program, I felt better, but the twelve-week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 3 hour ritual still wasn’t enough for me to sustain a peaceful existence. During my rehab, I supplemented my program by changing what I did outside of rehab. Here are just a few of the additional things I did: read spiritual books; attended 2-3 additional yoga classes a week; stopped eating beef and pork; ate more fresh fruits, vegetables, and fish; walked around the neighborhood; journaled my thoughts; practiced calming visualizations; meditated every night before bed; and listened to calming music. I supplemented my rehab by doing several of these activities each and every day.

I’ve read that it takes time to establish a change in your life, and I’ll be the first to admit I was changing several aspects of my life at the same time. After the twelve week rehab program, there was a short period of time that I felt a void in my life. For three months I’d been spending about twelve hours a week, including travel time, with a group of other like-minded individuals. Now, I was on my own. This was the test to see if I could sustain the changes I’d worked so hard to establish.

I did manage to stay on my new path, but I had to make a few more minor adjustments in my daily schedule. I began attending Women Heart support group meetings. This allowed me the opportunity to stay connected with women who were managing their life without the support of a rehab program. I arranged to meet with some of the new friends I’d met during my rehab program. A group of us now meets for a potluck dinner once a month. It’s the perfect way to exchange new healthy recipes and catch up with everyone. In addition to surrounding myself with others who have heart disease, my life also started taking other directions. I renewed my interest in creating stained glass, and I intensified my yoga by developing a daily home practice.

What does a daily home practice look like? It can be simple or complex, depending on the amount of time you have. I started my home practice by setting aside thirty minutes each morning, as soon as I wake up – before my shower, before my husband wakes up. This is a very quiet time in the house. I spend about fifteen minutes repeating a mantra and saying a prayer of gratitude for all that I have in my life. I found that focusing on the positive rather than negative aspects of my life made me happier. Then I spend about fifteen minutes in both static and flowing yoga poses. This helps stretch, lengthen and twist my spine so that I can move about my day without back pain. I keep it simple. If I set a goal to do much more than that, I’d get discouraged as soon as I’d miss a day of practice.

So if you are looking to make a permanent change in your lifestyle, whatever that change might be, consider developing a daily practice. Embrace the change with your heart. Stick with it. Don’t give up. It may not happen as quickly as you’d like, but with perseverance, fortitude and faith in yourself, it will happen.

What would you like to change in your life? Write it down and start today.