Yoga teacher reveals her tips for finding some calm

“I was a very anxious teen and found yoga a great way to de-stress and chill out,” she says.

Lucy became a yoga teacher ten years ago.

“I opted for an intensive course over three weeks,” she explains.

“It was very intense, you have to do 200 teaching and coursework hours so it was a lot in three weeks. It was a tough 21 days with one day off working 6am until 7pm, but I did it and I do think there are benefits for getting it done that way.”

Alongside teaching classes at David Lloyd gym in Eastbourne Lucy also has her own studio – Anahata Yoga, which is on the first floor above Lucy’s business Eastbourne Framing Centre.

The studio holds 12 to 15 people per session and there are eight teachers.

“We have the studio space and a therapy room,” she says.

“We have sound baths, which works really well with the sleeping yoga, and we do counselling, pregnancy yoga, and reiki.”

Sleeping yoga or yoga nidra is one of Lucy’s specialisms.

“You get really cosy with blankets, cushions and something over your eyes and chill out,” she says.

“You lie there and I go through a meditation and go down the various levels of your conscious to your subconscious. I then give you positive affirmations to calm the chaos of my client’s minds.

“It isn’t like hypnotherapy where they tell you things to change with this you tell yourself things you want to change so could be I want to drink more water or I want to get outside more, but you give yourself the tools to change your mindset.

“People don’t realise I am going down the various levels of consciousness. They just zone in and out focusing on different words.”

The session is an hour long but Lucy says many people feel it only takes ten minutes.

The sessions are also available to download for 79p on iTunes by searching Lucy’s maiden name Lucy Newport.

“You can download the affirmations you need so you can do it at home, it is just an hour to take for yourself,” she says.

“Afterwards you feel as if you have had four hours sleep.”

Alongside nidra Lucy also teaches Vinyasa flow yoga.

“Everyone’s body is different, so it isn’t as much about where your knee or hip is but focuses on the flow of movement with each breath,” she explains.

“So someone who is a roofer or electrician who is up and down ladders will have different issues to a mum who carries a child on their left hand side.

“We all have habits like the side we carry a bag on so everyone is different so you need yoga that works for everybody.”

Lucy teaches three to four classes a week and she says that yoga can be there for people when they need it most.

“When I want to lose it in a supermarket I try and think of the principles to centre myself.

“I’m not religious but I am spiritual. So I may not always practice yoga but I do live by the philosophy so there are eight paths of enlightenment so energy work, and looking at the way you treat people.

“It is all about the power of positivity.”

During this uncertain time Lucy also offers some tips on ways to keep calm.

She says: "Firstly and probably most importantly know that nothing lasts forever. Even though this is a challenging time for all of us, mentally, emotionally and physically it will pass. The hardest bit is not having a time frame but cultivating trust that it will. Remembering something in your past that happened and concluded and noticing how that is now not current displays, that it will end.

"If you find yourself anxious, breathing really does help. Not just to create a pause in thought processes and worries but also alters our minds on a physiological level. In the time it takes to read this article, you are probably breathing in the top quarter of your chest and using only the same amount of your lung capacity."

Lucy says that there are two techniques that can help to active our parasympathetic nervous system or our rest and digest response, to relieve panic and to increase our lung capacity.

"One. To start with, take four slower breaths. Don't worry about depth of breath to start with.

"Then take a breath and count to four while you inhale. Following with exhaling and counting to six. Take a few rounds of these.

"If this feels good and you don't have any blood pressure issues or ill health, take your next inhalation for a count of four. Hold you breath inside (without straining your lungs) for a count of two. Breath out for a count of six. Hold the breath out of the body for a count of two

"Let the cycle start again.

"The second technique is used about the American Navy Seals before storming a building and it is used to calm and find focus and is called the BOX breath.

"You can use your hands if you need to but the more you practice it is likely that you can just travel through the body parts with your mind. Touch or bring your awareness to your right shoulder.

"As you breath IN let your breath travel to your left shoulder.

"Breath out and travel to your left hip.

"Breath in and allow your awareness to travel to your right hip.

"Breath OUT and travel to your right shoulder.

"Repeat as many rounds as you need to bring some calmness to your worried mind."

She adds: "Now more than ever, give yourself permission to do ....nothing.

"We are human beings not human doings and there's never been a better time sit and look out the window for 5 minutes, listen to your three favourite songs which will likely be ten minutes or have a 20 minute nap, and don't feel like you need to do anything else at the same. So often we watch TV while eating, or lay in the bath and look at our phones, if we can cultivate the ability to do just one thing at once or nothing at all for a short periods of time, we build up the ability to do it for longer and create a meditative mind.

"Mediation doesn't have to be sitting, maybe uncomfortably, when we start, for long periods while having no thought.

"Meditation can be simple pauses between the thoughts, reducing the frequency of chatter in the mind, all counts as mediation, so if you're just 'being' you are in meditation."

For more information, visit www.eastbourneframingcentre.co.uk or Facebook.com/anahatayoga

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