New Year’s Resolutions can the Alexander Technique help you keep them?

New Year – normally means new year’s resolutions. We start out with the best of intentions going on a diet, quitting smoking, cut down on alcohol or get fitter. January can actually be the toughest and most depressing time of the year for many reasons and then we go and set ourselves resolutions. It can really bring up a lot of familiar feelings of failure, shame and guilt which will pull us down.

Applying inhibition to your New Year’s Resolutions may mean that you actually succeed!!!  The thing about the Alexander Technique is that you can apply it to many aspects of your life not just the physical but also the mental.

Inhibition in Alexander Technique terms is giving our self the space to pause, stop, notice our reaction to whatever is going on in our life.  We rush around in our frantic lives with the daily stresses and strains without a thought of what is going on inside us mentally and physically.  We continue on our daily hamster wheel and then wonder why we feel exhausted, down and want to reach for that chocolate bar , cigarette, glass of wine that is calling to us.  Quite often, we are so caught up in our daily lives we lose sight of what we are actually feeling.  The chances are that we have the chocolate bar, cigarette, glass of wine and then wish we hadn’t because now we have failed, we have not kept our New Year’s resolution. 

If at the point we reach for the forbidden thing (chocolate etc…), we remember inhibition, stopped and just took a look at why we wanted it, we may find something out about our self at that moment.  Is it that we are really craving the thing that we cannot have,  is it just the fact that we have told our self that we can’t have it? Is it that we are feeling something else?  Is it because we are actually tired, upset,  had a hard day and this is what we always do when we feel like this, rather than address how we are feeling we reach for that comfort?  By applying inhibition and stopping or pausing for a moment to notice our reaction to that thought of having a glass of wine, a cigarette or chocolate, give our self space, a moment where we can make a choice, to become aware of our self. We can then decide whether we really do want that forbidden thing or whether we need to find another way of dealing with how we are feeling at that moment.

Try inhibition to stop that initial response to grabbing the wine, chocolate or whatever else it is that you want.  Take the time to notice and become aware of what is going on inside you at that moment.  You may be surprised by what you find!!!


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