The Benefits of Spending Time Alone

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Karen Morse

If you have been following me on Facebook this week, you will see that I have been exploring the city of Tokyo!

I think back to just a couple of years ago when I couldn’t bear the idea of eating lunch alone in a restaurant. Now, I’m off all day exploring a foreign city on my own! I’m not sure what I was afraid of before… Maybe I thought that people were looking at me or judging me? I’m not sure… but I love the freedom of caring more about what *I* want and what *I* think than a random stranger that I’ll likely never see again.

On Monday, I joined a Nia class with the lovely Black Belt instructor Yuki Maezawa. The biggest challenge was getting from my home base in central Tokyo to Suginami, which involved switching to a local train at Shibuya. Shibuya is by far one of the most crowded busiest places that I have ever seen in my life! It’s like the Times Square of Tokyo. The crossing outside of the station, known as the Scramble Crossing, is known to be the busiest crossing in the WORLD!

Photo courtesy of theguardian

The Nia class was very enjoyable! Everyone was very welcoming and spent the first minutes of class introducing themselves to me. The class was taught in both Japanese and English, but with the familiar moves, it was almost like no words at all were necessary. It was a wonderful start to my week!

On Tuesday, I spent some time exploring an area of Omotesando/Aoyama that I hadn’t seen before. I set off in search of Cafe Madu, which I’d learned of by reading a wonderful blog called The Expat Wife who has written wonderful reviews of area cafes & restaurants that I have found enormously helpful! (Expat Wife… if you are reading this, perhaps we could meet for a tea sometime? The setting and the food were very nice and afterwards I found two other places that I’d been searching for & unable to find before: The Aveda Salon & Aveda Pure Cafe (I peeked inside, but since I had just eaten, I added it to my to-do list…) & Nicolai Bergmann, another cafe where I’d like to have an Afternoon Tea/Cake set, which is adjacent to Nicolai’s incredible flower shop.

Yesterday, I decided to head to Ginza – probably one of the most expensive shopping districts in the world – for lunch at the Gucci Cafe. I’ve passed by this Gucci store several times on previous trips to Tokyo and always wanted to stop here for my afternoon cake set fix When I learned that they served lunch, I was off! The lunch set did not disappoint! My waiter was super-friendly and spoke excellent English (a huge plus for a struggling tourist). The food was incredible right down to the last drop of pistachio sauce along side my strawberry tart and fresh vanilla bean ice cream!

All in all, it has been a pretty great week. A few years ago, I would not have had any of these experiences because I would not have wanted to go off on my own & explore. Now, I look at it as an adventure!

My words of self-care wisdom for the week? Don’t let the idea of doing something alone paralyze you. It can be scary and overwhelming at times, but don’t be afraid to spend a little quality time with yourself. Life experiences are waiting for you!!

The Science of Sensation

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Karen Morse

Wow, what an incredible week this has been for me. I have been fortunate enough to spend the past week in Portland, Oregon training getting trained to teach the Nia Technique. Nia is a sensory-based movement practice that leads to health, wellness, and fitness. With much excitement for what lies ahead, I am happy to announce that I received my White Belt in Nia and am now a certified instructor.

One of the things that I came to appreciate this week was how important it is to use sensation to understand what my body needs. It has always been very easy for me to do things in a mindless fashion — eat quickly (often on the go), drive from destination to destination on autopilot, even moving to music via choreography versus having something in the music itself stirring movement in me. After this week, I have a new way to make sure that I am practicing mindfulness … to ensure that I am taking time to appreciate my experiences, both big and small.

The science of sensation is powerful. I’m not talking about feelings or emotions such as happiness or sadness. I’m talking about simply realizing how a part of your body feels and acknowledging it — your eyes after hours looking at the computer, your back after sitting in the same position all day — that kind of sensation. If you are relaxing, you might simply sense the softness of the fluffy rug underneath you. As an exercise in self-awareness, I encourage you to stop & sense. Is there any pain in any part of your body? If so, move in a subtle way until you feel that pain start to lessen. Are you comfortable and relaxed? Sense what that feels like and try to release even further.

Did this “click” for you? Please leave a comment below and share your experience!

You Can Dance, for Inspiration

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Karen Morse

I started dancing when I was about five years old. First, I was enrolled in ballet class. I still remember the sequined orange costume and frilly tutus we wore that year as “Florida Orange Blossoms” in my dance studio’s recital showcasing routines representing each of the fifty United States.

I eventually added tap and jazz to my repertoire, but I quit dance classes when I became a teenager because I thought I was way too cool and way too busy doing things teenagers do like three-way-calling all of my friends to talk about boys.

Aside from a semester of ballet in college that I thought would be an easy ‘A,” it was close to twenty years before I ever took a dance class again. I was vacationing at a women-only spa in Southern California, and the program offered about a dozen exercise and yoga classes every day. I didn’t think I had enough rhythm to join the cardio dance classes, even though they looked really fun. I couldn’t resist on the last day since I heard that a well-known choreographer from the east coast was coming out to teach the class. That hour was SO MUCH FUN that I stayed for the second dance class and had a ball dancing to tunes from the Grease soundtrack that I’d played about a million times as a kid.

Due to my job and other preoccupations, it was still a couple of years before I made dance (or any kind of exercise) part of my regular routine. I discovered both Zumba and NIA (the acronym for Neuromuscular Integrative Action) dance at approximately the same time. While both dance classes, the two are completely different. In Zumba, you feel like you are in a music video. You move non-stop, but it is so much fun the sweat and breathlessness doesn’t seem to matter. NIA is a completely different experience. While still a cardio workout, NIA emphasizes self-expression, body awareness, and enjoying the movement. After my first NIA class, I remembered how much I used to love to dance. Dance has a way of making us feel lighter in spirit, which is great for type-A’s like me who feel the need to control.

Dancing for exercise isn’t a new concept, (remember those infomercials for Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Richard Simmons?) but the popularity has increased in the past couple of years making it pretty easy to find a variety of classes no matter where you live. In addition to benefits such as a decrease in blood pressure and weight loss dance has also been shown to provide benefits such as improved mood and energy, stress reduction, and increased self-esteem.

A study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York with close to 500 participants aged 70 and older measured cognitive activities such reading and doing crossword puzzles as well as physical activities like swimming, golf, and dancing to see if doing any of these activities reduced the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Frequent dancing reduced the risk of dementia by a whopping 76% — way more than any other activity that was studied.

There are plenty of dance classes/styles to choose from, so choose something appropriate for your current fitness level. Start with beginner level class at first and move up as your confidence and skill increases.

Want to know how many calories you are burning? Check out this Calorie Burn Calculator for info on calories burned while dancing and tons of other activities.

The most important thing? Have fun!!