Candid advice on how to get energy and keep it
Date last updated: 6:43 pm Sep 17th, 2006
What yoga does for me is connect my mind, body and spirit. Its physical exercise, but it slows me down enough to feel my emotions.
 Above, Anne Barry Jolles, at right, is a personal coach at coaching Connections in Hanover. At left is Darlene Calcagno, a client. Photo by GARY HIGGINS/For Living Well |
She pressed her palms firmly on the mat. Her breath calmed her. It brought in the good energy, expelled the bad. She engaged her shoulders and rolled them down her back. She stretched her back and raised her tailbone to the ceiling, with back and legs perfectly straight, pressing into the floor with her heels.
Another deep breath and she was brought back to herself.
Maria daSilva, 49, of Plymouth uses yoga to energize herself.
Yoga helped her create a healthier lifestyle and has lifted the burdens of Crohn's disease, a condition that zapped all of her energy.
"My energy level is boundless," daSilva says.
"What yoga does for me is connect my mind, body and spirit. It's physical exercise, but it slows me down enough to feel my emotions," she says.
DaSilva experienced abdominal pain, bloating, bleeding and other crippling symptoms for several years. The mother of two boys says she was "wasted" at the end of each day.
"I would make it through the school day but have no energy left for my family," says daSilva, who is an English teacher to middle and high school international students at Plymouth public schools.
"My 10-year-old son would ask me to tuck him in at night and I would have to tell him how sorry I was that I was too tired and just could not get up."
DaSilva's struggles began at an early age. She came to the United States from the Azores before entering first grade. Her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and seven years later suffered a stroke.
After she was diagnosed with Crohn's five years ago, daSilva learned that yoga is a way to de-stress. She meditated and listened to yoga tapes to help her relax her mind. She then found a local studio.
She cried at the end of her first class at the Yoga Connection in Plymouth.
"I had released so much," she says. "I felt like a teenager in love for the first time."
Barbara P. Ward, Yoga Connection's co-director and teacher, says: "Yoga gives people a chance to connect to something that's always been there. The breath, or life force we call prana, is absorbed into the trillions of cells in the body. That prana creates energy and peace. We lose our energy and our sense of peace in our daily lives through our encounters with the stresses of our environment.
"The deep conscious breathing, the deepened awareness of our thoughts, feelings and physical body give us back a better sense of who we really are."
Ward, who turns 67 in March, began her journey into yoga in the midst of the feminist movement. Then the mother of two small children, she questioned where her life was going and realized she had to find a place just for her. That place was yoga.
As a licensed psychotherapist, Ward incorporates yoga into her practice. Ward says her first-time yoga students get their best sleep after they start yoga.
Another yogi and teacher, Maureen Spencer, 51, says yoga without spirit is merely gymnastics. It's about more than getting a better butt, she says; it's a practice of mind, body and soul.
A registered nurse and owner of Finding Inner Peace in Abington, Spencer says the physical part of yoga makes the body steadfast, stable and flexible.
Also a reiki master, Spencer compares the body's energy to the light in a house. Wiring behind the walls brings electricity to light up the house.
"If you don't have enough energy coming into an organ, then you'll get disease," Spencer said.
A jolt of exercise
While yoga brings a peaceful, easy energy lift to the mind, body and spirit, a run on the treadmill or a ride on the bike can kick your energy level up a notch.
"Exercise oxygenates the blood and releases endorphins in the brain," says Kevin Seery of Scituate, owner of U.S.A. Swim & Fitness Center at the Dedham Hilton. "It gets you moving.
"A person who doesn't exercise is like running a 1966 Studebaker on regular gas compared to putting high test into a Ferrari," he said.
With 20 years experience, Seery, 39, takes joy in seeing members go from the stagnant Studebaker to the energetic Ferrari.
When Geno Duhaime first wandered into the club, he weighed 30 pounds more than he does now. With family obligations and long hours at work, he chose to carve out time to ride the exercise bike. Between the exercises and his change in eating habits, he says he feels energized.
"I have a lot more burst during the day," Duhaime said.
Gerry Weidman, 62, renewed his membership two months ago to help bring his body's immune system back in sync after his struggle with cancer.
Still in treatment, Weidman is determined to get up to speed on the treadmill.
"I refuse to let cancer beat me. I won't quit," he says.
Seery says everything that goes into a cancer treatment brings the body's immune system down to zero.
"Once those treatments are over, you've got to start from scratch and the only way to re-energize yourself is to get back on a treadmill or back into any exercise program."
Nutritional lift
With the muscles toned and the mind aligned, the body gets energy from the fuel that is put into it.
"We run on the food we eat," said dietitian Priscilla R. Mitchell of Marshfield, who works at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth.
A bowl of cold cereal with skim milk and a glass of juice may do the trick to start the day, but any energy is quickly drained. To keep the body going faster until the afternoon, Mitchell recommends a meal that has more protein, which ups your energy levels, like cottage cheese and cinnamon, or an egg with peanut butter on whole grain toast and berries.
Dr. Katherine Tsaioun, a nutritionist, stresses good nutrition goes beyond what you eat.
While many of her patients report increased energy after changing their diets, Tsaioun says the energy comes more from the lifestyle changes her patients undertake more exercise and more sleep.
"Along with exercise you should have a calorie-mindful, varied diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and relatively low amounts of processed packaged foods and restaurant foods especially fast foods and junk foods," she says.
A new approach
As a personal coach, Hanover's Anne Barry Jolles says people come to her for a variety of reasons.
"Some come for a specific reason and project while others come for general life tune-ups, seeking more satisfaction and meaning in their lives," she says.
Darlene Calcagno, 47, of Hanover realized she needed encouragement to get more happiness and more energy in her life. She stumbled upon Jolles' Coaching Connections a couple of years ago, winning a three-month gift certificate at a silent auction.
Calcagno says Jolles would ask her to consider, "When do I feel my best? What is it that I'm doing? How can I get more of that in my life?"
Jolles says it's not what's in your life that is important, but how you respond to what is in your life.
"We hear about life balance when people talk about coaching, but our experience tells us there is something bigger than balance," Jolles says. "It's bounce. Is there a bounce or a thud when life comes along?
"Even with organization skills, life will still give us unscheduled potholes."
Stay positive
Dr. Alexandra Accardi, medical director of Nova Psychiatric Services in Quincy, says negativity can zap your strength and energy by influencing the way you see and approach life's challenges.
She suggests people take a personal inventory of what they've been doing, what has or has not been working for them, and be able and willing to seek the answers they need.
"If you feel you need a professional's advice, be receptive to that possibility," she says. "If you prefer a more holistic approach, pursue that go to a health club, a nutritionist or even an acupuncturist. Seek advice from self-help books and groups as there are many community resources available on how to take care of the total person.
"It does the soul and the mind a great deal of good to take the time to mend the body and reach a mentally, spiritually healthy outlook, and if you achieve the appropriate balance on a personal level, it can only enhance your outcome," Accardi says.
Copyright 2005 The Patriot Ledger