Good morning people! Early morning 😉 That?s my favourite part of a day. Nobody is watching then, nobody is walking the streets, nobody is talking to me. I love this short period of time I?m with me. How to start the day with a natural power to face another exciting day? How to be empowered and waking up with a smile? Here are my morning rituals that make me feel that?s gonna be the day of my life 🙂
I usually wake up a few minutes before my alarm clock. Yeaaah, that?s so common nowadays but I truly confirm it?s a real happening. I smile to myself or to the bucket of flowers if surprisingly received (or bought by myself just because :)). I love roses and even if it may seem to be so banal I have special relationship with them. They accompany quite important events in my life and I believe flowers have special magic power we can?t even imagine!
The first thing in the morning, to boost my day with a quick energy increase, I practice 5 Tibetan Rites and that?s what I want to mainly tell you about in this post. I found it shaping my mood and changing the way of thinking in time significantly and I truly believe in benefits of our morning moments celebration.
The Five Tibetan Rites (the Five Tibetans/the Fountain of Youth exercise) are five simple kriyas* that you can complete in less than 20 minutes. It?s said it will help you live the long healthy, vigorous life similarly to the Tibetan Monks. The Five Tibetan Rites are counted to be over 2500 years old. I recommend to reach out to Peter Kelder book titled ?The Eye of Revelation?. The roots of the Tibetan Practices are disclosed there as well as the stories of people who met Tibetan lamas and/or practiced the rites for long time in their lives and lived happy and vigorous life in good health. If done properly and with breath and intent, the rites can bring about great change in the body and mind. Not to present only general statements, below you can find more detailed benefits of the Five Tibetan Rites:
- Enhance memory
- Detoxification
- Improved strength and coordination
- Emotional and mental health
- Balance the chakras
- Reverse the aging process
- Sleep soundly
- Relief from joint pain and arthritis
How does it look like?
You can start from 3?5 repetition of each excercise and you should end up with 21 maximum of the same. You should never exceed 21 as it can harm your chakras and make your body tired instead of empowered.
Remember your breath is the key to every movement in yoga. Move with your breath, inhaling on the exertion and exhaling on the release. Also there are variations or modifications to each of these poses that will make every body able to complete these exercises in some form.
Rite 1:
Stand erect with your arms outstretched and horizontal to the floor, palm down (your arms should be in line with your shoulders). Spin around clockwise. Gradually increase the number of spins from two to 21.
Breathing: Inhale and exhale deeply as you spin.
Rite 2:
Lie flat on the floor having face up and palms on the floor along your sides ( you can place your fingers underneath your sacrum if you have lower back issues). As you inhale, lift your head tucking your chin into your chest. At the same time raise your legs vertically, knees straight, feet flexed. Slowly exhale and lower your legs and head back to the prone position.
Breathing: Breathe in as you lift your head and legs, and exhale as you lower them.
Rite 3:
Kneel on the floor, your toes curled under and your forehead tucked down toward your knees. Put your hands on the backs of your thigh muscles. Tuck your belly button up toward your spine ? Rabbit Pose. Slowly lift your chest and tuck your chin in toward your chest to bring your body erect. Move your head back while extending and opening through your quadriceps, belly and chest -Camel Pose.
Breathing: Inhale as you arch your spine and exhale as you return to an erect position.
Rite 4:
Sit down on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. Your palms are on the floor alongside the sitz bones and your fingers are facing toward your feet. Tuck your chin to your chest, drop your head back and raise your torso so that your knees bend while your arms remain straight. You should take a ?table position? keep it for a few second and go down. Rest for a few seconds before repeating this rite..
Breathing: Breathe in as you rise up into the pose, hold your breath as you tense your muscles, and breathe out fully as you come down.
Rite 5:
These are two standard yoga poses and you probably know them well. Lie down on your belly with your palms face down and in line with your bra strap. Press up into an upward-facing dog by curling your toes under, lifting your heart, and drawing your shoulders back.Look straight ahead of you.Then draw your hips up and back, extending your spine, into downward-facing dog pose. Flow through the poses back and forth concentrating on your breath and alignment. And of course you could combine these four sets of poses for a total of 21.
Breathing: Breathe in as your rise up into upward-facing dog; breath out as you push back into downward-facing dog.
*movements through two or more poses.
Curiosity 🙂 Dalai Lama practices the 5 Tibetan Rites! Look at him! He doesn?t look so young and vigorous. Just check it out and see if you like it. It may be the thing worthwhile 🙂
Now, as a second step of the morning routine (but before breakfast!), prepare and brink the lemon detox drink. There are many variations on this kind of lemon detox drink and you can mix it up however you want. I have tons more energy on days that I drink this in the morning and feel light inside my body.
MY MORNING LEMON DETOX DRINK RECIPE:
Take a glass of warm water, add a shot of apple cider vinegar (necessarily, it has to be raw, unfiltered) squeeze one fresh lemon and add a little honey(raw& local if available) or apple sirup if you can?t stand the taste of the vinegar. Also, you can add a hint of Cayenne Pepper and cinnamon. Drink it daily before breakfast and you will surely feel the difference in your body functioning. The ingredients all together help tummy troubles, cure hiccups, prevent indigestion, helps with weight loss, soothe a sore throat and boost energy 🙂
