Keep Your Eye On The Horizon
Please read no further if you’ve had enough advice on how to live your life better.
While out walking our dog on Monday and texting a friend, this is what happened:
“How’s your week looking?”
“Steady ahead just trying to get a balance.”
“Keep your eye on the horizon, cap’n Ju.”
An exchange of a giff, a ship in a storm and the captain trying to control at the helm and a 360 degree video of my current position. You get the idea and then it began.
I tried, to focus on the horizon, looked up, looked around and felt a little change. I started to realise a few things from this very wise advice - most of which is probably not news to you at all, it’s not news to me either, but I need to get it off my chest or out of my racing brain. And I know there is a lot of advice spewing out there towards us all the time, that looking after ourselves can feel like a job and not a joy or natural pleasure, and perhaps this is becoming a form of body mind Facism where there is something else we are not good enough at, not doing well enough and if only we did these few simple things then? Perhaps?
The intentions are usually good and the people sincere and the fruits can be many. There is a lot if real stuff that works if you can keep a handle on it and not let it grip you too tightly, that would be counter-productive. So that’s the rub and I’m maybe adding to all that and making it worse. That is also not my intention.
So my apologies and please read no further if you can’t bear it, I totally understand.
But if you are still there, here are some of my thoughts on the Horizon idea which I happen to like and a few more:
1. If you’re on a boat and feeling seasick, this is what they say to do – keep looking at the horizon. It helps, your stomach stabilises as you look laterally instead of vertically. It makes sense that bobbing your head up and down and therefore the rest of your body is more jarring than looking from left to right. You can try this on the land to see how it feels in your body.
2. At the horizon the sun comes up and the sun goes down, both great things to watch and therefore the most incredible distractions if you have something difficult going on. Maybe this is meditation, focusing on something, usually your breath, while all around your there is noise and sometimes things you would prefer not to be going on.
3. And of course, new things will come over the horizon if you keep looking. If you want a nice popular culture reference, check out Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom in this clip from Pirates of the Carribean, I think Dead Man’s Chest 2006. Maybe big hoop earrings, sideburns, a bandana, perfect castaway eyebrows and immaculate skin/Hollywood make-up help too?
4. When you keep your head up, your throat is more open and you can breathe more easily, there is more room for the air to get up and down your wind pipe or Trachea. When your head is down it is harder to breathe, so looking off into the distance makes good sense.
5. I look down a lot more these days, the last few years, this could be mood and this could be looking at my phone - both don’t feel great for my long term posture or mood.
6. Has my crepe neck developed more quickly because of my mood or technology use? If only I’d looked up more during these critical years.
I’m trialling looking up in my exercise now but it may be too late to bring the elasticity back and the tide may have already turned. Already we know how texting has made our thumbs more dexterous than our forefingers. And unsurprisingly some of our back and neck problems are due to using technology so much, sitting down all day. So, standing up more and looking up more, should be on our horizon., sorry it just popped out. And the beauty and well-being industries are of course generously springing up to help us deal with this. But I’ll not go there today.
It feels great to look right up, the view, which we are underneath all of the time can be amazing and I’m not just referring to the sky and open, rural or coastal spaces. In fact, I prefer if I have to have a preference is to look up in cities and towns. And last week my students at the Architectural Association did a walking exercise, where they could notice whatever they noticed on a small predefined walk – one of them looked up most of the time and saw the shape of the streets so differently.
Anyway, your mouth should naturally open a little when you check the horizon, you can feel your lips wanting to do pull apart and then if you tilt your head all the way up to the sky, there is a little stretch - opening your mouth is much better and you can look up for longer. Your lips want to open if you fully relax. And if you’ve done a First Aid course, you’ll know all about opening up the mouth and throat, it can literally be a life-saving manoeuvre to open up this space.
There is more you can do for your mood, your nerves, really without much effort and the horizon is only one thing.
Here are a few and if you want to try them but are worried, talk to your doctor first please.
1. To reset your Vagus Nerve, which is the main nerve of the parasympathetic system. You can try the following - it’s fun to do. My daughter introduced me to it, she has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME as it used to be known.
Get comfortable and first look all the way up to the right, without moving your head, just your eyes, until you start to yawn. Let yourself yawn. And then, look all the way up to the left, again without moving your head until you yawn. Done.
The following link explains the systems in the body this connects to in more detail, Here is the opening section, If you don’t want a deep dive:
The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is one of the two functionally distinct and continuously active divisions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It is in opposition to the other, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The parasympathetic nervous system predominates in quiet “rest and digest” conditions while the sympathetic nervous system drives the “fight or flight” response in stressful situations. The main purpose of the PNS is to conserve energy to be used later and to regulate bodily functions like digestion and urination.[1]
There are a lot of variations and there is a fantastic book called Breath, The New Science Of The Lost Art by James Nestor which is absolutely great if this is your thing.
2. To consciously reduce your stress immediately try to some breathing exercises explained here on CNN. I was going to try to explain them, but it is better this way.
And finally, as a friend said to me just now, “check your nervous system, do not rush and ground yourself Ju. Make sure your bum is on a seat and your feet are on the ground and step into your power”.
There it is, the wisdom of another great friend and I am, as always, indebted and full of gratitude!
More soon.