National Women’s Health and Fitness Day

By Virginia Beck

This month, we will celebrate wellness for women. The National Women’s Health and Fitness Day is Sept. 24.

Take care of women and they will take care of everyone. Moms and dads frequently lose out on their own workout, while managing the kids. Planning family activities can help with this. Balancing self-care with other care takes practice.

Vacationing on Kaua‘i or dealing with the daily struggle with schedules, the key elements to success lie in one word – balance. Everyone has the same complaint about time: not enough.

Yet, time expands and loses its limits when our senses are totally focused on the present moment. We deepen our breath unconsciously, stretch and tap reserves of healing, restoring ourselves physically, emotionally and mentally.

Stop to watch a child make a goal in sports, and you are totally present. Take a few deep breaths before heading into the store, or answering that email, and you are restoring your inner wellness reserves. Stop the electronics and step into life.

Noticing the heart-stopping beauty of an immense wave collapsing into billowing foam along the beach; the giggles and shrieks of kids playing at the water’s edge; or brief moments of sun-kissed bliss while walking to the post office: All these small moments can relax, de-stress and restore our inner sense of balance.

The sheer physical beauty and opportunity for outdoor living on Kaua‘i, gives each of us the chance for mini-vacations, no matter how short. Some deep breaths with that first cup of coffee or tea and the sunrise; and you reset the wellness clock. Time off the clock heals.

Virginia Beck

B.K. Iyengar, the amazing yoga teacher, vibrant into his 90s, said, “Yoga allows you to find a new kind of freedom, one that you may not have known, existed.” Yoga is great for finding that balance of inner and outer worlds.

For beginners, try Restorative Yoga with Maggie Clute at the Anara Spa at the Hyatt in Po‘ipu, or with Heidi Alvarez-Paul at the Kalaheo Yoga center. This gentle introduction uses bolsters and padding to support you in poses you would never imagine you can do. The slow holding of a position, allows the soft tissues of your body to gently melt and elongate.

You will think time has stopped, and your life will give you the time out that we all desperately need.

• Virginia Beck, NP, Certified Trager Practitioner®, does private Wellness Consulting and Trager ® practice at the YWCA Women’s Center in Lihu‘ She is part of the Women’s Health Team at West Kaua‘i Clinics, and can be reached at 635-5618.