As part of our continued focus in crew on wellbeing and things we can do to have a more positive impact on our mental health we started this morning by ‘saluting the sun’. This is a flow of yoga poses & stretches that focus on breathing and self awareness.
Before we took part in the activity we did a purposeful check in where I asked everyone to use a maximum of 3 words to describe how they feel. This was their list:
Cold
Tired, happy, Cold
Fine
Tired & Sleepy
Tired
Tired and anxious
Tired and cold
Tired and cold
tired and cold
Pleased, tired and disappointed
unsure
Tired, emotional and annoyed
We then completed the activity by doing the yoga poses and stretches 5 times. The final 2 times were lead by Tom who seemed to have a really good grasp of directing the flow and sequences of the activity.
After we completed it we sat back in our circle and I asked them again to use a maximum of 3 words to describe how they feel now.
This was theIr list in the same order:
Energetic
Happy and tired
Fine
Fine
Awake
Tired and relaxed
tired
tired
tired but less cold
A bit calmer
unsure
Tired (and in pain from stubbing toe)
As you can see overall there was a positive impact from engaging in the activity, where previously most of crew commented on being cold, tired and sleepy to now feeling more awake, less cold and more relaxed.
As a crew we decided that we’d be happy to try other methods of relieving stress and anxiety during our crew sessions.
p.s I tried to take some photos but they were having non of it!