YMCA Healthy Living Magazine, powered by n4 food and health Winter 2019 | Page 3

FIONA KRIARIS
Fiona is a health and fitness professional with YMCA Victoria, who is pioneering
mindfulness and meditation at the YMCA, to bring a more holistic approach to health
and fitness. A graduate of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre in Los
Angeles, Fiona’s studies brings global leading trends to a local environment with
compassion and integrity.
STAYING SUNNY SIDE UP
THIS WINTER
Make this season sunnier by tackling winter with compassion.
Staying sunny side up this winter
As winter approaches, you often hear about ways to ‘beat the
winter blues’. Rather than treating the colder months and
shorter days like the enemy and going into combat with winter,
let’s meet those blues with compassion instead. Think of
compassion as the ray of sunlight that lifts your mood on a
cold, grey, wintery day.
Who cares about compassion?
Compassion is when you have a deep understanding of
another person’s suffering and you really want to help them.
The latest research is uncovering that compassion can have a
positive impact on your physical and mental wellbeing. Some
of the benefits include a more robust central nervous system,
improved immune system and better sleep.
Using compassion to improve your mood
The old cliché is true: to have compassion for others you need
to have compassion for yourself. This may be easier said than
done, but one way to develop self-compassion is through
mindfulness. Here’s a couple of simple ways:
} } Bring awareness to your thoughts, emotions and how you
treat yourself. Whenever you notice unfavourable, negative
self-talk, bring kindness and gentleness to yourself instead.
Through this awareness you can begin to change your
internal narrative, and begin to speak and treat yourself with
the same love as you would a friend.
} } You can also cultivate self-compassion by being in stillness
and silence. Research shows that meditating triggers
responses in the same region of the brain associated with
compassion.
Compassion gives us a deeper sense of purpose and meaning
by seeing other people as connections to ourselves, instead of
viewing them as ‘others’. There is a powerful ripple effect that
takes place with compassion. Like a feel-good version of a
winter cold, compassion is contagious; it influences and
inspires people to also be compassionate.
So what happens when the winter blues are met with
compassion? Your world becomes that little bit sunnier.
WINTER 2019 YMCA HEALTHY LIVING MAGAZINE
3