Vitamin D and cheerfulness
As soon as the weather permits, I take my participants from the nursing home outside. Dear people, we are going to take in some vitamin D and cheerfulness!
It’s a fact that sunlight produces vitamin D, the building blocks for bones, muscles and your immune system. Research shows that going outside is essential for your health; physically, energetically, but also mentally. The outdoors not only keeps you in good physical condition. It also gives you energy and a positive mood.
Welcome
Together, we find a quiet and peaceful spot in the large courtyard garden. Once all the wheelchairs are in a large circle, we welcome everyone by jointly saying each other’s name. This gives everyone a moment of complete attention. We stretch, breathe and do a chair yoga dance to the Beatles’ song: ‘I like the flowers, I like the Daffodils’. We enjoy the sun that warms our skin and the airflow on our hands and arms that we create by drawing the sun in the air.
Aware of our senses
Finally, I ask people to be quiet. Let your thoughts come, notice them and let them go, just like the clouds in the sky. Become aware of your breathing: breathe deeply into the air outside and blow out anything that no longer serves you. Close your eyes and listen very carefully. What do you hear? Smell extra carefully, can you detect a smell? Soup, calls Gerda! In the kitchen they are preparing lunch.
Bubbles in the air
Let everything sink in, at this moment. Try to feel the silence in yourself now: your heart beating…, other feelings you can perceive. Let everything be there. When I ask people to open their eyes again, there are bubbles in the air. Choose one bubble and watch it until it bursts. Then choose another bubble. In this way I blow a lot of bubbles and we enjoy the silence.
Make a difference
Being outside, the silence and using your senses makes you really stop for a moment. In this way, worries and pains disappear for a while behind the sun. Do you want to make a difference for elderly people and people with a physical disability? Become a chair yoga teacher at www.chairyogaworld.com
