Yoga, training and health inspiration for you

Yogic philosophy claims that we have all we need inside. All the resources are there for us to lead a great life. We have capacity and potential. It is just our stressed and imbalanced minds that tell us we don't have enough and can’t do enough. What we need is balance. But how do we find it? 

This is the third part of four in our yin and restorative December focus. Read part one here to get the introduction. You'll find part two here and part three here if you want more.

How we lay the bricks to a more sustainable life 

Our imbalanced minds limits how we see life, and we never go up on our inner mountain to have a look out, to see our surroundings, to see our scenery, to learn about ourselves through reflection and looking at things from a distance. Stress is just a thought. If we tell ourselves we are stressed, we become stressed. Stress is not something that happens to us but something that happens within us.

That is why yoga emphasizes reflection and meditation, since that gives us the tools we need in order to elevate ourselves so we can see the bigger picture. And so we can, over time, start to figure out how we can yoke our potential with our capabilities. We can only do that by trying things out, doing it again differently, and then trying yet again. We need to understand our potential and train our capacity, since life will always involve challenges and will always be a dance of opposites, or highs and lows. If we are better equipped in dealing with the dance of life (in yoga this is called lila) we will have a richer, fuller, stress-limited life.

The more we start to look into each polarity of being and try to find a balancing point, the better-equipped we’ll be, since we can gather forces from two spheres of being: the right and the left, the upper and the lower, the inner and the outer, the being and the doing, life and death, etc. Then we become humans par excellence. Then we can balance life and reach happiness since we have all we need and we live in harmony with nature and evolve accordingly.

So, yogic philosophy teaches us that if we are too much over on one side, we need to add the opposite in small dosages, little by little, until both polarities in us are more in equal balance.

Rest as an antidote to stress and tension 
We are taught to work hard to attain goals in life, and sometimes in pursuit of those goals we can fail to experience each passing day as full and complete. We only see the lack of the goal achieved. Life is living life, not putting living off for a while until you achieve a goal.

Many people think that relaxation is very simple. Just recline and close your eyes. Few people understand what relaxation really means. You are tired so you go to bed and sleep and think that is relaxation. Unless you are free from muscular, emotional, and mental tension, you are never relaxed. In order to relax completely, the inner tensions of the body, emotions, and mind must be released.

The antidote to stress is relaxation. To relax is to rest. Deeply. This rest is different from sleep. Deep states of sleep involve periods of dreaming that increase muscular tension. Deep relaxation is a state in which there is no movement, no effort, and the brain is quiet.

Find delight in the ordinary
Often you’ll find yourself using quiet moments as a springboard for the pursuit of some new, more exciting event. But if you can shed your intensity addiction long enough to experience the ordinary moments in your life, you will find that they are all doorways to the richness and vitality that live within your own heart. Instead of relying on a rush of external events to delight you, you will quickly find the delights of connecting to life just as it is, in this very moment. When you celebrate the ordinary moments in life, you begin to connect with all that has gone unnoticed in both your inner and outer life. Awareness begins to permeate not just the juicy moments but the plain ones, too. And you begin to question the human inclination to externalize both happiness and unhappiness. You start to examine the long-held belief that your sense of wakefulness depends upon intensity.

Restorative yoga provides the perfect antidote to stress because it creates a supported pause. By completely supporting the body and being still for extended periods the breath, the mind and the nervous system begin to calm. Different restorative poses can be used for different purposes though they all help to quiet the nervous system.

There are poses that open the breath and lift the spirits when we're feeling depressed, poses that are supportive and nurturing when we're feeling anxious, and poses that target specific parts of the body where tension accumulates. Another thing worth mentioning is that after one comes out of a period of exhaustion, the body carries more excess tension and excess toxins that need to come out. Therefor combining restorative yoga with some gentle weight training, maybe jogging and flowing yoga, is a great way of detoxifying and de-stressing.

Also, I cannot stress enough spending time in nature as much as one can. Being in its silence and natural sounds, walking, hiking or just sitting and watch its splendor. Letting natures arms catch and hold you and help you shred layers of stress and tension. Hit the brakes in your life, break out from the urban living for a while.

Do this and it will save your life, your holiday season with your loved one as well as building a stronger foundation for your upcoming 2019.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Parts of this text comes from my book RESTORATIVE YOGA.

This week's yoga & contemplation

Keep practicing your favourite sequences from this month. Which ones did you feel you needed the most? Do them! 

Contemplation of the week
I invite you to ask yourself and inquire around the following questions during the week when you have a moment before, during or after your practice

• Can I add more play into my life?

• Go outside at least 45 minutes everyday this week.

• Have I told people I love that I love them?

• Do I need to apologize to someone?

• What are the best memories from this year?

• What would I like to cultivate 2019? In myself and in my life?

Yin, restorative & mediation videos for this week

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Flow classes for the days in between

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För femton år sedan, när hon började med yoga, visade hennes kropp och hennes sinne upp i stort sett vartenda stressymptom som fanns. Ma Steinsvik levde så pass mycket i sitt huvud att hon  inte längre kände vanliga kroppsfunktioner som hunger och törst ordentligt. Långsamt hjälpte yogan henne att hitta in i kroppen, lösa upp knutar och få igång flöden. 

Yogan hjälpte mig att få kontakt med min kropp

Yogan gjorde mig mjuk och stark på en gång. Det tog mig ett halvår av daglig yoga bara att nå golvet med händerna, men jag gav inte upp. För yogan fick mig att må bra. Inte bara i kroppen. På köpet kom ett balanserat sinne och ett bättre fokus. Det hjälpte mig både i mitt yrke och som förälder. Men framförallt blev jag lycklig. Inifrån. Oberoende av vad som hände omkring mig.

Kropp och sinne i balans
Yogan är så mycket mer än bara en träningsform. Den är ett filosofiskt system med en 6000-årig historia. Jag brukar tänka på yogan som en skattkarta till att bli en bättre människa. För det är något magiskt med dess enkla kombinationen av andning, fokus och rörelse. Verktyg vi alla har inom oss och kan använda utan utrustning. Var och när som helst. Jag ser det om och om igen i yogasalen. Hur yoga-ljuset lyser upp människor, hjälper dem att läka och få ro. Det är som om yogan hjälper dem att hitta sig själva.

Ordet yoga ger några ledtrådar. Yoga är Sanskrit och betyder att förenas, att samla ihop sinnets trådar, att uppnå det som tidigare var ouppnåeligt. Yogamästare brukar berätta historien om sjön där botten aldrig syns för att vinden hela tiden blåser upp vågor på ytan. Men när solen stillar vinden, blir sjöns yta alldeles klar och vi ser skatten längst ner på sjöns botten. På samma sätt hjälper yogan oss att stilla våra sinnen och se in i oss själva. Då kan vi se vad våra känslor gör med oss, lära oss skilja på en situation och vår reaktion på den. Plötsligt kan vi välja hur vi vill agera i kaos och konflikt – istället för att bara reagera kan vi lösa dem.

Yogan gör oss smidiga, starka och friska – på samma för den in oss i nuet och skänker oss medvetenhet. Inte konstigt att man talar om yoga som vår födslorätt, som en värdefull visdom vi alla behöver. Den ger oss fokus att se vad som behöver göras i varje situation. Problem och konflikter blir inte längre oöverstigliga. Vi får gåvan att utvecklas till människor vi ännu inte visste fanns inom oss. Vi kan nå vår fulla potential. Blir hela, börja göra gott och bidra till världen. Och där möts yogans och julens budskap. För ur detta, att göra gott mot alla i vår omgivning föds den lycka och värme vi kallar jul.

Videor som balanserar

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Ytterligare läsning

• Balansera dina sju chakran, av  Eva Forsberg Schinkler
• Yin & Restorative: The art of pausing – part 1, av Ulrica Norberg
• Energipåfyllning och återhämtning, av Rebecca Carlowitz

Om Ma Steinsvik

Ma Steinsvik driver tillsammans med Anna Trane Mannayoga. Vid sidan om detta är de båda ledare i näringslivet samt flitigt anlitade föredragshållare och entreprenörer. De använder yogan i sin vardag för återhämtning, fokus och utveckling. I sina kurser och Workshops hjälper de andra ledare att uppnå ett medvetet och värdestyrt ledarskap via yogan.

Många personer med utmattning känner skuld och skam gentemot sina barn. Dessa känslor kan tyvärr förstärkas under december med alla högtider, traditioner och förväntningar. När så mycket annat har förändrats därhemma måste man ju i alla fall upprätthålla tryggheten och traditionen kring advent, lucia och jul. Eller?

Försök att prioritera närvaro 

Nej, den bästa julklappen till barnen är inte att bita ihop och låtsas som att allt är som vanligt. Att julbaka när du knappt klarar av att läsa recept är ingen god idé. Att ha den årliga adventsglöggen hemma för vännerna är inte heller en särskilt god idé. Och att tvinga ut dig i julhandeln eller sitta timmar framför datorn för att beställa hem julklappar är inte heller att rekommendera.

Dina barn vill ha din närvaro. Vår närvaro är det absolut finaste vi kan ge. Närvaro innebär inte nödvändigtvis att prata eller att göra någon aktivitet. Närvaro kan förmedlas i stillhet och tystnad. Verklig närvaro är så kraftfullt att små stunder räcker, om vi inte mäktar med mer.

Var snäll mot dig själv
Jag tror att de flesta av oss vill lära våra barn att livet kan vara tufft ibland och att det då gäller att prioritera oss själva och vår hälsa. Vi vill väl inte lära våra barn att svåra perioder är en avvikelse, ett misslyckande som måste döljas och pressas bort? Nej att visa våra barn att vi tar våra behov på allvar och att vi är vänliga mot oss själva när vi har det tufft är något av det bästa vi kan ge dem. Den gåvan kommer de bära med sig hela livet. Den blir aldrig överflödig eller omodern. Den gåvan borde bli årets julklapp varje år!

Övningar för en lugnare och skönare jul

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Läs mer om stress och utmattning

• 5 mindfulnesstips mot stress, av Mona Drar
• Meditation – en medicin mot stress, av Ulrica Norberg
• Tips på övningar vid utmattning, av Emma Öberg

A yoga practice is meant to fuse together opposites in order to attain balance, or equanimity. In life as well as in yoga, we want to add what is not there, to find better balance. So if we are stressed, rushed, and on-the-go, we need to add more relaxation, pausing and doing less, in order to get ourselves back into a better flow of life. The most intelligent choice in hectic times is to destress and to restore.

This is the third part of four in our yin and restorative December focus. Read part one here to get the introduction, and part two here if you want more.

What is restorative yoga?

Restorative yoga is a kind of active relaxation, since its techniques help us learn how to unwind, relax, and de-stress in order to reboot and restore our nervous system by taking as much pressure off our bodily functions as possible. The aim is to feel weightless. The way we do that is by using different props to support the body so we can let go of all tension. We stay in the poses for a long time so the nervous system has time to alternate from firing from its active part to its more restorative part. The aim is to communicate with the brain through the supported poses in a way that tells the body there is no tension, no danger anywhere. After a while, the brain gets the message and will lower the stress hormones and increase the life-enhancing hormones that we need in order to heal and feel well.

Restorative yoga is what I call a “lifeline” yoga practice. It helps at times when you feel weak, fatigued, stressed, before or after major life events, change of a job, divorce, through challenges in marriage, parenting, major holidays, and vacation—in any moment in life where you feel unsure, unfocused, challenged, scared or vulnerable. It also works beautifully as a boosting practice for athletic performance, creativity, and mood enhancement.

Restorative yoga is pretty clear: Grab the props you need, set yourself up in a nice space, settle into a pose, stay there, let go, and breathe. Pillows, books, blankets, towels—anything that helps support the body can be used to create a restorative pose.

Unlike other exercises, this practice places minimal metabolic demand on you and increases your energy rather than subtracting from it.

The benefits of restorative yoga
Restorative postures are a powerful way of rebalancing our energy. We can choose from a variety of poses to help achieve this: Backbends lift our energy, forward bends calm our energy, twists calm the nervous system and help with digestion, and inversions quiet the mind. And there are so many more benefits from restorative yoga: 

• All the organ systems of the body benefit from deep relaxation. Just a few of the measurable results are the reduction of blood pressure, serum triglycerides, blood sugar levels as well as an increase of the "good cholesterol" levels.

• Deep relaxation can also provide an improvement in digestion, fertility, elimination or reduction of muscle tension, insomnia and generalized fatigue.

• Restorative yoga helps to release tension on a physical, mental, and emotional level. Since our bodies store all our past experiences, when we let go of the hold on the physical body we often have strong emotional releases as suppressed emotions bubble up. For this reason, it's very important to create a supportive environment.

• Restorative yoga can be practiced by everyone. People who aren't physically able to practice asana, such as the elderly and physically challenged, can practice restorative yoga and reap the benefits of deep relaxation and energy rebalancing.

Yoga can help you self-heal
Our yoga practice should help us to live fuller lives. Our practice should help us climb a little higher every day, and if we climb too high, teach us we have to come down and rest, and next time, learn how to equalize.

We often forget the importance of pausing, calibrating, and equalizing. We often push and go full speed. But in order to get safely up our inner mountain, we need to fail, reflect, try again, push, rest, breathe, stop, go, do, be, and mix them all up in a nice blend.

That is what yoga is here to teach us: To find our own personal way, our own yoga, and our own balance where we see and connect to our fullest potential, becoming who we really are beyond all the reactions, beliefs, and fear. Yoga allows us to integrate what we already have—lots of tools inside our body, brain, and nervous system. The more we yoke all of our systems together, the more they work together.

For the longest time, yoga has claimed that we are self-healing creatures and that we can mend ourselves if broken. All we have to do is yoke the things we already possess: the gifts from our bodily systems. In yoga, we see that the nine systems in our bodies are connected and supposed to work in unison. When this unison is interrupted or distorted, then disease, stress, and imbalances appear. Therefore, yoga says, let’s yoke together the circuits of the systems again. These systems carry so much intelligence on their own; however, when united, we become full-powered beings that can reproduce (reproductive system) ourselves, evolve beyond the imaginary, and create wonderful things.

The power of the breath 
We need to find and clear the pathways for our systems to unite. Historically, the masters of yoga tried different ways and came up with body postures; asanas to connect different parts of the body with other parts of the body; getting the systems (muscular system, nervous system, and skeletal system) to work; and slowly finding each other through doing. The great masters understood that one system was superior in connecting all the other ones:

The breathing system (respiratory system), since it affected the mind and energy of the individual (endocrine system, cellular system), and in adding breathing with asanas they saw that the overall health and balance (homeostasis) improved dramatically. They learned that a person’s balance has a lot to do with how well the body circulates blood (the circulatory system), since the blood carries nutrients and oxygen to all the building blocks and maintenance stations in our bodies and brains.

Update your body and mind through meditation
Meditation in particular allows us to step away from the patterns and challenges in our life and see our greater roles, feel our places in the universe, and return to daily life with new perspectives. The expansion of ease, awareness, and prana (life force) that results from yoga is an expansion of our ability to live and follow your karmic path with ease and grace.

Before I started doing meditation and yoga, I often identified myself with my thoughts and feelings. I became them. Today, I have learned to view them more as patterns and reactions coming from my mind and soul. In looking closely at them in meditation, I learn a lot about myself in the now and how I function; and I begin to see what takes me out of balance and out of reach of myself.

Yin yoga and restorative yoga are two practice methods that both are mindful practices where one can look at and relate to reality and understand one’s relationship to it. Paying attention to something can be done in several ways. These techniques creates understanding, both of our current condition and of the reluctance or avoidance of being in what we perceive as negative or unpleasant experiences.

I often see my practice as updating all my inner programs, like when you are upgrading your computer, so they function better and can communicate more easily with each other, without friction or disturbances.

Parts of this text comes from my book RESTORATIVE YOGA.

This week's yoga and contemplation

This week the goal is to meditate on a daily basis. Try to find time each day where you move away from social life, sit yourself down somewhere tranquil and breathe deeply for ten minutes. That is your investment. Your lifeline. Your blissfood.

How to sit when meditating
In order to feel comfortable with sitting in meditation, we need to have a practice that works towards good alignment. All seated meditation postures aim for one thing: holding the back upright without slouching or strain so that energy can run up and down the spine more freely.

Contemplation of the week

• Can I try a little yang practice after my yin/restorative practice one day? Like a brisk walk, a jog or some gentle weight lifting?

• Can I maybe treat myself to a massage?

• Can I list four awesome things about life and living here and now?

Yin, restorative & mediation videos for this week

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Since the start of civilization we have emphasized the active life (yang) in some cultures and the contemplative life (yin) in others. Now we have the opportunity to explore both and find the appropriate balance between the two. But how do we find time to figure out what we need when everything around us is spinning so fast?  What does mindful living mean in a modern world? 

Find a balance between yin and yang

For most of us life today doesn’t offer any natural breaks. We eat lunch on the go and we are constantly online or communicating on phones, laptops and iPads. We may even try to do yoga while doing these other things. But to achieve deep relaxation and mental ease, we need a practice where we can turn our senses inward and quiet the mind. We can stately claim that the need for a more inquiry based, contemplative, complementary practice, is well needed in the life of the modern human and yogi.

Yin and yang can be described as two variables; they are either on the opposite ends of a cycle, like the seasons of the year, or opposites on a continuum of energy or matter. The opposition is relative and can only be understood through relationships between the two. For example: Water is yin relative to steam but yang relative to ice. Nothing is totally yin or yang. Just as a state of total yin is reached, yang starts to grow.

This is evident in the yin yoga practice, since after you have gotten deep into relaxation and mental stillness in a yin yoga pose, the blood circulation increases and you can start to feel heat inside. You are ready to mobilize energy into movement and weight bearing.

They constantly transform into each other, just as there can be no energy without matter and no day without light. The classic energy philosophy state that yin creates yang and yang activates yin. This falls true in one's yoga practice when your breath brings stillness to the mind and you start to flow through the poses. You experience inner heat rather than extensive sweat (that cools your body). This way the metabolism and circulation increases, and your body is enable to burn toxins and impurities better.

Different types of yoga
Yoga means “to yoke” together opposites. That is also what hatha yoga, the platform for all physical yoga practice. To balance the ha (yang) and the tha (yin); the solar (doing) with the lunar (being) aspects of the practice. In this sense, our yoga practice should be a blend of yang/out/action/contraction and yin/in/observation/extension to make the whole balanced and to affect our entire health to move towards homeostatis (the maintenance of equilibrium). Yang yoga is a more vigorous yoga practice that targets the muscular tissue and through movement creates heat. Examples of yang based yoga is ashtanga vinyasa, power yoga and anusara yoga.

Through the practice of yin yoga, one targets the fascia/connective tissue in the body, which makes it a marvellous therapeutic tool for healing bodily, mental, and emotional imbalances. Yin yoga is most effective when more active forms of yoga or exercise are also practiced regularly.

Let go of your own limitations and your preconceptions when it comes to yoga
The demands of Western culture can easily lead to low self-esteem. While there is usually room for improvement, we are all amazing beings just as we are. In a yoga practice we should just get to the mat, work within our limitations, and feel how we detach from all of what inhibits us, rather than get caught up in competitiveness without looking for some specific results.

There is a misperception that an “enlightened yogi” is passively accepting of all circumstances and will not care how she or he is treated or what her circumstances may be. Study and application of your practice will erase many of those misperceptions.

For example, there is no sutra stating that the true yogi never says “no.” Sometimes practicing truthfulness and respect for yourself, others, and a given situation may result in more action as you develop clearer boundaries and integrity. This has been my experience. Before yoga and meditation, I had little awareness of my own boundaries and I had never been showed to move inwards for answers. I searched on the outside instead and I had such a need for affirmation and acceptance that I never said “no.”

For me it took many years of practice and life lived in order to move more into sattva guna; to a more centered positioning in myself where I could speak of my needs. This spiritual maturity gave me the ability to better accept different situations and of letting go of things that doesn´t give themselves automatically.

To be a yogi, you just have to practice yoga regularly. The yoga will do the rest. Becoming a yogi doesn’t mean giving up the old you and becoming someone else. However, things that are not serving you well may fall away. As you practice yoga, you move toward the more intuitive, less fragile you.

The yogi way
On the other hand, being a yogi doesn’t mean you don’t have problems; you just have more tools for dealing with them. Yoga provides kaivalya, or space around your experience that allows you to have perspective regarding your problems and what to do about them.

In yoga, we work with tension and through different techniques we wish to move deeper into it, step by step, day by day, practicing again and again, until we reach its core. Then we stay with it and use releasing techniques like slow poses, visualization, breath, and silence in order for the tension to resolve. We need to slow things down in the core of tension so the bodily systems that have perhaps been drained of energy can take some time to recover new energy, and slowly the stress and tension release their grip.

Take a sponge as an example. We leave it close to water and it will slowly start to move toward the liquid in order to absorb it. That is the code, the programming of that texture. We can look at our own systems in a similar way. The more we use them the wrong way, the more we take away from their binary code intelligence.

This idea is shared in general in medicine and, similar to yoga (though carried out in different ways), its aim is to lower the thresholds so the obstruction of flow can be reduced in order to get the blood pumping and nerves to speak with each other again. Here they use medicines, surgery, and other techniques but with the same aim, in general.

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

So on the question regarding if it is possible to live more mindfully in the society of today I would say yes. And the first step is to start adding more slow style practices into your life. Add the natural breaks that your life is not handing to you. Otherwise life will runa away with you.

If you wish to read more on behalf of this topic, I have written a book on yin yoga called YINYOGA – An Individualized approach to balance, health and Self wellbeing available on www.amazon.com.

This weeks yoga and contemplation

Pick one of the two yin yoga classes below and practice this twice this week. Follow up with the recommended meditation right after. The other days work on balancing this class with some stability, flowing or strengthening classes.

I also invite you to ask yourself and inquire around the following questions during the week when you have a moment before, during or after your practice:

• Is there anything I can remove from my schedule that is not that important?
• Where do I experience stress in my body right now?
• Does my thoughts move around a theme? Are they pulling me towards validation? Negative criticism?

Give yourself this month of recurring stillness. Let go "yinside"! 

This weeks videos

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Are you running to fast and tend a bit lost? You are not alone! This is why I would like to invite you to a month filled with yin and restorative. To find inner peace in Christmas time, and a harmonious ending to this year. We'll start these four weeks tomorrow, but get a sneak peak here! 

Find the balance between yin and yang

December is a month where we try to desperately unwind all the stress and tension created by high expectations, a massive workload, managing several social events, endning the year in grace and prepare and enjoy Chistmas time. Yet, why do we run so fast? It is not like time will stop at New Years. It is not like you do not get more chances to improve or work.

My advice to you is to practice adding pauses. Say no to events you do not have to participate in and don't start any new projects on this side of the year. Plan for them instead. Focus on closure. On pausing. On spending time with yourself everyday. Both on and off the mat. Mix your social life with solitude. Time with YOU and those you care strongly for. Stop running. This month is a fantastic month to practice pausing, rebooting and restoring. Welcome to this month's theme: Slow Down – GoYin

Many of us strive to maintain a balance between yin and yang, the active and the passive, the hard and the soft. Both on and off the yoga mat. This month I will share some thoughts around ways to unwind tension, seek clarity, release stress and boost inner peace. 

This month will consist of four parts broken into four weeks.

Starting tomorrow I will guide you here on the blog and in our Facebook community BEYOGA365 with inspirational reading and video recommendations on Yogobe. Welcome to a month of going more yin.

Start december right...

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Stressa ner och kom i balans med Yogobes Julkalender! Varje dag fram till jul bjuder vi på en yoga- eller träningsvideo, helt gratis. Vi delar dagens klass på vår Facebooksida och klassen är tillgänglig för alla. Perfekt sätt att prova på yoga eller ny sorts träning! Läs mer om årets julkalender här.  

Så här fungerar julkalendern

Varje morgon mellan 1-24 december kommer vi att dela en ny video på vår Facebooksida. Sekvensen är tillgänglig i 48 timmar från kl 06:00 på den aktuella dagen.

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En svensk studie visar att en ny metod med samtalsgrupper på arbetsplatsen kan motverka utmattning och stress. Som sociala varelser behöver vi dela våra upplevelser med andra för att må bra. 

Vanliga orsaker till sjukskrivning

Enligt Försäkringskassan är utmattning och stress några av de vanligaste orsakerna till sjukskrivning. Med bakgrund i det har Linnéuniversitetet och Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting gjort en studie, där resultaten visar att samtalsgrupper på arbetsplatser kan minska utmattning och stress.

Så här gick studien till

Deltagarna i studien var alla i riskzonen för att utveckla utmattningssyndrom. De träffades i samtalsgrupper om 6-8 personer, plus en handledare, under 10 veckor i två timmar per tillfälle. Under samtalen fick de anställda dela med sig av problem, erfarenheter och ge stöd åt varandra.

Det fanns också en kontrollgrupp som inte deltog i samtalen. 

- Det är ingen terapigrupp utan snarare en grupp för socialt stöd, säger Rickard Bratten som är projektledare på Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting.

Resultat

Efter studien var det bara en fjärdedel av de som deltagit i samtalen som fortfarande visade tecken på utmattningssyndrom.

- Hemligheten är väl det som vi alla vet, att vi är sociala varelser och betydelsen av att få dela med andra, både vara stöd och ta stöd av andra, är viktigt och hjälper väldigt många människor, säger Rickard Bratten. 

Efter studien sammanfattas en utvärdering av arbetsmiljön utifrån samtalen (där tystnadsplikt råder). De arbetsplatser och organisationer som deltagit i studien ska sedan kunna dra nytta av utvärderingen för att se hur de kan förebygga utmattning och stressrelaterade sjukdomar på den egna arbetsplatsen.

Det har även visat sig att flera av deltagarna har fortsatt att träffas i grupp efter att studien avslutats. 

Här kan du läsa mer om studien. 

Videor som kan hjälpa vid stress

Yogobe Video: 5e4w Yogobe Video: 75he Yogobe Video: fw68 Yogobe Video: wt92

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