Isabelle Aulanier, workshop facilitator at the thalassotherapy Royan (inspired by Jean-Marc Ortega’s method, Third breathing School) Tao Gym, provides a simple and inexpensive way to practice fifteen to thirty minutes of physical activity at home to completely let go. Relaxed, there will be less desire to throw yourself at the fridge before dinner! Every day is ideal, but two to three times a week is already effective. The session includes 5 exercises performed standing.

Exercise # 1: Tap the whole body with your fists, leaving your wrists flexible. This exercise warms, energizes, and circulates the blood and lymph. Arms, stomach, chest, shoulders, legs, around the knees, thighs, buttocks, back, leave nothing out. You may also simultaneously use a fist on each side of the inner and outer legs, thighs or arms.

Exercise # 2: Shake yourself like a ragdoll, giving impetus to the body. Close your eyes, let loose and let go, let your head, arms, legs, and body move without intervention of the mind. The exercise lasts as long as necessary to relax, warm up, and feel at ease. Release your tension and continue, as if the earth itself is trembling, until your pulse takes place by itself.

Exercise # 3: Visualise a scarf rippling in the wind, or a cork floating on the water… Gliding, your body sways back and forth on your side. We become the scarf and the cork, and we live intensely in the moment, we are in freefall.

Exercise # 4: Box as if you are in a boxing ring. Fists to the right, up, down, to the left, moving faster and fasting, using all the space around you. Leave your mouth open, let your face relax. Then go even faster, and expel all your negative and disturbing emotions with each punch and each breath. This is an excellent exercise to release tension after a hard days’ work.

Exercise # 5: Complete your exercise with relaxing deep breathing. Inhale through the nose, and out of the mouth, the important thing is to deepen each breath and in each one, live a moment and paint a colour. Follow the colour that enters your being and runs through to your body, then expel it with a deep breath. The relaxing effect of this allows a release of negative emotions and putting the heart in synchrony with the body. Repeat this exercise four to five times.

Continue reading our report on how to avoid excess ‘end-of-year pounds:

Healthy diet to avoid the extra pounds

Physical activity to avoid the extra pounds

Rica Étienne