Action: Breathing | Comment: | Because in stress… |
Release the breath. Open the throat | Yawn, steam up a mirror. | We close our throats to hold our breath. Squeaky voice |
Then breath in fully – to belly and then the chest | Stand or sit taller and stronger. | We only use top of lungs |
Really empty lungs again. | Breathe out. Hah. Then more. Hahhhhh | We hold back |
Hold it there | Still small point of calm | We are usually in a hurry |
10 times | Focus | We are often distracted |
Then use top of lungs again. | Shoulder back. Proud. | We are too frightened to |
Put them all together | New habit | We have damaging habits |
Then explore powerful body language | | |
Hang head | Surrender | We are too proud to do so |
Tilt, rotate head | Loosen up, stretch | We are tight and stiff |
Open mouth wide | Yoga Lion face | We are tight lipped, controlled |
Loosen, flex jaw | Loosen up, wiggle | We clench our teeth |
Pull faces | Puzzled, angry etc | We overcontrol our faces |
Raise then lower shoulders | Exaggerate. Fast then slow | We both display and suppress our fear in our shoulders |
Rotate shoulders | Windmill, swim, punch | Ditto. And anger |
Twist trunk | Look behind you | We are rigid |
Touch the ground | With bent knees and then straight | We get very bad lower back problems |
Pelvis | Dirty dancing – Pelvic thrusts, shake that ass | We are too embarrassed about sexual display |
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Do it slow and long: First for 5 minutes, later for 10 minutes. Keep breathing all the time. I.e. put the two things together: breathing and movement. | Think of Nelson Mandela who did (much harder) exercise every day to stay sane. Note how hard to keep motivation. Left brain snobbery. Use a clock. | In stress we produce hormones and our bodies express emotions/impulses: Freeze, Fight, Flight, Search, Flirt, Surrender. But we are ashamed and suppress them. We lock the emotions/impulses in. Our bodies then feed back stress to our minds. This is a vicious circle. It can be reversed and made into a virtuous circle: Release stress. Clean up the blood. New messages to the mind. Quick, free, safe anti-anxiety treatment. |