Saturday, November 24, 2012

Destress

Rush....Rush....Rush......Breathe

Breathing is good.  At school, I was pitching huge quantities of old papers.  Found a buried treasure, a list of One-minute, Five-minute, Fifteen-minute, Thirty-minute, and One-hour Smoothers.  Holidays tend to bring on the stress with hardly a minute to spare so I thought I would share the One-Minute Smoothers.  Hopefully there is something for every one to give yourself a quick recharge of energy.

  • Take four long, slow breaths, and as you exhale, imagine that a gray cloud of stress, worries, or troubles is leaving your life, and as you inhale, imagine that peace and love and wisdom are filling you up.
  • Take your shoes off, rub the bottoms of your feet with your knuckles, and massage the joints and tips of your toes.
  • Smell something nice, like an orange or your child's hair, or put on a dab of perfume.
Roll your head around to loosen your neck.
  • Splash water on your face.
  • While standing, bend over to touch the floor, shake your arms loosely, and straighten up slowly as you take in a big breath.
  • Look at something pretty.
  • Knead your neck and shoulders.
  • Nibble something good.
  • Rub your eyes and the bones around them gently.
  • Hug your child or partner for one whole minute.
  • Stretch your mouth open as wide as you can, like a lion roaring, and then let your face relax.
  • Remember a good joke.
  • Repeat a favorite saying or prayer to yourself.
  • Courtesy of http://life.familyeducation.com/parents/stress/35846.html

The list is for me to remind me what I need to do when I feel anxiety creeping up to unmanageable levels.  I hope the lists help you too.

1 comment:

Ruth said...

Hopefully reposting this resolved the problem of an extra box floating around. Sorry for the error.