Relaxation Rescue: A Simple Self-Care Routine
(Tools for the Toolbox)
Let’s face it: for women, stress is everywhere. It lurks in every corner and around every bend, just waiting to “get” us. Study after study concludes that although some stress can be productive, prolonged stress can lead to chronic illness [1].
Yet, stress can only “get us” if we let it. Suppose we can agree that the mind and body are interconnected. In that case, you can decide to manage stress, take control of it, and instantly overcome the negative influences brought to you by your environment.
Now, stay with me for the “clinical” stuff. Scientific evidence supports that the body's stress comes from the nervous system’s “fight or flight response [2].” If you haven't heard this term before, this response happens when the body suspects trauma and instantly shifts into “survival mode” based on the stimulus of an oncoming stress factor. This “survival mode” response does terrible things to the body, including increasing heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and muscle tension. These are the bad boys that can lead to harmful changes over time [3].
Now for the good news: you can teach your body not to make the shift into survival mode. Please do this by retraining your body to create its relaxation response. How? Begin by incorporating these four proven relaxation rescue techniques into your own life:
Journaling:
Placing pen to page and channeling feelings into your journal can, what my career counselor called, unclog your filter. There are no rules to journaling either, although Julia Cameron, in her best-selling book The Artists Way, prescribes three what she names “morning pages.” These three hand-written pages are stream-of-consciousness thoughts scribed every morning as a healing, meditative process. If you’ll stay with me for More Miles to Go… I plan to help you use your journal as a tool to explore self-growth. There is no special equipment needed. I find spiral notebooks and ball-point pens work well and are highly portable.
Meditation:
Meditation provides an escape from stress by refocusing the mind on something else—most often the breath. The benefits of meditation counteract the negative stress responses by creating a mode of deep inner peace and physical health. It does this by slowing the heart rate and lowering the blood pressure. It also includes many other benefits, including those of anti-aging.
As I've so often told readers, there is no one right way to meditate. For our purposes, however, I will give you a meditative grounding exercise that can help you on your way.
Grounding Exercise: Sit with legs crossed in a comfortable lotus-style position with your hands relaxed on your lap. If you like, you can sit in a chair with your feet on the floor and posture tall. Please close your eyes and imagine a light beam dropping from the lower portion of your spine, connecting you to the earth and its center. Allow the light to expand until it is wider than your body and circles around it. Consider this your unique space.
This exercise places you in your body. It reminds you that you are anchored. Remember, the more grounded you are, the more aware you are. During your 10-20 minute meditation sessions, aim to sense the presence of your higher self and listen to its voice.
Mindful Breathing:
Practicing breathing through your nose and from the diaphragm can also help your body relax and de-stress. In the same way meditation calms the body, mindful deep breathing from the diaphragm can elicit a relaxation response that can calm the body and help you refocus in times of perceived stress. It will also work to counteract the adverse effects of the dangerous fight or flight response.
Here’s an exercise in deep breathing you can work on daily to help train your body for relaxation. This exercise will help you better utilize the diaphragm and help you retrain your body to intake oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide more effectively:
First, take three maximum breaths, inhaling from the nose and exhaling from the nose.
Next, as you take in your next three maximum breaths, focus on contracting your stomach muscles and increasing the size of your breath with each inspiration. Focus on feeling the expansion of your diaphragm as you exhale and deflation as you exhale.
Walking:
Walking is an exercise that can put you into a relaxed state almost immediately. I walk for fitness and have walked my way to weight loss (more on this later), but the best quality of walking is that it creates a sense of balance and flow with the body. It is also scientifically linked to cardiovascular endurance, as well as noted for its ability to counteract many of the damaging fight-or-flight responses we have mentioned above. For myself, I’ve invested in a walking pedometer and have made every effort to stay close to 10,000 steps each day.
To de-stress, try to find 1/2 hour each day to walk.
Relaxing Quickies:
When we become stressed and need a relaxation rescue, this is often when the slightest opportunity for a total relaxation overhaul exists. Yet, if we spend time nurturing our relaxation response using the exercises above, we can draw from the relaxation experience and the time for them will hopefully expand.
Therefore, by practicing the four exercises above in your daily life, you can learn to draw from the relaxation response when you feel the threat of oncoming stress. For example, when you feel stress coming at you, take a deep, relaxing breath, close your eyes, and draw from the calming energy of your meditative space, or take a quick walk to bring your body back into balance.
You will find the more you practice these relaxation techniques each day, the more often your body will involuntarily shift from fight-or-flight mode directly into that of relaxation rescue!
References:
Baron, Robert A., Psychology Second Edition. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon
Baron, Robert A., Psychology Second Edition. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon
Baron, Robert A., Psychology Second Edition. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon