Stress. Just hearing the word itself can initiate a physical response in the body for some people. In this stress series, Marie Hopkinson, Chinese Medicine practitioner gives some quick tips to reduce the effects of stress on your body.
- IDENTIFY the feeling or symptoms you feel. What do you feel in your body? Tight muscles, aches and pains, tiredness or lack of energy, do you feel excess of certain emotions? Common ones are anger, frustration and melancholoy. Stress can make us feel unusually flat or even depressed or just a bit moody. Sometimes you might even notice an overall inability to control your emotions?
- SOURCE OUT THE CAUSE – find out the source (or sources) of the stress. Sometimes these are things we can’t do anything about – a family member who’s sick, a boss who you feel uncomfortabe to be around, a co-worker who you have to work with on a team project, financial problems, “insufficent funds” are just a few. Take a few moments to IDENTIFY what it is.
- RE-FOCUS. Shift your focus off the source of the stress. There are many techniques to help you do this. MINDFULNESS practices are one way – things that let your mind go blank and focus on your body itself – like breathing, meditation can be useful.
Other REFOCUS EXERCISES:
- Go for a walk – if you work in a city office you might take a moment to go around the block or take a few flights of stairs up and down.
- Go somewhere else -physically take your body away from where the identified stress is. if its’ bills you need to pay, get yourself away from your emails, phone and pile of bills or work desk.
- Tai Chi Balls: IMG_9983 These not only exercise your hands, improve dexterity of fingers and hands, but they also exercise all the channels of the upper body, stimulating your Qi (energy)
- Use an acupuressure-mindfulness technique – focus your attention on pressing a point. When you have the Qi (energy) you will feel a heavy, tingling, numbness or aches sensation (not necessarily all of those feelings at once) at the point or going down your fingers. The points of the crease of the wrist (inside) all have a calming effect, especially good for stress is the point “Da Ling – Pericardium 7” as shown here:
with the acupuressure-mindfulness exercise, take a moment to calm and regulate your breathing. If you know abdominal breathing, use that. focus your mind on the point as you press it. Press the point, feel the sensation in the point itself and notice any sensation that might travel around the point, to the fingers for instance. Then make slow clockwise motions to stimulate the point with acupuressure. As thoughts come into your mind, let them go in and out, don’t dwell on them. bring the focus back to your breathing and the acupuressure. This exercise should only take 2-3 minutes when finished you should have a clearer mind.
Your are more likley to come up with a solution to your stressful situation after a short break from it, and certainly these exercises have the potential to alleviate the negative physical symptoms that stress causes…and these have no health benefit to our body.