6 Ways to Tune in to Your Body and Soothe Your Stress
To effectively combat stress, you need to activate your body’s natural relaxation response.
Moments of stress are inevitable in life. You leave your laptop on the train. You slam on your brakes to avoid a car accident. You trip and spill coffee down your shirt before a meeting.
Mini-dramas like these can startle your nervous system and activate the stress response – a rush of adrenaline that prepares your body for ‘fight or flight’, which is our natural defence against danger. Your heart beats faster, your breath becomes shallower and everything in your mind and body becomes focussed on the stressful situation.
This stress response is perfectly healthy, as long as it’s followed by rest and rejuvenation. If you stay in the ‘fight or flight mode’ for too long, or if you are constantly in and out of it, it can play havoc with your wellbeing.
Luckily, it’s possible to learn to soothe your stress and rebalance your nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest), the part of the nervous system that calms us down.
Here are six body-based practices for doing just that:
A Deep Sigh
A deep sigh is your body-brain’s natural way to release tension and reset your nervous system. When we exhale for longer than we inhale, the vagus nerve (the nerve that transfers messages from the brain to the body) sends the signal to ‘switch off’ the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and ‘switch on’ the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
2. Massage
Massage can give us a good dose of calming and loving feelings through oxytocin stimulation, the brain’s direct and immediate antidote to the stress hormone cortisol. You don’t need an expensive trip to the spa to experience the benefits though - you can get the same oxytocin hit at home or at work by practicing self-massage.
Try taking a few minutes to massage your hands, feet or temples at your desk between meetings, on the couch at the end of a stressful day, or in bed to help you relax before sleep. (for some added indulgence, try incorporating your favourite oils or scented lotions)
3. Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)
This is a type of meditation that involves going through the major muscle groups in your body, tensing and relaxing them, and noticing the difference in sensations (such as warmth, tingling or pressure). Research has found that PMR activates the parasympathetic nervous system and shifts your physiology into a more relaxed state. Combine this practice with some deep breathing and see if you notice an ‘everything is okay’ sense of reassurance wash over you.
4. Mindful Walking
Trying to focus on your body while you remain still can be challenging for some people (it may be triggering or cause anxiety). If this is the case, try going for a mindful walk. Mindful walking is pretty simple – all you need to do is notice the sensations in your body as you walk. Notice your feet on the ground or the movement of your muscles, especially as you encounter different surfaces beneath you. Notice what your legs, arms, spine, and head feel like as you walk. You might be able to detect subtle shifts in your pulse, body temperature, or breathing rate before, during, and after you begin moving.
Using mindfulness to stay focused on the present might seem straightforward, but it takes practice to reap all the benefits. When you first start practicing, you’ll probably find that your focus keeps wandering but don’t be too self-critical! Each time you draw your focus back to the present, you’re quietening the sympathetic nervous system and strengthening a new mental habit that can help you break free of worrying about the past or stressing about the future.
5. Shake it off
Take a lesson from Taylor Swift and shake your body to release tension and regulate your nervous system. The idea of shaking may not sound particularly soothing but in his book “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma”, Dr. Peter Levine notes that animals can be observed shaking to release tension and stress. The shaking or vibrating helps to release muscular tension, burns excess adrenaline and can activate the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
6. Yoga
Yoga is one of the most well-known and widely practiced forms of body awareness exercise. Many yoga practices including quiet asana, slow breathing, meditation and guided imagery, which increase activation of the parasympathetic nervous system and lead to relaxation. Yoga techniques are more than just relaxation, though. Some more vigorous practices actually activate the stress response. One of yoga’s secrets is that more vigorous practices followed by relaxing ones lead to deeper relaxation than relaxing practices alone and actually ‘train’ our body to quickly recover from stressful moments.
The Bottom Line
The ability to put your body into a parasympathetic state can be an amazing life skill, but it begins with developing ‘body-based awareness’ (also called ‘somatic awareness’). Body-based awareness simply means listening to your body and paying attention to its sensations.
As easy as it might sound, we often don’t notice our physical reactions to stressful moments because our focus is typically on the cause of our stress, not how it impacts us. But whenever you experience stress, it can be located somewhere in the body. Once you know how your body responds to stress, you can use this knowledge to respond appropriately and recalibrate your nervous system.
I am an integrative therapist on a mission to normalise conversations about mental health and to remove the stigma of seeing a therapist.
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