Modern life is undeniably stressful. And mental stress can manifest itself in physical tension. Being more mindful will help you recognise these physical manifestations & even if you can’t solve the mental anguish if you can ease the physical signs that can help stress to subside.
If you ever come to any of my yoga classes or mindfulness workshops I will touch on this point frequently.
There are 3 areas of our body that generally hold a lot of tension & we are often oblivious to them: the shoulders, the jaw & our brow.
When we are triggered our body naturally flex’s in preparation to fight or fly & our body goes into survival mode. This protected us in cavemen days when there were actual life or death dangers.
Nowadays, modern days stress: being late for work; being bombarded by emails; arguing with a loved one pose an emotional threat that is as real to our body & mind as a physical threat.
The shoulders are one of the most common areas of tension. It is believed that there is a motor nerve attached to the muscles in our shoulders & the back of the neck that is linked to breathing. Once we get stressed & start to shallow breath, our shoulders tense up.
Just being able to recognise this tension in our body gives us an opportunity to ease this & thereby create some space in our mind. Gently rotating the shoulders forwards or backwards or shrugging them up towards to your ears as you breathe in & as you breathe out shrugging them dramatically away from the ears can shift this tension. And it is surprising how just easing the physical signs of stress can relieve the mental anguish.
Another part of our body that we tend to hold tension in our jaw. When we are stressed we often clench our jaw. When we notice we are doing this we can simply release our jaw. You can also open your mouth & just in front of your ears is an indentation. Press it & hold for 6 seconds & repeat 3 times. Finally you make a scissor shape with your index & middle finger, placing your jawline in the hook of the fingers & sweep firmly from the chin to the hairline 6 times.
Finally that spot between our eyes. Pent up emotions & stress can fester between your eyebrows and become visible lines over time. You can ease this tension away by placing your first 3 fingers in the space between your eye brows around the third eye & rotate the fingers first in a circle in one direction 6 times & then the other.
Practising yoga is a great way to practice mindful movement & become more in tune with your body. Whilst also becoming aware of our breath is another way to become more in tune with our stress levels.
We are beginning to understand that for each emotion we have a different rate in our breath. By taking slow smooth breaths into our belly, this sends a powerful message to our brain that we don’t need to fight or flee.
So by becoming more aware of the signs of tension in our body & our breathe we can help alleviate the affects of stress by mitigating the physical manifestations.
For more information on using yoga & mindfulness to manage stress email me at alex@myananda.co.uk