The Body says:
I am a fiesta.
—Eduardo Galeano
Here's an easy practice to press your reset button. It quickly gets your brain and body producing harmony-hormones instead of stress-hormones.
Take-Anywhere, Awesome Reset Practice:
- Big stretch
- Yawn
- Sigh out loud with a sound, Ahhh
- Follow the warmth, release, flow
- Three breaths, in nose, out mouth with a sigh.
- Enjoy the stillness
Say you've been slumped over looking at your computer for several hours. Did you know that the brain reads posture like opening a software program!
When you are slumped or hunched over, you literally can’t get a full breath: your lungs can’t fully expand because your ribs are contracted. The result is that blood flow—and thus the amount of oxygen delivered to your brain—is noticeably less. Here comes the software program part:
Because there is less blood delivered to the brain, and thus less oxygen to the brain, the brain reads "less oxygen" as "threat." The brain doesn’t know you are just sitting too long staring at a screen. Instead, it reads the less oxygen as threat and signals your organs to produce hormones that deal with threat, and you start to feel a vague background sense of unease.
In order to wash the stress hormones out of your system and bring a brighter view of life back online try the following. You can do this seated at your desk:
- Stretch your arms up and arch your back
- Yawn—a big one—show your fillings!
- Make an audible sigh while you sigh, a sound, ahhhhhh. Making this kind of actual sound signals to your nervous system the you are safe.
- Follow the warmth, flow, release from the stretch and yawn. Savor these feelings, like you'd savor a bit of biscotti dipped in a latte. Sit with the pleasure a few moments.
- Now slowly breathe in your nose and out your mouth three times with an audible sigh on the out breath.
- Lengthen yourself by "finding your sits bones”— wiggle your sits bones a few times, then let your spine rise from your pelvis, and sense your head floating naturally on top of your spine. It’s fine to use the back of the chair for light support. Don’t “sit up straight” as that is effortful. Instead find your sits bones and your body will naturally find peace with gravity.
- Finally, visualize something beautiful or remember a kind act you witnessed.
- Then "take the elevator down" into your chest and let the felt sense of this fill you for a moment.