Hello Everyone,
I’ve always been higher on the trait of anxiety than I would prefer for a happier and less stressful inner life, and I know many of you feel the same. It’s unnecessarily exhausting to have to push through fear and catastrophising in daily life. It’s also tiring to have to manage excess stress and tension in your body, the product of a tightly-wound up mind.
So, I’m offering this series to provide anxiety management strategies, from simple mental health first-aid techniques, to more extensive, multi-layered approaches. My goal is for us all to feel at least ten percent less anxious in, let’s say, ten weeks.
I’m going to layer on one or two anxiety-soothing strategies or techniques each week, that work for me personally and professionally, inviting you to join me. You can ask questions and discuss what did or didn’t help you most, in the comments section.
If you know somebody who would might benefit from this, please forward them this so they can subscribe too. This online psychology service is offered free to everyone for the next ten weeks.
Super Simple Yoga for Stress Soothing
I’ve been practicing yoga most of my life, with periods of intense commitment and periods of not doing much for a while. I started going to classes with my mum as a teenager when I was struggling to manage my anxiety around exams in secondary school. I went on to study it intensely years later, train as a yoga teacher, and to run a yoga centre for some years while I was studying to become a psychologist.
Everyone can benefit from some yoga in their lives, but not necessarily full-on postures. What most people don’t realise is that yoga is actually defined as ‘the stilling of the movements of the mind.’
Physical asanas (yoga postures) are just one part of the system of yoga which is all about turning down the volume of chatter in our minds. Yoga also includes other aspects like breathing techniques, cultivating our ability to focus our attention, and developing mindfulness.
Mindfulness means learning to watch our thoughts and feelings, knowing we are more than them, aware that they come and go and we are still there, just observing. That awareness, that we are more than just our thoughts and feelings in any given moment, offers us a possibility of freedom from being swept away by every anxious thought.
Mindfulness empowers us to surf our waves of anxiety, panic and other unhelpful thoughts and feelings, rather than believing we’re drowning in them. It does however, take a bit of practice.
Week 1 Anxiety Lowering Strategies
1. Three minutes of gentle physical yoga (with funny dogs)
This first week I’m re-implementing some really basic 3 minute daily yoga. There’s a lot going on day to day and it isn’t realistic for me just now to do an entire class very often. What I can do is three minutes - it’s difficult to make an excuse for not managing three easy minutes, isn’t it?
I’m including below, a video I made a few years ago demonstrating 3 minutes of basic yoga, while my dogs muck around the whole time. It ended up being ridiculous, but I just watched it and had a good laugh, so I want to share it.
You can still follow the yoga in the video and get the benefits, despite the dogs playing up. Actually, I think maybe they make it more therapeutic because what’s better for anxiety than having a laugh at some funny pets, right!?
2. Ten full yoga breaths before sleeping
The second strategy for this week is the part of yoga known as pranayama. Pranayama encompasses breathing practices but prana refers to more than just breathing - it’s energy or vitality, your life force. In the full yoga breath you’re using all of your lungs and replenishing yourself, as well as stretching and releasing through the back and front of your chest.
The full yoga breath is calming and can help us settle down to sleep. I’m going to do ten each night this week, along with the 3 minutes of physical yoga.
Here’s how to do it:
How to practice the full yoga breath:
Three phases combine in the full yoga breath.
The first is diaphragmatic or abdominal breathing.
With an inhalation, the diaphragm (the muscular sheath between the rib cage and the abdominal cavity) moves downwards and the abdominal wall moves outward. On the exhalation, the diaphragm moves upward, pushing the air out, and the abdominal wall flattens.
The abdominal breath forms the basis of breathing, massaging the abdomen on every breath, even helping to ease the lower to mid back. It is the opposite of a high sharp nervous breath.
The second part of the full yoga breath involves the mid-chest area.
On the inhalation, the ribs move apart so that the chest expands back, front and sides, like a barrel. On the exhalation, the ribs return to their original position.
The final phase of the full yoga breath involves the collarbones or upper chest area.
The last bit of air you can gently fit in, flows into the top of the lungs. On the inhalation, the upper part of the chest and collarbones are lifted. On the exhalation, they lower again. This third part of the full yoga breath is small.
In a healthy, deep and relaxed breath, all three areas take part. Each is united into a flowing wave, which usually proceeds from the bottom to the top of the lungs on the inhalation, and from the top to the bottom on the exhalation.
I like to count to 10 on each inhalation and 10 on each exhalation. You don’t have to hurry the tiny pause between breaths. Just observe and allow.
Let’s do these two things for a week, then layer in some more strategies.
Love to you,
PS. Please send me any psychology or mental health questions you would like answered in the Deb Does Therapy newsletter and I will do my best to help.