Black Friday Stress Relief

Ok. It's Black Friday that infamous shopping day after Thanksgiving here in the United States. You have been dealing with family all day yesterday. You have been cooking, traveling, or hosting guests. You spouse, parents, or children are all on at you to do 1 million things today and the dog has just dragged the table scraps out of the garbage.

It's safe to say you might be experiencing some stress. Family, pets, holidays are all wonderful things but even wonderful things can stress us out and make for reduced immunity, headaches, and a general sense of tiredness. So without asking you to meditate, take up Yoga, or even Tai Chi I'm going to give you an early Christmas present. I'm going to give you two excellent exercises for relieving your stress.

Body Attention for Healing Exercise

The first one is simply paying attention to your body. Go someplace quiet (the bathroom works great) and take an imaginary tour around your body. Start with your head and proceed feel all the parts of your body, pay attention to everything you can but don't sweat the details. If you feel an ache or pain just sit there and bathe it with attention and see what happens. (This exercise also speeds recovery from injury and illness) But you must be certain to just look at your body. Don't try to make stuff happen as that simply makes more stress. You simply pay attention to the body itself. If you do this before sleeping at night you may just get rid of insomnia for good.

 Instant Control Exercise

This is one of my favorites because it is so simple and so effective. When you feel overwhelmed or out of control simply pick a spot on the wall. Then go touch that spot with your index finger. You have chosen a goal and taken the proper action to achieve it. This may not sound like much but it has saved me many times when I was feeling out of control. The illusion that we can't control our lives is very strong so choosing a simple action like this can reveal that we still do have power in the situation. From touching your spot on the wall you can build up to organizing, cleaning, cooking, or whatever else you need to do.

Relax and Breathe

Just remember this is your life. You have the right to be in control and to let go of stress. Choose to do small things. Take big tasks and cut them into bite sized pieces. That is how you make the unmanageable manageable. 

Susan Zhang, my Sun Style teacher once chided me for trying to learn too much of the form (it was 97 movements long) at one time. She said it was like I was trying to eat a whole watermelon in one bite. Ever since I have tried to cut everything down to size and it works for me every time.  So relax, take a deep breath, and stop trying to swallow whole watermelons!