stress relief

Life.

It’s both wonderful and awful. Happy and sad. Amazing and painful. All at the same time.

And so often in our go-go-go modern world, it’s just plain stressful. Even if everything you’re doing is something you want to do, and your schedule is full of “hell yes” it can still be hard to come down from the daily rush.

You spend so much time actively doing things that you often forget that you also need to balance it with just being. You expend a lot of energy and activate your sympathetic nervous system…

But how often do you focus on turning inward and activating your parasympathetic nervous system? That’s the one that helps you slow down, and encourages your physical body to rest and digest.

Today, let’s look at three simple practices that will help you tap into your own personal relaxation machine.

1. 4-7-8 Breathing (Relaxing Breath)

Pioneered by Dr Andrew Weil, the name of this breath pretty much covers how to practice it.

Your breathing is a huge key to controlling what goes on in both your body and your mind. Dr Weil claims that it fosters almost immediate relaxation in the body (and even that it can help you fall asleep within 60 seconds — individual results may vary).

How to do it:

Step 1: Sit in a comfortable upright position. Place the tip of your tongue on the ridge directly behind your top front teeth.

Step 2: Exhale completely through an open mouth, allowing the breath to make a sound. (You’ll be exhaling around your tongue, which may feel a little weird at first, but go with it.)

Step 3: Close your mouth and inhale through your nose for a count of 4.

Step 4: Hold your breath for a count of 7.

Step 5: Open your mouth and exhale audibly for a count of 8 (still exhaling around your tongue).

Step 6: Repeat the cycle 3 more times (for a total of 4 breaths).

Then close your eyes and return the breath to normal. You may notice that even after just a few of these breaths that your heart rate slows and your body starts to feel more relaxed.

Health note: if you ever feel dizzy or lightheaded, stop immediately and return your breath to normal.

You can find more info here.

2. Jnana Mudra (Wisdom Gesture)

So far in this series, you’ve learned the Chin mudra and the Sukham mudra.

This week, we’ll look at another calming mudra, or hand gesture. This mudra is very similar to the Chin mudra, except that the hands end up palms down for a more grounding experience.

Jnana Mudra is great for helping you contain your energy or get calm and grounded.

How to do it:

Join the tip of each index finger with the thumb of that same hand, forming a circle.

Rest the inside of each wrist on your knees with the fingers and palms facing down.

Hold this mudra for as long as it feels comfortable.

You can find more info here.

3. Reclining Bound Angle (Supta Baddha Konasana)

This pose may be a little bit challenging if your hips are tight, but with some modifications it can be downright delicious for most people — and incredibly relaxing.

It’s great for balancing the lymphatic, eliminatory, urinary, reproductive, muscular, and skeletal systems, as well as helping to calm down the physical body and the mind.

How to do it:

Lay on your back and draw the soles of your feet together and toward your buttocks. If you have tight hips, or there’s any kind of resistance coming from anywhere in your hips or legs, roll up a blanket (or use a pillow) under each knee to relieve any discomfort.

This is a pose where it’s good to find your edge, and then back off.

The arms can be outstretched along the body with the palms up, or resting comfortably on the abdomen. Tune in to what your body is asking for, and do that.

Spend at least a couple of minutes here, allowing the hips and leg muscles to begin to release. If you give it 3-5 minutes, you’ll often reach a point where any tightness begins to release and allow you to sink a little bit deeper.

When you’re ready to come out of the pose, take hold of your knees and draw them gently together. It might feel good to roll around on your back or make some circles with your knees to help the lower back release and work out any stickiness from holding the pose.

From stressed and spun out… to relaxed and restored

No matter what the world throws at you, yoga offers you many tools to help balance out the stress of being human in this day and age.

So get back out there and keep doing your amazing work.

But remember to balance out the hustle with some relaxation. Like the battery in your phone, after heavy use you need to be recharged!

How do you relax and unwind after a stressful day or week? Can you incorporate any of these practices into your unwinding? Let me know in the comments!

Some days.

Or maybe it’s more like some weeks… months… even years…

When it seems like life is spiraling out of control. Things are moving too fast. You barely know how to hold on for the ride, much less figure out where you want to go. Or how you’re going to get there.

On the other hand, maybe you have your shit together. But the world? Not so much.

So when life throws you lemons, or coal, or loads of steaming poo… there are a few things you can do to help slow down what’s going on inside your head.

Now, you may be tempted to put all your focus on fixing the world.

But that’s step 2.

Before you can calm down the world, let’s start with you.

1. Deep Three-Part Breathing (Deergha Swasam)

Your mom may have taught you something about breathing when you were little. “When you’re angry take a deep breath and count to 10 before you say something you might regret.”

Here’s another way to approach it: take 10 deep breaths.

Your breathing is the key to controlling both your body and your mind.

This breathing practice can be done whenever, wherever. Sitting at your desk, driving in your car, riding on the bus, laying down. Even on a beach, in a suit. Like that dude…

How to do it:

Step 1: Start by taking a slow, deep breath all the way down into your lower abdomen. Exhale fully, squeezing the air out of your lungs. Take another breath or two this way.

Step 2: Extend your inhale to include filling up your lower abdomen and into your lower ribcage. Exhale fully, and take another breath or two like this.

Step 3: Then extend your inhale to fill up your lower abdomen, ribs, and into your chest. Imagine the air filling you up from bottom to top, like water filling up a pitcher. With a deep enough breath, you might even feel your collarbones rise. Exhale fully, and take another breath or two.

After taking those breaths, you may feel like you’ve had enough. If so, return your breath to normal.

You can increase the number of breaths – as well as the length of the inhalations and exhalations – as you become more comfortable with the practice.

Health note: if you ever feel dizzy or lightheaded, stop immediately and return your breath to normal.

2. Sukham Mudra (Stress Relief Gesture)

The last mudra you learned was the Chin mudra.

This week, we’ll take a look at another calming mudra, or hand gesture. No, not that kind of hand gesture… 😉

Sukham mudra is great for helping you survive (and maybe even thrive) in your fast-paced life. By taking a few minutes to slow down during your day, it can help you reduce your overall stress levels.

How to do it:

Bring the tip of your right thumb to meet the ends of your middle and little fingers. Then use the thumb of your left hand to press into the nail of your little finger.

Best practiced sitting down with your eyes closed, hold this mudra for at least a couple of minutes.

You can find more info here.

3. Legs Up The Wall (Viparita Karani)

This pose is quite possibly one of my favorites.

I usually end my day with this pose when I’ve been on my feet a lot, when I’m traveling, or when my to do list is pressing a little too insistently into my brain.

It’s not only great for relieving tired legs and feet, but also for helping with insomnia (especially when you can’t sleep because your brain won’t turn off). Reversing the pull of gravity on your circulatory and lymphatic systems is very beneficial; the lymphatic system doesn’t have its own pump, and most of the time the blood in your legs is fighting against gravity.

So turn your world upside down every once in a while. It’s good for more than a change in perspective.

How to do it:

There are a few options for this one.

I personally like laying in bed with my feet up the wall at the head of the bed. You can also lay on the floor if you’d like a more solid surface under your upper body.

You can even put a blanket or bolster under your buttocks or hips if it feels good, taking care to be gentle with your lower back.

Getting into and out of the pose is pretty simple. Sit down sideways next to the wall with one hip close to the wall. Lay down on your side, and then swing your feet up the wall as you roll onto your back.

Adjust the distance between your buttocks and the wall to get comfortable. You may need to bend your knees a little bit to get comfy.

Stay here for anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes. Admittedly, I’ve fallen asleep like this — it just makes your legs a little tingly when you wake up and realize your legs are still above your head.

When you release your legs, be sure to pause for a couple of breaths with your legs on the floor before you get up.

Health note: there are a few health conditions that contraindicate doing any kind of inversion. As always, check with your doc before engaging in physical activity.

4. Yoga Nidra

Extra bonus time!

What good super-relaxing routine would be complete without talking about Yoga Nidra?

I won’t go into too much detail here, since I wrote an entire post about it. Just know that this deep relaxation technique can do some pretty amazing things. If you’ve had one of those days (or weeks) where you feel like you just can’t take it any more, carve out 20 minutes and go through a session.

It’s easy, and the stress relieving benefits are pretty magical.

Make the transition from AAAAH! to ahhhh…

The world may be (more than) a little crazy, but that doesn’t mean you have to be.

Just imagine, a world where other people are freaking out and you’re calm, cool, and collected.

With a little bit of mindfulness and movement, you can take the first steps to getting there.

So go ahead — pick one of these stress-relieving techniques. (Or all of the above!)

And the next time you feel like you’re about to flip your shit, stop… and give one of these a try.

Are you already using stress relieving strategies? If so, how’s it going? If not, which of the techniques in this post are you going to try? Let me know in the comments!