Dozen Stress Busters
Solution: One-Minute Extra Ocular Muscle exercise: there are six eye muscles in each eye, in addition to one muscle each to lift the eyelid.
One-minute of eye-movement exercise eliminates visual-stress for up to four hours. Start with a wide-eyed startled movement. It is the opposite of squinting. Now stretch the following six extra-ocular eye muscles.
a) Lateral Rectus
b) Medial Rectus.
c) Superior Rectus
d) Inferior Rectus.
e) Superior Oblique
f) Inferior Oblique.
2. Tongue – our tongue is on the alert to respond to communication up to sixteen hours daily. It is standing upright and filled with stress and tension.
Curling your tongue under your upper palate and letting it fall flat on your
lower palate relaxes it.
Your tongue consists of muscles, covered with a mucous membrane, and small bumps (papillae) covering its upper surface. It is vital to speech and
taste. A powerful exercise is Tongue stretching: out, up, down, and side-to-side.
Curling your tongue within your closed mouth improves attention, focus and
concentration.
3. Jaw-stress is caused by clenching your teeth and a tightened jaw muscles
during stress. It is responsible for tension headaches.
Solution:
Open your mouth wide and swivel your lower jaw and upper teeth left
to right and right to left. Move your lower jaw up and down and side to
side. One minute of this exercise produces stress relief for up to 4 hours.
4. Shoulder stretching
Lift each shoulder upward toward your ears. Hold that upward position ten seconds and lower both shoulders. Repeat again for another 10 seconds.
Rotate first your left and then your right shoulders for ten seconds each.
Move them up, back, down, and forward. This is a circular movement and this one-minute exercise produces up to four hours of stress-free activity.
Tilt your head toward your left and then your right shoulder. Exercise your
neck muscles. Finally turn your head and look over your left and then right
shoulder.
5. Breathing (diaphragmatic)
What has become natural breathing is shallow and rapid instead of moderate
and deeply diaphragmatic. The amount of oxygen of shallow breathing is less
than required by our brain for optimal effort. Deep breathing becomes a habit and improves learning and memory. Stress and headaches are often
caused by continuous shallow breathing. Puff out your belly when you inhale
and exhale. Learn to feel your belly breathing until it becomes a habit.
N.B. Your brain requires about 23% of all the oxygen inhaled, and 33% when learning. Deep breathing improves the function of your immune system.
6. Progressive Relaxation
Dr. Edmund Jacobson, in 1929 believed our body reacts to stress by producing thoughts and occurrences leading to muscle tension. You can control your muscle stress by tensing-holding-releasing the various groups of muscles in your body.
Tense each muscles group for ten seconds and relax for another ten seconds.
Start releasing tension from your feet and work your way upward. Curl your
toes inward and feel the stress for ten seconds, and release and relax for another ten seconds.
Now tense your stomach muscles, suck it in and feel the tensed area. Count
one-one thousand, two-one-thousand etc. for ten seconds.
Do the same with your chest, your biceps, and make fists with both hands.
Crunch your face and neck for ten seconds, hold it for ten seconds and release and relax for another ten seconds.
7. Creative Visualization: start by closing your eyes, taking three
diaphragmatic breaths and counting down vertically, 3-3-3 – 2-2-2 – 1-1-1.
Now vertically see the numbers – 1-2-3-4, 5-6-7, 8-9-10. And you are in
Dimension two, a deep, relaxed level of mind.
Beach Scene: mentally feel yourself under the gentle sun at the beach.
Hear the waves crashing against the shore. See the clouds overhead
slowly moving with birds flying across your field of vision.
Let your body drift and float as if you were superman flying. Continue
to feel the warmth of the sun, hear the ocean, and see the movement of
the clouds relaxing your mind. Just five-minutes of creative visualization
produces relaxation up to four hours.
8. Autogenic Training: Dr. Johannes H. Schultz, 1932. Specific autosuggestive
affirmations to release stress, improve focused attention and concentration.
a) I am becoming calmer and calmer.
b) My right arm is heavy
c) My right arm is warm.
d) My heart beats calmly and regularly.
e) My breathing is calm and regular
f) My abdomen is flowing warm
g) My forehead is pleasantly cool.
h) I am now completely calm and feeling better and better.
Repeating these eight statements slowly has a placebo (autosuggestion)
effect on your body. Recite them three times and StressBusting relaxation
last up to four hours.
9. Bear-Claw: grip your left hand with the fingers of your right hand.
Move to the furthest phalange (3rd) of each hand and pull one hand
against the other. You release the stress in your hands, arms and shoulders.
One sixty-second Bear-Claw exercise produces up to four hours of Stress-
Busting. Many of you will recognize this as a healthy isometric exercise.
10. Fingertips: running the fingertips of both hands across your thumbs causes deep relaxation. It is a primary StressBuster. Two sixty-second Fingertips
exercises produce up to four hours of StressBusting relief.
11. B.I.N.G.O – the song. It releases negative mental imagery. Imagery precedes
emotion, and BINGO moves you from negative right brain imagery to left brain language processing. Two-minutes of B.I.N.G.O. reciting can act as a StressBuster for up to four hours.
12. Squatting (hunkering down) is the #1 healthiest body position. It stretches
the muscles of the back and legs. Each of three squats for thirty seconds
each, reduces back stress for up to four hours.
Endwords
StressBusting rituals require a few minutes and offer up to four hours of
tension relief. Many neuroscientists report stress (distress) is a progenitor to
major life threatening diseases. Once you practice these rituals for 21 consecutive days they become habits operating on auto pilot like typing or
driving your car.
We suggest the ability to read and remember three books, articles and reports
in the time others can hardly finish one is a StressBuster. Ask us how to triple
your learning skills, and double your memory.
See ya,
copyright 2007
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
——————————————————————————————————-
Author of Speed Learning for Professionals, published by Barron’s; partner of
Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating two million, including the
White House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.
Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and fortune Magazine for major articles.
speedlearning.org speedlearning.org
mailto:hbw@speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org
