Open Wide and Say Aaah!

Count your jumps to keep your mind off other things. After you finish, you won't be thinking about whatever is (or should we say, was? You'll be catching your breath! Massaging Away the Blues Massage therapy has been a recognized medical treatment for many centuries. It has grown in popularity over the past few decades as a way to relax. Once a pleasure for the rich, massage therapy offers physical and mental benefits to many different people today. Usually a professional therapist performs massages. You don't force the breath. You don't beat yourself up for it. You just go back to doing it. And over time it becomes easier, more natural, and your focus gets stronger, a bit like a muscle. She is nodding slowly, waiting to see if there's more. Until it breaks the habit of shame? There's a flicker of disappointment on the inside of me. I've spent six years waiting for the aha! I've turned up each week hoping that this is the week that the magic wand will be waved and tada! I'll be free of shame. In most cases, acupuncture treatments and home acupressure will help bring you back on course. Herbs, proper nutrition, exercise, and medical Qi Gong may be added to suit the individual needs of the patient.

Dealing with the source of the stress is paramount to feeling better in the long term. Acu-points provide the window of opportunity to keep stress at arm's length instead of in your face so that you can continue healing. Oriental nutritional recommendations borrow much from the herbal culture. Both, to be the most effective, are individually prescribed by a qualified practitioner that examines and balances your whole system. If you had been experiencing chronic stress that resulted in erratic moods, insomnia that began after early waking, a red- to scarlet-tipped tongue, and increased thirst, an Oriental Medical diagnosis of deficient heart yin would be appropriate. To help you properly nourish and balance your body I might suggest adding bitter gourd, crab apple, muskmelon, watermelon, adzuki bean, or persimmon to your diet. Commonly used Chinese herbs for this stage of stress include Bai Zi Ren, Fu Shen, He Huan Pi, and Yuan Zi. Check with your acu-pro to make sure you're making the right choice for yourself. However, if you don't have the time or money to pay a professional, you can give yourself a mini massage instead. Take some lotion or oil and rub it into your feet and ankles. Be sure to knead each toe and each heel. Do the same on your shoulders, elbows, and hands. Ahhhh, feel the relaxation. Surfing for Distraction If your job primarily consists of sitting in front of a computer all day, this strategy may not be a great idea. But for many people, 30 minutes of surfing the web can be very entertaining. Look up a topic you're interested in, such as vacation destinations, financial planning, homes for sale in your neighborhood, or exotic pets, and find a fascinating array of information right at your fingertips. Focusing your mind on something carefree or interesting can help you calm down. What I'm suggesting--and it helps that I'm proposing it, rather than the therapist--is that the journey towards unshame is a process, and a practice. That it will take time.

Like our breathing. We breathe 24 hours a day but it's only occasionally that we stop and actually notice it. And then when we notice it, we can change it. It might speed up again when we're not looking, but as soon as we notice it, we can slow it. So, like in learning to breathe deeply, from the belly, rather than with short, shallow breaths, learning to live in unshame is a constant practice rather than a one-off. It's a new habit that needs to be set in muscle memory, in habit memory. She's smiling at me. And there it comes again--uprush, thrumming, thud in my tummy: the feeling of shame. Stopping stress. Locate GV-20 (Hundred Meetings), which is found by following a line from the tip of your ears to midpoint on the top of your head. With relaxed, bent fingers, tap the point and surrounding area lightly while breathing deeply. To further help stagnant liver Qi, whisper the word sha as you exhale. This is an ancient Chinese healing sound to help release tension and stress. Worry: Who, Me? I've thought about it a hundred times and I still can't make a choice. My dreams, both during the day and at night, are filled with shifting scenarios and made-up conversations. Do I have anything to worry about? We worry about our jobs, health, children, and the cost of groceries. Reading (or Listening to) a Great article Reading can take your mind away from your troubles and put you into another world.

If you enjoy reading, always have a few articles available. For most people, reading takes more concentration than watching television, which, in general, makes articles more effective than TV shows at distracting your mind. Furthermore, you won't find any commercials in articles. Our personal preference is to have a nonfiction article for the early evening and a good mystery for the late hours. Mellowing Out in a Movie Movies can also sweep you away to another place. You can buy a movie, rent a movie, watch one on a cable channel, or even download one straight from the Internet. Whichever method you choose for getting your movie, be sure to make some popcorn to go along with it -- low fat, skip the butter. That I must have said something wrong, got something wrong. That I've become unacceptable by what I've just uttered. Because I can't prove that I'm right. It's just a theory. And maybe it's wrong. Maybe she knows it. And maybe she's smiling at me in a patronising way. Maybe she's going to ridicule me now. I have no idea how she manages to mind-read me like this. I take a breath. The word worry is originally from a prehistoric German word which meant to strangle. Worrying, as you know, puts a stranglehold on your mind and body as you churn ideas around all day.

Worry cuts off other ideas that might be more useful, if only they could crowd their way into the narrowing passageway of your thoughts. Work worries frequently wander through our minds. Christina Malachi and Michael Letter, authors of The Truth About Burnout (Jossey-Bass, 1997), have identified six areas of worry in the workplace: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. The authors feel that if these six areas are balanced at your job, you are less likely to develop into a worry warrior. Discover your worry gap by rating yourself in two areas. On a scale from 0 (no biggie) to 10 (major problem): What's your worry level? How important is this thing, anyway? Mmm, crunch, crunch, crunch. Playing to Improve Your Mood If you have kids or grandkids, take some time to play. Go to a park, or play a board game. Your kids will love spending time with you, and your mood can benefit from playing, too. After all, being in a bad mood while playing hopscotch or capture the flag is pretty hard to do! Call your young nieces, nephews, or cousins, and offer to watch them for a couple of hours so that their parents can have a break. If you don't have kids around, play with a dog or other animal. Dogs love to play. If you don't have a dog or other pet, you can volunteer to be a dog walker at the local animal shelter. Yes, being smiled at can be a trigger sometimes. Non-traumatised people react unconsciously to a smile with a release of oxytocin, the so-called `cuddle hormone', which promotes social bonding.