Self-Soothing In Under 4 Minutes

Two quick somatic exercises to help release tension and soothe your nervous system, both using the muscles of your face and jaw. In the first, you stroke your fingertips very lightly down your face, using more or less pressure to find what feels right. In the second, you place your fingertips under your cheekbones, relax your jaw, and draw them down your cheeks and forward toward your chin. You can repeat either one as many times as you like. This content is educational and is not a substitute for one-to-one professional care.

Transcript

Hello everyone, It's great to be with you today. Today I'm going to share two simple exercises to self-soothe, To help your nervous system feel relaxed and calm. And both of these exercises are things we will do with our faith. So the first exercise we're going to do is using their fingertips, We're going to begin to very lightly stroke the fingertips. Down the face. Now, I like to start here by doing a feather light touch with my fingertips. And just notice how you respond to that. Or if you'd like a little bit more pressure with the fingertips, Feel free to apply a little bit more. So just gently stroking down the face. You can go over your eyes. Down the cheek. Down the chin. Nice and gentle. You can even keep those fingertips going down the neck. And the chest. So gently stroking the face. And with the light touch, We're stimulating the nerve. Just on the surface of the skin. We're offering them. Gentle soothing. Notice the quality of your fingertips on your face. If they're warm or cool. If you like more pressure or a little bit less. And you can continue this exercise as long as you'd like. Now the second exercise we'll do for self-soothing is an exercise that will help us release tension. From our jaw and our face. For this exercise, We'll also take the fingertips to the face just underneath the cheekbones. So find those cheekbones. Bring your fingertips a little more firmly onto your face. And begin to relax your jaw. So let your teeth come apart just slightly. Let your tongue relax as much as possible. And we're going to begin drawing the fingertips down the cheeks to the jawline. And when you get to the jawline, Draw your fingertips forward to your chin. And relief. And then we can do it again. Fingertips below the cheekbones, Relaxing the jaw. Let's draw the fingertips down the face. And you might make a funny face here, And that's all right. And then the fingertips forward toward the chin. And I'll do it one time here without talking through it, So you can just watch what it looks like. And you might notice a deeper breath wants to come out after massaging to the jaw muscle like this a little bit. Again, You can continue this as many times as you want. It really helps releasing the jaw. All right, Thanks for joining in. Hope you feel a little more soothed today.