Three Quick Tools To Stop Rumination

Here are three somatic practices that help me with rumination or worry. I hope you find these helpful, especially when you are short on time. These practices can be done seated or standing. Grab a small, unbreakable object for exercise #1. Please note that while these tools are supportive, they do not replace professional mental health care. Wishing you all good things.

Transcript

Hi everyone, My name is Jen and I wanted to share with you three quick tips to help you move past rumination or constant worry. Those moments where you're just replaying the same conversation or the same worry over and over and over in your mind. So breath is great. Yoga is great. Qigong is fantastic. But sometimes we don't have a lot of time. So I wanted to just share with you some easy, Quick takeaways. So here's the first one. This is bilateral stimulation. And it's good for the nervous system and helps balance out the hemispheres of the brain. And you're just crossing the center line. You're picking up anything. I have a pen here, But you can pick up anything and just gently toss it from one hand to the next. You might drop it, And if you drop it, Laugh at yourself. Keep going. It's all good. But I willed that to happen. But what this does is it just kind of refocuses you, Balances you, And brings you back to center. And again, You know, You can do this pretty much anywhere for a little bit. Don't do it with anything breakable would be my suggestion. Okay, So that's one. Another is breath, But it's a subtle breath. And basically, I offer you this just because I was told so many times when I had a lot of anxiety myself, And I was having even panic attacks, But they were all rooted in these recurring thoughts, These recurring fears. And people would always tell me, Well, Would you just take deep breaths? And that did not work for me at all and in fact sometimes it triggered me and I realized after going through yoga teacher training and qigong training and all of the different sort of soul searching trainings and practices that I researched. I found there's a. . . Commonality that when you want to build energy, You breathe in deep, You focus on the inhale. When you want to soften or release the energy, You focus on the exhale. So this breath is simply, Very simply just breathing in to whatever count makes sense for you, Maybe four. Is a good place to start, But if that feels like a lot, Two is fine, Three is fine. And just breathe in slowly and then breathe out double that count. So if you breathe in for four, One, Two, Three, Four. Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. And then you keep going for just about 10 rounds and you will find that your energy is just much more harmonious. And you may still have a little inkling of a thought, But it's not affecting your body and your nervous system as much. And the third thing that I find incredibly helpful is a little shake. Now, This is something that, You know, Maybe you don't want to do. In like the boardroom or if you're on public transportation. Although kudos to you if you do, That's pretty awesome. But this is just to kind of shake out your hands. So you'll see me do this a lot when I do share moving meditation practices, Qigong practices. But a lot of times it's really helpful to just shake out. I like to shake out with my palms down. And then flip and shake out with my palms up. And shake out the arms and shoulders a little bit. And if you're standing, You can do a full body shake, A nice little bounce. And at the end of it, Just slow down, Find stillness. And when you find stillness, Just really pay attention to the body. Notice what the body is doing, How it's reacting, Any tingling, Any sensation, Any temperature on the skin. And it just kind of brings you back to this grounded place in your body. So you're not stuck up here in thought land, You know, Ruminating. You're coming back down to this grounded place. So I hope you find those things helpful. I will be posting a few more videos here on Insight Timer soon. In the meantime, Check out my lives, Check out my other meditations. I have quite a lot of them. Something for everything, Almost, Maybe. So I really hope to connect with you again. Wishing you all good things.

Reviews

I really found the simplicity of the suggestions hopeful. Logic usually isn’t available during an anxious episode. I will give these a try. Thank you for offering.