Shifting State Practise

A short practise (just over 10 minutes) with a little bit of simple movement, tension softening and slow steady breathing as a way to quickly shift our nervous system state. It can support us to bring a sense of calm where there’s anxiety, nervousness or jitteriness, or bring a sense of energy or connection where there’s low mood, lethargy or numbness.

Transcript

This is a practice that you can try if you feel like shifting your physical state or your nervous system state might be helpful.

So for example if you're feeling low on energy,

Low in mood,

Lethargic,

A little bit disconnected,

Even numb,

This might be a helpful practice for you.

Similarly if you're feeling anxious,

Nervous,

If you feel like your energy state is too high,

This can also be helpful for you.

So there's a little bit of movement involved in this practice.

If there's anything that I suggest for you to do that you think might not be helpful,

If you're carrying any injuries or pain,

Please use your own judgment.

But we're going to start the practice now and I'm going to invite you to come to standing and just notice where your mind's attention is.

If it feels like it is in the room with you or wherever you are with you or if you feel like your mind's attention is somewhere other than where you are,

Just notice that.

And when you can,

If it's not already guiding your attention,

To be with you where you are.

And we're just going to start off just by noticing what's there for you now.

Not going into any great depth but maybe just rating from 0 to 10 what's obviously there for you.

So it might be level of stress,

Level of mood,

Level of energy,

Whatever is there for you without analysing,

Without going into depth.

And we're going to start off just by walking on the spot.

So as you walk on the spot your arms will just start to move just because of the movement of your legs and your feet with the walking.

So just let your arms move,

Don't try to control them in any way.

And see if you can shine your spotlight of attention to the contact of each foot as it meets the ground.

So noticing the left foot on the ground and then the right foot.

And if your mind's attention wanders away from that,

It's completely natural for that to happen.

Just see if you can gently guide it back each time you notice if that happens.

And we'll pick up the pace of the walking.

So we're going to move to a fast walking pace,

Almost like a marching.

Continue to notice the contacts of each foot on the ground.

Continue to let the arms just hang loosely.

And then we'll start to slow the pace of walking.

So slowing,

Slowing,

Slowing until we come to a standstill.

Again just really notice the sense of the ground beneath your feet.

You might come onto your toes a little bit and onto your heels a little bit.

And then just let the feet fully rest on the ground.

And then we're going to do a little bit of movement with the arms.

So taking your arms out to the sides as you breathe in.

Imagine you're trying to kind of touch whatever is at the side of you.

So really reaching into the fingertips and then taking the arms all the way up.

You might let the palms meet together overhead.

And then as we breathe out we'll slowly take the arms down again.

So you're really stretching,

Reaching into the fingertips,

Breathing in,

Take the arms out to the side and then all the way up overhead.

And then breathing out,

Taking the arms out to the side and then all the way back down.

And we'll do this just maybe a couple of times.

So as you breathe in,

Take the arms up,

Reach all the way up and then exhaling down.

Once more.

Inhale,

Take the arms up.

It's almost like you're trying to touch the ceiling or the sky.

And exhale,

Reach all the way up to the side and then bring the arms down.

Good.

For the next little bit of the practice I'm just going to invite you to just have a little bit of softness in your knees.

And imagine that you've got honey or treacle on your hands and your arms and we're going to shake the hands and the arms like we're trying to shake that honey or that treacle off our hands and arms.

So you're letting your hands and arms be super,

Super loose.

You might notice a little bit of movement in your shoulders as well.

So super loose in the hands and the arms.

And we'll do this,

We'll do maybe about another three or four breaths worth.

So slow,

Steady inhale and exhale as you shake the hands and arms.

Good.

And now let us just let the hands and the arms just hang loosely by your side.

You might notice some numbness or tingling in your hands and your arms because of all that shaking so just notice that.

And then we're going to bring our attention to some parts of the body where tension can really build up some common places in the body where tension can build up.

So if you want to you can come to sitting,

Feel free if you would rather stay standing.

We're going to make some big circles with the shoulders but really slowly.

So as you breathe in take your shoulders forwards and then all the way up around the ears and as you breathe out take them all the way back and down.

So inhaling the shoulders forwards and up,

Exhaling the shoulders back and down.

And you'll notice,

Just continue with this,

You'll notice that we're doing it quite slowly and that just gives a bit more opportunity for us to kind of squeeze out any tension that might have built up in the muscles more so that if we were doing these circles quite quickly.

So you might notice a little bit of clicking or tightness.

Just go easy,

Be gentle and we'll take maybe two more of these big slow circles.

There's no rush,

Just take your time.

Inhaling forwards and up with the shoulders,

Exhaling back and down.

And when you've made your last circle just let in the shoulders settle as far away from your ears as you can so there's lots of space between the shoulders and ears and maybe just taking the shoulders back ever so slightly so there's a bit of openness and space across the chest.

The next place that we're going to go to where we can end up carrying a lot of tension is the jaws.

So I'm just going to invite you here to just slowly gently open the mouth wide and just allow a little bit of stretch into the muscles around the jaw.

So again this might be a little bit ouchy if you have been carrying a lot of tension there so go easy.

You might want to just close the mouth and open a few times.

You might want to just very gently maybe move the lower jaw perhaps to the left a little bit and then the right.

And then we're going to bring the upper lip and the lower lip together but keep some space between the upper and lower teeth and let your tongue drop away from the roof of your mouth for a few moments and just notice how it is to let there be some space in your mouth.

The third place we're going to go to is our forehead.

So the muscles in the forehead can get tense just like any other muscles.

So I'm going to invite you now just to use your fingertips of your right hand and your left hand just to very gently squish the muscles across the forehead maybe across the hairline into the temples.

Again just to move and soften any muscle tension that might have built up there.

Just breathing slow steady breath as you do this.

Good.

Just letting your hands come back down to rest on your thighs or your chair if you're sitting or just to hang by your sides if you're standing.

And for the last little part of the practice we're going to turn our attention to our breath.

So allowing the pace of breath to be slow and steady and we're going to see if we can let the belly move as we breathe.

So you might want to pop a hand or both hands on your belly and if you imagine the point that's right at the center of you have a sense of as you breathe in everything is moving away from that point and as you breathe out everything is gently coming back to that point.

You can even visualize having a little balloon in your belly and as you breathe in that balloon gently inflates it's not forced and as you breathe out that balloon gently deflates.

Good.

And if you feel like you need an extra little bit of calm maybe working towards letting the exhale become a little bit longer than the inhale.

So this can take some practice so don't strain.

You can work towards it.

The main thing is just letting the breath be slow and steady.

Good.

Now you can continue here on your own if you'd like to for a little longer otherwise as we bring this practice to a close just before we do that just once again just noticing what's there for you.

Perhaps re-rating the level of whatever it was that you rated at the beginning.

Calm,

Stress,

Jitteriness,

Energy,

Mood and if it's shifted in a helpful direction then that's great.

If it hasn't shifted that's also okay.

Just notice and as we bring this practice to a close when you're ready just open in your eyes beginning to just reconnect with where you are.