In this video, the speaker discusses two on-the-spot stress relief techniques that anyone can use. The first technique is called the emergency stop technique, which helps cope with stressful situations. It involves acknowledging the stress, saying „stop“ to yourself, taking deep breaths, relaxing your hands and shoulders, and gradually returning to what you were doing. The speaker also suggests a more advanced version, breathing from your abdomen for a greater calming effect. The second technique involves relaxing various parts of your body, including your fingers, jaw, shoulders, and head. The speaker emphasizes the importance of practicing these techniques and seeking help when needed.
Key Insights:
- Stress is a normal part of life and can affect individuals differently.
- The Emergency Stop technique can help cope with stressful situations:
- Step 1: Acknowledge stress symptoms.
- Step 2: Say „stop“ to yourself, either silently or out loud.
- Step 3: Breathe in through your nose, hold for a few seconds, and breathe out through your mouth.
- Step 4: Relax your hands and shoulders.
- Step 5: Relax your forehead, face, and jaw.
- Step 6: Stay quiet for a few seconds, then slowly return to what you were doing.
- An advanced version involves breathing from the abdomen.
- Body relaxation techniques:
- Spread out fingers and thumbs, then relax them.
- Relax the jaw by dragging it downwards.
- Pull shoulders down towards your feet and push your head back, keeping the chin pointed towards the feet.
- Loosen the arms and shoulder muscles by shaking sleeves down.
- These techniques require practice to become more effective.
- Seek help for stress during difficult times and refer to additional information in the video description.
- Leave comments with personal tips and experiences on stress relief.
- Stay updated with new weekly videos on stress relief.
Transcript
We all feel stressed sometimes and this is normal. In fact, some people actually find stress motivating and even helpful. Now, if stress is affecting your life, in this video I’m going to teach you two on the spot stress relief techniques that anyone can do to help.
Now, before we begin looking at these techniques, it’s important to remember that stress can affect each individual differently. It can affect you physically, it can affect you mentally, and it can even change the way that we behave. So, if you’re not quite sure how you feel and whether it is stress or not, I will of course leave loads more information in the description below for you. The NHS also has a really useful mood self-assessment tool which is an online thing. I will link it in the description below as well. It’s really, really helpful, so I’d highly recommend you check it out.
Now, let’s learn the actual stress relief techniques step by step.
The first technique that I’d like to discuss with you is what we call the emergency stop technique. This one is really helpful when you need to cope with a really stressful situation and then you’ll have time later to relax further. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Acknowledge the fact that you’re feeling stressed. Learn to recognize the symptoms and feelings that you get.
Step 2: Say the word „stop“ to yourself really sharply. If the situation permits it and there’s nobody else around, say it out loud. This will help you stop fussing and getting so worked up.
Step 3: Breathe in through your nose and hold it for a couple of seconds, maybe one to two seconds, and then breathe out. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t really pause when you’re breathing, but for a really stressful situation, it can actually be quite helpful. I wouldn’t advise that you pause your breathing for more than two to three seconds. As you breathe out, breathe out through your mouth, and then repeat the cycle again. While you’re doing this, slowly relax your hands and your shoulders.
Step 4: As you breathe in and out slowly, start relaxing your forehead, face, and jaw.
Step 5: Stay quiet for a few seconds, and then slowly go back to what you were doing. If the situation doesn’t permit that and you have to speak, you can speak a little lower and also a bit slower, and then slowly build yourself back up again.
What I really like about this technique is that you can actually do it without anyone realizing. So, if you’re surrounded by people, most of the time, most of them won’t really realize you’re doing this. And in spite of your feelings, you will feel that your tension does begin to ease.
For a slightly more advanced version of the emergency stop technique, try breathing from your abdomen. This tends to be more calming than shallow breathing from your upper rib area. Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Spread your fingers. Spread them out like that, spread your thumbs, and hold it like that for a few seconds. Then gently relax it back to its normal position, nice and relaxed.
Step 2: Relax your jaw. Drag your jaw downwards and feel it relax in your mouth. Your throat should relax and your tongue should get nice and loose. Another useful thing to do is to keep your lips very gently touching.
Step 3: Pull your shoulders down towards your feet. Feel that distance growing between your ear and your shoulder, and then hold it there. Let it rest.
Step 4: Push your head back while your shoulders are nice and loose and low. Try to keep your chin pointing towards your feet. The resulting position should be very comfortable.
Step 5: Loosen your arms and shoulder muscles by shaking your sleeves down. You can actually do this without being noticed at all.
Now that you know what you’re doing, it’s useful to try and keep count and relax each body part. For example, counting one, two, and then your arms relax, three, four, and then your neck and shoulders relax. Keep counting and relaxing each body part.
Please remember that these techniques will need practice for you to get better at doing it. The more you practice, the more useful you will find it. It’s also important to remember when and where to get help for stress, especially during difficult times. I will leave loads more information about this in the description below, and I highly recommend that everyone reads it.
I really do hope that my video helps you. Please let us know how you get on by leaving a comment below. And if you have any of your own tips, if you have anything that works really well for you, leave a comment below too because I’d love to read it, and I’m sure everyone watching this video would too.
Always remember, you’re awesome, and I will see you next week. Thank you for watching!
