Jessica Stover 0:09 This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University. Jessica Stover 0:22 Hi, everyone. This is Jessica Stover with Networks for Training and Development. And I'm so happy to be joining you this evening for this month's Healing Circle Call. So welcome. Jessica Stover 0:34 So this evening, here on the East Coast at least, thinking about what to share and what to talk about this evening. And it occurred to me that life is getting tough. There's a lot of worry in the world right now. There's been a lot of worry. Jessica Stover 0:55 Many of us are battling the season of the flu. That's new and otherwise. In fact for me, just in January, I came down with a horrific stomach bug and flu that just knocked me for a loop. I was down for the count for about two weeks and for a good chunk of the remaining January and a large amount of February, I just didn't have my energy. I wasn't myself. I wasn't back yet. I wasn't 100%. And I really struggled with that. Jessica Stover 1:31 And it reminded me to slow down, come back to my center, and really start to listen to my body. And what it was telling me and listening to my brain and what it was and wasn't telling me and try to, I guess almost reevaluate things that I thought I had to get done right now (really didn't). And things that had to absolutely happen, it could wait for a few hours or a day or a few days. It was nothing that was that earth shattering in any aspect of my life. Jessica Stover 2:13 And that was a little freeing and although, I will admit, I'm still working through that. Being able to give myself that space, give my body that space for healing, and help get my energy back and, and even just working through those winter blues, if you will. It's been it's been a challenge and it's been an awakening, if you will, to some regard, a very eye opening experience. Jessica Stover 2:42 So with that, I thought it might be nice to share just some easy ways that we could all stop, take a breath, easy ways that we could take care of ourselves. Some of these you may know. Some of these, you may not. Some of these you may have considered but are like not for me. I thought I'd just share a few of these this evening. Jessica Stover 3:09 So this is kind of a listing but no particular order. Some of these I've pulled off the internet, some that I've read in books, things that I practice personally, things that I've considered practicing but haven't yet for whatever reason, things that I haven't said that weren't for me but they could be for you. Jessica Stover 3:29 So, let's get started. Jessica Stover 3:31 So, green tea: obviously, its many benefits - the chemicals that are in it can absolutely help reduce your body's stress response. But also just looking at the color green can be helpful to relax, too. That earthy color's ability to soothe is wonderful. Jessica Stover 3:56 There's dark chocolate: have some dark chocolate around, it can boost your brain's health and reduce stress as well. And it's also lower in sugar than milk chocolate. Jessica Stover 4:08 Secret for me, dark chocolate is not my thing. I still don't have a taste for it yet, but every year I try. And eventually I know I'm gonna love it. Jessica Stover 4:19 Honey's a wonderful piece to all of this. It can relieve anxiety, fight off depression, and drizzle some honey in your tea or coffee, even. I like to put it right in my yogurt. Or if you're just going for it, get that spoon right in the jar. Why not? Jessica Stover 4:41 Chewing gum can be helpful. Chewing gum is an easy way to kind of keep stress at bay or lowered, and it can also boost your mood and productivity. Jessica Stover 4:55 Obviously meditation, you don't have to go on a week of silence in a Zen monastery, but you certainly can. And for me, that would be a dream... but you can use some one minute visualization techniques and it can be absolutely wonderful. Jessica Stover 5:16 Another piece is to get your head below your heart. Put your head between your knees, or stand or hang your head and arms toward your toes, get your head below your heart as restorative effects on the autonomic nervous system, also the ANS, it's going to lessen your activity to the fight or flight response. Jessica Stover 5:38 This is also another easy well of course, we're already doing this, aren't we... connecting with your breath. So we're all breathing. We're all breathing right now. And sometimes, though, when we're stressed, I know I've caught myself doing it. We can hold it, we can hold our breath and we tend to do that when, we are just absolutely in a tizzy. Jessica Stover 6:03 You know, when things are just too much, we'll hold our breath. Any kind of pain, we may hold our breath. So, whether you're holding in your air, taking very shallow breaths,or even hyperventilating this is certainly adding stress to your body. That you can be mindful with your breath. Jessica Stover 6:23 So there's various lovely, very easy breathing techniques to do, but at the very least, just being able to stop, place your hand over top of your chest, feel the rise and the fall of your chest. Feeling the air coming in and out of your lungs, up your throat, out of your nostrils back in your mouth. Being mindful of what that feels like and being very present with that. Jessica Stover 6:54 Another easy thing to do, you can give yourself a squeeze. You tense up the muscles, let them relax. So progressive relaxation can be one form, it can involve tensing and releasing the muscles in different body parts. You might not be able to do it to your entire body, but you could just do it to your arms and shoulders. Jessica Stover 7:19 So when we're stretching out, we are extending, tightening, letting go loosening. So give yourself a stretch. Give your muscles a bit tense up and relax. Jessica Stover 7:32 This is a fun one, this next one, I have not attempted it. It's just not sure if I can pull it off. Someone has suggested that you could say your ABCs backwards. I just don't know. Jessica Stover 7:44 But what the point of that is, is it's putting a block on the brain to stop the focus on whatever may be directing your attention. That piece of stress, that piece of worry, redirect your attention away, and try to say your ABCs backwards. I'm not sure if I could do it, but I think I might give it a try. Jessica Stover 8:11 You can visualize what you want or need. So creative visualization is a technique that just involves mentally imagining what you want to happen or how you want to feel. And it can be very easy technique that could work. Jessica Stover 8:33 You can give your hands a massage. So rather than wringing your hands with worry, give them a squeeze, favorite creams, wrapping them into your hand, massaging each of the joints, the webbing between the fingers, clenching and releasing your fist, and then flexing your wrists. So kind of being mindful of that. Jessica Stover 8:58 So actually, I'm doing right now. It's lovely and it's a wonderful thing to do particularly when we're at our keyboards all day or just on our phones quite a bit tapping, tapping on our phones, texting, or what have you. It's another wonderful thing. Jessica Stover 9:15 If you happen to have a tennis ball or other small ball around, you can roll the ball under your feet. I would avoid the ball that if you have a dog, that's their favorite toy when they could think that you're playing which would be fun, but you know, you don't. Let's try to find a tennis ball maybe the dog doesn't use. Jessica Stover 9:36 But roll that under the balls of your arches on your feet, stopping to apply more pressure when you do find a tender spot. Can be really wonderful, kind of some self acupressure, some self reflexology. Jessica Stover 9:52 Splashing cold water on your face. It's an absolute wonderful thing. It's very can be very energizing, the cold water, but it can also help to calm if your body temp is rising quickly because you're starting to get very stressed. Jessica Stover 10:09 The no brainer here, find some time alone. Get away, take a quick walk, make some time for yourself. Particularly for this time of year on the East Coast, we need this. Need to get some sunshine. Seek out natural light. Jessica Stover 10:27 Today, it was glorious. It was in the 50s The sun was out. It was the warmest it's been for awhile and I found myself, I was able to steal a few minutes outside when I took the dogs out. I was able to steal a few minutes and I just found myself not even knowingly just standing out in front of the house with my face and chest facing up toward the sun and my arms out to my sides just giving that sun a hug. It felt so good, and it just... an old friend I hadn't seen for a very long time. Jessica Stover 11:03 Get some natural light whenever you can, whenever you can. Jessica Stover 11:11 Other things that you can do, you can put your feet up if you've been sitting all day, we're going to call this the "legs up the wall" yoga pose. Jessica Stover 11:19 If you can find an open wall to do that, get your legs and feet in the air and you can put them perpendicular up against the wall. There's a lot of restorative effects of this posture. Jessica Stover 11:33 Restorative Yoga is wonderful. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. You can look that up online. You could do again some more stretching. You don't need to do a full 90 minute yoga stretch session for the stretching but just give yourself a stretch. I talked about that a little bit earlier here, early on, but just doing a full body stretch can also be great. Jessica Stover 12:04 One of the things I like to do and this is gonna sound silly, if I'm feeling stressed and feeling anxious, whether it's before a meeting or something's just, I need a little bit of a pick me up, I'll do the Superman pose, or, as I like to say, the Superwoman pose. Jessica Stover 12:20 You stand up and you place your feet about shoulders-width apart, making sure your bodies lined up perpendicular, up and down, I'm sorry not perpendicular, but up and down as much as possible. That you're in alignment as much as you can be. You put your hands right above your hip bones there. You pull yourshoulders back and your chest out, pull your head back, just slightly look up and away. And you imagine your Superman / Superwoman cape flying behind you. Holding that for about 30 seconds. There have been several studies that have shown conclusively that this lower stress but of course raises your feeling of confidence. Jessica Stover 13:07 This again this is an easy, you'll be like well of course, this would make sense: favorite music. Music is a soothing tool. I know we all have our favorite songs. Jessica Stover 13:21 Aromatherapy for sure. But also beyond aroma therapy but also included in that, you need a little bit of a pick me up, need an energy boost... do you have an orange around? Peel the orange and then smell that glorious aroma. Peel the orange and take a deep whiff. Jessica Stover 13:40 Citrus is very energizing and it can also decrease symptoms of anxiety and also do a nice little improvement on mood potentially. The same with coffee. I love the smell of coffee. I am a professed coffee addict, if you will. I love coffee to no end. But just a smell of it can make you feel better. Jessica Stover 14:07 If you have a dog, you have a cat, a horse, whatever cuddly friend, whatever cuddly animal friend in your life, you have a pet iguana! The same. Spend some time hanging out with that, with that best friend of yours, that four legged creature. Pets can certainly do self esteem, ease the stings of life and give unconditional listening and love. Jessica Stover 14:36 I make time every day, as much as possible to spend time with with my canine tribe, here. Jessica Stover 14:47 Talking to friends, planning to take time off. These are all really easy things and I think the biggest thing is to do it with mindfulness, to do it in a very sincere way for ourselves to understand that if we're going to take even a half hour to ourselves, it's not being selfish. Jessica Stover 15:12 To hold in our hearts deeply that all that we do for ourselves to help with... to help our bodies, to help our minds, to help our souls... it's medicine. It's all medicine, isn't it? Jessica Stover 15:26 That's the one thing I was blessed to really drive home that really drove things home for me about two years ago, I was at a retreat, it's all medicine and to really take the time and to do things thoughtfully and purposefully and be cognizant of what we're doing and to take that time for ourselves and to be okay with it. Jessica Stover 15:52 So I hope this has been helpful things to consider. I hope wherever you are in this world, they you're well. Don't forget that we do this monthly. And these will be recorded and be available on our website and in other locations on those interwebs, if you will. So the first Monday we are live each month at 8pm Eastern Standard Time and it'll be the same call-in and number as this evening. Jessica Stover 16:23 So again, hope you're well, thanks so much for joining in and take care. Good night. Jessica Stover 16:38 Thank you for listening. We hope the information provided was helpful. Don't forget to stop by our website and take advantage of all we have to offer. Transcribed by https://otter.ai