14 Funky Ways To Calm Your Nerves Consistently:
“ Smile, breathe and go slowly” by Thich Nhat Hanh Zen Buddhist
Do yourself a favor and add more deliberate moments of relaxation and deep rest into your day. This article is a reminder of the many ways you can put yourself first more often and soothe your nerves consistently. You can also tell where my focus is at the moment ……. nourishing my nervous system.
Calming your nerves means reducing your mental and physical activity. Withdrawing regularly from excess stimulation such as media, phones, driving, toxic city noise and busy places and allowing yourself a moment in time to dissolve your fatigue and stress.
20 Ideas For Calming Your Nerves Consistently:
1: Melt the frown. Smile. Release any worry, stress and tension by relaxing your facial muscles. Picture softening your forehead, cheeks, eyes, tongue, ears and scalp. Keep your mouth slightly open which unlocks the tension in your jaw and neck. Let your tongue float in your mouth. Use a mirror to check in with your face muscles or better still do what I do. Have a few figurines near your work desk such as Mr Happy and Little Miss Sunshine to remind you to smile more often and lose that frown.
2: Take a chill pill. Close your eyes, cup the palms of your hands over your ears, now listen to the sounds of the ocean playing inside your head. Continue until you feel your nerves a little less frazzled, your thoughts a little calmer and your breathing more relaxed.
3: Turn off the noise: Silence nourishes your body, mind and soul. Silence is very restorative. Toxic urban noise is never ending and can be a constant background stress that you may not be aware of. Tune into your hearing and notice which sounds irritate you. Take a five minute “no noise” break. Alternately turn down or turn off any unnecessary stressful noise.
4: Repeat a calming mantra: Use your thoughts to fuel your body with a constant stream of calming and relaxing thoughts. Mantras work because they take your focus away from the stress and drama (just for a moment) and invite more peace into your life. Here’s a few of my favorites that you might like use. “I will remember to breathe and relax moment by moment” One of my personal favorites is “Every cell in my body is loved and healthy”. Breath in “I am calm” breathe out “I smile”
5: Take a mental health break: A less crowded mind means your nervous system is calmer. Take regular breaks from too much thinking and bring your awareness back into your body. Do your best to have an enjoyable morning and afternoon tea away from your desk in a pleasant environment. Listen to the requests of your body, drink when thirsty, stretch and move when you need to and never skip a meal. An added bonus; A quiet mind has direct access to wisdom and insight.
6: Adjust your breathing: Find some calm: Make your “out” breath twice as long as your “in” breath. This will immediately calm you down. Your breathing directly reflects your stress levels. If you breathing is fast, tight and shallow then I encourage to read my article: 15 clever things to know about your breathing
7: Calm your nerves by turning your back to the world: This is in my top 3 all time favorite relaxation postures in the world. Its such a simple way to calm an overcrowded mind, call back your scattered energies back, calm your breathing and relax. Click here for full details. I promise you’ll love it.
8: Hug well and hug often: Give a hug or receive a hug, either way hug well and hug often. Heh, even give yourself a hug. Hugging and cuddling is therapeutic, healing and calming. According to Virginia Satir a family therapist; we need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth. Whats your daily hug quota?
9: Rest your eyes: When you relax your eyes you are inviting your mind and body to follow. Do yourself a favor and grab yourself a yoga eye pillow and enjoy 5 minutes of relaxation. You may even want to make your own find out more here about the benefits of yoga eye pillows:
10: Self massage nourishes your nervous system: I love my early morning “warm” oil massage. Touch is healing and extremely nourishing to your body. Self massage releases happy feelings into your body, improves circulation and supports the removal of toxins from your body. There are simply loads of benefits.
Whilst “self massage” might seem like hard work at first, I can guarantee you’ll soon notice a difference. I recently wrote an article on self massage which you are very welcome to read here:
11: Cancel, clear, delete your energy drains: Notice what zaps your precious energy and reduce your exposure to gossip, shopping centers, busy places, certain friends or family members. Better still cancel, clear and delete their existence in your life.
12: Give yourself a chocolate facial: Warning! This is very addicted. Licking is definitely allowed as long as no one is looking.
13: Hum your worries away: Time to Hum. Place your hand on top of your head, smile, now start humming. Feel the healing vibration of the hum reach the top of your head. Your clever hum will brush away the cob webs, soothe your mind, relax your face muscles and nourish your nervous system.
If humming doesn’t do it for you then unleash your inner pop star and have some fun. Buy the newly released Mamma Mia! DVDcial Edition) it includes all the words to all the songs so now there is no excuse for releasing all that stress with a good verse of dancing queen, money, money, money or take a chance on me. You know you want to.
14: Sip a calming potion: If all else fails then do what I do; grab for my bottle of passion flower. I know for a fact that the medicinal herb of passion flower calms my energies in an instant. It great for insomnia and nervousness and has a sedative effect on your nervous system. Around one teaspoon sends a warm calming feeling throughout my body.
Thanks so much for reading my article, Carole.You are welcome to come back and visit my blog the Rejuvenation Lounge anytime or grab daily rejuvenation tips from me over at twitter |