Below are some strategies for grounding, relaxation and self-nurturing.
The Box breathing or Heart Coherence breathing
You can practice this before an in-person or online meeting, a difficult conversation, or just when you need to ground yourself into your body and the present moment.
1. Sit comfortably, with your spine erect, either in a chair or cross-legged on a cushion.
2. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and feel the points of contact between your body and the chair or the floor. Notice the sensations associated with sitting— feelings of pressure, warmth, tingling, vibration, etc.
3. Gradually become aware of the process of breathing.
4. Start to count to a count of 4 for the inhale,
5. Hold your breath at the top of your inhale for a count of 4,
6. Start to count to a count of 4 for the exhale,
7. Hold your breath at the top of your exhale for a count of 4,
8. Repeat from point 4.
If holding the breath part feels too difficult at the beginning, skip it and just inhale and exhale to a count of 4.
Walk in nature
30 min walk outside, not in an enclosed gym, in a greenery scene preferably. Wandering.
Hug a tree that you will feel drawn toward. Relax whilst connecting with the tree, and feel nurtured and loved.
Send a message to someone
Send a message or call someone to tell him/her how you appreciate him/her, expressing your gratitude for his/her presence in your life. Be specific and do communicate with the spirit of giving with no expectation of receiving back.
Eat less, sleep better
Have you ever asked yourself why we eat 3 times a day in our society?
Not only, do we eat unhealthily but we eat way too much. Check out Intermittent Fasting and time-restricted eating benefits. EAting less will also promote a better sleep quality.
Have you ever heard of the term social jetlag?
Social jetlag is the discrepancy in a person's sleep pattern between the weekday and the weekend, which can cause a person to feel “jet lagged” or tired and fatigued. "These chaotic sleep patterns promote practically everything that's bad in our bodies" says a professor of chronobiology. It leads to weight gain, reduces mental performance and leads to chronic illness.
Feel your pain
Stop avoiding it, Feel it, Move it, then Stop buying into it.
Our pain can take many forms, such as sadness, a sense of loss, anger, resentment, shame, a sense of inadequacy, unwanted, or unloved...keeping it inside our bodies and ruminating minds sets us up for future dis-ease. We need to move the energy through our body and let it go.
Feel your pain, identify and name it, journal about it, and move it in any healthy possible way through your body (Ex: stomp, curl on the floor, cry, scream, hit your pillows, shake your body, cut some wood logs with an axe, ...).
Once the energy has moved through our body, stop blaming the person or yourself and offer yourself patience, forgiveness and compassion the same way you would for a friend, a child, a pet or a flower.