Short powerful techniques for the body and mind

[Constance]

Hi everyone

Many of these exercises are fun to do and are quite effortless in their nature. I hope you find these little techniques enlivening, energising and uplifting for you throughout the day.

I will keep adding to this list as I go and I encourage you to also add anything that you think that is short, practical and effortless.

The 4 minute exercise

Zach Bush has popularised this amazing little exercise that builds muscle and leaves you feeling energised throughout the day.

Zach Bush says here

"...An exercise that has come out of the science of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a communication molecule made by the human body stored in the blood vessels that feed your body. When you start to exercise and you run out of oxygen, you release that nitric oxide.
It goes downstream, opens up blood vessels, increases oxygen and nutrient delivery to that muscle to increase the opportunity for muscle build.

The cool thing is that you rebuild that nitric oxide every couple of hours and so we have the opportunity to release this three times a day and get that additive benefit again and again hitting the muscle body with "it's time to grow, time to feed, time to breathe."

The goal is three sets, start with 10 repetitions, work yourself towards 20. No hand weights necessary to get this activation going. If you want to build that over time you are welcome to. But right now we are going to work on form and speed to run out of the oxygen at the joints, at those big muscle groups. We are going to work the 16 biggest muscle groups and we are going to go after them. "

Exercise instructions start at 1.25

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PwJCJToQmps

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The luminous, warm hug

This is a beautiful, profound approach by the Tibetan Monk Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche in dealing with emotional and even physical pain. The full transcript to this interview is available here.

"...The peacock approach is basically not an approach of the doctor. The peacock basically eats it. It’s not trying to change anything. It just eats it as it is and the peacock is able to do that because the peacock eats the poison. What poison does to the peacock is just basically makes it stronger, more healthier, more beautiful. The feathers brighten and so on. Somehow the second approach is that we are also capable of really transforming our pain simply by being present, simply by being awake, simply by not judging it."

"...When you look at something directly like your pain, at that very moment the view of the pain is different. People say, “Wow, it doesn’t look that bad. Wow. I feel okay with that. I can live with that. I don’t feel the pain. I feel free. I feel I can still enjoy myself. I can still feel joy even though I’m feeling sadness. I can still feel some sense of trust even though I am feeling fear. I can still joke even though I am feeling a little depressed.”

'...Poison becomes the medicine for the peacock. Your pain makes you strong, basically."

"...pain can be your best friend, if you want it to be."

This short guided Meditation of the luminous warm hug starts at 22.20

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lv8Qqha3Ubs

"First, sit comfortably, whatever position you are in, comfortably. You can close the eyes or open eyes, whatever you feel is comfortable. Maybe close the eyes for now. Bring your full attention inward. Maybe take three to five deep, conscious breaths and through this breath, through these breaths, release out whatever you’re holding this very moment, any discomfort in your body, any energetic discomfort, any discomfort in your mind. Whatever discomfort you are feeling, just breathe it out deep. Breathe it out, and at the end of the exhalation, connect to yourself and rest deeper. Repeat three to five times.

Be aware of the stillness in your body. Be aware of the silence around and within you. Feel that stillness. Feel that silence and rest deeper, deeper in that stillness and silence.

Now just for a moment, be aware of the challenges that you are facing this moment in your life or, if it’s a physical pain or particular sickness, be aware of that. Either it’s physical or emotional, be aware of those pains that you are facing. Maybe some of you are avoiding it. Some of you are trying to deal with it but finding it hard.

For now, just look at that pain or challenge. Either it’s physical or emotional. From this place of openness, you are open to it. That pain, in a way, you are identifying with that pain. In a way, that pain is asking you to help. Being open, being aware and being caring like warmth toward that pain, self compassion from that openness, from that awareness. Like you would be gentle, be kind, be present with someone, your best friend. If your best friend is in pain you will be present there. You will be gentle. You will be kind and sending warmth but do the same toward yourself.

I repeat these qualities, specific qualities: being open to it, being aware and connecting with it, and sending a sense of warmth. I call it a spacious, luminous, warm hug to that pain. Either it’s a physical or emotional self compassion. Just hold that. Connect and continue being there, connecting, being in that warmth, and connecting continuously.

Just feel this continued sense of being very open to it, very aware and connected to it. There’s a lot of warmth, the healing of warmth - you’re ascending toward that pain…toward yourself, like you would do towards your best friend."

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Belly button smile

When you visualise your belly button smiling, the corners of your mouth automatically turn upwards and your eyes soften.

Try it! See if it works for you! You no longer have to fake it until you make it.

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The Victory Pose

The victory pose is a stretch that you do immediately after you get out of bed. Have you ever noticed how cats and dogs stretch immediately upon arising? The act of stretching acts as a form of stress release. It also prepares your body for movement. If you do this on a regular basis, you will notice how your body really wants to stretch upon first arising.
Stand with your legs apart and stretch your arms right up into the sky in a V shape. Stand on your tiptoes as you do this and have a good stretch and a yawn..
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What sparks joy in you?

Write down a list of what sparks joy for you. What is it that makes you feel joyful?


https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...ks+joy+for+you
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Got a song stuck in your head?

If you have a song stuck in your head, or what some may call an earworm, this is a little trick that was taught to me by a yogi for making the song go away.

Take a deep breath in, smile, and whilst you are smiling, stick your tongue out as far as you can. Simultaneously, breathe out as hard as you can. Hold the breathe out for as long as you can before taking a normal breath in.
If you still have a song stuck in your head, repeat.

https://www.iflscience.com/brain/bra...eads-revealed/
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Transcending all influences

Norman Doidge, Author of The Brain that changes itself wrote that when people performed mental practices, for example, just by imagining the practicing of scales on an instrument, they improved almost as much as when they played the instrument physically. Brain scans also show that those who do "mental" practices develop changes in the same brain areas, roughly to the same extent, as those who do "physical practice."

Your brain cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality

Our life experience is determined by how we interpret sensory information and external information. This determines our belief systems as well as what and how we receive inspirations. As a healing, you can change an image you have in relation to a circumstance that was stressful or traumatic.

Imagine yourself in a place where you can feel how you are beyond any and all influence. Then, relive an experience or event in your imagination. See yourself instantly transcend all the influences that once affected you.

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Let the neck be free, let the head go forward and up...

This is an exercise based upon The Alexander Technique. You are not consciously moving any part of the body.
Remember that the mind cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality, so the body will automatically begin to realign itself without any conscious movement whatsoever; no effort or force is required.

The exercise to say to yourself silently is:

"Let the neck be free, let the head go forward and up, let the back lengthen and widen"

You can do this in front of the mirror or whilst standing comfortably anywhere.

[Constance]

The Tapas acupressure technique (TAT)

TAT helps the brain release old patterns of thinking and beliefs by pressing on certain acupressure points.

Take your thumb and your fourth finger, gently place them on either side of the bridge of your nose and apply a little pressure. Place your middle finger where your third eye is in the centre of your forehead.
The first finger and your little finger are free.
You take your other hand and place it behind your head, and place it at the base of your head, where your head sits on your neck (see video for placement of hand if you are unsure)

Hold that position whilst thinking about whatever it is that you want to deal with. eg. fear

Think of that fear, be tuned into it and take some gentle deep breaths whilst holding that pose.

Something will shift - it might be that you take a nice deep breath, or sigh, or yawn. Eventually, an involuntary shift will occur.


You may want to only hold the TAT pose for a couple of minutes.

If you are having trouble holding the pose, lay on your bed and do the pose this way.

You can also say the following things silently to yourself.

I can let go of this feeling
I want to get over this feeling
I allow myself to get over this feeling
I am not stuck in this feeling
I dissolve this feeling
I release and let go of this feeling
Wow! I feel so much better about myself. I am enough. I am loved and I am love.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-rDF_qUntDg

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The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

This is one of the most powerful techniques that you can use for releasing stress, anxiety or fear on a daily basis. Once you become proficient in remembering the acupressure points, you can get highly creative with how you use EFT. I have used EFT in conjunction with Hypnotherapy, NLP, the Sedona Method and many other modalities.
Like TAT, EFT works with the acupressure points to rebalance and release old emotional issues.

The first step is to familiarise yourself with the tapping points. When you tap, you use the index finger and the middle finger. There are acupressure points at the tips of these two fingers. You can however use all your fingers if it pleases you!

Attachment 39867

This is the point you will use to tap on for the set-up phrase.

It is the fleshy part of the side of your hand. I highly recommend that you do the set-up phrase at the beginning of each round of the basic EFT tapping recipe for optimal relief.

Attachment 39868

These are the main points you will be tapping on.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1wG2FA4vfLQ

The 5 Steps of The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe

1. Identify the Issue:

All you do here is make a mental note of what ails you. This becomes the target at which you "aim" the EFT Tapping Basic Recipe. Examples might be: Sore shoulder, my father embarrassing me at my age 8 birthday party or hitting that high singing note. Be sure you are only targeting one issue at a time. As you will learn later, trying to combine issues in the process will compromise your results.

2. Test the Initial Intensity:

Here you establish a before level of the issue's intensity by assigning a number to it on a 0-10 scale where 10 is the worst the issue has ever been and 0 is no problem whatsoever. This serves as a benchmark so we can compare our progress after each round of The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe. If, for example, we start at an 8 and eventually reach a 4, then we know we have achieved a 50% improvement. The number of possible issues we can address with The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe is endless and they don't all fit into neat testing boxes. That is why we have an entire segment later on dedicated to Testing Your EFT Tapping Work. For this stage of your learning, however, here are some useful methods to help you access your issue(s) and arrive at your 0-10 numbers. They apply to most issues.

For emotional issues, you can recreate the memories in your mind and assess their discomforts.
For physical ailments you can simply assess the existing pain or discomfort.
For performance issues you can attempt the desired performance level and measure how close you come to it.

3. The Setup:

The Setup is a process we use to start each round of Tapping. By designing a simple phrase and saying it while continuously Tapping the KC point, you let your system know what you’re trying to address.

When designing this phrase there are two goals to achieve:

1) acknowledge the problem
2) accept yourself in spite of it

We do this by saying:

“Even though I have this _______________, I deeply and completely accept myself”.

The blank above represents the problem you want to address, so you can just insert things like:


This sore shoulder:
“Even though I have this sore shoulder, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

This fear of spiders:
“Even though I have this fear of spiders, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

This humiliation at my eighth grade graduation:
“Even though I have this humiliation at my eighth grade graduation, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

This difficulty making free throws:
“Even though I have this difficulty making free throws, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Not all of the issues will fit neatly into “Even though I have this ____________,” so you can use some flexibility when designing your Setup phrase. For example, instead of “this sore shoulder” you could say “Even though my shoulder hurts, I deeply and completely accept myself”. Or instead of “this humiliation at my eighth grade graduation” you could say “Even though my dad humiliated me at my eighth grade graduation.”

By using “Even though I have this _______________,” you will automatically choose something that represents your experience, your reaction, or a problem that you recognize as something that belongs to you, and that is an important feature.

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Super Brain yoga squats

Super Brain yoga apparently increases mental activity, and stimulates neural brain activity via acupressure points on the earlobes.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AopsTI-NsiE

Step 1.
Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth.

Step 2. Place your left thumb over the right earlobe and your right thumb over the left earlobe.

Step 3.
Stand with your legs apart and taking a deep breath, squat.

Step 4.
Exhale as you come up from the squat.

You can even close your eyes if you like.

You will want to do ten repetitions, two to three times a day and especially during stressful periods of time, or just before you have to take a test, perform or do anything that requires mental acuity.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=92-P3hgxNYY

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Lower belly breathing

If you breathe from the top of your chest - you can induce a panic attack. Have you ever noticed where people are breathing from when they are having a panic attack?

If you breathe from the middle of your chest, you will highly likely experience grief. Notice how people breathe when they are crying and where they are breathing from.

If you breathe from your lower belly, you will be breathing like yogis do and all will be good.

If you are consciously aware that you are breathing from your upper chest region, try lying down and practice breathing from your lower belly. Start by placing your hand underneath your belly button.
If your chest rises, you will know that you are breathing from an area that can induce grief. Keep focusing on drawing your breaths from the lower belly. It will take a while for the brain to retrain itself but your body does know how, it has cellular memory around this, you breathed like this as a baby.
Take a breath in from your lower belly and hold it for a second or two and then breathe out. Hold the breath out for a moment before taking your next breath in. The trick is not to force your breath, just allow it to go in and out effortlessly.

Never force anything.

It can take a while to get a hang of this because due to our lifestyles, most people tend to breathe from the middle of their chests or their upper chests.

If you have trouble finding your breath from your lower belly, below your navel, imagine that you are breathing from that space.

It may also help to cough every now and then. The act of coughing reminds your body of where to breath from. We usually always cough from our lower belly.

Breathing in through your nose can be more beneficial than trying to breathe in and out through your mouth. Your nose is a great regulator and filter. Stig Severensen, the world champion breathholder, talks about this quite extensively.

In order to make the whole process automatic, I started by having something that would remind me of where I was breathing from, something that beeped at me every minute. I know that this isn't practical for everyone. If you can get a hold of something that is quite discreet that beeps maybe every hour or so, it can really help.

You can work your way up to breathing 100% from your lower belly but take it slowly. You need to be kind to yourself, treat yourself gently.

Overeating can also stop you from breathing from your lower belly so be mindful of eating to around 80% of fullness. The japanese have a saying for this

“Eat until you are eight parts (out of ten) full” or “belly 80 percent full”.

I should also mention that when you breathe from your lower diaphragm, it enables you to take deeper breaths than when you draw a breath from your upper chest.

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Laughter yoga


Laughter yoga (Hasyayoga) is a practice involving prolonged voluntary laughter. Laughter yoga is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. Forced laughter soon turns into real and contagious laughter.
Even though Laughter yoga is usually set up for group participation, when I am alone and want to practise some laughter yoga, I whip out a video of people (mainly babies!) laughing.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lGNOF8DVIPQ

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Go for a walk in nature


In David Allens brilliant video, Getting things done, he describes how nature is relaxing due to the infinite variety of information that it feeds your brain.
Your brain actually relaxes with the more horizons that it can range in, it will map to the sophistication of whatever that computer is in there.

[conk]

Here is a little technique learned a few months ago. If you're feeling anxious or stressed, just close your eyes and be quiet. Visualize breathing in and out through your closed eyes for a minute or so.

Another easy exercise: if you don't want to engage in any real physical activity, simply stand and envision your body being pulled downward. Every cell in your body is being pulled downward. A few minutes of this and you'll be very calm.

[petra]

Posted by ripple (here)
Nobody will be in any condition to laugh at anything if they reach that final stage of the marathon work out .

"Laugh till you can't laugh no more"
*passes out from laughing*

[Constance]

Posted by conk (here)
Here is a little technique learned a few months ago. If you're feeling anxious or stressed, just close your eyes and be quiet. Visualize breathing in and out through your closed eyes for a minute or so.

Another easy exercise: if you don't want to engage in any real physical activity, simply stand and envision your body being pulled downward. Every cell in your body is being pulled downward. A few minutes of this and you'll be very calm.

Thanks Conk

[Caliban]

Posted by conk (here)
Here is a little technique learned a few months ago. If you're feeling anxious or stressed, just close your eyes and be quiet. Visualize breathing in and out through your closed eyes for a minute or so.

That last sentence is confusing. So you don't actually breathe in and out but visualize it? And do you visualize yourself breathing in and out through your eyes?

[Mike]

Posted by ripple (here)
Constance this looks great for all sorts of other people . I grew up with P.E. trying to ruin my life so I have developed a healthy life style revolving around the notion of hathinertia .

I have already looked at the first video and whilst it looks fine for the people involved , the routines are not permitted in my religion .

I wondered if you knew where I could simply buy Nitric Oxide solution or tablets to save me time . That video is actually quite exhausting to watch . I think you should have given a warning of that in your post .

hathinertia. being a man of modest intelligence i was forced to look it up. google wasn't helpful. sounds fancy tho. can you define it for me? i may deploy it at a dinner party if i want to impress someone.

try amazon for the nitric oxide tablets. they sell all sorts of stuff i'm told. be wary of the erections tho ..your religion may frown upon that.

even when i was weight lifting and inflating my ego with bulky muscles, i always looked at exercise classes with a degree of envy...especially the yoga ones. while we were grunting and sweating, they were laughing and hugging. i imagine if i began giggling uncontrollably and offered a hug to the guy next to me doing squats, he'd kick my ass pretty good. and if i went into the yoga room with my grunting and dumbells, they would surely stage a peaceful, quiet protest till i left.

i was always looking for a middle ground without ever realizing it. i no longer scoff at the routines described in Constance's post above; i see their value...but i also want to look good in a tshirt, ya know? i'd like to find some hybrid routine that puts on some muscle while avoiding bulk, all while incorporating the spiritual side of things. because who has time to go to the gym and do a traditional workout, then yoga, then a meditation class..and so on and so forth?

[Bubu]

Posted by Joe (here)

Posted by Mike (here)
i'd like to find some hybrid routine that puts on some muscle while avoiding bulk, all while incorporating the spiritual side of things. because who has time to go to the gym and do a traditional workout, then yoga, then a meditation class..and so on and so forth?

Maybe something like this?

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=i-rJ4UORtBg

oouch hahaha I don't understand the craze for this ball bashing exercise but I did had a good laughing exercise.

[conk]

Posted by Caliban (here)

Posted by conk (here)
Here is a little technique learned a few months ago. If you're feeling anxious or stressed, just close your eyes and be quiet. Visualize breathing in and out through your closed eyes for a minute or so.

That last sentence is confusing. So you don't actually breathe in and out but visualize it? And do you visualize yourself breathing in and out through your eyes?

Yes, you breath, but imagine that the breath is coming in and going out through your closes eyes.

[Constance]

I've always been a very big advocate for Breathwork. When I was twenty one, I had an experience where I collapsed a lung. Whilst I was recuperating in hospital, a well meaning doctor had told a very young and impressionable me that there was a 50/50 percent chance that it would happen again, and if it did, they would have to slice me open to staple my lung to my chest.

For the longest time, even after my lung had healed itself, I was left feeling anxious and fearful of it happening again (the pain is horrific) and I struggled to catch a breath for fear that it would happen again.

I was so fearful that my lung would collapse again, I paid a visit to a local doctor. He was a very kind and sympathetic doctor. He told me I needed to do some breathwork to help calm my fears and to strengthen my lungs.

And thus began years of devoting myself to the practice of correct breathing.

I've tried all kinds of breathing techniques over the years but I have yet to try this technique.

It's called Holotropic Breathwork.

I received an invitation from Meeradas yesterday (thank you ) to try a free online breathwork session and upon his recommendation, I've decided that I'm going to make myself a guinea pig. It's a free session available to anyone.

I'm posting the details here so that you can give it a go too.

Try a free online Breathwork session.

Step 1
Enter your name and email below and click “Start” to access the schedule page.

Step 2
Choose a session and click “Add to Cart.”

Enter the Coupon Code: TRANSFORMATION

Click “Apply Coupon” and then click “Proceed to Checkout.”

Step 3
On the checkout page, input your info and then click “Place Order.”

[Victoria]

Thank you, Constance for posting this, and Meeradas!

Ripple and Mike

*hathinertia: He who hath inertia (and all the rest of us who prefer to sit still)*

Mike, would pilates incorporating heavier weights with the breathing techniques work?

[meeradas]

Posted by Constance (here)
Try a free online Breathwork session

There's another free one coming up on Sunday, May 24, starting 10am PDT (lasts about 2 hrs).
You will not need any coupon codes.

Have a look if the time suits you: Time zone converter

From their newsletter:
"We will be dedicating this workshop to the healing of the planet and all of its inhabitants in this time of stress and anxiety."
Anyone can participate. Last free for all session had over 700 participants from 40 countries.

It is completely free; just go here: https://breathworkonline.com/workshops/, choose the free session, and checkout.

Please do read this before the session (incl. contraindications) - it will benefit you.

[Constance]

These short techniques done daily and spontaneously, will help you to laugh and remain lighthearted.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Z0WORKqN-c

How To Activate Your Heart & Thymus | Mantak Chia

[TargeT]

best most practical thing I've ever integrated:

Relax your jaw first, everything else follows

Also: you can only experience 1 thing strongly at a time, keep that in mind AND leverage it!

Crawl, walk, run.... don't jump in too deep

[Constance]

Following on from TargeTs post, here is a series of exercises to help release the jaw muscles from tension.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cbHdBcPbwfs

[andyangel1205]

Here's one on how to clear away the lower energies we consciously absorb (from watching the news, other people, etc etc)...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KuLBwRS8m1Q