Simple Mindful Practices to Ease Stress and Overwhelm
Try these breath, movement and mindful writing practices to settle your mind and body
“Every moment is a fresh beginning.”
T.S. Eliot
When I ask my clients what they need help and support with during a coaching session, they usually report feeling stuck in an area of their life due to some form of stress or overwhelm. They’re simply thinking about too many things.
With practice, we can learn to settle our mind and feel calmer in our body. Whenever I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, I turn to mindful practices to help me refocus.
Why do they work so well? Because stress and overwhelm are feelings caused by thoughts offered by our brains. Mindfulness and mindful practices help you to notice your thoughts, build some distance from them, and creatively begin to figure out a solution.
There’s no right way to do any of these practices; these are just suggestions to get you started. There’s nothing required for the breath and movement practices except you and your body, and the writing practice only requires a piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
I encourage you to allow yourself the space to notice and connect with your thoughts, emotions and feelings.
Each of these practices may be done on their own, and I also highly recommend doing them together.
A breath practice will prepare your body for the movement practice, and the breath and movement practices are perfect to do before writing.
“Never forget the power of your breath.
When you are feeling stressed and emotional,
Remind yourself to stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths,
Ground your energy, and bring yourself back to center.”
Tracey Smith
Breath Practice
Breathe in calm, Breathe out stress
Here’s a short breath exercise you can try next time you’re feeling stressed.
If possible, close your eyes or softly lower your gaze.
Connect with your breath and notice as it flows in and out through your nose. Notice all the feelings and sensations. Does it feel cool or warm?
On an in-breath repeat the words “I breathe in calm”
On an out-breath repeat the words “I breathe out stress”.
Keep breathing in this way, repeating the mantra, until you start to feel calmer.
Once you feel calmer, gently bring yourself back to your surroundings.
Movement Practice
Shake, Shake, Shake
As Dr. Peter Levine describes in his book on trauma, In an Unspoken Voice, animals in the wild will often lie down and shake after a fright. Once they’ve shaken off the anxious feelings and returned to normal, they get up and carry on with their lives like the event never happened.
We can all benefit from shaking our bodies when feeling heightened stress. Here’s a short, very effective practice you can try any time you feel angry, stressed or just need to let go of some excess energy.
If possible, stand up tall, roll your shoulders down and back and feel your feet connected to the ground beneath you (Note: This can also be done seated in a chair if standing isn’t possible.) Start by shaking your right hand. You can leave it by your side while you’re shaking it or move it around by taking it overhead or out to the side. When you’ve had enough, come back to stillness, close your eyes or soften your gaze and notice the difference in feelings between your right and left hand.
Repeat with your left hand. Again, notice the difference between right and left.
Repeat with both hands at the same time. Come to stillness and notice how you feel.
Now, pick up your right foot and shake it out. You can hold onto something if balance is an issue. Place it back down and notice the sensations. How are they different between your right and left side?
Repeat with your left foot.
Now move your whole body in any way that feels good. Shake your arms, move your head, maybe step side to side. Dance if you want to.
Come to stillness and notice how this brief exercise changed the way you feel.
Mindful Writing Practices
Scribble out your stress
Here’s a short, very effective mindful writing practice that will help you move the stress and anxiety through your body.
Get a piece of paper (one that you don’t mind throwing away) and a pen, pencil, or markers.
Start scribbling all over the paper. Try not lifting your pen/pencil/marker off the page and just keep going until you want to stop.
As you scribble, you may find that you start doodling instead. If that happens, then you’re ready for the next step:
Noodling, moodling and doodling
Write down thoughts (anywhere on the paper) that have been causing stress.
What emotions and feelings/bodily sensations come up as you write down those thoughts? Write them down too.
As you’re noodling (writing down thoughts) and moodling (writing down emotions and feelings), you may notice that you want to draw abstract lines or pictures. That’s doodling!
As you engage in these practices, notice how your body begins to relax. When we’re in an anxious state, the left side of our brain is in charge and the right side is offline, but when we do something creative, the right side of the brain is activated and helps to calm you.
I encourage you to try these practices and to use them regularly. Experiment with different practices to find the ones that work best for you.
With regular practice, you’ll be able to self-regulate faster and begin to notice mindset shifts.
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I’d love to hear from you so please send any comments or questions to me at sharon@sharonashtonmindfulyoga.com. Feel free to share this email with anyone else who may be interested.
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"I felt at complete ease with Sharon from our first conversation. She has a wonderful, gentle but firm way that made me focus on my thoughts / feelings so I could remove / change to move forward with a completely different feeling to what felt like obstacles. It was great having regular coaching that gently kept me accountable to actioning and moving towards my goals. Sharon has vast experience in so many areas, I felt that makes her an amazing coach.”
— Michelle Carney, East Galway, Ireland
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