For the last 15 years, Rebekah Ballagh has made it her mission to help Kiwis find calm.
A counsellor who’s worked with everyone from high school students to corporate mavens, she founded an online community www.journeytowellness.online and has written a series of best-selling books about working with your body to find, and stay, calm. It’s grounded in personal experience, with Ballagh acknowledging that she grew up battling “crippling insecurities” and walking her own “rocky road” with mental health.
Now, her latest book 101 Ways To Find Calm is out with tips on how to use your body to soothe your mind. Here she shares some simple techniques from the book to relax and unwind.
Arm squeezes
Sometimes when life gets overwhelming you can feel disconnected from your body. The gentle pressure in this lovely technique will help you feel grounded in and connected to your body again.
Here’s how:
- Use your right hand to gently squeeze down the length of each finger on your left hand, then massage your palm.
- Work your way up your left arm, squeezing the wrist, lower arm, upper arm and into the shoulder and upper trapezius muscle.
- Repeat on the other side. You can also try this squeezing your legs.
Focus on really feeling the sensations, and continue to breathe with deep inhales and long slow exhales.
Somatic shaking
When we experience a shock, upset or trauma, one of the body’s natural responses is to shake. This helps to release stress energy, which ‘completes’ the stress response and regulates the nervous system.
Intentional shaking can dissolve distress and move your nervous system back to balance if you’re feeling hyperaroused (stressed or agitated) so this is a good one to use if you’re feeling anxious or triggered.
Here’s how:
- Begin to shake your legs and arms. You can shake one leg at a time, or you can keep both feet on the ground while doing a running motion with the knees.
- Feel the shaking through your entire body. Play with the intensity and speed so that it feels like a release, rather than further activating.
- Continue to shake for a minute or so.
- Come back to stillness. Bring one hand to your belly and the other to your chest, and witness your emotions, your body sensations and your thoughts. Be curious about any changes you feel and breathe deeply to come back to calm.
Weighted belly breath
This technique calms you by slowing your breath and providing proprioceptive input.
Here’s how:
- Find an object to place on your belly, like a wheat bag, a hot-water bottle, a heavy blanket or a book.
- Lie on the ground on your back and place your object on your belly.
- Begin to deepen your breath, directing your inhale down into your diaphragm. Imagine you have a balloon in your belly that inflates as you inhale, raising your object, and deflates as you exhale, lowering your object. (This is a great way to train your diaphragm muscle for full, functional breathing.)
- Continue belly-breathing for 3–5 minutes. Notice any changes to your body as your object rises and falls with your breath.
Legs up the wall
All you need for this practice is a wall!
This practice can help to: calm your mind and nervous system; support your lymphatic system and circulation; slow your breathing; improve digestion; ease back aches; and improve your sleep.
Here’s how:
- Lie on your back and scootch your legs up a wall. You can slide a pillow or folded blanket under your hips or drape a blanket over yourself if you like.
- Settle here for 2–20 minutes.
A–Z distraction
If you can’t go to sleep because your mind is racing or you need some distraction, try this brain-refocusing game.
Pick a topic and think of something that begins with each letter of the alphabet for that topic. You could choose breeds of dog, fruit and veggies, city names, insects, restaurant names and so on . . .
If you lose focus on the game, gently guide your mind back to it and carry on.
Jog and fold
This practice can help you to complete the stress response if you’ve been holding back anger or feeling anxious.
Here’s how:
- Jog on the spot for 1 minute.
- Stop. Inhale deeply then exhale into a forward fold. Hang like a rag doll, with a slight bend in your knees. Sway your upper body side to side. Stay here for 30–60 seconds.
Wall push
Often you need to express anger to complete your body’s response to stress. That’s okay! So find an unsuspecting wall, and push against it with all your might.
This is a great way to let your muscles use some energy and also to imagine yourself setting a boundary, pushing away anything you don’t want in your life.
Afterwards it might feel good to shake out your arms and legs then place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly to connect with your breath and the message that anger is trying to send you.
Other ways to release anger: pillow punches; throw a pillow down onto the ground repeatedly; scream into a pillow; clench your fists; shake your body; throw ice cubes at a brick wall or onto concrete; rip up paper; dance wildly around the room to music or wring out a towel with your hands.
Hip rocks
Hip rocks are a great release for both tricky emotions and your lower back.
Here’s how:
- Lie on the ground on your belly.
- Rest your head down on your hands and breathe deeply, feeling your belly press into the floor on an inhale and soften away on an exhale.
- Rock your hips side to side in a comfortable rhythm. Find a pace that feels as effortless as possible. Continue to breathe deeply here for about 60 seconds, allowing your full attention to rest on the movement and your body.
- Come to stillness and observe the echos of this practice in your body and on your emotions.
Extracted from 101 Ways to Find Calm by Rebekah Ballagh. Published by Allen & Unwin. RRP $29.99. Out now.
