Back part 4 stress management

Now, when I've reached the goal of my travel I'm sitting at a desk with the computer connected to a broadband with a speed that almost scares me!

If you have been doing your home work from the first posting you now have familiarised yourself with your back 30 times. You have begun to explore how movement of the limbs affects the contact your back has with the surface and you have had an opportunity to recognise the feeling of your back resting on the floor even when you're upright.

Today's theme in the supine position series is the power it has on our mind. A typical day brings with it many moments and situations that increase the level of mental tension or stress. Stress (including what we may perceive as positive stress!) is always an increased strain on the body and what you've learned by lying down on the floor can now help you to reduce the effects that stress has on you.

First and foremost, stress leads to increased muscle tone, ie our muscle costume actually shrinks slightly. That shrinking affects both joint mobility and breathing. If you feel excitement or stress take hold of you, inhibit - pause and find the "floor behind your back", just allow yourself get back to your back.

Your moments on the floor has given you a great tool for self evaluation, make use of it! Lying down has presented you with the opportunity to explore how your body feels in a neutral position. Tune in where and how your body is affected by stress. If the jaws have become more tense ease off the tension by just visit them briefly in your thoughts.

We all have a uniquely positioned "stress indicator" where tension gets to us first. My spot is situated on the right side, midway between the spine and the lower part of the scapula, if I start to feel tension there I know that I am under a high mental workload.

If I visit that point often, ease the tension, I can "get through" stress without the body goes into a stress-locked position and the nice part is, as I do it consciously, it may be a pretty tough situation and never the less I feel I still have it in my hand. I can continue to act, which is much better than simply react to the challenge and immensely much better than to capitulate to it.

What I do when I feel I am under stress is that I rest "in the feel of the floor", it helps me to keep my chest open in the front and keep the shoulder blades resting on the thoracic spine. With that direction in my body I minimise the tension around the chest and my breathing is relatively undisturbed. If the breathing works oxygen reaches the brain and the mind can actively work to find a solution or an alternative course of action.

Without a functioning breathing, stress leads to a double burden, both physical (I am suffocating!) and a psychic (I can not handle this!) and the stress increases.

Even under pressure, there are choices, the better you become at maintaining a focused calmness and relaxation, the greater your chance is to see where the situation is heading, you can see the options that pop up and choose how to proceed. You can to some extent, therefore, choose the way in which the battle is being fought, or if there is a need for a conflict at all. All that is needed is perhaps a liberating laughter before continuing with the task.

Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.
Natalie Goldberg