Here is an easy to use technique, from the world of Kinesiology that you can do when you feel stressed. In fact it’s so simple you are probably already intuitively doing it! We are often faced with daily situations that cause mild stress such as being stuck in traffic when you are late, kids fighting over a toy, another bill landing in your post box, and sometimes we are faced with situations that cause major stress such as being diagnosed with illness, having a death in the family, or having to move house when you don’t want to.
Whatever your level of stress, if you can think logically and pragmatically, you are able to deal with the situation rather than becoming an emotional wreck.
All you need to do is hold your forehead while you think about the situation that is causing you to feel stressed.
Seriously, this is so simple but so powerful!
Holding here brings blood to the front of your brain which is where your forward planning, logical processing centre is.
When you can approach the stress in a logical way and remove the emotions around the problem, you can find a way of dealing with it.
You can easily try this technique at home. Next time you are feeling stressed, focus on the problem and at the same time put your fingertips on your forehead.
Continue to think about the problem while you hold. It may take a few minutes but you should start to loose focus on the problem, maybe you become bored with thinking about it or you begin wondering what you are going to cook for dinner instead of worrying about the problem.
You may feel pulses under your finger tips or a sense of warmth and tingling. You may sigh and physically begin to relax.
Now when you think of the problem you should feel less emotional charge around it and be able to come up with a creative solution.
Case Study: Edward’s Post Traumatic Stress
Edward suffered with post-traumatic stress from a car crash a year before he came to see me for treatment. He still had vivid dreams of the car spinning across the highway lanes and would wake screaming in the night. Although he had miraculously escaped serious physical injury, the driver of the other car had been killed. Edward had seen the look of panic on the driver’s face as his car been forced off the road and into the ditch.
I held Edward’s forehead while he recounted the events of the fateful night. I then advised him to continue holding his forehead every time his thoughts went back to the accident.
Although Edward knew logically that the accident wasn’t his fault and that he wasn’t responsible, he still carried the emotions of guilt and fear.
By using this simple technique we were switching Edward’s brain from the emotional part to the logical part.
Edward later called me to say that the dreams had stopped and his stress levels were much reduced.
Something so simple can have a massive impact on our perception.