CHAPTER 4: Strategies for Body Calming

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Body Regulation Strategies

MEDIUM TO HIGH LEVEL OF ACTIVATION

Walking, Running, Sport Activity of Your Choice

Bilaterial movements that are slow, rhythmic and intentional (e.g. butterfly hug, finger pushups)

Shaking

LOW TO MEDIUM LEVEL OF ACTIVATION

Orienting

Breathing practice with a focus on a long exhale (e.g. figure 8 breathing)

Yoga or other movement that is slow and gentle

Progressive muscle relaxation

Mindfulness

BODY CALMING STRATEGIES FOR LOW TO MEDIUM LEVEL OF ACTIVATION

Breathing

There are many different breathing exercises. For managing high activation such as anxiety, the general principle is to focus on a longer exhale and using the diaphragm. It can be helpful to go through even breathing, breathing with a longer exhale, and breathing with a longer inhale to increase your awareness of your breathing patterns. A longer inhale is usually more activating.

Figure 8 Breathing

Draw a figure 8 on the back of your hand. If you do not want pen on their hand, they can trace the shape with their finger. Trace the figure 8 with your finger, exhale as you trace the curve of the 8 and pause and inhale as you reach the center where the lines intersect. I find this breathing exercise helpful as it makes it easy to focus on the exhale, it brings your attention to the present moment, and the touch of your finger on your skin is soothing. I usually practice this for at least one minute a day. It is important to practice these new skills when you are not anxious so that you can use them effectively when you are.

Figure 8 breathing

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation is an established practice and many different scripts and protocols exist for this practice. I will leave it to you to find your favourite and there are many options available with a quick search online. The key principle of this practice is to move through different regions of the body and tense one region at a time and bring your full awareness to the experience, then relax the same body region for about twice as long as you were tense for. In this way, you develop awareness of where you hold tension in your body and become capable of relaxing when you set your intention and attention to do so. An example of body regions you may choose to focus on when tensing and then releasing your muscles are: right arm, left arm, face and head, neck and shoulders, mid-section, right leg, left leg. Once tensing and releasing your muscles in those regions, finish the practice with a body scan to see if any tension remains.

Orienting

Orienting is another common and widely used practice. Orienting is a way of bringing attention to the present moment and providing the brain with information that you are safe in this moment. There are also different orienting practices and I suggest finding one that is a good fit for you. A very simple practice is to simply name objects that you see in the space around you. This gives the amygdala, the security guard, information that there is in fact no physical threat present so it will settle down a bit. A longer orienting practice that I find more effective is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. In this practice, the client names 5 things they see, hear, and feel. This is followed by 4 then 3 then 2 then 1 thing they see, hear, and feel. This practice engages multiple senses to provide the amygdala with accurate information about safety, thus providing down regulation of the amygdala and nervous system.

Mindfulness

Along with being critical for the Awareness and Assessment phases, mindfulness can also be helpful for reducing body activation when you are worried. Just be aware that mindfulness can be challenging for many people with anxiety or a history of traumatic experiences. If you have trouble with mindfulness practice, know that it really is worth learning how to do but perhaps seek assistance from a trained helping professional and know that it can be a difficult for some people.

BODY CALMING STRATEGIES FOR HIGH LEVELS OF ACTIVATION

As previously mentioned, breathing is not always effective for high levels of activation. For high levels of activation, regulation strategies involving movement are more effective. There are many different ways you can incorporate movement strategies and I suggest using activities that you are interested in such as a sport you enjoy, yoga, and dance. Just going for a walk can also be helpful. What is important is to come up with movement that you like and will actually use. Other movement approaches for when you are not able to leave the room include the following (not an exhaustive list):

Finger Pushups

Press the fingers tips of both hands together, then slowly and intentionally lift each pair of fingers away from each other and then press them back together. Continue this way with each pair of fingers for as long as needed.

Bilateral Foot Movements

This exercise works well when you are seated and not able to get up and walk. Slowly and intentionally lift the toes and ball of one foot keeping the heel on the ground, and then follow the same movement with the other foot and continue as needed. Keep the movement slow and measured as quick movements may increase the level of activation.

Butterfly or Bear hug

Place each hand on the opposite arm in a gentle self-embrace using the amount of pressure that feels soothing. Then alternate squeezing one side and then other. Some people like a gentle embrace (butterfly hug) and others prefer much firmer contact (bear hug).

Shaking

Engage in rigorous shaking of your whole body for about a minute. You will notice partway through this practice that you really want to stop. This lets you know your ‘brakes’ are starting to work. Once the time is up, allow yourself to rest, feeling your relaxed muscles. This practice works really well for people who go to a high activation very quickly. I suggest finding somewhere private to do this as you do look a bit silly doing this. Many people report very quick results with shaking though, they are able to regulate quite quickly so it really is worth trying this.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE….

As I mentioned before, whichever strategy you think will work for you, you will need to practice it. Perhaps choose a strategy from the low to middle level of activation section and another one for the higher levels of activation and practice those for a week at least and see how they work for you. You usually need about three weeks to start to be really good at something new. If you find a strategy doesn’t work for you or you don’t like it, try another one. There will be something that works for you, but you may need to try a few things before you find the right match. And remember, match the strategy with how activated your body is. Otherwise, even the right strategy won’t work if you use it for the wrong level of activation. Breathing is a good example of this. Breathing is wonderful for calming down the body. But, it does not always work well for higher levels of activation, some people find it even makes them feel worse. This doesn’t mean that

breathing doesn’t work, it just means you need to use it at the right time. Enjoy your practice and know that you are getting better at shrinking your worry every time you practice!

Now that you have learned a few strategies to calm your body down when you feel anxious, what will you try for when you notice a low to middle level of activation? How will you incorporate this practice into your day?

What about when you notice high levels of activation, what movement strategies will you try to calm down your body? How will you practice this?

CHAPTER 5 Strategies for Helpful Thinking

From the Awareness section of the 3A Toolkit, we have already noticed thinking that is not helpful and is probably fueling the worry. In this chapter, we will work on what to do after we have noticed thinking that is not helpful. Basically, we need to work on creating thinking that is helpful! There are two categories of helpful thinking that you will learn about:

1. Messages of safety 2. Specific helpful thinking

Before we explore these two categories of helpful thinking in more detail, I want to let you know it does not work very well to try and stop the not helpful thoughts. Instead, this brings your attention to them even more and tends to grow them even bigger. For example, if I said to you, “I don’t want you to think about cupcakes”, what do you think about? That’s right…cupcakes!! Simply notice the not helpful thinking, label it as not helpful, and shift your focus and energy on generating helpful thinking such as Messages of safety and Specific helpful thinking.

MESSAGES OF SAFETY

From the Assign A Label chapter, we know that when we are worried and ‘flip our lid’, our brain is basically fighting tigers and ‘thinks’ that we are in terrible physical danger, even when we are not. So, an important part of learning how to have helpful thinking that will shrink your worry is to give your brain the message that you are physically safe. A bit like you are talking directly to your downstairs brain.

You have started to do this in the body calming section, these strategies help you to feel safe in your body. One really useful strategy for giving your brain the information that you are safe is orienting (check Chapter 3: Strategies for Body Calming for a description). With orienting, you are using your senses to give your brain the correct information that you are safe and not being attacked by tigers.

You can add another layer of calm and shrink the worry a bit more by giving yourself and your downstairs brain messages that you are safe. You can use any messages that reminds you that you are safe. Here are some examples:

“I am safe” “There are no tigers here” “It is just my worry that is making me feel like this, I am safe” “I can handle this” “This feeling will pass soon”

What are some other messages of safety that will help shrink your worry?

Choose a couple of messages of safety that will work best for you and be ready to use these to shrink your worry next time it is too big. You can use the messages of safety anytime you are worried, although it is easier to use any thinking strategy when your activation level is not quite as high. The higher your level of activation and worry, the more you will have ‘flipped your lid’ and the harder it will be to think at all. So try to use the messages of safety as soon as you notice your worry is getting too big.

Sometimes, you will have some not helpful thoughts that you want to deal with more directly. For these thoughts, we will work on how to create specific helpful thinking.

SPECIFIC HELPFUL THINKING

Generating helpful thinking takes practice as it is not just a case of using the opposite thought, Rather, the thought needs to be believable. Sometimes the helpful thoughts are not even related to the not helpful thought. Helpful thoughts typically have these characteristics:

• Present moment focused • Focus on how capable you are • Focus on what you can influence

For example, if your not helpful thought is “I can’t do this” linked to anxiety about a performance, this is clearly not helpful. To generate a helpful thought, thinking “I will be amazing” will not be believable as there is too much of a gap between the current thought and the more helpful one. Instead, to try something like “I can get started” (present focus), “I have the training