When you feel overwhelmed or stressed out by a situation, here are some ideas to relax.
- Get control of your breathing. When you are overwhelmed, it is common to find yourself either holding your breath or breathing
shallowly. Find a comfortable and quiet place to sit or lie down. Alter your breathing by taking deep, regular, even breaths. Take your time
inhaling and exhaling. - Find areas of muscle tension in your body. First, tense each
group of muscles, hold the tension and then relax them as you exhale. Start with your toes, then move up to your legs, back, arms, shoulders, neck, and face, focusing especially on your jaw and forehead. - Release the tension. As you inhale, feel the muscle’s heaviness. As you exhale, let the tension flow out of each muscle group and feel its warmth.
- Focus your attention on one calming vision or idea. Imagine your most comfortable place such as a beach, forest, or comfort of your home. Visualize this place as vividly as you can as you calmly breathe.
- Check-in with yourself. After reaching a calmer state of mind, check yourself on a scale of 1-10 if you are feeling overwhelmed with 10 being the most overwhelmed. Repeat again until you reach a 3 or below.
Remember to:
- Breathe deeply and evenly from the belly.
- Tense specific muscle groups, hold the tension, then relax.
- Feel the natural heaviness in your relaxed muscles.
- Feel the warmth in your relaxed muscles.
- Imagine a soothing visual image.
Wen is a Certified Health and Wellness Coach who helped people change their behaviors. He brings experience from educating people about their physical health, nutrition, sexual health, and substance use. As a coach, he has worked with over one hundred clients in changing their tobacco use and had over five hundred conversations as a crisis counselor.
