Podcast Appearances
Other things would be long hold stretches, exhale emphasized breathing practices.
So like four, seven, eight is a really common one or just any breath where the exhale is twice as long as the inhale.
It will have a kind of calming effect.
And another one that you can do is kind of playing with your awareness.
And awareness is, again, something that a lot of people don't think about, but your awareness in any moment can be kind of expansive.
You could be aware of like the space, the sides of you, the space above you, below you.
Or usually when people get stressed or reactive, the awareness is almost like it's like looking, experiencing life through a straw that's like just in front of you and very narrow.
So you can be aware of the space like behind you, feeling your feet on the ground, attuning to like the sounds around you.
And the more that your awareness is kind of expansive, I'm like doing a little bit right now, you can kind of put your hands out.
And then as you kind of move them behind you, you're kind of expanding your peripheral vision.
And that has this kind of expansive effect.
And it creates a sense of spaciousness in the system.
I think that's a really useful way to put it.
And I think I really emphasize the experiment-based approach.
I think in my experience, the bottom up is the most underappreciated and kind of most ignored.
And I do believe it's the most effective if someone is in a state of, you know, their anxiety is ramping up maybe towards a panic attack or they're getting really stressed.
It's the most effective kind of short-term intervention.
But in terms of the long-term, I mean, I think it's actually...
This is kind of going a little like a layer deeper.
But I think that both top down and bottom up interventions can also be used to avoid feeling emotions.