At times, we hold parts of our body tensely and this can be exhausting. We may get so used to doing this that we don’t consciously notice until we are in pain.
Work all around your body:
'Courage faces fear and thereby masters it. Cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it.'
Martin Luther King Jr
Our brains are plastic which means we can change what we think and feel by reorganising how we think or making new connections between ideas. We can also learn new things. Meditation can be used for relaxation and calming purposes but it also gives us a way of training our brains so that we are in charge of what we think and are less likely to be derailed by difficult thoughts or negative ways of thinking.
Find somewhere warm, quiet and comfortable to sit or lie. Use the breathing techniques from earlier tips to breathe deeply and evenly. Then notice what thoughts come into your mind and what emotions are attached to them. Practise letting these thoughts go rather like a car which drives past and then is out of sight or a balloon that blows across the sky in front of you. When you come across thoughts which trouble you and are hard to let go of, you could try working with them (Tip 11) or challenging them (Tip 12).
Come up with your own meditations or use Apps such as Calm, Heartfulness or Headspace