How a Technique that seems to be about Posture can help with Stress and Anxiety

If you have ever experienced stress or anxiety (there won’t be many of us who haven’t), you will probably recall a feeling that came with this. Even thinking about this now you may notice somewhere in your body that tells you that you are feeling stressed or anxious. Maybe your shoulders have become tense or your breathing has changed. Perhaps you notice your heart rate increase or a feeling or ‘butterflies’ or discomfort in your digestive system. In extreme states of stress you might become irrational, angry, feel unable to breathe or think straight, feel faint, nauseous or unable to sleep.

The Alexander Technique will teach you some simple tools to help change some of these symptoms of stress and anxiety. Changing these symptoms can allow your mind and body to return to a calm and balanced state so that you can begin to break the cycle and change your reaction to the stressful situation.

The Alexander Technique can never take away the stressful situations of life, however what it can do is give you tools to change your reaction to the stress. So you can have a real choice about how you can be in these situations.

This can be really empowering. The situation might be stressful but you don’t have to be.

Photo by Yosi Prihantoro on Unsplash

Perfect Day for a Rainy Blog

It's pretty rainy out there today. A proper wet, puddly, soggy kind of a day.

What happens to people when it rains though?

It looks like they want to pull their head so far down inside their jacket like a tortoise retreating into its shell. This seems to be the case even with a hood up or under an umbrella. As if being lower to the ground somehow avoids getting wet.

Sometimes a makeshift cover will appear from a piece of clothing or a bag in which the person will scrunch themselves down to get under (even though they could choose to lift it higher to fit themselves under).

Then there’s the running as if to dodge the raindrops. 

I like this quote from Tsunetomo Yamamoto, The Hagakure: A code to the way of the samurai

“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”

Running with Peaches

I am always interested to watch the quality of a runners arms. I find it can give so much away about a persons running but arms are so rarely considered an important part of running.

Two of the most common things I see are thumbs sticking up as if thumbing a ride.  This to me is an indication of tension right through the arms, shoulders and chest.

The other thing I see is abandoned arms that are just not really involved in the running and a bit too floppy. Try running with your arms by your sides and you will see how tricky this can be.

Arms need to be part of the whole movement of running. Not overly tense or held but freely moving as part of the whole coordinated movement of running.

So whats with the peaches?

Well next time you are running begin by just noticing whats happening in your arms. Are they tense and held tight to your torso? Are they not really part of your running, just floppy and not really involved.

Then just imagine you have 4 soft juicy peaches, one under each armpit and one in each hand. You are going to need to allow some space between your torso and upper arm so that you have room for the peaches, maybe this allows you some more freedom at that upper arm joint.

And you don't want to squash them in your hands. So you need just enough tone so that you don't drop them but not so much they will squash. Don't worry too much about the position if you prefer your hands to be be more open that's fine, it's more about the idea.

And that's it that's all the tone you need.