This is the second of one of my online classes that many people have found useful. I am not a doctor or a psychologist, and I do share information from several sources and give credit to them in the sessions. There are some really fun exercises in these sessions. I hope you enjoy them and maybe learn something that can help you with some physical or emotional issue. Ariele M. Huff
Ancient Healing Methods for Modern Stress #2
Anxiety is mental tension leading to physical tension, leading to mental tension in a vicious cycle. Interrupting this repeating cycle needs to be done gently and carefully–like cleaning a gun so it won’t go off if it’s still loaded.
Methods to stop the cycle: relax the physical tensions with massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, meditation, exercise, better diet, and sleep. Recognize that stress causes or exacerbates physical discomforts. It can be a relief to know that.
Working on the mental tension can also stop the cycle through meditation, clarifying problems and needs, setting goals, accruing successes. Also understanding how the vicious cycle creates more symptoms and tensions.
There are several ancient methods to interrupt physical tension and build health so tensions won’t occur:
We’ll look at reflexology for this session.
Reflexology involves self-foot massage which includes looking for places that hurt, are stiff, or are numb…see what body area the chart indicates and giving painful areas attention.
Homework: Spend some time feeling the soles of your feet. If you find areas that are stiff or painful or numb, try doing some gentle massage and noting if that helps. (It may take repeated attention to an area.) In 250 words or less, let me know if you discovered any particular areas that are uncomfortable and what body organs or parts they represent. I may be able to help you further if I know about those.
Ariele M. Huff has been teaching in Washington for the last 45 years, including many writing classes as well as personal work classes like Get Rich…$tay Rich, Processing Loss Workshop, Pain—Therapies & Treatments, and Ancient Healing Methods for Modern Stress.
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