I am realizing more and more than my arch-nemisis may be tension.
I have a strong tendency to get over-excited about all kinds of things, good and bad, particularly good. And if I forget to relax, in the end my stomach hurts, my back hurts, or my head hurts. And my sleep suffers.
Any good tips for releasing tension?
I thought you had a flexible schedule sleep wise anyway.
ReplyDeleteI guess I meditate, but not in a traditional yoga way. I have lots of music which falls into the trance and ambient category. One band that dominates the collection is Tangeringe Dream, another is Brian Eno (try music for airports - play it so you can hear all the different depths of music).
I also kick back with visual stimuli, lava lamps, oil projectors etc. even the visualizers in a media player.
As a college student I had an old deck chair, and an 8 ball. I'd toss the ball in the air and play catch with it. You have to concentrate on the ball so much you can't worry. I guess this was a low impact sport.
So my magic cures are music and light.
The other cure is the ocean/beach.
I actually found a good surrogate in S. Manchester. A wet motorway at night has the same sucking sound a the tide on a beach...
The illusion worked better without my glasses.
Tension?? Tension is easy! One exercise before sleep and you will forget the word. The exercise is twisting upper body:
ReplyDelete1. Stand straight, feet 10" apart.
2. Knees always straight.
3. Hands on the shoulder level
4. Elbows bent at 90 degrees
5. Start twisting upper body left and right beginning with shoulder level then chest then waist then below, don't bend the knees.
Do it as many times as your age - each direction. Increase the number of repetitions each year by one ;-) It starts working immediately and all tension will be gone in a week. Never stop doing it.
I had an incident with my back in 1983. After recovery I have found this method for myself and practice it ever since. Unfortunately I can not make myself to do it always and have to regret and pay every time I quit. It cures tension in a week, tension comes back in about two. This rule can be extrapolated ;-)
"I heat up / I can't cool down,
ReplyDeleteyou got me spinning round and round"
I'm the same, I still think caffeine is my relaxation. Speed is my relaxation, go figure!
I feel somewhat addicted to my inner wheels going round and round.
i meditate though
Sometimes I hear a voice inside me saying Take a deep breath and let it all go.
this Voice is my relaxation and I really cultivate my mind to listen for it. I, by myself, am frenetic.
Dibutil,
ReplyDeleteDo the hands point up?
does the exercise have a name?
Illustrations?
Hi Eolake,
ReplyDeleteYou could try my free mp3. People have had good results.
www.freeyoganidra.co.uk/
Masturbate.
ReplyDeleteThe best method I know of is yoga.
ReplyDeleteA tension in the body consciousness means there is a respective 'tension' in the mind. Yoga is designed to connect our subjective and objective awarenesses (our inner and outer worlds), and allow us to more immediately notice how our day to day choices affect us.
The only problem is that when starting yoga you need to work with a guru for awhile to get the hang of it. It's not something you can properly learn on your own.
What might also help is simply taking walks --- long enough and often enough. Walking is a form a movement meditation just like yoga asana practice. Just very much lighter. If you are already doing this then I suppose something more vigorous is needed. Jogging might also work, if your knees can take the strain.
Bottom line: you need to engage your body to free your mind. I recommend at least initially exploring this somewhere outside your living quarters in order to get yourself mentally away from where you experience the tension.
I second the notion of taking walks. Long rambles, rather than directed hasty exercising. Excercise-style walking also has its benefits, of course, but if you start scheduling a set time to finish a set distance or some other cardio-vascular stress performance quantification, then you're right back at square one again, aren't you?
ReplyDeleteAutumn walks are the best. I can't wait for that crisp air to descend down here. Of course, by then I might have moved, I hope to New York; autumn is nice there, too.
Exercise - Jogging etc
ReplyDeleteMeditation - Any kind
Friends
Beer
Maybe followed by a curry
Yo Eolake, I have gotta some suggestions for ya,close your eyes for sometime, inhale and exhale for some moments, but at this think nothing else, count the number of breaths you take, and free yourself up and gaze something under a natural light, like under sunlight and look at something beautiful like a majestic tree, and a beautiful building, or watch a photograph of a beautiful nude woman next to your window where you receive enough sunlight. After you feel free, watch some comedy videos ( like Russel Peters)and some music parodies ( I would strongly like to suggest of Weird Al Yancovic). After that, try practising yoga. Lastly, do an Indian version of hip hip hurrah by pointing out a finger out of your each hang and move them up and down together with your with a full spirit and say 'Oh balle balle'loudly.
ReplyDeleteOh sorry, lastly, do an Indian version of hip hip hurrah by pointing out a finger out of your each hand and move them up and down together with your body with a full spirit and say 'Oh balle balle'loudly.
ReplyDeleteEolake,
ReplyDeleteThis exercise is so ingeniously simple that I could not find either name or illustrations. Unfortunately, I have not seen a person who could do it right from my explanation even if I showed it.
Watch this guy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qyEF12KAlm8
from 03:00 to 03:10 he shows something similar to what I am talking about. The differences are:
1. You keep legs twice as narrower
2. You do not bend knees!!!
3. Se how he bends the elbow? Yours both have to be bent like that and shoulders kept as much apart as possible.
4. Do it faster, use inertia of the arms to twist you further.
5. Your pelvis _follows_ the upper body, never start motion from it!
6. Your head stays in neutral position or turns in the direction of the twist, never back!
When you twist right, you can feel the stretch as one spiral line starting from your neck and down to the ankles.
When I do this or when my friends and even my dad does this right as I teach I hear 3-4 clicks in the upper chest section of the spine after the first 5 rotations and 1-2 clicks in the lower chest section by the end of the exercise (hence the number of repetitions bound to the age).
If I forget doing it before sleep I have to do it in the morning (how can one relax in the sleep when there is triggers {root cause of the clicks} staying in the spine?!) and repeat at least once during the day.
Otherwise, the before-sleep one is enough.
Cheers!
Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteHow about you do a video?
Who taught it to you?
At the risk of sounding like a coal miner in Newcastle, addressing the guru of DOMAI, sex releases tension pretty well.
ReplyDeleteBeyond just the fun exercise, the mental processes change from whatever is exciting/depressing you (an internal focus) into concentrating on someone else (an external focus) and what they like/want.
If you are tensing muscles enough that it becomes chronic, the book Pain Free by Pete Egoscue is quite good. He recommends postural therapy in a gentle way.
Who taught it to me?? Strange question. I guess the proper answer would be: I figured it myself! Why do you (everyone) think everything credible is something taught by someone?
ReplyDeleteYou know, when I was in school I could run 100m fast. Very fast. I showed time on the level of local champions and knew that I could do better. However, I could not finish 1000m at the pace to get minimal result for a school credit. And the coach could not give a clue what to do. He was not a bad coach by the way. I just could not. Much later, like 10 years after it just got tome: I was not breathing properly! Immediately did I find the proper way of breathing. And taught it to others. Surprise! It worked for me, it worked for everyone. Who taught it to me? Books, logic, experiments on myself, extreme situation when I needed to make 5km in 10 minutes on foot...
Similar story about my spine and tension release. I was swimming almost professionally in school and that exact exercise was a part of our warm-up. It had to be done right. Then, later, I broke my spine and had a year of nightmare recovery. Then I had tension. Then I remembered the exercise.
Vouilas!
Does this story make my method credible? ;-)
Sorry, I do not publish video of myself.
ReplyDelete"Why do you (everyone) think everything credible is something taught by someone?"
ReplyDeleteBecause 99% of the time it is. Sorry about that. :)
I am guessing the essence of the exercise is that the whole spine be given a good twisting?
ReplyDeleteHow fast do you go? (My back is not so great, so I don't care to go fast.)
Thank you for the help.
That is right, twist-stretch. Start with the speed you are comfortable with but use inertia - the idea is to twist further than your muscles can turn you. I do it at approximately 1Hz (count: one - left, two - right, three - left, etc.)
ReplyDeleteThere was an Indian guy - Srinivasa Ramanujan who had no credits in math and left almost no paper trail to his conclusions but up until now days his results are being proved by leading mathematicians with their formal "credible" methods. ;-)
"the idea is to twist further than your muscles can turn you"
ReplyDeleteah, I see, yes. And the arms high is to help the enertia. And the bent elbows is so the long arms will not slow down the swing.
"....arms high is to help the inertia. And the bent elbows is so the long arms will not slow down the swing...."
ReplyDeleteYou got it! Now, does it click? Does it help? Quite often the tension leads to local inflammation, then no clicks will sound until it's gone. The stretch helps to heal the inflamed, contracted threads faster.
I don't know yet whether they help, but they do feel good.
ReplyDeleteI get dizzy, though.
Now put your left hand on your left hip, your right hand on your head, and walk VERY fast along a straight line, placing the balls of your feet on the ground first, and putting each foot exactly in front of the next rather than across from it. Do this only when burly males from motorcycle gangs are watching. :)
ReplyDeleteI just have to ask: Doesn't this EFT crap you were peddling a while back take care of tension?
ReplyDeleteInteresting how we haven't heard anything about THAT lately.
Stress relief? Easy for me. I pretend I have a beautiful female laying next to me beneath warm covers and we had just made love and I'm quietly sipping on a diet dew smoking a black n mild giving thanks and that I was blessed enough to feel her pleasure beneath mine.........sigh. A man can always dream.
ReplyDeleteI, by myself, am frenetic. Laurie said.
ReplyDeleteHow well I know this too. Nothing in the world worse than being alone 100 percent all the time.
Nothing else can come close to this ongoing agony. Okay, I'll stop here, don't want to put my friends to sleep here. Sorry.
Of course, by then I might have moved, I hope to New York; autumn is nice there, too.
ReplyDeleteI use to like NY (NYC) that is, but I can never go back there. Too many bittersweet memories for me. Final Identity, if you get to go enjoy yourself.
Strange how this place (NYC) was both my joy and sorrow.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteDomai is not really about sex, except in the most abstract sense, and I'm clueless about it.
Thanks for the book tip. I don't have pain exactly, but I do have stiffness in the spine, so I've bought the book Pain Free. It seems promising. The fact alone that he dares not to have the usual legal disclaimer in front, but instead advocates personal responsibility is remarkable.
Doesn't doing the nasty work anymore?
ReplyDelete