A Surprisingly Simple Stress Breaker

01/11

I have come across this surprisingly simple stress breaker. I suppose I could go into how stress arises and provide all kinds of stats about it, but, let’s just get to the method.

When you walk, we all walk some, very slightly stretch your stride. Stretch it so slightly that someone watching you would not notice. Very slight stretch. When you do this, actually even when you imagine doing it, notice what happens to your body. Posture improves, breathing is more full and, yes, I feel just a little bit happier. This is part one of my method. Easy.

In addition to the slight increase in stride length, count your steps. That’s all, just count them, while keeping that tiny stretch in stride.

That is it.

And it works surprisingly well.

The mind is busy maintaining that change in stride and in counting the steps. Both tasks put the mind clearly in touch with the body, a here and now kind of attention. In order to maintain these two actions the mind has very little capacity left to entertain thoughts that were feeding stress. One caution though. Keep the stretch small. It can be easy to stretch out and find a stride length that takes very little attention to maintain. We want the mind busy. Keep the stretch small so the mind has a job to do in order to maintain it.

I Coach with Executives and other decision makers in business. Most carry stress, not necessarily because they are in business, though that can feed things, but because they are humans. Having explained this method to them, those who use it report wonderful results. They become more centered and happier, both of which engender better decision making and greater success all round. Simple, effective and free.

Try it.

Joseph Seiler MCC