What's Your Stress Reduction Plan?
By Jonathan Wood, RYT-200
Life is feeling overwhelming right now. There's the upcoming general election for president looming on the horizon. COVID-19, the pandemic d'jour is sweeping across the globe infecting and killing. Governments are nervous, the climate is changing, the economy is in flux, and technology is rapidly advancing in all sorts of ways. Phew! And that was my short list of trigger words and phrases that my ears hear and my brain translates into anxiety.
Oh, and I forgot, for the past 20-some days, Mercury has been in retrograde!
Tonight, I felt the shift as Mercury moved back to it normal whatever-it-does position. Or was it my yoga class this evening. To be more precise, I taught the yoga class. To teenagers embarking on their bar and bat mitzvah journey.
The kids complained about the cleanliness of the floor when I told them to take off their shoes and socks, but not in a way that was connected to coronavirus. Rather they didn't want to do something uncool, and evidently touching your bare feet to the floor falls into that category. When I was in middle school I hated not belonging or feeling like an outsider in my own body. But that's what the teen years can feel like. It took me about half the class period to reconnect to that physical sensation. This good dose of remembering made me grateful for the sense of belonging I feel in my yoga practice. Individually, for sure. I like my time by myself on the mat. Its centering and grounding. It's safe because my only rule on the mat is that What Other People Think About Me Is None of My Business. But I also love and value the belonging I feel at Yoga Heights; practicing in community of a class is one of my very favorite things.
Watching these kids do yoga got me thinking about how hard it was for me to be in my own body as a teenager and the physical stress we feel in our bodies. It got me to remember how much I hated walking walking down the hallway in middle school because it could result in getting bullied, beaten up for being a gay kid.
When I got home I started writing this post with the thought in mind about what I do to take care of myself when I feel stress. And two things came to mind: Certainly, yoga is the one action I turn to most frequently. Breathwork, mindfulness, the physical practice--all good things for stress. But I also like to read those little coffee table books with sweet names like Reasons Your Dog Loves You or Important Lessons From the Dowager Countess. Often humorous, these little books have three important qualities to stem the tide of my stress:
1. They are witty.
2. The sentences are usually short (good for my overactive brain).
3. They remind us to keep things in perspective.
Taken together, these three points are the perfect way to remind me that everything is temporary. Often I laugh and that helps me breathe. I'll take photos with my phone of funny pages and text them to my friends--because being connected to our peeps is a great way to remember that we're not alone.
As our world braces itself for lots of challenges and huge changes over the coming weeks and months, perhaps take a moment to review your own stress reduction plan. This can be a great activity to share with your family and friends, too. And remember, we're here at Yoga Heights to help you find some moments of calm no matter what happens in your day.