Five Minute Helpers are quick, easy, fun and effective tools to relieve stress and tension, relax, shift and lift your energy and mood, stop un-helpful thinking, and generally re-balance your body and mind.
Use them everyday, and especially during stressful times.
This helper is called “Blow Out – Let it go.” Use it when you feel: tense, anxious, stressed, tired, out of sorts, having upsetting feelings and thoughts, or tightness in your jaw and neck, or anywhere else, unable to think clearly, and to interrupt the cycle of tension and holding your breath, that leads to more tension.
And you want to feel:
relaxed, balanced, energized, and clear headed.
How to do it:
- As you exhale blow out as much air as you can.
- Imagine sending out feelings of fear, anger, tiredness, or whatever else you’d like to expel, with your exhale.
- Add a sigh or a sound as you exhale.
- To encourage the release of jaw and neck tension, open your mouth, yawn as you inhale, or sigh as you exhale
- Repeat blow out as much as you need.
- After you expel all the air that you want to, allow yourself to breathe naturally. Imagine that this deep inhalation fills you with calmness. Enjoy this peaceful moment.
The 5 minute helpers work best when you have fun -so enjoy!
Benefits / Why It Works
Since you are breathing every moment of your life, you have plenty of opportunities to try blow out. Breathing involves letting out or exhaling stale air, and receiving life sustaining oxygen through inhaling. When we are upset or afraid, we often hold our breath and tighten our muscles; that interferes with having enough oxygen to relax and to think clearly. When you blow out the air, it interrupts the cycle of holding your breath, and provides a passage to send out “stale” or unhelpful thoughts and feelings from your body and mind.
Remember: As you keep using them it becomes easier to incorporate them into your daily life.