4 Simple Brain Hacks to Reduce Stress
Use Your Body to Shift Your Mind from a Place of Fear to Empowerment
When your mind is calm, your body follows. The reciprocal is just as true. Your mind responds to what you do with your body. It is a constant feedback loop — what happens in one affects the other.
There are many practices that help our minds relax from the grip of unnecessarily stressful thinking, such as meditation. As we consciously let go of stress, our body can redirect its focus to healing and maintenance.
We can also use our body to bring more peace to our mind. Embodied cognition is a concept that relates how the body’s motor system affects the state of the mind. There are methods that can act as shortcuts to bringing on certain states of mind.
Depending on the mental state we want to achieve, here are 5 simple practices that can be of benefit:
1) DEEP BREATHING
During times of stress, our breathing quickens. When we consciously slow down our breathing, we are letting our mind know that we are ok. When our mind realizes we are safe, it is easier for our bodies to relax.
Our autonomic nervous system has two main branches: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic system. The first helps prepare us for action, activating the fight or flight…
