Release Your Body's Stress

We all know how much stress can affect our mind but it affects our bodies too. In fact, there are areas of our body that hold our stress. You may know what spots I'm talking about, those places in your body where your muscles feel tight even when you're not thinking about it. The most common areas we tend to hold stress are in our neck, shoulders, hands and feet. That's why today I wanna take this time to unwind and relax those areas with you so you can start your day stress-free and be more in tune with your body in the future. Just by being aware of where we hold stress can help us break that pattern. We can send our body signals to relax, and that in itself has a positive impact on how stressed we feel mentally. Remember, you are in charge of your body here. If anything feels uncomfortable or like it's not a good fit for you, feel free to just close your eyes and focus on your breath instead. So let's get started. Find yourself in a comfortable position. Take a long deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Relax your body from head to toe, softly and gently begin to close your eyes or just soften your gaze. We hold a lot of emotion in our shoulders. When we are feeling discomfort, we may find they inch up towards our ears or hunch over when we are feeling insecure. It's human, but that kind of posture can affect our neck and back muscles, and even our capacity to breathe deeply in our lungs. So it's worth it to intentionally relax your shoulders when you feel them getting tight. Bring your focus to your shoulders now. As you breathe in deeply through your nose, you'll bring your shoulders up to your ears for a count of three, not forcing anything, just tensing a little bit. Then as you exhale, roll your shoulders back and down as far away from your ears as they can get. For a count of four, relaxing your muscles with the movement of your breath. Let's try it in two, three, and out. Two, three, four. In two, three and out, two, three, four. In two, three and out, two, three, four. And one more, in and out. Great. Let's move to another area of stress, our jawline. This stretch helps relax our facial muscles and our jawline and even our neck. It's a smile stretch. Make sure you're comfy where you are. Smile, the widest smile you can without any tightness or pain. Then slowly open up your jaw a couple more inches or as much as you can without force. Inhale here through your open mouth, and as you exhale, let go of your smile. So again, smiling wide, opening the jaw, inhale in and let go. Big smile, open up more. Inhale and exhale. One more smile, inhale and out. Wonderful. While...