Correcting Body Tension 🤸‍♀️

Reverse Aging and Stress

Body Scan🧘‍♂️

Take a quick scan of your body using your mind. Go deep into your senses.

Close your eyes, sit still, and see if you can go deep inside yourself using your consciousness.

Work your way from the top of your head, down to your toes.

Feel your way through every one of your muscles and organs. 

Place your awareness on your senses rather than your thoughts.

Quickly take a minute Before your resume, notice what you feel.

Awareness Holding Tension

Do you feel any tightness or tension, or are you wholly loose and relaxed?

The chances are that somewhere in your body; you are holding on to some tension.

When you did the body scan before, you may have felt your:

• Jaw clenched

• The pressure of our tongue pushing on our pallet

• Shoulders tight

• Face screwed or squinted

Most of us are not aware of the strain we consistently hold.

Are we conditioned to hold this tension, or is it taught?

How did we learn to become uptight?

Some of us have lines permanently etched, revealing stressors of the past.

These unconsciously held tension in our face may have changed the way we appear.

For some of us, it takes Therapy to snap out of these terrible habits, accentuated over time, compounding with each posture, thought, and motion.

Becoming aware of the state of your body is one way to rid yourself of the pent up muscle strain. 

Developing new habits will always be challenging at first. You will have to actively break your concentration by bringing your awareness inwards to your internal dialogue and chronic tension.

Do You Want to Reduce Tension?

Breaking the habit of being so tense has a knock-on effect with a myriad of benefits.

Relaxing your body will help you to stay calm, and level headed, especially under circumstances that previously triggered you.

Reinforce the positive effects of letting go and loosening up when you catch yourself.

Routinely practising healthy posture, releasing your facial tension, and sinking your tightness inwards will also help you slow down, and possibly reverse the process of aging. 

Lines start to disappear, and ailments fade. Stress and anxiety wash away, making space for relaxation, calmness and light-heartedness.

A great starting point is your face. Try and take a minute throughout your day to relax the muscles in your jaw. You can try some of the exercises below if they help you relax.¹

I have linked driving in my car to relaxing my muscles, so each time I stop at the lights, I check in to see if I can let go of some tension and relax my body.

Why so serious?

Our tense state of mind affects our habitual postures, reflexes and expressions.

Removing tension starts with changing your habits. Conscious awareness of your face, body and thoughts is the first step to form good habits that will allow you to release stress and in turn, have more joy and less worry in your life.

Tension takes energy to maintain. 

All of us can benefit from releasing some of our physical tension.

We hold onto tension to the point where it causes physical ailment.

It is your responsibility to notice your tension and actively let it go.

Several benefits come from regularly checking yourself using mental body scans to correct your posture, thoughts and pent up tension.

Facial Exercises

1. Exercise of your muscles helps relieve tension because it involves stretching, moving and contorting and then giving your muscles a chance to relax.

An excellent place to start is the facial muscles. The face hides tension, and then your body also takes the cue.

Below are some Neuromuscular Release (NRW) Exercises for your Face

Here are some face exercises that can relieve facial tension as an example:

• Happy face. Smile as wide as you can, hold for the count of 5 and then relax. Do 10 repetitions (reps) per set of exercises.

• Slack jaw. Let your jaw fully relax, and your mouth hang open. Bring the tip of your tongue to the highest point of the roof of your mouth. Hold this position for a count of 5, and then ease your jaw back into a resting closed-mouth position. Do 10 reps per set.

• Brow furrow. Wrinkle your forehead by arching your eyebrows as high as possible. Hold this position for a count of 15, and then let it go. Do 3 reps per set.

• Eye squeeze. Close your eyes tightly and hold this position for 20 seconds. Then, make your eyes go blank: Completely let go of all the little muscles around your eyes and stare expressionless for 15 seconds. Do 3 reps per set.

• Nose scrunch. Wrinkle your nose, flare your nostrils, and hold for the count of 15 and then release. Do 3 reps per set.