Tension in your system?
June 24th, 2010
Are you tense?
At a recent lecture I gave at the University of California San Francisco medical school, I was teaching the first year students how to use the calming tools: breathing, grounding and sensing.
Breathing is by far the most important of all 9 tools in the performance model. So much has been said and written about breathing, and no wonder! When we don’t breathe regularly it causes all sorts of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual problems.
After we worked on grounding, one of the students had a brilliant observation. First, to remind you:
grounding means two things: (1) feeling your feet on the floor and, if you are sitting, your body supported by the chair; and (2) releasing physical tension.
After practicing these two parts of grounding with the medical students one of them asked: “Is the point of this that you don’t introduce tension into your system?”
This was a great realization: that we actually introduce tension into our systems by not grounding– by tightening up our shoulders, or our legs, or our hands, or our feet, or any part of ourselves.
When you are holding your breath or making your body tense you are actually trying to escape. It’s like you’re saying on the inside “Let me out of here!” (the “flight” of “fight or flight”) . When you breathe and ground you are keeping your system free of tension. You are, in the language I like to use, connected. You are not trying to escape. You are present to do what has to be done. This is essential for taking tests.
Observe yourself: whenever you have an anxious thought about anything just notice what’s going on in your body. You are certainly holding your breath and/or you are making some part of your body tense. You are introducing tension into your own system. The medicine: breathe and release the tension. Repeat the process as often as necessary. Doctor’s orders!
Keep observing, keep using the tools. Let me know what you find out and how it helps you.
