Stress Management & ANTs

Steve Allen·Joi, 20 iunie 2019·

😰With stress management and 🐜 Automatic negative thoughts being hot topics in this Quest
I wanted to create an easy to follow and easy to use set of tools which can profoundly help in
these areas. If these topics don’t ever affect you at some point or another then you are
probably not human.😅

One of my personal passions is the experimentation of state change tools and techniques. I
have been experimenting with various ways to deal with hacking learning and personal
growth for a couple of decades, but I never had such menu of contents back then so here I
will share some of these techniques in one place. You will know some, you may not
recognize others. Be aware that it is just an introduction and I encourage you to test them all
out at some point. The reason there is a variety like this is because we are all unique and have
our respective preferences. I encourage you to share about anything that works for you.
Below this post can be an extended menu of practices that you learned or developed for
yourself. Let’s begin...

Napping:

This was my go to tools for changing my state for the majority of my early adult life. This is
a great option. I used to set a timer for about 20 mins, but make sure to cut your nap off at 40
minutes max so you don’t go into a full REM cycle.
Tip: If you can get yourself an eye mask to block out any light you may feel more rested (just
something I found personally) Recommended Time: 20 - 40 mins

Meditation:

I always thought meditation was some weird new age floaty thing that had no significance to
anything. We often have these judgments when we don’t know anything about a topic, but It
was actually reading a biography about Bill Hicks the comedian that mentioned he practised
meditation and so right there it planted the seed. Now it had ‘cool’ factor. I still
procrastinated 10 years after but then, I had the urge. I tried it one afternoon for 20 mins in
place of a nap before work. It blew me away. Meditation slowly took over ‘the nap’ as my
preference.
One thing to remember: Stick with it because it is a practice & will take a lot of grit &
persistence. There is a lot of positive research on the benefits and you can google it but just
practice for a week or more & you should start to experience the wonderful benefits first
hand, so dive on in.
Recommended Time: 20 mins +

Go for a walk:

Of course we all know the benefits of going for a walk. In the start of 2019 my housing
situation caused me to not walk as much as usual, but then after getting more settled I walked
a bit more and wow I was reminded of the positive effects straight away in both feeling in my
legs and body and the clarity in my thinking.
Tip: Swing your arms. You will get both hemispheres of the brain to switch on more.
Recommended Time: 20 mins +
Exercise:

Linked with walking, with exercise you create something known as exercise-induced
transient hypofrontality. What this does is tires out the prefrontal cortex allowing us to re-set
and think fresh again. Hooray! 😅If you’re wondering what exercise is, google it..😂Tip: Go
for a run, do some star jumps, do some dancing, martial arts
Recommended Time: 5 mins +

Emotional Freedom Techniques - EFT / Energy Psychology:

This one you may or may not be familiar with but it is one of my personal favourites. This
can be simple and effective and can help change state in a matter of minutes. Energy
Psychology is an umbrella term for bringing in western psychology methods with eastern
traditional medicine thinking. For the sake of this blog I shall mention just this one specific
modality; Emotional Freedom Techniques, also known as tapping or EFT for short. This
involves tapping your fingers on meridian points on the body that we use in acupuncture to
calm the (amygdala) flight or flight response. You may consider it a form of psychological
acupuncture. The best part is that you can do it without needles. 👊it is self applied, fast and
easy to do. Check out this quick introduction to the points.
Tip: Try it with physical pain, Try it when you’re stressed, Try it on ANTS... Try it on
everything!
Recommended Time: 5 minutes + ( you can do it as much as you want)

Energy Medicine DER:

Energy Medicine is it’s own wide field and if you were to study it deeply it can be very
complex but the joy here is that you can learn a short Daily Energy Routine (DER) . This
covers many bases. It is very effective and powerful for renewing your energy and cognition.
It is something I have used as part of my morning routine for a few years now on a regular
basis. It’s simple to do and very fast. You may notice some similarities with the brain breaks
in Superbrain!
Tip: Practise daily for at least a week, get the routine automatic before making any
judgements. You may notice even better & stronger benefits the more your body gets used to
it. (It did for me)
Recommended Time: 5 - 10 minutes.

Heart-brain coherence exercise:

This is a short exercise developed by the heart-math institute - It brings the Heart and brain
waves from a state of stress and anxiety to coherent healthy brain wave patterns.

1. Close your eyes & focus on the heart/chest area

2. Inhale and exhale slowly from the heart space
3. Feel the feelings of appreciation, gratitude, kindness & compassion.
4. Continue for at least 3 minutes or so to get the effects.
Tip: The feeling is the most important part, feel it as much as you can.
Recommended Time: 3 - 5 minutes +
📷Coherence on the bottom image.
Hemi-Sync Exercise:

This allows the hemispheres of the brain to sync up with each other. We go through our days
being dominant in either one hemisphere or the other depending on what we are doing. This
exercise balances the hemispheres of the brain and brings us into more coherent brain wave
patterns so we can think at our best and be more creative. Simply sit down, and cross your
ankles and then cross your wrists and clasp the palms together, drop them in your lap or curl
them up to your chest.
Tip: You may notice more chatter in the mind for a short while. Stick with it and it will pass.
Stay in this posture until you feel emotionally, mentally or physically relaxed.
Recommended Time: 3 minutes +

Wim Hof breathing and push-ups exercise:

I am not a trainer or anything so do so at your own risk, I will just send you to a link for you
to find out more for yourself if it is something you want to test. I have tried this several times
personally and found it to be a very good state changer. Simply do about 30 very deep
breaths, breathe out, hold breather with no air in the lungs and do as many push ups as you
can.
Tip: find out how many push ups you can do normally first and then compare with how many
you can do with this technique.
Recommended Time: 4 - 5 mins

So there you have it! I totally recommended you trying them all out at least
once. Thanks for reading. Remember, there are of course hundreds of ways to
change state so get communicating & share in the tribe to find what works
best for you.

I hope you get great benefit, and above all….. Enjoy!

Be Super!