Resources
Exercises for Emotional Regulation
Five Senses Awareness
This exercise is an effective tool for reducing anxiety, panic, overwhelm and dissociation in the moment. By engaging all five senses you bring yourself quickly into the felt sense of the body thereby disengaging from the anxiety-provoking thoughts or story running through your mind, or the stressful situation you might find yourself in. It helps to regulate the nervous system by giving the mind something to focus on and the body a prompt to stimulate sensory awareness.
Begin by noticing five things in your immediate surrounds that you can see and label them to yourself mentally. I.e. I can see the window, I can see the lamp, I can see the plant in the pot, I can see the clock on the wall, I can see the chair. Then move on to noticing four things you can touch and do the same; ie. I am touching the blanket on the chair, I am touching the fabric of my jeans, I am touching the paper on the desk, etc. Then notice three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste using the same process of noticing and labelling to yourself.
Once you have completed the five senses activity and are more present, continue to ground and regulate your nervous system using some of the breathing exercises below.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
This exercise is great for helping you get “out of your head'" and stuck in thoughts and into your body, where you can find presence, safety, and more calm. While this particular video is targeted at patients with a physical medical condition, it is an exercise used for mental stress as well, as it has the the same calming and grounding effect on the body regardless of the reason you’re using it.
Breathing Exercises
Box/Square Breathing Techniques
Imagine you are tracing the sides of a square or the side of a box, four even sides. You begin by breathing out, then breathe in as you travel up the left side of the square counting four seconds, hold the breath as you travel along the top of the square from left to right for four seconds, exhale as you travel down the right side of the square from top to bottom over four seconds, and finally hold the breath once again for four seconds as you travel along the bottom of the square from right to left. Then repeat the process, a minimum 5 times to have a positive impact on the nervous system. Watch this video for a visual demonstration.
Circular Breathing
Imagine you’re following the circumference of a circle, like the hands of a clock, starting from 6pm and breathing in as you follow around up to 12pm, then exhaling slowly and fully as you follow the clock hand from 12pm to 6pm again, and then you breathe in once again and continue the process slowly and fully. Make sure to expand the abdomen like a balloon as you breathe in, and contract the abdomen like a balloon deflating as you breathe out. A minimum of 5 times to positively impact the nervous system and slow down the body’s stress response.
Two to One Breathing
This exercise is all about lengthening the exhalation so that it is twice as long as the inhalation. So for example, you breathe in for four seconds, and breathe out for 8 seconds, or 5 in and 10 out depending on your lung capacity. Extending the exhalation helps to shift the nervous system from sympathetic activation (fight, flight, freeze response) to parasympathtic nervous system regulation (preparing the body for rest and digestion). As you practice this exercise and become more relaxed in body and mind you will find that you can probably extend the counts longer and longer, perhaps breathing in for 8 counts and out for 16 etc.. You can explore what feels comfortable and also challenge yourself. The longer the exhalation the quicker you deactivate the body’s stress response and start to relax- which is why we say a “sigh of relief.” This article explains the physiological process in more detail.
Tracing the Hand
This exercise involves tracing around the fingers on one hand with the fingers of the other hand, while breathing in and out. So breathing in as you trace your thumb from the base to the top of the finger nail, and then exhaling as you trace the thumb from the top to the bottom betwee the thumb and pointer/index finger, then inhaling again as you trace up the index finger, before exhaling as you trace down the side of the index to the middle finger base.
Relationships & Communication Skills
Podcasts
Books
“The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”- the four types of communication that harm relationships, and their antidotes.
Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, by Dr Sue Johnson
It Begins with You, by Jilian Turecki
Self-Assessments
Measure your vulnerability to stress with this risk-factors self-assessment tool.
Increase your awareness of any problematic thinking style/s, otherwise known as cognitive distortions, you default to in times of stress, with the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Unhelpful Thinking Styles
Wondering if you may have Attention Deficit Disorder? You can do an ADHD Screening Test and find out if assessment is recommended.