yogic wisdom – 4 self-care practices to release accumulated stress and anxiety
discover how to balance your emotions and strengthen your body’s stress response
Today, our independent and demanding lifestyles often force us to suppress our anxious feelings and painful emotions, which can accumulate in our body as stress and in turn affect our mood. Over a period of time our energies can become stagnant and depleted which manifests as physical and psychological ailments such as fatigue, depression, panic attacks, addictions, behavioral problems and so forth.
To release accumulated stress and anxiety, apply the following practices:
Indian spiced tea to balance the emotions
Indian spiced tea strengthens the body and grounds the emotions.
To prepare, simmer the following ingredients for five minutes:
• one inch piece of fresh chopped ginger root
• one teaspoon of fennel seeds
• one cardamom pod
• one teaspoon of black tea leaves
• one cup of water
Add milk and sweeten with jaggery if desired. Bring to the boil, strain and serve.
Jaggery is the sap of the sugarcane plant, which is heated to a concentrated solid form of natural, unrefined sugar. It is rich in vitamins and minerals to improve the health of the nerves and relax the muscles to release tension and emotional anxiety.
What we eat and drink directly affects our physical, mental and emotional energies. Follow a whole-food diet to nourish the nerves and strengthen the body’s stress response.
Energy healing to release suppressed emotions
Our emotional energies are connected to specific organs and correspond to individual fingers, as shown below. Energy healing treatments on our fingers empower our organs and regulate imbalanced emotional energy to release our accumulated stress.
Firmly massage the corresponding finger for two minutes, three times a day.
• Worry and Anxiety – Stomach and Spleen – Thumbs.
• Fear and Dread – Kidney and Bladder – Index fingers.
• Anger and Impatience – Liver and Gallbladder – Middle fingers.
• Grief and Sadness – Lung and Large Intestine – Ring fingers.
• Joy and Excitement – Heart and Small Intestine – Little fingers.
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Mudra healing to regulate stress hormones
The Vayu Mudra calms an anxious mind, relaxes tense muscles and strengthens the body’s response to stress.
To practice:
• Place your hands on your thighs.
• Place the tip of each index finger on the base of each thumb.
• Place each thumb over each index finger.
• Relax and extend your remaining fingers.
• Breathe slowly and deeply and hold for up to fifteen minutes.
• Practice two times a day.
Crystal chakra healing to restore positive energy
The ancient practice of placing the earth’s natural stones on the body’s energy centres to release the stagnant negative energy of accumulated stress and anxiety and restore the flow of healthy positive energy.
Each crystal possesses a unique chemical make-up which determines its healing property and appearance.
To balance the chakras:
• Place the corresponding crystals (described below) on or near your chakras.
• Breathe slowly and deeply into each of your chakras.
• Visualize the healing properties of each crystal cleansing the energy within the associated chakra.
• Feel the accumulated negative energy, stress and anxiety within each chakra being released.
• Visualize the crystal healing vibration restoring the flow of positive energy.
• Sense each of your chakras cleansed, balanced and empowered.
Crystals:
• Red jasper resonates with the root chakra, is grounding to reduce anxiety and strengthening to instill positive emotions.
• Orange carnelian resonates with the sacral chakra, is cleansing to remove energy blockages and instill emotional harmony.
• Yellow Citrine resonates with the solar plexus chakra, is balancing to remove accumulated negative energy and instill feelings of hope and joy.
• Green unakite resonates with the heart chakra, is healing for the emotional body to release grief and instill feelings of self-love and compassion.
• Blue lace agate resonates with the throat chakra, is uplifting to reduce fear and anxiety and instills the confidence to communicate from the heart.
• Purple amethyst resonates with the brow chakra, is comforting to clear erratic emotions and promotes the ability to connect with inner wisdom.
• Golden topaz resonates with the crown chakra, is awakening and recharging to awaken the emotional, physical and spiritual energies.
The traditional self-care practices gently empower our energies, balance our emotions and release our underlying fears to rid the body and mind of accumulated stress, tension and anxiety.
