Physical Relaxation
Quick Relief

One technique to quickly reverse the pain = tension = anxiety = pain cycle is the Feather Technique. The Feather Technique essentially reverses the body’s tension while implanting a pleasant thought. When you first realize that you are under stress, have more pain, experiencing mood change, or negative thinking, ask yourself: 1. Am I in immediate danger? If the answer is no, 2. take a deep breath. 3. Think of a wonderful glowing moment in your life (your wedding, birth of your children, graduation, an award, or vacation). Allow the memory of that thought. Think about how your face looked; how your body felt, and what it was like at that moment. In other words, try to take on as much of that feeling as you can. If you were to tell a friend about such a moment in detail, you would probably begin to feel as you did then. 4. Smile with your eyes and loosen your jaw. Not hard to do when having a good memory. 5. Exhale very slowly like blowing on a spoon of hot soup. 6. Imagine a feather floating down, and as it floats down allow your shoulders and arms to go down with it. This exercise takes less than six seconds and begins to tell your mind and body that you are safe and okay. You may have to do this several times to feel significantly better.
The Feather Technique is especially helpful in situations in which you begin worrying about some future event or problem but nothing can be accomplished at the time. Examples are, family, health, legal, or financial problems. Often the Feather Technique is helpful when feeling pressure to do too much in a short period of time. Telling yourself you are not in immediate danger as in step 1 above, informs the mind that your relationships and overall well being is not dependent on your finishing everything today.

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