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Activities 1&2 Elevator Ride
Step One: I go down to the gym in my apartment complex. Luckily most of the other tenants are old and like to smoke, so I have the room to myself. I play some awesome, super-amped-up tunes on my ipod, hop on the treadmill and run as fast as I can for as long as I can. Then I figure, since I’m already down here I might as well work out anyways. This gets the endorphins going and gets rid of any anxiety.
Once I’m done with that, Step two is to take a really long, hot shower. If there is any better mood lifter than a hot shower, I don’t know what it is, and I also don’t care. After the shower, I do my clay facial mask and a bunch of other girly stuff involving things that smell good. This has the added benefit of making me pleasant to be around, increasing my social activity, and thus my long-term happiness. If I don’t have enough time to do all this, watching a couple of funny videos on the internet works, too.
Limiting my self-talk is something I struggle with on a moment-to-moment basis. Two things that have been the most useful so far are:
I put in a yoga video and do that. Having to pay attention to the video turns off my brain instead of just letting my mind wander as I go through the poses. Even if I only have time for fifteen minutes of the video, that still helps to shake me out of my mind and into my life, at least for a little bit.
The other thing that helps is to put on some music, but nothing calm or relaxing. Anything, as long as it makes me want to dance around in my kitchen/living room, will do the trick. It looks silly at first, but it’s fun—until someone comes home early and catches you, then you look silly again.
For reducing physiological arousal nothing beats having a cup of tea. While the water is boiling, I like to do a couple of stretches, just to sort of relax my muscles and un-cramp them from the stresses of the day. When the water boils, I pour it into the cup and just hold it in both hands while the tea steeps. The sudden warmth of the cup in my hands lets the rest of my body know that it’s okay calm down. I mentally try to take that warmth and spread throughout my body, as a kind of tea-meditation. When the tea is cool enough I drink it and enjoy.
Lauren you brought up one of the most important elements of my life – humor. Thank you for mentioning “watching funny videos”. I think when we take ourselves too seriously for too long we risk our health; mental and physical. I recently saw this website, which I found very interesting: www.happiness.co.uk. It features Dr. Robert Holden and the “Happiness Project”. He says that instead of anti-depressants doctors should be prescribing laughter. Laughter also brings about positive physiological changes, such as releasing endorphins and lowering blood pressure.
One other thing you brought up that is something I also struggle with - negative “self-talk”. The more strategies you have in place, like you do, the more likely you are to be successful in stopping the self-talk. It has always amazed and shocked me that I would say things to myself that I would never tolerate someone else saying. Actually, that realization helped me to change the habit of negative self-talk.
After reading quite a few of the class postings, it seems a fair number of us are dancing around in our kitchens and living-rooms. (We’re talking to ourselves and dancing by ourselves – good candidates for therapists…..)
This is the second post I've seen about dancing in the kitchen, which makes me happy because I too dance in my kitchen. I love dancing in my kitchen! One of my friends said, "I hope you will be happy enough that you don't have to dance alone in your kitchen" and I thought, wow, they totally missed the point.
Sometimes I dance in my kitchen to lift my mood. When I was divorcing my last husband, I did a lot of this. It was a great way to dispel pent up angst. I love the old band Blood Sweat & Tears. In one of their songs, they have a line "when we get the blues, we just put on our shoes, and head down to Dixie." I figure, if you're in the dumps, you might as well make the most of it by...having a party! Even if its just a party of one.
I do have a 73 year old friend who sometimes dances in my kitchen with me. Sometimes I get really super amped up, bouncing off the walls amped. If he is around, he'll just look at me and say, "Baby, I think you better put on some music and dance in the kitchen." It's his way of telling me to mellow out. So dancing works both ways for me, to lift my mood and to mellow me out when I'm bouncing off the walls with way too much energy to contain within the boundaries of my flesh.
Lauren I have to admit a hot shower is great. I find myself often find myself in the shower giving a thanks for the miracle of running water. I really appreciate it now having lived without it. I use to take it so much for granite. It very understandable that these work for you. I can fell it in the way you wrote about it. I found just reading your post to be relaxing. I am particularly fond of if you will allow me to take it out of context: “shake me out of my mind and into my life” I think that is a very quotable quote. It has been many years since I did any yoga. When I did it was very stress reducing and relaxing perhaps I should consider taking up geriatric yoga. Thank you for sharing. Delwin