Thursday Tippity Tip: Get a Grip on This Simple Tip to Relax Your Body More!
Relax...such a nice word...but oh so hard to actually do. Am I the only one who immediately tenses when I hear that word? In fact, when I hear "relax" my initial reaction is to stress myself out more TRYING to relax! It takes so much concentrated effort that I usually give up after day one. Don't get me wrong, real relaxing is good but it is best utilized when you can take at least 10min to stretch and get your body and mind in that mode. But for every day moments when chaos is around you trying to "relax" is like trying to run up a moving escalator backwards while blindfolded and all while being told not to sweat it or stress out.By nature my body stays in a natural tense state unless I really think about relaxing all.the.time. Ain't nobody got time for that! In this short post I will share with you a simple tip that passively makes your body less tense and takes very little effort or thought on your part to do. In fact, it comes quite naturally.So what is it?First you have to get a grip on how much pressure you apply to the things around you. I find that I over grip stuff from a feather to a glass. With the amount of grip pressure to a steering wheel you would think I was trying to steer a Boeing 747 by my sheer strength haha! As you can imagine, that is NOT very healthy for my muscles and causes me to exert way more energy than is needed thereby fatiguing and tensing my muscles more quickly. It is an inefficient use of my strength and just plain unnecessary. Over gripping is a sure way to create unneeded tension throughout you.But we do it all the time. Why? With so much bombarding us, we usually release that pent up stress by subliminally over applying pressure to things we grip or pick up 100s of times throughout the day because we are distracted by the environment around us. To much psycho babble for ya? To put it simply, we over grip because we are tense from the things happening around us.Soooo, if you want to teach your body to relax more without having to give yourself a pep talk every 10min on how you just need to breath slower, relax more etc. etc. here is the simple trick I found to combat bodily tension from over gripping.Next time you go to grip something, start out gripping it with as little pressure as possible and slowly apply pressure until you can safely grip the item and then STOP. Apply no more pressure. You, like me, will be amazed at how little pressure is actually needed to grip items. If you always approach what you are about to grip like you are delicately picking up a light pine cone and add only the needed pressure amount from there, it is interesting how you can pick things up with way less wasted effort and it honestly doesn't take any thought beyond that. Simply gripping things less makes my whole body naturally relax and go into that state of being. Weird sounding I know but I can attest from personal experience that it works.So there you have it! Start with as little pressure as possible and apply ONLY as much as you need and enjoy the benefits of a more relaxed body. :) DISCLAIMER: This post is based off my personal experience and in no way am I diagnosing or prescribing anybody anything! I am no doctor and anybody who ever thought I was needs to see a doctor. ;) Just sayin'. ;)
