Listen! You Smell Something? A Sensory Exercise

 

Photo by Emily Bauman on Unsplash

While “Listen! You smell something?” is a brilliant comedic line in the 1984 film Ghostbusters, it also hits a home run in the way lines like that engage our brain. Confusion is king. I’ll talk about that at the end. 

Engaging all five senses is a powerful tool in writing, but today I’ll talk about the benefits of using them to calm anxiety.

Writers? Anxious? Nah . . .

Let’s start with 5-5-5 breath. Pick a spot ahead of you, ideally just above your comfortable line of sight but no neck craning, just slightly above straight ahead. Focus on that spot. Breathe in for five, hold for five, exhale for five. Repeat until your body is calm and relaxed. Then return to normal relaxed breathing for this next section. 

Keep looking ahead and use your senses to pick out:

● 5 things you see (either in your mind or peripheral vision)

● 4 things you feel (your feet on the ground, pillow underneath your head)

● 3 things you hear (electronics, or maybe just ringing in your ears)

● 2 things you smell (hmm, what did the cat just do?)

● 1 thing you taste (thinking of a taste may be simpler)

It may be more comfortable to close your eyes after you’ve picked out things you see. That’s perfectly fine. It can help you tune in more to the other senses.

Warning, you may doze off before you finish. Still, if you don’t, those heart palpitations caused by your nerves will have stopped by the time you get to the end.

 

If not, try 7-11 breathing to start. In for seven, out for eleven. It’s another terrific breathing technique that calms the body. 

Once you’ve found yourself in that super relaxed state, allow yourself to stay there a while. Make note of what else you’re sensing. Tune into your body and your surroundings. 

When you are ready to come out, simply wiggle your fingers or toes to bring your body back to a more conscious state. Get up, stretch if it feels good and move on with your day. 

Try that any time you feel anxious or simply want to tune into yourself and relax. What you come away with may surprise you.

You can also use a modified version of the above to do self-hypnosis. 

First, set an intention. What are you asking of your subconscious mind? Are you re-programming your mind to overcome a bad habit? A feeling? Pain? Our minds are powerful, you’d be amazed what you can accomplish. 

Set that intention and then a time frame. Tell yourself to come out of it in, say 15 minutes, or whatever works for you. 

Instead of 5-4-3-2-1 with the sense we’ll focus on three of them.

● 3 things you can see

● 3 things you can hear

● 3 things you can feel

Next repeat with 2 of each and then one of each. If more is needed, then repeat, this time from the bottom up--all the while focusing on that spot in front of you. Your eyes should feel tired. Do it until your eyelids just can’t stay open any longer. Then relax and enjoy the trance while your unconscious mind makes all the necessary changes.

Can you make lasting change in one session? Yes. 

Does it often take multiple sessions? Also yes.

Each one of us is different, so there is no “perfect” way. 

Whether self hypnosis or a simple few moments to calm an anxious mind, both techniques will help shift your mindset and leave you in a better frame of mind.

So what about the confusion I mentioned earlier? 

Confusion stops someone in their tracks. The downward spiral is interrupted. My hypnosis instructor told a story of confusing a client by pretending to smell his own watch every time she started her downward self-loathing spiral. She’d stop, ask him what he was doing. It would start a conversation that redirected her thinking. 

So, say you feel okay but you’re dealing with someone who is on edge, obsessing about something and heading into a spiral. Try “Listen! You smell that?” and see what happens. 

If they don’t laugh, they’ll still stop the downward spiral with a “What?” which may be enough to get them to stop.

You’re welcome.

Vee R. Paxton, your friendly neighborhood paranormal romance author and certified hypnotist.

Vee R. Paxton is a transplanted Midwesterner living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Portland and New York City are her two favorite places she's lived (although she loves her hometown in Missouri too!) 
She's passionate about storytelling and reading amazing stories. She's guardian to a sweet Bengal kitty cat, she worked in NYC theater, taught martial arts and also is trained in Reiki and hypnosis.

A Little Stress Relief: Eight Tips

 

Happy Sunday! I hope you all had a great weekend with your family. This weeks's blog topic is Destress: What's One Thing You Do to Keep Or Re-establish Equanimity When Life Is Too Much? 

This is a timely post going into the new year, but I couldn't narrow it down to one thing. My go-to stress reliever since my kids were small has been a steaming hot bath. Most of the time, I just needed to de-frag and be ALONE, and we all know how hard that is with little ones. Twenty years ago, I had three, sometimes four, kiddos vying for my attention. Hot baths with the door locked saved me many times and still does, maybe because it became such a routine part of my life. Nowadays, I add some Epsom salts to my water and light a candle, and that winds me down like nothing else.

But! I have other stress relievers too. Sometimes a hot bath just isn't enough. When I need to reset my mind and return to that comfortable place I call stasis, I know that I need to either reconnect with nature or declutter/organize my house--or both. I live five minutes from every store you could imagine, and a few hundred thousand other people as well, so getting out in nature usually means I have to make a short drive. But I know when it's needed, and let me tell you, I find a trail, a stream, a park, or I go to our little spot of land on the top of a small mountain here in Tennessee and enjoy the fresh air and that lovely view.

Other times, I need to re-organize my home. Chaos in the home = chaos in me. It took me a long time to realize this, but once I did, and once I addressed it (which was hard with kids), man was it life changing. The act of cleaning/de-cluttering/organizing is a way that I re-set back to stasis. 

Other things I do? Exercise, walk, do a little yoga, or meditate. I recently bought the Asana Rebel app, and I'm enjoying integrating a short yoga practice into my morning routine. I also listen to music for stress relief, and of course, I read. Reading can be harder though, because concentration is a necessity, whereas listening to music requires nothing but plugging in. Music stops negative thinking for me and redirects my brain into creative mode. I get a lot of writing inspiration from music, so it's a cure-all if I need to stop thinking about whatever is stressing me, and I usually get my mind back on writing in the process.

Another big tip for stress relief is something I try to do to maintain equanimity, and that's hydration, electrolytes, and rest. I've read a few studies on the topic of stress and hydration/electrolyte imbalance, but my science degree days are long past. I can, however, vouch for the fact that I just feel better when I'm properly hydrated, drinking electrolytes, and getting proper rest. Good hydration alleviated the constant headaches I used to have along with the accompanying brain fog which created more stress because I couldn't focus.

Electrolytes, for me, are needed because I try to eat anti-inflammatory foods as much as possible, but that means a lot of water loss. I have to stay hydrated and keep the electrolytes going, or I feel awful. And rest? It's critical. I used to struggle to sleep past 4:30am, so 5-6 hours a night was my norm. It wasn't enough. When I'm hydrated and exercising, even if only a 20-minute walk once a day, I rest better, and then I feel much more on top of things the following day. Our brains need hydration and good sleep as much as the rest of our body, so if you feel off-kilter, maybe take a day to get some fluids and just sleep.

The important thing is to know what works for you and then to implement those activities when needed, whether it's an emergency stress reliever or a daily activity that helps keeps stress at bay. I'm all about being preventative versus reactive, but it's important to understand what tactics keep you in stasis and what tactics bring you back to stasis once balance has been compromised. 

I hope you have your own list of stress relievers, and if not, I hope this one gives you some ideas. Stress sucks, and it can quickly siphon the enjoyment from our lives. Here's hoping that you have the tools to fight the battle, and that you win.