Stress, let go – but how?
Natur tut gut
How can we help ourselves?
Keep taking small pauses – close your eyes and breathe. In, out, in, out... Breathing earns bonus points 🙂
From body work:
Meditation and mindfulness are wonderful things – simply breathing and feeling your body can help.
Tapping the body can also be a helpful way to come back into physical awareness and step off the carousel of thoughts.
Orienting ourselves in the room by consciously looking around, observing colours and shapes carefully and perhaps naming them: there is my houseplant, the light falls on its leaves and the green is lighter in some places and darker in others. We orient ourselves by moving our head and upper body along with our gaze. We keep looking around until we take an involuntary, deep breath. This is the so-called "parasympathetic shift": our nervous system calms down. That is exactly what we want. We can orient ourselves as many times as we need to get that relaxing "sigh."
Essential oils:
Something that gives me a great deal of support when I need it is essential oils – in my diffuser or blended into body oils. Many of them are calming and stress-relieving. Right now I am particularly fond of citrus oils such as bergamot, lemon and lime. And during cold season I like to reach for myrtle or niaouli, or eucalyptus globulus in the diffuser for their antiviral effect. Rose geranium, frankincense, Roman chamomile and clary sage are wonderful in body oils and I love blending them together.
Eliane Zimmermann has published a wonderful post on her blog that I am happy to share here: https://aromapraxis.de/2020/03/28/aromatherapie-in-zeiten-von-angst-wissenschaftlich-untermauert/
There you will find recipes and tips. Thank you dear Eliane for allowing me to share this 🙂
Eliane writes: "I have made myself a BASE BLEND from these:
2.5 ml (approx. 75 drops) :: Blood orange/Orange > Wadi
1 ml (approx. 30 drops) :: Bergamot oil > Wadi
1 ml (approx. 30 drops) :: Rose geranium oil or palmarosa oil > Wadi
10 drops Basil > Wadi
10/5 drops Neroli > Wadi (diluted neroli oils are available on the market, use the higher drop count for those)
If bergamot feels like too much, I use bergamot mint (Feeling, Farfalla) which has a very similar composition. Lavender oil also works well for the same reason. Let your nose decide!
I use this base blend in an inhaler stick (Evelyn Deutsch glass, Evelyn Deutsch plastic, Feeling glass, Feeling plastic) for inhaling, I add it with a little neutral soap (Feeling, Farfalla) to my bath water, and I blend 2–3 drops into a tablespoon of my neutral body lotion (4 drops in 10 ml jojoba oil works just as well). I take the orange blossom and basil hydrosols by the teaspoon, preferably in the evenings. I also like to spray room sprays around me several times a day, for example:
Before bed I like to use:
These are MY favourites – what my nose currently feels is exactly right and helpful."
Yoga
Something else that gives me a great deal of stability is a regular yoga practice. There are currently many options available online for those who don't want to put together their own sequence. Svea and her colleagues offer yoga sessions several times a week at the Kleines Yogahaus: https://kleinesyogahaus.de/angebote/
My garden
works wonders. And in bad weather I sit in my garden shed and watch the rain, or plan the next wildflower border. A picture above for good cheer 🙂