An unscientific survey of those around us shows that people are stressed. Accelerated change in all walks of life is challenging and disorienting. New means of communication seem to reduce our actual interpersonal communication and lead to more isolation and splintering into ever more opposed and self reinforcing groupings.The political turmoil affects us. Many of us feel stressed and angry, often finding it hard to get a good night’s rest.
In order to relax, if we are to avoid the fleeting and ultimately defeating respite found in the medicine cabinet or a bottle, we need to find a means of relaxation within ourselves.
One of the challenges of relaxing the mind is the constant background chatter that we experience. This chatter can also make it difficult to fall asleep. Many well known methods for relaxation teach, over time, how to quiet this chatter.
An alternative approach, which may be easier and more accessible for some, is to lean into the chatter, but to redirect it.
Focus the mind on a subject, particularly an activity that you are interested in. Go into the most minute painstaking detail in planning something you like to do and even problem solving. This type of approach helps in two ways, it redirects the anxious chatter supplanting it with other thought patterns and it focuses us on something we enjoy, which is ultimately calming.
For example, I have clients who enjoy cooking who will plan out elaborate and detailed meals . These meals may or may not come to fruition, the planning is an end in itself.
