Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Tension

I am realizing more and more than my arch-nemisis may be tension.
I have a strong tendency to get over-excited about all kinds of things, good and bad, particularly good. And if I forget to relax, in the end my stomach hurts, my back hurts, or my head hurts. And my sleep suffers.
Any good tips for releasing tension?

29 comments:

Alex said...

I thought you had a flexible schedule sleep wise anyway.

I guess I meditate, but not in a traditional yoga way. I have lots of music which falls into the trance and ambient category. One band that dominates the collection is Tangeringe Dream, another is Brian Eno (try music for airports - play it so you can hear all the different depths of music).

I also kick back with visual stimuli, lava lamps, oil projectors etc. even the visualizers in a media player.

As a college student I had an old deck chair, and an 8 ball. I'd toss the ball in the air and play catch with it. You have to concentrate on the ball so much you can't worry. I guess this was a low impact sport.

So my magic cures are music and light.

The other cure is the ocean/beach.

I actually found a good surrogate in S. Manchester. A wet motorway at night has the same sucking sound a the tide on a beach...

The illusion worked better without my glasses.

Dibutil said...

Tension?? Tension is easy! One exercise before sleep and you will forget the word. The exercise is twisting upper body:

1. Stand straight, feet 10" apart.
2. Knees always straight.
3. Hands on the shoulder level
4. Elbows bent at 90 degrees
5. Start twisting upper body left and right beginning with shoulder level then chest then waist then below, don't bend the knees.

Do it as many times as your age - each direction. Increase the number of repetitions each year by one ;-) It starts working immediately and all tension will be gone in a week. Never stop doing it.

I had an incident with my back in 1983. After recovery I have found this method for myself and practice it ever since. Unfortunately I can not make myself to do it always and have to regret and pay every time I quit. It cures tension in a week, tension comes back in about two. This rule can be extrapolated ;-)

laurie said...

"I heat up / I can't cool down,
you got me spinning round and round"

I'm the same, I still think caffeine is my relaxation. Speed is my relaxation, go figure!
I feel somewhat addicted to my inner wheels going round and round.

i meditate though

Sometimes I hear a voice inside me saying Take a deep breath and let it all go.

this Voice is my relaxation and I really cultivate my mind to listen for it. I, by myself, am frenetic.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Dibutil,
Do the hands point up?
does the exercise have a name?
Illustrations?

Tim said...

Hi Eolake,

You could try my free mp3. People have had good results.

www.freeyoganidra.co.uk/

Anonymous said...

Masturbate.

Anonymous said...

The best method I know of is yoga.

A tension in the body consciousness means there is a respective 'tension' in the mind. Yoga is designed to connect our subjective and objective awarenesses (our inner and outer worlds), and allow us to more immediately notice how our day to day choices affect us.

The only problem is that when starting yoga you need to work with a guru for awhile to get the hang of it. It's not something you can properly learn on your own.

What might also help is simply taking walks --- long enough and often enough. Walking is a form a movement meditation just like yoga asana practice. Just very much lighter. If you are already doing this then I suppose something more vigorous is needed. Jogging might also work, if your knees can take the strain.

Bottom line: you need to engage your body to free your mind. I recommend at least initially exploring this somewhere outside your living quarters in order to get yourself mentally away from where you experience the tension.

Cliff Prince said...

I second the notion of taking walks. Long rambles, rather than directed hasty exercising. Excercise-style walking also has its benefits, of course, but if you start scheduling a set time to finish a set distance or some other cardio-vascular stress performance quantification, then you're right back at square one again, aren't you?

Autumn walks are the best. I can't wait for that crisp air to descend down here. Of course, by then I might have moved, I hope to New York; autumn is nice there, too.

Anonymous said...

Exercise - Jogging etc
Meditation - Any kind
Friends
Beer
Maybe followed by a curry

Anonymous said...

Yo Eolake, I have gotta some suggestions for ya,close your eyes for sometime, inhale and exhale for some moments, but at this think nothing else, count the number of breaths you take, and free yourself up and gaze something under a natural light, like under sunlight and look at something beautiful like a majestic tree, and a beautiful building, or watch a photograph of a beautiful nude woman next to your window where you receive enough sunlight. After you feel free, watch some comedy videos ( like Russel Peters)and some music parodies ( I would strongly like to suggest of Weird Al Yancovic). After that, try practising yoga. Lastly, do an Indian version of hip hip hurrah by pointing out a finger out of your each hang and move them up and down together with your with a full spirit and say 'Oh balle balle'loudly.

Anonymous said...

Oh sorry, lastly, do an Indian version of hip hip hurrah by pointing out a finger out of your each hand and move them up and down together with your body with a full spirit and say 'Oh balle balle'loudly.

Dibutil said...

Eolake,

This exercise is so ingeniously simple that I could not find either name or illustrations. Unfortunately, I have not seen a person who could do it right from my explanation even if I showed it.

Watch this guy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qyEF12KAlm8
from 03:00 to 03:10 he shows something similar to what I am talking about. The differences are:
1. You keep legs twice as narrower
2. You do not bend knees!!!
3. Se how he bends the elbow? Yours both have to be bent like that and shoulders kept as much apart as possible.
4. Do it faster, use inertia of the arms to twist you further.
5. Your pelvis _follows_ the upper body, never start motion from it!
6. Your head stays in neutral position or turns in the direction of the twist, never back!

When you twist right, you can feel the stretch as one spiral line starting from your neck and down to the ankles.

When I do this or when my friends and even my dad does this right as I teach I hear 3-4 clicks in the upper chest section of the spine after the first 5 rotations and 1-2 clicks in the lower chest section by the end of the exercise (hence the number of repetitions bound to the age).

If I forget doing it before sleep I have to do it in the morning (how can one relax in the sleep when there is triggers {root cause of the clicks} staying in the spine?!) and repeat at least once during the day.
Otherwise, the before-sleep one is enough.

Cheers!

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thank you very much.

How about you do a video?

Who taught it to you?

Anonymous said...

At the risk of sounding like a coal miner in Newcastle, addressing the guru of DOMAI, sex releases tension pretty well.

Beyond just the fun exercise, the mental processes change from whatever is exciting/depressing you (an internal focus) into concentrating on someone else (an external focus) and what they like/want.

If you are tensing muscles enough that it becomes chronic, the book Pain Free by Pete Egoscue is quite good. He recommends postural therapy in a gentle way.

Dibutil said...

Who taught it to me?? Strange question. I guess the proper answer would be: I figured it myself! Why do you (everyone) think everything credible is something taught by someone?

You know, when I was in school I could run 100m fast. Very fast. I showed time on the level of local champions and knew that I could do better. However, I could not finish 1000m at the pace to get minimal result for a school credit. And the coach could not give a clue what to do. He was not a bad coach by the way. I just could not. Much later, like 10 years after it just got tome: I was not breathing properly! Immediately did I find the proper way of breathing. And taught it to others. Surprise! It worked for me, it worked for everyone. Who taught it to me? Books, logic, experiments on myself, extreme situation when I needed to make 5km in 10 minutes on foot...

Similar story about my spine and tension release. I was swimming almost professionally in school and that exact exercise was a part of our warm-up. It had to be done right. Then, later, I broke my spine and had a year of nightmare recovery. Then I had tension. Then I remembered the exercise.
Vouilas!

Does this story make my method credible? ;-)

Dibutil said...

Sorry, I do not publish video of myself.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"Why do you (everyone) think everything credible is something taught by someone?"

Because 99% of the time it is. Sorry about that. :)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I am guessing the essence of the exercise is that the whole spine be given a good twisting?

How fast do you go? (My back is not so great, so I don't care to go fast.)

Thank you for the help.

Dibutil said...

That is right, twist-stretch. Start with the speed you are comfortable with but use inertia - the idea is to twist further than your muscles can turn you. I do it at approximately 1Hz (count: one - left, two - right, three - left, etc.)

There was an Indian guy - Srinivasa Ramanujan who had no credits in math and left almost no paper trail to his conclusions but up until now days his results are being proved by leading mathematicians with their formal "credible" methods. ;-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"the idea is to twist further than your muscles can turn you"

ah, I see, yes. And the arms high is to help the enertia. And the bent elbows is so the long arms will not slow down the swing.

Dibutil said...

"....arms high is to help the inertia. And the bent elbows is so the long arms will not slow down the swing...."

You got it! Now, does it click? Does it help? Quite often the tension leads to local inflammation, then no clicks will sound until it's gone. The stretch helps to heal the inflamed, contracted threads faster.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I don't know yet whether they help, but they do feel good.
I get dizzy, though.

Cliff Prince said...

Now put your left hand on your left hip, your right hand on your head, and walk VERY fast along a straight line, placing the balls of your feet on the ground first, and putting each foot exactly in front of the next rather than across from it. Do this only when burly males from motorcycle gangs are watching. :)

Anonymous said...

I just have to ask: Doesn't this EFT crap you were peddling a while back take care of tension?

Interesting how we haven't heard anything about THAT lately.

Anonymous said...

Stress relief? Easy for me. I pretend I have a beautiful female laying next to me beneath warm covers and we had just made love and I'm quietly sipping on a diet dew smoking a black n mild giving thanks and that I was blessed enough to feel her pleasure beneath mine.........sigh. A man can always dream.

Anonymous said...

I, by myself, am frenetic. Laurie said.

How well I know this too. Nothing in the world worse than being alone 100 percent all the time.
Nothing else can come close to this ongoing agony. Okay, I'll stop here, don't want to put my friends to sleep here. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

Of course, by then I might have moved, I hope to New York; autumn is nice there, too.

I use to like NY (NYC) that is, but I can never go back there. Too many bittersweet memories for me. Final Identity, if you get to go enjoy yourself.
Strange how this place (NYC) was both my joy and sorrow.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Dave,
Domai is not really about sex, except in the most abstract sense, and I'm clueless about it.

Thanks for the book tip. I don't have pain exactly, but I do have stiffness in the spine, so I've bought the book Pain Free. It seems promising. The fact alone that he dares not to have the usual legal disclaimer in front, but instead advocates personal responsibility is remarkable.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't doing the nasty work anymore?