Today I want to share with you a relaxation technique I learned from an amazing Biofeedback therapist, Cecile Serrano.
I began going to Biofeedback therapy about 8 years ago at the suggestion of my friend Jenevive's mother, Susan Antelis (also has her own Biofeedback/Neurofeedback practice in Lynbrook, NY, and the website explains a bit about Biofeedback and Neurofeedback therapy) after I told her I'd been suffering from migraines for a few months. Susan couldn't treat me as she was my good friend's mother and that wouldn't be medically ethical. Cecile was still in school at the time but practicing/assisting at Susan's practice. So, after a few treatments with Cecile I could really feel a difference, no more migraines, and, the best part was the techniques helped me learn how to control my body's stress response using only my breath. Pretty cool, huh?
Getting to the point: I like to do this exercise in Savasana (resting/corpse pose), you can also just try it laying down in bed or in a comfortable seated position.
-Begin to slow your breathing, allowing your exhales to be a little longer than your inhales. Inhaling through the nose, allowing the breath to fill the lungs, the waist, then the belly; Exhaling and pushing the breath from the belly up out through the nose.
-Keep breathing here and bring your attention to your tongue. Notice if your tongue is tense or moving around, relax it and let it be still in your mouth. Keep concentrating on your tongue and breathing. Eventually (for some it takes a few moments, others a few minutes) you will begin to feel a tingling/numb/heavy/light/floating sensation (some feel all of these at once or only one or two...it's kind of not able to be articulated) in the tongue.
What starts to happen is you'll notice all you're thinking about is your tongue and how good/strange/different it feels, and if you like the feeling, you can stay here feeling the breath through your body, noticing the sensation(s) in your tongue. I personally like to imagine this feeling spreading through my body, breath by breath. With each inhale I imagine the sensation as a golden-white light spreading from my tongue, down my chest, then my arms, then my hands, then my stomach, etc. until I feel it all over. My body tends to feel like it's floating and also sinking into the surface that's supporting me at the same time, coupled with the slight tingly/numb sensation...it's an indescribable sensation and I'm sure everyone experiences it differently (or not at all), and would have different ways of articulating these feelings.
The more you train yourself with this technique (doing it before bed, in Savasana, while waiting in a doctor's office and getting nervous, etc) the less time it takes to begin to quiet your mind and body.
At the time that I started going to Biofeedback therapy I also suffered from depression and anxiety, and Biofeedback helped to pull me out of that pit. I still sometimes have migraines, but they're much better controlled and I know what triggers them. My negative thinking patterns are sometimes still an uphill battle, but, instead of viewing it as a struggle I see it as a challenge to fundamentally change my perspective. Life is not happening TO us, The Universe doesn't have a vendetta against any one of us. The only thing we can control in life is our response to life's challenges, so why not strive to be positive in the face of those situations? At that point in my life when I started Biofeedback, I hadn't set foot in a yoga class (not for another year or two). So, Biofeedback therapy was the first step on my path toward learning how incredibly powerful the human mind really is, and learning how to use that power for transformation rather than destruction. I didn't really start to truly understand and apply what I'd learned in Biofeedback until years later when I started doing Yoga, then it all came together and I started to feel more of a sense of control over my mind and thusly, my life.
So, please try this when you have a moment (or next time you can't sleep because you can't stop thinking about a thousand things at once), I'd love to hear comments on how it worked (or didn't work) for you! Also if you have questions or something wasn't clear about how to do "The Tongue Exercise" please leave a Comment below with your question or email me at missb@msbernklau.com
.
Namasté you guys!
P.S.
This scene in Grandma's Boy is why I sometimes say "Namasté you guys!" The line is at the end of the 2 minute scene if you're in a rush. If you haven't seen this movie, and you like laughing, you should run to your nearest access point to the Internet and Netflix/Hulu it immediately.
I began going to Biofeedback therapy about 8 years ago at the suggestion of my friend Jenevive's mother, Susan Antelis (also has her own Biofeedback/Neurofeedback practice in Lynbrook, NY, and the website explains a bit about Biofeedback and Neurofeedback therapy) after I told her I'd been suffering from migraines for a few months. Susan couldn't treat me as she was my good friend's mother and that wouldn't be medically ethical. Cecile was still in school at the time but practicing/assisting at Susan's practice. So, after a few treatments with Cecile I could really feel a difference, no more migraines, and, the best part was the techniques helped me learn how to control my body's stress response using only my breath. Pretty cool, huh?
Getting to the point: I like to do this exercise in Savasana (resting/corpse pose), you can also just try it laying down in bed or in a comfortable seated position.
-Begin to slow your breathing, allowing your exhales to be a little longer than your inhales. Inhaling through the nose, allowing the breath to fill the lungs, the waist, then the belly; Exhaling and pushing the breath from the belly up out through the nose.
-Keep breathing here and bring your attention to your tongue. Notice if your tongue is tense or moving around, relax it and let it be still in your mouth. Keep concentrating on your tongue and breathing. Eventually (for some it takes a few moments, others a few minutes) you will begin to feel a tingling/numb/heavy/light/floating sensation (some feel all of these at once or only one or two...it's kind of not able to be articulated) in the tongue.
What starts to happen is you'll notice all you're thinking about is your tongue and how good/strange/different it feels, and if you like the feeling, you can stay here feeling the breath through your body, noticing the sensation(s) in your tongue. I personally like to imagine this feeling spreading through my body, breath by breath. With each inhale I imagine the sensation as a golden-white light spreading from my tongue, down my chest, then my arms, then my hands, then my stomach, etc. until I feel it all over. My body tends to feel like it's floating and also sinking into the surface that's supporting me at the same time, coupled with the slight tingly/numb sensation...it's an indescribable sensation and I'm sure everyone experiences it differently (or not at all), and would have different ways of articulating these feelings.
The more you train yourself with this technique (doing it before bed, in Savasana, while waiting in a doctor's office and getting nervous, etc) the less time it takes to begin to quiet your mind and body.
At the time that I started going to Biofeedback therapy I also suffered from depression and anxiety, and Biofeedback helped to pull me out of that pit. I still sometimes have migraines, but they're much better controlled and I know what triggers them. My negative thinking patterns are sometimes still an uphill battle, but, instead of viewing it as a struggle I see it as a challenge to fundamentally change my perspective. Life is not happening TO us, The Universe doesn't have a vendetta against any one of us. The only thing we can control in life is our response to life's challenges, so why not strive to be positive in the face of those situations? At that point in my life when I started Biofeedback, I hadn't set foot in a yoga class (not for another year or two). So, Biofeedback therapy was the first step on my path toward learning how incredibly powerful the human mind really is, and learning how to use that power for transformation rather than destruction. I didn't really start to truly understand and apply what I'd learned in Biofeedback until years later when I started doing Yoga, then it all came together and I started to feel more of a sense of control over my mind and thusly, my life.
So, please try this when you have a moment (or next time you can't sleep because you can't stop thinking about a thousand things at once), I'd love to hear comments on how it worked (or didn't work) for you! Also if you have questions or something wasn't clear about how to do "The Tongue Exercise" please leave a Comment below with your question or email me at missb@msbernklau.com
.
Namasté you guys!
P.S.
This scene in Grandma's Boy is why I sometimes say "Namasté you guys!" The line is at the end of the 2 minute scene if you're in a rush. If you haven't seen this movie, and you like laughing, you should run to your nearest access point to the Internet and Netflix/Hulu it immediately.
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