Can you suggest some of your techniques that can be used by people to calm themselves down and relax their minds when agitated, especially being in lockdown?

 

For individual psychological health, we also teach simple breathing exercises which are very important. You should know how to breathe properly. Keep one hand on the abdomen, and make sure that when you breathe in, the abdomen comes forward. When you breathe out, the abdomen should go backwards. It is called abdominal or diaphragm breathing. Your abdomen is very important when you breathe. When you breathe like that, there are a few nerves which calm you that get activated. So a person will become calm, breathe better and their heart rate will come down and their emotions will stabilize. Breathing in the right way is very important. We have gotten feedback from employees who just did abdominal breathing and quit smoking. A lot of people told us that their pains have come down. It is very simple. Just sit on a chair, sit straight, keep one hand on the abdomen and when you breathe in, the abdomen should come forward. When you breathe out, the abdomen should go backwards. The abdomen is like a balloon. You are inflating while inhaling and deflating while exhaling. Simple techniques like this are very useful.

I also teach relaxation techniques. For example, just close your eyes and relax your eyes and eyeballs. The eyeballs are always usually tense. Relax your lower jaw consciously and imagine that it is coming down and down. You will feel a relaxation in the lower jaw and the tension will come down.

We also each use simple meditation techniques. It is a simple 4 rule technique. Rule number one is do not stop any thoughts. When you try to stop thoughts, they get doubled and tripled, it gets multiplied. Do not create any new thoughts. Do not follow any thoughts and observe all your thoughts as if you are a 3rd person watching a movie. With this, you just see for 15 minutes a day, you’ll get relaxed. Of course, in the first week you will have trouble- a lot of thoughts will be coming. After a week, you will have a nice meditation. So, taking care of overall health is very important. Not just physical, but psychological and social also.