Whenever you feel any kind of fear, stress, anxiety or anything of the kind your body instinctively contracts inwards.
This is a natural reaction that tenses your muscles ready for fight or flight. It’s like a tortoise withdrawing into its shell at the first hint of danger.
The trouble is that, unlike the tortoise, you rarely get a chance to come back out of your shell and relax again afterwards. So the tension builds up and becomes chronic.
Tension relates to the way your muscles shorten under stress. This tension builds up gradually over your lifetime.
Those who have read my book ‘Stress Proof Your Body’ will have heard of the tension paradox. Briefly it says that tension builds up in our muscles without us becoming aware of it. We can’t feel it and we have no way of knowing how tense those muscles are. Furthermore we have no easy mechanism for lengthening (relaxing) them further.
I have discovered the secret to creating relaxation in your muscles. Mentally expand them.
When you contract inwards you feel small, weak and vulnerable. It adds to your feelings of fear creating a vicious circle.
This is our third key principle alongside ‘relax down‘ and ‘move from the centre‘.
Learning to mentally expand outwards is one of the most powerful things you can do. But don’t try it until you are relaxed first otherwise you could just be adding to your tensions.
Here are the big benefits:
- Gain more confidence instantly
- Create a strong physical structure that is almost impossible for an attacker to control or manipulate
- Make most exercises easier and more efficient to do
- Connect with the people and environment around you on a much deeper level
- Reverse your innate need to tense up when stressed
- Feel more alive and connected to yourself and the world around you
This concept is simple yet profound to do but make sure you’re following golden principles one and two first. Relax down and move from the centre. Then all you need do is imagine your whole body gently expanding in all 6 directions – forward, backwards, left, right, up and down.
You can do this while sitting, standing or moving around. Creating this expansive feeling while moving prevents the wrong muscles tensing up under pressure. It helps you create controlled, efficient and skillful movements.
If you are pushing something or someone imagine your legs and arms expanding gently away from each other.
Whenever you enter a strange room mentally expand yourself outwards to touch all the walls. You will feel and act as if you own the room and your confidence will be sky high. This will create presence and charisma that will be noticed by others.
When you start to feel stressed use this expansive principle to fight your natural inclination to contract inwards. It will help you deal with a stressful life with equanimity.