Wired and Can’t Settle

Transcript

So you are wired. Fast, restless, thoughts stacking up, the body somewhere between alert and on edge. Good. That’s our starting point. Noticing where you are.

We are not going to start by trying to calm you down. We are going to do the opposite first. We are going to let the wired body do the thing it has been wanting to do all along, which is move.

Here is the truth about a revved system. It is mobilised — full of fuel, ready to run, with nowhere to put it. Telling a body like that to sit still and breathe slowly is like flooring the accelerator and the brake at the same time. So first we spend some of the fuel. Then the breath has something to settle, rather than something to fight.

Stand up. Give yourself a bit of space, enough to swing your arms freely. Feet wide, a little wider than your hips. Keeping your knees gently bent the whole time.

Before we start: an invitation to you. Fit the movement to size. If folding all the way down makes your head swim, fold halfway and rise slowly. You do not have to hang upside down to get the gift of this. But if it feels good, go with it.

Here we go. Breathe in, and sweep both arms up over your head. Reach up, lengthen, the whole front of you opening.

Now fold forward from the hips, and let the knees bend deeply this time — sink them as far as you like, almost into a squat if that feels good to you. Swing your arms down and back behind you, like wings reaching up and back. And as you fold, let the breath go out through your mouth. Wide open mouth. Tongue out. Loud. Let it roar out of you. Yes, actually do it. Make the sound, look completely ridiculous. There is no one watching, and the ridiculousness is half the cure.

At the bottom, hanging there, roar the last of it out, tongue extended.

Then breathe in as you rise all the way back up, arms floating up over your head again.

Again. Arms up, reach for the sky.

And then fold. Swing, wings back, mouth wide, tongue out, let it all go, roaring.

And rise, breathing in, arms up.

One more with me. In, lengthen up.

Fold, swing, exhale, loud and undignified, all the way out.

And up.

Now keep going on your own. Seven or eight in total, or more if you are on a roll. I’ll stop talking and let you find your own rhythm. Spend the charge. Big breath up, everything out as you fold. Make noise. Have fun with it.

When you’re done, rise up slowly one last time, and let your arms come down by your sides. Stand. Don’t do anything yet. Just stand, and notice what you feel, the body, the mind the mood.

Feel that. The body is warmer. The breath is bigger, moving on its own. The charge that had nowhere to go a few minutes ago, found somewhere to go. You did not talk yourself down. You shook yourself loose.

Now the easy part. Stay standing, or begin to walk slowly around the room, whichever your system prefers. Let the breathing carry on by itself. But let the out-breath be longer than the in-breath. Slow on the way out. The mouth can close now; let the breath come and go through the nose if that is comfortable.

The movement spent the fuel. The long exhale sends the all-clear.

Just barely doing anything at all, you’re letting the breath of the exhale leave a little more slowly than it arrived. The body is doing most of this without you. You are only really watching it do its thing.

Now notice where you are. Most likely the wired edge has come down. Perhaps not gone entirely, but lower. And if it hasn’t fully settled, that is fine. You moved the charge and you sent the signal, and both of those land and have an effect, even on the days that the charge is too big for seven minutes.

So you have two versions of this now.

This full one, for when you have the floor space and the freedom to look ridiculous.

And a quiet one, for when you don’t — the queue, the meeting, two in the morning — where you skip the wings and simply let one exhale run long, and then perhaps another. The movement is the strong medicine. The breath alone is the version you can carry anywhere.

Three minutes is the sweet spot if you have the time. But even a few breaths makes a difference.