3-Minute Stress Management: Reduce Stress With This Short Activity

3-Minute Stress Management: Reduce Stress With This Short Activity

Hello everyone! Emma Mcadam here. Today we’re going to talk about how you can reduce 
your stress in around three minutes. Okay, so quick reminder, stress is the aspect of 
anxiety that we feel in our body. Worry is all about thoughts, but stress is about how our muscles
get tense, or our breathing gets tight. Stress makes you ache, or it makes your hands sweat right?  
Stress is that physiological response to perceived danger. So when your brain perceives a threat, 
whether it’s a tiger, or an upcoming deadline, your brain is going to trigger that fight-flight-freeze response, but we can train our mind, and our body, to be calm by doing little activities 
that regulate the nervous system, and it’s best if we do these frequently throughout the day. 
So for people who work in manual labor jobs, stress reduction may look like, resting on the 
couch, but for people who spend a lot of their day frozen at their computer, reducing stress 
is probably going to be most effective if we incorporate movement. So here it goes. First thing 
I want you to do is to start by rating your degree of physical tightness on a scale from 
0 to 10, and and now take a big deep breath. (Inhale/Exhale) Now bring your shoulders up and down, and keep breathing. (Inhale-Exhale) Now gently tilt your head 
forward, and back, side to side. Now, I want you to start shaking your arm like this, haha, that’s pretty classy looking. Oh yeah, get that 
jiggling okay, now start shaking out your other arm, just let it get really floppy, and just shake it out. This is something you can do at 
your desk at work, or whatever, you know. Okay, now I want you to stand up, and shake 
your leg out right, lets get it really jiggly, shake your leg out. Get your 
other leg, shake your leg out. Just kind of jiggle that leg around, you 
may feel a little ridiculous that’s okay, laugh at yourself if you want. Okay, now I 
just want you to straighten yourself up, (Inhale-Exhale) feel your feet on the floor, don’t forget to 
breathe, hold your head up straight, feel your legs pressing into the ground, let 
yourself smile just a little bit, (heavy exhale) and now just do a little gentle forward fold, let your arms dangle, stand up straight, and then I want you to rate your 
tightness again on the same scale from 0 to 10. Did your degree of tension go down? Then then this 
worked if it did, and if not, well let me know in the comments. Tell me what you think is helpful 
at reducing your stress. Okay, there’s your three minute exercise. The other thing I just want to 
say really quick, I want to thank Better Help for sponsoring this video. They provide professional, 
affordable, online counseling starting at around $65 dollars a week, so check out the link in 
the description. If you use my link, you can get 10% off your first month. Okay, 
thank you for watching, and take care.

Quickly reduce stress with this 3-minute box breathing exercise guided by therapist Emma McAdam in Therapy in a Nutshell.
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Stress is the aspect of anxiety that we feel in our body. Worry is about thoughts, but stress is how our muscles get tense, our breathing gets tight, we feel achy, and our hands sweat. Stress is the physiological response to perceived danger. The good news is you can train your mind and body to be calm by doing simple activities throughout the day.

Thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring the video: https://betterhelp.com/therapyinanutshell

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Learn more in one of my in-depth mental health courses: https://courses.therapyinanutshell.com/?utm_campaign=09032020&utm_medium=Description&utm_source=YouTube

Check out my favorite books for mental health:
https://kit.co/TherapyinaNutshell/best-self-help-books

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Images from Freepik.com (premium license), Pixabay, or Wikimedia commons

Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC, and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.

About Me:
I’m Emma McAdam. I’m a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and I have worked in various settings of change and growth since 2004. My experience includes juvenile corrections, adventure therapy programs, wilderness therapy programs, an eating disorder treatment center, a residential treatment center, and I currently work in an outpatient therapy clinic.

In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life’s direction.
And deeper than all of that, the Gospel of Jesus Christ orients my personal worldview and sense of security, peace, hope, and love https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe

If you are in crisis, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or your local emergency services.
Copyright Therapy in a Nutshell, LLC
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Music licensed from www.Bensound.com or Artlist.io
Images from Freepik.com (premium license), Pixabay, or Wikimedia commons