Want to know how to instantly improve your mood and relieve stress or anger?
Try opening up your body and relaxing your belly!
When we feel stressed or angry, our bodies trigger the "fight or flight" response, causing us to hunch over and tighten our abdominal muscles.
But we can reverse-engineer this response! By maintaining an open posture and relaxing our belly, we can signal to our brain that we are *not* in a state of stress or anger. This idea is rooted in the science of "Embodied Cognition." (Check out research by Carney, Cuddy, and Yap (2010) for more on this!)
**Here’s a little experiment for you to try:**
1. Think of something that bothers you. Observe your body’s reaction. Are you hunching over, rounding your shoulders forward, or lowering your head?
2. Now, try opening your body—stand tall, lift your chest, relax your shoulders back, and soften your belly. How do you feel now? Isn’t it much harder to stay tense or angry?
Just a reminder: Don’t stop at step 1; make sure to complete step 2!
This is also a common technique we use in "Stretch Therapy." If you recall, exhaling to relax your belly or doing a hip flexor stretch to open up your body helps you enter a state of relaxation, improve flexibility, and even boost your mood!
Why not give it a try today? 😊 Czon ❤️
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