If you find yourself zonked out on the couch by evening time, you’ve likely been accumulating stress throughout your day. What if you could de-stress more or less as quickly as you collect stress?

If you didn’t accumulate stress through your day, how might you feel come the evening? And what if you could link de-stressing to an automatic body process?

Your body has an inbuilt de-stressing mechanism through ‘natural’ breathing whereby: the in-breath in is an active, albeit automatic, body process, followed by passive resting of your whole system as you breathe out. I like to imagine each out-breath letting go of a bubble of stress that drifts away and bursts!

Chances are you’ve over-ridden the passive resting nature of your out-breath by unwittingly keeping your body and mind stressed, and that means you miss out on the opportunity to de-stress every time you breathe out – or at least when you remember!

The Resting Breath will help you remember the natural resting function of your out-breath. It’s my interpretation of ancient breathing techniques.

The Resting Breath

1. Take a deepish in-breath
2. As you start to exhale, say to yourself “… and rest …”
3. Just allow the out-breath to take its natural course

That’s it in a nutshell! Try a few Resting Breaths now and see what you notice …

When I do the Resting Breath I notice: an overall feeling of relief and calm, my body relaxing as my shoulders drop, and my thoughts dramatically slowing down and sometimes coming to a halt. You may notice similar, or quite different, effects.

Understanding and Refining

Once you’ve got started with the Resting Breath it helps to understand a bit more what’s going on, and refine it for more effective de-stressing.

For the inhale

When you start, your in-breath can just be an ordinary in-breath – you’ll likely notice some relief after just a couple of Resting Breaths.

For more stress relief, it helps to take a really full in-breath. This is for two reasons; first taking a really full breath is unusual for many of us, and a full breath in itself gives your whole system a welcome feeling of relief at last. Second, a full breath gives more power to your out-breath where the de-stressing occurs.

For a full in-breath, start by letting your abdomen expand to fill the bottom of your lungs, then – and this is where it goes a little further than the usual abdominal breathing – let your chest expand to fill the upper part of your lungs too. This may feel awkward at first as so many of us have become shallow chest breathers – particularly women who are in the habit of holding their tummy in, so you may need to loosening your clothing, and practice a bit.

For the exhale

Rest is the opposite of stress, and resting means no action ie doing nothing at all. I prefer the word ‘resting’ to ‘relaxing’, as many of us have learned to do things to relax. Rest is the absence of doing, so really all that happens during the exhale is to rest by doing nothing. To get more of a feel for Resting, see my Intentional Resting page.

That said, you may want to start your exhale with the intention of resting, and I find it helps to silently say to myself as I start to exhale ‘’… and rest. …”.

And one more thing; you may find yourself involuntarily making an audible sigh as you exhale. Allowing a sound to accompany your exhale also adds more power to your resting. If it’s not appropriate to actually made a noise, imagining you’re making a sound is just as effective.

Persist into a habit

At first, you’ll probably only remember to take a few Resting Breaths through your day. However, if you persist, and as you feel the benefits, you’ll find yourself remembering more often, and feeling progressively less stressed as you let go of more of those pesky stress bubbles!

Of course, you can extend your Resting Breaths whenever you have a few minutes to spare, and particularly at the end of the day to dissipate any residual accumulated stress.

Recap

• You take a deep breath in, and allow your whole system to rest as you breathe out.
• You de-stress whenever you remember to do the Resting Breath.
• You reduce the amount of stress you accumulate through your day.
• Your health benefits through periodically resting your body, emotions and mind.
• You have more energy at the end of the day!

Whenever you remember, take a Resting Breath, or two or three as time permits, and de-stress your day as you go.

Some of them run contrary to the ethos and experiences of regular exercise.

If MELTing is new to you, please check out my Articles: Quick Start To Reverse Ageing, and More Reverse Ageing With MELT.

Without further ado, here are the 5 surprisingly good things about MELTing I’ve discovered.

1. Immediate results

An important part of MELTing is to check out your body before and after, so you can see the difference you’ve made.

For example, You’ll find that doing the Hand Treatment just once strengthens your grip – that has to be the result of improved messaging through the fascia rather than improved muscle strength. You’ll also find that the arm of the hand you just worked on has lengthened!

My immediate result from MELTing was a massive reduction in night-time hip pain, while I know others who got immediate relief from shoulder and back pain.

2. Gain without pain

Forget the adage ‘No pain, no gain’. With MELTing the reverse is true – you only benefit from using the balls and soft roller in a comfortable way.

If you’re experiencing pain it means you’re stressing the fascia rather than helping it regain its healthy fluid state. When you experience pain, you simply ease off the pressure, or move to work away from the edge of the painful area. Easy!

3. Under an hour a week

Unbelievably, you only need to MELT 3 times a week for fifteen minutes to rejuvenate your fascia and experience the reverse ageing effects on your body.

Though I have to say that I find it so beneficial, I’m more inclined to MELT most days, and some of my friends are doing the same because it makes them feel so good!

4. Multi-task if need be

Whilst I prefer to MELT in dedicated time when I can be mindful of my body and how it is responding, it’s perfectly possible to fit MELTing into odd pockets of your day.

The Mini Hand And Foot Treatments only take about 3 minutes, and I’ve heard of them being done in the shower, while stirring the porridge, or watching TV!

5. Catch the pre-pain

As you ‘glide’ the soft roller over part of your body, and you notice an area that’s uncomfortable, you’re noticing an area of pre-pain. It’s highly likely that you’ll find such areas in your calves, even though they may normally feel quite comfortable.

MELTing an area near the sore spot – never on it – you’ll resolve the pre-pain before it develops into actual pain. How cool is that!

So, I highly recommend MELTing for immediate rejuvenation of your fascia, that you can easily fit into your week, and to resolve pre-pain before it even materialises.

MELTing continues to be full of surprises for me!

I was amazed at the immediate reverse ageing effects, and five months on the benefits continue.

Now, I’m wondering what else may be in store!

Recently I had a two day gardening blitz including emptying the compost heap, and to my surprise I had no aches or pains the following days. MELTing really is rejuvenating my fascia (connective tissues), so they are more fluid and this in turn has made my muscles and joints more aligned and flexible.

Just last week I learned the last (for me) of the MELT sequences – for the lower back. To my amazement after doing this sequence just once the stiffness in my lower back disappeared.

A couple of days later I was running with my grandson, and noticed my lower back was buoyant – the jarring thud had gone! I may be able to keep up with young Alfie for a year or two yet!

I now realise that the lower back tension started several years ago, when I locked tension into my connective tissue. I had returned to yoga classes after a ten year break, and rashly assumed I could still stretch as much as before. I kept forcing myself too far into back bends even though they hurt my lower back. ‘Pride comes before a fall!’ 

This experience showed me how easy it is to store tension in the fascia through day to day activity, and how quickly MELT can release that tension.

If you’re wondering how you too can MELT away stress from your fascia you can:

• make a start with my Quick Start To Reverse Ageing
• learn from the self-help resources on Sue Hitzmann’s MELT website
• learn from a MELT Practitioner – in Scotland I thoroughly recommend Kirsty’s monthly MELT Rub And Roll Workshops – be quick they sell out fast!

Enjoy your reverse ageing with MELT!

I wasn’t looking to rejuvenate, this age reversal was the surprising, and of course very welcome, effect of investigating the fascia or connective tissue, in my body, and finding the MELT^® Method.

Motivation

Within days of starting the MELT^® Hand and Foot moves a sciatic-type tingling down my leg disappeared, and my hip stopped waking me up at night giving me a full eight hours of sleep! All I was doing was pressing and gliding a soft ball gently on my hands and feet! This was enough to motivate me to keep going and explore more MELT^® moves.

Hope

Further benefits emerged. I found myself spontaneously stretch each morning – and wondered when that habit disappeared. My fingers are stronger and straighter, and my finger nails grow more quickly and are in great condition. There’s a spring in my step rather than the ‘clump’ of the older person. The hard skin on my heels is largely gone, and my skin is not so dry. These effects gave me real hope that ageing is optional, I don’t need to follow the cultural ageing norm.

Commitment

Most recently my shoulders have dropped by an inch or more. I only noticed this because I became aware that when walking my fingers were touching my thighs lower down than usual! Three months on and I’m fully committed to further reversing the effects of ageing!

A little about fascia

Don’t worry if you don’t know much about fascia, it used to be largely ignored in anatomy and physiology, and has only recently emerged as an important body system.

The fascia is the connective tissue beneath the skin. Rather like a onesy it envelopes the whole body. Then it extends deep to surround every organ and bone, and penetrate into the muscles. It’s one continuous system, so changes in one part affect the whole system.

When healthy the fascia is like a wet sponge – able to twist, with liquid properties that allow for rapid communication between body systems. When stressed it’s like a dry, brittle sponge, unable to move, so joints and muscles become tight, and eventually pain emerges.

MELT^® moves rejuvenate the fascia by rehydrating it and restoring its stretchy properties.

Getting started with MELT^®

If you’re still with me I guess I’ve whetted your appetite, so here’s the quick way I used to get started  using the free online videos from Sue Hitzmann’s sessions on the Dr Oz Show.

A soft squash ball is a good substitute for the MELT ball, while a rolled up towel or yoga mat can substitute for the soft roller. However you can make good progress by focusing on the Hand and Foot moves with just the soft ball.

You may need to be patient if an ad shows up at the start :~)

Sue Hitzmann’s Plan To MELT Pain video (14 mins)

Part 1: Introduction to MELT  (6 mins)

Part 2: Rebalance Sequence, Neck Release, Mini Hand Treatment (4 mins)

Part 3: Foods to MELT pain   (4 mins)

Written instructions:

pdf of instructions for hand, foot and rebalance (spine) sequences given in Dr Oz show

Pain Melting Workout video

Sue Hitzmann’s Pain Melting Workout  (6 mins)

Takes 3 mins every morning:

1. Mini Soft Ball Foot Treatment
2. Hip /lower back release
3. Mini Hand Treatment
4. Neck Release

Enjoy MELTing, and please help inspire others by sharing the benefits you experience …

You have some problem with your health or your life for which your anxious to find a solution.

Something like a sore toe or the ongoing frustration of an overwhelming backlog of emails in your inbox.

You may have found yourself immersed in your problem, asking people about your toe, Googling up symptoms and remedies, or dealing with a few emails only to be disheartened once again by the size of the task.

The trouble is your continued attention to the problem actually feeds it, and you can end up stuck, feeling worse, and still far from a solution.

Einstein said:

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

So the trick is to move your attention away from the problem to a state where you’re open to receive insights that lead to solutions. To flip from problem mode to solution mode.

I suggested some ways to move to a higher consciousness where a solution will present itself in Feeling Stuck – Take The Elevator.

I wonder …?

Here’s another approach, that I’ve found particularly easy to use, and surprisingly effective.

Simply ask yourself:

“I wonder” <insert the solution you seek>?

“I wonder how my toe is always comfortable?”
“I wonder how I easily manage my inbox?”

Be sure to phrase your solution in a positive way:

“I wonder how my toe is always comfortable?”

is more positive than:
“I wonder how the pain is gone from my toe?”

And be sure to phrase your solution in the present tense:

“ I wonder how my toe is comfortable?

rather than:
“I wonder how my toe will be comfortable?”

Then live with the question

You probably won’t get an immediate answer; it’s usually a case of living with the question – asking the question with a curious attitude whenever the problem comes to mind. At some point you’ll get an insight, or a nudge to take action that leads to a solution.

I’ve found that asking “I wonder…?”

• flips me instantly away from the negative, which is often fear-based, to expectant curiosity.
• feels like taking the blinkers off the problem, so my tunnel vision expands out in all directions.
• makes me smile, which lifts my mood, so I’m in a higher level of consciousness where a solution is more likely to reveal itself.

Next time a problem comes to mind, try asking “I wonder ..?” And do let me know how it goes for you!

 It’s so easy to do things, or not do things, that our Future Self later regrets.

Like having that second helping, or succumbing to surfing the internet rather than exercising or meditating.

I recently emerged from a winter virus, and discovered I’d shed six pounds. Feeling so much more comfortable in my clothes with a trim waist, I made a conscious choice to stay that way.

Then, as my appetite gradually returned to normal the usual temptations presented themselves – another helping would be nice, ooh, chocolate – yum!

At the same time I was very conscious how easy it would be to regain those extra pounds. In a bid to stay comfortable, whenever I get a thought along the lines ‘I’ll just have another spoonful of hummus’ or ‘I fancy one of those biscuits … and then another’, I’m pausing to check in how I’ll feel in the future if I give in to temptation.

I pause, and ask myself:

What would my Future Self have to say?

And wait for the response … which always emerges, for example:

You won’t enjoy your meal so much if you nibble now.

You’ll feel more alive if you eat something fresh than a biscuit and cheese.

You don’t need to eat more just because other people are.

Some practices I’m aiming to adopt have also emerged, for example:

 If I overeat today, I’ll need to eat less tomorrow, maybe miss a meal – much easier to keep my eating on an even keel.

Better to put on my plate what I’m going to eat and stick with that, rather than graze through a meal.

Your insights will be different!

So far, so good – my waist is still trim. I know I’ll fall by the wayside from time to time, however having my Future Self remind me of the consequences will help me get back on track.

Of course you can also consult your Future Self about other aspects of healthy living such as exercise, time for yourself, your daily practices …

Then there are the toxins you create in your body through stress and holding on to thought patterns and emotions.

It’s no wonder we all need to detox!

How about a simple way to detox that you can use everyday? Like brushing your teeth, except easier!

And, like brushing your teeth, an everyday detox helps prevent unpleasant health problems.

Detoxification Mudra (finger posture)

Place your thumb pad on the inside base of your ring finger.

It’s preferable to do this mudra on both hands together, though you can alternate hands if need be. Hold for 3 – 5 minutes. Later you can build up towards 45 minutes if you like, and this can be a series of shorter sessions during the day.

For me, toxins show up in my skin, and I find this mudra very effective at clearing those blemishes.

And of course it makes sense to take practical steps to minimise your uptake of toxins in the first place!

Do you spend hours trying to track down the cause, Googling up remedies?

Do you get diverted to symptoms and causes, and perhaps end up fearful you might have ‘insert disease label’ with its dire meaning and consequences?

It’s easy to allow yourself to get overwhelmed by your illness, and sucked into fear. Fear puts you on our guard; your muscles tense up, and if you continue to be immersed in thoughts about your illness, you end up feeding the state you’re in.

In her 8 minute video Anita Moorjani shares a very different approach to illness, based on the premise that you are not your illness.

Here are the key points I took from the video:

• Talk to your body and your illness
• Ask your illness what it is here to tell you
• Love your body and your illness
• See any treatments simply as errands
• Feel and live your day as if you are well
• Make fun, joy, life, love, and passion the focus of your life

I’ve been talking to the different parts of my body, telling them I love them, and asking any sore parts what they are here to tell me. Starting with my hair, I rarely got lower than my neck before falling asleep. Maybe that’s why several people have recently asked me what I’ve had done to my hair as it’s the one part I’ve been consistently loving! Now I’m varying the part of my body I start with 

Or perhaps your work, or play, involves some awkward postures, like chiropody or playing golf or the violin.

We all spend time with our bodies out of their natural alignment. And that mis-alignment has gradually been accumulating, so your body may even have forgotten her natural alignment.

Eventually prolonged physical mis-alignment results in physical discomfort, such as back, hip or shoulder pain. What’s more, a mis-aligned skeleton also disturbs the alignment of organs leading to potential internal discomforts.

What to do?

It’s a question of reminding your body of her natural alignment.

I like to think of reminding my body as being rather like ‘resetting’ my computer or phone – when things go awry pressing ‘reset’ takes it back to its optimal working condition.

A reset reminder – for your natural alignment

So, how to remind your body of her alignment?

The most effective method I’ve come across for a fast and effective reminder to my body is Kinetic Chain Release. Your receive a series of gentle mobilisations and stretches from ankle to crown that realign your whole skeleton. Most people instantly feel lighter, looser and taller! And all sorts of other problems, such as migraines, teeth clenching irritable bowel syndrome and insomnia, often disappear too.

Your maintenance reminder

After your KCR session you are advised to do 3 stretches a day to remind your body of her realignment. One to maintain the alignment of your ankles, legs and hips; one for your torso and shoulders, and one for your neck and jaw.

Your extra reminder (regardless of KCR)

Every morning you have an opportunity to remind your body of her alignment – when you get out of bed put both feet on the floor at the same time before standing up. That way you remind your body of her alignment before moving into the day’s activities. This is helpful even if you’ve not received KCR!

Accessing KCR

You can check for a local practitioner here.

If there’s no practitioner near you, or you prefer to stay at home, I also offer a distance version – yes, KCR is also effective across the world!

As soon as we agreed to connect to do KCR I instantly felt something energetically going on.  For my 3 KCR While You Sleep sessions, around 9.30pm to 10.30pm I could feel a change in my energy and knew it was KCR working.

Linda Handley, England

Infinite Silence is a gateway to that still place of consciousness / No-thing / All That Is.

I’m finding the phrase ‘Infinite Silence’ alone resonates strongly with people, and hope it will for you too.

Infinite Silence was gifted to my friend and colleague Philip Wade in May 2014, and he shares it freely through his website GatewayLocation. Infinite Silence is a ‘sister’ gateway to Spheres Of Light; both take you to the same place of All That Is, through different doorways.

In this place of No-Thing – from which everything emerges – there’s a feeling of coming home, where unencumbered with thoughts and feelings, you have access to your authentic self and hence to insights and healing.

The three coloured squiggles in the dark triangle represent light, energy and information emerging out of No-Thing into our physical experience. They transform into our experience of reality.

I find that Infinite Silence instantly takes me to a deeply peaceful state of complete silence, with a dark velvety feel.

A little different to my experience of Spheres Of Light, which, for me has more of a sparkly, alive feel, and is quite chatty.

However, your experience of these gateways will be unique to you.

Experiencing Infinite Silence

Simply drop your awareness to your heart, and make the intention to experience Infinite Silence. Then be present to whatever unfolds for you …

I like to blend Infinite Silence with Intentional Resting, by getting comfortable and then saying in my head:

I’m Resting into Infinite Silence now.

I expect you’ll find your own way … do please share here.

Wishing you the bliss of Infinite Silence!