 Hello everybody, it's Liz Giles from Health in Essence with another segment of Coping with COVID Stay at Home Practices. So today, I thought we might address some protocols that we could use to help us with tension, because a lot of us are stressed. Even if we're making the best of it, we're still experiencing some pretty good stress and stress goes right to the muscular skeletal system, right? Tents next, tense shoulders, tense bodies all over. So we want to address that. Also, I want to kind of Zen a little bit, right? Something to Zen would be helpful so that when we start having these like anxiety moments, we can quickly get it under control. Okay, so I'm going to move right along. I'm going to show you some acupressure points today, and I'm going to show you an Ayurvedic practice in breathing, a breathing technique that we can use. So let's start with a breathing technique, because if I can get you to relax right off the bat, you'll be able to learn faster, right? Okay, so I want you to assume this position with your hands, shaka-shaka like they say in Hawaii. Okay, and we are going to just get in a comfortable position. You'll probably be sitting, I'm not right at the moment, but you should be sitting and get comfortable, and we are going to take our thumb and put it up to this nostril and inhale deep and slow. Release, change fingers. Exhale, slow. Slow and full on the inhales and the exhales. Inhale, now change. Exhale, inhale, change, exhale. I forgot to say you should probably wash your hands before you do this and after you do this, just be, you know, COVID safe. Okay, so I wanted to see if you felt, do you feel like how relaxed you felt after that? It's amazing how quickly you can relax with that simple breathing technique, and you can do that for, I don't know, 20 breaths, 10 breaths, whatever it works for you, whatever you need to just kind of get back into your body and go, all right, I'm good. I can deal with this. Dishes are next or whatever. All right, so that's the simple Ayurvedic breathing technique that you can use all the time, anytime. Great before meditating, if you're going to do meditation, which I highly suggest taking some time to do some meditation while you've got the opportunity. Good for you. Getting our anxiety under control or stress under control is a great way to support our immune system. Our immune system does not like it when we are stressed, okay? So we want to get that under control. All right, next let's go to a simple acupressure point that is on the arm, so easy to access for most people. It is between these two bones, the onus and the radius, and we are going to go about maybe four fingers, four fingers on me, might be three fingers on you, depending, and you'll feel in between these bones and kind of like in a valley. If you came up here, and you start feeling resistance from the muscle that's up here coming down, then you're probably right on it, and it'll be a little tender. I actually have a freckle there that, in case I ever forget where I'm going. And so then you're going to take your thumb, actually, and you're going to press firm. We're not digging. We're not trying to find gold here or oil. We are just pressing firmly, indenting, and then the action is to pull down, and we're pulling down toward these fingers with our thumb, right? So press and pull down. Not only does this point release the forearm, the neck, and the shoulders, but it's also a calming point. Really great to know if you're a parent with little ones that sometimes spin out of control and can't get a hold of themselves, and you got to go, hey, get them by the arm, gently, lovingly, and find that point on them. And while you're talking them down, you know, Johnny, calm down. Tell me what's going on. You can be working that point for them and calming them down while you're talking them down. Great thing to have in your back pocket, parents. I'm just saying. Okay, so the next point I want to show you is on the ankle, well, above the ankle, but it's on the leg, and I'm going to show you here. This point, this is an inner point. Now, this is for women, for menstruating women that are having cramp problems, okay? Nothing more stressful than being in pain. So you're going to come up here. You're going to, once again, right here is the malleolus. So we're going to start with the malleolus, another bony structure like the wrist, but on the ankle. You're going to come up about, I would say, about maybe three to four fingers tall, okay, depending on how big your hands are, how big your fingers are, and you will feel a definite spot right in here that is going to be painful. It's going to be an alley. So once again, it's straight down, firm pressure, and then just gently massaging that. You might have to do it for, I don't know, three, four, five minutes. You could do it on both sides if you like, but I guarantee you that after you've done that, if you've done it properly, and not wail, do not wail on that point, that you are going to feel relief, okay? Now, on the outer ankle, this is for everybody. Here's the malleolus again, our friend the malleolus. We're going to do like this for fingers, right, and we're going to come back on to that first bone that we feel, okay? And you're going to feel a point right there on that fourth finger that is going to be tender. This point, same thing, same action, we're going to push in, and then we can just gently massage that, right? This point is pretty amazing. This point is going to work from your hips down to your knees, into the calves, the ankles, and into the feet. Not a release tension in those areas, any discomfort, and it might even actually, for some people, work on certain sciatica discomfort, so that's great too for folks that especially if you're home and sitting a lot, you know, if you're working from home, you're not at the right desk like you usually are when you're at work or what have you, you know, you're binge-watching Netflix, you know, you might end up with some sciatic problems, so this is a good one to help you with that. And I actually have other ones for sciatica that we'll do in another episode, but yeah, this can certainly help. This is also just good for stiffness in general. Okay, so we've got nose, wrists, ankles. What's next? Oh, yes, I like to keep these videos kind of short, so I'm going to close out with, I'm going to close out with a hug, because hey, we're in quarantine or we're at stay at home. Maybe we're by ourselves. Doesn't mean we can't have hugs, right? Okay, especially if hugs are going to be all the more therapeutic by using an acupressure point. So, you're going to hug like this and you're going to hug like this. First of all, just give yourself a good hug. Oh, this is so hard, but I'm going to get through it. Yes, I am. Okay. After the pep talk, you're going to come in here and in between ribs. So where your hands land are pretty much going to be exactly where you need to be and you're going to go in between the ribs and you're going to find the sore spot there. Do you feel it? I feel it. Okay. This spot is good for whole body pain and weakness. And you can hang out and hug yourself as long as you want to. It's okay. Don't let anyone tell you any different, especially if you're working on your whole body pain and weakness. It's a good thing. All right. Under 10 minutes, I've given you four, five different techniques you can use. Have a great day. Stay healthy. Stay safe. Drink lots of water. Work on your immune system. Sleep. Sleep is good. It's actually a good thing. And I will see you in the next segment. Thanks so much for tuning in and I wish you well. I can't wait to see you and I'll be the one working on you next time. Okay. Thanks. Bye.