The Listenary

Suzanne and Brian learn to listen to their bodies. They stop long enough to hear the creak of the tight muscles, the zoom of the racing mind. Then they smile a YES to themselves, and breathe in YES-filled air.

In the midst of the stress, how does a person ever stop long enough to listen? When your colleague needs a fax immediately, your computer is down so you’ve got to find the hard copy somewhere, customers are lining up in front of your counter, behind the hold button on the telephone waits the mechanic from the shop where you took your car this morning, you just found out last night that your tax return won’t be much this year, that your spouse has cancer, and that your teenager got suspended from school, then the cup of coffee spills—in the midst of all this, Stop long enough to hear? That’s absurd.

You’re right, that’s absurd. However, if you’ve been in the habit of handling your stress as it comes along, stopping to listen often during the day, then you will have a better chance of surviving a crisis day.

Here’s a trick to help you stop long enough to hear. Are you ready?

STOP. Stop breathing. No bloated cheeks, no catch in the throat, just stop. Wherever you are in mid-breath, just stop. No holding the breath, no sucking in before holding, no extra work at all. Just stop breathing right where you are, and count to ten.

In the time it takes a breath of nicotine to work, that is about seven seconds, your lack of breath will dilate your blood vessels bringing loosening to the muscles and oxygen to the brain. There is a great reserve of oxygen in your lungs that needs to be cleaned out and refreshed anyway, and this is what you will use during these few seconds of the STOP.

If your body is quite full of stress, you may not hear immediately the benefits of this STOP. If you are more used to hearing your body, you may notice a dramatic pleasant relaxation in some part where you usually carry your stress. Listening to that dramatic pleasant reaction can put a YES-smile on your face and cause your next breaths to inhale a deep YES.

Listening is the lost link to health and happiness by actually reducing your stress levels.