Something I don’t understand, what to do now? I say to myself, standing in the middle of the house. And my legs carry me to the bed. And my body lies in a horizontal position. And my eyes close. And you fall through to sleep. A normal defensive reaction! And so a week passes from the moment when your usual way of life collapsed due to the quarantine announced in the country. You cannot concentrate on one thing. Thoughts jump from one topic to another, developing at cosmic speeds and leaving a smokescreen in my head, like from a jet engine. This is how I react, involuntarily finding myself in the epicenter of alarming events. I know I'm not alone in my confusion. Friends and acquaintances in all languages ​​of the world admit that they are scared and anxious, covered with hopelessness. None of us planned this situation, but we all found ourselves hostage to circumstances. But the thought is warming that everything has happened a hundred times before. And crises of scale countries have experienced urban emergencies, and personal “end of the world”... I’ve also had it. I already have the skill to live through crises! And my profession helps! Gradually, the shock of surprise fades away. Thoughts slow down. The strategy for further life is still unclear. Yes, it’s better not to think about it. And since the body has already slept for a week, it will be necessary to “not think” while being conscious. I’ll tell you my three favorite methods that do an excellent job of “freeing my head from thoughts.” Plus, they perfectly bring me back to the present moment, sending my attention to body, create a space in the head free from thoughts. This is often enough to calm the mind, reduce the level of anxiety and significantly reduce the scale of the tragedy within. In the language of psychology, these techniques are called “grounding.” They can be used in any situation when you feel lost, frightened by “pressing circumstances” or when your brain has defined these circumstances as a “hopeless situation”. In general: when you are sad, scared and anxious, when it seems that the earth is floating away from under your feet, when lost sense of support in life Look for a support point inside, that is, begin to ground yourself! So, grounding techniques from my arsenal. Tested! It helps! I’ll roughly divide them into three categories. How to calm down? Method one: Attention to the body There are many variations of such exercises. Choose for yourself. Or even this: study everything and create your own, suitable for you personally. I will give here three such exercises. Stand with your bare feet on the floor. Close your eyes. Send your attention to your feet. Scan exactly where your feet are standing? Do you rest on the entire area of ​​your foot or do you fall on the outer (inner) arches? Is your body weight evenly distributed between your legs: do you find yourself “hanging” on only one leg, even though you seem to be standing on two legs? Now distribute your body weight into two legs and create a fulcrum in the center of your feet (closer to the balls of your toes). Imagine that you are firmly “grown” into the surface of the floor. You can imagine the image of a tree where the roots are your feet. Feel how your body is literally rooted into the floor. Feel the force of gravity. Now you stand firmly on your own two feet. We often do this exercise in my yoga classes. People confirm that it works! You can ground yourself even better if you increase the area of ​​contact between your body and the floor surface. Literally. Lie down on the floor. Close your eyes. Look through your body from the inside: from your heels to the top of your head. Notice for yourself in which places you feel how your body and floor are in contact, and which parts of your body are suspended in the air. Focus your attention on these sensations. Mentally note all the features of the surface on which you are lying: smooth-rough, smooth-uneven, cold-warm, and so on. Take a few deep breaths, developing the feeling of a car tire bursting and deflating. Allow yourself to relax and feel the softness and shapelessness of this tire from within. You will be pleasantly surprised: “your tire” can take a very long time to go flat. With every.