In the midst of Israel's wartime challenges, the nation grapples with heightened tension, mental strain, frayed nerves, and haunting testimonies. Uncontrollable images besiege our thoughts, but in this turmoil, there is a way to alleviate stress and restore body and mind. According to Moore Duani, an expert in NLP and naturopathy at the "Broshim" campus, there are strategies that can help us find solace, regain composure, and endure until the battle's end.
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What steps can we take to make the harrowing ordeal we and our kids have been enduring for the last five days more manageable?
Drink water: The water releases a lot of physical toxins from our body. The amount: two to two and a half liters per day.
Take rest intervals: Take breaks from news reports, stop scrolling social media, stop helping others and give yourself time to relax; lie down to rest, listen to meditation, talk to someone close.
Practice breathing: Our breathing tends to be shallow and fast in times of stress. Take time outs for conscious breathing until it becomes slower than usual, and be sure to breathe 10 breathing cycles at a time, several times a day. With deeper and slower breathing, oxygen enters the body and helps us reduce stress.
Make sure you sleep: A continuous night's sleep helps release stress, so if your sleep is not regular now, use extracts that help sleep, or drink relaxing infusions such as chamomile.
Get in motion: go for a walk, even if it is at a slow pace, for at least 20 minutes in a row, or walk indoors with music. You can also move while sitting - move your shoulders, the back of your neck, stomp your feet – this releases a lot of tension from the body and releases difficult experiences that may get stuck in the body.
Don't forget to touch: Touch your feet, hands, shoulders, head, neck; not a fluttering caress, but a deep touch. It is also recommended to drum on the chest with clenched fists while exhaling deeply. Contact with close family or friends - hugs, massage, sitting together and feeling the closeness. And of course, contact with the pets that really calm us down, and give us healing.
Create a support system: Whether it is in a physical meeting, on the phone, on Zoom or on WhatsApp, talking to people close to us, telling them how we are, asking how they are doing, finding out if they need help. One of the things proven to help relieve stress, Duaney says, is helping someone else.
Eat healthy: Cook together with the kids and eat foods that are easy to digest, such as complex carbohydrates like rice, quinoa, small legumes, lentils, broad beans. Eat cooked vegetables, especially orange vegetables; make sure to consume omega 3 and essential fatty acids found in fish, seeds and nuts, and green leaves.
Banish disturbing thoughts: Find a point that is high above your eyebrow and focus on it, while breathing for at least a minute. And when all kinds of difficult images come up - try and imagine how we move the image away, reduce and blur it.
Use your senses: Take many showers in warm water, light an essential oil burner with soothing scents such as lavender, geranium, grapefruit or orange oil (don't forget to turn it off when you leave the room); Together with the children: dance to release tension, listen to music, watch funny content or look at pictures that make us feel good. Avoid watching the news all the time or videos and pictures that are sent to us.
Spend time in nature: Go out together with the children safely to the area of nature closest to you, go down to the garden under the house, go out on the balcony, the main thing is to be outside as well. Recruit the children to take care of the houseplants by watering and cultivating together.
Keep busy at all ages: Puzzles, knitting, sculpting, painting, coloring mandalas, working with children with dough or plasticine and using the hands because the touch with the material is relaxing; the hands are connected to the nervous system.
Practice meditation: Do it together with the children. Even 2-3 minutes with deep breathing and concentration can calm the system.
Plan and stick to a schedule: On the days when we don't have plans because it's impossible to go to work, make a schedule to provide an anchor; when I eat, rest, talk with friends, bake, cook - the main thing is to have anchors.