HEALING TOUCH THAT CALMS THE MIND

A CALM mind is more open to positive thinking. Stress really is negativity’s very best friend.

So the first exercise I’m going to teach you is one of the most effective ways I know for instantly reducing stress and anxiety.

It’s a technique called Havening — the new kid on the block when it comes to psychosensory therapies, it uses simple touch to soothe body and mind. I have used this throughout the pandemic to help frontline workers — doctors, nurses, paramedics and ambulance crew — deal with stress.

It was created by Dr Ronald Ruden, an expert in neuroscience, who discovered that patterns of repeated touch to parts of the body combined with specific eye movements and visualisations have a rapid, reliable and predictable effect on our feelings.

Havening works by simulating the way your mother comforted you as a baby, when she cradled you in her arms. The soothing action of being held becomes hard-wired into all infants.

This technique is not merely a distraction. Studies have shown that when we use Havening, we reduce stress chemicals in our body and change the way our brain processes thoughts and feelings.

The effect of the specific sequence given here is to reset the way your brain interprets and responds to stress. Over time, it can alter for good the neural pathways in your brain. Practise these eye movements, body touches and visualisations until you know them well. You can then use them any time you need to change your mental state.

To start, pay attention to the discomfort you are feeling and rate its strength from one to ten, where ten is the most powerful. Then follow these steps:

1. PAY attention to any stress or traumatic memory you wish to remove and notice what it looks like in your imagination and how stressful it feels. Now, rate its strength on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the most powerful.

2. CLEAR your mind and then just think about something nice.

3. CROSS your arms, place your hands on the tops of your shoulders and close your eyes.

4. STROKE your hands down the sides of your arms from the top of your shoulders to your elbows, and keep doing this downward stroking motion, again and again.

5. AS YOU carry on stroking the sides of your arms, imagine you are walking on a beach. With each footstep you take in the sand, count out loud from one to 20.

6. KEEPING your head still, while continuing to stroke your arms, move your eyes laterally to the left and to the right ten times.

7. STILL stroking the sides of your arms, imagine you are walking outside in a beautiful garden, with each footstep you take in the grass, count out loud from one to 20.

8. OPEN your eyes and re-check your feelings against the scale from one to ten. If it is way down at the bottom of the scale, congratulations — you have personally changed your feelings. If you think the feeling of stress feeling is not yet reduced enough, just repeat the Havening sequence until it is reduced as far as you want.

Use this method any time you need to get rid of unhappy space.