Winter Wellness

Join Daye for a snowy winter walk as she introduces a few mental health practices in nature.  How many of these techniques do you remember from your MHWFA Basic class?

Covered in this video: 

• Diaphragmatic breathing: Negative stress dysregulates the nervous system, and one of the first places this shows up is in our breathing.  By consciously returning to a diaphragmatic belly breath, we can send signals to settle our lizard brain and reduce our "fight, flight, or freeze" response.
• Mindfulness: 5-4-3-2-1, an excellent sensory grounding practice for anxiety, stress, or trauma response for helping regulate and re-orient the nervous system.
• Tapping: Simple tapping is an energetic practice with roots in Eastern philosophy as well as in evidence-based modern psychology.  By activating certain points on the body, the nervous system is regulated.  Tapping at a rate that mimics a heartbeat at rest, around 60-80bpm, further regulates the limbic system and activates the parasympathetic nervous system.