I've been communicating lately with other abuse survivors, and I realize that we all have something in common - anxiety and panic attacks. Over the years, while working as a nurse and recovering myself, I have learned a technique which I have found to be very helpful in many circumstances. I've had patients with extremely elevated blood pressure, which normalized within minutes just by doing the exercise below. In experimenting, we also found that if the same patients did this exercise daily (morning and evening) that their blood pressure as a whole would remain stable. The same holds true of elevated heart rate.

Sometimes breathing is the best thing you can do to recover from many situations in life - really - Breath is life.

The exercise I teach people is real simple, and it works to calm anxiety, panic attacks, high heart rate, and elevated blood pressure...........

You basically breath with your hands.......... your focus is on them, not your breath. Having a solid object to focus is a big part of what helps you to recover, so the hand movements really are every bit as important as the breath.

• Stretch your hands out as far as you can reach with your palms facing in to you
• SLOWLY bring your palms to your chest, and as you do, breath in thru your nose if able (slowly to match your hand movement)
• HOLD your breath as you slowly turn your palms to face outwards
• SLOWLY push your hands out away from you, and as you do, breath out through your mouth
• HOLD your breath as you slowly turn your palms to face inward again

Ideally, when you have ongoing issues, it's a good thing to start and end your day EVERY day with the exercise above. Then, when you have a moment when you REALLY need it, you'll be able to do it automatically, without thinking - and you'll find that you're ok.

May all who read this be blessed now and always.

Nameste

Gail Ann