A set of anti-stress exercises
To relieve emotional stress, specialists have developed a whole range of exercises. This program of stress relaxation techniques is aimed at calming through psychophysiological relaxation of the body. Exercises, by influencing certain organs, allow you to relieve accumulated tension in the body and spirit and cope with stress in general.
- Belly breathing. Proper breathing to calm yourself is the first step to success. Try to inhale and exhale through your stomach, and not with your lungs, then rounding it, then “blowing it out” and retracting it. To regulate movements, place your hands on your navel. The duration of the procedure is 5 minutes.
- Slow breathing. One of the simplest physical exercises to relieve stress and tension. Inhale deeply for 4 seconds, then hold your breath for the same period. Repeat one by one for 5 minutes, completely relaxing during the psycho-gymnastics.
- Eskimo. Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart. Tighten your body by stretching upward. Stay in this position until you get used to the state of tension and get tired of it. Try feeling frozen. And then imagine that the sun is hanging over you, and you are slowly melting under its rays. Gradually relax your hands, shoulders, neck, face, the last ones will be your legs. Maintain proper breathing.
- Sea coast. Sitting comfortably on the sofa, imagine that you are sitting on the seashore. A light breeze blows over you, the sun shines from the sky, and you bask in its rays. Drop all problems, don't think about anything. Finish when you feel relaxed.
- Seven candles. This procedure includes elements of gymnastics and visualization (gymnastics against stress are known to be very helpful). Imagine that there are seven candles lit in front of you, which you need to blow out one by one. Having visualized, slowly do this with each one in turn, imagining everything in the smallest detail. Having “blown out” all seven luminaries, plunge into darkness and give your head a break from obsessive thoughts.
- “Everything will work out.” This method will help you focus on the problem and solve it. Think through your actions step by step, concentrating on the feeling that arises after each “step” taken. Remember your theoretical plan and implement it.
- Drawing. Try to depict on a landscape sheet the situation that worries you so much. Draw not only faces and objects, but also emotions: drawing will help relieve stress. On the back of the paper, write a few phrases describing the general state of affairs or your own feelings and sensations about this. Tear or burn the paper to get rid of the problem.
- "Squeezed lemon". Take a lotus position or any other position that is comfortable for you, sitting on the sofa or on the floor. Imagine that you are squeezing a lemon in one of your hands. Tense yourself and show effort by “squeezing” the juice out of it. Then “transfer” the fruit to the other hand, pressing it to the end.
- Scale. The exercise will be useful to those people who are fixated on a rather insignificant problem and are aware of this fact. But they can’t do anything about their anxiety. Close your eyes and imagine that you are in a house located in the middle of a long street. The street belongs to the district, the district to the city, the city to the country, and the country to the mainland. Next comes the planet, the Universe. Imbue yourself with the degree of greatness of the world and understand how insignificant the scale of your problem is.
- Swing. Sit on a flat surface and clasp your knees with your hands, bringing them closer to your face. Round your back. Rock from side to side as if on the waves. Such gymnastics for relieving stress through slow movements will put you in a peaceful mood.
Exercises to relieve tension in the whole body
Exercise “Chopping wood”
The first exercise can be explained to children through the association with chopping wood or catching butterflies.
“Chopping wood” will help switch children to active activities and allow them to splash out their aggression in the game. “Have you ever seen how wood is cut? You can show? Great! Now you and I will stock up on firewood for the winter. Place the log on the stump, stand up straight, raise the ax above your head and bring it down on the log with all your might, shouting “Ha!” to make your job easier.”
Exercise “Catching butterflies”
“Catching Butterflies” is a calmer version of the same game with more imagination. “Imagine that you and I have found a beautiful meadow of flowers, with butterflies fluttering here and there. Let's catch a few and take a closer look! So, the net is ready, we tiptoe up to our butterfly, lift the net and catch our beautiful captive.” Here you can ask the children to describe what kind of butterfly they caught. "Amazing! Now let’s let her go and see what other butterflies there are in our clearing!” Using the same principle, you can catch beetles, frogs, etc.
Exercise “Cowardly Hares”
We invite children to become hares on the lawn for a few minutes. The sun is shining, and they are frolicking, jumping, playing with each other. Suddenly a wolf appears at the edge of the forest. The bunnies sense danger, freeze, begin to tremble all over, and shrink. When the wolf leaves, the eared ones continue to frolic. We repeat the cycle several times, while you can reduce/increase the period of activity.
Exercise “Puppy shakes himself off”
We ask the guys if they know how puppies shake themselves off. Please note that they shake themselves off with their entire body - from nose to tail. We show how this happens by passing a shaking wave from top to bottom and back. We repeat with children, the exercise can be repeated several times. It's a good way to end the lesson.
Exercise "Red Carpet"
Children stand in two lines. Those in front place their hands on each other’s shoulders. They form a kind of fence for those standing behind (or a wall of guards). The guys behind need to lean on the fence and jump as high as possible to wave to their idols as they descend on the red carpet. Then the spectators and the fence change places. You can ask who they saw on the red carpet, who they preferred to be (the fence or the audience) and why.
Exercise "Pump and ball"
Children are divided into pairs. One of them is a large inflatable ball, the other inflates this ball with a pump. The ball stands with the whole body limp, on half-bent legs, arms and neck relaxed. The body is slightly tilted forward, the head is lowered, the ball is not filled with air. The partner begins to inflate the ball, accompanying the movement of the hands with the sound “s”. With each supply of air, the ball inflates more and more. Hearing the first sound “s”, he inhales a portion of air, simultaneously straightening his legs at the knees, after the second “s” the torso straightens, after the third the ball’s head rises, after the fourth the cheeks puff out and even the arms move away from the sides. The ball is inflated. The pump stopped pumping. The partner pulls out and twists the pump hose, and air comes out of the ball with force with the sound “sh”. The body went limp again and returned to its original position. Then the players change roles.
Exercise "Icicle"
We ask the children to stretch their arms up, close their eyes and imagine that they are icicles. All body muscles are tense. Please hold this position for 1-2 minutes. Then the sun comes out, and the icicle begins to slowly melt: the hands and arms themselves gradually relax, then the neck, shoulders, body, legs. This exercise can be performed not only standing, but also lying on the floor.
Poem for the exercise “Icicle” (the poem was written specifically for the site Pedsovet.su)
Let's quickly warm up and turn into pieces of ice. The cold has shackled us, and here we are - icicles, pure ice.
We will close our eyes, we will raise our hands up soon. Two seconds in tension - let's stand there without moving.
The sun came out from behind the clouds and cast its first ray. It shines strongly, it shines brightly, Everyone has become so hot, so hot.
From such heat the icicles flowed in a transparent stream. We felt how suddenly our fingers began to melt.
One-two, three-four, hands dropped together. The sun shines without sparing, Our neck rests.
We barely shake our heads - we relax the neck muscles. We shrug our shoulders and knead them lightly.
Chest and body – it’s their turn to relax. It has become a little warmer for us, and our legs are melting from the ice.
One-two, one-two, It's time for us to finish! Now we are not ice - water, let's run away in all directions!
It is mandatory to do exercises for everyone!
Exercises to relieve back and shoulder muscle tension
Exercise “Lifting the Barbell”
“Now you and I will act as weightlifters. Heavy barbells lie in front of us. Prepare your hands (dip them in talcum powder, rub them, shake them off), grab the barbell, take a deep breath and lift it off the floor. Raise it higher and higher. Now we need to hold the barbell above our heads for the judges to count our result. It’s very difficult to stand, just a little longer... You can throw the barbell, exhale and bow to the audience! You are real champions! " You can vary the weight of the barbell: you won’t be able to lift a heavy one the first time or hold it over your head for a long time, lifting a lighter barbell is not difficult, you can even try with one hand, etc.
Poem for the exercise “Barbell” (written by Victoria Viktorova specifically for Pedsovet.su)
Once! Let's turn into athletes! Two! Let's warm up a little! Three! Here is the barbell in front of us - Oh, with heavy weights! Let's prepare our hands: Dip them in talc, rub them, And now the excess talc - Once - and shake it all off together! Well, now grab the barbell, take a deep breath, and lift it off the floor! Heavy as a barbell, oh!.. Raise it higher - One and two, and one, and two! Watch your breathing, are you feeling dizzy? Strongmen, let's lift the barbell with one hand - Right, left, right, left! Higher, higher above yourself!.. And now with both hands, it’s time to hold the bar tightly! We will set a record with you, the Judges will shout to us: “Hurray!” Once! Squat down low, hold the barbell on your chest - Slowly we “grow up” with it... Success awaits us ahead! Let's raise the barbell high - One, two, three, four, five... For a record we need more - Hold it up to fifteen! Six, seven, eight, nine, ten... And a little more - five times! One, two, three, four, five! You are super!!! The barbell can be lowered: Exhale! Take a bow! For the strongmen - hurray for physical education! And now for us, champions, it’s time to move on!
Exercise “Hanging Pictures”
“You have decided to decorate your home by hanging large, beautiful framed paintings around it. I will help you hang them straight. Take the painting and lift it higher so that it hangs above you. Higher! Raise the right corner a little. And now the left one, just a little bit. Beauty. Now I’ll hammer the nails to hang your pictures, and let’s move on to the next one.” In this activity, you can ask children what is shown in their paintings.
Exercise “Arshin swallowed”
We imagine that we are dolls, and inside our body there is a stick that does not allow us to bend our neck, back, or legs. At the same time, the hands are relaxed. On command, we turn our body left and right, jump, our arms freely follow our body and movements (like a rag doll).
Poem for the exercise “The arshin was swallowed” (written by Tatyana Rastyapina especially for Pedsovet.su)
Tired of numbers and letters? Let's imagine that we are dolls. Only unusual ones - Old, rag ones. Warm-up begins: Straighten your neck, back, Forgot about movements: It’s like you swallowed a stick. Legs, body - tense, only arms - relax. Let them dangle freely, Left, right - whatever you want! One - we’ll turn to the right, Two - we’ll look to the left, Three - we’ll jump in place. We move with our hands together! One - right, two - left Three - let's jump skillfully, It turns out to be an excellent Dance of rag dolls!
Exercise “Artist and Easel”
Children are divided into pairs. One of them is an artist, the second is an easel. The “artists” stand behind the “easels” and draw whatever they want on their backs. “Easels” try to guess what is painted on them. Then the children change places. You can ask the “easels” to depict with body movements what is drawn on their backs, then this exercise will involve the whole body. Or you can draw on your palms, then this game will be aimed at relieving hand tension and developing trust in your partner.
