Combatting a Sea of Stress

          Hopefully, you will come out of this development meeting with some actionable methods to help during times of your own stress. To that end, this is a required meeting by all staff. It will be held on Friday, the 10th day of the month of Awakening, at 10:00 AM NST in the atrium lobby. I look forward to seeing you all there.

          Warmly,

     TNT Stone

     “Get a load of Stone,” Nic the Weewoo grimaced disdainfully to his cubicle neighbour Addie, “We just worked our tailfeathers off getting the 975th issue out. We are literally doing all we can to make The Sea collaborative issue all that it can, and they are making us go to a mandatory professional development on the actual day of the deadline. What a joke.”

     Addie sighed and pushed her wings to her face, “I just feel so overwhelmed,” she said, ignoring the stack of articles she needed to fact-check before sending them to the next editor, “I thought going down to an edition every other week would eliminate some of the stress. It’s truly been the opposite.”

     “Not much we can do, I guess,” Nic continued, grabbing a stack of comics to sort, “I guess I’ll just put it on my calendar.”

     The 10th day of Awakening at 9:45 AM came around, and a flock of Weewoos made their way into the atrium, which had new additions of tables and chairs to allow the staff to sit. Nic and Addie picked a table near the borovan bar and made themselves a piping hot cup before settling down.

     “How many things do you have left to do?” Addie asked Nic.

     “I have 83 comics to get through still and 4 articles to read,” he sighed, dejectedly. “I hope this doesn’t take the full two hours.”

     At 10 o’clock sharp, Stone got up and made their way to the centre of the front of the room. They looked out to the staff with a big smile, “Thank you all for joining us today,” they said, “I am very excited to be introducing Dr. Ariel Celadine to the Neopian Times publishing headquarters. Today, she will be going through somatic self-regulation techniques to help with your own stress,” they paused before reaching a hand out towards a Ruki to the left of the room. “Thank you, Dr. Celadine, and the floor is yours!”

     The Ruki padded to the centre of the room with a smile, “Good morning talented editors,” her voice resonated through the room with a calming tone, “Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I am very excited to read the upcoming issue, and I do so hope that you find meaning in my discussion today.”

     “First, let’s talk about stress and how we can recognize our bodies are feeling it,” Dr. Celandine began, “I can rank different levels of stress I am experiencing by the location and effects. For example, if I am more overwhelmed than in fight-or-flight, I will feel tightness in my neck and shoulders. However, if the experience of being overwhelmed extends for too long, I can actually feel the knot in my musculature that feels like a rock just below my shoulder blade. Once that is present, I know that I need to find space for myself and deal with my stress at present,” she paused, “Would anyone else care to share their experiences with feeling stress in their bodies?”

     There was a flutter around the room as Weewoos perked up to be included; professional development previously was more akin to being talked at rather than being part of a bigger conversation. One of the article editors raised their wing before being called on by the doctor. “I experience slight stress as a general queasiness and shortness of breath,” he said, “But when I experience higher amounts or prolonged stress, I notice my beak clenching and am prone to migraines.”

     “Very good!” Dr. Celandine said, “Well…not the manifestation of your stress, but that you can identify it. Who else?”

     “My vertebrae will vibrate!” another Weewoo chimed in, “Or I’ll have tension in my spine that I have a hard time turning my body.”

     “Thank you!” the doctor said, happy for the discussion to accelerate, “How many of us have stopped to think about the different ways we feel stress?” She waited a few moments, watching the room as no wings went up. “This is very normal for this discussion,” she continued, “But it is essential that we are aware of our ability to name our stress in order to tame it.

     “Now, the process going forward is going to be as follows: first, I’m going to introduce the technique we are going to try. I will explain it and then model it. After, you will try the technique for a few minutes, and then we will discuss it as a whole group. Any questions?”

     When no wings were raised, Dr. Celadine resumed speaking, “The first self-havening technique we will be doing is called havening. This is a self-soothing technique that stimulates the vagus nerve through bilateral, repetitive touch and movement. In the scientific community, we call this amygdala depotentialization, as it tells the amygdala–the area of your brain that is in both hemispheres that controls emotions and motivation–to calm down when it is negatively activated, like in times of stress.

     “The first method of havening we are going to do is called a self-hug, and it involves touching each wing tip to the opposite shoulder and stroking your wing to the joint between your hand-wing and arm-wing,” she started doing the motion on herself, obviously without wings, “I am doing it on my arms from shoulder to elbow, but try and mirror this motion on yourselves. We’re going to be here for a few minutes.”

      When the motions died down, she began to model another motion, “You can also do a less obvious form that still involves the bilateral stimulation. Take your opposite wing and stroke from where the feather connects to the end.” On herself, Dr. Celadine placed her hand on the opposite wrist and moved it to her fingertips, then alternated on the other side. The Weewoos got the idea and began practising on themselves for a few minutes.

     “The next method I will model is a facial massage that I am going to model while speaking,” she brought her hands to her face, “You’re simply going to rub from your beak to your temples, over your upper eye socket. Use a firm but light pressure.” Dr. Celadine allowed the Weewoos to continue as they wanted and then prompted them to discuss their feelings in the small groups.

     “Our next method is called starfishing, and I need to get down on the floor for this one,” she sat on the ground with her legs bent, “Now, you’re going to start stretched out as far as you can,” Dr. Celadine laid down and stretched her arms above her head and her legs as far as they would go, “And then you’re going to scrunch in,” she slowly tucked her body into a fetal position, “Then,” she continued, switching back and forth, “You’re going to alternate slowly.”

     She got back up and prompted the staff to starfish. At first, they were a bit uncomfortable, but they slowly got into it. As the motion slowed, she encouraged the tables to talk about their experience with it, adding that “For me, it feels almost meditative. It moves my breath throughout my body.”

     “From here, we’re going to do three different kinds of sighs,” Dr. Celadine took a sip of her borovan before continuing, “We’re going to do an angry sigh, then an exhausted sigh, and then a relieved sigh. Go ahead and do your angry sighs now,” she paused and heard many Weewoos huffing and puffing throughout the room, “Wonderful! Now an exhausted sigh,” she waited until the less dramatic huffs quelled, “Finally, do a sigh of relief.”

     When the room became fairly quiet again, she prompted them, “What did you notice?”

     A Weewoo near the middle of the group raised their wing, “For the angry sigh, it felt like Draik’s breath. Very hot, came from my mid-chest. For exhaustion, it felt like I was breathing out underwater and the bubbles were flowing up to the surface. For the sigh of relief, it almost felt musical, which I don’t understand, but it also felt like I was blowing bubbles and could almost see the translucent rainbows on the edges. I do want to add, though, that all the sighs were relieving, they just provided different images.”

     “That is a fantastic recollection of what you noticed,” Dr. Celadine said excitedly, “Thank you for sharing. I’m going to give you all a few minutes to discuss at your own tables before we come back for our next activity.”

     While the staff was discussing their sighing experience, Dr. Celadine and Stone were handing out pieces of paper and coloured pencils and markers to every table. The discussion flowed for a few more minutes, and when it lulled, Dr. Celadine began speaking again, “Now, we’re going to actually draw our emotions.

     “I want you to think of an ocean of emotions,” Dr. Celadine continued, “I want you to notice and draw how it looks. Are there waves? Is it calm? How big are the waves? What is the weather like surrounding the ocean?” She took a pause to sip some more of her borovan, listening to the pencils and markers drag across the pages, “Are you by the beach or on a ship? I’m going to give you all a few minutes to continue your drawings.” When the scratches died down she prompted each table to talk about their drawings.

     By this point, everyone in the room appeared to be in a relaxed trance. Dr. Celadine quickly organized the papers on the table in front of her before looking back at her audience. “The last method might be something you already know and use to quell anxiety,” she said. “It’s called 5-4-3-2-1.”

     “I want you all to think of five things you can see at this moment,” Dr. Celadine said in a soft tone, “This could be the patterns in your feathers or the floor, it could be the light fixtures, it could be the crumbs from the pastries. Notice and acknowledge five things you can see.”

     She waited a few moments before continuing, “Now,” she said, “I want you to notice four things you can touch. This can be things you actively feel, like your chairs supporting you, or it could be different textures you notice, like the smooth table versus the condensation on your cups of cool water or the warmth of your morning borovan or tea.

     “Next, I would like you to notice three things that you can hear,” she paused to remove her voice from the active sounds. After a few moments, she elaborated, “This could be the ventilation churning air through the building, it could be your pulse in your ears. Notice three things you can hear.

     “Now, notice two things you can smell. For example, maybe you smell your colleague’s perfume or the aroma of the borovan.

     “Finally, I want you all to acknowledge one thing you love about yourself,” she concluded. She gave the participants a bit of time before gently pulling them back into a dialogue, “Thank you for participating with that. I would like to know how you’re feeling as we wrap up our discussion.”

     The staff went through discussions of how they felt in small groups at the tables they sat at initially. When the conversation died down, she asked for a major takeaway, and Addie was quick to raise her wing.

     “Honestly,” Addie said, a new sense of calm in her voice, “I feel like I just had the most rejuvenating eight-and-a-half-hour rest!”

     The End.