Day 5-A Time Out

Day 5-A Time Out! Every Mom knows what  a time out means. It's when the kid's are driving you nuts and their behavior is less than perfect you put them in a "time out". It can be any length of time depending on the negative action they were doing.
Well, for reducing stress today we are going to put all our negative thoughts on a "time out."
Stress increases when we let negative thoughts fly through our mind. So we've got to ground them, at least for as long as possible, a "time out."

Create a "safety zone" for a period of time during which you refuse to let negative thoughts appear in the zone. Start small, say 15-20 minutes max. You'll quickly get the hang of it and want to extend the zone for the whole day or even days to weeks to months at a time.

In my family the minute we start to say negative things someone will say "time out" and we know we've stepped out of the "zone" and into the negative area again. This helps us a lot. But, when I'm home alone and negative thoughts start I do it to myself. I say ok, put yourself on a "time out" for 15 minutes. I go to my happy place and meditate on positive thoughts. It could be looking at my garden and seeing all the plants that have grown bigger since yesterday. Or, it could be at the butterflies darting across the yard. I picture myself smelling the flowers with them.

Day 4: Breathe- Well, I'm doing my walking in the house again along with my deep breathing exercise. I find I can last for more than a minute doing it this way. I walk for 10 minutes across the house and into each room. I have enough open floor space to do this and I'm in the a/c. I saw a show about cancer patients in Japan and for therapy they would have them walk outside daily and move their arms slowly up and down and float along and move in a wave pattern instead of a straight line. I find that helps me to relax even more.