Self-regulation of behavior: learning to manage stress

Has it ever happened to you that you feel “out of place” and, as they say, “on edge”, and at the same time you can’t do anything with yourself, chasing the thoughts that bother you “in circles”? If this does not happen to you too often and only against the backdrop of upcoming important events (for example, a test, exam, wedding, divorce, interview, dismissal), then this is normal and even helps to mobilize.

If you live in such a “suspended” state and an anxious state of mind all the time, this is a reason to seriously think about your health and go through our “Mental Self-Regulation” program. Yes, chronic stress is no less harmful to your health than alcohol and smoking combined.

However, the Ministry of Health has not yet learned to provide “Dangerous to your health” stickers to mentally unstable bosses, teachers, wives, husbands, dormitory guards and clinic receptionists. Therefore, dealing with stress and taking care of your mental and physical health is still solely your problem.

You have already received an invitation to our “Mental Self-Regulation” program, but in the meantime we suggest you read our article and learn some express methods on how to manage stress and bring yourself to a normal state. Let's start by clarifying the terms that we will actively use in the article. This will help you better understand the mechanism of action of the proposed methods and how to learn to manage stress.

What is self-regulation and stress?

What are self-regulation and stress and how are they interconnected? Self-regulation is the ability of any system in general and the human body in particular to adapt to external circumstances and neutralize negative impacts by activating internal resources.

Stress is precisely the totality of the body’s adaptive reactions, thanks to which we overcome difficult sections of life’s journey. In primitive society, stress at the sight of a predator allowed the body to mobilize and make the right decision: run away, hide, or try to kill a potentially dangerous animal.

In today's realities, there is no need to fight wild animals, but you need to be able to quickly come up with an answer to a tricky question or find a way out of a difficult life situation. Such stressful situations are accompanied by the release of adrenaline, under the influence of which glycogen is broken down in the liver and converted into glucose, which leads to an increase in blood sugar levels.

A short-term effect of this kind is quite safe and even useful for training the body’s systems. But prolonged exposure to stress is fraught with dangerous physiological changes in the state of systems and organs.

There are two types of stress:

• Eustress is short-term mobilizing stress or stress caused by positive emotions.
• Distress is negative stress that is harmful to health.

How to manage stress if it is not just a mental state, but a complex of physiological reactions occurring in the body? And how will self-regulation of behavior help this? Interest in this topic has existed for a long time, both among ordinary people exposed to stress, and among doctors, psychologists, physiologists and everyone who is in one way or another connected with the human sciences.

Why is it important to deal with stress?

In general terms, you already understand the harm that chronic stress can cause. Just in case, let us clarify further that it is necessary to fight against distress or negative stress that is harmful to health. This is what we will mean further when we talk about stress management.

So, what else can be dangerous about negative stress? Doctors identify a number of consequences that chronic stress can lead to [O. Izarovskaya, 2012].

What does stress lead to:

• Release of adrenaline and increase in blood sugar levels.
• Nervous tension and headaches.
• Constant anxiety.
• Sleep disturbance and insomnia.
• Loss of appetite (increased, decreased).
• Chronic fatigue.
• Panic attacks.
• Skin rashes.
• High blood pressure.
• Nervous tics.
• Heart diseases.
• Stomach ulcers and other digestive disorders.
• Depressive disorders.
• Decreased performance.
• Problems in relationships with others.
• Cognitive impairment.

So, in addition to the actual physical reactions under stress, problems may begin with concentrating, remembering important information, analyzing current events and making the right decisions. Of course, stress manifests itself individually in each person, and it is not at all necessary that all signs and consequences of stress will appear immediately. However, even a cursory glance at this impressive list will be enough to understand how any of the listed items can poison your life, even if there is only one.

Today, the ability to manage stress is more important than ever. There are more and more sources of stress: financial crises, problems at work, quarrels within the family, the need to sacrifice sleep in order to do more things, the inability to have a normal lunch and at least a little rest during the day, traffic jams, information noise, unhealthy self-esteem [O. Izarovskaya, 2012].

Add to this list the pandemic and its consequences in the form of endless lockdowns, the need to adapt to remote work and study, giving up usual entertainment, traveling abroad, going to theaters and concerts, and you will get an inexhaustible source of stress for every day.

An online survey conducted by the 1st St. Petersburg Medical University and the Center for Psychiatry and Neurology named after. V. M. Bekhterev, convincingly showed that the greatest stress factors in 2021 were fear for the life and health of loved ones, self-isolation and worries about the lack of specific drugs for the treatment of COVID-19.

As a result of this online survey, about two thousand people were interviewed, and detailed data is contained in the final review “Psychological reactions of the population as a factor of adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic” [M. Sorokin et al., 2020]. Note that even the title of the review places emphasis on the adaptive mechanism of stress in conditions of danger and changed circumstances.

Similar reactions are observed in Europe. Thus, according to a survey conducted by the sociological institute Forsa commissioned by Techniker Krankenkasse, every second resident of Germany in 2021 experienced stress due to the risk of infection and the consequences of restrictions related to the pandemic. Moreover, it was noted that young people suffered much more often from stress due to the restrictions imposed than pensioners.

It was young people who were most “stressed” by the inability to communicate normally with friends and actively spend their leisure time. More detailed information about the survey results can be found in the final report entitled Corona-Stress: Jeder Zweite fühlt sich stark belastet (“Corona-stress: every second person feels burdened” [Techniker Krankenkasse, 2020]. Is it possible to manage stress in these conditions and how to do this? Let's see.

Natural ways

In fact, self-regulation is not originally a human invention. In nature or by observing domestic animals, we can note a fairly large number of ways to help relax or activate the vital forces of the body.

Watch cats, for example. There is a lot to learn from them. In their behavior you can see the simplest, but no less effective techniques.

• Dream.

The most desired, most favorite method among many, many residents of modern megacities. Sleep has a truly magical effect. During sleep, the body recovers.

A well-rested person reacts differently to stressful situations than a sleep-deprived person.

It often happens that a person suffers not from the quality of sleep itself, but from “bad” disturbing dreams. Having seen something strange and difficult to explain in a dream, a person does not understand how to interpret what he saw. Uncertainty may make him feel anxious. I may surprise you by saying that not every bad dream has a negative meaning. Some dreams that have a negative connotation help to express negative emotions that did not find a way out during the day. Thus, they save you from psychosomatic manifestations of stress. Other dreams, if interpreted correctly, clearly indicate certain areas of your life that require special attention and special elaboration. You can learn more about the influence of dreams by signing up for my online training, in which I reveal the secrets of the human subconscious through dream analysis.

• High quality delicious food.

Another great way. In terms of its positive effect on the emotional state of your favorite dishes, it is always unrivaled. If it were not for the consequences of weight gain, this method of self-regulation would be ideal. . But here's what else is important to pay attention to.

During times of stress, the body spends much more energy, vitamins, minerals and trace elements than in calmer times.

And if for short-term stress a balanced, nutritious diet is quite enough, then for a long-term stress load the nutrition should be somewhat special. This topic is not simple and requires separate consideration, which will be in the following articles.

And now I’ll just draw your attention to the fact that during such periods the body especially needs magnesium, vitamin C, and B vitamins. That’s why we are so drawn to chocolate during times of stress - because cocoa beans contain a large amount of magnesium. But regular buckwheat also contains both magnesium and vitamin B-6. Just like the drug advertised on TV, only with the high bioavailability of a natural product.

• Sunbathing.

Everyone has probably noticed that with the onset of spring and the appearance of the sun in the sky, the mood rises by itself. This is no accident. After the winter period, residents of our climatic conditions have time to truly “get hungry” for the sun’s rays.

Studies have shown that the “sunshine hormone,” as vitamin D is sometimes called, has a beneficial effect on the stress response. Namely, in the spring we feel the healing powers of sunbathing in a special way.

For safety, it is still important not to forget about sunscreen.

• Pleasant movements for the body.

Stretching, leisurely walks, dance moves. All this helps us create emotional and physical comfort in our body. In this way, we learn to better feel our body and understand its reactions.

And then the body itself tells you what movements and what intensity it needs.

For example, if we cannot sit still during times of strong nervous excitement, then this is a clear “hint” that it is time to burn the stress hormones in the body through intense muscle tension. This could be visiting a fitness club or gym, cycling, swimming.

However, more ordinary exercise will help burn and remove hormones that have already served their role from the body - walking at a fast pace, and even cleaning the house, if done quickly.

• Fresh air.

  
  

Remember those contrasting sensations when, after a noisy, dusty city, you go out into nature, for example, into the forest.

One hour of a leisurely walk in a forest can give the body enough strength for new victories and achievements.

There are a lot of natural ways of self-regulation, I have listed only the most popular of them. And here's what's interesting to notice. Often our body strives for them on its own, as if telling us the optimal way to restore the resource.

Stress Management Techniques

In fact, managed stress is a reality. Stress can be managed, regardless of what caused it. The first techniques of mental self-regulation originated many thousands of years ago, long before not only the coronavirus, but even the advent of industry, the banking system and megacities with their crazy pace of life and endless traffic jams.

Interestingly, methods of dealing with stress have changed little over the past thousands of years. We are still recommended yoga, breathing practices, being in the fresh air, meditation and relaxation. What has been added, perhaps, is advice to be more often distracted from the computer and the Internet, which simply did not exist several thousand years ago. One way or another, we will have to change our daily behavior and behavior in stressful situations in order to cope with short-term stress and avoid falling into long-term depression.

To begin with, we will give several express self-regulation techniques recommended by official medicine, which will allow you to take control of your behavior and your body [GBUZ JSC "Center for Medical Prevention", 2018].

Express methods for self-regulation of behavior and psychological state:

• Under acute stress, important decisions should not be made, except in the event of a natural disaster or other life-saving situations.
• In a stressful situation, try to concentrate and mentally count from 1 to 10.
• If possible, leave the room in which you were stressed, preferably outside. There you should look around, slowly moving your gaze from one object to another and mentally describing their appearance.
• Drink water, focusing on the sensations that occur as the water passes through your throat and enters the body.
• Wet your forehead, temples, and arteries in your hands with cold or cool water.
• Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart. As you exhale, bend over and relax your neck and shoulders. Let your head and arms hang freely in the air.
• Take several deep breaths in and out for one to two minutes. Stop deep breathing if you feel dizzy.

In addition to the usual deep inhalations and exhalations, it will be useful to master the Samavritti breathing technique, popular in yoga, which allows you to harmonize your mental and physical state. You can learn more about it from the book “Therapeutic Breathing. Practical experience" [G. Malakhov, 2002]. And we will present the most general breathing pattern according to samavritti:

• While sitting or standing, distribute your weight evenly on both sides of your body.
• Relax your arms, shoulders and neck.
• Mentally “feel” the spine in the direction from the lumbosacral to the cervical region.
• Inhale through your nose and hold your breath for the number of seconds the inhalation lasts.
• Exhale as long as you inhale, and hold your breath for the same number of seconds.

Those who want to master more complex elements can watch a special video:

By the way, the techniques presented there can be used in everyday life to avoid chronic stress. And we will tell you about several more effective ways to prevent chronic stress, recommended by doctors [GBUZ JSC Center for Medical Prevention, 2018].

Recommendations for dealing with stress:

• Communicate more often with strong people and optimists, focused on positivity and solving problems as they arise.
• Find opportunities to connect with like-minded people and everyone who has common interests with you.
• Enlist the moral support of people close to you.
• Look at life realistically, set yourself moderately ambitious, but not too abstract goals.
• Go in for sports and fitness, provide yourself with physical activity that is feasible for your age and health.
• Try to establish a proper diet and create a healthy diet.
• Follow a daily routine, balance work and rest.
• Read books, be in nature, listen to music.
• Enjoy life.

The last recommendation made it onto this list for a reason. Psychologists have found that pleasant memories reduce the negative impact of a stressful situation by as much as 85%. One way to maintain positive emotions is to remember past positive events. Thus, autobiographical memories can evoke the emotions that you received when this event occurred [M. Speer, M. Delgado, 2017].

In particular, generating positive memories may be inherently valuable because it re-invokes pleasant feelings and engages neural circuitries involved in reward processing. In particular, in the presence of positive memories, the so-called striatum begins to work, which is localized in the front part of the brain and is involved in providing many functions of the body. And when the striatum is damaged, muscle hypertonicity and disruption of complex motor reactions develop.

In addition, a group of neurons in the striatum is involved in regulating reward and reward functions in the brain. These functions directly correlate with self-esteem and improved mood. Thus, there is scientific evidence for how positive memories help cope with stress, potentially promoting better decision-making and well-being in different areas of our lives [M. Speer, M. Delgado, 2017].

Many business people may find all this advice too general or abstract. On the one hand, all this is very good and correct. On the other hand, there are very specific and not always adequate customers, not very punctual suppliers, not very decent partners, and visits from inspection authorities.

And added to the stress factors are criticism on social networks if a brand is trying to get in direct contact with potential customers, failed advertising campaigns if you don’t yet fully understand your target audience, and many other objective problems that exist in business and require solutions.

Yes, even if you are an ordinary office employee who has never been involved in an independent business, you have a boss, a plan for the month and quarter, deadlines and reports, and all the same not always adequate clients, customers, colleagues, partners, not entirely clearly defined tasks and very vague performance criteria.

Simply giving up on all this, immersing yourself in pleasant memories and self-regulation practices, will not work, because this is your job, for which you receive a salary, and the loss of which threatens financial and other problems. This means new stresses that will replace stresses due to unscrupulous suppliers and unclear what customers want.

What to do with all this and how to cope with all this so as not to live in a state of permanent stress? We offer you a selection of advice from employment specialists who understand better than others that an upset psyche is a direct path to unemployment and that resistance to stress is often a more important factor for successful work than knowledge of absolutely all the details and nuances of professional activity [Novokuznetsk Employment Center, 2014 ].

How to manage stress at work:

• Everything that is needed at work should be prepared the night before: put business papers and documents in a briefcase, charge phones and tablets, clean your business suit and match it with a tie and shirt.
• In the morning, you should have a reserve of time regarding how much time you need to wash your face, get ready, have breakfast and get to work. To do this, it is enough to get up in the morning 10 minutes earlier than “back to back”.
• It's always worth having a plan of action for your workday. This way you will avoid the turmoil and the nervousness that inevitably comes with it. Set your priorities, plan your unimportant tasks, and think about what to do with the remaining time before the end of the working day if you complete all the tasks quickly.
• It is best to plan around 60-70% of your working time and reserve the rest for unforeseen circumstances. This way you will avoid nervousness if something unexpected happens or an urgent task appears. Researchers have calculated that a middle manager usually has 14 to 25 new tasks per day [A. Neumann, 2020].
• You should unload your memory so as not to clutter it with trifles. It is better to record all matters, even the smallest ones, on paper than to keep them in your “head” and be nervous about the fact that you might forget something.
• If possible, it is better to delegate those tasks that cause you stress or spoil your mood.
• You should learn to say “no” to tasks that are not within your area of ​​expertise and to all cases where they are trying to take advantage of you.
• It is necessary to provide short breaks during work, at least in order to stand up and stretch. It’s better to find an opportunity to walk and do a couple of exercises away from the eyes of your colleagues.
• If stress has become your constant companion, you may want to relax your standards and realize that ideal perfection is not always achievable. At a minimum, try to become more flexible and put forward more adequate demands on yourself and others.
• You should not constantly grumble and show dissatisfaction, even if there is an objective reason for this. Remember that the world is imperfect!
• A more productive strategy would be to focus and emphasize successes rather than failures. For every momentary failure, there may be a dozen times when you were lucky.
• You need to bring order or take control of the chaos at work and at home. It is worth organizing your living space so that nothing in it strains or stresses you.
• It will be useful to learn useful self-regulation techniques using breathing practices and releasing muscle tension. This has a calming effect on the psyche.
• You need to regularly pay attention to your appearance. A new hairstyle or outfit is often a better mood booster than even the most sophisticated self-regulation practice.
• It’s worth thinking about how to diversify your everyday life. If this is not possible on weekdays, at least make the weekends more varied.
• You should find time to repair or replace what is not working well. Often the unobvious cause of stress is some small thing, like a car door lock that sticks or a table lamp switch that only works the third time it is pressed.
• You need to learn to “reduce the degree” of an event and its significance. Often the cause of stress is not so much the events themselves as our attitude towards them.
• You need to learn to think positively and think more often about the good than the bad. To do this, you can make a list of what makes you happy and think more often about what brings you joy and happiness.
• Even with a busy schedule, it's worth finding time to get enough sleep, exercise, and cook nutritious, healthy meals. This investment will return a hundredfold for your health and psyche.

In principle, many tips on how to manage stress at work overlap with the previously given universal recommendations for all occasions. This is quite logical. We have already said that stress can be managed regardless of the reasons for its occurrence, and methods of stress management have remained largely unchanged for thousands of years.

Therefore, it is quite possible that many tips for businessmen and entrepreneurs from the Russian information portal RusBase will also overlap with advice on managing stress at work [A. Samoydyuk, 2018].

How to overcome stress for entrepreneurs:

• Take a break and return to the task with a “fresh” head - this helps when the right thoughts don’t come to mind and you start to get nervous because nothing is working out.
• Follow the plan and do not immediately rush to solve all the problems that arise if they can wait.
• Be guided by logic, not emotions, and when emotions get out of control, pause and ask yourself the question, “Will I later regret something I did in a fit of anger or under the influence of stress?”
• React calmly to the machinations of competitors and do not waste time on revenge - usually revenge does not bring any dividends and does not help business develop.
• Do not exaggerate minor troubles - most of the problems that arise are completely solvable and are not as terrible as they seem at first glance.
• Use stressful situations to understand where your weaknesses are and how you can strengthen your business.
• “Turn off the noise” and stop responding to destructive criticism. And constructive criticism should not be a reason for stress, but a guide for improving business.
• Play sports.

The theme of sport runs through all the recommendations for combating stress, because movement and physical activity contribute to the release of joy hormones in the body and thus neutralize the influence of factors that make you nervous.

However, there is another way to overcome stress - music. This method has traditionally received less attention than various breathing and meditation practices, although classical music has long been known to help calm people down, and music therapy can help manage stress. Therefore, we will talk about some research in this area and their results.

Thus, neuroscientist Daisy Fancourt found out the influence of music and the context of its perception on emotions and biomarkers of stress [D. Fancourt, 2019]. He suggests dividing up the short-term effects of music on emotions, the medium-term effects on mood, and the long-term effects on mental health. In the short term, there are several basic strategies for music influence:

• Gives positive emotions.
• Suppresses or discharges negative emotions.
• Distracts from stress.
• Increases self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Creates a feeling of control over the situation when problems cease to seem significant and stressful.

The last couple of points are not so much independent strategies as derivatives of the first three, but for the sake of completeness we focus on them. In addition, in this article we have repeatedly touched upon such aspects of stress as self-esteem, the adequacy of demands on oneself and one’s own attitude towards various events, so it will be useful to know that music helps to regulate these aspects as well.

Regarding the technical side of the issue, it should be noted that slow harmonious music that does not contain the sounds of percussion instruments is most conducive to relaxation. This melody increases the activity of the parasympathetic system, promotes muscle relaxation, lowering systolic blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rate [Technogym, 2019].

Music from 60 to 80 beats per minute with additional musical themes performed by various string instruments: harp, cello and others is especially relaxing. This partly explains the stress-busting advice to spend more time in nature. The sounds of nature - the sound of water, the singing of birds, the rustling of leaves - are very close to the above characteristics.

By the way, music therapy can help manage stress, even if it has already reached the point of depression. Studies show that music therapy has significant short-term benefits for people with depression, and when combined with traditional treatment, it is much more effective in reducing symptoms of depression than traditional treatment alone [S. Aalbers et al., 2017].

In particular, those suffering from depression noticeably reduce their levels of anxiety and worry, and they themselves can cope with their daily work responsibilities more effectively. Let us add that this study involved more than 400 people from pensioners to teenagers, and a positive effect was observed both by simply listening to music and by an active form of music therapy, when the subjects were asked to sing something or play a musical instrument [S. Aalbers et al., 2017].

Let's now briefly summarize how to overcome stress and how self-regulation of behavior and mood will help. For convenience, we will group methods that are similar in their mechanism of influence on the psyche and body into separate groups.

Top 7 best ways to beat stress:

• Meditative and other related practices - yoga, relaxation, self-hypnosis, self-control of thought processes.
• Physical activity - sports, fitness, walks in the fresh air, various exercises.
• Positive emotions – communication with positive people and like-minded people, pleasant memories, enjoyable activities.
• Control over your life and circumstances - having an action plan, understanding your own priorities, adequate expectations from yourself and others, time management and life management.
• A healthy lifestyle - adequate sleep, healthy food, balance between work and rest, control of physical and mental health.
• Music therapy – listening to music, singing and playing musical instruments.
• Medicinal herbs and herbal teas - in particular, chamomile, lemon balm, valerian, lavender.

We did not dwell in detail on the last point because doctors and specialized experts did this for us long ago. Those interested can get more information from the review “Which herbs will help fight stress?” [N. Tyshkevich, 2019]. For fans of tea drinking, we can recommend the article “What tea calms the nervous system?” [M. Elagina, E. Vorobyova, 2019]. Let's just say that the substances contained in medicinal herbs make it easier to control your own behavior and mood under stress.

We wish you peace and prosperity!

We also ask you to take part in the survey:

We also recommend reading:

• Storytelling
• Stress Diary
• How to cope with stress
• Impact of stress on quality of life
• Stress: is there any benefit from it and how to get it?
• Stress. What is it and how to remove it
• Uncontrolled aggression, self-isolation and inaction: the influence of the body's physiological response on human behavior
• Habits that kill stress
• Coping strategies as a way to deal with stress
• Ways to relieve stress
• 8 Express Techniques for Calming Yourself in Stressful Situations

Key words:1Psychoregulation

Exercises for concentration

Exercise 1.

1. Sitting with eyes closed. You give yourself the command: “Right hand!” and try to focus on your right hand.
2. After 10-15 seconds, the next command: “Left hand!”, then: “Right foot!” etc., focusing on different volumes of the body.
3. Gradually you should move on to smaller volumes - a finger, a nail phalanx - and to more subtle sensations, for example, the pulse beating at the tip of a finger.
4. At the end, the whole body is in the field of attention, observed calmly, against the backdrop of general relaxation.

Exercise 2.

Extend your arms at chest level and then slowly bring them together, keeping your palms parallel.

After several repetitions, the palms begin to “spring”, encountering the elastic resistance of the environment

You need to “blind” a ball from this invisible “field substance” and, helping with your hands, “absorb” it into yourself in the solar plexus area.

Assess the difference in conditions: before and after exercise.

Exercise 3.

Performed in pairs. One of the participants closes his eyes, and the second, taking his hands, slowly leads him around the room. It is very important that the “blind” person feels safe, completely trusting his “guide”.

The “guide” leads his follower along the wall, inviting him to evaluate the difference in the perception of space: to his left and to his right.

Swap roles in pairs. Focus on the mutually compensating role of the visual, auditory and kinesthetic analyzers.

Note: all concentration exercises should be done with a fresh mind, preferably 2-3 hours after eating. If there is any discomfort - headache, deterioration in emotional state - stop doing the exercise.

Formation of skills to relax the muscles of the face and hands

It is these parts of the body that have the largest representation in the cerebral cortex, and it is in these parts that muscle tension most often occurs, i.e. muscle groups are chronically in increased tone even when a person is relaxed. Constantly sending activating signals to the brain, they do not allow the psyche to rest, including during sleep, threatening a person’s internal balance. Therefore, it is important to learn to relax all muscle groups at least for a short time.

The work of the facial muscles begins with tension and relaxation of the forehead muscles (mask of surprise, mask of anger), and then the muscles of the cheeks, chewing muscles, and neck muscles.

Facial exercises:

1. Stretch your lips in a smile as far as possible, similar to Pinocchio’s smile. Return to starting position. Repeat 5-7 times.
2. Puff out your cheeks. Exhale the air, mentally inflating the balloon. Repeat 5-7 times.
3. Place your hand on your forehead. Trying to raise your eyebrows and eyes upward without wrinkling your forehead. Repeat 5-7 times.
4. Close eyes. Close your eyes tightly. Feel that it has become dark. Cover your eyes with your hands. Feel that it has become even darker. Imagine in front of you a dark bottomless well, black velvet, something black. To feel that it has become even darker, to see, to feel this darkness. Be in it. Remove your hands from your face. Feel that it has become lighter. Without opening your eyes, feel that it has become lighter. Slowly open your eyes. (Going back is twice as slow). The exercise is performed 1 time.
5. Make swallowing movements.
6. Raise the corners of your lips up, smile, feel how pleasant sensations from the corners go to your ears.
7. Run your hand over the neck muscles and, if they are tense, make several tilts and rotational movements with your head, massage your neck. Then lightly stroke the muscles from the shoulder to the ear, and rub the behind-the-ear tubercles with your fingertips. This improves blood flow to the head and helps relieve nervous tension.

If the clamp cannot be removed, it can be smoothed out using light self-massage in a circular motion with your fingertips. The end result is the achievement of a “relaxation mask”: the eyelids are lowered, all the facial muscles are smoothed, the face becomes somewhat sleepy, indifferent, the lower jaw of the face is lowered, the tongue is slightly pressed against the teeth, as if about to say “yes”.