This Exercise Can Help Reduce Unpleasant Feelings

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Several times a day, ask yourself: “How are you feeling?” Then see where in your body you feel it.

This is the homework my counselor recently gave me. She gave me this assignment a few months ago, but I happened to forget it. I’m usually pretty good about homework. I’m a keener at heart, really. But it wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that I picked up this practice.

I remember going to 12-step groups decades ago. There was a saying I frequently heard: “The longest journey is from your head to your heart.” I’d amend that now to “from your mind to your body.” Or, if I want to stick with alliteration, as my inner wanna-be-poet craves, “from your brain to your body”—but “mind” is a better descriptor, I think.

Moving from a negative to a positive feedback loop

Until I applied her suggested exercise, I didn’t realize just how much of my anxiety was driven by living in my head and not my body. Strings of fearful thoughts create a negative feedback loop that can keep building on itself if I don’t interrupt it somehow. This is my “somehow.” At least for now. Hey, my inner wanna-be poet just got a dopamine kick with that little, corny rhyme. Yay for small victories! Recognizing and celebrating small victories is another trick I use if I’m caught in a negative feedback loop. But that’s a subject for another post.

Anyway...

The only thing that is in the present moment is our bodies. It is in the “here and now” that I have the chance to find some peace—however brief it may be. The more I practice her technique, the more frequently and easily I discover stillness.

My mind has the wonderful capacity to think, plan, dream, imagine. All things that can come in very handy. But left to its own devices or when I’m subconsciously triggered (that is, a memory buried in the body is triggered), my mind can be flooded with fears of the future or pain of the past.

How to anchor yourself in your body

When I anchor myself in my body with this kind of check-in, I have a fighting chance of calm.

1. Begin with identifying the emotion.
2. Pinpoint the area(s) you feel it in your body.
3. Discover what sensations accompany it.

The key is to do this frequently over the course of a day (8-12 times/day) and make it a daily habit. It takes no more than 30-60 seconds. Also vital: Do this with curiosity and kindness—not judgment.

Multiple check-ins increase the chances I will feel both pleasant and unpleasant emotions, along with differing sensations. Even on days when my baseline is 90 percent anxiety, I will have at least one blip of relief, hope, even happiness. I promise you, if you’re in the grips of relentless anxiety (as I have been over the course of this year), you will find at least one moment that’s not anxiety. It may be fleeting, but it will happen. That can fan the flames of hope and can be the starter spark of a positive feedback loop.

Questions to consider during your check-in

These are questions I ask myself (and ones for your consideration):

1. What are you feeling right now? Research shows that naming our emotions (what Matthew Lieberman of UCLA calls “affect labeling “¹) reduces our brain’s emotional activity and can lessen the intensity, even if only momentarily. It helps us disengage slightly from the feeling—which can be welcome if it’s negative and uncomfortable.
2. Where does this emotion occur in your body?
3. How do you know this is sadness, joy, anger, etc.?
4. What are your thoughts when you feel these emotions? Is there a pattern of thought driving these habitual emotions and sensations?
5. What does it feel like when you move your attention into your body?
6. What happens to your thinking when you focus on your body?

There are no right or wrong answers. You may not even have an answer for some. I certainly don’t at times.

Starting to intentionally notice pleasant emotions

I’ve recently moved out of an intense spat of anxiety. When I say “intense,” I mean “Fight-Club-movie-gut-punching-kinda” anxiety. I made a pointed effort to notice any blips of good feelings. And blips were sometimes all I had. Nanoseconds of relief.

I would be walking around my apartment, my mind festering with stress; I’d flip a light on, and for no reason, a teeny bit of relief would pop up into my awareness—like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. Then, as quick as he vanishes after seeing or not seeing his shadow, so too does that oh-so-desired emotion of mine.

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But the more intentional I get about noticing pleasant emotions, where and how they sit in my body, the more frequently it has started to occur. Or perhaps they’ve been happening all along, and I’m merely becoming more attuned to them. It’s probably a combination of both.

The wonderful thing? These (sometimes fleeting) feelings of happiness, contentment, and satisfaction usually aren’t tied to an event or object. They spontaneously bubble up. Other times, the gurgles of giddiness do connect to something specific. Like when I feel a soothing calm as I cook my dinner and a childlike excitement when I’m about to eat it.

These observations give me important information. Observing when I have pleasant feelings, no matter how ephemeral, helps me discover activities that spark joy for me—to borrow from the overused phrase from Marie Kondo. It offers insight as to where to direct my energy in order to find more joy and experience it more often and longer.

This simple awareness exercise can help you embody your joy more fully.

Steps for an embodied check-in

A few times a day, spontaneously pause, bring forth your curiosity and kindness, and ask yourself:

1. What emotion are you feeling?
2. Where is it in your body? It might be in multiple places.
3. What are its sensations? For example, tingling, tightness, sharp pain, heat, coolness?
4. Notice what, if anything, changes now that you’ve moved your awareness into your body and become mindful.
5. Return to your previous activity.

Do this regularly and notice if your day-to-day experiences become more positive and if you feel more present. I have on both counts.

© Victoria Maxwell