Alexander Technique brings about emotional healing. Learn simple exercises for muscular strength, psychological health and emotional wellbeing.
The Alexander Technique is a mind and body re-education approach that uses a series of movements to help identify, reduce, and prevent long-standing unhelpful habits. In this article, we’ll look at the technique as a treatment for emotional distress.
What is Emotional Trauma?
Emotional trauma is the response to an overwhelmingly distressing event that exceeds your system’s ability to process and cope with the upsetting emotions involved. It can lead to emotional distress in various forms, including fear, anxiety, depression, anger, moodiness, humiliation, insomnia, compulsions, and self-sabotaging.
Psychological trauma can arise from:
- One-time events, for example, getting stuck in traffic, receiving criticism from your boss, going for a job interview, being involved in a car crash, or fighting with your spouse.
- Ongoing stressful situations, such as battling a chronic illness, constantly arguing with your spouse, constantly experiencing bullying, or living in a crime-ridden neighbourhood.
- Commonly overlooked events, including, the sudden death of a loved one, a breakup, or a humiliating experience.
Healing from Emotional Trauma
Emotional healing is the ability to recognize habits and circumstances that prevent us from functioning at our best. The process allows you to regain control of your emotions and thoughts.
Applying the Alexander Technique to your life can help treat emotional trauma by helping you achieve conscious control over your reactions. The technique makes you aware of your chronic patterns of misuse and teaches you an improved use of the self. And over time, this could lead to the treatment of your emotional distress.
4 Positive Signs of Emotional Healing
Here are signs that you are healing emotionally or at least on the right path.
- You find you’re enjoying music again. Depressed people don’t typically sing along with or rock their heads to songs, so if you are, this could be a sign you’re starting to feel joy again.
- You understand that “bad days” are temporary. If you acknowledge that bad days will pass, it means you are on the mend because usually, for someone battling emotional trauma, every day may seem like a bad day.
- You feel more energetic. Poor emotional health can cause your energy levels to drop. So if you find you’re, for instance, starting to go to the gym again, meeting up with your friends, or trying a new activity, you are moving in the right direction.
- You begin to feel and express gratitude. When your emotional well-being is suffering, you easily overlook the positive things in your life. But as you start to heal, you will notice that you become more aware and appreciative of all the good around you. From something as trivial as a sunny day to something as significant as family and friends.
Emotional and Psychological Benefits of Alexander Technique
One of the positive changes the Alexander Technique can bring about is the improved ability to deal with stress. Through various Alexander Technique exercises, such as sitting, standing, moving, and breathing, your teacher will guide you on better responding to life’s stresses. The reason being it re-establishes the natural balance of your head, neck, and back, promoting good posture and good coordination and functioning of body and mind.
One of the guiding principles of the Alexander Technique is that your body and mind work in unison and constantly influence each other. So returning to a balanced state of body and mind causes you to become more grounded, mindful, and calm when dealing with a stressful event.
Effectively managing stress, in turn:
- Enhances mental clarity
- Improves sleep quality
- Helps control anger
- Lessens the feeling of being overwhelmed
- Improves breathing
- Reduces anxiety and fear
- Promotes relaxation
Take Steps to Emotional Health and Wellbeing
Can Alexander Technique exercises promote emotional health? Yes. The way you go about everything you do can either improve or harm the healthy functioning of your body and mind. So by improving your use of self, you can help promote emotional healing.