A 5-Step Guide To Dry Brushing Your Face For Brighter Skin

At this point, we're going to consider it safe to assume that you have probably heard a thing or two about the benefits of dry brushing your body. It's great for detoxing the lymphatic system, is said to help reduce cellulite, and then of course there's the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow swears by it, which is usually reason enough for the rest of us wellness enthusiasts to jump on board. But did you know that you should be dry brushing your face, too? You should.

OK, don't go accosting your sensitive face skin with your coarse body brush just yet. A face dry brush is an entirely different tool. The bristles are ultrafine and soft. In fact, it looks and feels a lot like a stiff makeup brush. And instead of being vaguely torturous when you rub it across your skin, it feels good — like a very subtle massage. I personally like the new one from Aveda's just-launched Tulasara collection that has lovely velvety nylon bristles.

Like with your body, facial dry brushing can help to stimulate the lymphatic system and move out any built-up toxins or other blockages that are creating puffiness or sallow skin (farewell under-eye bags!). However, it has another good-skin benefit too: exfoliation. "Dry brushing is very useful for increasing circulation and exfoliating the skin," explains San Francisco–based cult aesthetician Kayla Franzblau. "It's a really affordable and easy way to keep skin free of congestion at home." Just as long as you're very, very gentle, she adds.

Facial dry brushing can replace those harsh exfoliation habits you've been meaning to kick. It's gentler than a Clarisonic and way better for the environment than all those exfoliating scrubs with little plastic beads. Plus, when used regularly, it can really make your skin glow (I know it because I've tried it).

And it doesn't need to add another 10 minutes to your already lengthy nighttime beauty routine. Aestheticians recommend dry brushing only one or two times per week, for one or two minutes max. So build it into your Sunday self-care ritual or make it a Saturday morning pre-brunch habit. Either way, it's an easy way to give your skin a little extra glow.

Facial Dry Brushing How-To

Step 1: Wash your face.

You want to make sure that you're starting with totally clean skin, that way you're not opening up all your pores only to clog them with makeup or other irritants.

Step 2: Start at the chin and work your way up.

Like with body dry brushing, you should always brush with gentle upward motions, away from the direction of your heart (to encourage circulation). Brush from your chin to your hairline on one side of the face, and then move to the other side. Light, gentle strokes will do the trick. This should not hurt.

Step 3: Give your neck and decolletage some love.

As any facialist will tell you, your neck is part of your face too. Repeat your gentle brush strokes up from your chest, across your neck to the bottom of your chin.

Step 4: Finish with a nutrient-rich oil or serum.

If you have time, you could apply a mask after dry brushing. If not, go straight to the moisturizing step. I recommend an oil, because it will penetrate deep into those newly opened pores and lock in all the moisture and nutrients. Top it with a serum for an added dose of hydration.

Step 5: Wash your brush.

Gently scrub your dry brush with warm water and a nontoxic soap at least once a week. Set it out to dry so that it doesn't collect any mildew or bacteria. You can also lightly mist your brush with a tea tree solution (1 part tea tree oil, 2 parts water) to keep it clean in between washes.

by Victoria Lewis

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-26351/a-5-step-guide-to-dry-brushing-your-face-for-brighter-skin.html

How Yoga Helped Me Finally Lose Weight

The debate over whether yoga is an effective tool for weight loss has been discussed for years.

Many believe that yoga is not fast-paced enough to burn the number of calories required for true weight loss. Others swear by yoga and say it's an extremely effective way to shed pounds.

While everyone is different, I am living proof that yoga is extremely effective when it comes to lasting weight loss.

When I first rolled out the mat seven years ago, I was 85 pounds overweight. I was unhealthy, unhappy, and fueled by a passion for binge-drinking and pizza.

When I first announced my mission to lose weight through yoga, I remember people laughing at me. "Yoga doesn't help with weight loss! You have to bust your butt in the gym to get real results," people told me.

Less than one year after practicing yoga six to seven days per week, I lost a total of 85 pounds.

My weight loss was a direct result of a committed yoga practice coupled with a plant-based diet. No other exercise or gym equipment was required. I shed excess fat using nothing but a yoga mat and my own body weight.

If you have yet to roll out the mat, the practice may appear to be just a light stretching routine, rendering it an ineffective way to lose weight and increase lean muscle mass. For those of you who already practice yoga, you know that this is a severe misconception. Yoga demands a great deal of both physical and mental strength, focus, endurance, and flexibility.

To truly grasp the concept of how weight loss and yoga go hand-in-hand, we must understand the three layers that our energetic bodies are comprised of: the mind, body, and soul. Each layer depends on and affects the other two. When one layer is unbalanced, such as the mind, the body and soul follow suit.

You cannot have a healthy body and pure soul if the mind is overactive and unbalanced, which is the case for more people than not. Luckily, yoga has a way of uniting and creating harmony among these three key decision-makers that rule your life.

When all three bosses get along, everything runs in a more balanced and efficient manner. You have a real chance at success—and weight loss!

Without further ado, let's break it down.

The mental

When you embark upon a yoga journey, you will begin to see things in a new light. Yoga transforms you from the inside out—and typically in that order.

As your practice leads you down the rabbit hole of truth, consciousness, and connectedness, you begin the process of "waking up." The process of becoming aware. The process of disconnecting from the ego, also known as that incessant little voice in your mind that constantly dwells on problems.

Since the ego clings to unhealthy attachments, it is responsible for fueling bad decision-making. When the mind is tamed through a consistent yoga practice, the soul is essentially set free. You become liberated from identifying with the same old sad stories that the ego has been using as a tool to imprison you for far too long. When you stop living obsessively in your head and start identifying with the voice, positive change always follows.

You will begin to take pleasure in what actually feels good instead of acting according to the ego's version of what feels good. As a result, unconscious and destructive habits are revealed. This insight leads to better decision-making. Lifestyle changes and healthier food choices are guaranteed to follow, resulting in weight loss.

The physical

Yoga offers hundreds of asanas (postures) contained within a countless number of flows or sequences. All postures deliver a variety of physical benefits. Additionally, almost every pose addresses detoxification on some level. Detoxification encourages the purification of both the body and mind. This directly affects weight loss as it eradicates the stagnant junk in the body that weighs us down.

Although all types of yoga are effective when it comes to purification, burning calories, improving flexibility and muscle tone, calming the mind, and providing a feeling of inner peace and contentment, if your goal is to lose weight, certain practices are more effective than others.

If you want to burn fat and keep it off, power yoga and vinyasa flow are what you should be focusing on.

These are both fast-paced flows that provide the perfect mixture of cardio and strength-training. The dual combination is a potent cocktail geared toward effective fat burning and increased lean muscle mass. These two types of yoga enable the body to burn anywhere from 400 to 600 calories per hour. This is equivalent to the number of calories burned during a typical hour in the gym!

And finally, the soul

When the soul is awakened through yoga practice, the things that used to please you just no longer cut it. When you are in touch with your spiritual nature, you begin to realize that life has deeper meaning. You come to understand that destructive habits no longer serve your ultimate goal. This awakening directly affects weight loss because it encourages the elimination of unhealthy habits.

For example, eating until you are so full that you can barely move and have to unbutton your pants. Or drinking to the point at which you can barely stand up, let alone walk in a straight line. You will quickly come to realize that these detrimental behaviors do not please the soul. They do not actually feel good. In fact, they feel pretty bad!

What pleases the soul is contentment in the current moment. What pleases the soul is a pure body and mind. A clean temple that permits the wise eternal layer within you to shine brightly for the world to see.

When you get to this point of detachment in your practice, you realize that the only authentic way to see the world is through the eyes of the soul. Instead of identifying with the ego and allowing it to dominate your life, you begin to realize that "you" are not your mind. "You" are the soul. You are the observer of the racing mind that encourages you to overeat, get drunk, and gravitate toward unhealthy food.

If you are serious about losing weight and getting fit, implement a 60-minute power yoga and/or vinyasa flow practice at least five to six days per week. Make sure to couple your practice with a natural diet for optimal results. In my experience, as well as many others who have had similar transformations, eliminating unnatural substances—or non-foods, as I like to call them—such as meat, animal products, and processed junk makes all the difference. Also, try not to drink alcohol more than once a month. Just one measly drink can sabotage seven days of hard work.

So roll out the mat. Connect with your breath. Detach from that destructive inner voice. Tune in to your spiritual nature that connects every cell of your body to the universe. Liberate the soul. And get ready to bask in the glory of all the positive changes that are coming.

by Jennifer Niles

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-26378/how-yoga-helped-me-finally-lose-weight.html

How To Prepare Yourself And What To Expect During This Mercury Retrograde (August 30-September 22)

As the amazing astronomical event takes place that involves the lunar eclipse setting in Virgo, we are also expecting another grand disturbance within our stability of body and soul.

Simultaneously with the lunar eclipse, Mercury will begin to retrograde and cause a variety of inconveniences in your everyday life.

You will want to do everything in your power to make sure that you are more than ready for these future days because otherwise you may find yourself being very disappointed with results from things you had high-hopes for.

Here is how you can prepare yourself as well as what you should expect with this upcoming three week astronomical event.

To give an explanation as to why all of these inconveniences start happening is because Mercury is the planet said to have a very powerful influence over your mind, communication skills, as well as the way you express yourself.

There will be a lot of miscommunication between you and your workplace, friends, family, and just about everything else that involves you communicating with others. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't a way to prepare ourselves for this three-week-interruption.

Avoid Negotiating/Agreements

Anything that you would have to write down and then sign with your signature you may have to hold off on that kind of decision making.

The reason being as Mercury sets in retrograde will cause your contracts and any other agreements to be revised or redacted.

The miscommunication that will surely show it's ugly face in the contract of things that you may have missed, didn't cover with the other person, or that it was the wrong thing to agree to in the first place.

Certain details could have gone unnoticed or maybe some kind of hole in the agreement that would lead to an inevitable deal-breaker. If you do decide to make any form of agreement you better know what you're signing before giving your consent.

Avoid Scheduling Events

Again, you better expect a lot of miscommunication as Mercury begins to retrograde. Certain events that were made to bring communities closer could actually in fact have the exact opposite results of what you were expecting.

If there is simply no way out of canceling a meeting or rescheduling an event for another time, then you may have to be on your guard throughout the entire ordeal.

If the event or meeting has some distance from your location, then you better plan for extra time to get yourself out of trouble if need be. Essentially, plan much farther ahead than you normally would.

Avoid Buying Anything

This is probably one of the biggest things that we can stress that you shouldn't do during the retrograde of Mercury is that you should definitely not purchase anything at all.

The reason being is that you will most likely discover something wrong or off about the product you just bought. This will result the same way for just about everything that you could potentially buy during the retrograde.

This goes for gifts as well. The reason being is that if you planned on buying a gift for someone that you like they may already have that certain product, don't really care for it, or just wasn't in the mood to receive that thing in particular. This has to do a lot with the miscommunication expected to take place.

What it boils down to, in order for you to be absolutely prepared for these three weeks of Mercury becoming retrograde is to avoid making any kind of important decisions.

Anything that you claim to have a major impact on your life will hold significant disappointment the more you build it up. This isn't necessarily to discourage you from having big dreams but more of a caution to make sure those big dreams do not break into shattered pieces.

Just be aware of any important things you hold close to you because this could be the time that they all start to slowly drift away.

http://www.higherperspectives.com/mercury-retrograde-2016-1991634250.html

You Are Not Responsible for Anyone Else’s Emotions

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“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” ~Eckhart Tolle

“I don’t believe you,” I jutted out my chin like a petulant toddler. Collapsing back into the tufted leather loveseat, I conceded, “I want to believe you, but I can’t.”

My therapist had just explained to me that I am not responsible for regulating other people’s emotions. My mind couldn’t process this truth.

There were too many decades of owning the moods of those around me.

In my younger years, if a parent was stressed, I felt it was up to me to calm them down. I prided myself on acting as a mediator between my siblings.

In high school, I drove my boyfriend crazy trying to cheer him up when he was in pain from frequent sports injuries. Later, I would allow other boyfriends to dictate how I was feeling each day, according to their mood.

And here my therapist was pointing out that it wasn’t up to me to help other people regulate their emotions. I had been doing it wrong all these years.

Undoing “Good Daughter” Habits

If you struggle with this, like me, chances are there was some chaos in your early years. I’m not necessarily talking about major trauma (although that may have occurred), but as a child you found yourself trying to compensate for the emotions of those around you.

The good news is that you can break free from this habit.

Trust me. It’s necessary for your mental health and for the well-being of your relationship to let this go.

As my therapist would say, even within a marriage it’s not my job to regulate the emotions of my spouse. I’m responsible for my own emotions. And it turns out that I’m not very good at helping “fix” my husband when he is stressed.

Changing the Dynamic

My first chance to change this pattern came in the form of a Saturday breakfast at a local coffee shop.

You know that feeling you get when you place your order with a trainee, and you have zero confidence that you are going to get what you ordered? It was one of those situations.

Thirty minutes later, our order still hadn’t arrived. My husband was getting agitated, and I could feel my blood pressure rising in response. It suddenly occurred to me that this was my big opportunity to approach things differently.

Step 1: Observe.

I noticed my husband was grumpy. I watched his scowl and listened to him mutter.

I noticed my heart race. I noticed that I wanted to say something to make it better.

I also noticed that I wasn’t upset about our food order. I had my coffee. I was okay to wait.

It was my husband who was upset, not me.

Step 2: Own your emotions.

If I am feeling stressed, I know how to calm myself down: pay attention to my breathing, reframe, and refocus.

But in this situation, if I were by myself I would have been fine. So there was nothing that I needed to do at that moment to deal with my own emotions.

I just needed to fight my urge to take on my husband’s frustration.

Step 3: Give the other person space to regulate themselves.

“Are you mad?” I timidly asked my husband.

“Nope,” he said, “just hungry.”

“Okay. I’m gonna just sip my coffee and read.”

“Thank you for not trying to fix me. I will be better after I eat,” my husband mumbled as he scrolled on his phone.

Ouch. I actually got thanked for leaving him alone. Further reinforcement that I would have been making it worse by taking on his frustration.

Step 4: Relax.

The world is not going to end if my husband is “hangry.”

My brain was trying to tell me that I was in danger, but sometimes our brains give us the wrong information.

My husband is a mild-mannered man. We’ve fought less than five times in fifteen years together—and it was me doing the yelling. I was definitely not in danger.

I was okay. He was going to be okay.

I just needed to let go of my fear that something would go horribly wrong if I didn’t intervene.

And guess what?

Everything was okay.

An Exercise in Humility

It’s hard to let go.

But the key insight in this process is that, even within a committed relationship, each person is responsible for themselves. We must give each other the opportunity to manage our own emotions.

If you are with somebody who doesn’t have the skills to regulate themselves, that’s a separate conversation. Do they want to learn those skills? How would they prefer to learn: a therapist, a book, or a trusted coach? Even so, it’s not your job to force them to acquire those skills.

We can only own our behavior. The world does not rest on our shoulders.

And the irony is, when we step back and let go of control, the fear starts to go away. We feel freer to relax.

Practice Makes Perfect

I encourage you to think of the last time that you tried to compensate for your partner’s frustration or stress. Think about what you could have done differently, now that you are more aware.

Even if you don’t manage to navigate all four steps smoothly, reflect afterward what went wrong and decide what you will do differently next time.

You’ve got this.

By Jill Dahl

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/not-responsible-anyone-elses-emotions/

Destiny and Free Will- How Much of Your Life is Predetermined?

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How much of our lives are predetermined? Do we have any say in how things play out or are we simply living out a story that has already been written?

There have definitely been moments in all of our lives when we have experienced the feeling of a fated event.

Maybe we could chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time, but most of us would have had some encounter with the mystery of fate.

This does not necessarily mean that our entire lives are predetermined however. As most of us also know, we have free will. We can choose to act or not act and we can choose to make a decision or not.

But are we making these decisions on autopilot?

I personally don’t feel that to be true.

I feel that we have a lot of free will in this life, and that a lot of our decisions and actions will determine our future. For the most part, the future is in our own hands.

However, I also believe that there is a certain element of destiny as well. This would be part of our soul contract, which is written before we enter our physical bodies.

You can read more about the soul contract here, but I like to think of it this way-

Destiny is your mountain, how you choose to walk up this mountain is your free will. 

The Mountain of Your Destiny

We are all walking a mountain. This mountain is of course, a metaphor for the journey or pathway of your life.

This mountain is the perfect mountain for you and the one that you are destined to climb. This mountain was chosen before you incarnated into your body and holds the perfect terrain for the development of your soul and your soul’s purpose.

While you were given this mountain and while this mountain is aligned with your soul, you have many choices.

Choice #1: The Path

Firstly, there is no wrong path up the mountain. You are free to take whichever path looks best to you and go at your own pace. You can backtrack, find shortcuts or simply stay put in one spot for the rest of  your time- all of it is your choice.

Choice #2: How You Climb

There are also no rules on how you choose to climb this mountain. You can climb it barefoot or you can suit up in an armour. You can go at your own pace or sprint up the pathway, it is all up to you.

Choice #3: Experiences

On this mountain there is a certain terrain or energy that will resonate more deeply with your soul.

This energy will help you to draw experiences, people and events into your life. You may be drawn to people who share a similar journey as you, or you may be drawn to people or a career that helps you to navigate your mountain easier.

Your fears will also be aligned with some of the challenges and experiences that you will face on this mountain.

Essentially however, you get to choose which of these experiences you want to explore and which ones you want to ignore.

Choice #4: How Your Purpose Unfolds

Your purpose is already around you. It is contained within the energy of your mountain and everything that you do.

As long as you stay on your mountain and don’t get distracted by someone else’s mountain, you are going to make progress.

You may never get to the top in this life, but as long as you keep moving, you will discover what you need to of your purpose.

Essentially, all roads are going to lead you home.

Choice #5: Following Your Intuition

As you climb your mountain you may start to become more and more savvy about what lies ahead or what the next bend may look like. You may even start to intuit or predict what the road ahead has in store for you.

You may also start to become more aware of the things that are going to help you on our journey and the things that are going to hold you back.

This is how psychics and intuitives are able to predict certain things about your future, they are able to get a sense of your mountain and the path that you are taking.

Of course, you don’t have to listen to your intuition or psychic predictions, or anyone else for that matter. As long as you stay true to yourself and on your own mountain, there are no wrong turns.

As long as you are walking in some direction on your mountain, you are going to eventually end up where you need to be.

Reaching the Top of Your Mountain

Once you reach the top of  your mountain, usually death occurs to prepare for a new cycle or reincarnation.

At this time, depending how aware you are, you may have some sense of completion or a feeling that your time on this particular mountain is coming to an end.

Your mountain is perfect for you, and holds everything you need to connect with your higher self and your soul’s potential.

Your mountain is your destiny, the energy that you were born with and the path that was chosen for you. But how you choose to navigate and walk that path is up to you entirely.

Wondering how to align with your destiny mountain? All you need to do is align with yourself and the rest will unfold.

by Tanaaz

http://foreverconscious.com/destiny-free-will-much-life-predetermined

6 Reasons People Lose Their Ability To Love

There are moments in our lives where we feel as if the spark in our relationship is no longer there and we would like to believe that there is still something for the both of us to be passionate about but overall we just want to no longer be with this other person anymore.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing when you admit to yourself that you no longer want to be in love with someone.

However, there are a lot of valid reasons why a person would feel this way to begin with which may be the reasons or the cause as to why they wish to continue on in life by themselves.

People fall out of love all of the time, it's important that we are able to look at the areas in our relationships where we could have improved on but instead decided to ignore those cries for help.

The next time you are in the midst of a breakup or know someone who is going through one of their own, try to keep these seven valid reasons why this person is falling out of love.

1. Being Dishonest

Relationships require the both of you be one hundred percent honest with one another at all times.

There is no excuse for either of you to hold back any kind of feeling, secret, or idea from each other because when you are in a relationship you are basically a team together.

Thinking about yourselves as a team means that you must be able to work together, communicate, and overall be able to tell each other anything that either of you may be feeling.

It's important to realize that a secret, even just a little one, can destroy your relationship all together with this person. Honest is very important do not try to hide yourself from the person you wish to be with.

2. Unable To Let Go Of The Past

One of the biggest reasons why relationships do not work out is if one of you is entirely unable to let go of the past.

If you are truly unwilling to forgive something that they did or something that is long since gone and unable to fix then do not be surprised if this person wants to no longer be with you.

Holding onto things and never letting go can cause you to obtain a lot of resentment towards the other person if you are unable to discuss what makes you upset.

It's important to recognize that this thing did happen in their past but they are also unable to go back in time and fix that specific moment in their lives. You can either live with it or leave them entirely.

3. Lack Of Interest

Another really big reason why your partner may be falling out of love is the lack of interest in your relationship with them.

There may have been a time where the both of you were talking to each other until the early hours of the morning and then suddenly you both have hardly anything to say to each other anymore.

This makes them feel as if you no longer have an interest in the things that they have to say or an interest in the things that they would really like to do.

If you are truly unable to have any kind of common interest or the same kind of passion that makes you both smile, then what is the point in being in a relationship that is sapped of happiness all together?

4. Focusing On Their Insecurities

A valid reason for someone to no longer have interest in a relationship could be due to them feeling extremely insecure around you.

This means that you are a completely different person around other people that you normally wouldn't behave in such a way if it was only just the two of you there.

This makes them feel like you would rather show them this ugly side of your personality whenever there is no one else around but when you are in a social setting with your friends and could care less for your partners well being then they have a pretty good excuse to feel insecure.

It's important to keep in mind that our partners deserve praise every single day that we are with them.

5. They Don't Exist To You Anymore

If you are ignoring your partner for whatever reason, then this makes them feel as if they truly do not exist in your life anymore.

This is a perfectly valid reason for someone to fall out of love. If you do not acknowledge their presence, their words, their advice, their anything at all then do not expect them to want to stay with you very much longer.

If you start treating more like a distant friend than a close lover, this is an indication that your relationship is no longer alive and that you should just let them go.

Do not waste a persons time by not even acknowledging their own existence.

6. Dead Communication

If you have let all forms of communication with your partner wither away, then expect them to fall out of love with you instantaneously.

Communication is the basic aspect to every single relationship, if you are unable to communicate with the person you claim to love then what is the point in continuing on in a dead silence with your partner?

There are multiple ways for couples to communicate, even if it means arguing with one another, getting defensive, any kind of form that allows them to express themselves, you need to let them speak their mind.

The only way either of you are able to do anything at all with one another is going to involve a lot of communication and if there is none then you might as well cease being with them all together.

Hopefully these valid reasons have put a mindful perspective into your head about relationships and what it means to be in love with another person. Again, if there is no communication between you two then do not expect the relationship to last very long.

http://www.higherperspectives.com/ability-to-love-1979946931.html?page=1

Highly Sensitive? Here's How To Shine In Any Social Situation (Without Booze)

As a coach who works with successful women who struggle with alcohol, I started noticing a trend in how some of my clients described their relationship to alcohol. Their need to use alcohol to cope went beyond a lack of confidence or even what might be described as social anxiety.

Take Claire for example. Claire dreads holidays because she doesn't have family of her own. She and her husband spend holidays with his large Italian family. While she likes most of them, she finds them loud and boisterous. Claire's quiet demeanor and need for spatial boundaries don't fit well with the family, who are constantly touching, hugging, and tugging on her. She knows this is their way of welcoming her into the family, so she doesn't say anything for fear of hurting their feelings. To get through the night, she always drinks more than she would like.

Or Agatha, whose job requires her to attend numerous networking events with high-stakes clients as well as her supervisors. The thought of being in a room with so many people is anxiety-producing on its own (the noise, the proximity to other people, the uncontrollable variables), and adding the professional pressure into the mix makes it all too much. She will always beeline for the bar first thing. Then she feels driven to distraction, trying to keep her anxiety at bay without drinking too much and to "keep it together" in front of everyone.

It almost seemed as if they were using alcohol to medicate a profound sensitivity that went even deeper than an experience of trauma or reactions to painful circumstances.

Around the same time, I started to come across more articles and literature using the words "highly sensitive person." I was intrigued.

Could it be that some of my clients fit into this category? Eager to more deeply understand the experience of my clients, I sought counsel from Tree Franklyn, a coach who supports highly sensitive women in managing their overwhelming emotions.

Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is a term used to describe those with high sensory processing sensitivity and is a genetic trait. That means that HSPs are born this way. Upon learning this, I realized my instinct was correct in that what I was noticing in my clients was indeed very deep.

When I asked Tree for input on this article (she read the intro above), and to share her experience as an HSP, this is what she said:

First, I LOVE that you're using the term 'deep,' because that's how I like to describe HSPs. Our emotional well runs deep. We're deep thinkers and feelers, by nature.

I only learned about the term 'Highly Sensitive Person' a few years ago. Before then, I knew I was different from most in the way I took in the world around me but I didn't have an explanation for it. I thought there was something inherently wrong with me. I seemed to be more affected than others when watching the news or even a Folgers commercial. 

I reflected deeply on things when others wouldn't give it another thought. And at the end of the day, as an introverted HSP, I was completely wiped out from being around people. It wasn't uncommon for me to have a drink when I got home to take the edge off.
Being highly sensitive is like living with the volume turned up in the world. Everything is heightened, much more intense, and louder. This is a result of an increased sensitivity in our central nervous system and the way our brains cognitively process physical, social and emotional stimuli.

Since HSPs tend to process information deeply, feel more empathy, and pick up on subtleties that most people don't notice, it's no wonder they often feel that the world is too intense and get overwhelmed. If they don't know how to effectively deal with this overstimulation, they often gravitate to alcohol or other drugs to cope. The immediate relief creates a positive correlation in the brain and the solution feels all too easy to repeat daily.

If you identify with anything you've read so far, here are four tips that will help you ground yourself in an intense situation and moderate or find alternatives to alcohol as a coping mechanism so that your use doesn't escalate out of control.

1. Feel your feet.

If not for the metaphorical imagery of planting your feet firmly into the ground, this technique also has a psychological effect of giving you a sense of power. Place your feet apart, even if you're sitting down, and press them firmly into the floor. Once they're planted, wiggle your toes and press them down even further, as if you're trying to push through the floor. This simple action helps you feel more anchored and noticeably stronger.

Amy Cuddy, author of the book, Presence, calls this a "mind-body nudge." Mind-body nudges allow you to bypass mental stumbling blocks such as when you tell yourself to calm down, relax, or try to logically rationalize yourself out of an intense situation and your mind's not believing any of it. This physical action in your body gives your mind the nudge it needs to get grounded.

2. Touch your tips.

Some people use a talisman or a touchstone object, like a smooth rock in their pocket or a piece of jewelry. Tree told me she personally prefers simply touching her fingertips together. This way, you won't have to worry about not having an object on you when you need it most. Your fingertips will always be with you. Touch the tips of your fingers together and press firmly enough to feel it. It could just be your thumb and index finger, but you can also take your thumb and touch it to each finger on the same hand.

This can be done without anyone else noticing, especially if you're seated. You can also touch any object, like a glass, and use that to anchor you. The idea is that when the world is too intense and seems like it's spiraling out of control, you can show yourself that you still have control by touching something. It's a small gesture, but it goes far in reminding yourself that you are in charge of yourself, your emotions, and what you do.

3. Find a new comfort drink.

If you find yourself using alcohol as a security blanket, find a new comfort drink. The very act of holding a glass with something in it can often help give us some of the security we are looking for. As with the strategies above, feel the sensations associated with holding the glass, condensation or coolness on your fingers, the taste as you sip it. You may want to practice at home by trying out new nonalcoholic drink combinations and visualizing what you might order next time you're in a stressful social situation.

4. Use aromatherapy.

One of the fastest and easiest ways to "get out of your head" and change your brain chemistry from an anxious response to a calmer one is by using your sense of smell. As Dr. Axe describes,

When the scent of an essential oil is inhaled, molecules enter the nasal cavities and stimulate a firing of mental response in the limbic system of the brain. These stimulants regulate stress or calming responses, such as heart rate, breathing patterns, production of hormones and blood pressure.

I love putting essential oils on my wrists and inhaling the scent (and therefore changing my brain chemistry) as I'm sipping my comfort drink — and my social companions are none the wiser. The scents that work best for anxiety include lavender, rose, bergamot, ylang-ylang, vetiver, chamomile, and frankincense.

by Caitlin Padgett

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-26289/highly-sensitive-heres-how-to-shine-in-any-social-situation-without-booze.html