Debra Mugnani

This article includes some musical ideas!

By Sonia Choquette

Let’s face it. Life is stressful. And when we are under stress we suffer. It’s bad for our health. It leaves us feeling drained and tired. It fogs our brains. It causes us to disconnect from others. It makes it difficult to concentrate and robs us of the ability to respond creatively in life. It’s not good for us, and when under stress, let’s face it, it’s not good for those around us either. So it’s helpful to have a few stress-busting techniques to reach for when it starts to creep up on you and take you hostage. Here are a few of my favorite busters. They are easy to do and work wonders when I need them most, like right before I give a public presentation, or when running late to catch a plane, or find myself stuck in traffic, or when talking to someone who is being very difficult, or when I find myself running behind schedule and am afraid I am going to get in big trouble for it. In other words, at least once a day, every day. Try them yourself and see if you find them as helpful for relieving stress as I do.

• Open your mouth wide enough to hear a click in your ears and inhale deeply, followed by an audible exhale releasing the sound “AHHH!” Repeat until relaxed. Three times should do it.
• Sing the song Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music. Each note corresponds with one of the seven chakras and calms the entire nervous system and lifts your mood.
• Breathe in deeply and slowly, and as you exhale, notice something you’ve not noticed before in your immediate environment and name it out loud. Such as “pattern in the rug.” Then breathe. “The scratch on the desk.” Breathe. “The different colors on the coffee cup.” Breathe. “The design on the base of the lamp.” Breathe. Keep noticing and saying out loud things in full view that you have never noticed before. Do this for at least 30 seconds to one minute. This stops your brain from racing forward and back in time and centers you in the present moment, thus relaxing you.
• Place your tongue on the roof of your mouth and right behind your front teeth. Next, purse your lips and exhale to the count of eight as though blowing out a birthday candle. Next, inhale to the count of seven, followed by holding your breath to the count of four. Then repeat. This easy breathing technique can calm your thoughts and refresh your body, inviting stress to flow out and relaxation to flow in.
• Anytime you feel overwhelmed by stress, bend your knees and wiggle them back and forth as fast as possible for 10 seconds, and then squeeze your buttocks cheeks together while letting out a very loud and resounding “AAAAHHHHHHH!” as though screaming all the stress right out of your body. Then relax. It not only relieves you of the stress consuming your every cell but also makes you and anyone around you laugh out loud.
• Start naming, out loud, one thing at a time, every single thing that you are or feel afraid of right now. Start by naming the thing you fear most in the moment, and then take in a deep breath. Next, name something you notice right in front of you. Then repeat. Again, name something you fear most right now. Breathe, and then again name something you see right in front of you. Do this until you can’t name any more fears.
• Do my favorite yoga pose. Pull the corners of your mouth to the ears, and hold it. Maintain this pose for at least 30 seconds. Then release.
• Thump your chest with your fist and let out the sound “HA! as loud as possible. Repeat. HA! HA! HA! Then laugh.
• Sing your favorite Broadway show tune at the top of your lungs.
• Put your thumb and forefinger together and close your eyes. Breathe in, while saying the words “I am,” and then exhale saying, “calm.” Feel the calm flowing from your heart, through your body, and out of your fingertips. Do this as many times as needed.

These are all simple, easy, silly, effective, and fun. Try them all and see which one works best for you. Most of all, just remember: this too shall pass, and with breath it will pass faster and leave you less stressed along the way.

As my good friends will tell you, I have become obsessed with a creative little application on my iphone that just happened to have been recently sold to Facebook for one billion dollars. Yowsa! I was already a fan of Instagram when the news broke and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the  sale doesn’t ruin a good thing. I have several feeds on the application, (Temptime, sfgenerations, MonroePersonnel)  but my main one is @silkshots. I have recently created a new @silk_moments feed for contests and shoutouts too. People post their photos to this feed by using the hashtag #silk_moments. When there is a photo that strikes me as particularly “silky” I post that photo to the whole list with my kudos. Silky is a subjective term and I’ve used it to describe everything from a smile, to a sunset to a delicious looking piece of pie.  You get the idea. The current contest is a match your caption to your photo contest. The best matched caption to photo will be announced this weekend.

Instagram is simple to use and very rewarding. It allows one to express one’s creativity through photography and instead of just filing away the photograph in a folder somewhere on your hard drive it is shared with people all around the world. I really enjoy following other people’s feeds and seeing life from their vantage point while learning about places around the globe. It also feels great when people comment favorably on a photo or click the like button.

Not so surprisingly, since I’ve been creating on Instagram, I’ve noticed I’ve found new ideas coming to me when I’m singing too. Inspiration begets inspiration begets inspiration… The circle of creativity is such a mysterious and wonderful adventure!

I have added an Instragram photo stream on the right of this article out a few of the current photos in my #silkshots stream.

I’m restoring my iphone right now and realizing how dependent many of my morning activities are on my phone and my computer.  If I want to practice singing, the music is on both the iphone and the computer.  If I want to check the weather, it’s there too.  I even have a  series of yoga class podcasts I practice with most mornings.  I am used to immediate gratification.   When I was in my twenties I remember people always saying that ours was the instant gratification generation.  They were certainly right but I don’t think they ever imagined what was to come. 

Singing is very low tech.  You breathe, open your mouth and sustain your speech.  Singing is sustained speech.  Singing is to speaking like poetry is to writing. There is a craft to every art form, singing is no exception.     I am still working on the craft of singing.  I have a lesson every other week and practice my songs when I can.  I also work on memorizing the lyrics. 

 The best way I’ve learned to memorize lyrics is to take a pen to paper and simply write out the words to the song ten times.  The first few times I have to look at the lyric.  After two or three passes, I start to remember parts of the lyrics and have to look back at what I’ve written  to catch a few phrases or  specific words.  Dena De Rose suggested this exercise and suggested you vary the way you write out the lyrics some of the times.  You might write  in large print, in small print, in cursive and in  caps,  in circles, slanting upward, slanting downward and into the margins of the page.  It all has an effect on the way you memorize things.  After writing out the song five or six times,  underline the words that have images attached to them or impact you in some way. In this way not only are you memorizing the song but you are becoming intimately familiar with the story of the song.

Peter Maleitzke recently taught me another way to memorize the lyrics to a song.  You start at the end of the song and memorize the last line and work backwards.  I’ve tried that and it works pretty well too.

Well my phone is restoring, I’m here restoring my self in this moment by quietly sitting and writing this post.  Now it’s on to the dishes.  Sure wish I could find a way to have the iphone or the pc take care of those for me each morning!