In the session, “Regulation | Tools for Daily Life and Professional Environments”, Dr. Luciana discussed the connection between mind and body through introducing practical nervous system regulation tools as part of somatic healing. During the session, Dr. Luciana discussed an interesting and unique concept: resistance and its effect on stress. This concept touched me because of my habit of resisting everything without noticing, which increased my stress and caused anxiety at times. As a university student, I used to resist changes, emotions, and tasks, which increased my internal battle and mental fights, leading to more stress and an inability to be productive and creative. I realized that being stressed prevents my creativity and my ability to organize my thoughts and tasks to handle them in a smart, productive way. And that is the same concept as in the hand exercise. When you close one of your hands and try to open it and resist with the other hand, your closed hand becomes stronger. Nevertheless, when you close one of your hands and embrace it with the other hand, the closed hand becomes more relaxed. A lot of resistance means more stress and an inability to handle your thoughts to overcome tough moments, but if you avoid resistance, you will be more relaxed and able to find solutions. As there is no actual release of stress, your body thinks that it is gone, but the stress accumulates inside you, leading to anxiety, nightmares, or unconscious body actions, like trembling.

One of the most crucial tips that I learnt from the session is that identifying the reason behind your stress is more important than searching for a method to release stress. For example, if you are scared, stressed, and have many negative feelings inside yourself, try to find safety outside by doing activities that bring positive feelings to you, like organizing colors. But, if the outside is scary and stressful (i.e., like having many emails or a hard conversation), bring attention to the inside, like doing the breathing activity. Identifying the stress reason helps you to choose the proper method for healing, because if you do not do that, you may have anxiety with zero productivity.