4 Courses | 20 Mins Each
The pandemic has changed our lives in many ways. One of the hardest things to get used to is wearing a mask. As we attempt to return to normalcy, wearing a mask has become a regular part of our lives. Unfortunately, for many of us, wearing a face mask can lead to increased anxiety or distress.
In this 4-part course, Linda Thai discusses how to choose the best mask for you and offers insightful guidance to make mask-wearing more tolerable. She provides strategies that help us focus on our breathing so that we can engage in positive interactions and enjoy activities of daily life outside the home, even while wearing a mask.
This class series is full of tips and advice to make face mask wearing more pleasant.
∞ Choose the best style of face covering for you and maintain comfort throughout the day, particularly if you are prone to anxiety, have a trauma history, or will be talking from behind a face mask.
∞ Calm the stress response through body hacks and breathing choices.
∞ Tips for building up to face mask wearing, particularly for parents and those who are struggling with extended periods of face mask wearing.
∞ Staying connected and communicating in a face covered environment.
∞ The ocular nerves connect to both the sympathetic (fight-flight-freeze) and parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous systems. By learning passive and active techniques to release tension in the eyes, we can restore the nervous system to calmness.
∞ Once calm, we can orient to our environment through the eyes (and then through the body), to allow the nervous system to land in safeness. Safeness empowers our capacity for engaged learning, social interactions, and workplace effectiveness and decision-making.
P.S. This workshop is also beneficial for individuals who are experiencing Zoom fatigue!
∞ Everyone tells you to wear a face mask, but no one takes the time to teach how to breathe underneath a face covering that potentially inhibits breathing and/or ignites the body stress response.
∞ In this class, we will practice a variety of breathing techniques without your face mask on, and then with your face mask on.
∞ In this class, we will practice some gentle chair-based yoga and explore standing movements that free up the thoracic diaphragm and paves the way for more restful and expansive breathing.
∞ You can practice these stretches throughout the day, or at the end of the day, to address the cumulative build up of stress, tension and anxiety.
$20.00
Program Only
In the spirit of addressing historic and systemic barriers to participation, there are several equity pricing scholarship spaces available for this training. Priority of access for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals, individuals living with disabilities, and individuals living with lower income.
Please contact: [email protected] with your request.
I have noticed that individuals with mental health issues/trauma histories struggle with wearing face masks, and here is how I came to this realization:
I saw an OSHA video going around a few weeks ago. A man was holding an oxygen-sensor next to his ***mouth*** and measuring oxygen levels, mask-off and then mask-on, to “prove” that wearing a mask was hazardous for your health.
The yoga teacher in me was like, “Hmmm, who the heck breathes through their mouth? Mouth-breathing jacks up the nervous system."
That was when the somatic trauma therapist in me joined the dots about ...
The Connection Between Wearing a Mask and Mental Health →
Disclosures: The views of the presentation are their own and do not represent medical advice. If you have any medical concerns, speak with your doctor before making a decision based on the content offered through this program. There is no commercial support for this program, nor any funding to the presenter or host that could reasonably be construed as a conflict of interest.
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