A quick and refreshing exercise that can help relieve stress is a Chinese technique called the “inner smile”. This technique takes only a few minutes and brings rapid relaxation and rejuvenation to help leave tensions behind.
Below are the simple steps of the Chinese “Inner Smile” technique:
1. Sit comfortably with your back straight and your arms relaxed at your side.
2. Imagine something that makes you smile.
3. Allow yourself to smile internally so that it is felt only by you – the smile does not have to be visible to anybody else.
4. Let the smile shine out of your eyes and travel inwards to spread all over your body, before concentrating just below your navel in an area known to the Chinese as tan tien (the seat of your constitutional essence).
5. As the smile radiates within, notice how relaxed, calm and refreshed you feel.
6. Once you feel relaxed yet energized, you can continue what you were previously doing enriched by feelings of warmth, harmony and inner strength.
These are the steps to achieving stress relief using the Chinese “Inner Smile” technique.
