Relaxation helps focus.
The more you can focus in on your speech and your audience… the more brilliant a speaker
you will be.
But how can you relax quickly and easily before you speak?
The long-term answer is a consistent practice of systematic relaxation.
The quick answer is the brain sandwich.
What’s a brain sandwich?
Glad you asked! Here’s a picture.
Where Members master their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills…
.
As you hold one palm over the forehead, and the other palm on the occipital plate, close your eyes and take three deep
(deep into the diaphragm, not deep as in ‘big’), slow breaths. Where you notice tension or stress, let go of trying to fight
it or resist it. Acknowledge it. Then, to the best of your ability, let it go. Notice how you feel after this. Then take all the
freed-up energy and pour it into your speech or whatever else you need to focus on.
The fight or flight response (stress, anxiety) tends to direct blood away from the newer parts of the brain. We don’t
need them to fight or flee. The brain sandwich along with slow breathing helps blood circulate throughout the entire
brain encouraging calmness and creativity.
But if I do this in front of people, they’ll think I’m weird!
Correct.
But if you are working from home, it doesn’t take much creativity to figure out how to make this work. In addition, if
you practice somewhere away from other people consistently, then when you just take 3 deep slow breaths you will still
get some of the same relaxed focus you get from practicing the full brain sandwich.
Delicious!