TM4T Stress Armoury 25 - Centring

Centering or Centring – Oooh, you decide.

Stress can be either immediate, or it can be spread over a period of time. For many teachers, it is episodic; in other words, we don't feel stressed all the time, but we have regular episodes or situations or events which make us feel overloaded. This may range from interview nerves to panic attacks, but it all feels stressful. One of the reasons some situations are stressful is that we can't be completely calm and serene: if you're trying to motivate a group of Year 7 students, you need to appear energetic and confident; but if there's a group of sour-faced men in suits at the back of the class-room taking notes, you also need to be cool and in control of what you're doing.

In our early teaching days, most of us have experienced this nighmare: knowing that we should be enthusiastic and confident, but instead feeling shaky, sweaty and afraid we won't remember what to say... with a little voice asking us why on earth we are doing this and telling us it'll all end in tears.

Yes, we have all been through it, and for most of us, the fear is merely hidden not disappeared. If the outcome is really crucial, if the audience is important, if our preparation not ideal, then we worry that the panic will overtake us.

There are several specific techniques to deal with your variation of stage-fright, but the most flexible is Centring (or Centering for our American colleagues). It's similar to other techniques in Mindfulness and Yoga, but it's particularly relevant as it aims to change stress into concentration, and it's flexible in terms of how long it takes: ten minutes practise or ten seconds before a lesson.

The Japanese word for 'centring' literally translates as 'The Way of Unifying Life Energy'. It originates in the Japanese martial art Aikido, probably the least violent, and most cerebral of all the self-defence arts.

Aikido teaches us to relax the mind during the stress of combat. In Aikido, it is important that fighters deal with conflict with confidence and directness instead of fear. They do this by learning how to centre themselves.

In most situations, stress has specific physical consequences: tightening of stomach muslces, lifting of shoulders, taking shorter breaths, quicker heartbeat, even light-headedness.

These symptoms (shoulders up, breathing with the upper lungs, raised heartbeat, floating sensation) have a common upward theme. Centring, to put it simply, brings us back to earth. It encourages us to focus on the here-and-now, and discourages us from allowing any outside factors to intrude on our inner strength and calm.

Centring helps you remain grounded and stable, strong and calm – which is pretty much what you need before you tackle that fearsome observation.

Doing It

To centre yourself, you must focus on your breathing. Deep, abdominal breathing provides the best relaxation.

Sit in a comfortable position. Take a deep breath in, ideally through the nose, and focus on letting the air fill up your stomach, and feel your diaphragm move down. Try not to move your chest – just breathe in, and let the air go down deeply into the centre of your body (mentally visualise your centre as near your solar plexus). Exhale slowly and deliberately through your mouth.

Be clear about what you want to achieve in this specific situation, and think actively and positively about your desired outcome. 'Actively' may mean that you silently talk to yourself. These thoughts are called 'affirmations' and should be specific and brief. Before a pre-interview lesson observation, for example, you might be affirming 'This will be an outstanding lesson, this will be an outstanding lesson'. At the risk of stating the gloriously obvious, it actually won't be an outstanding lesson unless you've done adequate preparation as well as centring yourself. In some particularly stressful situations, you may prefer single-word affirmations which have specific meaning to you... 'confident, confident, confident'.

This breathe-and-affirm activity is central (tee-hee) to this technique, but there are in fact three steps.

1. Achieving awareness

First, completely focus on your breathing for a few seconds (as described above). Breathe deeply into your abdomen, and exhale slowly. Put all other thoughts out of your mind. Do this until you have removed all distractions and your entire focus is on your breathing, and nothing else.

2. Finding your centre

Mentally locate your physical centre of gravity. This may vary depending on your body mass and shape, but is typically around two inches behind your navel and around an inch below it. It may help to mentally dissect your body with a vertical plane (separating left from right); and then with a horizontal plane (separating top from bottom); and then with a third plane (separating back from front). You can mentally experiment with the location of your centre by moving the horizontal plane up and down, and seeking a place that just-feels-right.

Locate this place, become familiar with it, and remember it. Remember the feeling of where it is. This location – this centre - is the part of your body which stablizes you both physicall and emotionally. When you start to feel stressed, when the emotional momentum is upwards, with a panicky floating feeling - that is when you need to locate your centre and remind yourself of your balance, control and stability.

Then, breathe in and out deeply five times, while focussing on your centre, feeling how stable you are, and rooted on the ground.

3. Releasing negative energy.

The phrase 'negative energy' has nothing to do with electrons or wormholes; in this context the phrase agglomerates any emotions and thoughts which do not contribute to the outcome you want.

Negative energy may include stress, doubt, fear, shame, suspicion or anger, or it could include other aspects depending on your circumstances and personality. You, and only you, know what is involved. Whatever is involved, you should visualise all of it being gathered together in one physical location in your body. Do a mental stocktake for any negative thoughts, fears and emotions; if they are found, gather them together in your centre.

Mentally collect together your negative energy into your centre. Picture it as a ball – an agglomeration of all the negative things you have found.

Then, you need to do three things at once. The first thread is simply inhaling and exhaling slowly; do not try to control your breath, but be aware of it. The second thread involves saying the two words 'Be' and 'Gone' (or 'Let' and 'Go') in time with your breathing. The third is a visualization: as you breathe in, the ball of negative energy is drawn up from your centre towards your mouth; as you breathe out, the negative energy is projected, blown towards a distant spot (a window, a door, a drain).

Finally, you should focus again on your centre, empty of negative energy, simply filled with calm.

Obviously, this technique is not for everyone. Some of us feel like wallies doing stuff like this, and that is natural. It is perfectly OK to be cynical, but it is also OK to try techniques like this with an open mind. You do not have to make a particular leap of faith – these physical visualizations just work for some people.