Happy Chemical Makers (TM) is a mood building exercise that I have used with clients over the years and finally put together in a visual format.
Each exercise practices specific strategies that are helpful in mood building through self-awareness and sensory based techniques.
They include:
— CHECK IN WITH MY BODY
This is a practice that invite me to pay attention to my body as it gives me clues that tell me when I need something, like rest, food, water. I
It is SO EASY to forget about our bodies when we are stressed! Literally IGNORE that we have to use the bathroom until it is almost too late. Or skip meals until we are starving and eat whatever we can grab. Practicing CHECK IN WITH MY BODY is great for reconnecting with the body and grounding to the moment.
— POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS
This practice involves identifying positive things about myself by writing a gratitude list, repeating positive statements about myself, listing my progress in things that are important to me, even creating a vision board of my goals.
Sometimes in striving for our goals, we only focus on how far we still need to go or what we still need to accomplish.
Sometimes we are just really hard on ourselves.
Sometimes we are downright mean to ourselves.
POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS helps us practice INTENTIONALLY thinking about and highlighting our strengths and victories. It replaces negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
— NURTURE
Practicing NURTURE invites me to be kind to myself with activities such as taking a hot bubble bath, eating my favorite treat, sitting in the sun. NURTURE reminds me that I am valuable and important and worthy of kindness.
NURTURE is really pampering ourselves, treating ourselves special.
Every day life is usually filled with taking care of the basics. NURTURE is intentionally doing extra.
— EXPRESS MYSELF
This practice invites me to share my feelings instead of keeping them to myself through journalling, painting, writing music, choreographing a dance.
Some of us are really good at expressing our feelings.
Some of us are used keeping our feelings to ourselves.
Some of us ignore our feelings outright.
Practicing EXPRESS MYSELF focuses my attention on my feelings and helps me try different ways to share them.
— RESET
This practice sets aside a period of time of less stimulation, fewer demands, fewer activities, and more attention to sensory needs like touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell in order to reduce overstimulation.
Sensory overstimulation can reduce the amount of energy we have to process our thoughts, make plans, problem solve.
We are surrounded by stimulation ALL THE TIME…lights, sounds, movement, people, signs, smells. Neurotypical people can be stressed and overwhelmed by it, but the NEUROSPICY community has to work extra hard to process the environment. So each individual stimulation can feel like a priority that needs attention, making it exhausting as well as overwhelming.
Practicing RESET reduced the sensory stimulation around us INTENTIONALLY so that we can control what our body, mind, and spirit has to process.
— REPAIR
This practice invites me to give care and attention to an area where I feel pain or discomfort rather than ignoring the discomfort and pushing through it. This could include applying ointment to a cut or sore, laying a sore muscle over a heating pad, stretching, massaging a tight muscle.
Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of every day life, we have discomfort, but we don’t have time to address it.
Or we feel pain and discomfort all the time so we just ignore it.
Or sometimes we cause ourselves pain, like when we pick our skin or over exercise.
REPAIR is the practice of setting aside time to INTENTIONALLY give attention and treatment to this area of discomfort.
— FUN MOVEMENT
This practice invites me to move in a way that makes me feel happy, makes me smile or laugh, and brings me joy. Fun movement releases chemicals in the body that can last for hours.
FUN MOVEMENT is more than just exercise, even though exercise can be fun. FUN MOVEMENT invites us to let our body celebrate being in motion, in whatever way feels best at the time.
It could be dancing, jumping, swaying, swinging, spinning in circles, rolling on the ground.
It can be wiggling our fingers or chair dancing or tapping our toes.
FUN MOVEMENT can even be turning a fan toward us to feel our hair move in the breeze.
Each of these exercises can be used INDIVIDUALLY during a time of high stress or dysregulation, such as during periods of anxiety or depression or overstimulation,
They can also be used DAILY as a 10 minute wellness practice.
For my VISITORS, I invite you to try these practices and see the effect they have on you from day to day. You can practice along with the summary above or the pdf worksheet can downloaded at a small cost in my store. Please share with me your experiences with these practices!
For the NEUROSPICY community, Happy Chemical Makers (TM) utilizes sensory based techniques to help reconnect the mind and the body. I invite you to try these practices. I would love your feedback about your experiences with them!
To my FELLOW THERAPISTS, we are always looking for summary guides and visual aides to help our clients practice new tools. I invite you to download this document to try in your personal therapy practices. If you do, please, share how they work for you!
— Meneika
***NOTE***
Happy Chemical Makers (TM) is trademarked and copyright protected by Meneika Chandler and MLC Publications. It may not be sold, reposted, or otherwise monetized or claimed as intellectual property, in whole or in part, by any other person or entity without expressed written permission from Meneika Chandler and MLC Publications. All rights reserved.
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