Havening: For When Water and a Walk Aren't Enough
Have you ever felt stressed when you knew you didn’t need to be? Maybe you feel those leftover tense feelings that you get during a stressful event, but when it ends you find yourself having a hard time resetting the calm in your body. Maybe you even tried standing up, getting a drink of water, and you’re still feeling a bit unsteady inside?
Because I spent years behind the headset, I have had a few of those times, where I knew I needed a to do a reset, but the short walk and water didn’t always work. But the other day I had a particularly good havening session with myself, and I thought how nice it would be to share information about this technique with others. You can try this to help get your stress levels back down, which can be especially helpful for people who work and live in environments that are constant high stress exposures.
What is Havening?
Havening is a touch-based technique developed by Dr. Ronald Ruden and his brother, Dr. Steven Ruden, both neurobiologists who worked together to develop this psychosensory protocol to help manage stress. Here is the basic idea: Your mind and body are connected in a continuous feedback loop. Psycho (mind), and Sensory (touch). Havening is a technique that aims to activate the parasympathetic system, so when you know you longer need that high stress activation and you need some assistance calming down, you might try this technique.
I am not a certified practitioner of this technique, but it’s not hard. Here is a simple version, and how I like to visualize when I do it:
Cross your arms, as if you were going to give yourself a hug, and stroke from the tops of your shoulders down to your elbows. While you do this, breathe deeply and slowly count to twenty. With every number I count, I stroke my arms and imagine that each count is a step forward. I have different scenes that I like to imagine, but my favorite visualization is a beach, and as I continue, I imagine walking on sand. At the count of twenty, I consciously take a deep breath. With my head straight and my eyelids closed, I move my eyeballs back and forth laterally, from one side to the other side about five times, and then I repeat the process of rubbing my shoulders down to my elbows and so forth for about 5 minutes, or until I feel like stopping. When I am about ready to stop I like to move from stroking my shoulders to the stroking of my hands for about one minute. I use a kind of “shake it off” motion. I choose to visualize that I am shaking off my stress that for me looks like black or grey dust particles and I just wipe it off my hands and let go of them.
One thing to keep in mind when you’re stressed out is that you may forget you even read about this technique at all. When you’re stressed out your mind might feel like it’s moving a million times a second and you literally forget, so maybe before you get stressed out and forget, put a sticky note out for yourself so that when you see it you can remember that you want to try this technique out. Or if might be good to share with a partner, so that you can remind each other to try this out, either when it seems like we need help with our stress management or even a couple of times throughout the busy day.
The thing that you might want to ignore but can probably feel is that stress compounds over time. Today’s unresolved stress becomes tomorrow’s shorter fuse, next month’s exhaustion, next year’s burnout. Do you really want to live with that, never trying to help yourself and those around you?
I would love to see a whole dispatch center try the havening technique, with everyone doing it at least three times a shift for a whole week and then discussing any noticeable or measurable changes. Here’s why: Havening is free, easy, you can literally do it at your desk, breathing is literally essential for life, and when you make a conscious effort to help yourself, and help your team around you, I just know there is big potential for a positive change in the entire environment! If any of your workplaces out there want to try it out, and notice a positive difference, let me know. I’d love to hear about it!
For further reading on the havening technique you can check out https://havening.org.
