Are you experiencing more stress than normal or more stress contact points during the day? This 5-minute ear massage for stress relief can help you with anxiety, tension, irritability — all the things that you might be experiencing for at least some part of your day.
With all the chaos and uncertainty these days, we really have to up our game on how we stay centered and come back to our body. Self-care techniques can be really helpful, and there’s a lot we can do with herbal oils. The herbal oiling technique I’m showing you comes from Ayurveda.
In Ayurvedic terms, the chaos that’s happening in our culture right now is vata. Vata is like air, wind, change, and things blowing. Vata in the air is awesome; it’s where we get innovation, ideas, growth, and change. However, too much of it drives you crazy. Have you ever been caught out in the wind and started to get irritable, rundown, and thin skinned? That’s what’s happening. We’re swimming a lot of vata energy and it’s wearing our nervous system down.
Ear Massage for Stress Relief
One of the places we can access our nervous system is through our earlobes, and a simple ear massage can really relieve stress. I learned this “earlobe pull” technique while studying with Dr. Vasant Lad.
You can use any kind of oil for this technique — coconut oil, olive oil, or whatever oil you have. I like to use an herbal oil like St. John’s wort oil, which is incredible for calming the nerves and relaxing the nervous system. (If you don’t have any oil, you can just hold your ears without using oil.)
Put a couple little drops of oil on your hands and rub it all around your ears.
Hold your ears and get a little grounded. Take a few minutes and bring your attention to your earlobes.
Just hold your earlobes and breathe. Breathe in for a count of four. Hold it for a second and then breathe out to the count of eight.
Breathe in, 2, 3, 4.
Breathe out, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Try this for five minutes.
While you do this, hold your earlobes and pull down on them slightly. You’ll notice toddlers do this; they’re self-regulating. It’s a way to calm and reset the nervous system.
An ear massage for stress relief is especially good before bed if you’re really amped up and your energy is in your head. It’s very grounding and pulls the energy down.
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Grounding Techniques
We are going through a time of change, and change is challenging. It’s fine to be afraid. Fear activates you. But to stay in fear and to vibrate fear in chaos, you stay in a stressed state and it’s hard to stay in touch with your truth and your voice.
Having a simple grounding technique like this ear massage for stress relief helps you come back to your center and find out what your voice is. To find out what’s happening for you and your family, what your needs are, and to not stay in fear.
Anything you do with your hands can be grounding. For example, gardening and getting your hands in the soil. Or even tinkering in the garage or cooking food. Another thing people use is water, such as taking a bath or getting in the shower.
If you’ve had a stressful encounter, or listened to all the bad news of the day, what do you do to process it and come back? Everyone’s got a different way in. Some people like their feet rubbed. Some people like head rubs. For some people, the spot on the ears is the ticket.
So, try this earlobe pull once or twice a day for the next seven days and just see. Take five minutes and breathe, close your eyes and come back to this part of your body where all these nerve endings are.
I would love to hear from you! How did this earlobe pull work for you? What do you do to ground yourself in stressful times? Please share in the comments below.
Thanks for the reminder!