Stress Ballooning

This exercise is designed to help you free yourself from habitual stress responses and to programme new responses to the situations that trigger your stress. You can perform this exercise in your imagination also.

1. What do you think are the triggers of your stress – work, a relationship, a change in domestic circumstances, worries about ageing, etc.

2. Think about the most powerful stressor. Remember your usual stressful response and imagine you are blowing it into a balloon.

3. Now take a large pin and burst the balloon. In the explosion, the old response has gone.

4. Take a second balloon and blow it up. Imagine positive energy filling it breath by breath. Write your new response (action or thought pattern) on the balloon's surface.

5. Now tap the balloon gently into the air and keep it afloat a while as you fully absorb its message. Next time you face the situation, recall this balloon and the positive message you put on its surface.