Brad Schipke demonstrates three techniques for PTSD: deep breathing, the butterfly hug (crossing arms and tapping beneath the collarbones to stimulate both brain hemispheres), and visualization of a calming scene. He says they work best used together.
I'm going to walk you through my 3 favorite trauma relief tools here that I love to use in combination that work with the majority of symptoms. The first one here is deep breathing. So just breathing and filling your lungs up as much as you possibly can. So truly filling them up until you can't inhale anymore, and then you hold it for a few seconds and then release very, very slowly. The second tool here is as you're doing the deep breathing is doing a tool called the butterfly hug, where you cross your arms across your body like this and you start tapping beneath your collarbones. And this might sound and look kind of crazy, but what that does is that it stimulates your left and right hemispheres of your brain, which simulates REM sleep. And REM is rapid eye movement sleep, which is a sleep cycle where your brain does most of the processing while you're asleep. And the last one here is visualization. So as you're breathing and doing the butterfly hug, you want to visualize a relaxing scene, whether it's from real life or completely imagined. Now I'm going to make more videos on the different relief tools for specific symptoms. So if you want to be notified when I release that, just make sure to hit that subscribe button.
