Daily Dose: 10 Min Advanced Musician Audition with Birds Relaxation Response

From Mind Body Space, it's RxChillPill, a show about science-backed resilience skills and powerful stress management tools to make you the boss of your own brain. I'm your host, Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a physician specializing in mind-body medicine and a mom of two amazing kids. There are three different kinds of episodes: one where I interview fascinating people and experts who share resilience tips for the mind, body, and space; Another where you'll find short meditations you can do anywhere, anytime to get your daily dose of the relaxation response, the complete opposite of the stress response. In the third type, you'll get science-backed resilience boosters and antidotes to stress that really work so you can tap into your own brain superpowers and apply liberally in your daily life. This is a pre-audition relaxation response. When we're auditioning for something, we like to keep our energy up to a certain level at the peak of performance. Not beyond that peak performance energy and not under that peak performance energy, but in fact just at the peak. This energy level will help you play at your very best. So find a safe space that you can sit comfortably for about 10 minutes. If you're in a public place, you might want to put on some sunglasses and earphones. Now sit comfortably in a relaxed position with your spine tall, your chin slightly tucked. Take a deep breath in and exhale. On your next breath, release any tension in your neck and shoulders. And now scan the areas of the body as I mention them, just loosening even the tiniest bit of muscle tension over the top of your head, the back of your head, your forehead, eyelids, temples, and jaw, your cheeks, your lips, your ears, down the back of your neck and along your shoulders. Rest here just a little bit because we tend to hold some tension here. Inhale and exhale any tension in your neck and shoulders. Now come down both arms, elbows, wrists, hands. Feel the blood flowing into your hands, fingertips. Now bring your focus down your back, all the way down your spine. Feel the seat supporting you. Notice where you're touching your chair and the chair is supporting you. Relax those areas and bring your attention down your legs, your knees, the back of your knees, your shin, your calves, ankles, the tops of your feet, your toes, and the bottom of your feet. Now take a deep inhale up to the top of your head and exhale all the way down, scanning your body for any tension. And now use your imagination to breathe in from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. And exhale out the same way, down the bottom of your feet. Now this time you can even imagine a color. If you need some calm because your energy is high, use a cooling blue. If you feel tired and you want to bring your energy up a little bit, you can use a brighter color like orange. So just using your imagination and pretending that we breathe this way, inhale through the bottom of your feet up to the top of your head, using either cool blue to bring your energy down or brighter orange to bring your energy up. And now exhale as you scan your whole body for any leftover tension. At your own pace now, inhale color and exhale whenever you're ready. And again, at your own pace, do 2 more breaths like that, getting taller with each inhale, releasing tension with each exhale, but staying tall in your spine. Now, wherever you are is perfectly fine. You may notice some thoughts wandering in. Anytime that happens, just say, "Oh well," and just nonchalantly, "Oh well," let it go. Now imagine yourself in your best performance. You feel grounded with the feet on the floor, feeling your feet in your shoes and the ground beneath you. And before you enter the room, you can wish your Audience, may you be well, may you be happy. And wish yourself some goodwill: May I be happy, may I be well. Remember that these people are there to listen to some great music. And remembering that you, with all of your practice and all of your knowledge are here, ready to share your music with them. This moment has all of the knowledge that you've gathered, all of the practical practices that you've had, all of the beautiful lessons that you've learned. And all you need to do is take a deep breath, release tension, growing taller, knowing that all of these minutes and hours and days and years of practice and learning have all come together to support you today. You know what you know, and you've put in the work. Now it's just time for you to take a deep breath and exhale, releasing any extra tension that you don't need and keeping the tension in areas that you do need. Standing tall, sitting tall. All of your muscles will snap into muscle memory as soon as you need them to, to move your fingers as they need to move. Just see yourself with that perfect phrasing and timing, that tempo and beat comes so naturally for you, and all the different pieces. Taking steady breaths. Sharing your love for music with people who love music and are excited to hear you play. Everyone in that room, whether they show it on their face or not, love music. And are excited and happy to hear you play, rooting for those beautiful articulations and tempo and phrasing, and as always, that beautiful tone that you know you possess. Now let some affirmations come to you. You've got this. Everything is set. You have all the time in the world for a few Deep calming breaths. Time slows down when you're focused on your deep breath, calm breath. No, you're going to do this and you've got this because all of your seconds and moments and days and years, your teachers and mentors, friends and family, and audiences who look forward to hearing you play are all here for you, supporting every single note. So know what you know, and remembering the joy of music, take a deep energizing breath. Inhale and exhale. Tshh. Take a deep breath and raise your arms overhead and interlace your fingers. Inhale and push your palms towards the ceiling. Take another inhale and stretch all the way up. Exhale, float those arms down. If you haven't already done so, you can start to open your eyes slowly, inhaling deep breaths and maybe taking extra stretches, whatever that may be. Perhaps a neck roll, inhaling and exhale, rolling your neck to the side and back and front. Now the other way, shrugging your shoulders up and down, maybe standing up and taking a big stretch. Knowing that you can come back to this feeling of calm confidence with a steady beat by just taking a few deep breaths. You're ready for the rest of your day. If you found this podcast helpful to you, please subscribe, post ratings and reviews, and share it with everyone you know who wants to stress less and do more. This knowledge is really powerful and science-based. We need to share it with as many people as possible to help with this epidemic of stress and the stress-related diseases that we're seeing today. I know your time is gold, so thank you, and I want to hear from you. Go to mindbodyspace.com, subscribe, and ask me any questions and suggest any topics that you'd like to hear in the future. You'll also find episode show notes and resources on the podcast page. While you're there, check out our online school for courses you can take, like Stress Less and Do More series for students and parents, Get Smarter Than Our Smartphones course, and the full-on SMART course. SMART stands for Stress Management and Resilience Training. It's a research-backed course designed by the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and I'm your certified provider. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you wellness.