Awaken Endorphins Joy Meditation

Welcome into this series on the happy chemicals.

I'm Scarlet,

Licensed therapist and meditation teacher and in this series I'm teaching you how you can tap into four of the chemicals or hormones that gets released in our body that ultimately make us feel good and can really help with our mental health.

So there's plenty of ways we can do that and for some people that might be through medication or through natural herbs and supplements but in this practice we're going to be looking at different ways we can organically get this going.

So this is not a replacement to the things you might already be doing it's simply an add-on and a way for you to see how you can get these things naturally flowing in your body.

Today we are focusing on endorphins.

With endorphins it's that feeling that you get after the post-exercise high,

That high people talk about after they've really worked out.

It's also that feeling you get after you've been laughing,

That real belly laughter or even just smiling,

That feeling that you can get after that.

We can get endorphins from doing something fun like dancing,

It can even be feeling like we're being childish and playful,

It can be things like ice baths they let off endorphins afterwards,

We can get it from B vitamins,

Cacao.

Like with anything we don't want to overuse it even if it's in a natural way but this is more to get you seeing how you can produce these chemicals and how they can make you feel really good and to draw upon them where you need to.

So once you're ready find a comfy position and let's get started and for this practice ideally find a position where you can begin to do some stretching and move your body.

Once you've found that position we're going to start by tuning into the breath.

So you can do this still with your eyes open if that feels good or you can close them down if you prefer and what we're going to be doing is we're going to be breathing in for four and out for six so both a gentle but also quick breath to get your body going and get your body feeling energized.

Starting by taking a deep breath in through your nose one two three four hold for a moment exhale out two three four five six and again in two three four hold and out two three four five six and in two three four out two three four five six one more time in two three four and out two three four five six.

Just notice straight away how that's feeling on your body if it's helping you to feel both relaxed as well as energized and then let's start to roll the shoulders back to get a little movement going in your shoulders.

It doesn't matter if you're sitting down or standing up just do this how you need to.

I want you to maybe start to shake and shrug the shoulders imagining yourself shrugging off any excess energy that's got built up here any stress any tension.

Take your time to perhaps shake your whole body out and you can stand up for this if this feels good shake shake shake shake shake everything off.

So getting that energy moving I want you to start to stretch your legs now so if you're sitting down stretch out if you're standing up stretch down and start to move your body towards your toes doesn't matter if you're nowhere near your toes just start to stretch your body and feel into that feeling.

If you're sitting down stretching your left and then your right if you're standing up just take some gentle stretches.

Feeling that blood flow around your body your body thanking you for this gentle movement.

Well done so when you're ready I want you to find a little bit of stillness now so as the body's starting to get flowing we're going to come back to stillness and allow your breath to still be the rhythm.

So it doesn't matter how you're breathing you can forget about the counting if that doesn't work for you but just allow your breath to breathe you allow there to be a rhythm in your body rippling throughout your body as we come inwards.

Allowing all of the muscles in your face to relax seeing if you can relax your forehead relaxing your eyes relaxing your cheekbones relaxing your jaw relaxing your tongue feeling that relaxation going all the way down your neck your shoulders your head.

Notice how good that feels to release tension in the body and beginning now to simply start to allow yourself to smile.

So beginning to turn the corners of your mouth upward even if you don't particularly feel like smiling I want you to just experiment and play with this.

What does it feel like to smile?

Can I allow myself even if it's just a really gentle small smile to feel that sensation in my face and notice how that feels in my body?

Maybe you make that smile even bigger and begin to really grin even if you feel silly doing it just experiment play with it play with doing a really big grinning smile while you sit here that inward smile or that physical smile smiling can have a really big chemical effect on our body it can ignite the exact same feelings as we would if we were smiling with someone else see if you can feel that in your body it feeling somewhat good to let yourself smile continue to do that if it feels good or allowing your face muscles to rest and i now want you to tap into in your mind's eye a time that you associate with of really really laughing this might be a memory you hold of an occasion where you got the giggles where you couldn't stop laughing where maybe it was a big belly laugh with a friend maybe something really hilarious happened or maybe it's something you watched on a comedy show that had you in stitches a video that you saw online that you kept replaying because it was just so funny could you bring that to your mind and let yourself just play it and enjoy it and recall it in a way where you allow your whole body to feel it i'll give you a few moments doing that i wonder when you last thought of that thing that made you laugh often life gets so serious and we can forget to smile to laugh to recall memories that we that we can bring out the bank anytime when we need to laugh we need to release some endorphins and when we ultimately need to let go of taking everything too seriously i believe that laughter is one of the biggest healers laughter has got me through some of my darkest days and despite difficulty i'll always try and find a way to find the funny things in life to find humor even where there seems to not be any could you start to bring humor more into your life humor doesn't have to outweigh the serious things it doesn't mean that you're disregarding all of the things that might be going on in your life and the world but it can run right alongside it it's part of life and it's joy and this is part of what makes you human to find joy and to find laughter in things well done so when you're ready just allowing yourself to perhaps come a little more aware of your surroundings maybe tune back into any noises in the room you're in become a little more aware again of your body notice the difference between how you was feeling when you came in here to how you're now feeling beginning to blink your eyes open come back to the space you're in and if you'd like to now you can go off and watch something funny or you could go and shake your body out more do some exercise and i invite you to take a listen to my other meditations for the other three happy chemicals to see what that's like to get those going too i hope you can take this into the rest of your day