Journey to Relaxation

I have been in Las Vegas helping at the World Championship Dummy Roping Championship for children 11 years and younger. The days have been very busy but enjoyable, since I am enjoying this trip as a gift from a good friend and client who is the founder of the Roping. The Roping is held at the Sands Hotel in the Cowboy Christmas Exhibition. With hundreds of venders selling all kinds of Western wares, clothing, jewlry, decorations, toys, anything you would want to shop for Western. There is food, there music, noise, smells, lights and lots of people! The sensory stimulation is amazing and overwhelming to one who is used to a very quiet,yet busy way of life. After the day at the roping we have been watching the NRF Championships in the evening which is very exciting with more noise, laser lightshows, and LOTS of people. I have had late nights, early mornings with little sleep. Yesterday, about midday I started to get a headache. I never get headaches. And while I can usually get rid of any tension in my body fairly easily by breathing and relaxing the muscles, the headache kept returning. That evening before the NFR competition I decided to take Advil so I could enjoy it. I knew the music and announcing would be very loud. This morning I woke up at 5:30. I was hoping to sleep in since I stayed up after the competition to do homework. I was tired and bit achey, and my nech threatend to give me another headache. Not able to go back to sleep, I decided it would be a great time to do my Relaxation experience. My roommate had to leave yesterday so I have the hotel room for two days to myself. It is very quiet. The music and voice of the lesson is soothing to my overstimulated ears and tight neck and shoulders. The lesson while focusing in my arms and hands made by whole body feel better. The experience of the arms and hands getting heavy and warm then light again affected my whole body and it all felt better. As a massage therapist, my hands and forearms are always tight so it really was a good point of focus for the lesson for me. In fact, it worked as well as massaging my own hands and arms as far as relief. What was really interesting to me was how much better I felt mentally as I started my blog. My mind is alert and I can focus very well on the task. Usually my mind wants to jump from one thing I have to do to another and try to multi-task. I feel as well as when I have had some caffine to wake me up. While I have used breathing to relax often I don't often do a relaxation exercise this specific so it really reminded me of the benefits of training the mind in this way. Usually I meditate and get my stress released by running, but I took this week off knowing I would be busy and not on my own schedule since this is about the roping. This is probably why I got the headache. I didn't have a way to release my stress. My outer shell body seemed to be handling the stress fine, but my senses were being bombarded with no relief. What a wonderful experience and a precious gift our body is with the ability to heal within itself!