Hey everyone, my name is Rosie and I'm one of the new hosts of Radio Headspace.

I'm an author and a yoga meditation teacher and my new episodes are debuting February of next year.

I can't wait to share them with you.

In the meantime, I'd like to let you know about a new show from Headspace Studios called Dear Headspace.

It's a call and advice show where Headspace teachers answer questions each week about anything and everything.

We talk about family, relationships, mindfulness and so much more.

You can find Dear Headspace on the Headspace app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Headspace Studio

Hi, it's Eve here. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday. Let's just pause and take a deeper breath here.

And congratulate ourselves on getting through the week. It's been a really busy one, so I'm definitely feeling the need to rest over the weekend.

Which is actually what I wanted to talk about today. Well, more specifically on how we can learn how to rest and relax.

We actually have to cultivate the right conditions both internally and externally to rest and relax properly.

I remember a few years ago when I was working one-on-one with someone, they were experiencing really high levels of stress.

And we met for our session and on this particular day, they were very agitated and feeling very frustrated as they'd had an argument with their partner who said,

Why can't you just relax? And the only response was to yell back and say, I don't know how to relax. Don't you get it? I think when it comes to rest and relaxation, we have to learn how to tap into it.

And most importantly, recognize the signs that we're moving into a place of reactivity or what is known as fight or flight.

And this happens without us even realizing. And when we're activated in this way, it's almost impossible to relax.

So just saying, relax or get some rest when someone is stressed is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

But fear not, we can absolutely learn how to rest and relax.

A meditation of mindfulness is a great place to start. It's very easy when we experience stress to be completely out of tune with the body.

But the body physically carries stress and a really great practice to bring the mind and body together is called a body scan.

So this practice is all about feeling into the different parts of the body and giving space to whatever is there. Typically you start down at the feet and go through each part of the body and spend a few moments feeling into each area.

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