Do you know that feeling you get from sitting too long in front of a computer? Or from overusing your phone? Or running too many errands in one day?

That feeling of tiredness, coupled with tension and overwhelm? We usually call it stress. It feels so damn uncomfortable that we try at all costs to get rid of it. The only problem is that once in it, our solution finding skills are also reduced. We literally find it hard to know what we need at that moment.

So we shut down.

We sit on the couch, watch a movie to decompress or browse our phones because the incoherent energy in our bodies is so unbearable. Or we drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, a joint, eat sugar…anything to make it, if not go away, at least a little bit less painful.

If you are more on the holistic side of things, you probably try to meditate. And then find out that it’s even worse to sit with all this disorganized energy inside of you. So it’s back to the couch or at least reading a book to forget about it.

Too many days like that accumulated over time make us dream of our holidays when we can catch our breath again. If it gets worse, we have burnout. Then we need a much longer holiday. Only then it’s called something else.

But what if I told you you could shift your state in as little as ten minutes?

And it didn’t involve complicated yoga postures or years of mastering meditation?

You could feel discharged, energized, open, and centered with very little effort? And it would also be fun?

This ten-minute exercise I am talking about has its origins in Qigong. And it’s not even the real qigong practice, only a warm-up for it.

I will post a video of it below, but here is the deal: you have to actually go through it, not just watch it to feel the effects.

But if you need more convincing first, this is how it works:

Imagine your nerves being like wires in a machine. What happens to your machine if you keep it running without end? Yes, that’s right, it starts overheating and as a result malfunctioning.

Our brains and bodies are like that too. Never before have we lived such complex, busy lives. It makes the necessity to learn how to reboot our operating system ever so more important.

One thing that I know from my work as a Coach is, that there is never much wrong with people, except for not having learned how to regulate their nervous system, and especially how to ‘empty’ themselves.

We need to cool down our wires. Close the too many tabs open in our menu and Just let go.

For that purpose, meditation won’t do it.

Meditation is what you do after you discharged all the overheated, incoherent energy flowing through you. After you have come back to a sense of centerdness, then you can sit down and deepen your exploration of stillness.

Before you discharge, however, you just make it unnecessarily painful.

So watch the video below and follow along. It’s really as simple as shaking, breathing out, swinging your arms, and allowing your nerves to discharge.

Warning: it’s a super simple tool but you might feel a bit silly doing it. Trust me when I say it’s worth it.

Watch this meditation teacher, Burgs, taking you through it here.

I know, the video is 17 min long. But once you know it, you can make it in 10 minutes. You can adjust it to what you need. Already five minutes make a big difference.

Once (and only if) you have done it, I would love to hear what your experience was.

Because, for me, I really wish we had learned this as part of a daily routine at school. The simple act of learning how to discharge excess energy…it would have made life so much easier. Enjoy and share it with your loved ones. We need our tools, especially now.

Kasia Patzelt works as an Embodiment Coach and is passionate about integrating our spiritual experiences into the here and now of daily life aka how to be truly heart intelligent. She is a writer on Medium and works one-on-one with people online or on the magic island of Ibiza, where she lives. www.kasiapatzelt.com

Image courtesy of Nataliya Vaitkevich.