Blue Zone

I may act…

Put spikes up like a hedgehog; go into a protective bubble; put on a bullet proof vest; deflate like a balloon; freeze and not react; retreat into my tortoise shell; paint a smile on; crushed empathy – unable to help others; use alcohol, medication or drugs, self harm, caffeine, food, sleep to try and calm my system.

I need… to add energy and feel safer

Water wake up

Find connection with cold water to wake up your body. This may be drinking a cold drink, splashing your face with water even cleaning your teeth.

Sigh signal

Intentionally add a sigh to bring energy. A sigh is a way your autonomic nervous system can regulate itself and draw in oxygen.

Loosening the grip of emotions

Signs of safety

Your mind and body are pulled into the blue zone when something feels unsafe. Look for signs of safety around you. Do you need to move to a place where you feel psychologically safe? Can you physically go there? Is there a person or pet you can you be around who will provide this? What activity could you do that makes you feel safer? Can you move to a safe place in your mind?

Basic needs check – have you got your basic needs met?

Food, water, toilet break, rest area, enough equipment, enough staff?

Soothe and groove

Bring your attention to your breath, it is likely you will be breathing from your chest short shallow breaths. Move into belly breathing by first counting each out breath for ten exhalations, then begin again. Next find where you feel your breath moving, choose two places such as your belly and your nostrils and put your hands on each. Then with each out breath change your hands to move position. Add movement and change your posture as you breath, you can even add more exaggerated arm movements to your breath cycle.

4 elements

Micro-movements

Allow your body to move in any way which it can, even if these are small micro movements such as humming or putting your hands around a drink. Aim to increase your micro-movements by performing one every ten seconds for one minute. Micro-movements gently energise you.

Imagined action

When you feel safe you can look at others in the world and see if you feel unable to take action or movement. Connect to benefits of movement through imagery. Identify a movement you are drawn to but haven’t acted yet, bring that movement to life in your imagination, play with it, sense your body moving on the inside, feel the emotion accompany the movement, hear the story of who you are, create series of movements, make time to bring them to life, overtime you may want to bring it out into the world.

Wander in a labyrinth

Labyrinths have one path and no dead ends. Imagine yourself walking in a labryinth, use your finger to trace this labyrinth, notice how your thinking shifts, do you feel yourself return to calm?

Music

Listen to an upbeat music track. What music gets your energy going?

Can I connect?

When we are pulled into the blue zone we lose the sense of connection with others that we feel in the green and yellow zones. If you feel unable to connect with others right now, imagine yourself just moving into an environment where other people are but where you don’t necessarily need to connect with them. Once this feels comfortable, is there a way you can reach out and make a small connection? A gaze towards them, a step in their direction? Look for ways that you can connect with people that feel manageable for you right now and slowly work your way into the green zone of connections.

Wake up scents

Make use of energising scents, can you smell any of these energising smells oranges, lemon, grapefruit, peppermint, rosemary, eucalyptus, coffee, ginger, mint.

Tune in to tones

The way you speak changes the way you feel, the story you tell and how others around you experience you. Manipulating the tone of your voice can bring you energy. Can you change your tone of voice to more upbeat – how does your zone shift? Talk about a difficult experience with different ways of speaking, notice the tone that moves you to calmness. A small change in way word is spoken can shift emotions.

• What does my behaviour tend to look like in blue?
• What does my mind tell me when I am pulled into the blue?
• What triggers my blue zone? 
• Is there something I can change or needs to change around me to help me? 

Take some time to reflect on the why

• Is there an injustice that needs to be talked about?
• Is there an action that needs taking?
• Do I need to change my routine to make sure my basic needs are met?
• What can I do to prevent this situation from happening again?

Do one of these green exercises to build up options to use in blue zone:

• Cluster of connections
• Sleep satisfaction