A trick to reduce stress? Spend 20 seconds a day doing this easy practice

Key Facts

Below, Susman describes the practice he developed for the study and explains how anyone can use it to try to feel better in less than one minute a day.
The key phrase we used in the study was “How can I be a friend to myself in this moment?” What we meant by that is imagine you were seeing a friend or your younger self in a similar situation and you were being really caring to that friend.
There has been so much work on touch and how beneficial it can be for people to receive touch, but it had not been looked at as a standalone intervention for emotional well-being in terms of people offering self-compassionate touch to themselves.
I was just joking with a friend about this, and she said that when people are stressed they can get wrapped up in feeling like they can’t take 20 seconds to pause.