Stress Relief Starts Here!
SonarMD’s partnership with Movement Genius offers IBD patients access to wellness classes that reduce stress and boost mental, emotional, and physical well-being. This integration empowers patients to better manage their condition and improve quality of life.
Neuroscience Health Coach Alyssa shares a quick Around the World tongue mobility drill that helps activate the vagus nerve – an important part of your gut-brain connection. Strengthening vagal tone supports a calmer, more balanced nervous system and can help your body feel more regulated throughout the day.
This easy exercise can be done anywhere – even while walking or waiting at a stoplight. By combining gentle movement, mindful breathing, and body awareness, you’ll help your brain and body work together to reduce tension and support better digestion and overall wellbeing.
Demonstrator: Alyssa Chang
Dexter introduces Five-Finger Breathing as a quick, calming practice to help people living with IBD regulate stress and reconnect with their bodies. By tracing each finger while slowly breathing in and out, patients can activate the body’s relaxation response and ease tension that often contributes to digestive symptoms. This mindful pause supports a sense of control and grounding, helping the nervous system shift from stress to stability – allowing both body and mind to work together toward healing.
Demonstrator: Dexter Darden
Dexter shares how shifting from self-criticism to self-compassion can support people living with IBD. By softening harsh inner dialogue and approaching setbacks with understanding, patients can lower stress levels, improve resilience, and create a healthier mindset for managing symptoms. Practicing compassion isn’t about ignoring challenges—it’s about cultivating the same encouragement you’d offer a friend, which in turn helps the body and mind work together toward better outcomes.
Demonstrator: Dexter Darden
With screen time at an all-time high, eye strain is more common than ever—causing dry eyes, headaches, and fatigue. This quick routine helps relieve tension, improve eye flexibility, and encourage healthy blinking to refresh your eyes. In just ten minutes, you can reduce discomfort, relax facial muscles, and feel more focused throughout your day.
Voice-Over Instructor: Alyson Stoner
Learn to tune into your breath and the sensations that show up in your body. This self-awareness practice uses breathing and a calming symbol as a positive resource in moments of stress or difficulty. As you practice self-awareness, you can increase your ability to know what your body is needing and how best to respond to its needs. This is a simple 3-minute check-in with Dr. Damon as a daily reset for your mind and wellbeing.
Instructor: Dr. Damon
Bilateral tapping is a simple and effective self-soothing technique that activates both sides of the body and brain, helping you reconnect to your full self. By gently bringing focus to your physical senses, it also helps shift attention away from racing thoughts, creating a natural reset for your nervous system and a quick boost to your wellbeing.
Try this when you’re feeling anxious or you need a little extra comfort to get through the day.
Demonstrator: Alyson Stoner
Let go of the day’s tension with this guided movement practice. Through gentle shaking, deep breathing, and mindful awareness, you’ll release built-up stress, calm your nervous system, and reconnect with your body. Take a few moments to reset, relax, and discover what your body needs to feel at ease—you deserve it.
Demonstrator: Monique Coleman
Grounding is a stress relief technique and tool for anxiety that involves using your senses and environment to help you become present and more relaxed.
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique is especially useful for managing stress on the go—no special equipment needed, just a few mindful moments to reset and reconnect. Simply engage the senses that are available to you.
Demonstrator: Monique Coleman
This guided seated stretch targets tension in the neck and shoulders—two areas that commonly hold stress after extended time at a desk. Moving through gentle, accessible movements designed for any fitness level, viewers are guided to release tightness, restore circulation, and reset their posture without ever leaving their chair. Taking even a few minutes to reconnect with the body mid-day isn’t a pause in productivity—it’s an investment in the focus, energy, and ease needed to show up fully for the rest of the day.
Voice-Over Instructor: Alyson Stoner
Use 10 minutes of gentle stretches and stress relief techniques to help you reset, reconnect, and refresh all from your chair.
This routine focuses on opening your torso and hips. Follow along at a pace that feels good and helpful for you today.
Voice-Over Instructor: Alyson Stoner
Demonstrator: Ciara Hurst
Try this simple check-in with Dr. Damon as a daily reset for your mind and wellbeing.
This video focuses on a calming breathing technique called “box breathing” that you can use to help release stress and anxiety.
Instructor: Dr. Damon Silas
This guided practice invites viewers to connect with the stability and support of the floor beneath them, using breath and gentle body awareness to anchor into the present moment. By tuning into physical sensations of weight, contact, and stillness, participants can quiet a busy mind, ease tension held in the body, and shift out of the stress response. Grounding isn’t about doing more—it’s about returning to what’s already there, and discovering that a sense of calm and steadiness is always just a breath away.
Instructor: Monique Coleman
This seated stress relief routine is proof that ten minutes can make a world of difference for your mind and body! Through a sequence of techniques—gentle stretching, mindfulness, bilateral tapping, and breathing—you give yourself a chance to check-in. Let go of tension and return to a calmer and creative headspace.
Instructor: Karen Chuang
Learn to tune into your breath and the sensations that show up in your body. This self-awareness practice uses breathing and a calming symbol as a positive resource in moments of stress or difficulty. As you practice self-awareness, you can increase your ability to know what your body is needing and how best to respond to its needs.
This is a simple 4-minute check-in with Dr. Damon as a daily reset for your mind and wellbeing.
Instructor: Dr. Damon Silas
Frequently Asked Questions
Managing mental and emotional wellbeing is closely linked to managing chronic symptoms and discomfort. When individuals cultivate resilience and stress management skills, it can significantly ease the physical and emotional burden of chronic conditions. Stress, anxiety, and negative emotions often exacerbate pain and discomfort, making symptoms feel more intense. By adopting regular stress management practices—such as mindfulness, breathing exercises, and gentle movement routines—individuals can disrupt this cycle, fostering a positive mindset that supports their treatment process.
Research shows that consistent stress management routines can improve health outcomes by lowering cortisol levels, enhancing immune response, and improving sleep quality, all of which can lessen the intensity of chronic symptoms. Additionally, practicing these routines enhances self-efficacy, which empowers individuals to feel more in control of their health journey. Over time, the combination of mindset shifts and physiological benefits helps those with chronic conditions not only cope more effectively but also experience an improved quality of life.
SonarMD partnered with Movement Genius to provide access to tools for mental health, emotional resilience, and physical movement for patients living with IBD. Movement Genius is the leading designer of therapist-led mental health tools advancing HealthTech and Wellness Programs across the country. It provides Hospitals, Apps, Events, and CPG brands with trauma-informed stress tools that improve health outcomes by 25% and decrease acute stress by an average of 40% per session. The diverse expert network and accessible programs help organizations reduce stress, manage anxiety, improve morale and performance, and restore a sense of safety and stability to their environment.