Posts Tagged ‘Relaxation’

Some simple ways to reduce stress…

Too much of stress can damage your health. Stress can be both mentally and emotionally challenging. Following a resilient approach to all the life’s problems and setbacks can make coping easier.

What is resilient approach?
Resilience involves the ability to face change and misfortune with realistic optimism, self confidence, and determination as you make an effort to adjust to and recover from challenges. Resilience helps people to maintain a good mood and protects them against negative thoughts.
Tips for increasing resilience in the face of challenges are:
- Credit should be given to self for the successes.
- Go easy on yourself if you make a mistake. Distract yourself in some other pleasurable activity.
- Try to view a mistake or setback as a learning opportunity.
- Find positive ways of looking to some situation and give away the negative thoughts.
- Be in touch with more positive people.
- Approach stressful situations with more flexibility and creativity.
- Learn the art of compromise in dealing with others.
- Face challenges.
- Embrace change.
- Use a step by step approach to problems.

One way to dissipate stress is by using your body, through the process of relaxing your muscles. When your muscles are tight or tense, the stress level of your body remains high. Shavaasana, also known as muscle relaxation, helps to reduce your stress levels. The way this works is, you focus on the major muscle groups one by one. What you need to do is, for each muscle group, tighten the muscle, keep tight for 20 seconds and slowly relax it. As you slowly relax your muscles, focus on the sensation of relaxation and feel your tension slowly getting released.

Is it possible to reduce problems like anxiety and depression through exercise?
Well yes, and there are some scientific reasons for the same. When stress levels are high, the body releases hormone such as adrenaline and cortisol. During exercise, the level of these hormones is reduced and exercise also leads to production of a chemical called endorphins. These are released by the brain and cause mood elevation and act as painkillers. When you exercise hard there can be a runner’s high, this is caused by endorphins.
The type of exercise is not that important as long as it leads to a workout for example: one of the easiest ways to do this is walking and jogging. This is another reason why elliptical trainers are getting more popular, because the vigorous workout not only help make you more fit but also reduce stress at the same time.

| More

If you found this post informative, why not sign up to receive new posts ?
It's simple, and free, and you can even opt to receive by email:
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Good Health Tips by Email

Proper Breathing – It offers the release that is needed for oneself…

Proper breathing does not mean that you need to do chanting or be in search of your chi to try meditation. It is a simple way to make you feel more centered; a way to get your mind and body readjusted to a normal healthy lifestyle. The five steps that would help you to breathe properly:

Proper breathing is the most important function that is performed by us. It increases the energy level. Oxygen is an important chemical and is a powerful stimulant. Deep breathing recharges the hemoglobin. Breathe energy as well as air. It will increase the electromagnetic flow into your body, which will bring up suppressed feelings.

- Take out 5 min out of your busy schedule
One needs to take out uninterrupted five minutes out of their schedule. It is usually how long people need to start getting their central nervous system back to normal.

- Sitting Posture
It is not necessary to sit cross legs to start meditation. Sitting on a sturdy chair where your back is in upright position without leaning. Back should be in comfortable position.

- Sense your senses
Do not think and start focusing on your senses. Inhale and exhale in a slow and controlled manner. Listen to the sounds pulsating around you like birds outside your window or traffic in the distance.

- Just eliminate distractions
Space with positive image is very important. All kind of distractions should be eliminated. It is suggested how appropriate colors, smells and images can help you to calm you down and focus on breathing as compared to a cluttered work area. It can bring bad vibes.

- Explore your surroundings
Sometimes, people find it difficult to meditate alone, explore your surroundings and find a group or check out different books, CDs, DVDs and web sites.

- Let your mind be free
Initially you may find it difficult to concentrate in one direction and free your mind from thoughts of work or family. Human mind has a tendency to wander towards the issues that tend to stress you the most. You have to push them aside. Try to find the problems that bothers you and then you will see that it becomes easy to conquer them.

Relaxation Exercises : Progressive Relaxation

Progressive relaxation will help to relax the entire body. It will help you to create a mental image of this relaxed state that can be recreated instantly whenever it is needed.
This exercise can be done while lying in bed, face up and arms at your sides.
- Make fists with both hands. Clench your fingers although not so tightly as to be uncomfortable. Your wrists should feel tight and even in the forearms. Hold this tension for few seconds and then relax. You will feel heaviness and limp in your hands.
- Like in the previous example, make your fists tensed again, such that the muscles start quivering. Now relax. This should make your hands feel more warm and heavy, and this would extend to your lower arms.
- Now concentrate on your upper arms. Focus on your biceps, making them tense, and your hands should remain relaxed and heavy. Quivering will start, and then relax again. Now do this again, tense, hold and then relax.
- Now that you have a hang of this, this process of tensing, hold, relaxing should be done for as many muscle groups as possible. Once you are done with your arms, do the same for stomach, buttocks, thighs, calves, feet, chest, shoulders, neck, jaw and eyes.
- Once you have started doing this a couple of times, one of the prime advantages you will learn from this is being able to get relaxed. Without doing much of these relaxing, you will be able to easily distinguish between muscles that are tensed or relaxed, and be able to focus on the tensed muscles.