How to Reduce Stress
Relax your muscles: Sounds strange to do? It’s not. When you tense and relax different muscles of your body, you’re teaching your body how to de-stress. Start with your face muscles — tense all the muscles in your face, hold your frown for a few seconds and then let go. You can do this with different parts of your body — your neck, shoulders, abdomen, feet and so on. The best part? You can do it anywhere.
Yoga: Yoga comprises breathing techniques, movement as well as meditation, which is known to be a great stress reliever. Join a yoga class or learn some basic poses that you can even do at home.
Breathing exercises: Deep breathing has several advantages. You can do it anywhere and they work almost instantly by relaxing muscles and calming the mind. They oxygenate your blood, which in-turn ‘charges your brain.’
Meditate: Once you’ve started deep breathing, meditation is the next step. Your mind becomes calm when you meditate and you’ll realise that your concentration levels also increase. Start with a few minutes daily and gradually increase the amount of time. You’ll notice the difference in yourself almost immediately. Meditation also releases hormones that promote good health.
Start exercising: If you think that exercising is only for people who want to lose weight, think again. Studies have proved that exercising for an hour daily goes a long way in relieving stress. Start by brisk walking and then include a few basic exercises in your regime.
Have sex: Sex is probably the most natural stress reliever! Don’t think that making love will not be as pleasurable when you’re stressed. On the contrary, having sex not only has physical benefits but is also known to decrease stress levels.
Listen to music: More and more people are slowly discovering the power of music therapy. If you’re under a lot of stress, slip on your headphones and listen to music that makes you happy or reminds you of good memories. Listening to music when you’re stressed calms your mind, relaxes your body and even lowers your blood pressure.
Tags: breathing excercices, meditation, reduce stress, yoga
September 15th, 2009 at 12:12 am
I’m battling with insomnia. I excercise and eat healthy, but can still not sleep well. Is excercise supposed to assist with better sleep?
September 18th, 2009 at 3:34 am
I read your whole article and I loved your article. Yoga today is very important in people’s life. There is work load and stress at work place so for reducing this stress yoga has become necessary. It keeps the people fit and fine away from all the health problems. And I have some good yoga tips at http://www.jiyohealthy.com/category/stress/