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Quick and Easy Stress Relief

December 13th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Looking for quick stress relief?

Here are some easy methods.

Writing, or keeping a journal, is a proven method of quick stress relief because it allows you to express yourself creatively while viewing your perceived problems in a different light. Just writing down your problems - even without a solution, makes your problems easier.

You’ll be amazed that solutions will appear, almost like magic. This is because you’ve objectified the problem.

Perhaps the oldest form of stress relief is yoga meditation. All you have to do is breathe deeply and count your inhalations and exhalations.

When thoughts appear - and they will - just focus on your breath again.

You may want to combine meditation with muscle relaxation techniques. To do this you tense and relax your muscles slowly. For example, starting with your toes, you tense the muscles, then slowly release as you breathe deeply. Move on to your calves, then your thighs, and so on until you have focused on all your muscle groups. Yoga is also an ancient stress reliever, but it requires some training to get started, so you may not wish to utilize this practice for quick stress relief, but rather for its long-term benefits.

Exercise offers quick stress relief that will provide you with benefits. And you may not think so, but it’s incredibly easy to get started. Just drop everything and try 5 or 10 or 20 push-ups or sit-ups; that’s all it takes to change your mind’s focus from the things that are causing you stress.

By the time you are straining to knock out that last rep your boss’s belly-aching will be miles away.

So there you have it - three ways to quick stress relief: writing, meditation and exercise.

Exercise to relieve stress

September 4th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Exercise is an excellent stress reliever. If you’re feeling stressed in the middle of the working day, even a short walk around your office, or to a coffee shop, will give you some stress relief.

Exercise causes the brain to produce a cocktail of helpful biochemicals that help reduce stress. Runners, for example, are familiar with that ‘endorphin high’ that comes from marathon workouts. That’s the result of the brain releasing an opiate-like substance that the body produces naturally to reduce pain. In extreme cases it leads to a sense of euphoria.

Along with endorphins there are other neuro-transmitters produced - serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine - that also have beneficial effects as mood elevators. The effects of those is shown most clearly when they exist at too low levels - depression, anxiety and sometimes increased aggression.

Exercise helps reduce stress not only by the biochemicals it produces, but by reducing others produced by stress. When a person experiences stress the sympathetic nervous system produces cortisol and hormones that - if left unaltered in the blood stream - produce harmful effects on blood vessels. They can produce scaring, which can lead to narrowing of the arteries.

Exercise helps solve that problem in two ways. A good workout will actually use up those compounds, breaking them down into products that are harmless and get passed out in urine. It helps in a second way by making blood vessels stronger and more elastic, which helps them resist the effects of any stress-produced chemicals that don’t get used up.

Stress often produces excessively tense muscles, particularly in the neck, shoulders and calves. Exercise can help loosen those up, both as part of a general warm-up period and during the main workout. At the same time, those muscles are getting strengthened and infused with fresh, highly oxygenated blood. Lowering ‘bad’ cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood helps improve the circulatory system, too. A beneficial effect all the way around.

There are psychological benefits from a regular exercise routine that help eliminate stress, as well. Focusing on the routine at hand takes away the conscious focus from the stress initiators. It’s difficult to concentrate on that unreasonable boss and his unfair actions that morning when you’re working your way around the weight stations.

Those effects also help give the mind a chance to bring about homeostasis. That’s a feedback mechanism within the body that brings it back to a state of equilibrium from any extreme. A strenuous workout takes the mind off problems, giving that system time to function without continuing to overload it.

Other psychological benefits follow from a regular workout. Improving overall health and fitness helps produce self-confidence. When you look good, you often feel good. Beyond that, it helps you realize that you are exerting effort to improve your mind and body. That serves to overcome the feelings of helplessness and resultant passivity that so often accompany stress.

Sometimes, just getting out of the house or away from work for a vigorous walk can do wonders. But a good workout of at least half an hour’s duration three to five times per week is ideal. You’ll find stress levels will be lowered and your overall mood will elevate very quickly.

Stress Relief Tips - simple and cheap

July 26th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

The simplest stress relief tips are the best: go for a ten-minute walk in the middle of the day, or spend half an hour swimming after work - exercise relieves stress because it burns off the stress hormones which accumulate in your system.

Here are some simple and cheap stress relief tips:

Breathe!

Learn to breathe with your entire lung capacity. The easiest way to discover the art of breathing is through yoga: pranayama (breathing) is incorporated into even the simplest yoga exercise.

A fast walk gets you breathing too, as does any form of exercise. You have to breathe when you exercise, right?  It may seem like a no-brainer, but breathing the right way is a major component to effective exercising, whether it is yoga or running.  A good night’s sleep is the most obvious stress reliever we know, and learning to meditate effectively can help achieve some wonderful sleep.       

You shouldn’t have to work at relieving stress, and that is one reason why so many of us look for ways other than exercise when searching for stress relief tips. 

Some other common internet stress relief tips are simply listening to music and burning aromatherapy candles.  There’s nothing like doing nothing, and nothing is more relaxing than listening to soft music with the scent of candles in the air. 

With the speed at which the world moves, we can never truly relax, but we can hope to find a little relaxation and relief from the stress of our lives with the help of some useful stress relief tips. 

Copyright © 2007 Just Stress Relief

Credits: Try Yoga For Stress Relief: Easy Fab Yoga | Matteo Turchetto | Andreas Viklund

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