Chill Out
There’s no medical definition of stress and health care professionals often disagree over whether stress is the cause or the result of your problems. This can make it difficult for you to work out what causes your feelings and how to deal with them.
To effectively combat stress, you need to activate your body’s natural relaxation response. Techniques such as deep breathing, meditation and yoga can all help. Everyone is different and what works for you won’t necessarily work for someone else. I’ve drafted up some ideas below and hopefully some of them may apply to you.
Put Your Feet Up
Relaxing is an important part of looking after your mental health. Hubby can often be found relaxing and listening to whale music. I’m not even joking! There are some excellent ‘chill out’ style playlists online and if you’ve shopped around for the best broadband and TV deals your streaming should be stress free too!
We recently changed our broadband and TV deal and it’s amazing the difference it has made to the household stress levels! First world problems, ha! It now means we are all able to stream on our individual devices without fighting over who’s buffering and who isn’t. We’re also able to watch a whole host of family movies together on the ‘big telly’ too.
As well as some great relaxing playlists, try watching some relevant programmes too. Things like Planet Earth are amazing to watch so ditch the soaps for a change. I’m also a fan of mindless TV. By this I mean programmes and movies that require very little concentration. There’s nothing like a silly comedy movie for requiring very little attention and concentration. They can also put you in a relaxed, happy mood too.
Yoga
Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that focuses on strength, flexibility and breathing to boost physical and mental wellbeing. The main components of yoga are postures, which have huge physical benefits such as:
- Increased flexibility
- Increased muscle strength and tone
- Improved respiration, energy and vitality
- Maintaining a balanced metabolism
- Weight reduction. cardio and circulatory health
- Improved athletic performance
- Protection from injury
At David Lloyd Clubs they run a huge range of holistic classes, including many different yoga sessions. Take it from me, they’re great!
Deep Breathing
With its focus on full, cleansing breaths, deep breathing is a simple yet powerful relaxation technique. Deep breathing is the foundation of many practices and can be combined with other relaxing elements such as aromatherapy and music. Here’s a great article all about breathing techniques.
Advantages of deep breathing exercises include:
- Natural painkiller
- Improves blood flow
- Increases energy level
- Improves posture
- Reduces inflammation
- It detoxifies the body
- Stimulates lymphatic system
- Improves digestion
Meditation
Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness (or focusing their mind on a particular object, thought or activity) to train and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state.
Here’s a simple meditation guide for beginners:
- Sit or lie comfortably. You may want to invest in a meditation chair or cushion
- Close your eyes
- Make no effort to control the breath; simply breathe naturally
- Focus your attention on the breath and on how the body moves with each inhalation and exhalation
Hopefully some of the techniques above will arm you with what’s needed. Try not to sweat the small stuff and when stress does come your way, you’ll be much more prepared to cope.
