Occasionally I share techniques that I use for myself to deal with stressful or difficult periods with those that ask me for ideas. I decided it would be a good blog post/series. Before proceeding, I’d like to emphasize that I am not offering medical advice. I am only sharing things that I do for myself, which may not be appropriate for your situation. Please seek out a professional practitioner whenever necessary.
Here is my list:
>Yoga
>Walking in Nature
>Writing
>Exercise
>Music
I’ll elaborate a bit on the first 2 from my list and cover the rest in future posts.
Yoga
I have already shared my discovery of how Yoga helps to improve my mood and reduce my level of stress. Turns out, there is a reason why. According to this article, “Yoga regulates the vagus nerve that deals with your body’s mood and stress levels.” I don’t have to make myself into a pretzel to get the benefits of yoga, and I can reap the benefits even if all I have is 5-10 minutes in the morning. A quick cautionary comment about Yoga inversions – which is any pose where your head is below your heart – You should avoid inversion poses in Yoga if you have high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, glaucoma, or any other condition listed in this article’s Risks of yoga inversion section. Actually, when in doubt, always check with your doctor.
Walking in Nature
I find walking in a park, forest, arboretum, etc. to be very therapeutic. In this setting my body just relaxes. I am able to get anything I need by doing this. Whether I am upset, or happy, or need to make a decision, or need to grieve, or let go of something, this is one of my go to activities. Recently there has been a lot of talk about Forest Bathing or Shinrin- yoku which is a Japanese term that “means bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses.” They have done numerous studies and determined that there are many health benefits as a result of doing this.
I continued this series in Relaxing – Part 2. Some of the stress relief techniques in my list above already link to it, but do check it out if you haven’t already. 😉
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