Stress Relief with Relaxation Techniques
Feeling stressed? You have plenty of company. Almost everyone runs into stress at one point or another. The American Institute of Stress (2014) found that roughly 80% of people report stress at work. That makes sense when you consider what stress actually is: a normal response to situations that feel overwhelming, hard, or just too much to handle.
Lawrence Robinson, Robert Segal, M.A., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., who wrote the HelpGuide.org piece "Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief," describe stress as something woven into life for a reason. It pushes creativity, prompts action, drives learning, and in some cases keeps us alive. Their view is that stress can actually be good for you. The trouble starts only when it takes over and keeps you from functioning the way you normally would. Either way, the good kind and the bad kind, you cannot sidestep it entirely.
The Mayo Clinic (2014) points out that relaxation techniques give you a way to handle both the daily pressures and the physical toll stress puts on your body. If you have been wondering what the symptoms of anxiety and stress look like, what to do about them, and how to keep them from piling up, or if people close to you are asking the same thing, the ideas below can point you somewhere useful.
No single method works for everyone. A technique that calms one person down might do nothing for the next. When you are picking one, think about your own needs, any health conditions you have, what you actually enjoy, and your fitness level. Pay attention to how you tend to react when things get tense. The methods that stick are the ones that fit the way you already live and that help you settle down and refocus in a hard moment. You can also mix and match or rotate between a few of them to get more out of it.
One place to start is simply unwinding. Drape a warm neck wrap around your neck and leave it there for ten to fifteen minutes. Shut your eyes and let the muscles in your face, neck, chest, and back go slack. While you sit with the wrap on, put a tennis ball under one foot and roll it slowly back and forth along the arch. Tension tends to collect in the feet, neck, and back, and that rolling motion works it loose. Give each foot a good fifteen minutes. After that, sit with your back against a wall, wedge the ball between your spine and the wall, and lean into it for about five minutes, rolling it the same way if you can. Move it to whatever muscles feel knotted and repeat. Keep going until the tightness lets up.
Then there is laughing. When did you last really laugh? If you cannot pin down the moment, that is worth fixing, because a good laugh does more than lift your mood. It bumps up endorphin production, the brain chemical tied to how you feel, and it dials down cortisol, the hormone behind the stress response. Put on a comedy, flip through the comics, call the friend who never takes anything too seriously, or pick up a book or magazine that cracks you up. Figure out what gets you going and go looking for it when the pressure builds.
Movement helps too. Jeannette Moninger, writing for WebMD in "10 Relaxation Techniques That Zap Stress Fast," describes exercise as a reliable way to shed stress and feel better, and it keeps you healthy and limber on top of that. You do not need to log ten miles. Almost any kind of activity counts. Yoga and walking, for instance, can ease symptoms of depression and anxiety by nudging those feel-good chemicals into your system so your brain and body can ride out the pressure. Take a brisk loop around the block or the office during lunch, choose the stairs over the elevator, park farther from the store and walk in, join a gym, go for a jog, or run through some stretches and yoga poses a few times a day, shoulder shrugs and neck rolls included.
Music is another lever. Turning it up can genuinely shift your mood for the better. The trick is landing on the right kind for you, whether that means something inspiring, playful, soothing, or energizing. If fast songs loosen you up, go with those. If soft R&B, classical, jazz, or instrumental tracks calm you more, reach for those instead. Moninger (2014) notes that listening can slow your heart rate, bring down blood pressure, and quiet anxiety. Build a playlist of the songs that steady you and lift your spirits, and think about folding in nature sounds (birdsong, ocean waves, wind, a trickling stream) to help settle your mind.
Last, and maybe the one that matters most, is gratitude. Taking stock of what you have done and what you have (your friends, your family, your job, the chances that have come your way) is one of the surest ways to pull yourself out of a stressed state. Keep your attention on what is going right rather than what is going wrong. Everybody has something to be thankful for. When stress makes that hard to see, write out a list of the good things in your life ahead of time and reach for it when you feel low, anxious, or stuck. Reading it back gives you a chance to size up the situation again and remember it could be worse.
- Dr. R. Y. Langham