Manage Stress

Stress and tension are part of most people lives and threaten your health in many ways. Stress can come in the form of accidents, financial difficulties, problems at work, family issues, and poor health. The way to manage stress has a lot to do with your mental, emotional, and physical health. The following are some ways that you can manage the stress in your life:

* Understand where your stress is coming from.
* Take a close look at your life and see where you can make changes whether it be at work, at home, or your health.
* Find ways to relax such as massage, deep breathing, meditation, or yoga.
* Incorporate physical activity into your lifestyle.
* Practice time management. Put your tasks into a priority list. When you make your list take into account yourself, your family, and your job. Using a check list will give you satisfaction when you complete a task.
* Eat a healthy and balanced diet. Avoid sugar, fats, tobacco, caffeine, and alcohol as all of these items will put a strain on the way your body copes with stress.
* Make sure that you get enough sleep and rest.
* Talk with someone if there are things that are bothering you. This can include friends, family, professional counselors, and support groups.
* Get out there and volunteer! Helping others can give you a sense of purpose.
* Take some personal time. This can include reading a book, watching a movie, listening to music, or any other personal time that you enjoy.
* Practice anger management. If you feel that you have problems dealing with you anger find a support group that you can join.
* Take a vacation, no matter how short a time you can afford to get away.
* Don’t take on too many tasks at one time. Learn to pace yourself.
* Don’t try to be perfect in everything that you do.
* Try not to be too critical of others.
* Laugh whenever you can, even at yourself now and then.

When your body is under stress the tension will often accumulate in your neck and jaw. Take a few minutes to gently and slowly move your head from one side to the other and then from front to back, moving in a slow circle.

Set small and smart goals for yourself and then work carefully and realistically towards achieving them. Keep in mind that unrealistic goals never seem to be reached and this can add to your stress level. Try to set just goal for yourself this week by using the SMART approach:

* SPECIFIC: Pick one small goal and write it down.
* MEASURABLE: Can you count it or check it off a list?
* ACHIEVABLE: Is it realistic? If not, make it smaller.
* REWARDED: Reward yourself when you reach your goal.
* TIME-LIMITED: Set a specific, realistic date to finish or achieve your goal.

Laugh at stress. Laughter is your body's natural stress-release mechanism. Rent your favorite funny movie or record a TV show that you know makes you laugh. You can keep the recording on hand for those stress emergencies. Go to the library and borrow a book that you know will make you laugh. Or read the daily comics in the newspaper.

Another good way to deal with stress is to walk away from it all instead of sitting down for another cup of coffee on your coffee break, lunch hour or when you are sitting at home. A short stress-relieving and energizing walk will help you cope with immediate stress by giving you a chance to step back and think about something else for a few minutes. And the exercise will do you good! Consider starting a walking club at work so that you can have company while you walk during your lunch hour.

Alexander Technique

In Alexander Technique lessons, teachers work on the whole body to help eliminate harmful postural habits and revive natural poise. But when the client arrives for their session, it is usual that they have a specific ailment or reason for coming, be it neck tension, aching knees, general stiffness, or to reduce stress. If the client complains of aching knees, it is very unlikely that much of the session will be devoted to their knees, as this condition is only a small (albeit painful) symptom of an overall condition in their whole body. In almost every case they will work on their neck tension, head balance and overall posture as much as the specific area in question.

This is because every part of us is actually not a separate bit, but an extension or part of the 'whole'. We are not a collection of parts. We only name them to help identification, but in reality the muscles, tendons and ligament of our posture all interconnect, overlay and are pretty much inseparable. And if we did manage to separate them.....and this is the main point......they would be completely useless without the support and integration with the whole.

Our body and mind works as a whole. Take any task you like and see if you can identify it as either entirely physical or mental. Is skiing a purely physical task, or horse riding, walking or writing a letter? Our musculature couldn't operate without the control and guidance of our brain which in turn fires the muscle spindles and circulates oxygenated blood. And is calculating an arithmetical problem a purely mental activity? We couldn't do that without sufficient blood pumped from our heart and loaded with fresh oxygen from our breathing lungs. All activities are both mental and physical; without either we die. Our emotions are just as inextricably connected to every cell in our body.