In this chapter, I will tell you how important it is to be stress free for a healthier life.

• Stress relief
• Relaxation techniques
• Progressive relaxation
• Breathing relaxation
• Yoga and other relaxing exercises

Tension

Stress is a normal psychological response of your body to ever increasing and ever demanding life. These days, our life is so tough that we have to suffer from stress and anxiety almost every day. According to a survey most Americans go through stress and anxiety at some point during the year.

There are endless reasons for this stress but your need to know that our brain is a very delicate part of our body and whenever it faces a situation which it cannot consume or solve, it releases a response for the whole body to release hormones which control that situation.

Unfortunately these days, this call for hormones is coming too often throughout the year and ultimately, you cannot feel the relaxed state which comes after the release of hormones.

To ensure that you do reach that relaxed state, you need to make sure that you are going through proper stress management. If you do not do anything about your stress, your body may never find that relaxed state; this can also lead to developing fatal diseases.

Stress Relief

These days, almost everyone is stressed out and there are endless reasons behind stress, you need to do proper stress management to make your life better and peaceful.

There is a very reliable procedure for stress relief in which at first you have to identify your stress trigger. This trigger can be of any type. Usual triggers are relationship pressure, financial losses, family pressure and other similar things.

Positive events can also trigger stress. For example if you are married and you started a new job and bought a new house in a single year, you can be stressed out due to too much attention and financial pressure.

Negative events are always bigger causes of stress but once you have identified your right stress trigger, you can to rectify that triggering point.

Sometimes removing these triggers can be as easy as turning off your TV when evening news are too stressful, but sometimes it can be difficult enough to make you feel really bad.

There are different stress relief strategies being implemented by people and you can try more than one strategy and see the results on yourself. Most of these strategies are natural and do not involve much medication but some can require you to take some mild medication.

Relaxation Techniques

Relaxation techniques are a very effective method to rectify stress from your life.

There are lots of relaxation techniques available and here are some of the most popular ones.

Progressive Relaxation

This is very common and very effective types of relaxation techniques. You do not need to go to a professional therapist for this technique and it can implemented at home. You just need to relax in your bed, sofa or couch wherever you feel most relaxed.

Lie down, close your eyes, experience all the stressful thoughts you have, then try to make them go from your mind. Concentrate hard on your present state and try to relax as much as you can. Inhale and exhale longer breaths and make sure that you have no distraction around, like kids, TV or any other thing. Do this for more than 10 minutes and after doing this, you will feel pretty relaxed and calm.

Breathing Relaxation

There are lots of breathing techniques which are also known as relaxation techniques but these techniques are little difficult to learn you need to consult a professional therapist to learn them. You just need 2-3 sessions with your therapist to learn these breathing and relaxation exercises. Once you learn them, you will feel a very positive change in your stress level and you will be able to control your stress and anxiety.

Yoga and Other Relaxing Exercises

There are physical exercises which can also help you to relax. If you start practicing yoga, you will find that these exercises give you control over your emotions and feeling too. To learn these exercises, it is important that you find a professional trainer who can guide you through the right methods, because doing them improperly will not give you much benefit and will be just a waste of your time and money.

Some Unorthodox Techniques

If you find all of the above techniques and exercise plans boring and hard, you need to turn towards more unorthodox exercise and relaxation plans.

Massaging is a very important and very effective relaxation therapy which can get rid of all your tension and stress.

There are different massaging techniques which you can apply but you should avoid doing it too often and have them just once or twice in a month. Other than massaging, if you have too much stress and still do not know any way out of that state of stress and anxiety, you should go for some more special professional therapies like psychotherapy.

There are negative preconceptions about psychotherapy but you should know that it is totally harmless and is just for mental and stress control. All of the above mentioned methods are effective and they are proved to be effective because hundreds and thousands of people have tried them and found positive results out of them.

If you have tried one of these methods and have not found the required result then, this means that particular method was not suited to your needs and you need to adopt another one. Don't give up too easily. Every method has certain limitations and certain methods are only suited to specific cases. You should give the choice of method to your doctor or therapist because they will analyze your problem more deeply and will prescribe the most suitable method.

Excerpted from the book Health and Fitness 101

This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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