Learn A Stress Management Technique |
We all experience stress. It is everywhere. You can not escape from stress. So, you must learn to cope with stress with daily relaxation techniques, a personal exercise program, pertinent life style changes, a healthy diet, a full-body relaxation massage, good sleep habits, and appropriate nutritional supplements.
It is important for you to know more about stress in general before I discuss the stress management techniques.
Stressors are physical, emotional, or environmental. Stress management techniques are effective with each of these stressors.
- Physical stressors include hard labor, too much weight, extreme temperatures, noise, and disease.
- Emotional stressors include financial problems, traffic, and hectic schedule.
- Environmental stressors include pollution, artificial foods, chemicals, and toxins.
God designed our bodies to handle these stressors with the fight-or-flight response. When you mind perceives danger, a series of hormones are released and you experience stress symptoms.
First, the hypothalamus sends corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) to the pituitary. Then, the pituitary releases adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) into the blood stream. The adrenals pick up the ACTH and release epinephrine and cortisol.
Epinephrine and cortisol cause changes in your body so that you can fight or flee from the stressor.
- Blood is diverted from the digestive system and directed to the muscles
- Heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure increases
- Digestive system activity decreases
- Blood sugar increases to provide energy to the muscles and brain
- Blood clotting factors are released in case of injury
- Pupils dilate and become more vigilant
- Concentration and alertness intensifies
Your body is primed to protect itself which is great if you are facing a real danger, like a saber-tooth tiger. However, the same response occurs even if the stressor is not actually a threat to survival, like a hectic schedule.
Your body returns to normal after the perceived danger has passed. However, if the stressor never goes away or repeated stressors are experience, your body remains in a hyper vigilant state. Then, you need a stress relaxation technique.
Excessive stress is bad news. You may experience a multitude of signs and symptoms from constant exposure to stressors.
- Energy: fatigue, insomnia
- Cardiovascular: chest pain, palpitations, high blood pressure, cold hands and feet, light-headedness upon rising quickly
- Respiratory: shortness of breath
- Gastrointestinal: constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, reflux
- Endocrine: low blood sugar, high blood sugar
- Nervous: memory loss, poor concentration, dizziness
- Skin: rashes, acne
- Psychological: anger, fear, irritability, anxious, depressed, mood swings, behavioral changes
These signs and symptoms of excessive stress result in tons of free radicals and inflammatory mediators. Uncontrolled free radicals and inflammation damage your entire body. You will first notice the damage in areas where you are genetically predisposed.
For example, you may be diagnosed with heart disease, Crohn's Disease, asthma, allergies, arthritis, hypertension, depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, diabetes, cancer, or many other diseases. These diseases are only signs of underlying problems, such as excessive stress.
Eventually, too much stress totally exhausts your adrenal glands leading to death. Not good!
So, what do you do?
You choose a stress management technique!
These stress management techniques reset the stress response back to neutral, and minimize stress-related signs, symptoms, and diseases.
Dr. Herbert Bensen calls this process the relaxation response which is so effective that he wrote a book called (you guessed it!) “The Relaxation Response”.
Many of the following relaxation exercises are discussed more fully in this book.
The first stress management technique involves a simple breathing exercise.
Find a comfortable position in comfortable clothes. Slowly inhale deeply while allowing your abdomen to rise. Then, slowly exhale completely by contracting your abdominal muscles to push air out.
Let all distracting thoughts leave your mind so that your mind is still and your body is relaxed. If a thought will not leave, just jot yourself a note and get back to your relaxation.
Concentrate on each breath. Keep your shoulders lowered. Do not judge yourself or your performance.
The next method stress management technique is called guided imagery.Start with the breathing exercises.
Then, imagine yourself in an ideal place of physical and mental relaxation. Sense everything in this peaceful environment. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you taste? What do you hear? What do you smell?
The third stress management technique is called progressive relaxation.
Again, start with the breathing exercises.
Systematically contract and then relax each of your muscle groups. Start with your face and neck, followed by upper arms and chest, then lower arms and hands, and continuing with abdomen, buttocks, thighs, and lower legs and feet successively. Concentrate completely on each muscle group.
The meditation relaxation technique is last. Christians often refer to this method as prayer.
Just as before, start with the breathing exercises.
Focus your attention on an object or sound or word or thought or scripture. Really concentrate on your point of focus. Empty your mind of all thoughts. Listen for that still small voice. Let everything else fade away.
Any of the above stress management techniques should be practiced daily for at least 15 minutes for maximal effectiveness.
Relaxation music may be helpful. Various cassette and CD tapes are available to help you realize the benefits of meditation, guided imagery and progressive relaxation.
What else can you do?
More stress management techniques!
Exercise has terrific benefits including a way to use up the excessive stress hormones leaving you with less tension. I believe that everyone should follow a personal exercise program. Walking is my favorite exercise for stress reduction.
A full-body relaxation massage by a licensed massage therapist is also an excellent way to dissipate muscular tension, increase circulation, and improve lymphatic circulation. Make sure to drink plenty of water before and after you massage in order to better clear toxins from your lymphatic fluid.
A healthy diet is a great way to manage stress by giving your body the nutrients that it desperately needs. Unhealthy diets actually cause additional physical stress in your body.
However, it is really hard to get plenty of essential nutrients to combat stress from diet alone anymore. Therefore, whole food supplementation is a vital stress management technique.
Perhaps you need to make some lifestyle changes. Prayerfully consider whether you should change careers, reduce activities, and minimize other commitments.
Personally, I closed my traditional medical practice, and set up a home health consultation business with a home herb store so I could homeschool my kids. My stress levels have greatly decreased.
Caffeine and sugar over stimulate the adrenal glands and push the adrenal glands closer to exhaustion. Even though they seem to be helpful at the time, they are actually detrimental over the long term. Therefore, you really need to avoid caffeine and sugar.
Instead, you need to support your adrenal glands with a product containing New Zealand adrenal gland, vitamin C, thiamine mononitate, riboflavin phosphates, pyridoxal-5-phosphate, d-calcium pantothenate, magnesium citrate, potassium citrate, schizandra fruit, licorice, and borage oil. Nourishing your adrenal glands will allow them to work much better when you really need them.
You also need to fight the free radicals with a powerful antioxidant supplement. You do not want just a few antioxidants in a fragmented synthetic supplement. No! You want an antioxidant supplement with a variety of fruits specially formulated to have a high Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) number. And you want it to taste great!
Finally, you need to combat the inflammation with essential omega 3 fatty acids. Jack Challem has shown how inflammatory disease can be minimized with these important nutrients in his book, “The Inflammation Syndrome.”
All of these stress management techniques work together to minimize the effects of excessive stress.
So, choose breathing exercises, guided imagery, progressive relaxation, or meditation/prayer.
Change your life style.
Consider a full-body relaxation massage.
Stop caffeine and sugar.
Add exercise, adrenal support, antioxidants, and omega 3 fatty acids.
These stress management techniques may save your life!
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