Learning how to relax

Easy Ways to Relax, Recharge, and Vanquish Stress

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There’s no doubt that today’s modern lifestyle can be stressful. Between work, family, and social obligations, it can be hard to make time for yourself. But it’s important to find the time.

Relaxing can help keep you healthy, in both your body and mind, helping you recover from the everyday stresses that life throws at you. Luckily, no matter how busy you are, it’s simple to learn how to create time for chilling and also how to best relax.

When it comes to relaxation strategies, the easier the better! If you can find five minutes of your day for yourself, you can easily slip in a simple relaxation strategy. Here are some easy ways to help relax:

Breathe it out. Breathing exercises are one of the simplest relaxation strategies, and can effectively calm your stressed-out body and mind anywhere at any time. Sit or lay down in a quiet and safe place such as on your bed or the floor in your home and put one of your hands on your belly. Breathe in to a slow count of three, and then breathe out to the same slow count of three. Feel your belly rise and fall as you breathe in and out. Repeat five times, or as long as you need to feel relaxed.
Release physical tension. When we feel mentally stressed, we often feel physically stressed as well. Releasing any physical tension can help relieve stress in your body and mind. Lay on a soft surface, such as your bed, a carpet, or a yoga mat. Tense up one part of your body at a time, and then slowly release your muscles. As you do this, notice how your body sensations change. Many people start either with the muscles in their face or those their toes, and then work their way through the muscles across their bodies to the opposite end. Shop for a yoga mat
Write down your thoughts. Getting things off your mind by writing them down may help you relax. When you feel stressed, take a few minutes to write down some short notes about how you’re feeling or how your day is going. You might do this in a notebook or in a notes app on your smartphone. Don’t worry about being poetic or spelling everything correctly. Just focus on expressing yourself to help release some of your stress. Shop for a journal
Make a list. Making a list about what you’re grateful for can help some people feel relaxed. Experts say that when we’re stressed, we tend to focus on the negative parts of life rather than the positive. Thinking about the positive parts of your life and writing them down may help you chill out. Try to think of three good things that happened to you today and write them down, even if they’re small things like getting to work on time or eating a delicious lunch. Shop for a gratitude book
Visualize your calm. Have you ever heard the expression “find your happy place”? Sit in a quiet and safe place, such as your bedroom, and begin to think about a place in the world where you feel most calm. Close your eyes and imagine all the details linked to that place: the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile feelings. For example, if you think of the beach, you might imagine calm waves, the sound of children playing in the sand, the smell of sunscreen, the taste of cool ice cream and the feel of gritty sand under your feet. The more you get into your visualization, the more you can relax.
Connect to nature. Spending just a few minutes in nature when you feel stressed may help you relax. When you’re feeling stressed, take a step outside and go for a short walk, or simply sit in nature. But you don’t necessarily need to be in nature to feel its stress-reducing effects. Scientists have found that simply looking at images of nature with greenery for five minutes on a computer screen can help calm you down. So, thanks to technology, even people living and working in big cities far from nature can still experience its calming effects. Shop for nature sounds

Relaxation isn’t just for adults: It’s important for kids and teens too. If you sense your child needs to relax, help him or her through these exercises. Better yet, get involved in these easy relaxation exercises with your child. This can help encourage self-regulation and relaxing behavior in your child.

There are many benefits to keeping your brain and body relaxed. Relaxation balances out the negative mental and physical effects of stress that we all experience every day.

Positive effects of relaxation
the ability to think more clearly and make better decisions
the power to better resist future stressors
a more positive outlook on life and your experiences
a healthier body, with a slower breathing rate, more relaxed muscles, and reduced blood pressure
a reduced risk of heart attack, autoimmune disease, mental health disorders, and other stress-related illnesses

Children who are encouraged to take up relaxing behaviors tend to be better focused and have an easier time learning than children who are more stressed. They may also be more cooperative and experience fewer social and behavioral issues in school.

Stress is a part of everyday life. It can be a helpful thing that motivates people to act, and can even save your life in a dangerous situation. Most stresses we experience are small, like getting caught in traffic on the way to a party or losing an earring on the train to work.

The same helpful “fight-or-flight” instincts we get from these small stressful events in our life can backfire on us if we don’t take time to relax. Relaxation doesn’t just feel good, it’s also important for good health.

Stress from work, family, social obligations, and even exercise will wear you out over time if you don’t set aside time to relax. Some of the negative effects of not relaxing enough include:

Risks of too much stress
frequent headaches and pain throughout the body
sleeping problems, such as insomnia or nightmares
forgetfulness and confusion
chest pain and heart problems
stress-related illness
increased or decreased appetite, often with weight gain or loss
social isolation and loneliness
increased use of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol
crying spells and feelings of depression, sometimes with thoughts of suicide
loss of interest in punctuality and appearance
increased irritability and overreaction to small annoyances
poor performance at work or in school

Stress may be a universal part of life, but that doesn’t mean you should let it get the best of you. Take charge and control your stress by learning how to relax.

Reach for a simple relaxation exercise when you feel stressed, and encourage your child to do the same if you notice they’re feeling stressed out. Even if you don’t feel very stressed, practicing relaxation exercises daily can be a good preventative measure for keeping stress away in the first place.

If relaxation exercises are not helping reduce your stress, you should seek the help of a mental health professional. They’ll be able to recommend a specific treatment plan suited to your needs.

Call 911 or the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) if you’re having thoughts of suicide.

‘Learning to relax can be life-changing’: how to find your comfort zone | Health & wellbeing

How do you like to kick back, chill out and really relax? This sounds as if it should be a simple question. But I can’t be alone in having spent several evenings over the past couple of weeks slumped on the sofa, “watching TV” while my eyes flicker across Twitter and Facebook, as well as five different WhatsApp groups on my phone.

Relaxing is increasingly difficult in our always-on digital world. This first struck me a couple of years ago when I had to stop exercising after an injury. Exercise had always been my go-to “me-time” activity, and without it I felt totally lost. I recently started again, but having only one means to de-stress now feels very limited and I am not even sure it counts as relaxing – it is quite hard work, and inherently competitive. When I find myself at home with a free evening, I often have no idea what to do and inevitably end up staring emptily at one screen or another for hours, before stumbling off to bed, wondering where the time has gone.

This seems to be a common problem. The actor Diane Keaton told More magazine: “I wouldn’t know what to do with a week off,” while the musician Gwen Stefani told Stylist that whenever she has any downtime, she feels as if she is “panicking a bit or trying to plan the next thing”. Elon Musk, when asked what he usually does after work, said: “Usually work more” – which does not seem to be turning out well for him.

The need for some simple source of relaxation can be seen in the initial surge in popularity of the adult colouring book, as well as last year’s 13.3% increase in sales of books providing spiritual guidance on how to live in a hectic world, and the mindfulness “mega trend” seen in Headspace, the meditation app that has been downloaded more than 15m times. Those of us who spent our money on these products were presumably searching for answers to some of the same questions – and many of us are still looking. The bottom has now dropped out of the colouring book market, with Forbes declaring it “dead” in May, and, in June last year, Headspace laid off 13 staff members.

According to a report by Ofcom this summer: “Most people in the UK are dependent on their digital devices and need a constant connection to the internet.” It found that 78% of us now own a smartphone – rising to 95% of 16- to 24-year-olds. We check these phones on average every 12 minutes of our waking lives, with 54% of us feeling that the devices interrupt our conversations with friends and family, and 43% of us feeling that we spend too much time online. We can’t relax with them, and we don’t know how to relax without them. Seven in 10 of us never turn them off.

The clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she sees the problem every day in her consulting room, and it is getting worse. “I’ve noticed a rise in my practice, certainly over the last three to five years, of people finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax. And it’s across the lifespan, from age 12 to 70,” she says. The same issues come up again and again: technology, phones, work emails and social media.

Kicking back in front of one screen or another does have its place, says Andrew – but it depends how you do it. “Sometimes people describe not being engaged in what they’re looking at – totally zoning out, not knowing what they’ve done for the last half-hour,” she says. “You can view this almost as dissociation, periods of time when your mind is so exhausted and overwhelmed it takes itself out of the situation. That’s unlikely to be nourishing in any way. ” Maybe that is why, after I have spent an evening staring emptily at Twitter, or dropping off in front of the TV – less Netflix and chill, more Netflix and nap – I wake up feeling as if I have eaten a load of junk food. I have confused feeling brain-dead with feeling relaxed.

The psychoanalyst David Morgan, of the Institute of Psychoanalysis, believes that for many of us this deadening retreat to our screens is both a reason for and a consequence of the fact that we no longer know how to relax and enjoy ourselves. Our screens and what we use them for are all techniques of distraction, he says. “People have got so used to looking for distraction that they actually cannot stand an evening with themselves. It is a way of not seeing oneself, because to have insight into oneself requires mental space, and all these distraction techniques are used as a way of avoiding getting close to the self.”

Some of her patients, Andrew explains, simply never get around to thinking about how they want to spend their time. “People say they are so busy doing the ‘shoulds’,” she says – whether that is working, caring for family or being a part of demanding friendships – that by the time an evening or weekend comes around when they might do what they want, there is no energy or motivation left for anything but “flopping out”. She adds: “That’s a difficulty – because how is life enjoyable or satisfying in the long term if you’re only doing what you should do the whole time?”

For others, the notion of being in touch with their own needs and desires is totally alien, says Andrew. People who grew up in a family environment that centred around the needs of a sibling or a parent might have spent their whole lives never being asked about what they wanted to do. “It might genuinely be something they’ve never considered before,” she says. For those people, identifying something they might find enjoyably relaxing, and pursuing it, can be a huge, life-changing shift. “It can be quite dramatic.”

Another problem is that it can be tricky to untangle our own wishes from those of the people around us, says Nina Grunfeld, the founder of Life Clubs, an organisation that aims to help people live more fulfilling lives. It can take a lot of effort to discover where your enjoyment ends and your partner’s begins. “When my husband and I were young,” she says, “we went to Rome on holiday, and he wanted to go to every church, every restaurant, every everything. And I got home completely shattered. It was only after coming to know myself, after thinking about my life without him and what I like as an individual, that I realised that for me to enjoy a holiday and to come back feeling relaxed and refreshed, I need to read and be still. Now we’ll go on holiday and he goes off to do the churches by himself, but I’m very happy just lying by the beach, pool or fire and reading. It’s a real treat. I might join him for the restaurants, though.”

Speaking to Grunfeld and Andrew, and hearing their advice (see ) on how to identify different occupations that might relax and reinvigorate me, I begin to feel optimistic. I think back to how I liked to pass the time when I was young; the quiet times sitting reading a book, the rowdier times baking with friends. I resolve to make more time to do the adult versions of these things over the next year – then realise I am making excuses. If I could redirect the evenings I am already wasting on screens, that would be a good start.

The fact is, I do already do all those ideal things occasionally, but sometimes it feels as if being in the world is too much, and I need to disappear from it by losing myself in a screen. It is as if I crave that brain-dead feeling, even though I know it isn’t good for me. Having psychoanalytic psychotherapy is helping me to think about the reasons why I might do this – and for Morgan, therapy can be an important pathway out of being stuck in a screen-gazing rut, because it is somewhere a person is encouraged to use his or her mind. “The therapeutic space is the opposite of distraction – it’s concentration,” he says. “When people come into my consulting room, they often tell me it’s the first time they have ever felt they have had a space where they can’t run away from things. ”

I have found that not running away from things, but confronting them and reflecting on them, can feel as exhausting as the running itself. It is difficult, disturbing work. But in a room with someone who can listen and help me to make sense of things, it can also be a relief. Morgan tells me: “We have all these various ways of distracting ourselves from the most important fact of life – that we live, and then we die. Having a mind to help you think about things, having a person who can think deeply about things with you, is a way to manage this very frightening fact of life.”

The flip side of that frightening fact is, of course, the realisation that since we don’t have much time on this planet, it is a shame to waste any of it voluntarily making ourselves brain-dead.

If you are spending time with family or friends over the festive period, Nina Grunfeld recommends assigning each person one hour in which they are in charge of the group’s schedule, when they can choose whichever activity they consider most relaxing. “One of my children might decide we all have to play a video game; another will decide we are all going for a walk; another will make us all bake cakes. That way you all get a bit of ‘me-time’, and you can experience someone else’s – and it’s very relaxing not having to make decisions for the whole day,” she says.

Try to remember what you most enjoyed doing as a child, then identify the most important aspect of that activity and find the adult version. Grunfeld says: “It might be that you can’t remember, and you have to ask friends or family, or look at old photo albums. There are normally themes in all of our lives, and if we’re missing those themes as an adult, it’s almost as if we’re not a whole person.” If you loved playing in the sandpit, you might want to try pottery, or if you liked building things, you might want to make bread.

Experiment with looking at the world in a new way. “Allow yourself to explore. Just walk around wherever you are and see what you can find that is completely new. Try to get lost – whenever you get to a turning, ask yourself do you want to go left or right, and see where you end up,” says Grunfeld.

If you have no idea how to start relaxing, look at the science, says Rachel Andrew. “There is a growing body of research to suggest being out in nature is uplifting and nourishing.”

How to relax and calm down, effective ways - MyGenetics Blog

How often have you caught yourself thinking that you are tired and cannot fully relax even on weekends? Most likely, this is a consequence of constant stress and loads that the body can no longer cope on its own. To avoid overwork, you need to understand how to learn to relax psychologically and physically, without losing working capacity.

Even in the most difficult and difficult moments, being able to relax means giving yourself the opportunity and the way to build a defense against stress. This will help to get rid of many problems of modern people. Insomnia, headaches and migraines, weakening of the immune system. Each of the points is most often caused by general fatigue of the body.

To understand how to learn to relax, you need to understand the causes of stress. This will help you quickly learn to activate internal forces and be calm more often. To do this, it is not at all necessary to visit a specialist's office or expensive salons for relaxation. It is enough to understand how to negotiate with your own body.

What is the ability to relax

Often people forget how important it is to give yourself a rest. The ability to relax physically and emotionally is a useful function of the body, which can be forgotten over time. Especially if you have been under constant stress and conflict for a long time.

Internal problems cannot be resolved if you do not know how to relieve stress without resorting to the help of a psychologist. Nevertheless, there are such ways of relaxation, and there are many of them. It is enough to find a suitable option for yourself and do not forget to use it from time to time.

The ability to disengage from unpleasant surroundings and thoughts - this is the ability to relax. You can do this almost anywhere where you can retire for a few minutes. Failures, problems and other negativity will gradually recede from you.

Why am I tense

The reasons why you experience constant stress and fatigue can be very diverse. The most frequent of them are:

overload at work;
conflict situations on the street and at home;
financial difficulties and unforeseen situations;
stress from bad news;
nervous tension from constant noise;
frequent negative thoughts.

As a result, a lot of negative energy accumulates inside you. She presses not only psychologically. Instinctively, your body tries to protect itself from the influence of negativity. As a result, you get tight muscles, poor sleep and constant tension in the body.

Residents of megacities are more likely to be affected by stressful situations. This is due to the increased speed of life, which is why it is so important to be able to relax quickly without wasting precious time. Otherwise, your body will not be able to cope even with everyday activities.

How to relax properly

To combat fatigue and overexertion, it is not enough just to sleep or lie down with your favorite book. Yes, and most often it is problematic to find time for such a vacation. However, there are ways to get rid of stress in a very short time. It is easy to learn to relax during the working day. At the same time, you do not lose your efficiency and can quickly return to the ranks of your colleagues.

When there is a lot of free time, it is worth using it to the maximum in order to bounce back. So you can not only fully get rid of overload, but also teach the body to deal with stress at any time. The technique of performing actions for rest, by the way, does not require special skills and abilities. Therefore, you can safely proceed to improve your well-being and strengthen the nervous system.

Stress relaxation techniques

Do you understand that it is difficult to restrain negative emotions rushing out? This is the first sign of overwork and excessive stress. If suppressed in oneself, such manifestations can develop into depression and other mental illnesses. But you can’t openly pour out anger and fear, especially in a crowded place. There are methods to deal with piled overvoltage quickly:

Identify the cause of your stress. Understanding the cause of such an unpleasant state is the first step towards peace. Can't figure out what's really bothering you? Ask yourself the question "Why?" And for each answer, ask again “Why is that?”. This will help you get to the bottom of the true cause of the condition.
Try to remove all negative thoughts from your mind and focus on any pleasant event in your life. The more vivid the memory, the better.
Do some simple exercise. For example, jumping or waving your arms. This will help the body effectively deal with the stress hormone.
Breathe deeply. Inhale the air, filling yourself with it from the bottom up (from the stomach to the chest), and exhale vice versa, from the top down.

These simple actions will not relieve you of overload completely, but will give you the opportunity to calm down for a while. Later, at home in a calm environment, you can use a more effective method of relaxation.

How to learn to relax psychologically

Your subconscious is quite capable of coping with any load. You just need to be able to activate the defense mechanisms. Meditation and proper breathing will help you with this. It's not as difficult as it might seem.

Choose a time when you can be alone with yourself. Sit in the lotus (if you can) or half lotus position. It is important to keep your back straight so as not to prevent the lungs from being completely filled with air. Close your eyes and breathe slowly and measuredly. Try to imagine a calm, peaceful place, such as the sea or a field. Make yourself feel like a light wind is blowing in your face. It brings favorite smells, pleasant and unobtrusive.

How to relax emotionally

Most of our problems are internal. They do not allow you to fully rest and relax properly. It is very difficult to get rid of negative thoughts and emotions. However, it is very important to learn how to do this in order to ensure inner harmony and peace.

Do not look for causes of stress in your environment and try not to think badly even about the most unpleasant circumstances. Train yourself to be an optimist and find the good in everything. Got laid off at work? This is your chance to find something you love. Wet in the rain and caught a cold? So there was time to devote the day only to yourself and finally read a new book.

How to relax the body with meditation

The ability to relax completely can be obtained not only during a massage session. Although this method is undoubtedly very effective. Meditation helps to achieve the optimal balance between inner peace and relaxation of the body. This greatly increases the body's chances of resistance to the surrounding negativity.

For a full-fledged meditation, it is worth allocating at least 20 minutes a day. At this time, no one should disturb or pull you. Avoid excessive noise, but you can turn on the music. It is worth choosing calm melodies, without sharp transitions. A slow rhythm will help you better coordinate your breathing.

How to relax the brain

As you know, mental work much more often leads to exhaustion of the body than physical work. The reason is that the work of the brain involves too many nerve cells. And the longer you do not give yourself a break from the constant thought process, the stronger the impact of stress will be. You can’t overload yourself with problems and worries every day, while forgetting to rest.

How to give the brain a break from mental work, while not losing the ability to quickly respond to changing tasks? It is worth learning to protect yourself from bad thoughts. Yes, at first it is quite difficult to do this. But by practicing constantly, you will learn to let any negative thoughts pass you by without loading your brain:

Focus more on positive thoughts, or better yet, write them down.
pick up a few favorite natural fragrances and inhale them a couple of times a day for 5-6 minutes.
learn to value your opinion above someone else's, you should not depend on what people think.

Three simple steps that will successfully relax your head and relieve your brain of tension.

How to relax from stress

Faced with stress, many people are afraid of new actions and thoughts, which dooms themselves to constant fatigue. This problem needs to be solved very quickly, as it acts destructively on your subconscious. The researchers concluded that the female sex is more prone to stress than the male. Increased emotionality and a low psychological protective barrier affect.

How to relax a woman faced with stress, so as not to injure the nervous system anymore? Give yourself half an hour of rest a day. During this time, you should use breathing exercises, drink warm tea and think about your dreams. It is about dreams, not goals, which are easy to achieve with enough time and money. Every emotion you have at this moment should be filled with positivity and happiness.

Schulz method

A successful practice in dealing with stress is the Schultz complex. This professor is fully convinced that every person has a certain degree of ability to hypnosis. And with the help of it, it is quite possible to fight overwork. You need to do this in several steps.

Feel the heaviness. Lie down as comfortably as possible and close your eyes. Make yourself feel completely at peace and calm. Then focus on making the left hand feel heavy. Bend your elbow and take two deep breaths in and out. Then repeat the same, but with the right hand.
The next step is the same exercise, but with the heaviness replaced by a feeling of light warmth. It is important to really feel the mental projection.
Place your hand on your heart and confidently say in your mind that your heartbeat is even and calm. This should be repeated four times.
Control your breathing. As in the previous step, repeat in your mind that your breathing is calm and light.
Relax the abdominal muscles and feel the warmth in the solar plexus area. After a while, you will feel like you are in a hot bath.
To end the exercise, focus on the thought that your forehead is cool and the breeze is blowing on it.

Breathing relaxation technique

It is worth understanding how to completely relax with the help of breathing. Yes, we breathe all the time, but only certain techniques will help to cope with overvoltage. First of all, remember that deep breathing should not be sharp, you need to inhale and exhale smoothly and slowly.

The topic of proper breathing is well known to those who practice yoga. It is in this teaching that it is well told how to breathe for the benefit of oneself. Do not be too lazy to pick up a few simple exercises for yourself and perform them daily.

DNA analysis

Scientists have found that the presence of a certain set of genes provides stress resistance. It is this mechanism that allows you to relax and avoid the critical state of overvoltage. To determine your level of preparation for the negative, you can do a MyNeuro DNA analysis. This will help to identify possible problems in the mechanisms of protection against stress and work to strengthen them.

Where to order a genetic test

Our center offers to carry out all the necessary genetic research. Thanks to modern equipment, you can find out the features of your body. Our experts will help you accurately decipher all the received data. Based on this information, it will be easy for you to determine your strengths and weaknesses, and choose a path for developing stress tolerance.

Customer reviews

Those who have already done a DNA study speak of the benefits of such a procedure mostly positively:

“Now I know for sure that I can quite cope with all the stresses. I never really suffered from them, now I know for sure that it is in my blood.”
“I have always wondered why I react so sensitively to any adversity. But it turned out that I have little stress resistance in the genes. I will do more of myself in this direction.”
“Did a DNA test out of interest. I am quite pleased with the results, everything is about average. Not good and not bad, and there is room for improvement.”

7 effective ways to quickly relax

Health

Still from the film "Pretty Woman"

Author Natalya Germanovich

January 08, 2021

Often, even during the New Year holidays, we remain in suspense, which we relieve with alcohol, social networks or TV shows until the morning. We tell you how to learn to deeply relax with health benefits. Start on holidays and practice all year

Why is it important to rest and relax properly? Among the health benefits, doctors note a decrease in blood pressure, improved digestion, maintenance of normal blood sugar levels, reduced activity of stress hormones, improved sleep concentration and mood [1].

There are many techniques to relieve stress. We have selected the most effective and accessible to almost everyone.

1. Magnesium sulfate baths

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Salt has a positive effect not only on health, but also on skin and hair. The substance consists of magnesium, sulfur, water and oxygen. Together, these elements have a positive effect on the body: they improve sleep and memory, and help the nervous system [2].

After such a bath, a person feels not only relaxation, but also physical and emotional lightness. Doctors often prescribe magnesium baths for those who are subject to frequent stress and emotional stress. 0.5-1 kg of salt must be dissolved in water at a temperature of 36-38°C. The bath should be taken in a sitting position for 15-20 minutes, and then rinsed. Before the procedure, you should carefully read the list of contraindications. The bath is not advised to take with varicose veins, allergies, high intracranial pressure and skin diseases.

2. Initial tai chi exercises

Initially, tai chi is considered a form of Wushu, the Chinese martial art. However, now this practice is used as a recreational gymnastics by people of all ages. The peculiarity of the initial set of exercises is slow movements that are not characteristic of us in ordinary life. Due to this, the body experiences tension, the muscles work, but the person does not feel an intense load. It is through this effect that relaxation is achieved, which appears at the end of the workout. The main secret of the initial course of tai chi is to keep your back straight, breathe through your nose and allow the body to take postures. The followers of this school call such exercises "meditation in motion", when a person releases consciousness and focuses only on the sensations of the body. What matters in practice is not how accurately you perform the movements, but how regularly you use it. In the beginning, 5-10 minutes a day may be enough.

initial set of Tai Chi exercises

3. Self-massage

This exercise is suitable for those who, even during the holidays, cannot tear themselves away from the computer. In such cases, tension accumulates in the neck and shoulders. First you need to stretch, turning your head so that the muscles become more receptive to touch. Then, with your left hand, massage your right shoulder and neck strongly. Start with light circular motions, rubbing the muscles with your index and middle fingers. Finish with a firmer massage, squeezing the shoulder and neck muscles between your thumb and other fingers. Do the same with the left side of the neck and shoulder. Tilt your head to the left, feel for a point at the base of the skull and massage it in a circular motion, gradually going down to the shoulder. Repeat three times, then switch sides. If you have any pain in the body, before starting the practice, it is better to consult a specialist.

neck and shoulder self-massage

4. Art therapy

One of the laziest ways to relieve stress. However, you don't need to be able to draw. You can just buy or download a coloring book from the Internet, take felt-tip pens and remember your childhood. In fact, this simple practice allows you not only to disconnect from obsessive thoughts and problems, but also to develop both hemispheres of the brain. In parallel, you train the ability to focus and pay attention to details. If you want to draw something yourself, even better. The simplest technique is to start working with a pencil or brush without thinking. Let at first it will be some abstract figures, then the objects will begin to take shape. Then you can depict in detail some problem that worries you and draw it until you get tired. Thus, all the negative will be on paper, which can then simply be crumpled up and thrown away.

art therapy practice

5. Breathing techniques

You can also relax, get rid of anxiety and depressive symptoms with the help of breathing [3]. The Sama Vritti Pranayama exercise aims to produce equally long inhalations and exhalations so that you feel the air circulating inside your body. With a uniform score, this is somewhere between a three and a five, inclusive. The main thing is that you are comfortable.

Choosing a comfortable sitting position. We breathe through the nose. And we start counting so that inhalation and exhalation end with the same number. You can complicate the exercise a little and add a small pause at the end of each cycle. The exercise must be performed for at least five minutes. During the day, it can be repeated two or three more times.

breathing practice for relaxation

6. Meditation

Perhaps one of the most popular mental exercise techniques. It is used by idols of all generations: Paul McCartney, George Lucas, Moby and even Chuck Norris. The effect of this practice has been scientifically proven thousands of times. [4]

Studies show that the practice of meditation not only helps to cope with stress and anxiety, but even in some cases can be no less effective than antidepressants. On the Web you can find a large selection of different directions, including modern ones, without esoteric practices. To meditate, you need to sit in a quiet comfortable place and try to focus in the moment without getting involved in the thoughts that will come to mind. If you can’t do it yourself, you can use audio and video materials. For example, the Monterey Bay Marine Research Institute made a series of meditations with rare marine life. It allows you to relax while watching life at the bottom of the ocean, or you can close your eyes and perceive only sound.

meditation with marine life

7. Deep muscle relaxation

Tension in the body is one of the primary effects of stress and anxiety. This often leads to unpleasant responses from the whole organism.

Learn more