Relieve Stress With Visualization Breathing
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated February 21, 2009
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
Both visualization and breathing exercises have been found to be great stress relief strategies. Here are some ways that you can use visualization techniques with breathing exercises to achieve quick and effective stress relief.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 5 or More Minutes
Here's How:
1. Close Your Eyes And Relax.
Let your breathing become slower and deeper.
2. Practice Stress Relief Breathing.
Breathe from your diaphragm or belly instead of from your shoulders or chest. Don't force it, but let your breathing become natural and relaxed.
3. Visualize...
As you breathe in, imagine that 'relaxation' is coming into your body and flowing through your limbs, reaching every part of you. As you exhale, imagine that all the stress from your body is being exhaled. After a few minutes, you should feel more 'full' of peace, and the stress in your body should be reduced.
4. Or...
As you breathe, imagine that your hands and feet are getting warmer. With practice, this can further reverse your stress response and actually warm your extremities, relaxing your body in the process.
5. Another Idea...
Imagine that, with each breath, your body is becoming more and more loose. With each exhale, your limbs are a little more like spaghetti, your face a little more expressionless, your body a still pool of water.
6. Keep Breathing.
For five minutes or twenty, continuing this exercise can relieve stress and help you return to your activities (and stressors) with a renewed sense of strength and serenity.
Tips:
1. If you're really tired and fear that this will put you to sleep, keep your practice to about 5 minutes, or set an alarm.
2. Conversely, if you're having trouble sleeping, this exercise may prove very helpful.
3. You may also want to try other breathing exercises.
MY THOUGHTS
i'm never gonna be able to do this. i'm more the get-up-and-run to relieve stress. when i'm awfully stressed and you ask me to stay put even for just 5 minutes, i will probably explode. let me try this tonight though. even if i'm not stressed.
Showing posts with label breathing exercises. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breathing exercises. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Release Tension With Stress Relief Breathing
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated October 09, 2007
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
http://stress.about.com/od/breathingexercises/ht/breathing_ex.htm
Breathing exercises are an ideal way to relieve stress in that they’re fast, simple, free, and can be performed by just about anyone. They can also be done anywhere and at virtually any time. These factors make stress relief breathing exercises one of my most popular and convenient tension tamers. Here’s how basic controlled breathing works:
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: You decide!
Here's How:
1. Sit or stand in a relaxed position.
2. Slowly inhale through your nose, counting to five in your head.
3. Let the air out from your mouth, counting to eight in your head as it leaves your lungs. Repeat several times. That’s it!
Tips:
1. As you breathe, let your abdomen expand outward, rather than raising your shoulders. This is a more relaxed and natural way to breathe, and helps your lungs fill themselves more fully with fresh air, releasing more “old” air.
2. You can do this just a few times to release tension, or for several minutes as a form of meditation.
3. If you like, you can make your throat a little tighter as you exhale so the air comes out like a whisper. This type of breathing is used in some forms of yoga and can add additional tension relief.
What You Need:
* A few seconds or minutes.
* A minimal amount of attention.
MY THOUGHTS
try it! and you'll know why you need this tip. it's not at all easy. if we want real relaxation and stress relief, we need to know proper breathing exercises.
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated October 09, 2007
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
http://stress.about.com/od/breathingexercises/ht/breathing_ex.htm
Breathing exercises are an ideal way to relieve stress in that they’re fast, simple, free, and can be performed by just about anyone. They can also be done anywhere and at virtually any time. These factors make stress relief breathing exercises one of my most popular and convenient tension tamers. Here’s how basic controlled breathing works:
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: You decide!
Here's How:
1. Sit or stand in a relaxed position.
2. Slowly inhale through your nose, counting to five in your head.
3. Let the air out from your mouth, counting to eight in your head as it leaves your lungs. Repeat several times. That’s it!
Tips:
1. As you breathe, let your abdomen expand outward, rather than raising your shoulders. This is a more relaxed and natural way to breathe, and helps your lungs fill themselves more fully with fresh air, releasing more “old” air.
2. You can do this just a few times to release tension, or for several minutes as a form of meditation.
3. If you like, you can make your throat a little tighter as you exhale so the air comes out like a whisper. This type of breathing is used in some forms of yoga and can add additional tension relief.
What You Need:
* A few seconds or minutes.
* A minimal amount of attention.
MY THOUGHTS
try it! and you'll know why you need this tip. it's not at all easy. if we want real relaxation and stress relief, we need to know proper breathing exercises.
Monday, January 3, 2011
How To Become Relaxed
How To Become Relaxed
Get Relaxed, Stay Relaxed!
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated September 14, 2009
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
,The skills of becoming relaxed when necessary and remaining relaxed whenever possible can be transformative, and can make a measurable difference in health. This is because living in a state of chronic stress--remaining physiologically stressed over long periods of time, without triggering your body's relaxation response--can impact your health in a variety of negative ways. Learning to become relaxed readily and easily can bring a healthier and more enjoyable life.
Fortunately, there are several simple ways to become relaxed quickly and easily. They each bring their own unique benefits, so it's good to know a variety of techniques that you can use to become relaxed in a pinch. Here are some of my top recommendations:
Breathing Exercises
Breathing exercises are a terrific way to become relaxed quickly and easily--they can be done by just about anyone, anywhere and at any time. Slowing your breathing, breathing from your diaphragm, and even using breathing visualization are ways to use breathing exercises to relax your body and your mind. Here's a simple breathing exercise to get you started.
Meditation
Meditation is a very old, proven strategy for becoming and remaining more relaxed. Popular in the east for centuries, it's enjoyed a huge rise in popularity in the West in recent years as researchers have found proven benefits in scientific studies. (Read about the benefits of meditation here.) Meditation isn't difficult, but it does take practice. Fortunately, regular practice can help you to feel relaxed during and after each session and, over time, can actually help you to be less reactive to new stress you face. Here's a basic meditation to try.
PMR
Progressive Muscle Relaxation, or PMR, is one of my oft-used methods of getting relaxed quickly. The technique involves tensing and relaxing muscles systematically from head to toe (or from toe to head), thereby releasing tension and ushering in the relaxation response. With practice, this technique allows for total-body relaxation in a matter of seconds. And it's easy! Here's more information on Progressive Muscle Relaxation to better acquaint you with this lesser-known but very effective method of becoming quickly relaxed.
Visualizations
Because the body reacts physically to imagery created by the mind, visualizations are an effective form of getting relaxed, and are as simple and fun as daydreaming. There are many, many different visualizations you can try to get more relaxed and reverse your body's stress response. You can visualize yourself in a relaxing location, visualize a positive result from a stressing scenario, or, more simply, just visualize tension and stress leaving your body with each breath! Here's a nice breathing visualization to get you started.
Have A Good Laugh
Laughter is a wonderful, natural way to release tension in your body and get your mind in a better place so your stressors don't seem so...stressful. If you have the time, I heartily recommend seeing a nice, funny movie, or reading a funny book to get a little laughter into your day. But if you don't have the time in the schedule for that, simply maintaining a sense of humor throughout your regular day can help quite a bit in the way of keeping you relaxed. Read more about the benefits of laughter, and see these strategies for maintaining a sense of humor, and you'll have a great new tool for stress relief, if you don't use it already.
Change Your Perspective
Much of what stresses you comes not from your stressors themselves, but from your response to them. More specifically, your interpretation of your stressors, as well as your approach to dealing with them, can make the events themselves feel much more (or less) stressful. Happily, you can choose different thoughts, even if you can't choose different life circumstances. And there are a few 'tricks' for gaining a better perspective for remaining relaxed under trying conditions: first, you can adopt the thinking style of optimists by interpreting certain facets of a situation in a way that brings hope and eliminates self-doubt. You can also adopt the view that you may have more power in a situation than you realize (called having an internal locus of control, which is also known to eliminate feelings of stress), and then looking for new solutions. Finally, be sure that you're not already sabotaging yourself with overly negative thinking, and read over these common distorted thinking patterns, or cognitive distortions--do any sound familiar? If so, you can become aware of them and eliminate this type of thinking.
Whatever strategies you use, practice them and use them often, and you can maintain a much more relaxed lifestyle.
MY THOUGHTS
i've heard lots of people claim that you get more relaxed as you get older. i was beginning to think the same thing is happening to me. i seem to have less stress as the inevitable "old phase" gets closer and closer. but then i realized we don't get more relaxed because of our chronological age. some people die stressed!!! i am (now) more apt to believe that we become more relaxed as we learn to manage our stress. i've tried all the suggestions in this article. they all work. they've all been proven to be true. that's for sure. but i'm more inclined to believe that all of these relaxing strategies work for me because i have also learned to mature spiritually. when i became a Christian (hopefully getting better at it), i seemed to have gotten more in touch with my inner self, more understanding and more appreciate of the universe. as a Christian, i know, that although i have God-given talents to take control of my life, there's a higher, more supreme being that is in total and absolute control of my life. how can that fail to relax me?
Get Relaxed, Stay Relaxed!
By Elizabeth Scott, M.S., About.com Guide
Updated September 14, 2009
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by the Medical Review Board
,The skills of becoming relaxed when necessary and remaining relaxed whenever possible can be transformative, and can make a measurable difference in health. This is because living in a state of chronic stress--remaining physiologically stressed over long periods of time, without triggering your body's relaxation response--can impact your health in a variety of negative ways. Learning to become relaxed readily and easily can bring a healthier and more enjoyable life.
Fortunately, there are several simple ways to become relaxed quickly and easily. They each bring their own unique benefits, so it's good to know a variety of techniques that you can use to become relaxed in a pinch. Here are some of my top recommendations:
Breathing Exercises
Breathing exercises are a terrific way to become relaxed quickly and easily--they can be done by just about anyone, anywhere and at any time. Slowing your breathing, breathing from your diaphragm, and even using breathing visualization are ways to use breathing exercises to relax your body and your mind. Here's a simple breathing exercise to get you started.
Meditation
Meditation is a very old, proven strategy for becoming and remaining more relaxed. Popular in the east for centuries, it's enjoyed a huge rise in popularity in the West in recent years as researchers have found proven benefits in scientific studies. (Read about the benefits of meditation here.) Meditation isn't difficult, but it does take practice. Fortunately, regular practice can help you to feel relaxed during and after each session and, over time, can actually help you to be less reactive to new stress you face. Here's a basic meditation to try.
PMR
Progressive Muscle Relaxation, or PMR, is one of my oft-used methods of getting relaxed quickly. The technique involves tensing and relaxing muscles systematically from head to toe (or from toe to head), thereby releasing tension and ushering in the relaxation response. With practice, this technique allows for total-body relaxation in a matter of seconds. And it's easy! Here's more information on Progressive Muscle Relaxation to better acquaint you with this lesser-known but very effective method of becoming quickly relaxed.
Visualizations
Because the body reacts physically to imagery created by the mind, visualizations are an effective form of getting relaxed, and are as simple and fun as daydreaming. There are many, many different visualizations you can try to get more relaxed and reverse your body's stress response. You can visualize yourself in a relaxing location, visualize a positive result from a stressing scenario, or, more simply, just visualize tension and stress leaving your body with each breath! Here's a nice breathing visualization to get you started.
Have A Good Laugh
Laughter is a wonderful, natural way to release tension in your body and get your mind in a better place so your stressors don't seem so...stressful. If you have the time, I heartily recommend seeing a nice, funny movie, or reading a funny book to get a little laughter into your day. But if you don't have the time in the schedule for that, simply maintaining a sense of humor throughout your regular day can help quite a bit in the way of keeping you relaxed. Read more about the benefits of laughter, and see these strategies for maintaining a sense of humor, and you'll have a great new tool for stress relief, if you don't use it already.
Change Your Perspective
Much of what stresses you comes not from your stressors themselves, but from your response to them. More specifically, your interpretation of your stressors, as well as your approach to dealing with them, can make the events themselves feel much more (or less) stressful. Happily, you can choose different thoughts, even if you can't choose different life circumstances. And there are a few 'tricks' for gaining a better perspective for remaining relaxed under trying conditions: first, you can adopt the thinking style of optimists by interpreting certain facets of a situation in a way that brings hope and eliminates self-doubt. You can also adopt the view that you may have more power in a situation than you realize (called having an internal locus of control, which is also known to eliminate feelings of stress), and then looking for new solutions. Finally, be sure that you're not already sabotaging yourself with overly negative thinking, and read over these common distorted thinking patterns, or cognitive distortions--do any sound familiar? If so, you can become aware of them and eliminate this type of thinking.
Whatever strategies you use, practice them and use them often, and you can maintain a much more relaxed lifestyle.
MY THOUGHTS
i've heard lots of people claim that you get more relaxed as you get older. i was beginning to think the same thing is happening to me. i seem to have less stress as the inevitable "old phase" gets closer and closer. but then i realized we don't get more relaxed because of our chronological age. some people die stressed!!! i am (now) more apt to believe that we become more relaxed as we learn to manage our stress. i've tried all the suggestions in this article. they all work. they've all been proven to be true. that's for sure. but i'm more inclined to believe that all of these relaxing strategies work for me because i have also learned to mature spiritually. when i became a Christian (hopefully getting better at it), i seemed to have gotten more in touch with my inner self, more understanding and more appreciate of the universe. as a Christian, i know, that although i have God-given talents to take control of my life, there's a higher, more supreme being that is in total and absolute control of my life. how can that fail to relax me?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
breathing exercises for stress relief
How to calm down in under a minute
Source: About.com
Diaphragmatic breathing is a technique that you can use to relax very quickly. It will work best if you have practiced it regularly even when you don't need it.
Difficulty Level: Easy
Time Required: 1 minute
Here's How:
1. Breathe in through your nose on a slow count of three.
2. Push your stomach out as you breathe in.
3. Breathe out through your mouth on a slow count of six.
4. Repeat two more times.
Tips:
1. If you feel light-headed breathe more slowly.
2. Practice three times a day and you will remember the steps when you are stressed out.
MY THOUGHTS
It's quite easy. Try this stress relief breathing exercise now. Practice. Practice. Until it comes naturally. When you get to a tricky or stressful situation, just breathe through your nose and so on. This is not just stress relief. This is a surefire way of giving yourself time to think of how to react.
Source: About.com
Diaphragmatic breathing is a technique that you can use to relax very quickly. It will work best if you have practiced it regularly even when you don't need it.
Difficulty Level: Easy
Time Required: 1 minute
Here's How:
1. Breathe in through your nose on a slow count of three.
2. Push your stomach out as you breathe in.
3. Breathe out through your mouth on a slow count of six.
4. Repeat two more times.
Tips:
1. If you feel light-headed breathe more slowly.
2. Practice three times a day and you will remember the steps when you are stressed out.
MY THOUGHTS
It's quite easy. Try this stress relief breathing exercise now. Practice. Practice. Until it comes naturally. When you get to a tricky or stressful situation, just breathe through your nose and so on. This is not just stress relief. This is a surefire way of giving yourself time to think of how to react.
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