Too much life stress can take a toll on your body, your mind, and the people who are closest to you. In addition to getting regular physical activity, you can take charge of how stress affects you by taking 20 minutes a day for relaxation time.
- Meditation focuses your attention and helps calm both mind and body. Daily meditation is used for managing a spectrum of physical and emotional conditions, including high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.
- The body responds to stress with muscle tension, which can cause pain or discomfort. Progressive muscle relaxation reduces muscle tension and general anxiety and may help you get to sleep.
- The way you breathe affects your whole body. Try breathing exercises for relaxation. Full, deep breathing is a good way to reduce tension, feel relaxed, and reduce stress.
Positive thinking.
Positive thinking may help you live a longer, happier life. But even if you tend to be an optimist, there are times when it takes extra effort to frame your life positively. Take the following steps to harness the power of positive thinking in your daily life.
- Create positive expectations of yourself, your health, and life in general. When you catch yourself using negative self-talk or predicting a bad outcome, stop. Reframe your thought into a positive one, and speak it out loud or write it down. This type of thinking can help you best recover from surgery, cancer, and other life crises.
- Open yourself to humor, friendship, and love. Go out of your way to find reasons to laugh and to spend time with people you enjoy.
- Appeal to a higher power, if it suits you. Whether it be through your faith in a loving, all-powerful God or your connection with nature or a collective unconscious, your sense of spiritual wellness can help you through personal trials and enhance your joy in living.
