Tag: stress relief
How to Help Your Guy Deal With Stress

How to Help Your Guy Deal With Stress

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Support from family is one of the self help tips to overcome depressionAlmost everyone is dealing with some kind of stress these days. But when you see that your guy is under a lot of stress, he may not want or be able to talk about it, and you may not know how best to help.

The things that women enjoy to relieve our stress may not do much for the man in your life. He probably doesn’t need mothering. And who has ever heard her man ask for chocolates, a cuddle and a bubble bath? Instead, you need ways to help that don’t look like you’re helping. You can silently lead by example. And you can be a best friend. Here are a few ideas on how to help your guy deal with stress.

Make lovemaking a priority. Honestly, almost every man I have ever known would say that the best way for them to relieve stress is sex. There, I’ve said it. They don’t have to talk about it. They don’t have to analyze their feelings. They just do it, and they feel better. Better enough even to face their day, or communicate more with the people they love.

But for many women, we get distracted. After all, we have so much to do. The kids, the house, the office. And if we are not careful, lovemaking starts slipping down our priority list to somewhere between another load of laundry and cleaning out the hall closet once and for all.

No one has expressed this mismatch of priorities better than Woody Allen, in his classic comedy Annie Hall. When their individual therapists ask how often they have sex:

Annie Hall: “Oh, all the time. At least once a week.”

Woody Allen: “Hardly ever. Like once a week.”

Not only will giving intimacy the status it deserves help your guy deal with stress, but it strengthens your relationship on many levels, and its fun.

Get a joint or family gym membership. If your guy already runs or regularly thrashes a buddy at racquet ball, then he’s found a good method to work off a lot of stress and frustration. But if stress is turning him into a couch potato, you may need to provide some exercise support.

He may resist going to the gym with you, at least for a while, but don’t push it. If he notices that your energy levels and mood improve, he might come because he’s curious. When you start to look more toned and sleek, he may just follow you to be where you are. Plus, some guys are just competitive enough that they will go just not to be outdone.

Macho men do meditate. In the colorful world of comic book super heroes, there are few tougher than the Wolverine. I mean seriously, this is the last guy you would ever see getting a manicure. And how does actor Hugh Jackman prepare to battle enemies and his own dark side on screen? He practices Transcendental Meditation twice a day.

Of course, nagging your guy to meditate is never helpful. But Jackman has been quoted about the difference TM has made in his life in several popular news outlets and men’s magazines. Notable athletes meditate to improve their performance, as do many top CEOs to stay sharp. If you should happen to leave a page open on the coffee table….

Meditating yourself, and feeling better because you do, is your best advertisement for how your guy could use it to deal with his own stress. If nothing else, when you are less stressed that means less stress in your home and eventually less stress for your man as well.

When you deal with your own stress, you make it okay for him to do so too. If you value a less stressful lifestyle, you give your guy permission to discover stress relievers on his own, and he will feel encouraged to make changes that suit him best.

Overall, you can do a lot to help your guy deal with stress, and you never have to say a word.
How to Use Self Hypnosis to Relieve Stress

How to Use Self Hypnosis to Relieve Stress

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BeautyDo you experience stress from specific problems you just don’t know how to solve? If so, you might consider adding a little self-hypnosis to your arsenal of stress fighting weapons. Self-hypnosis can relieve stress much like meditation. It starts out with deep breathing and an awareness of the present moment. But whereas meditation seems to invoke our spiritual nature, self-hypnosis is especially suited to fix practical problems in our day to day physical world.

No hocus-pocus here.

Some people shy away from the idea of self-hypnosis because of “hypnotist” stage acts, which seem to delight in embarrassing audience members to their everlasting remorse. Self-hypnosis, in contrast, is far from silly and is totally under your control. If you’ve ever practiced Conscious Relaxation exercises, then you have already experienced the basic idea.

When we are in deep state of relaxation, our minds are more receptive to suggestions that help us modify our behavior or approach problems without fear. Things we wish we could change about ourselves or our circumstances can cause us a lot of stress if we feel we can’t fix them. Among popular uses for self-hypnosis you’ll find weight loss, stopping smoking, getting out of debt, or overcoming a fear public speaking, flying, or even asking your boss for a raise.

I have been doing self-hypnosis off and on since I was a pudgy teenager in a skinny world. It works well to change habits, deal with anger, or even to experience really deep muscle relaxation after a walk or yoga. I also meditate, and at least for me, there is a real physical difference I can feel between the two practices. So, I’ll use my own experience to see if I can set them apart.

Self-hypnosis focuses your attention of the sensation of your body as you feel it unwind.

As I mentioned above, self-hypnosis begins with slow, deep breathing, with instructions to relax. You can use guided hypnosis recordings, or simply think the suggestions to yourself.

After a moment or two of conscious breathing, you begin to instruct different parts of your body to relax even further. Starting from your feet and working up to your head, you tell yourself that each part of you feels heavier and heavier, and you allow yourself to experience this feeling of weight. You are very aware of your body. You might feel you are melting into the floor or the ground, becoming a part of the earth itself. Feel the sensation of relaxing your muscles, your skin, your blood vessels, and every part of you. You may even feel as if your entire body is just dissolving away.

A common technique while relaxing this way is to count backwards, mentally assigning a number to each part of your body as it continues to sink down. After you’ve practiced this for a while, the counting alone will relax your body without any additional cues. Leave your head for the last, as it is the hardest part of yourself to quiet down. You can repeat the final number as many times as you need to for your head to get with the program.

Only when your body is totally relaxed do you offer suggestions of how to change your life.

I can’t attest that this is true for everyone, but for me self-hypnosis relaxes my body more than meditation, while meditation is more relaxing to my mind. That doesn’t mean that self-hypnosis doesn’t relax my anxieties or feelings of stress. But conscious relaxation does not require the mind to be still. It just becomes so absorbed in the body’s relaxation that it doesn’t stray far away.

After your body is fully relaxed, you can begin to introduce ideas to change your stress causing behaviors. Something like, “My favorite foods are healthy and fresh. I enjoy how much better I feel when I eat less,” or, “I feel calm and prepared to speak before an audience. I am confident in my ability to speak, and I enjoy giving valuable information to others.”

Keep your suggestions positive.

I have tried self-hypnosis tapes which encouraged a form of aversion therapy, forming negative images of things like sweets or cigarettes which you want to avoid. I don’t personally recommend that idea.

Self-hypnosis will only let your thoughts take you where you really want to go. If you create icky images to associate with something you want to remove from your life, those negative thoughts stick with you. If you make them too revolting, you might decide to throw out your improvement program rather than the habit you want to change.

Picturing positive images of the change you want to see is far more appealing, and will draw you toward the action or situation you want to achieve.

So how are hypnotic suggestions different from daily affirmations?

It is really the deep level of physical relaxation that makes the difference. Affirmations can play easily in the background of your day, and you can say them as often as you choose to. Affirmations and self-hypnosis don’t interfere with each other. Your conscious mind hears your affirmations, while, the experts tell us, self-hypnosis has a better chance of being heard by your subconscious mind.

Return to full alertness with a recorded tone, or by counting up from 1 to 10.

Self hypnosis recordings are especially helpful if you fear you’ll fall asleep. With or without them, you set your intention to return awake and refreshed, count forward again, and stretch your body back to life. You should find your muscles far less kinked and your mind less stressed and ready to take charge.

If you use recordings, be sure and find a guiding voice that you enjoy. Recently I have begun using brain entrainment music containing self-hypnotic messages, and I am very impressed. The music is lovely, and the voice especially soothing. I’ll let you know in a few months if I make new progress.

Please let us know if you found this article helpful, and share it with your social media friends. We appreciate hearing from you.
Sip Away Stress with Rooibos Tea

Sip Away Stress with Rooibos Tea

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When we are dealing with a lot of stress, sipping tea has long been known to help us refresh and unwind. Tea drinkers turn to green or black tea for a wealth of anti-oxidants, and a little caffeine, or herbal teas to relax after a hard day.  But there is another herbal tea gaining in popularity, called rooibos tea.  Not only is it caffeine free, but it also contains minerals and flavonoids not found in other teas, and may help protect against all sorts of inflammatory health problems, from pollen allergies to heart disease, as well as effects of stress.

I first learned about rooibos tea from my favorite local coffee roaster, who serves rooibos along with his fabulous coffees at our community theatre and other local events. Being a devoted coffee lover, I tend to stick with my favorite dark roasts, and skip the tea side of the table. But when my friend created a flyer about the benefits of Rooibos tea, I was intrigued…enough to even ask how to say it, and to try some.

Pronounced “roy-bos,” the rooibos or “red bush” plant is native to South Africa and the tea is made from the leaves of the rooibos plant. Although it is sometimes called “red tea” to distinguish it from the more common green or black varieties, it is a unique plant, and not akin to those teas at all.

Soothing to digestion and nerves alike.

Unlike black and green teas, rooibos tea is not only caffeine free, but it is low in the tannins that can cause stomach distress in some people. I drink green tea myself from time to time, but I can’t drink much or it kind of gnaws at me, and I really don’t need tummy stress along with everything else. So rooibos could be an excellent alternative to gain the antioxidant benefits of green tea without the tannin effect.

In addition, rooibos contains the powerful anti-oxidant quercetin, which calms the stomach like ginger tea, and has also shown to be an anti-spasmodic, and general digestive aid. Quercetin also has potent anti-inflammatory properties reported to protect against certain cancers, heart disease, and a variety of degenerative conditions. Inflammation plays havoc with every part of our bodies and our brains, so we need all the help to fight it we can get.

Magnesium: the missing mineral.

Rooibos tea is also really exceptional for the minerals in its brew. It contains calcium, and also the magnesium needed to absorb that calcium. Magnesium is important for many reasons. It is crucial for our nervous systems to work properly, and helps keep blood pressure under control. When we are under stress we are particularly vulnerable to rising blood pressure and frazzled nerves, so it is essential we get the magnesium we need. Studies have shown that drinking rooibos tea on a regular basis can reduce blood pressure, and even lower overall cholesterol levels.

Surprisingly, some multi-vitamins do not even contain magnesium. So if you are not getting enough of this vital mineral, rooibos tea could help. Other minerals in rooibos tea include iron and copper, which assists in the iron’s absorption, and zinc, which aids in metabolism and is helpful in combating the common cold.

Rooibos contains compounds found nowhere else.

As well as the anti-oxidants we may already know about, the rooibos plant contains two unique polyphenols. One, called aspalathin, is found nowhere else, and the second, nothofagin, is only shared by a beech tree in New Zealand.  According to Natural News, these two extraordinary substances have shown to protect against Parkinson’s disease, macular degeneration, and so many kinds of cancer that Rooibos is recognized by the Cancer Association of South Africa. Pretty impressive stuff.

Not just good for you. It tastes good too.

Rooibos tea can be found in a variety of flavors, and is tasty enough for a latte junkie like me to easily add a cup or two a day to unwind. Did I mention it is good for insomnia?

My thanks to P.Hawk Coffee and Tea Company, for introducing me to rooibos tea. Knowing I can deal with my stress and give my body and brain such a healthy boost, just makes relaxing all that much better.

For more information, visit: http://www.naturalnews.com/041982_rooibos_tea_health_benefits_herbal_medicine.html#

http://www.betternutrition.com/quercetin-energy-allergies-antioxidant/columns/askthenaturopath/869

If you enjoyed this article, pour a favorite cuppa and let us know in the reply section below. And don’t forget to share with your social media friends.

How to Relieve Stress and Pain of TMJ

How to Relieve Stress and Pain of TMJ

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When you are under stress, do you clinch your jaw or grit your teeth? It almost seems like a natural reaction, like when we are walking into a fierce head wind, or climbing up a hill. All our muscles tighten up to push us through a physical challenge. But if our challenge is simply the stress in our lives, gritting our teeth is likely to bring us headaches, jaw and neck pain, or severe stabbing pain in our ears.

You may even be experiencing some of this stress related pain without knowing where it is coming from. You might call your family doctor thinking you have an ear infection, and hear for the first time that you have something called TMJ (of TMD). The abbreviation TMJ, for Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome, actually stands for a variety of symptoms caused by stress between your temples and the lower part of the jaw, the mandible.

What happens when we chew on what’s bothering us.

This one little joint doesn’t get much of our attention generally, but we keep it busy all day…talking and chewing again and again. And if we try to face our stress by biting down hard, without thinking, then the muscles surrounding the jaw stay in an almost constant state of tension. We may even sleep with our jaws clinched all night. After a while, we feel the tension running up the sides of our face as a tension headache in our temples. We may also feel it as a pain in the neck. Add in poor posture, slumping over a desk or steering wheel, holding a phone between our shoulder and our ear, and this poor overworked part of our bodies can start to scream for some relief.

According to the National Institute of Health, TMJ related pain is the second most widely reported muscle pain in America, after lower back pain. And sales of over the counter pain meditation certainly seem to reinforce that data. But there are several courses of action we can take to alleviate the pain of TMJ, and help the underlying causes at the same time.

1. Ask your dentist for a mouth guard. Whether you grind your teeth at night, or simply lock your jaw shut when you sleep, sleeping with a mouth guard can be a big help for many people. Your dentist might fit one specifically for you, or recommend a generic one available through health retailers. Either way, the guard is generally a soft plastic piece that you sleep with between your teeth, to gently push your back teeth apart and give them something a little more springy to chew on. Over time, your jaw may get the idea of staying a little more relaxed, and you save your teeth from being worn down or developing stress related cracks.

2. Gently stretching your jaw. People with severe TMJ may experience pain when they open their jaws. So gently allowing your jaw to relax and fall partly open whenever you feel stressed will help it be more flexible with time. Your lips remain closed, but you can feel a small space between your top and bottom teeth. Applying heat to the sides of your face and massaging your jaw muscles is also helpful while training your jaw to loosen up.

3. Stretching and relaxing your neck. Like most body pain, TMJ doesn’t exist in isolation. The muscles of your face work along with your neck muscles, especially the big sternocleidomastoid muscle that you can feel on each side of your neck, and the smaller scalenus muscles that connect to your chest. If we tend to slouch or spend our days hunched over, these muscles can start to shorten, and pull our shoulders forward even more. The tightening of these muscles, which run up behind the ear, can cause a debilitating stabbing pain in our ears at the slightest movement.

We can relieve a lot of muscle stress by learning to be more aware of our posture, and learning to stretch these muscles back out, to relax that entire area of our face and neck. One excellent way is to use soft stretch bands, and pull them out across your chest, with your arms straight at your sides.

My favorite front neck and chest stretch is the easiest one. Lie on your back with your head at one corner of the foot of your bed. Stretch your arms out perpendicularly at your side, and simply let them hang that way for a while, off the sides of the bed. If you have a footboard on your bed and can’t do this, try lying down with pillows under both your head and your shoulder blades. Breathing deeply and doing conscious relaxation exercises helps even more. Done repeatedly, this one exercise will do a lot to combat muscle tightness and pain in your neck, ears, and head.

4. TENS Unit Stimulation. Back when I first learned about TMJ, I had to go see a specialist who attached a TENS Unit to my jaw. Now simple TENS Units are available at numerous health retailers and at specialty websites. TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) Units have become very popular for non-chemical pain relief. They usually consist of a small electrical unit, with two or four pads that you attach to your skin with a gel, and which come off again easily. The unit sends a small electrical signal which then contracts and releases muscles, to help them relax.

For TMJ, you attach one pad to each side of your jaw, and two more to the back of your neck. The stimulation causes your jaw to open and close, and eventually relax. TENS Units have shown to be very effective at relieving stress caused muscle pain for many people. Each session should only be done for 10 minutes at most.

5. Meditation and conscious relaxation. Every one of the physical methods to relieve TMJ pain can be enhanced by becoming more aware of your body, and using meditation or conscious relaxation techniques to help relieve your stress. After all, our stress causes us to tense our muscles, and our muscle pain causes us more stress. Breaking the link in our minds is as vital as easing the pain in our bodies.

If you found this article helpful, please leave us a comment below, and share us with your social media friends.

Sources:

http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/DataStatistics/FindDataByTopic/FacialPain/

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tmj/basics/definition/con-20043566
Take a Vacation From Travel Stress

Take a Vacation From Travel Stress

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For many people warmer weather means travel. As fun as travel can be, just getting somewhere these days can be stressful for travel novices and seasoned road warriors alike. Some folks relish the adventure of a trek into unknown territory, but the mere idea of leaving home can cause anxiety to people who only feel safe sleeping in their own beds.

Whether you are a frequent business flyer or the reluctant organizer of a family road trip, there are steps anyone can take to ease travel stress, and scads of products and services available to help you.

Start early, plan ahead, and give yourself plenty of time.

I am assuming most wilderness adventurers are not terribly stressed by the unexpected. So, most of these tips are for those of us who are more apt to relax if there is some order to our travel plans.

1. Making plane reservations early can save you money, and helps you avoid having to sit in a middle seat between two sumo wrestlers. Many airlines even show you a seating chart so you can pick exactly where you’d like to be.

2. Call ahead or check online to know what to expect at your hotel. Happily, most online hotel booking sites list whether their rooms have hair dryers, coffee pots, microwaves and the like. If your company has reserved a room for you at some remote lodge for a corporate meeting, call the hotel and ask about amenities, to avoid unpleasant surprises and pack what you need.

3. On departure day, give yourself plenty of time to make it to the airport or on the road, so you don’t feel rushed and out of breath just trying to get out of town. A few extra minutes wait at the gate can be used to meditate and calm yourself, or get started on some massive novel that you’ve been dying to read.

If this is your first road trip, consider joining an auto club.

The small fee you pay for an auto club membership can give you vastly more peace of mind, especially if you are headed down the road alone. As well as emergency services, many auto clubs will help you plan your route, recommend lodging, and offer discounts for hotels, restaurants and rental cars.

Roadside emergency services can be used if you have a flat tire, dead battery, need a tow, or (true story) if your car decides to lock itself with the keys inside, while you step out to throw away a drink cup. Knowing there is someone you can call relieves the anxiety of “what if” situations, and lets you drive off with fewer things to stress about.

Take whatever you need to feel secure.

The common travel wisdom is to always travel light. That’s good advice, for the most part. But if the idea of new surroundings scares you, or you worry about facing a sea of unfamiliar germs, there are products that can make you more comfortable. A little extra weight in your luggage is much better than the weight of extra stress.

The omnipresent in-flight catalogue, Sky-Mall, has a website now, so you don’t have to wait to read it on your plane to see what you could have bought before take-off. Travel specific retailers like Travelsmith have both catalogues and a website offering things to make travel easier, and major retail stores and websites have travel related gear as well.

Here are only a few of the products designed to ease travel stress, some of which you might never even thought of:

o   Sheet liners. Sort of like a silk sleeping bag, to keep you off the hotel sheets.

o   Toilet seat covers, in small packs like tissues.

o   Inflatable travel pillows for naps and foot rests to elevate your legs while flying.

o   Quick dry micro-fiber clothing and undies, weigh less to pack, and let you wash them out easily every day.

o   Solar cell phone chargers.

o   Portable fresh air…a little gadget that hangs around your neck and filters the airplane air you breathe.

o   Tiny packs of anti-bacterial wipes.

o   Clothing with inner zip pockets to protect passports or cash.

o   Small one cup coffee makers, for those of us who must have coffee to survive.

Some general tips for air travel:

1. Wear slip on shoes. While it can be amusing to watch some guy pull off his cowboy boots at the security check, slip-ons save you time and headaches. Thick soles clog style shoes also help elevate your feet a little while flying.

2. Don’t bring your own water bottles from home. Once you’ve opened a bottle of water they won’t let it through the security gate. Buy some once you’ve cleared the check-in, and keep plenty on hand as you fly.

3. Bring some prepackaged munchies. Granola bars and the like may not the healthiest thing in the world, but whatever you bring must be in sealed packaging, unless you buy it inside the gate. You can take prepared food on board if you buy it after the security check, but be aware that sandwiches with drippy condiments can be messy to eat, and the aroma can linger for hours.

4. Walk around the airport as much as you can while you are waiting before or between flights. The extended sitting on planes is tough on your legs’ circulation. So it is wise to stand or walk whenever you can.

I have been traveling one way or the other almost my entire life. I know that even when you are prepared, there can be horrible weather to get through, road construction, lost reservations and a hundred other inconveniences. But traveling can be an amazing addition to our lives. It broadens our horizons, and allows us to experience awe and wonder beyond anything we’d ever imagined.

Plus, travel helps us learn not to worry so much about things that don’t really matter. It can teach us to role with the punches and leave our stress behind.

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