Improve Health With Lower Stress Level
Stress can cause many physical illnesses and should be kept under control in order to live a healthier life. If you find that you are frequently stressed out, it may shorten your life.
Meditation is one way to calm your nervousness when you are feeling stressed. Take time to sit down to relax for a few moments and contemplate whenever you are feeling your stress levels rising.
Some times going for a nice quiet walk by yourself can help ease stress. While you are walking, you will be able to think of how to manage whatever problems you are having and get them worked out in your mind.
Take it easy and listen to some soothing music for a while. Just 5 to 10 minutes will help calm you down and help clear up your mind.
Take time to read a book. When you read, it will help you calm down and get your attention off whatever is stressing you out. It is a good idea to read something you enjoy for at least 30 minutes every day to relieve stress.
Take a few minutes to play with the children. Play a game, read a book with a child, dancing around the room with them or any other fun activities, it will help you reduce stress and start feeling joyful.
Yoga is a great way to relax. Yoga will flush out stress that leads to symptoms of insomnia and fatigue. By doing 15 to 30 minutes of yoga stretching exercises, you will find your stress levels becoming lower each day.
It is very important that you do things every day for yourself to relax. If you let stress take over your life, you will find that you are sick more often, have trouble sleeping, are tired all the time and just have a general feeling of uneasiness. You deserve to feel good, so take time every day for yourself to improve health with lower stress level and work towards having a stress-free life.
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Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open – B.K.S. Iyengar
My Experiences With Anxiety
I remember in my early to late teens experiencing panic attacks, and them being the most frightening experience of my young life-I felt utterly terrified, and almost as if I wasn’t ‘in my own body’. Fortunately, as I grew into my twenties these attacks subsided and I led a pretty normal life.
About 4 years ago however, when I turned 34, I started to get the attacks back once again. Looking back I can see that they were triggered by a period of immense stress- I was working extremely long hours in a very tough work environment. I’ve always been able to handle deadlines and large workloads, but I started to feel as if my new job was almost too much for me, and I felt out of control.
Over the next year the symptoms got worse. I’d have a panic attack at least 3 to 4 times a week, and I started to feel depressed, withdrawn and inclined to just stay at home. I knew that things had to change when, on holiday in Egypt, I would get severe anxiety when I left the hotel complex, and this included feeling extremely dizzy and breathless too. In my head I thought that I was suffering from all sorts of serious diseases, and this further fuelled my stress and anxiety!
When I got back to the UK I decided that ‘enough was enough’, and that I needed to change my lifestyle. I left my stressful job, and started working in a new, less demanding role. I also did loads of research on the subject of anxiety, and experimented with lots of different coping strategies- some didn’t work for me, whilst others were very effective.
The anxiety is far less of a problem for me now. In fact I would now say I’m 95% better, and it certainly doesn’t interfere with my life, which I think is the central point. If you suffer with anxiety you have to be brave and confront the problem head on- you really have to try NOT to let it stop you from leading your normal everyday life. There are plenty of treatments, resources and self-help strategies that are available to you- I would say to sufferers not to suffer in silence and seek help.
For me the most effective coping strategies for anxiety are as follows:
- Overhaul your diet – By cutting down on caffeine and cutting out sugary foods, you tend to find your energy levels remain more stable, and in return you are less prone to anxiety attacks. Really think about the food you eat, and strive to consume a healthy, balanced diet.
- Exercise- Yes, I can hear the moaners! But the fact is that exercise not only leads to a fitter, healthier body, it also helps you to eliminate all the ‘pent up’ stress and anxiety in your body. You don’t have to sign up for your local gym- a brisk walk 3 or 4 times a week for at least 30 minutes will do the job!
- Relaxation- We all need to take time out of our busy schedules to relax and unwind. Our bodies work on cycles of activity and rest, and if you miss out on the rest cycle, there can be severe implications for both body and mind. I like to relax by listening to classical music, hang out with my cat Rosie, listening to meditation CDs or having a nice long sauna! Find out what works for you and find the time to do it!
I hope you have found this short post useful, and I would encourage anyone who thinks they are suffering with anxiety to seek the necessary help and support. It can be beaten!
About Matt
Matt runs a site, How to deal with anxiety, that is dedicated to providing help and advice to sufferers of anxiety and stress. You can visit the site at: http://www.howtodealwithanxietyblog.com
Four Causes Why Your Body Aged
1. Every Day Stress
The never-ending stress on the human body will eventually cause wear and tear, and breakdown or slowdown the human body.
If you did nothing at all except get rid of, or manage, the stress in your life, you would dramatically improve your health. You will live longer, happier, healthier and have a sexier life and live (almost) forever – even if you didn’t alter your eating habits at all. Your body would begin to heal and revive itself dramatically.
2. Malnutrition
Too many people adopt a diet that lacks certain essential nutrients which are needed by the body to maintain day-to-day functions.
This aging process begins very early on for some of us. Nevertheless, as the human body is so resilient and tolerant, the troubles finally start to “physically” unveil themselves years later. As resilient as our bodies are, after many decades of endless abuse, certain things incline to finally give up and break down. The problems that had started inside our bodies years ago eventually start manifesting in more visible ways in the present, that is aging.
Think of a car, if you will. Two individuals could have identical vehicles. Still, the one whose vehicle gets quality fuel, regular maintenance (oil changes, tune-ups, etc) can outrun and outlast other vehicles… Oftentimes by several years! Furthermore, the person who misuses his car engine may not see the destructive effects till many months or years later, when the vehicle ultimately fails in the middle of the road.
The human bodies work the same way. Even so, most individuals frequently try to endure their bodies on substandard nutrient, or no nutrient at all, that is. empty calories. Practicing regular care is not even part of their reality. And so, you can just forget about stress management.
I have place my body through my share of negligence and misuse. I have let stress build up to a degree where it started manifesting physically as lower back pain. Fortunately, and thanks for the most part to our body’s resiliency, I didn’t do any major damage and learned to manage it better now.
The bad news is, you can not change the past. Your body could already be physically manifesting from all the years of abuse it had to put up with.
The good news is, you can still change your body. You can restore most of the damage, and you can ward off additional damage from today on.
The sooner you commence on taking better care of your body and mind, the sooner you stop (or at least delay) further aging.
3. Lack of use
The idiom “use it or lose it” in reality rings true when your body is concerned.
As we become older, we tend to cut back on physical activity. We exercising less, and we stress over minor things more. That’s a deadly combination.
The human body was designed for motion. Just like a car engine that stops working from lack of use, the processes of our body start to slow down or stop from lack of motion. A lot of people look at exercise and physical activity should just be done to lose weight. Not true. Regular exercise, just like nourishment, is a necessity.
You don’t have to change over into a triathlete to activate the anti-aging process. It is actually easier than that.
4. Diseases
Diseases attack the cells of our body directly or they interfere with specific processes of the body. Both of these cause the body to degenerate in some manner. But, here’s what is interesting…
Aside from certain infectious diseases, which we can catch from others or things, most of our diseases are caused by one or a combination of three things (causes): lack of nutrition, lack of activity, and too much stress!
Therefore, if we could work on the first 3 causes, this 4th cause will takes care of itself and you could (almost) “Live Forever!”.