Tips for Handling Stress - No 5

This week's tip for handling stress it to learn to use your relaxation response.

Just as we all have within us the stress response, we also have an opposite response, which is the relaxation response. A person should elicit that on a regular basis.

The relaxation response involves two steps. Repetition, the repetition can be a word, a sound, an expression, or a repetitive movement. The second step is to ignore other thoughts that come to your mind while you’re doing the repetition, and come back to the repetition.

The technique should be used once or twice a day for about 15 minutes. Sit quietly and choose a suitable repetition, like a prayer, the sound Om, or the word love, or calm. Or you can do a repetitive exercise, for instance yoga, jogging, Reiki. Additional repetitive activities are knitting or handicraft.

When you incorporate this into your everyday life, you become calmer and better able to handle the stressors. Practice makes perfect and the more you practice relax your mind, the easier it gets.